To a God Unknown Read online

  Elizabeth saw how his mouth had gone loose with hopelessness and how his eyes had lost the red gleaming of a moment before. She cried, "Joseph, what is it you want? What are you asking me to do?"

  Twice he tried to answer, but a thickness in his throat prohibited speech. He coughed the passage free. "I want to go through the pass," he said hoarsely.

  "I'm afraid, Joseph. I don't know why, but I'm terribly afraid."

  He broke his lethargy then and coiled one of the swinging weights about her waist. "There's nothing to be afraid of, dear. This is nothing. I have been far too much alone. It seems to mean something to me to go through the pass with you.'

  She shivered against him and looked fearfully at the dismal blue shadow of the pass. "I'll go, Joseph," she said miserably. "I'll have to go, but I'll be leaving myself behind. I'll think of myself standing here looking through at the new one who will be on the other side."

  She remembered sharply how she had served cambric tea in tiny tin cups to three little girls, how they had reminded each other, "We're ladies now. Ladies always hold their hands like this." And she remembered how she had tried to catch her doll's dream in a handkerchief.

  "Joseph," she said. "It's a bitter thing to be a woman. I'm afraid to be. Everything I've been or thought of will stay outside the pass. I'll be a grown woman on the other side. I thought it might come gradually. This is too quick." And she remembered how her mother said, "When you're big, Elizabeth, you'll know hurt, but it won't be the kind of hurt you think. It'll be a hurt that can't be reached with a curing kiss."

  "I'll go now, Joseph," she said quietly. "I've been foolish. You'll have to expect so much foolishness from me."

  The weight left Joseph then. His arm tightened about her waist and he urged her forward tenderly. She knew, although her head was bent, how he gazed down on her and how his eyes were gentle. They walked slowly through the pass, in the blue shade of it. Joseph laughed softly. "There may be pains more sharp than delight, Elizabeth, like sucking a hot peppermint that burns your tongue. The bitterness of being a woman may be an ecstasy."

  His voice ceased and their footsteps rang on the stone road and clashed back and forth between the cliffs. Elizabeth closed her eyes, relying on Joseph's arm to guide her. She tried to close her mind, to plunge it into darkness, but she heard the angry whisper of the monolith in the river, and she felt the stone chill in the air.

  And then the air grew warm; there was no longer rock under her feet. Her eyelids turned black-red and then yellow-red over her eyes. Joseph stopped and drew her tightly against his side. "Now we are through, Elizabeth. Now it is done."

  She opened her eyes and looked about on the closed valley. The land was dancing in the shimmer of the sun and the trees, clannish little families of white oaks, stirred slightly under the wind that brought excitement to a sloping afternoon. The village of Our Lady was before them, houses brown with weathering and green with rose vines, picket fences burning with a soft fire of nasturtiums. Elizabeth cried out sharply with relief, "I've been having a bad dream. I've been asleep. I'll forget the dream now. It wasn't real."

  Joseph's eyes were radiant. "It's not so bitter, then, to be a woman?" he asked.

  "It isn't any different. Nothing seems changed. I hadn't realized how beautiful the valley is."

  'Wait here," he said. "I'll go back and bring the horses through."

  But when he was gone, Elizabeth cried sadly, for she had a vision of a child in short starched skirts and with pigtails down her back, who stood outside the pass and looked anxiously in, stood on one foot and then on the other, hopped nervously and kicked a stone into the stream. For a moment the vision waited as Elizabeth remembered waiting on a street corner for her father, and then the child turned miserably away and walked slowly toward Monterey. Elizabeth was sorry for her, "For it's a bitter thing to be a child," she thought. "There are so many clean new surfaces to scratch."

  11

  THE team came through the pass, the horses lifting their feet high, moving diagonally, cocking their heads at the stream while Joseph held tight reins on them and set the brake to shrieking. Once off the narrow place, the horses settled down and their long journey reasserted itself. Joseph pulled up and helped Elizabeth to her seat. She settled herself primly, drew her duster about her knees and dropped the veil over her face.

  "We'll be going right through town," she said. "Everyone will see us."

  Joseph clucked to the horses and relaxed the lines. "Will you mind that?"

  "Of course I won't mind. I'll like it. I'll feel proud, as though I had done an unusual thing. But I must be sitting right and looking right when they see me."

