To a God Unknown
TO A GOD
UNKNOWN
JOHN STEINBECK
(c) 1933
TO A GOD UNKNOWN
He is the giver of breath, and strength is his gift.
The high Gods revere his commandments.
His shadow is life, his shadow is death;
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
Through His might He became lord of the living and glittering world
And he rides the world and the men and the beasts
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
From His strength the mountains take being, and the sea, they say,
And the distant river;
And these are his body and his two arms.
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
He made the sky and the earth, and His will fixed their places,
Yet they look to Him and tremble.
The risen sun shines forth over Him.
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
He looked over the waters which stored His power and gendered the sacrifice.
He is God over Gods.
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
May He not hurt us, He who made earth,
Who made the sky and the shining sea?
Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice?
--VEDA
To
A God
Unknown
1
WHEN the crops were under cover on the Wayne farm near Pittsford in Vermont, when the winter wood was cut and the first light snow lay on the ground, Joseph Wayne went to the wing-back chair by the fireplace late one afternoon and stood before his father. These two men were alike. Each had a large nose and high, hard cheekbones; both faces seemed made of some material harder and more durable than flesh, a stony substance that did not easily change. Joseph's beard was black and silky, still thin enough so that the shadowy outline of his chin showed through. The old man's beard was long and white. He touched it here and there with exploring fingers, turned the ends neatly under out of harm's way. A moment passed before the old man realized that his son was beside him. He raised his eyes, old and knowing and placid eyes and very blue. Joseph's eyes were as blue, but they were fierce and curious with youth. Now that he had come before his father, Joseph hesitated to stand to his new heresy.
"There won't be enough in the land now, sir," he said humbly.
The old man gathered his shawl of shepherd's plaid about his thin straight shoulders. His voice was gentle, made for the ordering of simple justice. "What do you wish to complain of, Joseph?"
"You've heard that Benjy has gone courting, sir? Benjy will be married when the spring comes; and in the fall there will be a child, and in the next summer another child. The land doesn't stretch, sir. There won't be enough."
The old man dropped his eyes slowly and watched his fingers where they wrestled sluggishly on his lap. "Benjamin hasn't told me yet. Benjamin has never been very dependable. Are you sure he has gone seriously courting?"
"The Ramseys have told it in Pittsford, sir. Jenny Ramsey has a new dress and she's prettier than usual. I saw her today. She wouldn't look at me."
"Ah; maybe it's so, then. Benjamin should tell me."
"And so you see, sir, there won't be enough in the land for all of us."
John Wayne lifted his eyes again. "The land suffices, Joseph," he said placidly. "Burton and Thomas brought their wives home and the land sufficed. You are the next in age. You should have a wife, Joseph."
"There's a limit, sir. The land will feed only so many."
His father's eyes sharpened then. "Have you an anger for your brothers, Joseph? Is there some quarrel I haven't heard about?"
"No sir," Joseph protested. "The farm is too small and--" He bent his tall body down toward his father. "I have a hunger for land of my own, sir. I have been reading about the West and the good cheap land there."
John Wayne sighed and stroked his beard and turned the ends under. A brooding silence settled between the two men while Joseph stood before the patriarch, awaiting his decision.
"If you could wait a year," the old man said at last, "a year or two is nothing when you're thirty-five. If you could wait a year, not more than two surely, then I wouldn't mind. You're not the oldest, Joseph, but I've always thought of you as the one to have the blessing. Thomas and Burton are good men, good sons, but I've always intended the blessing for you, so you could take my place. I don't know why. There's something more strong in you than in your brothers, Joseph; more sure and inward."
"But they're homesteading the western land, sir. You have only to live a year on the land and build a house and plough a bit and the land is yours. No one can ever take it away."
