Tom Hamilton and Dessie Hamilton

Tom Hamilton and Dessie Hamilton were the closest of the Hamilton siblings, bound by a deep, protective love that became the central relationship of their adult lives. After Dessie's heartbreak and Tom's lifelong struggle with violence and shyness, they reunited on the family ranch, each hoping to save the other from loneliness. Their mutual devotion, however, could not prevent the tragedy that unfolded when Dessie's undiagnosed illness was fatally mismanaged by Tom, leading to her death and his subsequent suicide.

Identity and Early Bond

Of all his family, Tom loved Dessie best. She was gay; laughter lived on her doorstep. Her shop in Salinas was a unique institution, a woman's world where the whalebone corsets came off and women could be themselves—smelly, wanton, mystic, conceited, truthful, and interested. From this freedom came roars of laughter. Men could hear the laughter through the closed door and were properly frightened, feeling they were the butt of it. Tom, by contrast, was a dark-faced man, powerful, heavy of shoulder and arm, but with slim hips. He could lift and run and hike and ride with anyone, but he had no sense of competition whatever. He felt heavy and earth-bound, and his father Samuel said that Tom was quavering over greatness, trying to decide whether he could take the cold responsibility. Tom felt his darkness; his father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice.

Dessie's Heartbreak and Tom's Rage

Dessie fell in love, and it was a hopeless thing, gray and terrible. After a year of it the joy was all drained out of her and the laughter had ceased. Tom raged crazily through the hills like a lion in horrible pain. In the middle of a night he saddled and rode away, not waiting for the morning train, to Salinas. Samuel followed him and sent a telegram from King City to Salinas. When in the morning Tom, his face black, spurred his spent horse up John Street in Salinas, the sheriff was waiting for him. He disarmed Tom and put him in a cell and fed him black coffee and brandy until Samuel came for him. Samuel did not lecture Tom. He took him home and never mentioned the incident. And a stillness fell on the Hamilton place.

Reunion on the Ranch

After Samuel's death, Dessie decided to sell her business and go back to the ranch to live with Tom. Will Hamilton, their brother, tried to stop her, saying Tom was not himself, that he was strange and broody, that he didn't talk and went walking alone in the hills at night. But Dessie insisted. Tom met her at the King City station, burnished, his face shaved so close that its darkness had a shine like polished wood. He wore a new Stetson hat with a flat crown, a tan Norfolk jacket with a belt buckle of mother-of-pearl. He tried to conceal his excitement by clasping his rough brown hands in front of him. He picked her up in a bear hug and danced around her. They both threw back their heads and howled with laughter. Tom labored like a giant, not only with his strong arms and rough hands but also with his heart and spirit. The anvil rang in the forge again. He painted the old house white and whitewashed the sheds. He labored with humor and good spirits. But Dessie, who had more friends than anyone in the whole valley, had no confidants. When her trouble had come upon her she had not talked about it. And the pains were a secret in herself. When Tom found her rigid and tight from the grabbing pain and cried in alarm, she controlled her face and said, "A little crick, that's all." They laughed a great deal, as though to reassure themselves.

The Fatal Illness and Tom's Guilt

One evening, Dessie was lying on the gooseneck sofa when Tom came in. He saw the color of her face and cried out. She rallied herself against pain, saying it was just a stomach ache. Tom said he could fix that and brought her a glass of Epsom salts. She drank it obediently and made a face. The pain roared through her body, and on top of the pain there was fear. Later Tom brought her some scrambled eggs, but she shook her head slowly. She called him later, saying she was awfully sick. Tom sat on the edge of her bed in the half-darkness, assuring her the salts would do the job. A thin scream awakened him. Dessie's eyes were milky and crazy, like those of a maddened horse. Her mouth corners erupted thick bubbles and her face was on fire. Tom put his hand under the cover and felt muscles knotted like iron. Then her struggle stopped and her head fell back. Tom put only a bridle on the horse and flung himself on bareback. He groped and ripped out his belt to beat the frightened horse to an awkward run over the stony, rutted wheel track. He burst into the Duncans' house, tearing the front door off its hinges, and screamed into the wall telephone. Dr. Tilson, when he heard what Tom had done, called him a goddam fool. Dessie died a week later.

Tom's Suicide

Tom came riding back to the ranch a week after Dessie's funeral, riding high and prim, his shoulders straight and chin in, like a guardsman on parade. In the house, the furniture seemed to shrink back and away from him in distaste. He sat down in the evening and looked around. His mind walked in to face the accusers, and the Gray One shouldered up in front—Murder. Tom's hand felt the chill of the glass and saw the pearly liquid with the dissolving crystals still turning over, and he repeated aloud in the empty room, "This will do the job." He wrote a letter to his mother, saying he was going to plan to spend more time with her, and a letter to Will, asking him to help, saying he was killed by a horse. He broke open a new box of shells and put one of them in the cylinder of his well-oiled Smith & Wesson .38 and set the loaded chamber one space to the left of the firing pin. He dropped the letters in the post office at King City and mounted and turned his horse south toward the unproductive hills of the old Hamilton place. He was a gallant gentleman.