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Title: The Wayward Bus
Author: Steinbeck, John (1902-1968)
Date of first publication: February 1947
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: The Viking Press, 1947
Date first posted: 31 January 2022
Date last updated: 31 January 2022
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1678

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Mardi Desjardins, Pat McCoy, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

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format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

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THE WAYWARD BUS

by John Steinbeck




    I pray you all gyve audyence,
    And here this mater with reverence,
    By fygure a morall playe;
    The somonynge of Everyman called it is,
    That of our lyves and endynge shewes
    How transytory we be all daye.

        --EVERYMAN




    For GWYN




CHAPTER 1


Forty-two miles below San Ysidro, on a great north-south highway in
California, there is a crossroad which for eighty-odd years has been
called Rebel Corners. From here a county road goes at right angles
toward the west until, after forty-nine miles, it connects with another
north-south highway that leads from San Francisco to Los Angeles and, of
course, Hollywood. Anyone who wishes to go from the inland valley to the
coast in this part of the state must take the road that begins at Rebel
Corners and winds through hills and a little desert and through farmland
and mountains until, at last, it comes to the coastal highway right in
the middle of the town of San Juan de la Cruz.

Rebel Corners got its name in 1862. It is said that a family named
Blanken kept a smithy at the crossroads. The Blankens and their
sons-in-law were poor, ignorant, proud, and violent Kentuckians. Having
no furniture and no property, they brought what they had with them from
the East--their prejudices and their politics. Having no slaves, they
were ready, nevertheless, to sell their lives for the free principle of
slavery. When the war began, the Blankens discussed traveling back
across the measureless West to fight for the Confederacy. But it was a
long way and they had crossed once, and it was too far. Thus it was that
in a California which was preponderantly for the North, the Blankens
seceded a hundred and sixty acres and a blacksmith shop from the Union
and joined Blanken Corners to the Confederacy. It is also said that they
dug trenches and cut rifle slits in the blacksmith shop to defend this
rebellious island from the hated Yankees. And the Yankees, who were
mostly Mexicans and Germans and Irish and Chinese, far from attacking
the Blankens, were rather proud of them. The Blankens had never lived so
well, for the enemy brought chickens and eggs and pork sausage in
slaughter time, because everyone thought that, regardless of the cause,
such courage should be recognized. Their place took the name of Rebel
Corners and has kept it to this day.

After the war the Blankens became lazy and quarrelsome and full of
hatreds and complaints, as every defeated nation does, so that, pride in
them having evaporated with the war, people stopped bringing their
horses to be shoed and their plows for retipping. Finally, what the
Union Armies could not do by force of arms the First National Bank of
San Ysidro did by foreclosure.

Now, after eighty-odd years, no one remembers much about the Blankens
except that they were very proud and very unpleasant. In the following
years the land changed hands many times before it was incorporated into
the empire of a newspaper king. The blacksmith shop burned down and was
rebuilt and burned again, and what was left was converted into a garage
with gas pumps and then into a store-restaurant-garage and service
station. When Juan Chicoy and his wife bought it and got the franchise
to run a public conveyance between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la
Cruz, it became all these and a bus station too. The rebel Blankens
have, through pride and a low threshold of insult which is the test of
ignorance and laziness, disappeared from the face of the earth, and no
one remembers what they looked like. But Rebel Corners is well known and
the Chicoys are well liked.

There was a little lunchroom in back of the gas pumps, a lunchroom with
a counter and round, fixed stools, and three tables for those who wanted
to eat in some style. These were not used often for it was customary to
tip Mrs. Chicoy when she served you at a table and not to if she served
you at the counter. On the first shelf behind the counter were sweet
rolls, snails, doughnuts; on the second, canned soups, oranges, and
bananas; on the third, individual boxes of cornflakes, riceflakes,
grapenuts, and other tortured cereals. There was a grill at one end
behind the counter and a sink beside it, beer and soda spouts beside
that, ice cream units beside those, and on the counter itself, between
the units of paper napkin containers, juke box coin slots, salt, pepper,
and ketchup, the cakes were displayed under large plastic covers. The
walls, where there was room, were well decorated with calendars and
posters showing bright, improbable girls with pumped-up breasts and no
hips--blondes, brunettes and redheads, but always with this bust
development, so that a visitor of another species might judge from the
preoccupation of artist and audience that the seat of procreation lay in
the mammaries.

Alice Chicoy, Mrs. Juan Chicoy, that is, who worked among the shining
girls, was wide-hipped and sag-chested and she walked well back on her
heels. She was not in the least jealous of the calendar girls and the
Coca-Cola girls. She had never seen anyone like them and she didn't
think anyone else ever had. She fried her eggs and hamburgers, heated
her canned soup, drew beer, scooped ice cream, and toward evening her
feet hurt and that made her cross and snappish. And as the day went on
the flat curl went out of her hair so that it hung damp and stringy
beside her face, and at first she would brush it aside with her hand and
finally she would blow it out of her eyes.

Next to the lunchroom was a garage converted from the last blacksmith
shop, its ceiling and beams still black from the soot of the old forge,
and here Juan Chicoy presided when he was not driving the bus between
Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz. He was a fine, steady man, Juan
Chicoy, part Mexican and part Irish, perhaps fifty years old, with clear
black eyes, a good head of hair, and a dark and handsome face. Mrs.
Chicoy was insanely in love with him and a little afraid of him too,
because he was a man, and there aren't very many of them, as Alice
Chicoy had found out. There aren't very many of them in the world, as
everyone finds out sooner or later.

In the garage Juan Chicoy fixed flat tires, got the air locks out of gas
lines, cleaned the diamond-hard dust from choked carburetors, put new
diaphragms in tubercular gasoline pumps, and did all the little things
that the motor-minded public knows nothing whatever about. These things
he did except during the hours from ten-thirty until four. That was the
time he drove the bus, carrying passengers who had been deposited at
Rebel Corners by the big Greyhound busses to San Juan de la Cruz and
bringing passengers back from San Juan de la Cruz to Rebel Corners,
where they were picked up either by the Greyhound bus going north at
four-fifty-six or by the Greyhound going south at five-seventeen.

While Mr. Chicoy was gone on his route his duties at the garage were
carried out by a succession of overgrown boys or immature young men who
were more or less apprentices. None of them lasted very long. Unwary
customers with dirty carburetors could not know in advance the
destruction these apprentices could heap on a carburetor, and while Juan
Chicoy himself was a magnificent mechanic, his apprentices usually were
cocky adolescents who spent their time between jobs putting slugs in the
juke box in the lunchroom and quarreling mildly with Alice Chicoy. To
these young men opportunity beckoned constantly, drawing them ever
southward toward Los Angeles and, of course, Hollywood, where,
eventually, all the adolescents in the world will be congregated.

Behind the garage were two little outhouses with trellises, one of which
said "Men" and the other "Ladies." And to each one a little path led,
one around the right-hand side of the garage and one around the
left-hand side of the garage.

What defined the Corners and made it visible for miles among the
cultivated fields were the great white oaks that grew around the garage
and restaurant. Tall and graceful, with black trunks and limbs, bright
green in summer, black and brooding in winter, these oaks were landmarks
in the long, flat valley. No one knows whether the Blankens planted them
or whether they merely settled near to them. The latter seems more
logical; first, because the Blankens are not known to have planted
anything they could not eat, and second, because the trees seemed more
than eighty-five years old. They might be two hundred years old; on the
other hand, they might have their roots in some underground spring which
would make them grow large quickly in this semidesert country.

These great trees shaded the station in summer so that travelers often
pulled up under them and ate their lunches and cooled their overheated
motors. The station itself was pleasant too, brightly painted green and
red, a deep row of geraniums all around the restaurant, red geraniums
and deep green leaves thick as a hedge. The white gravel in front and
around the gas pumps was raked and sprinkled daily. In the restaurant
and in the garage there was system and order. For instance, on the
shelves in the restaurant the canned soup, the boxed cereals, even the
grapefruits, were arranged in little pyramids, four on the bottom level,
then three, then two, and one balanced on top. And the same was true of
the cans of oil in the garage, and the fan belts hung neatly in their
sizes on nails. It was a very well kept place. The windows of the
restaurant were screened against flies, and the screen door banged shut
after every entrance or exit. For Alice Chicoy hated flies. In a world
that was not easy for Alice to bear or to understand, flies were the
final and malicious burden laid upon her. She hated them with a cruel
hatred, and the death of a fly by swatter, or slowly smothered in the
goo of fly paper, gave her a flushed pleasure.

Just as Juan usually had a succession of young apprentices to help him
in the garage, so Alice hired a succession of girls to help her in the
lunchroom. These girls, gawky and romantic and homely--the pretty ones
usually left with a customer within a few days--seemed to accomplish
little in the way of work. They spread dirt about with damp cloths, they
dreamed over movie magazines, they sighed into the juke box--and the
most recent one had reddening eyes and a head cold and wrote long and
passionate letters to Clark Gable. Alice Chicoy suspected every one of
them of letting flies in. Norma, this most recent girl, had felt the
weight of Alice Chicoy's tongue many times about flies.

The routine of the Corners in the morning was invariable. With the first
daylight or, in the winter, even before, the lights came on in the
lunchroom, and Alice steamed up the coffee urn (a great godlike silver
effigy which may, in some future archaeological period, be displayed as
an object of worship of the race of Amudkins, who preceded the Atomites,
who, for some unknown reason, disappeared from the face of the earth).
The restaurant was warm and cheerful when the first truck drivers pulled
wearily in for their breakfast. Then came the salesmen, hurrying to the
cities of the south in the dark so as to have a full day of business.
Salesmen always spotted trucks and stopped, because it is generally
believed that truck drivers are great connoisseurs of roadside coffee
and food. By sun-up the first tourists in their own cars began to pull
in for breakfast and road information.

The tourists from the north did not interest Norma much, but those from
the south or those who came over the cut-off from San Juan de la Cruz
and who might have been to Hollywood fascinated her. In four months
Norma personally met fifteen people who had been to Hollywood, five who
had been on a picture lot, and two who had seen Clark Gable face to
face. Inspired by these last two, who came in very close together, she
wrote a twelve-page letter which began, "Dear Mr. Gable," and ended,
"Lovingly, A Friend." She often shuddered to think that Mr. Gable might
find out that she had written it.

Norma was a faithful girl. Let others, featherbrains, run after the
upstarts--the Sinatras, the Van Johnsons, the Sonny Tufts'. Even during
the war, when there had been no Gable pictures, Norma had remained
faithful, keeping her dream warm with a colored picture of Mr. Gable in
a flying suit with two belts of 50-caliber ammunition on his shoulders.

She often sneered at Sonny Tufts. She liked older men with interesting
faces. Sometimes, wiping the damp cloth back and forth on the counter,
her dream-widened eyes centered on the screen door, her pale eyes flexed
and then closed for a moment. Then you could know that in that secret
garden in her head, Gable had just entered the restaurant, had gasped
when he saw her, and had stood there, his lips slightly parted and in
his eyes the recognition that this was his woman. And around him the
flies came in and out with impunity.

It never went beyond that. Norma was too shy. And, besides, she didn't
know how such things were done. The actual love-making in her life had
been a series of wrestling matches, the aim of which was to keep her
clothes on in the back seat of a car. So far she had won by simple
concentration. She felt that Mr. Gable not only would not do things like
that, but wouldn't like them if he heard about them.

Norma wore the wash dresses featured by the National Dollar Stores,
though, of course, she had a sateen dress for parties. But if you looked
closely you could always find some little bit of beauty even on the wash
dresses. Her Mexican silver pin, a representation of the Aztec calendar
stone, was left to her in her aunt's will after Norma had nursed her for
seven months and really wanted the sealskin stole and the ring of
baroque pearls and turquoise. But these went to another branch of the
family. Norma had also a string of small amber beads from her mother.
She never wore the Mexican pin and the beads at the same time. In
addition to these, Norma possessed two pieces of jewelry which were pure
crazy and which she knew were pure crazy. Deep in her suitcase she had a
gold-filled wedding ring and a gigantic Brazilian-type diamond ring, the
two of which had cost five dollars. She wore them only when she went to
bed. In the morning she took them off and hid them in her suitcase. No
one in the world knew that she owned them. In bed she went to sleep
twisting them on the third finger of her left hand.

The sleeping arrangements at the Corners were simple. Directly behind
the lunchroom there was a lean-to. A door at the end of the lunch
counter opened into the Chicoys' bed-sitting room, which had a double
bed with an afghan spread, a console radio, two overstuffed chairs and a
davenport--which group is called a suite--and a metal reading lamp with
a marbled green glass shade. Norma's room opened off this room, for it
was Alice's theory that young girls should be watched a little and not
let to run wild. Norma had to come through the Chicoys' room to go to
the bathroom--that, or slip out the window, which she ordinarily did.
The apprentice-mechanic's room was next to the Chicoys' on the other
side, but he had an outside entrance and used the vine-covered cubicle
marked "Men" behind the garage.

It was a nice compact grouping of buildings, functional and pleasant.
The Rebel Corners of the Blankens' time had been a miserable, dirty, and
suspicious place, but the Chicoys flourished here. There was money in
the bank and a degree of security and happiness.

This island covered by the huge trees could be seen for miles. No one
ever had to look for road signs to find Rebel Corners and the road to
San Juan de la Cruz. In the great valley the grain fields flattened away
toward the east, to the foothills and to the high mountains, and toward
the west they ended nearer in the rounded hills where the live oaks sat
in black splotches. In the summer the yellow heat shimmered and burned
and glared on the baking hills, and the shade of the great trees over
the Corners was a thing to look forward to and to remember. In the
winter when the heavy rains fell, the restaurant was a warm place of
coffee and chili beans and pie.

In the deep spring when the grass was green on fields and foothills,
when the lupines and poppies made a splendid blue and gold earth, when
the great trees awakened in yellow-green young leaves, then there was no
more lovely place in the world. It was no beauty you could ignore by
being used to it. It caught you in the throat in the morning and made a
pain of pleasure in the pit of your stomach when the sun went down over
it. The sweet smell of the lupines and of the grass set you breathing
nervously, set you panting almost sexually. And it was in this season of
flowering and growth, though it was still before daylight, that Juan
Chicoy came out to the bus carrying an electric lantern. Pimples Carson,
his apprentice-mechanic, stumbled sleepily behind him.

The lunchroom windows were still dark. Against the eastern hills not
even a grayness had begun to form. It was so much night that the owls
were still shrieking over the fields. Juan Chicoy came near to the bus
which stood in front of the garage. It looked, in the light of the
lantern, like a large, silver-windowed balloon. Pimples Carson, still
not really awake, stood with his hands in his pockets, shivering, not
because it was cold but because he was very sleepy.

A little wind blew in over the fields and brought the smell of lupine
and the smell of a quickening earth, frantic with production.




CHAPTER 2


The electric lantern, with a flat downward reflector, lighted sharply
only legs and feet and tires and tree trunks near to the ground. It
bobbed and swung, and the little incandescent bulb was blindingly
blue-white. Juan Chicoy carried his lantern to the garage, took a bunch
of keys from his overalls pocket, found the one that unlocked the
padlock, and opened the wide doors. He switched on the overhead light
and turned off his lantern.

Juan picked a striped mechanic's cap from his workbench. He wore
Headlight overalls with big brass buttons on bib and side latches, and
over this he wore a black horsehide jacket with black knitted wristlets
and neck. His shoes were round-toed and hard, with soles so thick that
they seemed swollen. An old scar on his cheek beside his large nose
showed as a shadow in the overhead light. He ran fingers through his
thick, black hair to get it all in the mechanic's cap. His hands were
short and wide and strong, with square fingers and nails flattened by
work and grooved and twisted from having been hammered and hurt. The
third finger of his left hand had lost the first joint, and the flesh
was slightly mushroomed where the finger had been amputated. This little
overhanging ball was shiny and of a different texture from the rest of
the finger, as though the joint were trying to become a fingertip, and
on this finger he wore a wide gold wedding ring, as though this finger
was no good for work any more and might as well be used for ornament.

A pencil and a ruler and a tire pressure gauge protruded from a slot in
his overalls bib. Juan was clean-shaven, but not since yesterday, and
along the corners of his chin and on his neck the coming whiskers were
grizzled and white like those of an old Airedale. This was the more
apparent because the rest of his beard was so intensely black. His black
eyes were squinting and humorous, the way a man's eyes squint when he is
smoking and cannot take the cigarette from his mouth. And Juan's mouth
was full and good, a relaxed mouth, the underlip slightly
protruding--not in petulance but in humor and self-confidence--the upper
lip well formed except left of center where a deep scar was almost white
against the pink tissue. The lip must have been cut clear through at one
time, and now this thin taut band of white was a strain on the fullness
of the lip and made it bunch in tiny tucks on either side. His ears were
not very large, but they stood out sharply from his head like seashells,
or in the position a man would hold them with his hands if he wanted to
hear more clearly. Juan seemed to be listening intently all the time,
while his squinting eyes seemed to laugh at what he heard, and half of
his mouth disapproved. His movements were sure even when he was not
doing anything that required sureness. He walked as though he were going
to some exact spot. His hands moved with speed and precision and never
fiddled with matches or with nails. His teeth were long and the edges
were framed with gold, which gave his smile a little fierceness.

At his workbench he picked tools from nails on the wall and laid them in
a long, flat box--wrenches and pliers and several screwdrivers and a
machine hammer and a punch. Beside him Pimples Carson, still heavy with
sleep, rested his elbow on the oily wood of the bench. Pimples wore the
tattered sweater of a motorcycle club and the crown of a felt hat cut in
saw teeth around the edge. He was a lank and slender-waisted boy of
seventeen, with narrow shoulders and a long foxy nose and eyes that were
pale in the morning and became greenish-brown later in the day. A golden
fuzz was on his cheeks, and his cheeks were rivuleted and rotted and
eroded with acne. Among the old scars new pustules formed, purple and
red, some rising and some waning. The skin was shiny with the medicines
that were sold for this condition and which do no good whatever.

Pimples' blue jeans were tight, and so long that they were turned up ten
inches on the bottoms. They were held to his narrow middle by a broad,
beautifully tooled leather belt with a fat and engraved silver buckle in
which four turquoises were set. Pimples kept his hands at his sides as
much as he could, but in spite of himself his fingers would move to his
pitted cheeks until he became conscious of what he was doing and put his
hands down again. He wrote to every company that advertised an acne
cure, and he had been to many doctors, who knew that they could not cure
it but who also knew that it would probably go away in a few years. They
nevertheless gave Pimples prescriptions for salves and lotions, and one
had put him on a diet of green vegetables.

His eyes were long and narrow and slanted like the eyes of a sleepy
wolf, and now in the early morning they were almost sealed shut with
mucus. Pimples was a prodigious sleeper. Left to his own devices, he
could sleep nearly all the time. His whole system and his soul were a
particularly violent battleground of adolescence. His concupiscence was
constant, and when it was not directly and openly sexual it would take
to channels of melancholy, of deep and tearful sentiment, or of a strong
and musky religiosity. His mind and his emotions were like his face,
constantly erupting, constantly raw and irritated. He had times of
violent purity when he howled at his own depravity, and these were
usually followed by a melancholy laziness that all but prostrated him,
and he went from the depression into sleep. It was opiatic and left him
drugged and dull for a long time.

He wore pierced white and brown saddle oxfords on bare feet this
morning, and his ankles, where they showed below the turned-up jeans,
were streaked with dirt. In his periods of depression Pimples was so
prostrated that he did not bathe nor even eat very much. The felt hat
crown notched so evenly was not really for beauty but served to keep his
long light brown hair out of his eyes and to keep the grease out of it
when he worked under a car. Now he stood stupidly watching Juan Chicoy
put the tools in his box while his mind rolled in great flannel clouds
of sleepiness, almost nauseating in their power.

Juan said, "Get the work light on the long cord connected. Come on,
Pimples. Come on now, wake up!"

Pimples seemed to shake himself like a dog. "Can't seem to come out of
it," he explained.

"Well, get the light out there and take my back board out. We've got to
get going."

Pimples picked up the hand light, basketed for protection of the globe,
and began unwinding the heavy rubber-guarded cable from around its
handle. He plugged the cord into an outlet near the door and the hand
light leaped into brilliance. Juan lifted his toolbox and stepped out of
the door and looked at the darkened sky. A change had come in the air. A
little wind was stirring the young leaves of the oaks and whisking among
the geraniums and it was an uncertain, wet wind. Juan smelled it as he
would smell a flower.

"By God, if it rains," he said, "that would be one too many."

To the east the tops of the mountains were just becoming visible in
outline with the dawn. Pimples came out carrying the lighted hand lamp
and unkinking the cable behind him on the ground. The light made the
great trees stand out, and it was reflected on the yellow-green of the
new little oak leaves. Pimples took his light to the bus and went back
to the garage for the long board with casters on the bottom on which a
man could lie and wheel himself about when he worked under a car. He
flung the board down beside the bus.

"Well, it's like to rain," he said. "Take nearly every year in
California it rains this season."

Juan said, "I'm not complaining about the season, but with this ring
gear out and the passengers waiting, and the ground is pulpy with
rain--"

"Makes good feed," said Pimples.