"I know, I've heard of that; but suppose you should go now. I'll have only letters to tell me how you are, and what you're doing. In a year, not more than two, why I'll go with you. I'm an old man, Joseph. I'll go right along with you, over your head, in the air. I'll see the land you pick out and the kind of house you build. I'd be curious about that, you know. There might even be some way I could help you now and then. Suppose you lose a cow, maybe I could help you to find her; being up in the air like that I could see things far away. If only you wait a little while I can do that, Joseph."
"The land is being taken," Joseph said doggedly. "The century is three years gone. If I wait, the good land might all be taken. I've a hunger for the land, sir," and. his eyes had grown feverish with the hunger.
John Wayne nodded and nodded, and pulled his shawl close about his shoulders. "I see," he mused. "It's not just a little restlessness.. Maybe I can find you later." And then decisively: "Come to me, Joseph. Put your hand here--no, here. My father did it this way. A custom so old cannot be wrong. Now, leave your hand there!" He bowed his white head, "May the blessing of God and my blessing rest on this child. May he live in the light of the Face. May he love his life." He paused for a moment "Now, Joseph, you may go to the West. You are finished here with me."
The winter came soon, with deep snow, and the air was frozen to needles. For a month Joseph wandered about the house, reluctant to leave his youth and all the strong material memories of his youth, but the blessing had cut him off. He was a stranger in the house and be felt that his brothers would be glad when he was gone. He went away before the spring had come, and the grass was green on the hills in California when he arrived.
2
AFTER a time of wandering, Joseph came to the long valley called Nuestra Senora, and there he recorded his homestead. Nuestra Senora, the long valley of Our Lady in central California, was green and gold and yellow and blue when Joseph came into it The level floor was deep in wild oats and canary mustard flowers. The river San Francisquito flowed noisily in its bouldered bed through a cave made by its little narrow forest. Two flanks of the coast range held the valley of Nuestra Senora close, on one side guarding it against the sea, and on the other against the blasting winds of the great Salinas Valley. At the far southern end a pass opened in the hills to let out the river, and near this pass lay the church and the little town of Our Lady. The huts of Indians clustered about the mud walls of the church, and although the church was often vacant now and its saints were worn and part of its tile roof lay in a shattered heap on the ground, and although the bells were broken, the Mexican Indians still lived near about and held their festivals, danced La Jota on the packed earth and slept in the sun.
When his homestead was recorded, Joseph set out for his new home. His eyes glittered with excitement under his broad-brimmed hat and he sniffed at the valley hungrily. He wore new jeans with a circle of brass buttons around the waist, a blue shirt, and a vest for the sake of the pockets. His high-hee
led boots were new and his spurs shone like silver. An old Mexican was trudging painfully in to Our Lady. His face lighted up with pleasure when Joseph drew near. He removed his hat and stepped aside. "Is there a fiesta some place?" he asked politely.
Joseph laughed with delight. "I have a hundred and sixty acres of land up the valley. I'm going to live on it."
The old walker's eyes lighted on the rifle which, in its scabbard, lay snugly under Joseph's leg. "If you see a deer, Senor, and if you kill that deer, remember old Juan."
Joseph rode on, but he called back over his shoulder, "When the house is built I'll make a fiesta. I'll remember you, then, Old Juan."
"My son-in-law plays the guitar, Senor."
"Then he'll come too, Old Juan."
