To a God Unknown Page 10

  But still he stood in the rain, and only when the streaks of water were running down the oak trunk did he go in. "It will be a good year," he said. "The canyon streams will be flowing before Thanksgiving."

  Elizabeth sat in the big leather chair; she had put a stew to simmering on the airtight stove. She laughed when he came in, there was such a feeling of joy in the air. "Why, you're dripping water on the floor, all over the clean floor."

  "I know," he said. And he felt such a love for the land and for Elizabeth that he strode across the room and rested his wet hand on her hair in a kind of benediction.

  "Joseph, you're dripping water down my neck!"

  "I know," he said.

  "Joseph, your hand is cold. When I was confirmed, the bishop laid his hand on my head as you are doing, and his hand was cold. It ran shivers down my back. I thought it was the Holy Spirit." She smiled happily up at him. "We talked about it afterwards and all the other girls said it was the Holy Spirit. It was a long time ago, Joseph." She thought back to it, and in the middle of her long narrow picture of time lay the white pass in the mountains, and even it was a long way back in the picture of time.

  He leaned over quickly and kissed her on the cheek. "The grass will be up in two weeks," he said.

  "Joseph, there's nothing in the world as unpleasant as a wet beard. Your dry clothes are laid out on the bed, dear."

  During the evening he sat in his rocking-chair beside the window. Elizabeth stole glances at his face, saw him frown with apprehension when the rain's drumming lightened, and smile slightly with reassurance when it continued again, harder than ever. Late in the evening Thomas came in, kicking and scraping his feet on the front porch.

  "Well, it came all right," Joseph said.

  "Yes, it came. Tomorrow we'll have to dig some ditches. The corral is under water. We'll have to drain it."

  "There's good manure in that water, Tom. We'll run it down over the vegetable-flat."

  The rain continued for a week, sometimes thinning to a mist and then pouring again. The drops bent down the old dead grass, and in a few days the tiny new spears came out. The river rumbled out of the western hills and rose over its banks, combing the willows down into the water growling among the boulders. Every little canyon and in the hills sent out a freshet to join the river. The water-cuts deepened and spread in all the gullies.

  The children, playing in the houses and in the barn, grew heartily sick of it before it was done; they plagued Rama for methods of amusement. The women had begun to complain about damp clothes hung up in their kitchens.

  Joseph dressed in an oilskin and spent his days walking about the farm, now twisting a post-hole digger into the earth to see how deep the wet had gone, now strolling by the river-bank, watching the brush and logs and limbs go bobbing by. At night he slept lightly, listening to the rain or dozing, only to awaken when its force diminished.

  And then one morning the sky was clean and the sun shone warmly. The washed air was sweet and clear, and all the leaves on the live oaks glittered with polish. And the grass was coming; anyone could see it, a richness in the color of the farther hills, a shade of blue in the near distance, and right at hand, the tiny green needles poking through the soil.

  The children broke out of their cages like animals and played so furiously that they became feverish and had to go to bed.

  Joseph brought out a plow and turned over the soil of the vegetable flat, and Thomas harrowed it and Burton rolled it. It was like a procession, each man eager to get his claws into the soil. Even the children begged a bit of dirt for radishes and carrots. Radishes were quickest, but carrots made the finest looking garden, if only they could wait that long. And all the time the grass pushed up and up. Needles became blades, and each blade sprang apart and made two blades. The ridges and flanks of the hills grew soft and smooth and voluptuous again, and the sage lost its dour darkness. In all the country, only the pine grove on the eastern ridge kept to its brooding.

  Thanksgiving came with a great feast, and well before Christmas the grass was ankle-high.

  One afternoon an old Mexican peddler walked into the farmyard, and he had good things in his pack; needles and pins and thread and little lumps of beeswax and holy pictures and a box of gum and harmonicas and rolls of red and green crepe paper. He was an old bent man and carried only little things. He opened his pack on Elizabeth's front porch and then stood back, smiling apologetically, now and then turning over a card of pins to make it show to better advantage or prodding the gum gently with his forefinger to gain the attention of the gathered women. Joseph, from the barn door, saw the little crowd and sauntered over. Only then did the old man take off his tattered hat. "Buenas tardes, senor," he said.