Juan stopped and looked around at him. His eyes crinkled with amusement.
"Sure," he said, "it sure does."

Pimples looked shyly away.

The bus was lighted by the hand lamp now and it looked strange and
helpless, for where the rear wheels should have been were two heavy
sawhorses, and instead of resting on axles the rear of the bus rested on
a four-by-four which extended from one horse to the other.

It was an old bus, a four-cylinder, low-compression engine with a
special patented extra gear shift which gave it five speeds ahead
instead of three, two below the average ratio, and two speeds in
reverse. The ballooning sides of the bus, heavy and shining with
aluminum paint, showed nevertheless the bumps and bends, the wracks and
scratches, of a long and violent career. A home paint job on an old
automobile somehow makes it look even more ancient and disreputable than
it would if left in honorable decay.

Inside, the bus was rebuilt too. The seats which had once been woven of
cane were now upholstered in red oilcloth, and while the job was neatly
done, it was not professionally done. There was the slightly sour smell
of oilcloth in the air and the frankly penetrating odor of oil and
gasoline. It was an old, old bus, and it had seen many trips and many
difficulties. Its oaken floorboards were scooped and polished by the
feet of passengers. Its sides were bent and straightened. Its windows
could not be opened, for the whole body was slightly wracked out of
shape. In the summer Juan removed the windows and in the winter put them
back again.

The driver's seat was worn through to the springs, but in the worn place
was a flowered chintz pillow which served the double purpose of
protecting the driver and holding down the uncovered springs. Hanging
from the top of the windshield were the penates: a baby's shoe--that's
for protection, for the stumbling feet of a baby require the constant
caution and aid of God; and a tiny boxing glove--and that's for power,
the power of the fist on the driving forearm, the drive of the piston
pushing its connecting rod, the power of person as responsible and proud
individual. There hung also on the windshield a little plastic kewpie
doll with a cerise and green ostrich-feather headdress and a provocative
sarong. And this was for the pleasures of the flesh and of the eye, of
the nose, of the ear. When the bus was in motion these hanging items
spun and jerked and swayed in front of the driver's eye.

Where the windshield angled in the middle and the center of support went
up, sitting on top of the dashboard was a small metal Virgin of
Guadalupe painted in brilliant colors. Her rays were gold and her robe
was blue and she stood on the new moon, which was supported by cherubs.
This was Juan Chicoy's connection with eternity. It had little to do
with religion as connected with the church and dogma, and much to do
with religion as memory and feeling. This dark Virgin was his mother and
the dim house where she, speaking Spanish with a little brogue, had
nursed him. For his mother had made the Virgin of Guadalupe her own
personal goddess. Out had gone St. Patrick and St. Bridget and the ten
thousand pale virgins of the North, and into her had entered this dark
one who had blood in her veins and a close connection with people.

His mother admired her Virgin, whose day is celebrated with exploding
skyrockets, and, of course, Juan Chicoy's Mexican father didn't think of
it one way or another. Skyrockets were by nature the way to celebrate
Saints' Days. Who could think otherwise? The rising, hissing tube was
obviously the spirit rising to Heaven, and the big, flashing bang at the
top was the dramatic entrance to the throne room of Heaven. Juan Chicoy,
while not a believer in an orthodox sense, now he was fifty, would
nevertheless have been uneasy driving the bus without the Guadalupana to
watch over him. His religion was practical.

Below the Virgin was a kind of converted glove box, and in it were a
Smith & Wesson 45-caliber revolver, a roll of bandage, a bottle of
iodine, a vial of lavender smelling salts, and an unopened pint of
whisky. With this equipment Juan felt fairly confident that he could
meet most situations.

The front bumpers of the bus had once borne the inscription, still
barely readable, "_el Gran Poder de Jesus_," "the great power of Jesus."
But that had been painted on by a former owner. Now the simple word
"Sweetheart" was boldly lettered on front and rear bumpers. And the bus
was known as "Sweetheart" to all who knew her. Now she was immobilized,
her rear wheels off, her end sticking up in the air and resting on a
four-by-four set between two sawhorses.

Juan Chicoy had the new ring and pinion gears and he was rolling them
carefully together. "Hold the light close," he said to Pimples, and he
turned the pinion in the ring all the way around. "I remember once I put
a new ring on an old pinion and she went out right away."

"Busted tooth sure makes a noise," said Pimples. "It sounds like it's
coming through the floor at you. What do you suppose knocked that tooth
out?"

Juan held the ring gear up sideways and in front of the light turned the
pinion slowly, inspecting the fit of tooth against tooth as he went. "I
don't know," he said. "There's lots nobody knows about metal and about
engines too. Take Ford. He'll make a hundred cars and two or three of
them will be no damn good. It's not just one thing that's bad, the whole
car's bad. The springs and the motor and the water pump and the fan and
the carburetor. It just breaks down little by little and there don't
nobody know what makes them. And you'll take another car right off the
line, you'd say it was just exactly the same as the others, but it's
not. It's got something the others haven't got. It's got more power.
It's almost like a guy with a lot of guts. It won't bust down no matter
what you do."

"I had one of them," said Pimples. "Model A. I sold her. Bet she's still
running. Had her three years and never spent a dime on her."

Juan laid his ring gear and pinion on the step of the bus and picked up
the old ring from the ground. With his finger he traced the raw place
where the tooth had broken out. "Metal's funny stuff," he said.
"Sometimes it seems to get tired. You know, down in Mexico where I came
from they used to have two or three butcher knives. They'd use one and
stick the others in the ground. 'It rests the blade,' they said. I don't
know if it's true, but I know those knives would take a shaving edge. I
guess nobody knows about metal, even the people that make it. Let's get
this pinion on the shaft. Here, hold the light back here."

Juan put his little platform behind the bus and he lay on it on his back
and scooted himself under with his feet. "Hold the light a little more
to the left. No, higher. There. Now shove me my toolbox, will you?"

Juan's hands worked busily and a little oil dropped down on his cheek.
He rubbed it off with the back of his hand. "This is a mean job," he
said.

Pimples peered underneath the bus at him. "Maybe I could hook the light
over that nut," he said.

"Oh, you'd just have to move it in a minute," said Juan.

Pimples said, "I sure hope you get her going today. I'd like to sleep in
my own bed tonight. You don't get no rest in a chair."

Juan chuckled. "Did you ever see madder people in your life when we had
to come back after that tooth broke out? You'd think I did it on
purpose. They were so mad they gave Alice hell about the pie. I guess
they thought she made it. When people are traveling they don't like
anything to interrupt them."

"Well, they got our beds," Pimples observed. "I don't see what they got
to squawk about. You and me and Alice and Norma were the ones slept in
chairs. And them Pritchards was the worst. I don't mean Mildred, the
girl, but her old man and old lady. They figure they've been getting
gypped someway. He tells me a hundred times how he's a president or
something and he's going to make somebody suffer for this. Outrage, he
says it was. And him and his wife had your bed. Where'd Mildred sleep?"
Pimples' eyes glowed a little.

"On the davenport, I guess," said Juan. "Or maybe with her father and
mother. That fellow from the trick company got Norma's room."

"I kinda liked that guy," Pimples said. "He didn't say nothing much. He
said he'd just as soon set up. He didn't say what line he was in. But
them Pritchards made up for it, all except Mildred. You know where
they're going, Mr. Chicoy? They're going on a trip down to Mexico.
Mildred's been studying Spanish in college. She's going to interpret for
them."

Juan drove a key pin into the shaft and pounded it gently into place. He
pulled himself from under the bus. "Let's get that rear-end assembly
now."

Light was creeping up the sky and over the mountains. The colorless dawn
of grays and blacks moved in so that white and blue things were silver
and red and dark green things were black. The new leaves on the big oaks
were black and white, and the mountain rims were sharp. Lumpish, heavy
clouds that rolled in the sky like dumplings were beginning to take on a
faint rose-pink color on their eastern edges.

Suddenly the lights in the lunchroom sprang on and the geranium border
around the building leaped into being. Juan glanced toward the lights.
"Alice is up," he said. "Won't be long till the coffee's ready. Come on,
let's move the rear end in now."

The two men worked together well. Each understood what was to be done.
Each did his piece. Pimples lay on his back too, tightening the housing
nuts, and in the teamwork a good feeling came to him.

Juan strained a tight forearm against a nut and his wrench slipped and
he took skin and flesh off his knuckle. The blood ran thick and black
out of his greasy hand. He put the knuckle in his mouth and sucked it
and made a line of grease around his mouth.

"Hurt it bad?" Pimples asked.

"No, it's good luck, I guess. You can't finish a job without blood.
That's what my old man used to say." He sucked the blood again and
already the flow was lessening.

The warmth and pinkness of the dawn sneaked in about them so that the
electric light seemed to lose some of its brilliance.

"I wonder how many will come in on the Greyhound," Pimples asked idly.
And then a strong thought came to him out of the good feeling for Mr.
Chicoy. It was a thought so sharp that it almost hurt him. "Mr. Chicoy,"
he began uncertainly, and his tone was fawning, craven, begging.

Juan stopped turning the nut and waited for the request for a day off,
for a raise, for something. There was going to be a request. That was
inherent in the tone, and to Juan it was trouble. Trouble always started
this way.

Pimples was silent. He couldn't get the words.

"What do you want?" Juan asked guardedly.

"Mr. Chicoy, could we fix it--I mean--could you fix it so you don't call
me Pimples any more?"

Juan took his wrench from the nut and turned his head sideways. The two
were lying on their backs, their faces toward each other. Juan saw the
craters of old scars and the coming eruptions and one prime, tight,
yellow-headed pustule about to burst on the cheek. As he looked, Juan's
eyes softened. He knew. It came on him suddenly, and he wondered why he
had not known before.

"What's your name?" he asked roughly.

"Ed," said Pimples. "Ed Carson, distant relative of Kit Carson. Before I
got these in grammar school, why, they used to call me Kit." His voice
was studied and calm, but his chest rose and fell heavily and the air
whistled in his nostrils.

Juan looked away from him and back at the bulbous lump of the rear-end
housing. "O.K.," he said, "let's get the jacks underneath." He rolled
out from under the bus. "Get the oil in there now."

Pimples went quickly into the garage and brought out the pressure gun,
trailing the air hose behind him. He turned the pet cock and the
compressed air hissed into the gun behind the oil. The gun clicked as he
filled the housing with the oil until a little ran thickly out. He
screwed in the plug.

Juan said, "Kit, wipe your hands and see if Alice has got any coffee
ready, will you?"

Pimples went toward the lunchroom. Near the door where one of the great
oaks stood there was a patch of near darkness. He stood there for a
moment, holding his breath. He was shaking all over in a kind of a
chill.




CHAPTER 3


When the rim of the sun cleared the mountains to the east, Juan Chicoy
stood up from the ground and brushed the dirt from the legs and seat of
his overalls. The sun flashed on the windows of the lunchroom and lay
warm on the green grass that edged the garage. It blazed on the poppies
in the flat fields and on the great islands of blue lupines.

Juan Chicoy went to the entrance door of the bus. He reached in, turned
the ignition key, and pushed down the starter with the heel of his hand.
For a while the starter whined rustily, and then the engine caught and
roared for a moment until Juan throttled it down. He pushed down the
clutch with his hand, put the gear in compound-low, and let up the
clutch. The rear wheels turned slowly in the air and Juan went around to
the rear to listen to the action of the gears, to try to hear any uneven
matching of the assembly.

Pimples was washing his hands in a flat pan of gasoline in the garage.
The sun warmed a brown leaf left by the past year and blown into a
corner of the garage doorframe. After a while a little night-laden fly
crawled heavily out from under the leaf and stood in the clear sun. Its
wings were muddily iridescent and it was sluggish with night cold. The
fly rubbed its wings with its legs and then it rubbed its legs together
and then it rubbed its face with its forelegs while the sun, slanting
under the great puffed clouds, warmed its juices. Suddenly the fly took
off, circled twice, fluttered under the oaks and crashed against the
screen door of the lunch room, fell on its back and buzzed against the
ground, upside down for a second. Then it righted itself and flew up and
took its position on the frame beside the lunchroom door.

Alice Chicoy, haggard from the night of sitting up, came to the door and
looked out toward the bus. The screen door opened only a few inches, but
the fly flung himself through the opening. Alice saw him come through
and whacked at him with the dish towel she carried in her hand. The fly
buzzed crazily for a moment and then settled under the edge of the
counter. Alice watched the rear wheels of the bus idly turning in the
air and then she went in back of the counter and turned off the steam
valve of the coffee urn.

The brown fluid in the glass pipe on the side of the urn looked thin and
pale. She ran her towel over the counter and in doing so noticed that
the big white coconut cake in its transparent plastic cover was ragged
on one edge with a "V" cut out of it. She took a knife from the silver
tray, lifted the cover, trimmed the cake's edge, and put the crumbs in
her mouth. And just before the cover went back into place the fly lunged
under the edge and flung himself on the coconut filling. He clung under
a slight overhang so that he was not visible from above, and he dug and
struggled hungrily into the sweet filling. He had a high, huge mountain
of cake and he was very happy.

Pimples came in, smelling of gasoline and grease, and he took his place
on one of the round stools. "Well, we got that done," he said.

"You and who else?" Alice asked satirically.

"Well, of course, Mr. Chicoy done the expert work. I'd like to have a
cup of coffee and a piece of cake."

"You been in that cake already, before I got up." She brushed her hair
out of her eyes with one hand. "You can't cover up," she said.

"Well, charge it to me," said Pimples. "I'm paying for my feed, ain't
I?"

"What do you want to eat all that sweet stuff for?" Alice said. "You're
at the candy tray all day long. You don't get hardly any pay. All goes
for sweet stuff. I bet that's what makes all them pimples. Why don't you
lay off for a while?"

Pimples looked shyly down at his hands. The nails were rimmed with black
where the gasoline had not reached. "It's rich in food energy," he said.
"Fellow's going to work, he needs food energy. Take about three o'clock
in the afternoon when you get a let-down. Why, you need something rich
in food energy."

"It's rich in lead in the pants," Alice observed. "You need food energy
about as much as I need a--" and she left it in the air. Alice was a
very profane woman but she never said the words, she only led up to
them. She drew a cup of coffee from the spout--a thick, flat-bottom cup
with no saucer--spurted in some milk and slipped the cup across the
counter.

Pimples, looking hazily at the Coca-Cola girl who swung provocatively
over the juke box, put in four spoonfuls of sugar and stirred the coffee
around and around with the spoon straight up.

"I like to have a piece of cake," he repeated patiently.

"Well, it's your funeral. You're going to have a can on you like a
balloon."

Pimples looked at Alice's well-formed behind and then quickly away.
Alice took the knife from behind the counter and cut a wedge of coconut
cake. The cliff of cake toppled on the fly and pressed him down. Alice
shoveled the cake onto a saucer and slid it along the counter. Pimples
went at it with his coffee spoon.

"Those folks didn't get up yet?" he asked.

"No, but I heard them stirring around. One of them must have used up all
the hot water. I haven't got a bit in the lunchroom."

"That must be Mildred," said Pimples.

"Huh?"

"The girl. Maybe she took a bath."

Alice looked at him levelly. "You get to your food energy and keep your
mind where it belongs," she said sharply.

"I never said nothing. Hey, there's a fly in this cake!"

Alice stiffened. "You had a fly in your soup yesterday. I think you
carry flies in your pocket."

"No, look here. He's still kicking."

Alice came near. "Kill him," she cried. "Squash him! You want him to get
loose?" She picked up a fork from behind the counter and mashed the fly
and cake crumbs together and scraped the whole thing into the garbage
can.

"How about my cake?" Pimples asked.

"You'll get another piece of cake. I don't know why you always get
flies. Nobody else does."

"Just lucky, I guess," Pimples said softly.

"Huh?"

"I said I was--"

"I heard what you said." She was unrested and nervous. "You watch your
mouth or you'll go out of here so fast you'll think you're on fire. I
don't care if you are a mechanic. To me you're just a punk. A
pimple-faced punk." Pimples had withered. His chin had settled lower and
lower against his chest as her anger rose. And he didn't know that she
was making him the depositary of a number of things.

"I didn't say nothing," he said. "Can't a guy even make a joke?"

Alice had reached a point where she had either to go on into a crazy,
hysterical rage that tore the living daylights out of herself and
everyone else around her, or she had to begin to taper off quickly, for
she could feel the uncontrollable pressure rising in her chest and
throat. In a second she appraised the situation. Things were tight. The
bus had to get out. Juan had not rested either. The people who were
using the beds would hear her rage and come out and Juan might hit her.
He had once. Not hard, but accurately, and timed so perfectly that she
imagined he had nearly killed her. And then the black fear that was
always on the edge of her mind--Juan might leave her. He had left other
women. How many she didn't know because he'd never spoken of it, but a
man of his attractiveness must have left other women. All of this
happened in a split second. Alice decided on no rage. She forced the
pressure down in her chest. Woodenly she raised the plastic cake cover
and cut an oversized wedge and put it on a saucer and she carried this
down the counter and set it in front of Pimples.

"Everybody's nervous," she said.

Pimples looked up from his fingernails. He saw how the little lines of
age were sneaking down her neck, and he noticed the thickness of her
upper eyelids. He saw that her hands had lost the tightness of skin of
young girls. He was very sorry for her. Unblessed with beauty as he was,
he thought that youth was the only thing in the world worth having and
that one who had lost youth was already dead. He had won a great victory
this morning, and now when he saw the weakness and indecision in Alice
he pressed for a second victory.

"Mr. Chicoy says he ain't going to call me Pimples no more," he said.

"Why not?"

"Well, I asked him not. My name's Edward. They used to call me Kit in
school on account my last name's Carson."

"Is Juan calling you Kit?"

"Uh-huh."

Alice didn't really understand what it was about, and behind her in the
bedroom there was movement, footsteps between the rugs and a little low
talking. Now that she was aware of the strangers, Pimples became closer
to her because he was not quite a stranger. "I'll see how it goes," she
said.

The sun had been shining in through the front windows and the door,
making five bright splashes on the wall, illuminating the grapenuts
packages and the pyramids of oranges behind the counter. And now the
bright squares dimmed and went out. There was a roll of thunder, and
without warning the rain began. It whisked down on the roof.

Pimples went to the door and looked out. The rain sheeted down,
obscuring the country, splashing high on the cement road. There was a
steely look to the wet light. Pimples saw Juan Chicoy inside the bus for
shelter. The back wheels were still turning around slowly. As he
watched, Juan leaped to the ground and made a run for the lunchroom.
Pimples held the door open for him and he bolted through, but even in
the little run his overalls were dark with water and his shoes squidged
sloppily on the floor.

"God Almighty," he said, "that's a real cloudburst."

The gray wall of water obscured the hills and there was a dark, metallic
light with it. The heads of the lupines bent down, heavy with water. The
petals of the poppies were beaten off and lay on the ground like gold
coins. The already wet ground could absorb no more water, and little
rivulets started immediately for the low places. The cloudburst roared
on the roof of the lunchroom at Rebel Corners.

Juan Chicoy had taken one of the tables by the lunchroom window and he
drank well-creamed coffee and chewed a doughnut and looked out at the
downpour. Norma came in and began to wash the few dishes on the
stainless steel sink behind the counter.

"Bring me another cup of coffee, will you?" Juan asked.

She came listlessly around the end of the counter. The cup was too full.
A little stream of coffee dripped off the bottom of it. Juan pulled out
a paper napkin and folded it as a blotter for the wet cup.

"Didn't get much rest, did you?" he asked.

Norma was drawn, and her dress was wrinkled. You could see now that she
would be an old-looking woman long before she was old. Her skin was
muddy and her thin hands were splotched. Many, many things gave Norma
the hives.

"Didn't get any sleep at all," she said. "I tried the floor but I
couldn't sleep."

"Well, we'll see it doesn't happen again," said Juan. "I should have got
a car to take them into San Ysidro."

"Giving them our beds!" Alice said derisively. "Now, where did you get
that idea? Where else do you suppose they could have got the owners'
beds? They don't have to work today. They could just as well of sat up."

"Slipped up on me, I guess," said Juan.

"You don't care if your wife sleeps in a chair," Alice said. "You'd give
away her bed any time." Again Alice could feel rage rising in her and it
frightened her. She didn't want it to rise. She knew it would spoil
things, and she was afraid of it, but there it was, rising and boiling
in her.

A sheet of rain whisked over the roof like a heavy broom and left
silence as it moved on, and almost immediately another flat of rain took
its place. The drip and gurgle of water from the roof eaves and from the
drains was loud again. Juan had been looking reflectively at the floor,
a small smile tightening his mouth against the white band of the scar on
his lip. And this was another thing Alice was frightened of. He had set
her out to observe her. She knew that. All relations and all situations
to Alice were person-to-person things in which she and the other were
huge and all others were removed from the world. There was no shading.
When she talked to Juan, there were only the two of them. When she
picked at Norma, the whole world disappeared, leaving only Norma and her
in a gray universe of cloud.

But Juan, now, he could shut everything out and look at each thing in
relation to the other. Things of various sizes and importance. He could
see and judge and consider and enjoy. Juan could enjoy people. Alice
could only love, like, dislike, and hate. She saw and felt no shading
whatever.