Joseph's horse walked quickly along, swishing with its hoofs through the brittle oak leaves; the iron shoes rang against protruding stones. The path went through the long forest that bordered the river. As he rode, Joseph became timid and yet eager, as a young man is who slips out to a rendezvous with a wise and beautiful woman. He was half-drugged and overwhelmed by the forest of Our Lady. There was a curious femaleness about the interlacing boughs and twigs, about the long green cavern cut by the river through the trees and the brilliant underbrush. The endless green halls and aisles and alcoves seemed to have meanings as obscure and promising as the symbols of an ancient religion. Joseph shivered and closed his eyes. "Perhaps I'm ill," he said. "When I open my eyes I may find that all this is delirium and fever." As he rode on and on the fear came upon him that this land might be the figure of a dream which would dissolve into a dry and dusty morning. A manzanita branch whipped his hat off and dropped it on the ground, and, when Joseph dismounted he stretched his arms and leaned down to pat the earth with his hand. There was a need in him to shake off the mood that had fallen upon him. He looked up to the treetops where the sun flashed on trembling leaves, where the wind sang huskily. When he mounted his horse again he knew that he could never lose the feeling for the land. The crying leather of his saddle, the jingle of his spur chains, the rasping of the horse's tongue over the bit-roller sang the high notes over the land's throbbing. Joseph felt that he had been dull and now suddenly was sensitized; had been asleep and was awakened. Far in the back of his mind lay the feeling that he was being treacherous. The past, his home and all the events of his childhood were being lost, and he knew he owed them the duty of memory. This land might possess all of him if he were not careful. To combat the land a little, he thought of his father, of the calm and peace, the strength and eternal rightness of his father, and then in his thought the difference ended and he knew that there was no quarrel, for his father and this new land were one. Joseph was frightened then. "He's dead," he whispered to himself. "My father must be dead."
The horse had left the river's forest now to follow a smooth rounded track that might have been made by a python's body. It was an ancient game trail made by the hoofs and pads of lonely fearful animals that had followed the track as though they loved even the ghosts of company. It was a trail of innumerable meanings. Here it swung wide to avoid a large oak with one thick overhanging limb where long ago a lion had crouched and made its kill and left its scent to turn the trail aside: here the track went carefully around a smooth rock whereon a rattlesnake habitually sunned its cold blood. The horse kept to the center of the trail and heeded all its warnings.
Now the path broke into a broad grassy meadow, in the center of which a colony of live oaks grew like a green island in a lake of lighter green. As Joseph rode toward the trees he heard an agonizing squealing, and turning the grove's shoulder he came in sight of a huge boar with curved tusks and yellow eyes and a mane of shaggy red hair. The beast sat on its haunches and tearingly ate the hind quarters of a still-squealing little pig. In the distance a sow and five other little pigs bounded away, crying their terror. The boar stopped eating and set its shoulders when Joseph rode into its line of scent. It snorted and then returned to the dying pig, which still squealed piercingly. Joseph jerked up his horse. His face contracted with anger and his eyes paled until they were almost white. "Damn you," he cried. "Eat other creatures. Don't eat your own people." He pulled his rifle from its scabbard and aimed between the yellow eyes of the boar. And then the barrel lowered and a firm thumb let down the hammer. Joseph laughed shortly at himself. "I'm taking too great power into my hands," he said. "Why he's the father of fifty pigs and he may be the source of fifty more." The boar wheeled and snorted as Joseph rode on by.
Now the trail skirted a long side hill densely protected by underbrush--blackberry, manzanita and scrub oak so thickly tangled that even the rabbits had to make little tunnels through it. The trail forced its way up the long narrow ridge and came to a belt of trees, tan oak and live oak and white oak. Among the branches of the trees a tiny white fragment of mist appeared and delicately floated along just over the treetops. In a moment another translucent shred joined it, and another and another. They sailed along like a half-materialized ghost, growing larger and larger until suddenly they struck a column of warm air and rose into the sky to become little clouds. All over the valley the flimsy little clouds were forming and ascending like the spirits of the dead rising out of a sleeping city. They seemed to disappear against the sky, but the sun was losing its warmth because of them. Joseph's horse raised its head and sniffed the air. On top of the ridge stood a clump of giant madrone trees, and Joseph saw with wonder how nearly they resembled meat and muscles. They thrust up muscular limbs as red as flayed flesh and twisted like bodies on the rack. Joseph laid his hand on one of the branches as he rode by, and its was cold and sleek and hard. But the leaves at the ends of the horrible limbs were bright green and shiny. Pitiless and terrible trees, the madrones. They cried with pain when burned.