  "--Tardes," said Joseph.

  The peddler grinned in extreme embarrassment. "You do not remember me, senor?"

  Joseph searched the dark, lined face. "I guess I don't."

  "One day," the old man said, "you rode by on the way from Nuestra Senora. I thought you were going hunting and I begged a piece of venison."

  "Yes," Joseph said slowly. "I remember now. You are Old Juan.'

  The peddler tipped his head like an aged bird. "And then, senor--and then we spoke of a fiesta. I have been way down the country, below San Luis Obispo. Did you make that fiesta, senor?"

  Joseph's eyes opened delightedly. "No, I did not, but I will. What would be a good time, Old Juan?"

  The peddler spread his hands and pulled his neck between his shoulders at having so much honor put on him. "Why, senor--why in this country any time is good. But some days are better. There is Christmas, the Natividad."

  "No," Joseph said. "It's too soon. There won't be time."

  "Then there is the New Year, senor. That is the best time, because then everyone is happy and people go about looking for a fiesta."

  "That's it!" Joseph cried. "On New Year's Day we'll have it."

  "My son-in-law plays the guitar, senor."

  "He shall come too. Who shall I invite, Old Juan?"

  "Invite?" The old man's eyes filled with astonishment. "You do not 'invite,' senor. When I go back to Nuestra Senora I will tell that you make a fiesta on the New Year, and the people will come. Maybe the priest will come, with his altar in the saddlebags, and hold the mass. That would be beautiful."

  Joseph laughed up into the oak tree. "The grass will be so high by then," he said.

  16

  THE day after Christmas, Martha, Rama's oldest girl, gave the other children a bad fright. "It will rain for the fiesta," she said, and because she was older than the others, a serious child who used her age and seriousness as a whip on the other children, they believed her and felt very badly about it.

  The grass was deep. A spell of warm weather had sent shooting it up, and there were millions of mushrooms in the field, and puff-balls and toadstools too. The children brought buckets of mushrooms in, which Rama fried in a pan containing a silver spoon to test them for poison. She said that silver would turn black if a toadstool was present. Two days before New Year, Old Juan appeared along the road, and his son-in-law, a smiling shiftless Mexican boy, walked directly behind him, for the son-in-law, Manuel, did not even like to take the responsibility of keeping out of ditches. The two of them stood smiling in front of Joseph's porch, caressing their hats against their chests. Manuel did everything Old Juan did, as a puppy imitates a grown dog.

  "He plays the guitar," Old Juan said, and in proof, Manuel shifted the battered instrument around his back and displayed it while he grinned agonizingly. "I told about the fiesta," Old Juan continued. "The people will come--four more guitars, senor, and Father Angelo will come," (Here was the fine successful thing) "and he will bold mass right here! And I," he said proudly, "I am to build the altar. Father Angelo said so."

  Burton's eyes grew sullen then. "Joseph, you won't have that, will you? Not on our ranch, not with the name we've always had."

  But Joseph was smiling joyfully. "They are our neighbors, Burton, and I do
n't want to convert them."

  "I won't stay to see it," Burton cried angrily. "I'll give no sanction to the Pope on this land."

  Thomas chuckled. "You stay in the house, then, Burton. Joe and I aren't afraid of being converted, so we'll watch it."

  There were a thousand things to be done. Thomas drove a wagon to Nuestra Senora and bought a barrel of red wine and a keg of whiskey. The vaqueros butchered three steers and hung the meat in the trees, and Manuel sat under the trees to keep the vermin off. Old Juan built an altar of boards under the great oak, and Joseph leveled and swept a dancing place in the farmyard. Old Juan was every place, showing the women how to make a tub of salsa pura. They had to use preserved tomatoes and chili and green peppers and some dried herbs that Old Juan carried in his pocket. He directed the digging of the cooking pits and carried the seasoned oak wood to the edges. Under the meat trees Manuel sat tiredly plucking the strings of his guitar, now and then breaking into a feverish melody. The children inspected everything, and were good, for Rama had let it be known that a bad child would stay in the house and see the fiesta from a window, a punishment so staggering that the children carried wood to the barbecue pits and offered to help Manuel watch the meat.

