The window looked out on something green. Peaceful. He braced his arms beneath him and pushed up. Every muscle ached and protested the abuse. The sheets and blankets that had been tucked in at his chin slid down to his waist. He discovered that he was naked.
Instinctively he looked for his clothes. A shirt and trousers, of homely cut and fabric, lay neatly over the back of a chair not far from the bed. They didn’t look like his clothes, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d awakened to find his clothing and belongings unfamiliar.
At the other side of the room was a dresser, a washstand with a pitcher, basin and towels, and a three-legged stool painted a bright shade of pink. Something about the color made him want to laugh. It matched his current situation in absurdity.
His bed was wide enough for two, with heavy cast-iron head- and footboards. The mattress was comfortable, the sheets clean. If he’d gotten into this room and this bed under his own power, he had no memory of it.
So where was he? This was not a hotel room. It was too neat and modest: neither a run-down boardinghouse nor an expensive inn that catered to the rich. He’d spent his share of nights in both.
Cautiously he flipped the sheets back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He endured a brief spell of dizziness, and then tested his weight on his legs. They supported him well enough. Cool air nipped at his skin. He’d been sweating sometime recently; a fever? Or just the aftereffects of another drunken binge?
That was the one thing he was sure of. He’d been drunk. The blank spots in his memory always came after such episodes.
He tottered with all the grace of a babe in leading strings, making his way to the window. It was open the merest crack. He smelled the growing things beyond it even before he looked out. The sweetness of fruit trees. Flowers. Vegetables… tomatoes, carrots, peas. Freshly turned earth. The complex melange of woodland.
Trees and tangled bushes framed the window. A pine-and oak-covered hill rose steeply a few yards beyond. The air was fragrant, with a hint of dampness. He could smell people nearby, but not in the numbers that meant close-packed houses and smoke and waste from thousands of residents, rich and poor and in-between. The only sounds were the singing of birds, a muffled voice, the distant lowing of a cow, the rustle of leaves.
He wasn’t still in the City, then. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, thinking hard. There’d been the saloon in San Francisco… gambling, winning… making plans to move on, catch the ferry to Oakland across the bay. It didn’t really matter where he went, as long as he kept moving.
That was where the latest blank spot in his memory began. And ended here, in this room.
But there was something else. He returned to the bed and grabbed a handful of sheet, lifting it to his nose.
Yes. A woman. He shivered at the memory of her touch, his body’s recollection more vague but every bit as real as that of the mind.
A woman. He groaned. Was this some woman’s bed he’d shared last night? He couldn’t even remember her face, let alone the rest of her. He glanced down at himself. His body wasn’t telling him that it had enjoyed a woman recently.
A small mirror hung above the washstand. He looked himself over: He obviously hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. Aside from a certain gauntness and the dark half-circles under his eyes, his face was unmarked. No surprise there, and no sign of violence in the vicinity, nothing to indicate that his amnesia hid behavior or incidents he should fear.
But he was afraid. This was happening more and more often, his periods of amnesia increasing in length each time. He always swore he wouldn’t take another drink…
Until it happened again.
As he always did when he awoke this way, he searched the room for other clues. No peculiar objects he didn’t remember buying. The shoes beside the bed looked at least a size too large—so, for that matter, did the clothes. In the drawer of the night table lay a heavy pouch of coins and bills; his winnings had been very good indeed, it seemed. And no one had stolen it while he slept.