To a God Unknown

by John Steinbeck

  "'We'll go there tomorrow," he agreed. "I'm going to look in at the barn now, dear."

  As she watched him leave the room, she knew that he was concealing something from her. "Probably it's only his worry about the rain," she thought, and from habit she turned her eyes to the barometer and saw that the needle was high.

  Joseph stepped down from the porch. He moved close to the oak tree before he realized that it was dead. "If only it were alive," he thought, "I would know what to do. I have no counsel any more." He walked on into the barn, expecting to find Thomas there, but the barn was dark and the horses snorted at him as he walked behind them. "There's plenty of hay for the stock this year," he thought. The knowledge comforted him.

  The sky was misty clear when he went back across the yard. He thought he could see a pale ring around the moon, but it was so faint that he could not be sure.

  Before sunup the next morning Joseph went to the barn, curried two horses and brushed them, and, as a last elegance, painted their hoofs black and rubbed their coats with oil.

  Thomas came in while he was at work. "You're making considerable fuss," he said. "Going to town?"

  Joseph rubbed the oil in until the skins shown like dull metal. "I'm taking Elizabeth to ride," he announced. "She hasn't been on a horse for a long time."

  Thomas rubbed his hand down one of the shining rumps. "I wish I could go with you, but I've work to do. I'm taking the men down to the river-bed to dig a hole. We may have trouble finding water for the cattle pretty soon."

  Joseph stopped his work and looked worriedly at Thomas. "I know it. But there must be water under the river-bed. You should strike it a few feet down."

  "It'll rain pretty soon, Joseph. I hope it will. I'm getting sick of a dusty throat."

  The sun came up behind a high thin film of cloud that sucked the warmth and paled the light. Over the hills there came a cold steady wind that blew the dust to ripples and made little drifts of yellow fallen leaves. It was a lonely wind, scudding along the ground, flowing evenly, with very little sound.

  After breakfast Joseph led out the saddlehorses, and Elizabeth, in her divided skirt and high-heeled boots, came out of the house carrying a bag of lunch.

  "Take a warn coat," Joseph warned her.

  She lifted her face to the sky. "It's winter at last, isn't it, Joseph? The sun has lost its heat."

  He helped her on her horse and she laughed because of the good feeling of the saddle, and she patted the flat horn-top affectionately. "It's good to be able to ride again," she said. "Where shall we go first?"

  Joseph pointed to a little peak on the eastern ridge above the pines. "If we go to the top of that we can look through the pass of the Puerto Suelo and see the ocean," he said. "And we can see the tops of the redwoods."

  "It's good to feel the horse moving," she repeated. "I've been missing it, and I didn't know."

  The flashing hoofs kicked up a fine white dust which stayed in the air after they had passed, and made a path behind them like the smoke of a train. They rode up the gentle slope through the thin spare grass, and at the water cuts they went down and up again with a quick jerk.

  "Remember how the cuts raced with water last year?" she reminded him. "Pretty soon it'll be that way again."

  Far off on a hillside they saw a dead cow, almost covered by slow gluttonous buzzards. "I hope we don't get to windward of that, Joseph."

  He looked away from the feast. "They don't give meat a chance to spoil," he said. "I've seen them standing in a circle around a dying animal, waiting for the moment of death. They know that moment."

  The hill grew steeper, and they entered the crackling sage, dark and dry and leafless now. The twigs were so brittle that they seemed dead. In an hour they came to the peak, and from there, sure enough, they saw the triangle of ocean through the pass. The ocean was not blue, it was steel-grey, and on the horizon the dark fog banks rose in heavy ramparts.

  "Tie up the horses, Joseph," she said "Let's sit a while. I haven't seen the ocean for so long. Sometimes I wake up in the night and listen for the waves and for the foghorn of the lighthouse, and the bell buoy off China Point. And sometimes I can hear them, Joseph. They must be very deeply fixed in me. Sometimes I can hear them. In the mornings, early, when the air was still, I remember how I could hear the fishing boats pounding out and the voices of the men calling back and forth from boat to boat."

  He turned away from her. "I haven't that to miss," he said. These things of hers seemed like a little heresy to him.