  The guitars arrived at nine o'clock on New Year's Eve, four lank brown men with black straight hair and beautiful hands. They could ride forty miles, play their guitars for a day and a night and ride forty miles home again. They staggered with exhaustion after fifteen minutes behind a plow. With their arrival, Manuel came to life. He helped them to hang their precious saddlebags out of harm and he spread their blankets for them in the hay, but they didn't sleep long at three o'clock in the night, Old Juan built the fires in the pits, and then the guitars came out carrying their saddlebags. They set four posts around the dancing place and took the fine things out of the saddlebags: red and blue bunting and paper lanterns and ribbons. They worked in the leaping light from the barbecue pits, and well before day had built a pavilion.

  Before daylight Father Angelo arrived on a mule, followed by a hugely packed horse and two sleepy altar boys riding together on a burro. Father Angelo went directly to work. He spread the service on Old Juan's altar, set up the candles, slapped the altar boys and set them running about. He laid the vestments out in the tool-shed and, last of all, brought out his figures. They were wonderful things, a crucifix and a Mother and Child. Father Angelo had carved and painted them himself and he had invented their peculiarities. They folded in the middle on hinges so carefully hidden that when they were set up the crack could not be seen; their beads screwed on, and the Child fitted into the Mother's arms with a peg that went into a slot. Father Angelo loved his figures, and they were very famous. Although they were three feet high, when folded both could fit into a saddlebag. Besides being interesting mechanically, they were blessed and had the complete sanction of the arch-bishop. Old Juan had made separate stands for them, and he himself had brought a thick candle for the altar.

  Before sunup the guests began to arrive, some of the richer families in surreys with swaying top fringes, the others in carts, buggies, wagons and on horseback. The poor whites came down from their scrabble ranch on King's Mountain on a sled half filled with straw and completely filled with children. The children arrived in droves and for a time stood about and stared at each other. The Indians walked up quietly and stood apart with stolid incurious faces, watching everything and never taking part in anything.

  Father Angelo was a stern man where the church was concerned, but once out of the church, and with the matters of the church out of the way, he was a tender and a humorous man. Let him get a mouthful of meat, and a cup of wine in his hand, and there were no eyes that could twinkle more brightly than his. Promptly at eight o'clock he lighted the candles, drove out the altar boys and began mass. His big voice rumbled beautifully.

  Burton, true to his promise, remained in his house and held prayer with his wife, but even though he raised his voice he could not drown out the penetrating Latin.

  As soon as the mass was done, people gathered close to watch Father Angelo fold up the Christ and the Mary. He did it well, genuflecting before each one before he took it down and unscrewed its head.

  The pits were rosy with coals by now and the pit-sides glowed under the heat. Thomas, with more help than he needed, rolled the wine barrel up on a cradle and set a spigot in its end and knocked the bung out. The huge pieces of meat hung over the fire and dripped their juices, and the coals jetted up white fire. This was prime beef, killed on the range and hung. Three men brought the tub of salsa out and went back for a wash boiler full of beans. The women carried sour bread like armloads of wood and stacked the golden loaves on a table. The Indians on the outskirts edged in closer, and the children, playing by now but still diffident, became a little insane with hunger when the meat smells began to fill the air.

  To start the fiesta Joseph did a ceremonial thing Old Juan had told him about, a thing so ancient and so natural that Joseph seemed to remember it. He took a tin cup from the table and went to the wine cask. The red wine sang and sparkled into it. When it was full, he raised the cup level with his eyes and then poured it on the ground. Again he filled the cup, and this time drank it, in four thirsty gulps. Father Angelo nodded his head and smiled at the fine way in which the thing was done. When his ceremony was finished, Joseph walked to the tree and poured a little wine on its bark, and he heard the priest's voice speaking softly beside him: "This is not a good thing to do, my son."

