To a God Unknown

by John Steinbeck

  He went to his own dark house and lighted the lamps and set fire in the stove. The clock wound by Elizabeth still ticked, storing in its spring the pressure of her hand, and the wool socks she had hung to dry over the stove screen were still damp. These were vital parts of Elizabeth that were not dead yet. Joseph pondered slowly over it--Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, "It's a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man's life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness." He leaned back in his chair and turned the lamp wick down until only a little blue light came from it. And then he sat relaxed and tried to shepherd his thoughts again, but they had spread out, feeding in a hundred different places, so that his attention was lost. And he thought in tones, in currents of movement, in color, and in a slow plodding rhythm. He looked down at his slouched body, at his curved arms and hands resting in his lap.

  Size changed.

  A mountain range extended in a long curve and on its end were five little ranges, stretching out with narrow valleys between them. If one looked carefully, there seemed to be towns in the valleys. The long curved range was clad in black sage, and the valleys ended on a flat of dark tillable earth, miles in length, which dropped off at last to an abyss. Good fields were there, and the houses and the people were so small they could be seen only a little. High up on a tremendous peak, towering over the ranges and the valleys, the brain of the world was set, and the eyes that looked down on the earth's body. The brain could not understand the life on its body. It lay inert, knowing vaguely that it could shake off the life, the towns, the little houses of the fields with earthquake fury. But the brain was drowsed and the mountains lay still, and the fields were peaceful on their rounded cliff that went down to the abyss. And thus it stood a million years, unchanging and quiet, and the world-brain in its peak lay close to sleep. The world-brain sorrowed a little, for it knew that some time it would have to move, and then the life would be shaken and destroyed and the long work of tillage would be gone, and the houses in the valleys would crumble. The brain was sorry, but it could change nothing. It thought, "I will endure even a little discomfort to preserve this order which has come to exist by accident. It will be a shame to destroy this order." But the towering earth was tired of sitting in one position. It moved, suddenly, and the houses crumbled, the mountains heaved horribly, and all the work of a million years was lost.

  And size changed, and time changed.

  There were light footsteps on the porch. The door opened and Rama came in, her dark eyes wide and glittering with sorrow. "You are sitting in the dark, almost, Joseph," she said.

  His hands rose to stroke his black beard. "I turned down the lamp."

  She stepped over and turned up the wick a little. "It is a hard time, Joseph I want to see how you look at this time. Yes," she said. "There is no change That makes me strong again. I was afraid there might have been a break. Are you thinking about Elizabeth?"

  He wondered how to answer. There was an impulse in him to tell the thing as truly as he could. "Yes, somewhat," be said slowly and uncertainly, "of Elizabeth and of all the things that die. Everything seems to work with a recurring rhythm except life. There is only one birth and only one death. Nothing else is like that."

  Rama moved close and sat down beside him. "You loved Elizabeth."

  "Yes," he said, "I did."

  "But you didn't know her as a person. You never have known a person. You aren't aware of persons, Joseph; only people. You can't see units, Joseph, only the whole." She shrugged her shoulders and sat up straight. "You aren't even listening to me. I came over to see if you had had anything to eat."

  "I don't want to eat," he said.

  "Well, I can understand that. I have the baby, you know. Do you want me to keep it over at my house?"

  "I'll get someone to take care of it as soon as I can," he said.

  She stood up, preparing to go. "You are tired, Joseph. Go to bed and get some sleep if you can. And if you can't, at least lie down. In the morning you'll be hungry, and then you can come to breakfast."

  "Yes," he said absently, "in the morning I'll be hungry."

  "And you'll go to bed now?"

  He agreed, hardly knowing what she had said. "Yes, I'll go to bed." And when she went out he obeyed her automatically. He took off his clothes and stood in front of the stove, looking down at his lean hard stomach and legs. Rama's voice kept repeating in his head, "You must lie down and rest." He took the lamp from its hanging ring and walked into the bedroom and got into bed, leaving the light on the table. Since he had entered the house his senses had been boxed up in his thoughts, but now, as his body stretched and relaxed, sounds of the night became available to his ears, so that he heard the murmuring of the wind and the harsh whisper of the dry leaves in the dead oak tree. And he heard the far-off moaning of a cow. Life flowed back into the land, and the movement that had been deadened by thought started up again. He considered turning off the lamp, but his reluctant body refused the task.