  She sighed deeply. "When I hear those things in my head I get homesick, Joseph. This valley traps me and I have the feeling that I can never escape from it and that I'll never really hear the waves again, nor the bell buoy, nor see the gulls sliding on the wind."

  "You can go back to visit any time," he said gently. "I'll take you back."

  But she shook her head. "It wouldn't ever be the same. I can remember how excited I was at Christmas, but I couldn't be again."

  He lifted his head and sniffed the wind. "I can smell the salt," be said. "I shouldn't have brought you here, Elizabeth, to make you sad."

  "But it's a good full sadness, dear. It's a luxurious sadness. I can remember how the pools were in the early morning at low tide, glistening and damp, the crabs scrambling over the rocks, and the little eels under the round stones. Joseph," she asked, "Can't we eat lunch now?"

  "It isn't nearly noon yet. Are you hungry already?"

  "I'm always hungry at a picnic," she said smiling. "When mother and I went up to Huckleberry Hill we sometimes started to eat lunch before we were out of sight of the house. I'd like to eat while I'm up here."

  He walked to the horses and loosened their cinches and brought back the saddle bags, and he and Elizabeth munched the thick sandwiches and stared off at the pass and at the angry ocean beyond.

  "The clouds seem to be moving in," she observed. "Maybe there'll be rain tonight."

  "It's only fog, Elizabeth. It's always fog this year. The earth is turning white. Do you see? The brown is going out of it."

  She chewed her sandwich and gazed always at the little patch of sea. "I remember so many things," she said. "They pop up in my mind suddenly, like ducks in a shooting gallery. I just thought then how the Italians go out on the rocks at low tide with big slabs of bread in their hands. They crack open the sea urchins and spread part of them on the bread. The males are sweet and the females sour--the urchins, not the Italians, of course." She scrunched up the papers from the lunch and wadded them back into the saddle bag. "We'd better ride on now, dear. It won't do to stay out very long."

  Although there had been no movement of the clouds, the haze was thickening about the sun and the wind grew colder. Joseph and Elizabeth walked their horses down the slope. 'You still want to go to the pine grove?" he asked.

  "Why of course. That's the main reason for the trip. I'm going to scotch the rock." As she spoke a hawk shot from the air with doubled fists. They heard the shock of flesh, and in a second the hawk flew up again, bearing a screaming rabbit in its claws. Elizabeth dropped her reins and covered her ears until the sound was out of hearing. Her lip trembled. "It's all right, I know it is. I hate to see it, though."

  "He missed his stroke," Joseph said. "He should have broken its neck with the first blow, but he missed." They watched the hawk fly to the cover of the pine grove and disappear among the trees.

  They had not far to go, down a long slope and then along the ridge until they came at last to the outpost trees. Joseph pulled up. "We'll tie the horses here and walk in," he said. When they were afoot, he hurried ahead to the little stream. "It isn't dry," he called. "It isn't down a bit."

  Elizabeth walked over and stood beside him. "Does that make you feel better, Joseph?"

  He glanced quickly at her, feeling a little mockery in her words, but he could see none in her face. "It's the first running water I've seen for a long time," he said. "It's as though the country were not dead while this stream is running. This i
s like a vein still pumping blood."

  "Silly," she said, "you come from a country where it rains often. See how the sky is darkening, Joseph. I wouldn't be surprised if it should rain."

  He glanced upward. "Only fog," he said. "But it will be cold soon. Come, let's go in."

  The glade was silent, as always, and the rock was still green. Elizabeth spoke loudly to break the silence. "You see, 1 knew it was only my condition that made me afraid of it."

  "It must be a deep spring to be still running," Joseph said. "And the rock must be porous to suck up water for the moss."

  Elizabeth leaned down and looked into the dark cave from which the stream flowed. "Nothing in there," she said. "Just a deep hole in the rock, and the smell of wet ground." She stood up again and patted the shaggy sides of the rock. "It's a lovely moss, Joseph. See how deep." She pulled out a handful and held up the damp black roots for him to see. "I'll never dream of you any more," she said to the rock. The sky was dark grey by now, and the sun had gone.