  Joseph whirled on him. "What do you mean?--There was a fly in the cup!"

  But Father Angelo smiled wisely and a little sadly at him. "Be careful of the groves, my son. Jesus is a better savior than a hamadryad." And his smile became tender, for Father Angelo was a wise as well as a learned man.

  Joseph started to turn rudely away but then, uncertainly, he swung back. "Do you understand everything, Father?"

  "No, my son," the priest said. "I understand very little, but the Church understands everything. Perplexing things become simple in the Church, and I understand this thing you do," Father Angelo continued gently. "It is this way: The Devil has owned this country for many thousands of years, Christ for a very few. And as in a newly conquered nation, the old customs are practiced a long time, sometimes secretly and sometimes changing slightly to comply with the tenor of the new rule, so here, my son, some of the old habits persist, even under the dominion of Christ."

  Joseph said, "Thank you. The meat is ready now, I think."

  At the pits the helpers were turning chunks of beef with pitchforks, and the guests, holding tin cups in their hands, had formed a line to the wine cask. First to be served were the guitars, and they drank whiskey, for the sun was high and their work was to be done. They wolfed their food, and while the other people were still eating, the guitars sat on boxes in a half-circle and played softly, bringing their rhythms together, feeling for a mood, so that when the dancing started they might be one passionate instrument. Old Juan, knowing the temper of music, kept their cups full of whiskey.

  Now two couples entered the dancing place and stepped sedately through a formal dance, all bowings and slow turnings. The guitars ran trilling melodies into the throb of the beat. The line to the wine barrel formed again, and more couples entered the dancing space, these not so clever as the first few. The guitars sensed the change and took more heavily to the bass strings, and the rhythm grew stout and pounding. The space was filling now with guests who took little care to dance, but, standing arm in arm, thudded their feet on the earth. At the pits the Indians moved up and thanklessly took the bread and meat that was offered. They moved closer to the dancers, then, and gnawed the meat and tore at the hard bread with their teeth. As the rhythm grew heavy and insistent, the Indians shuffled their feet in time and their faces remained blank.

  The music did not stop. On it went, and on, pounding and unchanging. Now and then one of the players plucked the unstopped strings while his left hand sought his whiskey cup. Now and
then a dancer left the space to move to the wine barrel, toss off a cup and hurry back. There was no dancing in couples any more. Arms were outstretched to embrace everyone within reach, and knees were bent and feet pounded the earth to the slow beating of the guitars. The dancers began in low humming, one note struck deep in the throat, and in off-beat. A quarter-tone came in. More and more voices took up the beat and the quarter-tone. Whole sections of the packed dancing space were bobbing to the rhythm. The humming grew savage and deep and vibrant where at first there had been laughter and shouted jokes. One man had been notable for his height, another for the deepness of his voice; one woman had been beautiful, another ugly and fat, but that was changing. The dancers lost identity. Faces grew rapt, shoulders fell slightly forward, each person became a part of the dancing body, and the soul of the body was the rhythm.

  The guitars sat like demons, slitted eyes glittering, conscious of their power yet dreaming of a greater power. And the strings rang on together. Manuel, who had grinned and smirked from embarrassment in the morning, threw back his head and howled a high shrill minor bar with meaningless words. The dancers chanted a deep refrain. The next player added his segment and the chant answered him.

  The sun wheeled past meridian and slanted toward the hills, and a high wind soughed out of the west. The dancers, one by one, went back for meat and wine.

  Joseph, with glowing eyes, stood apart. His feet moved slightly with the throbbing, and he felt tied to the dancing body, but he did not join it. He thought exultantly: "We have found something here, all of us. In some way we've come closer to the earth for a moment." He was strong with a pleasure as deep as the pounding bass strings, and he began to feel a strange faith arising in him. "Something will come of this. It's a kind of powerful prayer." When he looked at the western hills and saw a black cloudhead, high and ominous, coming over from the sea, he knew what was to come. "Of course," he said, "it will bring the rain. Something must happen when such a charge of prayer is let loose." He watched with confidence while the towering cloud grew over the mountains and stalked upward toward the sun.