Now she tucked her loosening hair back. Once a month she used a rinse on
her hair which was guaranteed to give it the mysterious and glamorous
glints that capture and keep men in slavery. Juan's eyes were distant
and amused. This was a matter of horror to Alice. She knew he was seeing
her, not as an angry woman who darkened the world, but as one of
thousands of angry women to be studied, inspected, and, yes, even
enjoyed. This was the cold, lonely horror to her. Juan blotted out the
universe to her and she sensed that she blotted out nothing to him. He
could see not only around her but through her to something else. The
remembered terror of the one time he had hit her lay not in the
blow--she had been hit before, and far from hating it had taken
excitement and exuberance from it--but Juan had hit her as he would a
bug. He hadn't cared about it much. He hadn't even been very angry, just
irritated. And he had hit a noisy thing to shut it up. Alice had only
been trying to attract his attention in one of the few ways she knew.
She was trying to do the same thing now, and she knew from the changed
focus in his eye that he had slipped away from her.

"I try to make a nice little home for us; nice, and with a carpet and a
velveteen suite, and you got to give it away to strangers." Her voice
was losing its certainty. "And you let your own wife sit up in a chair
all night."

Juan looked up slowly. "Norma," he said, "bring me another cup of
coffee, will you? Plenty of cream."

Alice braced herself for the rage she knew was coming, and then Juan
looked slowly toward her. His dark eyes were amused and warm, the focus
changed again, and he was looking at her and she knew that he saw her.

"It didn't hurt you any," he said. "Make you appreciate the bed
tonight."

Her breath caught. A hot wave flooded over her. Rage was transmuted to
hot desire. She smiled at him vacantly and licked her lips. "You
bastard," she said very softly. And she took a huge, shuddering sigh of
air. "Want some eggs?" she asked.

"Yeah. Two in the water, about four minutes."

"I know how you like them," she said. "Bacon on the side?"

"No. A piece of toast and a couple of doughnuts."

Alice went behind the counter. "I wish they'd come out of there," she
said. "I'd like to use my own bathroom."

"They're stirring around," said Juan. "They'll be out in a little."

And they were stirring. There were footsteps in the bedroom. A door
inside opened and a woman's voice said sharply, "Well, I think you could
knock!" And a man replied, "I'm sorry, ma'am. The only other way was to
go out the window."

Another man's voice with a brittle singsong of authority said, "Always a
good idea to knock, my friend. Hurt your foot?"

"Yes."

The door at the end of the counter opened and a small man came out into
the lunchroom. He was dressed in a double-breasted suit; his shirt was
of that light brown color worn by traveling men and known as a
thousand-miler because it does not show dirt. His suit was a neutral
pepper-and-salt for the same reason, and he wore a knitted dark green
tie. His face was sharp, like a puppy's face, and his eyes were bright
and questioning, like a puppy's eyes. A small, carefully trimmed
mustache rode his upper lip like a caterpillar, and when he talked it
seemed to hump its back. His teeth were white and even except for the
two front uppers, and these were glittering gold. He had a brushed look
about him, as though he had cleaned the lint from his suit with his
hairbrush; and his shirt had the strained appearance that comes from
washing the collar in the hand basin and patting it flat on the dresser
top to dry. There was a kind of shy confidence in his manner and a
wincing quality in his face, as though he protected himself from insult
with studied techniques.

"Morning, folks," he said. "I just wondered where you all slept. And
I'll bet you sat up all night."

"Well, we did," Alice said sourly.

"It's all right," said Juan. "We'll get to bed early tonight."

"Get the bus fixed? Think we'll make it in this rain?"

"Oh, sure," said Juan.

The man limped around the end of the counter and sat painfully down at
one of the little tables. Norma brought a glass of water and a handful
of silver wrapped in a paper napkin.

"Eggs?"

"Fried, with their eyes open, crisp bacon, and buttered toast.
Buttered--get it? Hardest thing in the world is to get buttered toast.
Now you butter that toast, plenty of butter, and let it melt in so
there's no yellow lumps showing and you'll get yourself a nice tip." He
lifted his foot shod in a perforated and decorated brown oxford and
looked at it and grunted with pain.

"Sprain your ankle?" Juan asked.

The door at the end of the counter opened and a medium-sized man came
out. He looked like Truman and like the vice-presidents of companies and
like certified public accountants. His glasses were squared off at the
corners. His suit was gray and correct, and there was a little gray in
his face too. He was a businessman, dressed like one, looked like one.
In his lapel buttonhole there was a lodge pin so tiny that from four
feet away you couldn't see what it was at all. His vest was unbuttoned
one notch at the bottom. Indeed, this bottom button was not intended to
be buttoned. A fine gold watch and key chain crossed this vest and
ducked in and out of a buttonhole on the way.

He said, "Mrs. Pritchard will have scrambled eggs, moist if they're
fresh, toast and marmalade. And Miss Pritchard only wants orange juice
and coffee. I'll have grapenuts and cream, eggs turned over and well
done--don't let the yolk be running--dry toast and Boston coffee--that's
half milk. You can bring it all in on a tray."

Alice looked up with fury. "You better come out here," she said. "We
haven't got tray service."

Mr. Pritchard looked at her coldly. "We got held up here," he said.
"I've already lost one day of my vacation. It isn't my fault that the
bus broke down. Now the least you can do is to bring that breakfast in.
My wife isn't feeling so good. I'm not used to sitting on a stool and
Mrs. Pritchard isn't either."

Alice lowered her head like an angry milk-cow. "Look, I want to go to
the toilet and wash my face and you're holding up my bathroom."

Mr. Pritchard touched his glasses nervously. "Oh, I see." He turned his
head toward Juan and the light reflected from his glasses so that there
were two mirrors with no eyes behind them. His hand whipped his watch
chain out of his vest pocket. He opened a little gold nail file and ran
the point quickly under each nail. He looked about and a little shudder
of uncertainty came over him. Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president
of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was
conducted by groups of men who worked alike, thought alike, and even
looked alike. His lunches were with men like himself who joined together
in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious
life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and
protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like
himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was
convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he
was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a
lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were
never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with
people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group.
The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which
deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and
foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He
did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to
the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to
leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and
sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and
drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him.

And now, at the end of Alice's ugly statement about a toilet, he looked
about the lunchroom and found that he was alone. There were no other Mr.
Pritchards here. For a moment his glance rested on the little man in the
business suit, but there was something queer about him. True, there was
some kind of a pin in his buttonhole, a little blue enamel bar with
white stars on it, but it was no club Mr. Pritchard recognized. He found
himself hating these people and hating even his vacation. He wanted to
go back to the bedroom and close the door, but here was this stout woman
who wanted to go to the toilet. Mr. Pritchard cleaned his nails very
rapidly with the gold nail file on his watch chain.

At bottom, and originally, Mr. Pritchard was not like this. He had once
voted for Eugene Debs, but that had been a long time ago. It was just
that the people in his group watched one another. Any variation from a
code of conduct was first noted, then discussed. A man who varied was
not a sound man, and if he persisted no one would do business with him.
Protective coloring was truly protective. But there was no double life
in Mr. Pritchard. He had given up his freedom and then had forgotten
what it was like. He thought of it now as youthful folly. He put his
vote for Eugene Debs alongside his visit to a parlor house when he was
twenty. Both were things to be expected of growing boys. He even
occasionally mentioned at a club luncheon his vote for Debs, to prove
that he had been a spirited young man and that such things were, like a
kid's acne, a part of the process of adolescence. But although he
excused and even enjoyed his prank in voting for Debs, he was definitely
worried about the activities of his daughter Mildred.

She was playing around with dangerous companions in her college,
professors and certain people considered Red. Before the war she had
picketed a scrap-iron ship bound for Japan, and she had gathered money
for medical supplies for what Mr. Pritchard called the Reds in the
Spanish war. He did not discuss these things with Mildred. She didn't
want to talk it out with him. And he had a strong feeling that if
everyone was quiet and controlled she would get over it. A husband and a
baby would resolve Mildred's political uneasiness. She would then, he
said, find her true values.

Mr. Pritchard's visit to the parlor house he did not remember very well.
He had been twenty and drunk, and afterward he had had a withering sense
of desecration and sorrow. He did remember the subsequent two weeks when
he had waited in terror for symptoms to develop. He had even planned to
kill himself if they did; to kill himself and make it look like an
accident.

Now he was nervous. He was on a vacation he didn't really want to take.
He was going to Mexico which, in spite of the posters, he considered a
country not only dirty but dangerously radical. They had expropriated
the oil; in other words, stolen private property. And how was that
different from Russia? Russia, to Mr. Pritchard, took the place of the
medieval devil as the source of all cunning and evil and terror. He was
nervous this morning because he hadn't slept either. He liked his own
bed. It took him a week to get used to a bed, and here he was in for
three weeks of a different bed practically every night, and God knew how
some of them would be populated. He was tired and his skin felt grainy.
The water was hard here so that when he shaved he knew he would have a
ring of ingrown hairs around his neck within three days.

He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, removed his glasses and
polished them. "I'll tell my wife and daughter," he said. "We didn't
know we were discommoding you so."

Norma liked that word and she said it over under her breath.
"Discommode--I wouldn't want to discommode you, Mr. Gable, but I think
you should know..."

Mr. Pritchard had gone back into the bedroom. His voice was audible,
explaining the situation, and women's voices were questioning.

The man with the mustache got up from his chair and limped painfully to
the counter, groaning under his breath. He brought the sugar bowl back
with him and sank, with grimaces, back into his chair.

"I would have got that for you," Norma said with concern.

He smiled at her. "I wouldn't want to trouble you," he explained
bravely.

"It wouldn't discommode me none," said Norma.

Juan put down his coffee cup.

Pimples said, "I'd like to have a piece of that coconut cake."

Alice absently cut him a piece and slid the saucer down the counter and
made a note on a pad.

"I guess there ain't never one on the house," said Pimples.

"I figure there's plenty on the house the house don't know about," Alice
replied.

"Looks like a bad sprain you've got there," Juan observed to the little
man.

"Crushed," he said, "toes crushed. Here, I'll show you."

Mr. Pritchard came out of the bedroom and took a seat at the remaining
table.

The little man unlaced his oxford and took it off. He slipped his sock
off and laid it carefully in the oxford. His foot was bandaged from the
instep to the ends of the toes, and the bandage was spotted and soaked
with bright red blood.

"You don't need to show us," Alice said quickly. Blood made her faint.

"I ought to change the bandage anyway," said the little man, and he
unwound the gauze and exposed the foot. The big toe and the two next to
it were horribly crushed, the nails blackened and the ends of the toes
tattered and bloody and raw.

Juan had arisen. Pimples came close. Even Norma could not stay away.

"My God, that's an awful smash," Juan said. "Let me get some water and
wash it. You ought to have some kind of salve. You'll get an infection.
You might lose that foot."

Pimples whistled shrilly between his teeth to indicate interest and a
kind of enthusiasm for the quality of the hurt. The little man was
looking into Juan's face, his eyes shining with pleasure and
anticipation.

"You think it's bad?" he demanded.

"You're damn right, it's bad," said Juan.

"You think I should get a doctor?"

"Well, I would if it was me."

The little man chuckled with delight. "That's all I wanted to hear," he
said. He ran his thumbnail down his instep, and the top of his foot
lifted off--the skin, the blood, the mashed toes--and underneath there
was his foot whole and unhurt and his toes untouched. He put back his
head and laughed with glee.

"Good, isn't it? Plastic. New product."

Mr. Pritchard had come close, a look of disgust on his face.

"It's the 'Little Wonder Artificial Sore Foot,'" the man said. He pulled
a flat box from his side pocket and handed it to Juan. "You've been so
nice to me, I want you to have one. Compliments of Ernest Horton
representing the Little Wonder Company." His voice raced with his
enthusiasm. "It comes in three sizes--one, two, or three crushed toes.
This one I'm giving you is the three-toe number, just like the one you
just saw. It's got bandage and a bottle of artificial blood to keep the
bandage looking terrible. Instructions inside. You've got to soften it
in warm water the first time you put it on. Then it fits like skin and
nobody can tell. You can have a barrel of fun with it."

Mr. Pritchard leaned forward. Way in the back of his mind he could see
himself taking off his sock at a board meeting. He could do it right
after he got back from Mexico, tell some story about bandits first.

"What do you get for them?" he asked.

"Dollar and a half, but I hardly ever sell for retail," Ernest Horton
said. "The trade snaps them up as fast as I can get them. I sold forty
gross to the trade in two weeks."

"No?" said Mr. Pritchard. His eyes were wide with appreciation.

"Show you my order book if you don't believe it. It's the fastest
selling novelty I've ever handled. Little Wonder is cleaning up with
it."

"What is the mark-up?" Mr. Pritchard demanded.

"Well, I wouldn't like to say unless you're in the trade. Business
ethics, you know."

Mr. Pritchard nodded. "Well, I'd like to try one at the retail price,"
he said.

"Get you one right after I eat. You got that buttered toast?" he asked
Norma.

"Coming up," said Norma, and she went guiltily behind the counter and
switched on the toaster.

"You see, it's the psychology that sells it," Ernest said exultantly.
"We've stocked artificial cut fingers for years and they moved slow, but
this--it's the psychology of taking off your shoe and sock. Nobody ever
thinks you'd go to the trouble of doing that. The fellow that figured
that out got himself a very nice fee."

"I guess you're making a little something out of it yourself," said Mr.
Pritchard with admiration. He was feeling much better now.

"I do all right," said Ernest. "I got one or two other little things
that might interest you in my sample case. Not for sale except to the
trade, but I'll demonstrate them. It might give you a laugh."

"I'd like to take half a dozen of the sore feet," said Mr. Pritchard.

"All the three toes?"

Mr. Pritchard considered. He wanted them for gifts, but he didn't want
competition. Charlie Johnson could sell the tricks better than Mr.
Pritchard could. Charlie was a natural comic.

"Suppose you let me have one three-toe and three two-toe and two
one-toe," he said. "That'd be about right for me, I guess."

The quality of the rain was changing. It came with great, gusty,
drenching downpours and with short, drippy intervals between. Juan sat
with his coffee by the window. Half a brown doughnut lay in the saucer.

"I think she's going to let up a little," said Juan. "I'd like to turn
over that rear end some more before we start."

"I'd like to have a piece of that coconut cake," said Pimples.

"No you don't," Alice said. "I've got to keep a little cake for
customers."

"Well, I'm a customer, ain't I?"

"I don't know if we'll get deliveries from San Ysidro today," said
Alice. "I got to keep a little cake on hand."

At the very end of the counter there was a candy tray arranged like
steps, with wrapped and packaged candy bars in it. Pimples got up from
his stool and stood in front of the display. He considered the bright
little packages a long time before he made his selections. Finally he
picked out three bars and put them in his pocket. "One Baby Ruth, one
Love Nest, and one Coconut Sweetheart," he said.

"Coconut Sweethearts are a dime. They got nuts," said Alice.

"I know," said Pimples.

Alice picked up her pad from behind the counter. "You're one jump ahead
of your pay now," she said.




CHAPTER 4


The moment the Pritchards came out of the bedroom Norma said quickly, "I
got to brush my hair and clean up a little bit." And she bolted for the
door. Alice was right behind her.

"After me in the bathroom," Alice said coldly. Norma went across the
bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Chicoy and into her own bedroom. She closed the
door behind her and, as there was no key, she snapped the little catch
beside the lock to secure her privacy. Her narrow iron Army cot was
unmade, and Ernest Horton's big sample case stood against the wall.

It was a very narrow room. A dresser with a bowl and pitcher stood
against one wall, a silken pillow top, fringed and shiny, was tacked up
over the dresser. It was pink and had a picture of crossed cannons in
front of a bunch of red roses. And printed on the pillow top was a poem
called "A Soldier's Prayer to His Mother."

    Midst shot and shell I think of you, Mother dear
    I hope your prayers will keep me clear
    And when the war is o'er and won,
    I will come back to you, my Number One.

Norma looked quickly at the window, murky with rainy light, and then she
reached inside the neck of her dress and turned back the material. On a
safety pin, fastened to the turned edge, was a small key. Norma unpinned
it. She pulled her suitcase from under the dresser, unlocked and opened
it. A shiny picture of Clark Gable in a silver frame lay on top, and it
was signed "With Best Regards--Clark Gable." She had bought the picture
and frame and signature in a gift shop in San Ysidro.

She ran her hand quickly to the bottom of the suitcase. Her fingers came
on a little square ring box. She pulled it out and jerked it open, saw
that the rings were there, and shoved the box back to the bottom of the
suitcase. She closed and locked the case, pushed it under the dresser,
and pinned the key back inside her dress. She opened the dresser drawer,
lifted out a brush and comb, and went to the window. On the wall beside
the red-and-green-flowered cretonne drapes there was a framed mirror.
Norma stood in front of it and looked at herself.

A lead-colored light came through the window and fell on her face. She
widened her eyes with intensity and then she smiled, showing all her
teeth, smiled vivaciously. She stood on her toes a little and waved to
an immense crowd and smiled again. She ran the comb through her thin
hair and tugged as the teeth caught in the marceled ends. She got a
pencil from the dresser and worked the dull point through her pale
eyebrows, accentuating the curve in the middle so that her face took on
a surprised look. Then she began to brush her hair, ten strokes on one
side and ten on the other. And while she brushed, she raised and flexed
the muscles of one leg and then the other to develop the calves. It was
a routine recommended by a picture star who had never willingly taken
any exercise of any kind but who had beautiful legs.

Norma glanced quickly at the window as the light grew still dimmer. She
would have hated to be observed in the grotesque dance. Norma was even
more submerged than an iceberg. Only the tiniest part of Norma showed
above the surface. For the greatest and best and most beautiful part of
Norma lay behind her eyes, sealed and protected.

The doorknob of her bedroom turned and then there was pressure against
the door. Norma stiffened and stood rigid. Only one hand moved, and it
frantically rubbed at her eyebrows and succeeded in making gray smudges
on her forehead. And now there came a knocking at the bedroom door. A
light, courteous knocking. She put her brush on the dresser, smoothed
down her dress, and went to the door. She pushed the catch and opened
the door a crack. The face of Ernest Horton was looking in at her. His
tight, hairy mustache arched over his mouth.

"I thought I'd take my sample case out of your way," he said.

Norma still held the door open only a crack.

"You folks have been so nice and all," he went on. "I don't want to be
any more nuisance than I have to."

Norma slowly relaxed, but she was still breathing a little hard. She
opened the door and stepped back. Ernest, with a smile of embarrassment,
came into the room. He went to the bed.

"I should have made this bed," he said, and he drew the sheet and
blanket up and began to pat the wrinkles out.

"No, I'll do that," said Norma.

"You didn't even wait for your tip I promised you," said Ernest. "But
I've got it for you." He made the bed neatly, as though he had done it
many times before.

"I could have done that just as well," said Norma.

"Well, it's done now," he said. He went to his big sample case. "Mind if
I open this? I want to get some stuff out."

"Go ahead," said Norma. Her eyes filled with interest.

He laid the big sample case on her bed and snapped the catch and threw
back the lid. There were wonderful things in the case. There were
cardboard tubes and handkerchiefs that changed color. There were
exploding cigars and stink-bombs. There were voice-throwers and horns
and paper hats for parties and pennants and funny buttons. There were
silken pillows like the one on the wall. Ernest was extracting six of
the artificial sore feet in their flat packages, and Norma had moved
close to look into the wonderful sample case. Her eyes had been caught
by a series of photographs of picture stars. They were not like any she
had ever seen. The pictures were pressed and molded into thick sheets of
sheer plastic at least a quarter of an inch through. And there was
another curious thing about them. The pictures did not look flat. By
some trick of bending, or possibly of refracted light, the faces were
rounded and had depth. They seemed to be three-dimensional, and the
frames were eight by ten inches in size.

On top was a lifelike, smiling picture of James Stewart, and projecting
from under that was a second picture of which she could only see the
hair and a part of the forehead, but she knew that hair and that
forehead. Her lips parted and a shine came into her eyes. Slowly her
hand moved into the case and lifted James Stewart aside. And there he
was, Clark Gable, looking round and full. It was a serious, intense
pose, the chin out, the eyes level and intent. It was such a picture as
she had never seen. She sighed deeply and tried to control her breath so
that it could not be heard. She lifted the picture out and stared into
the eyes, and her own were wide and hypnotized.

Ernest watched her and saw her interest. "Isn't that a knockout?" he
said. "It's a new idea. Notice how it looks round, almost like a
statue?"

Norma nodded, speechless.

"I make a prophecy," Ernest said. "I go down the line and lay my word on
it. That little number is going to wipe every other kind of pictures
right off the map. It's acid-proof, moisture-proof, lasts forever, won't
ever turn brown. It's molded and baked right inside the frame. It'll
last forever."

Norma's eyes never left the picture. Ernest reached for the picture and
her fingers tightened on it like claws.

"How much?" Her voice came out a throaty, rasping growl.

"It's just a sample," said Ernest. "It's something to show to the trade.
It's not for sale. You order them."