  Joseph chuckled. "Maybe no one will look."

  "They'll look, all right. I'll make them look."

  They drove down the one long street of Our Lady, where the houses clung to the side of the road as though for warmth. As they went, the women came from their houses, shamelessly to stare, to wave fat bands and to say the new title gently because it was a new word. "Buenas tardes, senora," and over their shoulders they called into the houses, "Ven aca, mira! mira! La nueva senora Wayne viene." Elizabeth waved back happily and tried to look dignified. Farther along the street they had to stop for gifts. Old Mrs. Gutierrez stood in the middle of the road, waving a chicken by the legs while she shrieked the advantages of this particular chicken. But when the bird lay croaking in the wagon box, Mrs. Gutierrez was overcome with self-consciousness. She fixed her hair and nursed her hands, and finally scuttled back to her yard waving her arms and crying, "No le hace."

  Before they got through the street the wagon box was loaded with trussed livestock: two little pigs, a lamb, an evil-eyed nanny goat with udders suspiciously shrunken, four hens and a gamecock. The saloon belched forth its customers as the wagon went by, and the men raised their glasses. For a little while they were surrounded by cries of welcome, and then the last house was gone and the river road was before them.

  Elizabeth settled back in the seat and relaxed her primness. Her hand crept through the crook of Joseph's arm and pressed for a moment and then remained in quiet there. "It was like a circus," she said. "It was like being the parade."

  Joseph took off his hat and laid it on his lap. His hair was tangled and damp, and his eyes tired. "They are good people," he said. "I'll be glad to get home, won't you?"

  "Yes, I'll be glad." And she said suddenly, "There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow."

  He looked quickly at her in astonishment at her statement of his own thought. "How did you think that, dear?"

  "I don't know. Why?"

  "Because I was thinking it at that moment--and there are times when the people and the hills and the earth, all, everything except the stars, are one, and the love of them all is strong like a sadness."

  "Not the stars, then?"

  "No, never the stars. The stars are always strangers-- sometimes evil, but always strangers. Smell the sage, Elizabeth. It's good to be getting home."

  She raised her veil as high as her nose and sniffed long and hungrily. The sycamores were yellowing and already the ground was thick with the first fallen leaves. The team entered the long road that hid the river, and the sun was low over the seaward mountains.

  "It'll be way in the middle of the night when we get home," he said. The light in the wood was golden-blue, and the stream rattled among the round rocks.

  With evening the air grew clear with moisture, so that the mountains were as hard and sharp as crystal. After the sun was gone, there was a hypnotic time when Joseph and Elizabeth stared ahead at the clear hills and could not take their eyes away. The pounding hoofs and the muttering of water deepened the trance. Joseph looked unblinkingly at the string of light along the western mountain rim. His thoughts grew sluggish, but with their slowness they became pictures, and the figures arranged themselves on the mountain tops. A black cloud sailed in from the ocean and rested on the ridge, and Joseph's thought made it a
black goat's head. He could see the yellow, slanting eyes, wise and ironic, and the curved horns. He thought, "I know that it is really there, the goat resting his chin on a mountain range and staring in on the valley. He should be there. Something I've read or something I've been told makes it a fitting thing that a goat should come out of the ocean." He was endowed with the power to create things as substantial as the earth. "If I will admit the goat is there, it will be there. And I will have made it. This goat is important," he thought.

  A flight of birds rolled and twisted high overhead, and they caught the last light on their flickering wings, and twinkled like little stars. A hunting owl drifted over and shrieked his cry, designed to make small groundling creatures start uneasily and betray themselves against the grass. The valley filled quickly with dark, and the black cloud, as though it had seen enough, withdrew to the sea again. Joseph thought, "I must maintain to myself that it was the goat. I must never betray the goat by disbelieving it."

  Elizabeth shivered slightly and he turned around to her. "Are you cold, dear? I'll get the horseblanket to go over your knees." She shivered again, not quite so well, because she was trying to.

  "I'm not cold," she said, "but it's a queer time. I wish you'd talk to me. It's a dangerous time."

  He thought of the goat. "What do you mean, dangerous?" He took her clasped hands and laid them on his knee.

  "I mean there's a danger of being lost. It's the light that's going. I thought I suddenly felt myself spreading and dissipating like a cloud, mixing with everything around me. It was a good feeling, Joseph. And then the owl went over, and I was afraid that if I mixed too much with the hills I might never be able to collapse into Elizabeth again."

