To a God Unknown Read online

  Thomas had gone into the barn when the dancing started, for he was afraid of the wild emotion as an animal is afraid of thunder. The rhythm came into the barn to him now, and he stroked a horse's neck to soothe himself. After a time he heard a soft sobbing near him and, walking toward it, found Burton kneeling in a stall, whimpering and praying. Then Thomas laughed and caught himself back from fear. "What's the matter, Burton, don't you like the fiesta?"

  Burton cried angrily, "It's devil-worship, I tell you! It's horrible! On our own place! First the devil-worshiping priest and his wooden idols, and then this!"

  "What does it remind you of, Burton?" Thomas asked innocently.

  "Remind me of? It reminds me of witchcraft and the Black Sabbath. It reminds me of all the devilish heathen practices in the world."

  Thomas said, "Go on with your praying, Burton. Do you know what it puts me in mind of? Why only listen with your ears half-open. It's like a camp meeting. It's like a great evangelist enlightening the people."

  "It's devil-worship," Burton cried again. "It's unclean devil-worship, I tell you. If I had known, I would have gone away."

  Thomas laughed harshly and went back to sit on his manger, and he listened to Burton's praying. It pleased Thomas to hear how Burton's supplication fell into the rhythm of the guitars.

  As Joseph watched the swollen black cloud it seemed not to move, and yet it was eating up the sky, and all suddenly it caught and ate the sun. And so thick and powerful was the cloud that the day went to dusk and the mountains radiated a metallic light, hard and sharp. A moment after the sun had gone, a golden lance of lightning shot from the cloud, and the thunder ran, stumbling and falling, over the mountains' tops--another quiver of light and a plunge of thunder.

  The music and the dancing stopped instantly. The dancers looked upward with sleepy startled eyes, like children wakened and frightened by the grind of an earthquake. They stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, half-awake and wondering, before their reason came back. And then they scurried to the tied horses and began hooking up the surreys, fastening traces and tugs, backing their teams around the poles. The guitars stripped down the buntings and the unused lanterns and slipped them into the saddlebags out of danger of the wet.

  In the barn Burton arose to his feet and shouted triumphantly, "It's God's voice in anger!"

  And Thomas answered him, "Listen again, Burton. It's a thunderstorm."

  The glancing fires fell like rain from the great cloud now, and the air shook with the impact of thunder. In a few minutes the conveyances were moving out, a line of them toward the village of Our Lady and a few toward the hill ranches. Canvases were up against the coming rain. The horses snorted at the battering of the air and tried to run.

  Since the beginning of the dance the Wayne women had sat on Joseph's porch holding a little aloof from the guests, as hostesses should. Alice had been unable to resist, and she had gone down to the dancing flat. But Elizabeth and Rama sat in rocking-chairs and watched the fiesta.

  Now that the cloud had put a cap over the sky, Rama stood up from her chair and prepared to go. "It was a curious thing," Rama said. "You've been quiet today, Elizabeth. Be sure you don't take cold."

  "I'm all right, Rama. I've felt a little dull today, with the excitement and the sadness. Ever since I can remember, parties have made me sad." All afternoon she had been watching Joseph where he had stood apart from the dancers. She had seen him looking at the sky. "Now he feels the rain." And when the thunder rolled over, "Joseph will like that. Storms make him glad." Now that the people were gone and the thunder had walked on over their heads, she continued to watch furtively the lonely figure of her husband.

  The vaqueros were hustling the utensils and the remaining food under cover. Joseph watched until the first rain began to fall, and then he sauntered to the porch and sat on the top step, in front of Elizabeth; his shoulders slumped forward and his elbows rested on his knees. "Did you like the fiesta, Elizabeth?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Did you ever see one before?"

  "I've seen fiestas before," she said, "but never one quite like this. Do you think all the electricity in the air might have made the people wild?"

  He turned about and looked into her face. "More likely the wine in their stomachs, dear." His eyes narrowed seriously. "You don't look well, Elizabeth. Are you feeling well?" He stood up and leaned over her anxiously. "Come inside, Elizabeth, it's getting too cold to sit out here."