"How much?" Her fingers were white with pressure. Ernest looked at her
closely. He saw her face intent and set, jaw muscles rigid and nostrils
flaring a little with controlled breathing.

Ernest said, "They bring two bucks retail, but I said I was going to
give you a nice tip. Would you rather have that than a nice tip?"

Norma's voice was hoarse. "Yes."

"Well, then, you can have it."

The whiteness went slowly out of her fingers. There was a light of glory
in her eyes. She licked her lips. "Thanks," she said. "Oh, thanks,
mister!" She turned the face of the picture toward her and pressed it
against her. The plastic was not cold, like glass, but warm and
soft-feeling.

"I guess I can get along with only one sample," Ernest said. "See, I'm
swinging south. I won't go back to the head office for six weeks. I
figured to spend two weeks in L. A. That's a great place for novelties."

Norma carried the picture to her dresser and opened the drawer and
shoved the picture down under a pile of clothes and closed the drawer.
"I suppose you'll get to Hollywood," she said.

"Oh, sure. That's even better than L. A. for novelties. Then, it's kind
of like my vacation too. I've got a lot of friends there. I have my
vacation and get around and see things and I see the trade too. Kills
two birds. I don't lose any time. I got an Army friend works in a studio
there. I always run around some with him. Last time we had a party it
started out in the Melrose Grotto. That's over on Melrose, right next to
RKO. And that really was a party! I wouldn't really like to tell you
what we did do, but I never had so much fun in my life. And then my
friend, of course, had to go back to work at the studio."

Norma had become as intent as a setter pup watching a bug. "Your friend
works in a studio?" she asked casually. "Which one?"

"Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer," said Ernest. He was repacking his sample case and
not looking up at her. He did not hear the rasp of breath in her throat
or the unnatural tone that came into her voice.

"You go into the studio lots?"

"Yeah. Willie gets me a pass. I go and watch them shoot sometimes.
Willie's a carpenter. Worked there before the war and now he's back
there. I soldiered with him. Awful nice fellow. And what a guy at
parties! He knows more dames, he's got more phone numbers than you ever
saw. A big thick black book full of phone numbers. Even he can't
remember who half the dames are he's got the phone numbers of."

Ernest was warming to his subject. He sat down on the little straight
chair beside the wall. He chuckled. "Willie was stationed in Santa Ana
first of the war, before I even knew him. Well, the officers got to know
about his black book and they'd take Willie into Hollywood and he'd get
dames for them and then Willie got a pass when he wanted it. He was
making out good when they shipped his outfit out."

Norma's eyes took on a quick look of annoyance during this recital. Her
fingers picked at her apron. Her voice became high and then low. "I
wonder if it would discommode you to do a favor for me?"

"Sure," said Ernest. "What do you want?"

"Well, if I was to give you a letter and you was--er--were on the MGM
lot and you happened to see Mr. Gable, why I wonder if you'd give it to
him?"

"Who's Mr. Gable?"

"Mr. Clark Gable," said Norma sternly.

"Oh, him. You know him?"

"Yes," said Norma frostily, "I'm--I'm his cousin."

"Oh, I see. Well, sure I will. But maybe I don't go. Why don't you put
it in the mail?"

Norma's eyes narrowed. "He don't get his mail," she said mysteriously.
"There's a girl, a secretary like, that just takes it and burns it up."

"No!" said Ernest. "What for?"

Norma stopped to consider this. "They just don't want him to see it."

"Not even from his own relatives?"

"Not even from his cousin," said Norma.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Yes." Her eyes were wide and blank. "Yes. Course I'll go there pretty
soon," she said. "I've had offers and once I was just about to go and my
cousin--Mr. Gable, that is--he said, 'No, you've got to get experience,'
he said. 'You're young. You're not in any hurry.' So I'm getting
experience. You learn a lot about people in a lunchroom. I study them
all the time."

Ernest looked at her a little skeptically. He knew the fantastic stories
about waitresses who became dramatic stars overnight, but Norma didn't
have the bubs for it, he thought, nor the legs. Norma's legs were like
sticks. But, then, he knew about two or three picture stars who were so
plain without make-up that no one would recognize them off the screen.
He'd read about them. And Norma, even if she didn't look it--well, they
could pad her out, and if her cousin was Clark Gable, why, that was an
"in" you couldn't beat. That was the breaks.

"Well, I hadn't thought much about asking Willie to get me a pass this
time," he said. "I've been out there quite a few times but--well, if you
want me to I'll go right in, find him, and give him your letter. What do
you suppose they throw away his mail for?"

"They just want to work him to death and then throw him away like an old
shoe," said Norma passionately. Wave after wave of emotion swept over
her. She was in an ecstasy, and at the same time panic was crowding up
on her. Norma was not a liar. She had never done anything like this
before. She was going out on a long teetering plank and she knew it. One
question, one bit of knowledge on Ernest's part, would throw her off and
hurtle her into a chasm, and yet she couldn't stop.

"He's a great man," she said, "a great gentleman. He don't like the
parts they make him do because he isn't like that. Even Rhett Butler--he
didn't like to play that because he's not a rat and he don't like to
play rat parts."

Ernest had lowered his eyes and was studying Norma through his
eyelashes. And Ernest was beginning to understand. The key to it was
creeping into his brain. Norma was as pretty now as she was ever likely
to be. There was dignity in her face, courage, and a truly great flow of
love. There were only two things for Ernest to do--to laugh at her or
play along. If there'd been any other person in the room--another man,
for instance--he probably would have laughed to protect himself from the
other person's scorn, and he would have been ashamed and more boisterous
because he could see that it was a powerful, pure, and overwhelming
thing shining in this girl. This was the thing that kept the neophytes
lying through the nights on the stone floors in front of the altars.
This was an outpouring of an attar of love, of a naked intensity that
Ernest had never seen before in anyone.

"I'll take the letter," he said. "I'll tell him it's from his cousin."

A look of fright came on Norma's face. "No," she said, "I'd rather
surprise him. Just tell him it's from a friend. Don't tell him a single
other thing."

"When do you think you'll be going down there to take a job?" Ernest
asked.

"Well, Mr. Gable says I ought to wait another year. He says I'm young
and need experience studying people. I get pretty tired of it sometimes,
though. Sometimes I wish I was there in my own house with
them--those--big, thick curtains and a long couch, like, and I'd see all
my friends--Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman and Joan Fontaine, because I
don't mess around with that other kind that's always getting divorced
and things like that. We just sit around and talk about serious things,
and we study all the time because that's how you get ahead and be a
great actress. And there's lots that treat their fans mean; won't sign
autographs and things like that, but not us! Not our kind, I mean. We
even have girls right off the streets sometimes in for a cup of tea and
talk and just like they were us because we know we owe everything we got
to the loyalty of our fans." She was quaking inside with fear and she
couldn't stop. She was getting far out on the plank and she couldn't
stop and it was about to throw her.

Ernest said, "I didn't understand at first. You've already been in
pictures. Are you a star already?"

"Yes," said Norma. "But you wouldn't know me by the name I'm using here.
I have another name I use in Hollywood."

"What is it?"

"I couldn't tell," said Norma. "You're the only person anywhere around
here that knows anything about me. Now, you won't tell, will you?"

Ernest was shaken. "No," he said, "I won't tell if you don't want me
to."

"Keep my secret inviolate," said Norma.

"Sure," said Ernest. "Just give me the letter and I'll see he gets it."

"You'll see who gets what?" said Alice from the doorway. "What are you
two doing alone in a bedroom?" Her eyes roved suspiciously about for
evidence, skimmed over the sample case on the bed, stopped on the
pillow, inspected the spread, and then moved to Norma. Alice's eyes
traveled up her feet and legs, lingered a moment on her skirt, hesitated
on her waist, and then settled on her flaming face.

Norma was almost sick with embarrassment. Her cheeks were splotched with
blood. Alice put her hands on her hips.

Ernest said placatingly, "I was just getting my sample case out of the
way and she asked me to take a note to a cousin of hers in L. A."

"She's got no cousin in L. A."

"Yes, she has too," Ernest said angrily, "and I know her cousin."

And now the rage that had been trying to get out of Alice all morning
burst from her. "You listen to me," she shouted. "I won't have you
drummers diddling my hired girls."

"Nobody's touched her," Ernest said. "Nobody laid a hand on her."

"No? Well, then, what'cha doing in her bedroom? Take a look at her
face." The hysteria boiled over in Alice. A heavy, throaty, screaming
voice came from her throat. Her hair fell about her face and her eyes
rolled and watered and her lips became cruel and tight, as a fighter's
do when he is slugging a half-conscious opponent. "I won't have it. You
think I want her knocked up? You think I want bastards all over the
place? We give you our beds and our rooms!"

"I tell you nothing happened!" Ernest shouted at her. He was overwhelmed
with hopelessness in the face of this craziness. His denials sounded in
his ears almost like admissions. He didn't understand why she was doing
it, and the injustice made him sick to his stomach and rage was rising
in him too.

Norma's mouth was open and she was catching the microbe of hysteria.
Whinnying cries came from her with every panting breath. Her hands
fought in front of her as though they were trying to destroy each other.

Alice advanced on Norma and her right fist was doubled, not like a
woman's fist, but with the fingers folded tightly and the knuckles up
and outstuck, the thumb laid close against the first joints. Her words
were thick and moist. "Get out of here! Get out of the whole place! Get
out in the rain!" Alice descended on Norma and Norma backed away and a
terrified scream came from her mouth.

There were quick steps in the doorway and Juan said sharply, "Alice!"

She stopped. Her mouth sagged open and her eyes grew afraid. Juan came
slowly into the room. His thumbs were hooked in his overalls pockets. He
moved toward her as lightly as a creeping cat. The gold ring on his
amputated finger glimmered in the leaden light from the window. Alice's
rage poured over into terror. She cringed away from him, passed the end
of the bed and into the blind alley until she came up against the wall,
and there she was stopped.

"Don't hit me," she whispered. "Oh, please don't hit me."

Juan came close to her and his right hand moved slowly to her arm just
above the elbow. He was looking at her, not through her or around her.
He swung her gently about and led her across the room and through the
door and he closed the door on Norma and Ernest.

They stared at the closed door and hardly breathed. Juan led Alice to
the double bed and turned her gently and she sagged down like a cripple
and fell back, staring wildly up at him. He picked a pillow from the top
of the bed and put it under her head. His left hand, the one with the
stump finger and the wedding ring, stroked her cheek gently. "You'll be
all right now," he said.

She crossed her arms over her face and her sobs were strangled and harsh
and dry.




CHAPTER 5


Bernice Pritchard and her daughter Mildred and Mr. Pritchard sat at the
small table to the right of the entrance door of the lunchroom. The
little group had drawn closer together. The two older people because
they felt that in some way they were under attack, and Mildred in a kind
of protective sense toward them. She often wondered how her parents had
survived in a naughty and ferocious world. She considered them nave and
unprotected little children, and to a certain extent she was right about
her mother. But Mildred overlooked the indestructibility of the child
and the stability, its pure perseverance to get its own way. And there
was a kind of indestructibility about Bernice. She was rather pretty.
Her nose was straight and she had for so long worn pince-nez that the
surfaces between her eyes were shaped by the pressure. The high, gristly
part of her nose was not only very thin from the glasses, but two red
spots showed where the springs regularly pressed. Her eyes were violet
colored and myopic, which gave her a sweet, inward look.

She was feminine and dainty and she dressed always with a hint of a
passed period. She wore jabots occasionally and antique pins. Her
shirtwaists had always some lace and some handwork, and the collars and
cuffs were invariably immaculate. She used lavender toilet water so that
her skin and her clothing and her purse smelled always of lavender, and
of another, almost imperceptible, acid odor which was her own. She had
pretty ankles and feet, on which she wore very expensive shoes, usually
of kid and laced, with a little bow over the instep. Her mouth was
rather wilted and childlike, soft, and without a great deal of
character. She talked very little but had in her own group gained a
reputation for goodness and for sagacity; the first by saying only nice
things about people, even people she did not know, and the second by
never expressing a general idea of any kind beyond perfumes or food. She
met the ideas of other people with a quiet smile, almost as though she
forgave them for having ideas. The truth was that she didn't listen.

There had been times when Mildred wept with rage at her mother's
knowing, forgiving smile after one of Mildred's political or economic
deliveries. It took the daughter a long time to discover that her mother
never listened to any conversation that had not to do with people or
places or material things. On the other hand, Bernice never forgot a
detail about goods or colors or prices. She could remember exactly how
much she had paid for black suede gloves seven years ago. She was fond
of gloves and rings--any kind of rings. She had a rather large
collection, but she wore with anything else, always, her small diamond
engagement ring and her gold wedding band. These she removed only to
bathe. She left them on when she washed her combs and brushes in ammonia
water in the hand basin. The ammonia cleaned the rings and made the
little diamonds shine brightly.

Her married life was fairly pleasant and she was fond of her husband.
She thought she knew his weaknesses and his devices and his desires. She
herself was handicapped by what is known as a nun's hood, which
prevented her experiencing any sexual elation from her marriage; and she
suffered from an acid condition which kept her from conceiving children
without first artificially neutralizing her body acids. Both of these
conditions she considered normal, and any variation of them abnormal and
in bad taste. Women of lusty appetites she spoke of as "that kind of
woman," and she was a little sorry for them as she was for dope fiends
and alcoholics.

Her husband's beginning libido she had accepted and then gradually by
faint but constant reluctance had first molded and then controlled and
gradually strangled, so that his impulses for her became fewer and fewer
and until he himself believed that he was reaching an age when such
things did not matter.

In her way she was a very powerful woman. She ran an efficient, clean,
and comfortable house and served meals which were nourishing without
being tasty. She did not believe in the use of spices, for she had been
told long ago that they had an aphrodisiac effect on men. The three--Mr.
Pritchard, Mildred, and herself--did not take on any weight, probably
because of the dullness of the food. It did not stimulate any great
appetite.

Bernice's friends knew her as one of the sweetest, most unselfish people
you will ever meet, and they often referred to her as a saint. And she
herself said often that she felt humbly lucky, for she had the finest,
most loyal friends in the whole world. She loved flowers and planted and
pinched and fertilized and cut them. She kept great bowls of flowers in
her house always, so that her friends said it was like being in a
florist's shop, and she arranged them herself so beautifully.

She did not take medicines and often suffered in silence from
constipation until the accumulated pressure relieved her. She had never
really been ill nor badly hurt, and consequently she had no measuring
rod of pain. A stitch in her side, a backache, a gas pain under her
heart, convinced her secretly that she was about to die. She had been
sure she would die when she had borne Mildred, and she had arranged her
affairs so that everything would be easy for Mr. Pritchard. She had even
written a letter to be opened after her death, advising him to marry
again so that the child could have some kind of mother. She later
destroyed this letter.

Her body and her mind were sluggish and lazy, and deep down she fought a
tired envy of the people who, so she thought, experienced good things
while she went through life a gray cloud in a gray room. Having few
actual perceptions, she lived by rules. Education is good. Self-control
is necessary. Everything in its time and place. Travel is broadening.
And it was this last axiom which had forced her finally on the vacation
to Mexico.

How she reached her conclusions not even she knew. It was a long, slow
process built up of hints, suggestions, accidents, thousands of them,
until finally, in their numbers, they forced the issue. The truth was
that she didn't want to go to Mexico. She just wanted to come back to
her friends having been to Mexico. Her husband didn't want to go at all.
He was doing it for his family and because he hoped it would do him good
in a cultural way. And Mildred wanted to go, but not with her parents.
She wanted to meet new and strange people and through such contacts to
become new and strange herself. Mildred felt that she had great covered
wells of emotion in her, and she probably had. Nearly everyone has.

Bernice Pritchard, while denying superstition, was nevertheless
profoundly affected by signs. The bus breaking down so early in the trip
frightened her, for it seemed to portend a series of accidents which
would gradually ruin the trip. She was sensitive to Mr. Pritchard's
unrest. Last night, lying sleepless in the Chicoys' double bed,
listening to the sighing breaths of her husband, she had said, "This
will turn into an adventure when it's over. I can almost hear you
telling it. It will be funny."

"I suppose so," Mr. Pritchard answered.

There was a certain fondness between these two, almost a
brother-and-sister relationship. Mr. Pritchard considered his wife's
shortcomings as a woman the attributes of a lady. He never had to worry
about her faithfulness. Unconsciously he knew that she was without
reaction, and this was right in his mind. His nerves, his bad dreams,
and the acrid pain that sometimes got into his upper abdomen he put down
to too much coffee and not enough exercise.

He liked his wife's pretty hair, always waved and clean; he liked her
spotless clothes; and he loved the compliments she got for her good
housekeeping and her flowers. She was a wife to be proud of. She had
raised a fine daughter, a fine, healthy girl.

Mildred was a fine girl; a tall girl, two inches taller than her father
and five inches taller than her mother. Mildred had inherited her
mother's violet eyes and the weakness that went with them. She wore
glasses when she wanted to see anything clearly. She was well formed,
with sturdy legs and strong, slender ankles. Her thighs and buttocks
were hard and straight and smooth from much exercise. She played tennis
well and was center on her college basketball team. Her breasts were
large and firm and wide at the base. She had not inherited her mother's
physiological accident, and she had experienced two consummated love
affairs which gave her great satisfaction and a steady longing for a
relationship that would be constant.

Mildred's chin was set and firm like her father's, but her mouth was
full and soft and a little frightened. She wore heavy black-framed
glasses, and these did give her a student look. It was always a surprise
to new acquaintances to see Mildred at a dance without glasses. She
danced well, if a little precisely, but she was a practicing athlete and
perhaps she practiced dancing too carefully and without enough
relaxation. She did have a slight tendency to lead, but that could be
overcome by a partner with strong convictions.

Mildred's convictions were strong too, but they were variable. She had
undertaken causes and usually good ones. She did not understand her
father at all because he constantly confused her. Telling him something
reasonable, logical, intelligent, she often found in him a dumb
obtuseness, a complete lack of thinking ability that horrified her. And
then he would say or do something so intelligent that she would leap to
the other side. When she had him catalogued rather smugly as a
caricature of a businessman, grasping, slavish, and cruel, he ruined her
peace of conception by an act or a thought of kindliness and perception.

Of his emotional life she knew nothing whatever, just as he knew nothing
of hers. Indeed, she thought that a man in middle age had no emotional
life. Mildred, who was twenty-one, felt that the saps and juices were
all dried up at fifty, and rightfully so, since neither men nor women
were attractive at that age. A man or a woman in love at fifty would
have been an obscene spectacle to her.

But if there was a chasm between Mildred and her father, there was a
great gulf between Mildred and her mother. The woman who had no powerful
desires to be satisfied could not ever come close to the girl who had.
An early attempt on Mildred's part to share her strong ecstasies with
her mother and to receive confirmation had met with a blankness, a
failure to comprehend, which hurled Mildred back inside herself. For a
long time she didn't try to confide in anyone, feeling that she was
unique and that all other women were like her mother. At last, however,
a big and muscular young woman who taught ice hockey and softball and
archery at the university gained Mildred's confidence, her whole
confidence, and then tried to go to bed with her. This shock was washed
away only when a male engineering student with wiry hair and a soft
voice did go to bed with her.

Now Mildred kept her own counsel, thought her own thoughts, and waited
for the time when death, marriage, or accident would free her from her
parents. But she loved her parents, and she would have been frightened
at herself had it ever come to the surface of her mind that she wished
them dead.

There had never been any close association among these three although
they went through the forms. They were dear and darling and sweet, but
Juan and Alice Chicoy regularly established a relationship which Mr. or
Mrs. Pritchard could not have conceived. And Mildred's close and
satisfying friendships were with people of whose existence her parents
were completely ignorant. They had to be. It had to be. Her father
considered the young women who danced naked at stags depraved, but it
would never have occurred to him that he who watched and applauded and
paid the girls was in any way associated with depravity.

Once or twice, on his wife's insistence, he had tried to warn Mildred
against men just to teach her to protect herself. He hinted and believed
that he had considerable knowledge of the world, and his complete
knowledge, besides hearsay, was his one visit to the parlor house, the
stags, and the dry, unresponding acquiescence of his wife.

This morning Mildred wore a sweater and pleated skirt and low,
moccasin-like shoes. The three sat at the little table in the lunchroom.
Mrs. Pritchard's three-quarter-length black fox coat hung on a hook
beside Mr. Pritchard. It was his habit to shepherd this coat, to help
his wife on with it and to take it from her, and to see that it was
properly hung up and not just thrown down. He fluffed up the fur with
his hand when it showed evidence of being crushed. He loved this coat,
loved the fact that it was expensive, and he loved to see his wife in it
and to hear other women speculate upon it. Black fox was comparatively
rare, and it was also a valuable piece of property. Mr. Pritchard felt
that it should be properly treated. He was always the first to suggest
that it go into summer storage. He had suggested that it might be just
as well not to take it to Mexico at all, first, because that was a
tropical country, and second, because of bandits who might possibly
steal it. Mrs. Pritchard held that it should be taken along, because, in
the first place, they would be visiting Los Angeles and Hollywood where
everyone wore fur coats, and second, because it was quite cold in Mexico
City at night, so she had heard. Mr. Pritchard capitulated easily; to
him, as well as to his wife, the coat was the badge of their position.
It placed them as successful, conservative, and sound people. You get
better treatment everywhere you go if you have a fur coat and nice
luggage.