  "It's only the time of day," he reassured her. "It seems to affect all living things. Have you ever noticed the animals and the birds when it's evening?"

  "No," she said, turning eagerly toward him, for it seemed to her that she had discovered a communication. "I don't think I've ever noticed anything very closely in my life," she said. "Just now it seems to me that the lenses of my eyes have been wiped clean. What do the animals do at evening?" Her voice had grown sharp and had broken through his reverie.

  "I don't know," he said sullenly. "I mean--I know, but I'll have to think. These things aren't always ready to hand, you know," he apologized. And he fell silent and looked into the gathering darkness. "Yes," he said at last, "it's like that--why all the animals stand still when it comes dark evening. They don't blink their eyes at all and they go dreaming." He fell silent again.

  "I remember a thing," Elizabeth said. "I don't know when I noticed it, but just now--you said yourself it's the time of day, and this picture is important in this time of day."

  "What?" he asked.

  "Cats' tails lie flat and straight and motionless when they're eating."

  "Yes," he nodded, "yes, I know."

  "And that's the only time they're ever straight, and that's the only time they're ever still." She laughed gaily. Now that the foolish thing was said, she realized it might be taken as a satire on Joseph's dreaming animals, and she was glad it might. She felt rather clever to have said it.

  He did not notice what construction might be put on the cats' tails. He said, "Over a hill and then down to the river wood again, and then out across the long plain and we'll be home. We should see the lights from the hilltop." It was very dark by now, a thick night and silent. The wagon moved up the hill in the darkness, a stranger to the hushed night.

  Elizabeth pressed her body against Joseph. "The horses know the road," she said. "Do they smell it?"

  "They see it, dear. It is only dark to us. To them it is a deep twilight. We'll be on top of the hill in a little, and then we may see the lights. It's too quiet," he complained. "I don't like this night. Nothing is stirring about." It seemed an hour before they breasted the hill and Joseph stopped the team to rest from its climb. The horses sank their heads low and panted rhythmically. "See," Joseph said, "there are the lights. Late as it is, my brothers are expecting us. I didn't tell them when we would come, but they must have guessed. Look, some of the lights are moving. That's a lantern in the yard, I guess. Tom has been out to the barn to see the horses."

  The night was thick on them again. Ahead, they could hear a heavy sigh, and then it rode up to them--a warm wind out of the valley. It whisked gently in the dry grass.

  Joseph muttered uneasily, "There's an enemy out tonight. The air's unfriendly."

  "What do you say, dear?"

  "I say there's a change of weather coming. The storms will be here soon."

  The wind strengthened and bore to them the long deep howling of a dog. Joseph sat forward angrily. "Benjy has gone to town. I told him not to go while I was gone. That's his dog howling. It howls all night every time he goes away." He lifted the lines and clucked the horses up. For a moment they plodded, but then their necks arched and their ears pivoted forward. Joseph and Elizabeth could hear it now, the even clattering of a galloping horse. "Someone coming," Joseph said. "Maybe it's Benjy on his way to town. I'll head him off if I can."

  The running horse came near, and suddenly its rider pulled it down almost to its haunches. A shrill voice cried, "Senor, is it you, Don Joseph?"

  "Yes, Juanito, what's the matter? What do you want?" The saddled horse was passing now, and the shrill voice cried, "You will want me in a little while, my friend. I'll be waiting for you at the rock in the pines. I did not know, senor. I swear I did not know."

  They could hear the thud as the spurs drove in. The horse coughed and leaped ahead. They heard it running wildly over the hill. Joseph took the whip from its socket and flicked the horses to a trot.

  Elizabeth tried to see into his face. "What's the matter, dear? What did he mean?"

  His hands were rising and falling as he kept tight rein on the horses and yet urged them on. The tires cried on the rocks. "I don't know what it is," Joseph said. "I knew this night was bad."

  Now they were in the level plain and the horses tried to slow to a walk, but Joseph whipped them sharply until they broke into a ragged run The wagon lurched and pitched over the uneven road so that Elizabeth braced her feet and grasped the arm handle with both her hands.