  A furtive step sounded on the porch. He heard the front door open quietly. A rustling sound came from the sitting-room. Joseph lay still and listened, and wondered icily who was there, but he did not call out. And then the bedroom door opened, and he turned his head to look. Rama stood naked in the doorway, and the lamplight fell upon her. Joseph saw the full breasts, ending in dark hard nipples, and the broad round belly and the powerful legs, and the triangle of crisp black hair. Rama's breath came panting, as though she had been running.

  "This is a need," she whispered hoarsely.

  In Joseph's throat and chest a grinding started, like hot gravel, and it moved downward.

  Rama blew out the light and flung herself into the bed. Their bodies met furiously, thighs pounding and beating, her thewed legs clenched over him. Their breath sobbed in their throats. Joseph could feel the hard nipples against his breast; then Rama groaned harshly, and her broad hips drummed against him, and her body quivered until the pressure of her straining arms crushed the breath from his chest, and her hungry limbs drew irresistibly the agonizing seed of his body.

  She relaxed, breathing heavily. The strong muscles grew soft, they lay together in exhaustion.

  "It was a need to you," she whispered. "It was a hunger in me, but a need to you. The long deep river of sorrow is diverted and sucked into me, and the sorrow which is only a warm wan pleasure is drawn out in a moment. Do you think that, Joseph?"

  "Yes," he said. "The need was there." He arose from her and turned on his back and lay beside her.

  She spoke sleepily: "It's in my memory now. Once in my life--once in my life! My whole life approaching it, and after, my whole life backing away hungrily. It was not for you. It seems enough now, perhaps it is, but I am afraid it will bear litters of desires, and each one will grow larger than its mother." She sat up and kissed his forehead, and for a moment her hair fell about his face "Is there a candle on the table, Joseph? I'll need a little light."

  "Yes, on the table, in a tin candle-stick, and matches in the tray."

  She got up and put flame to the candle. She looked down at herself and with her finger explored the dark-red bruises on her breast. "I've thought of this," she said. "Often I've thought of it. And in my thought we lay together after we had joined, and I asked you a great many questions. Always in my thought that was the way it was." As though a modesty crept upon her, she shielded the candlelight from her body with her hand. "I think I've asked my questions and you have answered them."

  Joseph supported himself on one elbow. "Rama, what do you want of me?" he demanded.

  She turned, then, to the door and opened it slowly. "I want nothing now. You are complete again. I wanted to be a part of you, and perhaps I am. But--I do not think so." Her
voice changed then. "Go to sleep now. And in the morning come to breakfast." She closed the door after her. He heard the rustling of her dressing, but sleep fell so quickly upon him that he did not hear her leave the house.

  22

  IN JANUARY there was a time of shrill cold winds and mornings when the frost lay on the ground like a light snow. The cattle and horses ranged the hillsides, picking up forgotten wisps of grass, reaching up to nibble the live oak leaves, and finally they moved in and stood all day about the fenced haystacks. Morning and night Joseph and Thomas pitched hay over the fence to them and filled the troughs with water. And when the stock had eaten and drunk, they stood about waiting for the next feeding. The hills were picked clean.

  The earth grew more grey and lifeless every week and the haystacks dwindled. One was finished and another started, and it melted, too, under the appetites of the hungry cows. In February an inch of rain fell and the grass started up, grew a few inches and turned yellow. Joseph walked moodily about with his hands knotted and thrust into his pockets.

  The children played quietly. They played "Aunt Elizabeth's Funeral" for weeks, burying a cartridge box over and over. And later in the year they played at gardening, dug tiny plots of ground and planted wheat and watched the long thin blades shoot up under poured water. Rama still cared for Joseph's baby. She gave more time to it than she had devoted to her own.

  But it was Thomas who really grew afraid. When he saw that the cattle could find no more feed in the hills the terror of starvation began to arise in him. When the second haystack was half gone, he came nervously to Joseph.

  "What will we do when the other two stacks run out?" he demanded.

  "I don't know. I'll think what to do."

  "But Joseph, we can't buy hay."