Now the coat hung beside Mr. Pritchard, and he ran his fingers deftly up
through the hairs to clear the long guard hairs from the undercoat.
Sitting at the table, they had heard through the bedroom door Alice's
hoarse, screaming attack on Norma, and the animal vulgarity of it had
shocked them deeply, had driven them as nearly close together as they
could be. Mildred had lighted a cigarette, avoiding her mother's eye.
She had done this only in the six months since she had turned
twenty-one. After the initial blow-up the subject had never verbally
come up again, but her mother disapproved with her face every time
Mildred smoked in front of her.

The rain had stopped and only the drips from the white oaks fell on the
roof. The land was soggy, water-beaten, sodden. The grain, fat and heavy
with the damp, rich springtime, had lain heavily down under the last
downpour, so that it stretched away in tired waves. The water trickled
and ran and gurgled and rushed to find low places in the fields. The
ditches beside the state highway were full, and in some places the water
even invaded the raised road. Everywhere there was a whisper of water
and a rush of water. The golden poppies were all stripped of their
petals now, and the lupines lay down like the grain, too fat, too heavy,
to hold up their heads.

The sky was beginning to clear. The clouds were tattering, and there
were splashes of lovely clear sky with silks of cloud skittering across
them. Up high a fierce wind blew, spreading and mixing and matting the
clouds, but on the ground the air was perfectly still, and there was a
smell of worms and wet grass and exposed roots.

From the area of the lunchroom and garage at Rebel Corners the water ran
in shallow ditches to the large ditch beside the highway. The bus stood
shining and clean in its aluminum paint, and the water still dripping
from its sides and its windshield flecked with droplets. Inside the
lunchroom it was a little overwarm.

Pimples was behind the counter, trying to help out, and this would never
have occurred to him before today. Always, in other jobs, he had hated
the work and automatically hated his employer. But the experience of the
morning was still strong in him. He could still hear Juan's voice saying
in his ears, "Kit, wipe your hands and see if Alice got the coffee ready
yet." It was the sweetest-sounding sentence he had ever heard. He wanted
to do something for Juan. He had squeezed orange juice for the
Pritchards and carried coffee to them, and now he was trying to watch
the toaster and scramble eggs at the same time.

Mr. Pritchard said, "Let's all have scrambled eggs. That'll make it
easier. You can leave mine in the pan and get them good and dry."

"O.K.," said Pimples. His pan was too hot and the eggs were ticking and
clicking and sending up an odor of wet chicken feathers that comes from
too fast frying.

Mildred had crossed her legs and her skirt was caught under her knee, so
that the side away from Pimples must be exposed. He wanted to get down
that way and look. His darting, narrow eyes took innumerable quick
glances at what he could see. He didn't want her to catch him looking at
her legs. He planned it in his mind. If she didn't move he would serve
the eggs and he would take a napkin over his arm. Then, after he set
down their plates, he would pass their table and go on about ten feet
and drop the napkin as though by accident. He would lean down and look
back under his arm, and then he would be able to see Mildred's leg.

He had the napkin ready and he was mixing the eggs to get them done
before she moved. He stirred the eggs. They were stuck by now so he
scooped shallowly to leave the burned crust in the pan. The odor of
burning eggs filled the lunch room. Mildred looked up and saw the flash
in Pimples' eye. She looked down, noticed how her skirt was caught, and
pulled it clear. Pimples saw her without looking directly at her. He
knew that he had been caught and his cheeks stung with blood.

A dark smoke rose from the egg pan and a blue smoke rose from the
toaster. Juan came in quietly from the bedroom and sniffed.

"God Almighty," he said, "what are you doing, Kit?"

"Trying to help out," said Pimples uneasily.

Juan smiled. "Well, thanks, but I guess you'd better not help out with
eggs." He came to the gas stove, took the hot pan of burned eggs, put
the whole thing into the sink, and turned the water on. It hissed and
bubbled for a moment and then subsided, complaining, in the water.

Juan said, "Kit, you go out and try to start the engine. Don't choke her
if she won't start. That'll only flood her. If she doesn't start right
away, take off the distributor head and dry the points. They may have
got wet. When you get her started, put her in low for a few minutes and
then shift her to high and let the wheels turn over. But be careful she
doesn't shake herself off those sawhorses. Just let her idle."

Pimples wiped his hands. "Should I open the grease cock first and see if
she's still full?"

"Yeah. You know your stuff. Yeah, take a look. That gudgeon grease was
pretty thick this morning."

"It might of shook down," said Pimples. He had forgotten the last look
at Mildred's leg. He glowed under Juan's praise.

"Kit, I don't figure anybody would steal her, but keep an eye on her."
Pimples laughed in sycophantic amusement at the boss's joke and went out
the door. Juan looked over the counter. "My wife's not feeling very
well," he said, "What can I get for you folks? More coffee?"

"Yes," said Mr. Pritchard. "The boy was trying to scramble some eggs and
he burned them up. My wife likes hers moist--"

"If they're fresh," Mrs. Pritchard interposed.

"If they're fresh," said Mr. Pritchard. "And I like mine dry."

"They're fresh, all right," said Juan. "Right fresh out of the ice."

"I don't think I could eat a cold-storage egg," said Mrs. Pritchard.

"Well, that's what they are, I wouldn't lie to you."

"I guess I'll just have a doughnut," said Mrs. Pritchard.

"Make mine the same," said Mr. Pritchard.

Juan looked frankly and with admiration at Mildred's legs. She looked up
at him. Slowly his eyes rose from her legs, and his dark eyes were
filled with so much pleasure, were so openly admiring, that Mildred
blushed a little. She warmed up in the pit of her stomach. She felt an
electric jar.

"Oh--!" She looked away from him. "More coffee, I guess. Well, maybe
I'll take a doughnut too."

"Only two doughnuts left," said Juan. "I'll bring two doughnuts and a
snail and you can fight over them."

The engine of the bus exploded into action outside and in a moment was
throttled down to a purr.

"She sounds good," said Juan.

Ernest Horton came quietly, almost secretly, out of the bedroom door and
closed it softly behind him. He walked over to Mr. Pritchard and laid
the six thin packages on the table. "There you are," he said, "six of
them."

Mr. Pritchard pulled out his billfold. "Got change for twenty?" he
asked.

"No, I haven't."

"You got change for twenty?" Mr. Pritchard asked Juan.

Juan pushed the "No Sale" button on the cash register and raised the
wheel weight on the bill compartment. "I can give you two tens."

"That will do," said Ernest Horton. "I've got a dollar bill or so. You
owe me nine dollars." He took one of the tens and gave Mr. Pritchard a
dollar.

"What are they?" Mrs. Pritchard asked. She picked one up but her husband
snatched it out of her hand. "No you don't," he said mysteriously.

"But what are they?"

"That's for me to know," said Mr. Pritchard playfully. "You'll find out
quick enough."

"Oh, a surprise?"

"That's right. Little girls better keep their noses out of what doesn't
concern them." Mr. Pritchard always called his wife "little girl" when
he was playful, and automatically she fell into his mood.

"When do iddle girls see pretty present?"

"You'll find out," he said, and he stuffed the flat packages in his side
pocket. He wanted to come in limping when he got the chance. He had a
variation on the trick. He would pretend that his foot was so sore that
he couldn't take off his shoe and sock himself. He would get his wife to
take off the sock for him. What a kick that would be to watch her face!
She'd nearly die when she saw that sore foot on him.

"What is it, Elliott?" she asked a little peevishly.

"You'll find out, just keep your pretty hair on, little girl."

"Say," he went on to Ernest, "I just thought up a new wrinkle. Tell you
about it later."

Ernest said, "Yup, that's what makes the world tick. You get a new
wrinkle and you're fixed. You don't want to go radical. Just a wrinkle,
like they call it in Hollywood, a switcheroo. That's with a story. You
take a picture that's made dough and you work a switcheroo--not too
much, just enough, and you've got something then."

"That makes sense," said Mr. Pritchard. "Yes, sir, that makes good
sense."

"It's funny about new wrinkles," said Ernest. He sat down on a stool and
crossed his legs. "Funny how you get a wrong idea. Now, I've got a kind
of an invention and I figured I could sit back and count my money, but I
was wrong. You see, there's lot of fellows like me traveling around
living out of a suitcase. Well, maybe there's a convention or you've got
a date that's pretty fancy. You'd like to have a tuxedo. Well, it takes
a lot of room to pack a tuxedo and maybe you only use it twice on a
whole trip. Well, that's when I got this idea. Suppose, I said, you've
got a nice dark business suit--dark blue or almost black or oxford--and
suppose you got little silk slipcovers like little lapels and silk
stripes that just snap on the pants. In the afternoon you've got a nice
dark suit and you slip on the silk covers to the lapels and snap on the
strips and you've got a tuxedo. I even figured out a little bag to carry
them in."

"Say!" cried Mr. Pritchard, "that's a wonderful idea! Say, why I've got
to take up room in my suitcase right now for a tuxedo. I'd like to get
in on a thing like that. If you get up a patent and put on a campaign, a
big national advertising campaign, why, you might maybe get a big movie
star to endorse it--"

Ernest held up his hand. "That's just the way I figured," he said. "And
I was wrong and you're wrong. I drew it all out on paper and just how it
would go on and how the trousers leg would have little tiny silk loops
for the hooks for the stripes to go on, and then I had a friend who
travels for a big clothes manufacturer"--Ernest chuckled--"he put me
right mighty quick. 'You'd get every tailor and every big manufacturer
right on your neck,' he said. 'They sell tuxedos anywhere from fifty to
a hundred and fifty bucks and you come along with ideas to take that
business away with a ten-dollar gadget. Why, they'd run you right out of
the country,' he said."

Mr. Pritchard nodded gravely. "Yes, I can see the point. They have to
protect themselves and their stockholders."

"He didn't make it sound too hopeful," said Ernest. "I figured I'd just
sit and count the profits. I figured that a fellow, say, traveling by
air--he's got the weight limitations. He's got the right to save room in
his suitcase. It'd be like two suits for the weight of one. And then I
figured maybe the jewelry companies might take it up. Set of studs and
cuff links and my lapels and stripes all in a nice package. I haven't
got around to that yet. Haven't asked anybody. Might still be something
in it."

"You and I ought to get together for a good talk," said Mr. Pritchard.
"Have you got it patented?"

"Well, no. I didn't want to go to the expense until I could see if
anybody was interested."

"Oh," said Mr. Pritchard. "I guess maybe you're right. Patent attorneys
and all, they cost quite a bit of money. Maybe you're right." Then he
changed the subject. "What time can we get started?" he asked Juan.

"Well, the Greyhound gets in around ten. They bring regular freight and
some passengers. We should get started at ten-thirty. That's the
schedule. Can I get you folks anything else? Some more coffee?"

"Some more coffee," said Mr. Pritchard.

Juan brought it to him and looked out the window at the bus with its
wheels turning over in the air. Mr. Pritchard looked at his watch.

"We've still got an hour," he said.

A tall, stooped old man came around the side of the building. The man
who had slept in Pimples' bed. He opened the door to the lunchroom, came
in, and sat down on a stool. He had his head bent permanently forward on
the arthritic stalk of his neck so that the tip of his nose pointed
straight at the ground. He was well over sixty, and his eyebrows
overhung his eyes like those of a Skye terrier. His long, deeply
channeled upper lip was raised over his teeth like the little trunk of a
tapir. The point over his middle teeth seemed to be almost prehensile.
His eyes were yellowish gold, so that he looked fierce.

"I don't like it," he said without preliminaries. "I didn't like it
yesterday when you broke down, and I like it even less today."

"I've got the rear end fixed," said Juan. "Turning over right now."

"I think I'll cancel and go on back to San Ysidro on the Greyhound,"
said the man.

"Well, you can do that."

"I've got a feeling," said the man. "I just don't like it. Something's
trying to give me a warning. I've had 'em before a couple of times. I
didn't pay any mind to them once and I got into trouble."

"The bus is all right," said Juan, his voice rising a little in
exasperation.

"I'm not talking about the bus," said the man. "I live in this county,
native of it. The ground's full of water. San Ysidro River will be up.
You know how the San Ysidro rises. Right under Pico Blanco it comes down
that Lone Pine Canyon and makes a big loop. Ground gets full of water
and every drop runs right off into the San Ysidro. She'll be raging
right now."

Mrs. Pritchard began to look alarmed. "Do you think there's danger?" she
asked.

"Now, dear," said Mr. Pritchard.

"I've got a feeling," said the man. "The old road used to go around that
loop of the river and never cross it. Come thirty years ago Mr. Trask
got himself made roadmaster of this county. The old road wasn't good
enough for him. He put in two bridges and saved what? Twelve miles,
that's what he saved. It cost the county twenty-seven thousand dollars.
Mr. Trask was a crook."

He turned his stiff neck and surveyed the Pritchards. "A crook. Just
about to indict him for another job when he died, three years ago. Died
a rich man. Got two boys in the University of California right now
living on the taxpayers' money." He stopped and his upper lip waggled
from side to side over his long yellow teeth. "If those bridges get any
real strain on them they'll go out. The concrete isn't stout enough.
I'll just cancel and go back to San Ysidro."

"The river was all right day before yesterday," said Juan. "Hardly any
water in it."

"You don't know the San Ysidro River. She can get up in a couple of
hours. I've seen her half a mile wide and covered with dead cows and
chickenhouses. No, once I get this kind of feeling I won't go. I'm not
superstitious, either."

"You think the bus might go through the bridge?"

"I don't say what I think. I know Trask was a crook. Left an estate of
thirty-six thousand five-hundred dollars. His boys are up at college
spending it right now."

Juan came out from behind the counter and went to the wall phone.
"Hello," he said. "Give me Breed's Service Station out on the San Juan
road. I don't know the number." He waited a while and then he said,
"Hello. Say, this is Chicoy down at the Corners. How's the river? Oh,
yeah? Well, is the bridge all right? Yeah. Well, O.K., I'll see you
pretty soon." Juan hung up. "The river is up pretty high," he explained.
"They say the bridge is all right."

"That river can rise a foot an hour when Pine Canyon dumps a cloudburst
into it. Time you get there the bridge might be gone."

Juan turned a little impatiently to him. "What do you want me to do? Not
go?"

"You do just as you like. I only want to cancel and get back to San
Ysidro. I'm not going to fool around with this kind of nonsense. Once I
had a feeling like this and I didn't pay attention and I broke both
legs. No, sir, I got that feeling when you broke down yesterday."

"Well, consider yourself canceled," said Juan.

"That's what I want, mister! You're not an old-timer here. You don't
know what I know about Trask. Salary of fifteen hundred a year and he
leaves thirty-six thousand five-hundred, and a clear title to a hundred
and sixty acres of land. Tell me!"

Juan said, "Well, I'll see you get on the Greyhound."

"Well, I'm not telling you anything about Trask, I'm just telling you
what happened. You figure it out for yourself. Thirty-six thousand
five-hundred dollars."

Ernest Horton asked, "Suppose the bridge is out?"

"Then we won't go across it," said Juan.

"Then what'll we do? Turn around and come back?"

"Sure," said Juan. "We'll either do that or jump it."

The stooped man smiled about the room in triumph. "You see?" he said.
"You'll come back here and there'll be no bus here for San Ysidro.
You'll sit around here for how long? Months? Wait for them to build a
new bridge? You know who the new roadmaster is? A college boy. Just out
of college. All books and no practice. Oh, he can draw a bridge, but can
he build one? We'll see."

Suddenly Juan laughed. "Fine," he said. "The old bridge isn't washed out
yet and already you're having trouble with the new one that isn't
built."

The man turned his aching neck sideways. "Are you getting lippy?" he
demanded.

For a moment a dark red light seemed to glow in Juan's black eyes.
"Yes," he said. "I'll get you on the Greyhound, don't you worry. I
wouldn't want you on this run."

"Well, you can't kick me off, you're a common carrier."

"O.K.," said Juan wearily. "Sometimes I wonder why I keep the bus. Maybe
I won't much longer. Just a headache. You've got a feeling! Nuts!"

Bernice had been following this conversation very closely. "I don't
believe in these things," she said, "but they say it's the dry season
down in Mexico. It's like autumn. Summer's when it rains."

"Mother," said Mildred, "Mr. Chicoy knows Mexico. He was born there."

"Oh, were you? Well, it's the dry season, isn't it?"

"Some places," said Juan. "I guess it is where you'll be going. Other
places there isn't any dry season."

Mr. Pritchard cleared his throat. "We're going to Mexico City and to
Puebla and then to Cuernavaca and Tasco, and we may take the trip to
Acapulco and we'll go to the volcano if it's all right."

"You'll be all right," said Juan.

"You know those places?" Mr. Pritchard demanded.

"Sure."

"How are the hotels?" Mr. Pritchard asked. "You know how the travel
agencies are--everything is wonderful. How are they really?"

"Wonderful," Juan said, smiling now. "They're great. Breakfast in bed
every morning."

"I didn't mean to cause trouble this morning," said Mr. Pritchard.

"Sure, it's all right." He leaned his arms on the counter and spoke
confidentially. "I get fed up a little sometimes. I drive that damn bus
back and forth and back and forth. Sometime I'd like to take and just
head for the hills. I read about a ferryboat captain in New York who
just headed out to sea one day and they never heard from him again.
Maybe he sunk and maybe he's tied up on an island some place. I
understand that man."

A great red truck with a trailer slowed down on the highway outside. The
driver looked in. Juan moved his hand rapidly from side to side. The
truck went into second gear, gathered speed, and went away.

"I thought he was coming in," said Mr. Pritchard.

"He likes raspberry pie," said Juan. "He always stops when we got some.
I just told him we haven't got any."

Mildred was looking at Juan, fascinated. There was something in this
dark man with his strange warm eyes that moved her. She felt drawn to
him. She wanted to attract his attention, his special attention, to
herself. She had thrown back her shoulders so that her breasts were
lifted.

"Why did you leave Mexico?" she asked, and she took off her glasses so
that when he answered he would see her without them. She leaned on the
table, and put her forefinger to the corner of her left eye, and pulled
the skin and eyelid backward. This changed the focus of her eye. She
could see his face more clearly that way. It also gave her eyes a long
and languorous shape, and her eyes were beautiful.

"I don't know why I left," Juan said to her. His warm eyes seemed to
surround her and to caress her. Mildred felt a little weak and sirupy in
the pit of her stomach. "I'll have to stop this," she thought. "This is
crazy." A quick and sexual picture had formed in her mind.

Juan said, "People down there, unless they're rich, have to work too
hard and for too little money. I guess that's the main reason I left."

"You speak very good English," Bernice Pritchard said as though it were
a compliment.

"Why not? My mother was Irish. I got both languages at once."

"Well, are you a Mexican citizen?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"I guess so," said Juan. "I never did anything about it."

"It's a good idea to take out your first papers," said Mr. Pritchard.

"What for?"

"It's a good idea."

"It doesn't make any difference to the government," said Juan. "They can
tax me and draft me."

"It's still a pretty good idea," said Mr. Pritchard.

Juan's eyes were playing with Mildred, touching her breasts and sliding
down over her hips. He saw her sigh and arch her back a little, and deep
in Juan an imp of hatred stirred. Not strongly because there wasn't much
of it in him, but the Indian blood was there, and in the dark past lay
the hatred for the _ojos claros_, the light eyes, the blonds. It was a
hatred and a fear of a complexion. The light-eyed people who had for
centuries taken the best land, the best horses, the best women. Juan
felt the stirring like a little heat lightning, and he felt a glow of
pleasure knowing that he could take this girl and twist her and outrage
her if he wanted to. He could disturb her and seduce her mentally, and
physically too, and then throw her away. The cruelty stirred and he let
it mount in him. His voice grew softer and more rich. He spoke directly
into Mildred's violet eyes.

"My country," he said, "even if I don't live there, it is in my heart."
He laughed inside at this, but Mildred did not laugh. She leaned forward
a little and pulled back the corners of both eyes so that she could see
his face more clearly.

"I remember things," said Juan. "In the square of my town there were
public letter-writers who did all the business for the people who
couldn't read or write. They were good men. They had to be. The country
people would know if they weren't. They know many things, those people
of the hills. And I remember one morning when I was a little boy I was
sitting on a bench. There was a fiesta in this town in honor of a saint.
The church was full of flowers and there were candy stands and a
ferris-wheel and a little merry-go-round. And all night the people shot
off skyrockets to the saint. In the park an Indian came to the
letter-writer and said, 'I want you to write a letter to my patron. I
will tell you what to say and you will put it in good and beautiful form
so he will not find me discourteous.' 'Is it a long letter?' the man
asked. 'I don't know,' said the Indian. 'That will be one peso,' said
the man. And the little Indian paid him, and he said, 'I want you to say
to my patron that I cannot go back to my town and my fields for I have
seen great beauty and I must stay behind. Tell him I am sorry and I do
not wish to give him pain, nor my friends, either, but I could not go
back. I am different and my friends would not know me. I would be
unhappy in the field and restless. And because I would be different my
friends would reject me and hate me. I have seen the stars. Tell him
that. And tell him to give my chair to my friend brother and my pig with
the two little ones to the old woman who sat with me in fever. My pots
to my brother-in-law, and tell the patron to go with God, with
loveliness. Tell him that.'"