  He went in ahead of her and lighted the lamp hung from a chain in the center of the room, and then he built up a fire in the stove and opened the draft until it roared softly up the chimney. The rain swished gustily on the roof, like a rough broom sweeping. In the kitchen Alice was humming softly in memory of the dance. Elizabeth sat down heavily in a rocking-chair by the stove. "We'll have a little, late supper, dear."

  Joseph knelt on the floor beside her. "You look so tired," he said.

  "It was the excitement, all the people. And the music was--well, it was strenuous." She paused, trying to think what the music and the dancing meant. "It was such an odd day," she said. "There was the outwardness, the people coming and the mass and the feasting and then the dance, and last of all the storm. Am I being silly, Joseph, or was there a meaning, right under the surface? It seemed like those pictures of simple landscapes they sell in the cities. When you look closely, you see all kinds of figures hidden in the lines. Do you know the kind of pictures I mean? A rock becomes a sleeping wolf, a little cloud is a skull, and the line of trees marching soldiers when you look closely. Did the day seem like that to you, Joseph, full of hidden meanings, not quite understandable?"

  He was still kneeling, bending close to her in the low light of the lamp. He watched her lips intently, as though he could not hear. His hands stroked his beard roughly, and he nodded again and again. "You see closely, Elizabeth," he said sharply. "You look too deeply into things."

  "And Joseph, you did feel it, didn't you? The meanings seemed to me to be a warning. Oh--I don't know how to say it."

  He dropped back and sat on his heels and stared at the specks of light that came from the cracks in the stove. His left hand still caressed his beard, but his right moved up And rested on her knee The wind cried shrilly in the oak tree over the house, and the stove ticked evenly as the fire died down a little.

  Alice sang, "Corono ale de fibres que es cosa mia--"

  Joseph said softly, "You see, Elizabeth; it should make me less lonely that you can see under the covering, but it doesn't. I want to tell you, and I can't. I don't think these are warnings to us, but only indications how the world fares. A cloud is not a sign set up for men to see and to know that it will rain. Today was no warning, but you are right. I think there were things hidden in today." He licked his lips carefully. Elizabeth put out her hand to stroke his head. "The dance was timeless," Joseph said, "do you know?--a thing eternal, breaking through to vision for a day." He fell silent again, and tried to back his mind out of the heavy and vague meanings that rolled about it like grey coils of fog. "The people enjoyed it," he said, "everyone but Burton. Burton was miserable and afraid. I can never tell when Burton will be afraid."

  She watched how his lips curved up for a moment in faint amusement. "Will you be hungry soon, dear? You can have your supper any time--just cold things, tonight." These were words to keep a secret in, she knew, but the secret came sneaking out before she could stop it.

  "Joseph--I was sick this morning."

  He looked at her compassionately. "You worked too hard at the preparation."

  "Yes--maybe," she said. "No, Joseph, it isn't that. I didn't mean to tell you yet, but Rama says--do you think Rama knows? Rama says she is never wrong, and Rama should know. She's seen enough, and she says she can tell."

  Joseph chuckled, "What does Rama know? You'll choke yourself on words in a moment."

  "Well, Rama says I'm going to have a baby."

  Her words fell into a curious silence. Joseph had settled back and
he was staring at the stove again. The rain had stopped for a moment, and Alice was not singing.

  Elizabeth gently, timorously broke into the silence. "Are you glad, dear?"

  Joseph's breath broke heavily out. "More glad than I ever have been."--then, in a whisper, "and more afraid."

  "What did you say, dear? What was that last? I didn't hear."

  He stood up and bent down over her. "You must take care," he said sharply. "I'll get a robe to go about your knees. Take care against cold, care against falling." He tucked a blanket about her waist.

  She was smiling, proud and glad of his sudden worry. "I'll know what to do, dear, don't fear for me. I'll know. Why," she said confidently, "a whole plane of knowledge opens when a woman is carrying a child. Rama told me."

  "See you take care then," he repeated.

  She laughed happily. "Is the child so precious to you already?"