  "I don't know. I'll have to think what to do."

  There were showers in March, and a little stand of feed started up and wildflowers began to grow. The cattle moved out from the stacks and nibbled hungrily all day long at the short grass to get their stomachs full. April dried out the ground again, and the hope of the country was gone.

  The cattle were thin and laced with ribs. Hip-bones stood out. There were few calves born. Two sows died with a mysterious illness before they littered. Some of the cows took a harsh cough from the dusty air. The game was going away from the hills. The quail came no longer to the house to sing in the evenings. And the nights when the coyotes gibbered were rare. It was an odd thing to see a rabbit.

  "The wild things are going away," Thomas explained." Everything that can move is going over the range to the coast. We'll go there soon, Joseph, just to see it."

  In May the wind blew for three days from the sea, but it had done that so often that no one believed it There was a day of massed clouds, and then the rain fell in torrents. Both Joseph and Thomas walked about, getting wet, gloating a little in the water, although they knew it was too late. Almost overnight the grass sprang up again and clothed the hills and grew furiously. The cattle spread a little fat on their ribs. And then one morning there was a burn in the sunlight, and at noon the weather was hot. The summer had come early. Within a week the grass withered and drooped, and within two weeks the dust was in the air again.

  Joseph saddled a horse one morning in June and rode to Nuestra Senora and found the teamster Romas. Romas came out into his chicken yard and sat on a wagon-tongue, and he played with a bull whip while he talked.

  "These are the dry years?" Joseph asked sullenly.

  "It looks that way, Mr. Wayne."

  "Then these are the years you talked about."

  "This is one of the worst I ever saw, Mr. Wayne. Another like this and there will be trouble in the family."

  Joseph was scowling. "I have one stack of hay left. When that is gone, what do I feed the cattle?" He took off his hat and wiped the sweat out with a handkerchief.

  Romas snapped his bull-whip, and the popper spat up the dirt like an explosion. And then he hung the whip over his knee and took tobacco and papers from his vest and rolled a cigarette. "If you can keep your cows until next winter, you may save them. If you haven't enough hay for that, you'll have to move them or they'll starve. This sun won't leave a straw."

  "Can't I buy hay?" Joseph asked.

  Romas chuckled. "In three months a bale of hay will be worth a cow."

  Joseph sat down on the wagon-tongue beside him and looked at the ground, and picked up a handful of the hot dust. "Where do you people drive the stock?" he asked finally.

  Romas smiled. "That's a good time for me. I drive the cattle. I'll tell you, Mr. Wayne, this year has hit not only this valley but the Salinas valley, beyond. We won't find grass this side of the San Joaquin river."

  "But that's over a hundred miles away."

  Romas picked up the bull-whip from his lap again. "Yes, over a hundred miles," he said. "And if you haven't much hay left, you'd better start the herd pretty soon, while they have the guts to go."

  Joseph stood up and walked toward his horse. And Romas walked beside him.

  "1 remember when you came," Romas said quietly. "I remember when I hauled the lumber to your place. You said the drought would never come again. All of us who live here and were born here know it will come again."

  "Suppose I sell all my stock and wait for the good years?"

  Romas laughed loudly at that. "Man, you aren't thinking. What does your stock look like?"

  "It's pretty poor," Joseph admitted.

  "Fat beef is cheap enough, Mr. Wayne. You couldn't sell Nuestra Senora beef this year."

  Joseph untied his lead rope and slowly mounted. "I see. Drive the cows then, or lose them--"

  "Looks that way, Mr. Wayne."

  "And if I drive, how many do I lose?"

  Romas scratched his head and pretended to be thinking. "Sometimes half, sometimes two-thirds, and sometimes all of them."

  Joseph's mouth tightened as though he had been struck. He lifted his reins and moved his spurred boot in toward the horse's belly.

  "Do you remember my boy Willie?" Romas asked. "He drove one of the teams when we brought the lumber."

  "Yes, I remember. How is he?"

  "He's dead," said Romas. And then, in a shamed voice, "He hung himself."

  "Why, I hadn't heard. I'm sorry. Why did he do that?"