Juan paused and saw that Mildred's lips were open a little, and he saw
that she was taking his story as an allegory for herself.

"What had happened to him?" she asked.

"Why, he had seen the merry-go-round," said Juan. "He couldn't leave it.
He slept beside it, and pretty soon his money was gone and he was
starving, and then the owner let him turn the crank that ran the
merry-go-round and fed him. He couldn't ever leave. He loved the
merry-go-round. Maybe he's still there." Juan had become foreign in the
telling. A trifle of accent had come into his speech.

Mildred sighed deeply. Mr. Pritchard said, "Let me get this straight. He
gave away his land and all his property and he never went home because
he saw a merry-go-round?"

"He didn't even own his land," said Juan. "Little Indians never own
their land. But he gave away everything else he had."

Mildred glared at her father. This was one of the times when she found
him stupid to the point of nausea. Why couldn't he see the beauty in
this story? Her eyes went back to Juan to tell him silently that she
understood, and she thought she saw something in his face that had not
been there before. She thought there was a cruel, leering triumph in his
face, but it was probably her eyes, she thought. Her damnable eyes that
couldn't see very well. But what she saw was a shock to her. She looked
quickly at her mother and then at her father to see whether they had
noticed anything, but they were regarding Juan vacantly.

Her father was saying in his slow and, to Mildred, maddening way, "I can
understand how he would think it was fine if he had never seen a
merry-go-round before, but you get used to anything. A man would get
used to a palace in a few days and then he'd want something else."

"It's just a story," Mildred said with so much fierceness that her
father turned surprised eyes on her.

Mildred could almost feel Juan's fingers on her thighs. Her body tingled
with desire, aroused and unsatisfied. She itched with a pure sexual
longing, and her anger arose against her father as though she had been
interrupted in the midst of connection. She put on her glasses, looked
quickly at Juan and then away, for his eyes were veiled although he
looked at all of them. He was enjoying a kind of triumph. He was
laughing at her and also at the thing her father and mother did not know
was happening. And suddenly her desire hardened into a knot in her
stomach and her stomach ached and she felt a revulsion. She thought she
would be sick.

Ernest Horton said, "I always intended to get down Mexico way. Thought I
might ask the head office about it some time. Might make some pretty
valuable contacts down there. Like these fiestas they have. They sell
novelties, don't they?"

"Sure," said Juan. "They sell little rosaries and holy pictures and
candles and things like that, candy and ice cream."

"Well, if a guy went down and got a line on that stuff, why, we could
probably turn it out a lot cheaper than they can. We could stamp out
those rosaries--well, nice ones--out of pot metal. And skyrockets. My
company supplies some of the biggest celebrations, all kinds of
fireworks. It's an idea. I think I'll write a letter."

Juan looked at the increasing pile of dirty dishes in the sink. He
stared over his shoulder at the door to the bedroom and then he opened
the door and looked in. The bed was empty. Alice had got up, but the
bathroom door was shut. Juan came back and began to scrub the dirty
dishes in the sink.

The sky was clearing fast now, and the clean yellow sun was shining on
the washed land. The young leaves of the oaks were almost yellow in the
new light. The green fields looked incredibly young.

Juan smiled shortly. He cut two slices of bread.

"I think I'll walk around a little bit," said Mr. Pritchard. "Want to
come, dear?" he asked his wife. She looked quickly at the bedroom door.

"Pretty soon," she said, and he understood her.

"Well, I'll just go outside," he said.




CHAPTER 6


After Juan left her Alice lay a long time on her back with her arms
crossed over her face. Her sobbing stopped gradually, like a child's.
She could hear the murmuring talk out in the lunchroom. The inside of
her arm was warm and wet over her eyes. She was flooded with a kind of
comfort, and the release from tension was as though a tight mesh had
been loosened from her body. As she lay in relaxed comfort, her mind
jumped back to what had happened. She didn't remember the woman who had
screamed at Norma. The morning was beginning to be hazy to her. She had
not yet found her own rationalization for her action. Now that she
thought of it, she knew she had not really suspected Norma of
misconduct, and if she had she really wouldn't have cared very much. She
did not love Norma. She didn't care a thing for Norma. Poor little
washed-out cat.

When Norma had come to work, Alice, of course, put her senses on the
girl and on Juan like a stethoscope, and when she had found no reaction
on Juan's part, no quickening, no little creeping and trailing with the
eye, Alice had lost interest in Norma except as an organism for carrying
coffee and washing dishes. Alice was not very aware of things or people
if they did not in some way either augment or take away from her
immediate life. And now, as she lay relaxed and warm and quiet, her mind
began to work and terror came with her thoughts.

She went back over the scene. Her terror grew out of Juan's gentleness.
He should have hit her. His failure to do so worried her. Maybe he
didn't care about her any more. Casual kindness in a man she had found
to be the preliminary to a brush-off. She tried to remember what the
Pritchard women looked like, and she tried to remember whether Juan had
looked with warmth on either of them. She knew Juan. His eyes heated up
like a stove when his interest was aroused. Then, with a little shock,
she remembered that he had given up their bed to the Pritchards. She
could smell the lavender on the bedclothes right now. A hatred and a
distaste for that odor came to her.

She listened to the murmur of voices through the door. Juan was feeding
them. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been interested. Juan would
say the hell with it and go on out to work on the bus. A restless fear
arose in Alice. She had mistreated Norma. That was easy. With Norma's
kind you showed weakness, and Norma would melt and run down over
herself. Take a girl like that, why, she had so little love that even a
stink of it on a wind would knock her ass over teacup. Alice was
contemptuous of this starvation for love. She could not tie her own up
with Norma's. Alice was big in herself and everyone else was very
little, everyone, that is, except Juan. But, then, he was an extension
of herself. She thought it might be just as well to put Norma on her
feet before anything else. She needed Norma to run the lunchroom,
because Alice intended to get drunk just as soon as Juan went away in
the bus. She would tell him when he came back that she had a toothache
that was killing her.

She didn't do it very often, but she looked forward to it now. And if
she was going to do it, she'd better begin covering her tracks. Juan
didn't like drunk women. She uncrossed her arms from over her face. Her
eyes were sunken from the pressure and it took a moment to get them to
track. She saw how the sun was flooding sweetly over the green plain
behind the bedroom, and how it flowed over the rising hills far to the
west. A sweet day.

She struggled her body upright and went to the bathroom. There she
dampened one end of a bath towel in cold water and patted it against her
face to take out the creases where her arms had pressed down against her
plump cheeks. She rubbed the end of the towel around her face and over
her nose and along the edge of her hairline. A brassire strap was
broken. She slipped open her dress and found that the little safety pin
that held it was still there, so she pinned the strap to the brassire
again. It was a little tight but she'd sew it after Juan had gone. She
wouldn't, of course. When enough of the strap was broken she'd buy a new
brassire.

Alice brushed her hair and put on lipstick. Her eyes were still red. She
put some eyedrops in the corners with a medicine dropper and rubbed the
lids against her eyeballs with her fingers. For a moment she inspected
herself in the medicine-chest mirror and then went out. She slipped off
her wrinkled dress and put on a clean print.

Quickly she crossed the bedroom to Norma's door and knocked softly.
There was no answer. She knocked again. From inside the room came a
rustling of paper. Norma came to the door and opened it. Her eyes were
glazed, and she seemed to have been just awakened. In her hand she held
the stub pencil she had used for the eyebrows earlier.

When she saw Alice a look of alarm came upon her face. "I didn't do
nothing wrong with that fellow," she said quickly.

Alice stepped into the room. She knew how to handle the Normas when she
had her wits. "I know you didn't, honey," Alice said. She cast down her
eyes as though she were ashamed. She knew how to handle girls.

"Well, you shouldn't of said it. Suppose somebody heard it and believed
it? I'm not that kind. I'm just trying to make my living and no
trouble." Her eyes suddenly swam in tears of self-pity.

Alice said, "I shouldn't of done it but I just felt so bad. It's my time
of the month. You know yourself how miserable you feel. Sometimes you go
kind of crazy."

Norma inspected her with interest. This was the first time she'd ever
found softness in Alice. This was the first time that Alice had ever
needed to enlist Norma. She didn't like women and girls. There was a
streak of cruelty in Alice toward other women, and when she saw Norma's
eyes brim with tears of sympathy she felt triumphant.

"You know how it is," Alice said. "You just get a little crazy."

"I know," said Norma. Soft tentacles of warmth stretched out from her.
She ached for love, for association, for some human being in the world
to be friendly with. "I know," she said again, and she felt older and
stronger than Alice and a little protective too, which was what Alice
wanted.

Alice had seen the pencil in her hand. "Maybe you had better come out
now and help. Mr. Chicoy's doing it all alone."

"I will in just a moment," said Norma.

Alice closed the door and listened. There was a pause, a slipping sound,
and then the sharp sound of the bureau drawer closing. Alice pushed back
her hair with her hand and walked softly toward the door into the
lunchroom. She felt fine. She had gathered a great deal of information
about Norma. She knew how Norma felt about things. She knew where Norma
had put the letter.

Alice had tried to get into Norma's suitcase before but it was always
locked, and while she could have taken it apart with her fingers--it was
only cardboard--the marks would have showed tampering. She would wait.
Sooner or later, if she was careful, Norma would neglect to lock her
suitcase. Alice was clever, but she didn't know that Norma was clever
too. Norma had worked for Alices before. When Alice went through Norma's
dresser drawers and looked at her things and read the letters from her
sister, she didn't notice the paper match carelessly lying on the
drawer's edge. Norma always put it there, and when it was displaced she
knew someone had been going through her things. She knew it couldn't be
Juan or Pimples, so it must be Alice.

Norma was not likely to leave her suitcase unlocked. For all her dreams
Norma was not stupid. In a toothpaste box in her locked suitcase there
was twenty-seven dollars. When she had fifty dollars Norma would go to
Hollywood and get a job in a restaurant and wait her chance. The fifty
dollars would rent her a room for two months. Food she would get where
she worked. Her high, long-legged dreams were one thing, but she could
take care of herself too. Norma was no fool. True, she didn't understand
Alice's hatred of all women. She didn't know that this apology was a
trick. But she would probably find it out in time to save herself. And
while Norma believed that only the best and most noble thoughts and
impulses resided in Clark Gable, she had a knowledge of and a lack of
respect for the impulses of the people she met and came in contact with
in everyday life.

When Pimples came scratching softly at her window at night she knew how
to take care of that. She locked her window. He wouldn't dare make too
much noise trying to get in for fear Juan in the next room would hear
him. Norma was nobody's fool.

Now Alice stood in front of the door between the bedroom and the
lunchroom. She ran her finger down either side of her nose and then she
opened the door and went behind the counter as though nothing at all had
happened.




CHAPTER 7


The big and beautiful Greyhound bus was pulled in under the loading shed
at San Ysidro. Helpers put gasoline into the tank and checked the oil
and the tires automatically. The whole system worked smoothly. A colored
man cleaned between the seats, brushing the cushions and picking up gum
wrappers and matches and cigarette butts from the floor. He ran his
fingers behind the last seat, which stretched across the rear. Sometimes
he found coins or pocketknives behind this seat. Loose money he kept,
but most other articles he turned in to the office. People made an awful
stink about things they left, but not about small change. Sometimes the
swamper managed as much as a couple of dollars behind that seat. Today
he had dug out two dimes, a fifty-cent piece, and a hip-pocket wallet
with a draft card, driver's license, and a Lions Club membership card.

He glanced inside the bill section. Two fifty-dollar bills and a
certified check for five-hundred dollars. He put the wallet in his shirt
pocket and brushed the seat with his whisk broom. He breathed a little
hard. The money was easy. He could take it out and leave the wallet
behind the seat for some other swamper to find down the line. The check
would be left too. There was too much danger in checks. But those two
sweet fifties--those sweet, sweet fifties! His throat was tight and
would be until he got those sweet fifties out and the wallet behind the
seat.

But he couldn't get to them because the punk kid was washing the outside
of the windows where they were splashed with dirty mist from the
highway. The swamper had to wait. If they caught him they'd put him
away.

There was a little rip in the cuff of his blue serge trousers. He
figured he would slip those two sweet fifties in there, inside the cuff,
before he got off the bus. Then he'd get sick before he went off the
job. He'd be sick, all right. Like enough he wouldn't be back for a
week. If he got sick on the job and still stayed out the day till
quitting time, they wouldn't figure anything if he didn't show up for a
few days and it would save his job. He heard a step on the bus and
stiffened a little. Louie, the driver, looked in.

"Hi, George," he said. "Say, did you find a wallet? Guy says he lost
it."

George mumbled.

"Well, I'll come back and look," said Louie.

George swung around, still on his knees. "I found it," he said. "I was
going to turn it in as soon as I finished."

"Yeah?" said Louie. He took the wallet from George's hand and opened it.
The punk kid looked in through the window. Louie smiled sorrowfully at
George and flicked his eyes toward the punk.

"Too bad, George," Louie said. "I guess they've got 'em stacked against
us. Two fifties the guy said and two fifties it is." He pulled out the
bills and the check so the punk looking through the window could see
them. "Better luck next time, George," Louie said.

"Suppose the guy pays a reward," said George.

"You'll get half," said Louie. "If it's under a buck, you'll get it
all."

Louie moved out of the bus and into the waiting room. He handed the
wallet in at the desk.

"George found it. He was just bringing it in," said Louie. "That's a
good nigger."

Louie knew the wallet's owner was right beside him so he said to the
cashier, "If it was me that lost this, I'd give George a nice little
present. Nothing don't turn a guy bad like no appreciation. I remember a
guy found a grand and he turned it in and he didn't even get a
thank-you. The next thing you know he robbed a bank and killed a coupla
guards." Louie lied easily and without strain.

"How many going south?" Louie asked.

"You're full up," said the clerk. "You got one for Rebel Corners, and
don't forget the pies like you did last week. I never had so much
trouble with fifty pies in my life. Here's your wallet, sir. Will you
inspect it to see if it's all right?"

The owner paid a five-dollar reward. Louie figured to give George a buck
sometime. He knew George wouldn't believe him, but what the hell. It was
a stinker's game and a muddy track. Everybody had to take his chance.
Louie was big, a little on the stout side, but a dresser. His party
friends called him "meat-face." He had a fast line and was smart and
liked to be known as a horse player. He called race horses dogs and
spoke of all situations as parlays. He would have liked to be Bob Hope
or, better, Bing Crosby.

Louie saw George looking in from the loading platform doors. An impulse
of generosity seized him. He walked over and gave George a dollar bill.
"Cheap son of a bitch!" he said. "Here, you take the buck. Over
five-hundred dollars he gets back and he puts out a buck!"

George looked into Louie's face, just one quick, brown flash of the
eyes. He knew it was a lie and he knew there wasn't anything he could do
about it. If Louie was mad at him he could make it tough. And George had
wanted that drunk. He had almost felt the liquor take hold of him. If
only that punk kid had kept his big nose out of it.

"Thanks," said George.

The kid went by with his bucket and sponge. George said, "You call those
windows clean?" And Louie made it up to George. He said to the kid, "You
want to get any place, you better get on the ball. Those windows stink.
Do them again."

"I ain't taking orders from you. I'll wait till I get some kind of
complaints from the super."

Louie and George exchanged glances. It was just a punk. In less than a
week he'd be out on his ass if Louie thought of it.

The big Greyhounds came in and out of the covered loading shed heavy and
high as houses. The drivers slipped them smoothly and beautifully into
place. The station smelled of oil and diesel exhaust fumes and candy
bars and a powerful floor cleaner that got in the nose.

Louie went back toward the front. His eyes had caught a girl coming in
from the street. She was carrying a suitcase. All in one flash Louie
caught her. A dish! A dish like that he wanted to ride in a seat just
behind his own raised driver's chair. He could watch her in the
rear-view mirror and find out about her. Maybe she lived somewhere on
his route. Louie had plenty of adventures that started like this.

The light from the street was behind the girl so he couldn't see her
face, but he knew she was a looker. And he didn't know how he knew it.
There might have been fifty girls come in with a light behind them. But
how did he know this one was a looker? He could see a nice figure and
pretty legs. But in some subtle way this girl smelled of sex.

He saw that she had carried her suitcase over to the ticket window so he
did not go directly toward her. He went into the washroom. And there he
stood at the wash basin and dipped his hands in water and ran them
through his hair. From his side pocket he took a little comb and combed
his hair back smoothly and patted it behind where the suggestion of a
duck tail stood out. And he combed his mustache, not that it needed
combing for it was very short. He settled his gray corduroy jacket,
tightened the belt, and pulled his stomach in a little bit.

He put the comb back in his pocket and inspected himself again in the
mirror. He ran his hand over the sides of his hair. He felt behind to
see that no strands were out and that the duck tail was lying down. He
straightened his regulation black ready-made bow tie and he took a few
grains of sen-sen out of his inner shirt pocket and threw them in his
mouth. And then he seemed to shake himself down in his coat.

Just as his right hand went to the brass knob of the washroom door,
Louie's left hand flipped fingers up and down his fly to be sure he was
buttoned up. He put on his face a little crooked smile, half worldliness
and half navet, an expression that had been successful with him. Louie
had read someplace that if you looked directly into a girl's eyes and
smiled it had an effect. You must look at her as though she were not
only the most beautiful thing in the world, but you must keep looking
into her eyes until she looked away. There was another trick too. If it
bothered you to look into people's eyes, you should look at a point on
the bridge of the nose right between the eyes. To the person looked at
it appeared that you were looking into the eyes, only you weren't. Louie
had found this a very successful approach.

Nearly all his waking hours Louie thought about girls. He liked to
outrage them. He liked to have them fall in love with him and then walk
away. He called them pigs. "I'll get a pig," he would say, "and you get
a pig, and we'll go out on the town."

He stepped through the door of the washroom with a kind of lordliness,
and then had to back up because two men came down between the benches
carrying a long crate with slats to let air in. The side of the crate
said in large white letters MOTHER MAHONEY'S HOME-BAKED PIES. The two
men went in front of Louie and through to the loading platform.

The girl was sitting on a bench now, her suitcase beside her on the
floor. As he moved across the room Louie took a quick look at her legs
and then caught her eyes and held them as he walked. He smiled his
crooked smile and moved toward her. She looked back at him, unsmiling,
and then moved her eyes away.

Louie was disappointed. She hadn't been embarrassed as she should have
been. She had simply lost interest in him. And she was a looker
too--fine well-filled legs with rounded thighs and no stomach whatever
and large breasts which she made the most of. She was a blonde and her
hair was coarse and a little broken at the ends from a too-hot iron, but
well-brushed hair that had good lights in it and a long, curling bob
that Louie liked. Her eyes were made up with blue eyeshadow and some
cold cream on the eyelids and plenty of mascara on the lashes. No rouge,
but a splash of lipstick that was put on to make her mouth look square,
like some of the picture stars. She wore a suit, a tight skirt and a
jacket with a round collar. Her shoes were tan saddle-leather with white
stitching. Not only a looker but a dresser. And the stuff looked good.

Louie studied her face as he walked. He had a feeling that he had seen
her someplace before. But then, she might look like someone he knew, or
he might have seen her in a movie. That had happened. Her eyes were wide
set, almost abnormally wide-set, and they were blue with little brown
specks in them and with strongly marked dark lines from the pupil to the
outer edge of the iris. Her eyebrows were plucked and penciled in a high
arch so that she looked a little surprised. Louie noticed that her
gloved hands were not restless. She was not impatient nor nervous, and
this bothered him. He was afraid of self-possession, and he did feel
that he had seen her somewhere. Her knees were well-covered with flesh,
not bony, and she kept her skirt down without pulling at it.

As he strolled by Louie punished her for looking away from his eyes by
staring at her legs. This usually had the effect of making a girl pull
down her skirt, even if it was not too high, but it hadn't any effect on
this girl. Her failure to react to his art made him uneasy. Probably a
hustler, he said to himself. Probably a two-dollar hustler. And then he
laughed at himself. Not two dollars with that stuff she's wearing.

Louie went on to the ticket window and smiled his sardonic smile at
Edgar, the ticket clerk. Edgar admired Louie. He wished he could be like
him.

"Where's the pig going?" Louie asked.

"Pig?"

"Yeah. The broad. The blonde."

"Oh, yes." Edgar exchanged a secret man-look with Louie. "South," he
said.

"In my wagon?"

"Yeah."

Louie tapped the counter with his fingers. He had let the little
fingernail on his left hand grow very long. It was curved, like half a
tube, and sanded to a shallow point. Louie didn't know why he did this,
but he was gratified to notice that some of the other bus drivers were
letting their little fingernails grow too. Louie was setting a style and
he felt good about it. There was that cab driver who had tied a
raccoon's tail on his radiator cap and right overnight everybody had to
have a piece of fur flapping in the breeze. Furriers made artificial fox
tails, and high-school kids wouldn't be seen in a car without a tail
whipping around. And that cab driver could sit back and have the
satisfaction of knowing he had started the whole thing. Louie had been
letting his little fingernail grow for five months and already he'd seen
five or six other people doing it. It might sweep the country, and Louie
would have started the whole thing.