  They could see the buildings now. A lantern was standing on the manure pile and its light reflected outward from the new whitewash on the barn. Two of the houses were lighted, and as the wagon drew near, Joseph could see people moving about restlessly behind the windows. Thomas came out and stood by the lantern as they drove up. He took the horses by the bits and rubbed their necks with his palm. He wore a set smile that did not change. "You've been coming fast," he said.

  Joseph jumped down from the wagon. "What has happened here? I met Juanito on the road."

  Thomas unhooked the check reins and went back to loosen the tugs. "Why we knew it would happen some time. We spoke about it once."

  Out of the darkness Rama appeared beside the wagon. "Elizabeth, I think you'd better come with me."

  "What's the matter?" Elizabeth cried.

  "Come with me, dear, I'll tell you."

  Elizabeth looked questioningly at Joseph. "Yes, go with her," he said. "Go to the house with her."

  The pole dropped and Thomas skinned the harness from the horses' wet backs. "I'll leave them here for a little," he apologized, and he threw the harness over the corral fence. "Now come with me."

  Joseph had been staring woodenly at the lantern. He picked it up and turned. "It's Benjy, of course," he said. "Is he badly hurt?"

  "He's dead," said Thomas. "He's been dead a good two hours."

  They went into Benjy's little house, through the dark living-room and into the bedroom, where a lamp was burning. Joseph looked down into Benjy's twisted face, caught in a moment of ecstatic pain. The lips grinned off the teeth, the nose was flared and spread. Half-dollars lying on his eyes shone dully.

  "His face will settle some after a while," Thomas said.

  Joseph's eyes wandered slowly to a blood-sta
ined knife which lay on a table beside the bed. He seemed to be looking down from a high place, and he was filled with a strange powerful calmness, and with a curious sense of omniscience. "Juanito did this?" he said with a half-question.

  Thomas picked up the knife and held it to his brother. And when Joseph refused to take it, he set it back on the table. "In the back," Thomas said. "Juanito rode to Nuestra Senora to borrow a dehorner for that long-horned bull that's been raising so much Hell. And Juanito made the trip too quickly."

  Joseph looked up from the bed. "Let's cover him up. Let's spread something over him. I met Juanito on the road. He said he didn't know."

  Thomas laughed brutally. "How could he know? He couldn't see his face. He just saw, and stabbed. He wanted to give himself up, but I told him to wait for you. Why," Thomas said, "the only punishment of a trial would be on us."

  Joseph turned away. "Do you suppose we'll have to have a coroner out? Have you changed anything, Tom?"

  "Well, we brought him home. And we pulled up his pants."

  Joseph's hand rose to his beard and he stroked it down and turned the ends under. "Where is Jennie now?" he asked.

  "Oh, Burton took her home with him. Burton's praying with her. She was crying when she left. She must be nearly hysterical by now."

  "We'll send her home to the East," Joseph said. "She'll never do, out here." He turned to the door. "You'll have to ride in and report it, Tom. Make it an accident. Maybe they'll never question. And it was an accident." He turned quickly back to the bed and patted Benjy's hand before he went out of the house.

  He walked slowly across the yard toward where he could see the black tree against the sky. When he was come to it, he leaned his back against the trunk and looked upward, where a few pale misty stars glittered among the branches. His hands caressed the bark. "Benjamin is dead," he reported softly. For a moment he breathed deeply, and then turning, he climbed into the tree and sat between the great anus and laid his cheek against the cool rough bark. He knew his thought would be heard when he said in his mind, "Now I know what the blessing was. I know what I've taken upon me. Thomas and Burton are allowed their likes and dislikes, only I am cut off. I am cut off. I can have neither good luck nor bad luck. I can have no knowledge of any good or bad. Even a pure true feeling of the difference between pleasure and pain is denied me. All things are one, and all a part of me." He looked toward the house from which he had come. The light from the window alternately flashed and was cut off. Benjy's dog howled again, and in the distance the coyotes heard the howl and took it up with their maniac giggling. Joseph put his anus around the tree and hugged it tight against him. "Benjy is dead, and I am neither glad nor sorry. There is no reason for it to me. It is just so. I know now, my father, what you were--lonely beyond feeling loneliness, calm because you had no contact." He climbed down from the tree and once more reported, "Benjamin is dead, sir. I wouldn't have stopped it if I could. Nothing is required in satisfaction." And he walked toward the barn, for he must saddle a horse to ride toward the great rock where Juanito was awaiting him.