  Joseph shivered and turned away. "Let's start for home, dear. The cold's coming." He strolled toward the path.

  Elizabeth still stood beside the rock. "You think I'm silly, don't you, Joseph," she called. "I'll climb up on its back and tame it." She dug her heel into the steep side of the mossy rock, and made a step and pulled herself up, and then another.

  Joseph turned around. "Be careful you don't slip," he called.

  Her heel dug for a third step. And then the moss stripped off a little. Her hands gripped the moss and tore it out. Joseph saw her head describe a little arc and strike the ground. As he ran toward her, she turned slowly on her side. Her whole body shuddered violently for a second, and then relaxed. He stood over her for an instant before he ran to the spring and filled his hands with water. But when be came back to her, he let the water fall to the ground, for he saw the position of her neck, and the grey that was stealing into her cheeks. He sat stolidly on the ground beside her, and mechanically picked up her hand and opened the fingers clenched full of pine needles. He felt for her pulse and found none there. Joseph put her hand gently down as though he feared to awaken her. He said aloud, "I don't know what it is." The icy chill was creeping inward upon him. "I should turn her over," he thought. "I should take her home." He looked at the black scars on the rock where her heels had dug a moment before. "It was too simple, too easy, too quick," he said aloud. "It was too quick." He knew that his mind could not grasp what had happened. He tried to make himself realize it. "All the stories, all the incidents that made the life were stopped in a second--opinions stopped, and the ability to feel, all stopped without any meaning." He wanted to make himself know what happened, for he could feel the beginning of the calm settling upon him. He wanted to cry out once in personal pain before he was cut off and unable to feel sorrow or resentment. There were little stinging drops of cold on his head. He looked up and saw that it was raining gently. The drops fell on Elizabeth's cheeks and flashed in her hair. The calm was settling on Joseph. He said, "Goodbye, Elizabeth," and before the words were completely out he was cut off and aloof. He removed his coat and laid it over her head. "It was the one chance to communicate," he said. "Now it is gone."

  The pattering rain was kicking up little explosions of dust in the glade. He heard the faint whisper of the stream as it stole across the flat and disappeared into the brush. And still he sat by the body of Elizabeth, loathe to move, muffled in the calm. Once he stood up and touched the rock timidly, and looked up at its flat top. In the rain a vibration of life came into the place. Joseph lifted his head as though he were listening, and then he stroked the rock tenderly. "Now you are two, and you are here. Now I will know where I must come."

  His face and beard were wet. The rain dripped into his open shirt. He stooped and picked up the body in his arms and supported the sagging head against his shoulder. He marched down the trail and into the open.

  There was a dull rainbow in the east, fastened by its ends to the hills. Joseph turned the extra horse loose to follow. He slung his burden to one shoulder while he mounted his horse, and then settled the loose bundle on the saddle in front of him. The sun broke through and flashed on the windows of the farm buildings below him. The rain had stopped now; the clouds withdrew toward the ocean again. Joseph thought of the Italians on the rocks, cracking sea urchins to eat on their bread. And then his mind went back to a thing Elizabeth had said ages before. "Homer is thought to have lived nine hundred years before Christ." He said it over and over, "before Christ, before Christ. Dear earth, dear land! Rama will be sorry. She can't know. The forces gather and center and become one and strong. Even I will join the center." He shifted the bundle to rest his arm. And he knew how he loved the rock, and hated it. The lids drew halfway down over his eyes with fatigue. "Yes, Rama will be sorry. She will have to help me with the baby."

  Thomas came into the yard to meet Joseph. He started to ask a question, and then, seeing how tight and grey Joseph's face was, he advanced quietly and held up his arms to take the body. Joseph dismounted wearily, caught the free horse and tied it to the corral fence. Thomas still stood mutely, holding the body in his arms.

  "She slipped and fell," Joseph explained woodenly. "It was only a little fall. I guess her neck is broken." He reached out to take the burden again. "She tried to climb the rock in the pines," he went on. "The moss skinned off. Just a little fall. You wouldn't believe it. I thought at first she had only fainted. I brought water before I saw."