He tapped the counter with the long, curved nail, but gently, because
when a nail gets that long it breaks easily. Edgar looked at the nail.
He kept his left hand below the counter. He was growing one too, but it
wasn't very long yet, and he didn't want Louie to see it until it was
much longer. Edgar's nails were brittle, and he had to put colorless
nail polish on his to keep it from breaking right off. Even in bed it
broke once. Edgar glanced toward the girl.

"Figure to make some time with the--pig?"

"No harm trying," said Louie. "Probably a hustler."

"Well, what's wrong with a good hustler?" Edgar's eyes flicked up. The
girl had recrossed her legs.

"Louie," he said apologetically, "before I forget, you'd better see to
the loading of that crate of pies yourself. We had a complaint last
week. Someplace along the line somebody dropped the crate and a
raspberry pie got all mixed up with a lemon pie and there was raisins
all over hell. We had to pay the claim."

"It never happened on my run," said Louie truculently. "It goes to San
Juan, don't it? That jerk line from Rebel Corners done it."

"Well, we paid the claim," said Edgar. "Just kind of check it, will
you?"

"There wasn't no pies dropped on my run," Louie said dangerously.

"I know. I know you didn't. But the front office told me to tell you to
check it."

"Why don't they come to me?" Louie demanded. "They got complaints, why
don't they call me up instead of sending messages?" He tended his anger
as he would a fire. But he was angry at the blonde. The god-damned
hustler. He looked up at the big clock on the wall. A hand two feet long
jerked seconds around the dial, and in the reflection of the glass Louie
could see the girl sitting with crossed legs. Although he couldn't be
sure because of the curve of the glass, he thought she was looking at
the back of his head. His anger melted away.

"I'll check the pies," he said. "Tell them there won't be any
raspberries in the lemon pie. I guess I'll make a little time with the
pig." He saw the admiration in Edgar's eyes as he turned slowly and
faced the waiting room.

He was right. She had been looking at the back of his head, and when he
was turned she was looking in his face. There was no interest, no
nothing, in her glance. But she had beautiful eyes, he thought.
God-damn, she was a looker! Louie had read in a magazine that wide-set
eyes meant sexiness, and there was no doubt that this girl put out a
strong, strong feeling of sex. She was the kind of girl everybody
watched walk by. Why, she walked in a place and everybody turned and
looked at her. You could see their heads turn, like watching a horse
race. It was something about her, and it wasn't make-up and it wasn't
the way she walked, although that was part of it too. Whatever it was,
it projected all around her. Louie had felt it when she came in from the
street and the light was behind her so he couldn't really see her then.
And now she was looking in Louie's face, not smiling, not putting out
anything, just looking, and he still felt it. A tightness came into his
throat and a little flush rose out of his collar. He knew that in a
moment his glance would slide away. Edgar was waiting, and Edgar had
faith in Louie.

There were a few lies in Louie's reputation but actually he did have a
way, he did make time with pigs. Only now he wasn't easy. This pig was
getting him down. He wanted to slap her face with his open hand. His
breath was rising painfully in his chest. The moment was going to be
over unless he did something. He could see the dark raylike lines in her
irises and the fullness of her jowls. He put on his embracing look. His
eyes widened a little and he smiled as though he had suddenly recognized
her. At the same time he moved toward her.

Carefully he made his smile a little respectful. Her eyes held onto his,
and a little of the coldness went out of them. He stepped near to her.
"Man says you're going south on my bus, ma'am," he said. He almost
laughed at that "ma'am," but it usually worked. It worked with this
girl. She smiled a little.

"I'll take care of your bag," Louie went on. "We leave in about three
minutes."

"Thanks," said the girl. Her voice was throaty and sexy, Louie thought.

"Let me take your suitcase. I'll put it on now and then you'll have a
seat."

"It's heavy," said the girl.

"I ain't exactly a midget," said Louie. He picked up her suitcase and
walked quickly out to the loading platform. He climbed into the bus and
put the suitcase down in front of the seat that was right behind his
seat. He could watch the girl in his mirror and he could talk to her
some when they got rolling. He came out of the bus and saw the punk and
another swamper putting the crate of pies on top of the bus.

"Careful of that stuff," Louie said loudly. "You bastards dropped one
last week and I got the beef."

"I never dropped nothing," said the punk.

"The hell you didn't," said Louie. "You watch your step." He went
through the swinging doors to the waiting room.

"What's eating him?" the other swamper asked.

"Oh, I sort of jammed him up," said the punk. "The nigger found a wallet
and I seen it, so they figured they got to turn it in. It was a big roll
of jack too. They're both sore at me 'cause I seen it. Louie and that
nigger was gonna split them up a coupla half centuries and I guess I
jammed it for 'em. Course they had to turn it in when they seen I saw
'em."

"I could use some of that," said the swamper.

"Who couldn't," said the punk.

"I can take me a century and I can go out and I can get very nice stuff
for that there." They went on for a time with ritual talk.

In the waiting room there was a little burst of activity. The crowd for
the southbound bus was beginning to collect. Edgar was busy behind his
counter, but not too busy to keep his eye on the girl. "A pig," he said
under his breath. It was a new word to him. From now on he would use it.
He glanced at the little fingernail on his left hand. It would be long
before he would have as good a one as Louie's. But why kid himself? He
couldn't make time like Louie anyway. He always ended up by going down
the line.

There was a last-minute flurry of customers at the candy counter, at the
peanut vending machines, at the gum dispensers. A Chinaman bought copies
of _Time_ and _Newsweek_ and rolled them carefully together and put them
in his black broadcloth overcoat pocket. An old lady restlessly turned
over magazines on the newsstand without any intention of buying one. Two
Hindus with gleaming white turbans and shining black curly beards stood
side by side at the ticket window. They glanced fiercely about as they
tried to make themselves understood.

Louie stood by the entrance to the loading platform and glanced
continually at the girl. He noticed that every man in the room was doing
the same thing. All of them were watching her secretly, and they didn't
want to get caught at it. He turned and looked through the swinging
glass doors and saw that the punk and the swamper had got the crate of
pies safely on top of the bus and the tarpaulin pulled down over it. The
light in the waiting room dimmed to dusk. A cloud must have covered the
sun. And then the light rose again as though controlled by a rheostat.
The big bell over the glass doors clamored. Louie looked at his watch
and went through the door to his big bus. And the passengers in the
waiting room got up and shuffled toward the door.

Edgar was still trying to make out where the Hindus wanted to go. "The
god-damned rag heads," he said to himself. "Why'nt they learn English
before they start running around?"

Louie climbed into the high seat enclosed by a stainless steel bar and
glanced at the tickets as the passengers got on. The Chinaman in the
dark coat went directly to the back seat, took off his coat, and laid
the _Time_ and _Newsweek_ in his lap. The old lady clambered
breathlessly up the step and sat down in the seat directly behind Louie.

He said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, that seat's taken."

"What do you mean, taken?" she said belligerently. "There aren't any
reserved seats."

"That seat's taken, ma'am," Louie repeated. "Don't you see the suitcase
beside it?" He hated old women. They frightened him. There was a smell
about them that gave him the willies. They were fierce and they had no
pride. They never gave a damn about making a scene. They got what they
wanted. Louie's grandmother had been a tyrant. She had got whatever she
wanted by being fierce. From the corners of his eyes he saw the girl on
the lower step of the bus, waiting behind the Hindus to get in. He was
pushed into a spot. Suddenly he was angry.

"Ma'am," he said, "I'm the boss on my bus. There's plenty of good seats.
Now will you move back?"

The old woman set her chin and scowled at him. She switched her behind a
little, settling into the seat. "You've got that girl in this seat,
that's what you've got," she said. "I've got a mind to report you to the
management."

Louie blew up. "All right, ma'am. You just get out and report me. The
company's got lots of passengers, but it hasn't got many good drivers."
He saw that the girl was listening, and he felt pretty good about it.

The old woman saw that he was angry. "I'm going to report you," she
said.

"Well, report me then. You can get off the bus," Louie said loudly, "but
you're not going to sit in that seat. The passenger in that seat got a
doctor's order."

It was an out, and the old woman took it. "Why didn't you say so?" she
said. "I'm not unreasonable. But I'm still going to report you for
discourtesy."

"All right, ma'am," Louie said wearily. "That I'm used to."

The old woman moved back one seat.

"Going to hang out her big ear and catch me off base," Louie thought.
"Well, let her. We got more passengers than drivers." The girl was
beside him now, holding out her ticket. Involuntarily Louie said, "You
only going as far as the Corners?"

"I know, I've got to change," said the girl. She smiled at his tone of
disappointment.

"That's your seat right there," he said. He watched the mirror while she
sat down and crossed her legs and pulled down her skirt and put her
purse beside her. She straightened her shoulders and fixed the collar of
her suit.

She knew Louie was watching every move. It had always been that way with
her. She knew she was different from other girls, but she didn't quite
know how. In some ways it was nice always to get the best seat, to have
your lunches bought for you, to have a hand on your arm crossing the
street. Men couldn't keep their hands off her. But there was always the
trouble. She had to argue or cajole or insult or fight her way out. All
men wanted the same thing from her, and that was just the way it was.
She took it for granted and it was true.

When she'd been young she'd suffered from it. There had been a sense of
guilt and of nastiness. But now she was older she just accepted it and
developed her techniques. Sometimes she gave in and sometimes she got
money or clothes. She knew most of the approaches. She could probably
have foretold everything Louie would do or say in the next half hour. By
anticipating, she could sometimes stave off unpleasantness. Older men
wanted to help her, put her in school or on the stage. Some young men
wanted to marry her or protect her. And a few, a very few, openly and
honestly simply wanted to go to bed with her and told her so.

These were the easiest because she could say yes or no and get it over
with. What she hated most about her gift, or her failing, was the
fighting that went on. Men fought each other viciously when she was
about. They fought like terriers, and she sometimes wished that women
could like her, but they didn't. And she was intelligent. She knew why,
but there wasn't anything she could do about it. What she really wanted
was a nice house in a nice town, two children, and a stairway to stand
on. She would be nicely dressed and people would be coming to dinner.
She'd have a husband, of course, but she couldn't see him in her picture
because the advertising in the women's magazines from which her dream
came never included a man. Just a lovely woman in nice clothes coming
down the stairs and guests in the dining room and candles and a dark
wood dining table and clean children to kiss good night. That's what she
really wanted. And she knew as well as anything that that was not what
she would ever get.

There was a great deal of sadness in her. She wondered about other
women. Were they different in bed than she was? She knew from watching
that men didn't react to most women the way they did to her. Her sexual
impulses were not terribly strong nor very constant, but she didn't know
about other women. They never discussed this kind of thing with her.
They didn't like her. Once the young doctor to whom she had gone to try
to have the pain of her periods relaxed had made a pass at her, and when
she had talked him out of that he had told her, "You just put it out in
the air. I don't know how, but you do it. Some women are like that," he
said. "Thank God there aren't many of them or a man would go nuts."

She tried wearing severe clothes, but that didn't help much. She
couldn't keep an ordinary job. She learned to type, but offices went to
pieces when she was hired. And now she had a racket. It paid well and it
didn't get her in much trouble. She took off her clothes at stags. A
regular agency handled her. She didn't understand stags or what
satisfaction the men got out of them, but there they were, and she made
fifty dollars for taking off her clothes and that was better than having
them torn off in an office. She'd even read up on nymphomania, enough,
anyway, to know that she didn't have it. She almost wished she had.
Sometimes she thought she'd just go into a house and make a pile of
dough and retire to the country--that, or marry an elderly man she could
control. It would be the easiest way. Young men who were attractive to
her had a way of turning nasty. They always suspected her of cheating
them. They either sulked or tried to beat her up or they got furious and
threw her out.

She'd tried being kept and that was the way it ended. But an old man
with some money--that might be the way. And she would be good to him.
She'd really make it worth his money and his time. She had only two girl
friends, and both of them were house girls. They seemed to be the only
kind who weren't jealous of her and who didn't resent her. But one was
out of the country now. She didn't know where. She followed troops
somewhere. And the other was living with an advertising man and didn't
want her around.

That was Loraine. They had had an apartment together. Loraine didn't
care much about men; still, she didn't go for women. But then Loraine
got caught short with this advertising man and asked her to move out.
Loraine explained everything when she told her not to come around.

Loraine was working in a house and this advertising man fell for her.
Well, Loraine had got gonorrhea, and before she even had a symptom she
gave it to this advertising man. He was a nervous type and he blew his
top and lost his job and came bellyaching to Loraine. She felt
responsible in a way so she took him in and fed him while they both got
cured. That was before the new treatment, and it had been pretty rough.

And then this advertising man went on a sleeping-pill pitch. She'd find
him passed out and he was pretty vague, and his temper was bad unless he
had his pills, and he took more and more of them. Twice Loraine had to
have him pumped out.

Loraine was a really good girl and things were hard because she couldn't
work in the house until she was cleared up. She didn't want to infect
anybody she knew, and still she had to have money for doctor's bills and
rent and food. She had to work the streets in Glendale to make it, and
she wasn't feeling good herself. And then, with everything else, the
advertising man turned jealous and didn't want her to work at all in
spite of the fact that he didn't have a job. It would be nice if the
whole thing had blown over by now and she and Loraine could have the
apartment together. They had been a good pair together. They had had
fun, good, quiet fun.

There had been a whole series of conventions in Chicago and she had
saved some money from the stags. She was taking busses back to Los
Angeles to save money. She wanted to live quietly a while. She hadn't
heard from Loraine for a long time. The last letter said this
advertising man was reading her mail so not to write.

The last passengers were coming through the doors and getting into the
bus.

Louie had his legs crossed. He was a little timid with this girl. "I see
you're going to L. A.," he said. "Do you live there?"

"Part of the time."

"I like to try and figure people out," he said. "A guy like me sees so
many people."

The motor of the bus breathed softly. The old woman was glaring at
Louie. He could see her in the mirror. She would probably write a letter
to the company.

"Well," Louie said to himself, "the hell with the company." He could
always get a job. The company didn't pay much attention to old ladies'
letters anyway. He glanced back down the bus. It looked like the two
Hindus were holding hands. The Chinaman had both _Time_ and _Newsweek_
open on his lap and he was comparing stories. His head swung from one
magazine to the other, and a puzzled wrinkle marked his nose between his
brows. The dispatcher waved at Louie.

Louie swung the lever that closed the door. He eased his gear into
compound-reverse and crept out of the concrete slip, then swung
delicately and wide so that his front fender cleared the north wall by a
part of an inch. He swung wide again in compound-low and cleared the
other side of the alley by a fraction of an inch. At the entrance to the
street from the alley he stopped and saw that the street was clear for
him. He turned the bus and it took him over to the other side of the
street. Louie was a good driver with a perfect record. The bus moved
down the main street of San Ysidro and came to the outskirts and to the
open highway.

The sky and the sun were washed and clean. The colors were sharp. The
ditches ran full of water; and in some places, where the ditches were
clogged, the water extended out onto the highway. The bus hit this water
with a great swish, and Louie could feel the tug at the wheel. The grass
was matted down from the force of the rain, but now the warmth of the
sun was putting strength into the rich grass and it was beginning to
rise up again on the high places.

Louie glanced in the rear-view mirror at the girl again. She was looking
at the back of his head. But something made her look up at the mirror
and right into Louie's eyes, and the eyes with their dark lines and the
straight, pretty nose and the mouth painted on square photographed
permanently in Louie's brain. When she looked into his eyes she smiled
as though she felt good.

Louie knew that his throat was closing, and a rising pressure was in his
chest. He thought he must be nuts. He knew he was shy, but mostly he
convinced himself that he was not, and he was going through all the
symptoms of a sixteen-year-old. His eyes flicked from road to mirror,
back and forth. He could see that his cheeks were red. "What the hell is
this?" he said to himself. "Am I going to go ga-ga over a chippie?" He
looked at her more closely to find some thought to save himself, and
then he saw deep forceps marks along her jaws. That made him feel more
comfortable. She wouldn't be so god-damned confident if she knew he saw
the forceps marks. Forty-two miles. The figures came into his head.
She'd get off in forty-two miles. Louie would have to make time. He
couldn't waste a minute if he wanted to throw a line over this little
hustler. And when he tried to speak his voice was hoarse.

She leaned close behind him. "I couldn't hear you," she said.

Louie coughed. "I said the country looks nice after the rain."

"Yes, it does."

He tried to get back to his usual opening. He noticed in the mirror that
she was still leaning forward to listen.

"Like I said," he began, "I try to figure people out. I'd say you was in
the movies or on the stage."

"No," said the girl. "You'd be wrong."

"Aren't you in show business?"

"No."

"Well, do you work?"

She laughed, and her face was very charming when she laughed. But Louie
noticed that one of her upper front teeth was crooked. It leaned over
and interfered with its neighbor. Her laughter stopped and her upper lip
covered the tooth. "Conscious of it," Louie thought.

She was ahead of him. She knew what he was going to say. It had happened
so many times before. He was going to try to find out where she lived.
He wanted her telephone number. It was simple. She didn't live anywhere.
She had a trunk stored with Loraine with some books in it--_Captain
Hornblower_, and a _Life of Beethoven_, and some paper books of the
short stories of Saroyan, and some old evening dresses to be made over.
She knew Louie was having trouble. She knew that blush that rose out of
a man's collar and the thickness of labored speech. She saw Louie glance
apprehensively in the mirror at the rear of the bus.

The Hindus were smiling a little at each other. The Chinaman was staring
up in the air, trying to work up in his mind some discrepancy in the
stories he had been reading. A Greek in the rear seat was cutting an
Italian cigar in two with a pocketknife. He put one piece in his mouth
and thoughtfully placed the other half in his breast pocket. The old
woman was working herself up into a rage at Louie. She directed an iron
look at the back of his head, and her chin quivered with fury and her
lips were white with the tension of their compression.

The girl leaned forward again. "I'll save you time," she said. "I'm a
dental nurse. You know, I do all those things in a dentist's office."
She often used this. She didn't know why. Perhaps because it stopped
speculation and there were never any more questions after she said it.
People didn't want to talk much about dentistry.

Louie digested this. The bus came to a railroad crossing. Automatically
Louie set his air brakes and stopped. The brakes hissed as he released
them and went through the gears to cruising speed again. He sensed that
things were closing in on him. The old bitch was going to start trouble
any minute now. He didn't have forty-two miles at all. Once the old
bitch put in her oar the thing would be over. He wanted to make time
while he could, but it was too soon according to Louie's methods. He
shouldn't make a play for a good half hour, but the old bitch was going
to force his hand.

"Sometimes I get into L. A.," he said. "Is there someplace I could call
you and maybe we could--have dinner and go to a show?"

She was friendly about it. There wasn't anything mean or bitchy about
her. She said, "I don't know. You see, I haven't any place to live now.
I've been away. I want to get an apartment as soon as I can."

"But you work someplace," said Louie. "Maybe I could call you there."

The old woman was squirming and twitching in her seat. She was mad
because Louie had kicked her out of the front seat.

"Well, no," said the girl. "You see, I haven't got a job. Of course,
I'll get one right away because you can always get a job in my
profession."

"This isn't a brush-off?" Louie asked.

"No."

"Well, maybe you could drop me a line when you get settled."

"Maybe."

"Because I'd like to know someone to take out in L. A."

And now here it came, the voice as shrill as a whetstone. "There's a
state law about talking to passengers. You watch the road." The old
woman addressed the whole bus. "This driver's putting our lives in
danger. I'm going to ask to get off if he can't keep his attention on
his driving."

Louie closed up. This was serious. She really could make trouble. He
looked in the mirror and found the girl's eyes. With his lips he said,
"The god-damned dried up old bitch!"

The girl smiled and put her fingers to her lips. In a way she was
relieved and in another she was sorry. She knew that sooner or later she
would have trouble with Louie. But she also knew that in many ways he
was a nice guy and one she could handle up to a certain point. She knew
from his blush that she could probably stop him by hurting his feelings.

But it was over and Louie knew it. The girl wasn't going to get herself
in a mess. He had to make time while the bus was rolling. He knew that.
Once you got to a station the passengers wanted out as quick as
possible. Now he'd lost out. At Rebel Corners he would stop only long
enough to let her off and unload that god-damned crate of pies. He
hunched over the wheel. The girl had folded her hands in her lap and her
eyes would not raise to meet his in the mirror. There were lots of girls
prettier than this one. Those forceps scars were damned ugly. They'd
give a guy the shivers. Of course, she wore her hair long and forward to
cover them. A girl like that couldn't wear her hair up. Louie liked hair
up and, Jesus! suppose you woke up in bed and saw those scars. There
were plenty of pigs in the world and Louie could get along. But in his
chest and his stomach there was a weight of sorrow. He fought at it and
picked at it but it wouldn't move. He wanted this girl more than he had
ever wanted anyone, and in a different way. He felt a dry and grainy
sense of loss. He didn't even know her name, and now he wouldn't get to
know her. He could see Edgar's eager eyes questioning him when he came
back to San Ysidro. Louie wondered if he would lie to Edgar.