  He studied the floor and frowned. "Yes--the child is precious, but not so precious as the bearing of it. That is as real as a mountain. That is a tie to the earth." He stopped, thinking of words for the feeling. "it is a proof that we belong here, dear, my dear. The only proof that we are not strangers." He looked suddenly at the ceiling. "The rain has stopped. "I'll go to see how the horses are."

  Elizabeth laughed at him. "Some place I've read or heard a strange custom, maybe it's in Norway or Russia, I don't know, but wherever it is, they say the cattle must be told. When anything happens in a family, a birth or a death, the father goes to the barn and tells the horses and cows about it. Is that why you are going, Joseph?"

  "No," he said. "I want to see that all the halter ropes are short."

  "Don't go," she begged. "Thomas will look after the stock. He always does. Stay with me tonight. I'll be lonely if you go out tonight. Alice," she called, "will you set the supper now? I want you to sit beside me, Joseph."

  She hugged his whole forearm against her breast. "When I was little a doll was given me, and when I saw it on the Christmas-tree an indescribable heat came into my heart. Before I ever took up the doll I was afraid for it, and filled with sorrow. I remember it so well! I was sorry the doll was mine, I don't know why. It seemed too precious, too agonizingly precious to be mine. It had real hair for eyebrows and real hair for lashes. Christmas has been like that every time since then, and this is a time like that. If this thing I have told you is true, it is too precious, and I am afraid. Sit with me, dear. Don't go walking in the hills tonight."

  He saw that there were tears in her eyes. "Surely I'll stay," he comforted her. "You are too tired; and you must go to bed early from now on."

  He sat with her all evening, and went to bed with her, but when her breathing was even he crept out and slipped on his clothes. She heard him going and lay still, pretending to be asleep. "He has some business with the night," she thought, and her mind reverted to what Rama had said. 'If he dreams you'll never know his dreams.' She went cold with loneliness, and shivered, and began to cry softly.

  Joseph stepped quietly down from the porch. The sky had cleared, and the night sharpened with frost, but the trees still dripped water, and from the roof a tiny stream fell to the ground. Joseph walked straight to the great oak and stood beneath it. He spoke very softly, so no one could hear.

  "There is to be a baby, sir. I promise that I will put it in your arms when it is born." He felt the cold wet bark, drew his fingertips slowly downward. "The priest knows," he thought. "He knows part of it, and he doesn't believe. Or maybe he believes and is fearful."

  "There's a storm coming," he said to the tree. "I know I can't escape it. But you, sir, you might know how to protect us from the storm."

  For a long time he stood, moving his fingers nervously on the black bark. "This thing is growing strong," he thought. "I began it because it comforted me when my father was dead, and now it is grown so strong that it overtops nearly everything. And still it comforts me."

  He walked to the barbecue pit and brought back a piece of meat that remained on the grate. "There," he said, and reaching high up, laid the meat in the crotch of the tree. "Protect us if you can," he begged. "The thing that's coming may destroy us all." He was startled by footsteps near to him.

  Burton's voice said, "Joseph, is it you?"

  "Yes. It's late. What do you want?"

  Burton advanced and stood close. "I want to talk to you, Joseph. I want to warn you."

  "This is no time," Joseph said sullenly. "Talk to me tomorrow. I've been out to look at the horses."

  Burton did not move. "You are lying, Joseph. You think you have been secret, but I have watched you. I've seen you make offerings to the tree. I've seen the pagan growth in you, and I come to warn you." Burton was excited and his breath came quick. "You saw the wrath of God this afternoon warning the idolaters. It was only a warning, Joseph. The lightning will strike next time. I've seen you creeping out to the tree, Joseph, and I've remembered Isaiah's words. You have left God, and His wrath will strike you down." He paused, breathless from the torrent of emotion, and the anger died out of him. "Joseph," he begged, "come to the barn and pray with me. Christ will receive you back. Let us cut down the tree."

  But Joseph swung away from him and shook off the hand that was put out to restrain him. "Save yourself, Burton," he laughed shortly. "You're too serious, Burton. Now go to bed. Don't interfere with my games. Keep to your own." He left his brother standing there, and crept back into the house.