  Romas shook his head bewilderedly. "I don't know, Mr. Wayne. He never was very strong in the head." He smiled up at Joseph. "That's a Hell of a way for a father to talk." And then, as though he spoke to more than one person, he looked at a spot beside Joseph, "I'm sorry I said a thing like that. Willie was a good boy. He never was very well, Mr. Wayne."

  "I'm sorry, Romas," Joseph said, and then he continued, "I may be needing you to drive stock for me." The spur lightly touched the horse and Joseph trotted off toward the ranch.

  He rode slowly home along the banks of the dead river. The dusty trees, ragged from the sun's flaying, cast very little shade on the ground. Joseph remembered how he had ridden out in a dark night and flung his hat and quirt away to save a good moment out of a tide of moments. And he remembered how thick and green the brush had been under the trees, and how the grass of the hills bowed under its weight of seed; how the hills were heavy-coated as a fox's back. The hills were gaunt now; here was a colony from the southern desert come to try out the land for a future spreading of the desert's empire.

  The horse panted in the heat, and the sweat dripped from the cowlick in the center of its belly. It was a long trip and there was no water on the way. Joseph didn't want to go home, for he was feeling a little guilty at the news he carried. This would break up the ranch and leave it abandoned to the sun and to the desert's outposts. He passed a dead cow with pitifully barred sides, and with a stomach swelled to bursting with the gas of putrefaction. Joseph pulled his hat down and bent his head so that he might not see the picked carcass of the land.

  It was late afternoon when he arrived. Thomas had just ridden in from the range. He walked excitedly to Joseph, his red face dr
awn.

  "I found ten dead cows," he said. "I don't know what killed them. The buzzards are working on them." He grasped Joseph's arm and shook it fiercely. "They're over the ridge, there. In the morning there will be only a little plot of bones."

  Joseph looked away from him in shame. "I'm failing to protect the land," he thought sadly. "The duty of keeping life in my land is beyond my power."

  "Thomas," he said. "I rode to town today for news of the country."

  "Is it all this way?" Thomas demanded. "The water in the well is low."

  "Yes; all this way. We'll have to move the cows--over a hundred miles. There's pasturage along the San Joaquin."

  "Christ, let's get moving, then" Thomas cried. Let's get out of this bastard valley, this double-crossing son-of-a-bitch. I don't want to come back to it! I can't trust it any more!"

  Joseph shook his head slowly. "I keep hoping something may happen. I know there's no chance. A heavy rain wouldn't help now. We'll start the cows next week."

  "Why wait for next week? Let's get 'em ready tomorrow!"

  Joseph tried to soothe him. "This is a week of heat. It may be a little cooler next week. We'll have to feed them up so they can make the trip. Tell the men to pitch out more hay."

  Thomas nodded. "I hadn't thought about the hay." Suddenly his eyes brightened. "Joseph, we'll go over the range to the coast while the men are feeding up the cows. We'll get a look at some water before we start riding in the dust."

  Joseph nodded. "Yes, we can do that. We can go tomorrow."

  They started in the night, to get ahead of the sun. They headed their horses toward the dark west, and let the horses find the trail. The earth still radiated heat from the day before, and the hillsides were quiet. The ringing of hoofs on the rocky trail splashed uneasy sounds in the quietness. Once, when the dawn was coming, they stopped to rest their horses, and they thought they heard a little bell, tinkling in front of them.

  "Did you hear it?" Thomas asked.

  "It might be a belled animal," said Joseph. "It isn't a cowbell. It sounds more like a sheep bell. We'll listen for it when the daylight comes."

  The day's heat started when the sun appeared. There was no cool dawn. A few grasshoppers rattled and snapped through the air. The cooked bay trees spiced the air and drops of sweet heavy juice boiled out of the greasewood. As the men rode up the steep slope, the trail grew more rocky and the earth more desolate. Everywhere the bones of the earth stuck through and flung the dazzling light away. A snake rattled viciously in the path ahead. Both horses stopped stiffly in their tracks and backed away. Thomas reached down and slipped a carbine from the saddle scabbard under his leg. The gun crashed and the thick snake's body rotated slowly around its crushed head. The horses turned downhill to rest, and closed their eyes against the cutting light. A faint whining came from the earth, as though it protested against the intolerable sun.