  "Be still!" Thomas said sharply. "Don't talk about it now." And Thomas withheld the body from him. "Go away, Joseph, I'll take care of this. Take your horse and ride. Go into Nuestra Senora and get drunk."

  Joseph received the orders and accepted them. "I'll go to walk along the river," he said. "Did you find any water today?"

  "No."

  Thomas turned away and walked toward his own house, carrying the body of Elizabeth. For the first time that he could remember, Thomas was crying. Joseph watched him until he climbed the steps, and then he walked away at a quick pace, nearly a run. He came to the dry river and hurried up it, over the round smooth stones. The sun was going down in the mouth of the Pureto Suelo, and the clouds that had rained a little towered in the east like red walls and threw back a red light on the land and made the leafless trees purple. Joseph hurried on up the river. "There was a deep pool," he thought. "It couldn't be all dry, it was too deep. For at least a mile he went up the stream bed, and at last he found the pool, deep and drown and ill-smelling. In the dusk-light he could see the big black eels moving about in slow convolutions. The pool was surrounded on two sides by round, smooth boulders. In better times a little waterfall plunged into it. The third side gave on a sandy beach, cut and trampled with the tracks of animals; the dainty spear-heads of deer and the pads of lions and the little hands of raccoons, and over everything the miring spread of wild pigs' hoofs. Joseph climbed to the top of one of the water-worn boulders and sat down, clasping one knee in his arms. He shivered a little with the cold, although he did not feel it. As he stared down into the pool, the whole day passed before him, not as a day, but as an epoch. He remembered little gestures he had not known he saw. Elizabeth's words came back to him, so true in intonation, so complete in emphasis that he thought he really heard them again. The words sounded in his ears.

  "This is the storm," he thought. "This is the beginning of the thing I knew. There is some cycle here, steady and quick and unchangeable as a fly-wheel." And the tired thought came to him that if he gazed into the pool and cleaned his mind of every cluttering picture he might come to know the cycle.

  There came a sharp grunting from the brush. Joseph lost his thought and looked toward the beach. Five lean wild pigs and one great curved-tusked boar came into the open and approached the water. They drank cautiously, and then wading noisily into the water they began to catch the eels and to eat them while the slimy fish slapped and struggled in their mouths. Two pigs caught one eel and squalling angrily tore it in two, an
d each chewed up its portion. The night was almost down before they waded back to the beach and drank once more. Suddenly there came a flash of yellow light. One of the pigs fell under the furious ray. There was a crunch of bone and a shrill screaming, and then the ray arched its back as the lean and sleek lion looked around and leaped back from the charging boar. The boar snorted at its dead and then whirled and led the four others into the brush. Joseph stood up and the lion watched him, lashing its tail. "If I could only shoot you," Joseph said aloud, "there would be an end and a new beginning. But I have no gun. Go on with your dinner." He climbed down from the rock and walked away, through the trees. "When that pool is gone the beasts will die," he thought, "or maybe they'll move over the ridge." He walked slowly back to the ranch, reluctant to go, and yet fearing a little to be out in the night. He thought how a new bond tied him to the earth, and how this land of his was closer now.

  A lantern shone in the shed behind the barn, and there came a sound of hammering. Joseph went to the door and saw Thomas working on the box, and entered. "It hardly looks large enough," he said.

  Thomas did not look up. "I measured. It will be right."

  "I saw a lion, Thomas; saw it kill a wild pig. Some time soon you'd better take some dogs and kill it. The calves will suffer, else." He hurried on, "Tom, we talked when Benjy died. We said it takes graves to make a place one's own. That is a true thing. That makes us a part of the place. There's some enormous truth in this."

  Thomas nodded over his work. "I know. Jose and Manuel will dig in the morning. I don't want to dig for our own dead."

  Joseph turned away, trying to leave the shed. "You are sure it's big enough?"

  "Sure, I measured."

  "And, Tom, don't put a little fence around. I want it to sink and be lost as soon as it can." He went, then, quickly. In the yard he heard the warned children whispering.

  "There he goes," and Martha, "You're not to say anything to him."