Joseph gained the ridge-top and looked down on the grass lands of his new homestead where the wild oats moved in silver waves under a little wind, where the patches of blue lupines lay like shadows in a clear lucent night, and the poppies on the side hills were broad rays of sun. He drew up to look at the long grassy meadows in which clumps of live oaks stood like perpetual senates ruling over the land. The river with its mask of trees cut a twisting path down through the valley. Two miles away he could see, beside a gigantic lonely oak, the white speck of his tent pitched and left while he went to record his homestead. A long time he sat there. As he looked into the valley, Joseph felt his body flushing with a hot fluid of love. "This is mine," he said simply, and his eyes sparkled with tears and his brain was filled with wonder that this should be his. There was pity in him for the grass and the flowers; he felt that the trees were his children and the land his child. For a moment he seemed to float high in the air and to look down upon it. "It's mine," he said again, "and I must take are of it."
The little clouds were massing in the sky; a legion of them scurried to the east to join the army already forming an the hill line. From over the western mountains the lean grey ocean clouds came racing in. The wind started up with a gasp and sighed through the branches of the trees. The horse stepped lightly down the path toward the river again, and often it raised its head and sniffed at the fresh sweet odor of the coming rain. The cavalry of clouds had passed and a huge black phalanx marched slowly in from the sea with a tramp of thunder. Joseph trembled with pleasure in the promised violence. The river seemed to hurry along down its course, to chatter excitedly over the stones as it went. And then the rain started, fat lazy drops splashing on the leaves. Thunder rolled like caissons over the sky. The drops grew smaller and thicker, raked through the air and hissed in the trees. Joseph's clothing was soaked in a minute and his horse shone with water. In the river the trout were striking at tumbled insects and all the tree trunks glistened darkly.
The trail left the river again, and as Joseph neared his lent the clouds rolled backward from the west to the east like a curtain of grey wool and the late sun sparkled on the washed land, glittered on the grass blades and shot sparks into the drops that lay
in the hearts of wildflowers. Before his tent Joseph dismounted and unsaddled the horse and rubbed its wet back and shoulders with a cloth before he turned the tired beast loose to graze. He stood in the damp grass in front of his tent. The setting sun played on his brown temples and the evening wind ruffled his beard. The hunger in his eyes became rapaciousness as he looked down the long green valley. His possessiveness became a passion. "It's mine," he chanted. "Down deep it's mine, right to the center of the world." He stamped his feet into the soft earth. Then the exultance grew to be a sharp pain of desire that ran through his body in a hot river. He flung himself face downward on the grass and pressed his cheek against the wet stems. His fingers gripped the wet grass and tore it out, and gripped again. His thighs beat heavily on the earth.
The fury left him and he was cold and bewildered and frightened at himself. He sat up and wiped the mud from his lips and beard. "What was it?" he asked himself. "What came over me then? Can I have a need that great?" He tried to remember exactly what had happened. For a moment the land had been his wife. "I'll need a wife," he said. "It will be too lonely here without a wife?' He was tired. His body ached as though he had lifted a great rock, and the moment of passion had frightened him.
Over a little fire before his tent he cooked his meager supper, and when the night came he sat on the ground and looked at the cold white stars, and he felt a throbbing in his land. The fire died down to coals and Joseph heard the coyotes crying in the hills, and he heard the little owls go shrieking by, and all about him he heard the field mice scattering in the grass. After a while the honey-colored moon arose behind the eastern ridge. Before it was clear of the hills, the golden face looked through bars of pine-trunks. Then for a moment a black sharp pine tree pierced the moon and was withdrawn as the moon arose.
3
LONG before the lumber wagons came in sight Joseph heard the sweet harsh clangor of their bells, the shrill little bells perched above the hames, that warned other teams to turn out of the narrow road. Joseph was washed clean; his hair and beard were combed and his eyes were eager with expectation, for he had seen no one in two weeks. At last the big teams came into view from among the trees. The horses walked with little humping steps to pull the heavy loads of planks over the rough new road.