  17

  THE spring came richly, and the hills lay deep in grass-- emerald green, the rank thick grass; the slopes were sleek and fat with it. Under the constant rains the river ran sturdily on, and its sheltering trees bowed under the weight of leaves and joined their branches over the river so that it ran for miles in a dim cavern. The farm buildings took a deep 'weathering in the wet winter; the pale moss started on the northerly roofs; the manure piles were crowned with forced grass.

  The stock, sensing a great quantity of food shooting up on the sidehills, increased the bearing of young. Rarely did so many cows have two calves as during that spring. The pigs littered and there were no runts. In the barn only a few horses were tied, for the grass was too sweet to waste.

  When April came, and warm grass-scented days, the flowers burdened the hills with color, the poppies gold and the lupines blue, in spreads and comforters. Each variety kept to itself and splashed the land with its color. And still the rain fell often, until the earth was spongy with moisture. Every depression in the ground became a spring, and every hole a well. The sleek little calves grew fat and were hardly weaned before their mothers received the bulls again.

  Alice went home to Nuestra Senora and bore her son and brought it back to the ranch with her.

  In May the steady summer breeze blew in from the sea, with salt and the faint smell of kelp. It was a springtime of work for the men. All the flat lands about the houses grew black under the plows, and the orderly, domestic seed sprouted the barley and the wheat. The vegetable-flat bore so copiously that only the finest fattest vegetables were taken for the kitchens, the pigs received every turnip of questionable shape and every imperfect carrot. The ground squirrels came out to squeak in their doorways, and they were fatter in the spring than fall usually found them. Out on the hills the foals tried practice leaps and fought among themselves while their dams looked on amusedly. When the warm rains fell, the horses and cows no longer sought the protection of the trees, but continued eating while the water streamed down their sides and made them as glossy as lacquer.

  In Joseph's house there was a quiet preparation for the birth. Elizabeth worked on the layette for her baby, and the other women, well-knowing that this would be the chief child of the ranch and the inheritor of power, came to sit with her and to help. They lined a wash basket with quilted satin, and Joseph set it on rockers. They hemmed more rough diapers than one child could ever use. They made long baby-dresses and embroidered them. They told Elizabeth that she was having an easy time, for she was rarely ill; in fact, she grew
more robust and happy as the time went by. Rama taught her how to quilt the cover for the lying-in bed, and Elizabeth made it as carefully as though it were to last her life, instead of being burned immediately after the child was born. Because this was Joseph's child, Rama added an unheard-of elegance. She made a thick velvet rope, with a loop on either end, to slip over the bed-posts. No other woman had pulled on anything but a twisted sheet during the bearing pains.

  When warm weather came the women sat on the porch in the warm sun and went on with the sewing. They prepared everything months too soon. The heavy piece of unbleached muslin that was to bind Elizabeth's hips was made, and fringed and laid away. The small pillows stuffed with duck feathers and all the quilted coverlets were ready by the first of June.

  And there was endless talk of babies--how they were born, and all the accidents that might occur, and how the memory of the pain fades from a woman's mind, and how boys differ from girls in their earliest habits. There was endless anecdote. Rama could recount stories of children born with tails, with extra limbs, with mouths in the middle of their backs; but these were not frightening because Rama knew why such things were. Some were the results of drink, and some of disease, but the worst, the very worst monstrosities came of conception during a menstrual period.

  Joseph walked in sometimes with grass-blades in the laces of his shoes and green grass stains on the knees of his jeans and sweat still shining on his forehead. He stood stroking his beard and listening to the talk. Rama appealed to him occasionally for corroboration.

  Joseph was working tremendously in the prodigal spring. He cut the bull calves, moved rocks out of the flowers way, and went out with his new branding-iron to burn his "JW" into the skins of the stock. Thomas and Joseph worked silently together, stringing the barbed-wire fences out around the land, for it was easy to dig post-holes in a wet spring. Two more vaqueros were hired to take care of the increasing stock.

  In June the first heat struck heavily and the grass responded and added a foot to its growth. But with the breathless days, Elizabeth grew sick and irritable. She made a list of things needed for the birth and gave it to Joseph. One morning before the sun was up he drove away in the buckboard to buy the things for her in San Luis Obispo. The trip and return required three days of traveling.