Indian Wars
The Indian Wars of the late nineteenth century serve as a defining crucible for Adam Trask, a conflict that fundamentally shapes his character and worldview long before he settles in the Salinas Valley. Forced into the U.S. Cavalry by his father, Cyrus, Adam serves for five years in the campaigns against the Plains tribes. This period is not one of glory or patriotic fervor for him; rather, it is a time of profound moral revulsion and psychological scarring. The wars provide the brutal, real-world counterpoint to the abstract, philosophical discussions of soldiering that Cyrus had imposed on him, and the violence he witnesses and participates in leaves an indelible mark, contributing to his later passivity and his desperate, almost naive, desire to build a peaceful Eden in California.
Adam's Experience and Moral Revolt
Adam Trask's service in the Indian Wars is marked not by martial valor but by a growing, visceral disgust for violence. He is described as an instrument of the campaigns, which he finds "revolting and useless." Rather than seeing the future farms that the conquest of the land would bring, he sees only "the torn bellies of fine humans." This revulsion becomes so profound that it develops into a prejudice against any form of hurt. He deliberately fires his carbine to miss, an act he recognizes as "treason against his unit," yet he does not care. Despite this, his army record contains no hint of cowardice; he is commended three times and decorated for bravery, but his courage manifests in non-violent ways. He repeatedly risks his life to bring in wounded men and volunteers for exhausting work in field hospitals, actions that earn him "contemptuous affection" from his comrades and a fearful respect for impulses they cannot understand.
The Horrors of War and Lasting Trauma
The specific horrors of the Indian Wars haunt Adam long after his discharge. He recounts to his brother, Charles, a particularly gruesome memory of a smallpox epidemic that decimated a tribe. He describes how the dead were "piled up like logs, over two hundred, arms and legs sticking out," and then set on fire with brush and coal oil. This memory is delivered with a pained expression, and he refuses to discuss the campaigns further, telling Charles, "I didn't want to think about them. Still don't." The trauma of these events contributes to his aimless wandering after the army, a period where he becomes a bindlestiff, unable to face the prospect of returning to a normal life. The wars also provide a convenient, though false, explanation for the bullet scar on his shoulder, a wound actually inflicted by his wife, Cathy. When his son Cal asks about the scar, Adam instinctively lies, saying, "It's an old wound, Cal. I was in the Indian campaigns."
Contrast with Cyrus's Philosophy
Adam's experience in the Indian Wars stands in stark opposition to the romanticized and philosophical view of soldiering his father, Cyrus, had instilled in him. Cyrus, a man who never saw real combat, had lectured Adam on the "sad dignity" of a soldier and the "holy joy" of companionship found in a regiment. He spoke of the final reward of facing "real death, described and recognizable, by bullet or saber." Adam's actual experience, however, is one of meaningless slaughter and moral compromise. He learns not the nobility of sacrifice but the sickening reality of killing, a lesson that deepens his inherent non-violence and his desire to escape the world of men and conflict altogether. This profound disillusionment with the military life he was forced into is a key factor in his later, almost obsessive, pursuit of a peaceful, pastoral existence on his California ranch.