The great tires sang on the road, a high, twanging song, and the motor
throbbed with a heavy beat. There were big, wet, floppy clouds in the
sky, dark as soot in the middle and white and shining on the edges. One
of them was creeping up on the sun now. Already, ahead on the highway,
Louie could see the shadow of it rushing toward the bus, and far ahead
on the highway he could see the towering green mound of the oaks that
grew about the lunchroom at Rebel Corners. He was filled with
disappointment.

Juan Chicoy came to the side of the bus as it pulled in.

"What you got for me?" he asked as the door opened.

"One passenger and a flock of pies," said Louie. He got up from his
seat, reached around, and lifted the girl's suitcase. He climbed down to
the ground and held up his hands, and the girl put her hands on his arms
and stepped down. They walked toward the lunchroom.

"Good-by," she said.

"Good-by," said Louie. He watched her go through the door, her little
behind bobbing up and down.

Juan and Pimples had the crate of pies off the top of the bus. Louie
climbed back into the bus.

"So long," said Juan.

The old woman had moved up into the front seat. Louie levered the door
shut. He went into gear and moved away. When he was in cruising speed
and the tires were ringing on the highway, he looked in the mirror. The
old woman wore a look of mean triumph.

"You killed it," Louie said to himself. "Oh, you murdered it."

The woman looked up and caught his eyes in the mirror. Deliberately
Louie made silent words with his lips. "You god-damned old bitch!" He
saw her lips grow tight and white. She knew what he meant.

The highway sang along ahead of the bus.




CHAPTER 8


Juan and Pimples carried the crate of Mother Mahoney's Home-Baked Pies
near to the door of the lunchroom and set it down on the ground. Both of
them watched the blonde go through the door. Pimples whistled a low
gurgling note. The palms of his hands turned suddenly sweaty. Juan's
eyes had lowered until only a little glint of light shone between his
lashes. He licked his lips quickly and nervously.

"I know what you mean," said Juan. "Want to take time out and go over
and lift your leg on a tree?"

"God Almighty," said Pimples. "Whew!"

"Yeah," said Juan. He bent over, turned the latch on the crate, and
raised the hinged side. "I'll take a small bet, Kit."

"What's that?" Pimples asked.

"I bet," said Juan, "I bet two to one you already got in your mind the
idea that you didn't have a day off for two weeks and you'd like to take
today and ride over to San Juan with me. Maybe it would even help if the
bus breaks down again."

Pimples started to blush around his eruptions. He raised his eyes
uneasily and looked at Juan, and there was so much humor without poison
in Juan's eyes that Pimples felt better. "God damn!" he thought, "there
is a man. Why'd I ever work for anybody else?"

"Well," Pimples said aloud, and he felt he was talking to a man. Juan
understood how a guy looked at things. When a cookie went by, Juan knew
how a guy felt. "Well," he said again.

"Well," Juan mimicked him, "and who's gonna take care of the gas pumps
and fix the flats?"

"Who done it before?" Pimples asked.

"Nobody," said Juan. "We used to just put a sign on the garage--Closed
For Repairs. Alice can pump gas." He slapped Pimples on the shoulder.

"What a guy," Pimples thought. "What a guy!"

The pies were held by little traylike slots which gripped the edges of
the pans and left each pie separate from all the others. There were four
stacks of twelve pies--forty-eight pies.

"Let's see," said Juan, "we get six raspberry, four lemon cream, four
raisin, and two caramel custard cream." He pulled out the pies as he
spoke and laid them on top of the crate. "Take them in, Pim--Kit, I
mean."

Pimples took a pie in each hand and went into the lunchroom. The blonde
was sitting on a stool drinking a cup of coffee. He couldn't see her
face but he felt the electricity or whatever it was she had. He put the
pies on the counter.

As he turned to go out again he felt the silence in the room.

Mr. Pritchard and the crabby old guy and the young fellow, Horton, were
entranced. Their eyes rose and washed the blonde and fell away. Miss
Pritchard and her mother looked pointedly at the piles of bran in back
of the counter. Alice was not there, but Norma was in front of the
blonde, wiping the counter with her rag.

"Like to have a snail?" Norma asked.

Pimples paused. He had to hear the tone of the blonde's voice.

"Yes, I guess so," she said. A quick spasm kinked Pimples' stomach at
the throaty tone. He hurried outside and gathered up more pies.

"Get moving," Juan said. "You can look at her all the way over to San
Juan, unless you'd rather drive."

Pimples rushed the pies in. Sixteen pies out. That left thirty-two. Juan
closed the side of the crate and turned the catch. When Pimples came out
the last time he helped Juan put the pie crate in the big black trunk of
"Sweetheart," the bus. She was ready now. Ready to go. Juan stood back
and looked at her. She was no Greyhound but she wasn't bad. Around the
windows a little rust showed through the aluminum paint. He would have
to touch that up. And the hub caps could take a new coat too.

"Let's get going," he said to Pimples. "Lock the garage doors. Right
between the benches under the radiator hose connections you'll find the
sign to put on the door. Jump now if you want to get your clothes
changed."

Pimples leaped for the garage door. Juan straightened up and stretched
his arms from his sides and moved toward the lunchroom.

Mr. Pritchard's right leg was crossed over his left and his suspended
toe made little convulsive jumps. He had glanced into the blonde's face
when she came in and now there was a pleasant excitement in him. But he
was puzzled. Somewhere, he thought, he had seen this girl. Maybe she'd
worked in one of his plants, maybe a secretary, maybe in some friend's
office. But he'd seen her. He felt sure he had. He truly believed that
he never forgot a face, when the truth was that he rarely remembered
one. He didn't look closely at any face unless he planned to do business
with its owner. He wondered about the sense of sin he got out of the
recognition. Where could he have seen this girl?

His wife was looking secretly at his swinging foot. Earnest Horton was
frankly gazing at the blonde's legs. Norma liked the girl. In one
respect Norma was like Loraine. She didn't love anyone--well, except
one--so she had nothing to be taken away, nothing to lose. And this girl
was nice. She was pleasant-spoken and polite. Actually the girl felt
good toward Norma too, sensing that this girl could like her.

Just before the Greyhound came in Alice had said to Norma, "Watch the
counter, will you? I'll be right back." And then the bus and the blonde
and getting the coffee had taken up Norma's thoughts. But now a certain
knowledge struck her, made her turn cold and nauseous inside. She knew
what was happening as though she could see it. She knew, and knowing,
many calculations came into her head around her sick anger. The little
roll of money in small bills. That could be used until she could get a
job. And why couldn't she go now? She was going to sometime. She opened
the cabinets beneath the shelves in back of the lunch counter and shoved
the pies in, all except one of each kind. One raspberry, one raisin, one
lemon cream, and one caramel custard cream she lined up on the counter,
and the smell of them made her sicker. She still didn't quite know what
to do.

Juan came through the front door and stood looking at the back of the
blonde's head.

Norma said, "Will you watch the counter a minute, Mr. Chicoy?"

"Where's Alice?" Juan asked.

"I don't know," said Norma. She could see Alice in her mind. Alice's
eyes weren't so good. She would take the letter to the window and hold
it up to the light. She wasn't really interested. It was a casual, vague
kind of curiosity. She would lean sideways to the light and her hair
would fall in her eyes so she would blow it, and her fingers would
scrabble through the pages. Norma shivered. She saw herself hurtling
into the room. She saw herself snatch the letter, and her fingers
flexed. She felt Alice's skin against her fingernails and her nails
striking and clawing for Alice's eyes, those horrible, wet, juicy eyes.
Alice would fall on her back and Norma would come down on that great,
soft stomach with her knees, and she'd scratch and tear at Alice's face
and the blood would run in the scratches.

Juan, looking at Norma, said, "What's the matter? Are you sick?"

"Yes," said Norma.

"Go ahead before you get sick here."

Norma edged down the counter and opened the bedroom door softly. The
door to her own room was open just a crack. She closed the door into the
lunchroom and moved silently toward her own door. She was cold now and
shivering. Cold as ice. Noiselessly she pushed her door open. And there
it was--Alice, by the window, holding the letter to Clark Gable up to
her eyes and blowing her hair sideways.

Alice blew her hair and looked up and saw Norma standing in the doorway.
Her mouth was open, her face avid. She couldn't change her expression.
Norma took a step into the room. Her chin was set so hard that the lines
receded from her mouth. Alice stupidly held the letter out to her. Norma
took it, folded it carefully, and tucked it in her bodice. And then
Norma went to her bureau. She drew her suitcase from underneath. She
unpinned the key from the inside of her dress and unlocked the suitcase.
Heavily she began to pack. She emptied the bureau drawers into the
suitcase and pressed the mound of clothes down with her fist. From the
closet she dragged out her three dresses and her coat with the rabbit
collar and she laid the coat on the bed and rolled the dresses up around
the hangers and poked them in the suitcase too.

Alice couldn't move. She watched Norma, her head swinging as the girl
passed back and forth. In Norma's brain there was a silent scream of
triumph. She was on top. After a life of being pushed around, she was on
top and she was silent. She felt good about that. Not one word did she
say and not one word would she say. She threw two pairs of shoes into
the suitcase and put the lid firmly down and locked it.

"You going right now?" Alice asked.

Norma didn't answer. She wouldn't break her triumph. Nothing could force
her.

"I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Alice said.

Norma didn't look up.

"You'd better not tell or I'll fix you," Alice suggested uneasily. Still
Norma did not speak. She went to the bed and got her black coat with the
rabbit collar. Then she picked up her suitcase and walked out of the
room. Her breath was whistling in her nose. She went in back of the
lunch counter and pushed the "No Sale" button on the cash register.
Norma took out ten dollars, a five and four ones and a half and two
quarters. She shoved the money in the side pocket of her black coat. Her
weak mouth was set in a hard line.

Juan said, "What's going on here?"

"I'm going to San Juan with you," said Norma.

"You've got to help Alice," said Juan. "She can't stay here alone."

"I've quit," said Norma. She saw that the blonde watched her as she came
around the edge of the counter. Norma went out the screen door. She
carried her suitcase to the bus and she climbed in and took a seat
toward the rear. She stood her suitcase up on its end beside her. She
sat very straight.

Juan watched her go out of the door. He shrugged his shoulders. "What do
you suppose that was?" he asked of no one in particular.

Ernest Horton was scowling. He hated Alice Chicoy. He said, "What time
you think we'll get started?"

"Ten-thirty," said Juan. "It's ten-ten now." He glanced at the
Pritchards. "Look, I've got to change my clothes. If you folks want
coffee or anything, just come back here and get it."

He went into the bedroom. He slipped the shoulder straps of his overalls
and let the pants fall down around his shoes. He had on shorts with
narrow blue stripes. He peeled his blue chambray shirt over his head and
kicked off his moccasins and stepped out of the overalls, leaving shoes
and socks and overalls in a pile on the floor. His body was hard and
brown, colored not by the sun but by brown ancestry. He moved over to
the bathroom and knocked on the door. Alice flushed the toilet and
opened the door. She had been washing her face again and a wet strand of
hair was plastered to her cheek. Her mouth was lax and her eyes were
swollen and red.

"What's going on?" Juan asked. "You're having one hell of a time for
yourself, aren't you?"

"I've got a toothache," Alice said. "I can't help it. I've got a jumping
pain right here."

"What's the matter with Norma?" Juan asked.

"Let her go," Alice said. "I knew I'd catch up with her sometimes."

"Well, what did she do?"

"She's just a little light-fingered," said Alice.

"What did she take?"

"Just thought I'd see. Remember that bottle of Bellodgia you gave me for
Christmas? Well, it was gone and I found it in her suitcase. She came in
when I found it and she got huffy and I told her she could go."

Juan's eyes veiled. He knew it was a lie, but he didn't much care what
the truth was. Women fights didn't interest him at all. He got in the
tub and pulled the shower curtain about him.

"You've been a mess all morning," he said. "What's the matter with you?"

"Well, it's my time," said Alice, "and then this toothache."

Juan knew the first was not true. But he only suspected the second could
be false. "Take yourself a slug of liquor when we go. That'll be good
for both ends," he said.

Alice was pleased. She wanted him to suggest it.

"You've got to take care of everything," Juan went on. "Pimples is going
along with me today."

Excitement surged in Alice. She would be alone, all by herself. But she
couldn't let Juan know that was what she wanted. "What's Pimples going
for?" she asked.

"He wants to get some things over in San Juan. Say, why don't we close
up the place? You can go to the dentist in San Juan."

"No," Alice said. "It's not a good idea. I'll go in to San Ysidro
tomorrow or the next day. It's not a good idea to close the lunchroom."

"O.K. It's your tooth," said Juan, and he turned on the water. He poked
his head out of the curtain. "Go on out there and take care of the
passengers."

Ernest Horton had moved in on the blonde when Alice came into the
lunchroom.

"Now, let's have a couple of cups of coffee," he said. And to the
blonde, "You rather have a coke?"

"No. Coffee. Cokes make me fat."

Ernest had been making time. He had asked her name and the blonde had
said it was Camille Oaks. It wasn't, of course. It was a quick grouping
of a Camel advertisement on the wall--another blonde on a poster with
balloon-like breasts--and a tree she could see through the window. But
Camille Oaks she was from now on, for this trip at least.

"I heard that name recently some place," Ernest said. He passed the
sugar dispenser politely to her.

Mr. Pritchard's foot was swinging in little jerks and Mrs. Pritchard was
watching. She knew Mr. Pritchard was getting irritable at something, but
she didn't know why. She had no experience with this kind of thing. Her
women friends were not of a kind to put Mr. Pritchard's foot swinging.
And she knew nothing about his life outside of her own social movements.

He uncrossed his legs, stood up, and went to the counter. "You're
thinking of the Oakes murder trial," he said to Ernest. "I'm sure this
young lady wasn't murdered or vice versa," he chuckled. "A little more
coffee," he said gallantly to Alice.

His daughter pulled her right eye sideways to look at him. There was a
quality in his voice she had never heard before. And there was a little
grandeur in his tone. He was broadening his "a" and putting an unnatural
formality into his speech. It shocked his daughter. She peered at the
girl and suddenly she knew what it was. Mr. Pritchard was reacting to
Camille Oaks. He was making a play--a kind of fatherly play. His
daughter didn't like it.

Mr. Pritchard said, "I have an impression I have met you. Could that
be?"

In her head Mildred paraphrased it, "Ain't I seen you somewheres?"

Camille looked at Mr. Pritchard's face and her eyes flicked to the club
button on his lapel. She knew where he had seen her. When she took off
her clothes and sat in the bowl of wine she very carefully didn't look
at the men's faces. There was something in their wet, bulging eyes and
limp, half-smiling mouths that frightened her. She had a feeling that if
she looked directly at one he might leap on her. To her, her audiences
were blobs of pink faces and hundreds of white collars and neat
four-in-hand ties. The Two Fifty--Three Thousand Clubs usually wore
tuxedos.

She said, "I don't remember."

"Ever been in the Middle West?" Mr. Pritchard insisted.

"I've been working in Chicago," said Camille.

"Where?" Mr. Pritchard asked. "The impression is very strong."

"I'm a dental nurse," said Camille.

Mr. Pritchard's eyes brightened behind his glasses. "Say, I'll bet
that's it. Dr. Horace Liebholtz, he's my dentist in Chicago."

"No," said Camille, "no, I never worked for him. Dr. T. S. Chesterfield,
that was my last job." She got that from a poster too and it wasn't
clever. She hoped he wouldn't notice right over his shoulder the sign,
"Chesterfields--They Satisfy."

Mr. Pritchard said gaily, to his daughter's disgust, "Well, I'll
remember sooner or later. I never forget a face."

Mrs. Pritchard had caught her daughter's eyes and she saw the distaste
in Mildred's expression. She glanced at her husband again. He was acting
queerly. "Elliott," she said, "will you bring me a little coffee?"

Mr. Pritchard seemed to shake himself into reality. "Oh, yes--sure," he
said, and his voice returned to normal. But he was irritated again.

The screen door opened and banged shut. Pimples Carson entered, but a
Pimples transformed. His face was heavily powdered in an attempt to
cover up the eruptions, and this succeeded in turning their redness to a
rich purple. His hair was slicked back and stuck with pomade. He wore a
shirt with a very tight collar, a green tie with a small knot, and the
shirt collar was pinned under the knot with a gold collar pin. Pimples
seemed to be strangling a little, so tight was his collar. Shirt and tie
rose and fell slightly when he swallowed. His suit was a chocolate
brown, a hairy material, and on the sides of the trousers were the
almost indistinguishable prints of bedsprings. He wore white shoes with
brown saddles and woolen socks of red and green plaid.

Alice looked up at him in astonishment. "Well, will you look what just
come in!" she said.

Pimples hated her. He sat on a stool in the place Mr. Pritchard had only
just vacated to take coffee to his wife. "I'd like to have a piece of
that new raspberry pie," he said. He glanced nervously at Camille and
his voice strangled a little. "Miss, you ought to have a piece of that
pie."

Camille looked at him and her eyes grew warm. She knew when a man was
having trouble. "No thanks," she said kindly. "I had breakfast in San
Ysidro."

"It's on me," said Pimples frantically.

"No, really, thanks. I couldn't."

"Well, he could," said Alice. "He could eat pies standing on his head in
a washtub of flat beer on Palm Sunday." She whirled a pie and got out a
knife.

"Double, please," said Pimples.

"I don't think you got any pay coming," said Alice cruelly. "You've
eaten yourself right through your salary this week."

Pimples winced. God, how he hated Alice! Alice was watching the blonde.
She'd caught it. Every man in the room was alert, his senses feeling
toward this girl. Alice was nervous about it. She would know when Juan
came in. A moment ago she had wanted the bus to be on its way so she
could have a good big drunk. But now, now she was getting nervous.

Ernest Horton said, "If I can get to my sample case I'll show you some
cute gadgets I'm selling. New stuff. Very cute."

Camille said, "How long you been out of the Army?"

"Five months," said Ernest.

She dropped her eyes to his lapel with the blue bar and white stars.
"That's a nice one," she said. "That's the real big one, isn't it?"

"That's what they tell me," said Ernest. "It don't buy any groceries,
though." They laughed together.

"Did the big boss pin it on you?"

"Yeah," said Ernest.

Mr. Pritchard leaned forward. It bothered him that he didn't know what
was happening.

Pimples said, "You ought to try some of this raspberry pie."

"I couldn't," said Camille.

Alice said, "You find a fly in that and I'll let you have the rest of
the pie right in the kisser."

Camille knew the symptoms. This woman was getting ready to hate her. She
glanced uneasily at the other two women in the room. Mrs. Pritchard
wouldn't bother her. But the girl, there, who was trying to go without
her glasses. Camille just hoped she didn't cross with her. That could be
a tough babe. She cried in her mind, "Oh, Jesus, Loraine, get rid of
that jerk and let's live in the apartment again." She had a dreadful
sense of loneliness and weariness. She wondered how it would be to be
married to Mr. Pritchard. He was something like the man she had in mind.
It was probably not very hard being married to him. His wife didn't look
as though he gave her much trouble.

Bernice Pritchard was in the dark. She didn't hate Camille. Vaguely she
knew that some change had come over the room, but she didn't know what
it was. "I guess we'd better get our things together," she said brightly
to Mildred. And this in spite of the fact that their things were
together.

Now Juan came out of the bedroom. He was dressed in clean corduroy
trousers, a clean blue shirt, and a leather windbreaker. His thick hair
was combed straight back and his face was shiny from shaving.

"All ready, folks?" he said.

Alice watched him as he walked around the end of the lunch counter. He
didn't look at Camille at all. Alice felt a stir of alarm. Juan looked
at all girls. If he didn't there was something wrong. Alice didn't like
it.

Mr. Van Brunt, the old gentleman with the stiff neck, came in from
outside and held the screen door open a little. "Looks like more rain,"
he said.

Juan addressed him shortly. "You'll get on the next Greyhound north," he
said.

"I changed my mind," said Van Brunt. "I'm going along with you. I want
to see that bridge. But it's going to rain more, I tell you that."

"I thought you didn't want to go."

"I can change my mind, can't I? Why don't you call up again about that
bridge?"

"They said it was all right."

"That was some time ago," said Van Brunt. "You're a stranger here. You
don't know how fast the San Ysidro can rise. I've seen it come up a foot
an hour when the hills dump into her. You better call up."

Juan was exasperated. "Look," he said, "I drive the bus. I've been doing
it for some time. Would you mind? You just ride and take a chance on me,
or don't, but let me drive it."

Van Brunt turned his face up sideways and stared at Juan coldly. "I
don't know whether I'll go with you or not. I might even write a note to
the railroad commission. You're a common carrier, you know. Don't forget
that."

"Let's go, folks," said Juan.

Alice kept secret eyes on him, and he didn't look at Camille, didn't
offer to carry her suitcase. That was bad. Alice didn't like it. It
wasn't like Juan.

Camille picked up her suitcase and scuttled out of the door. She didn't
want to sit with any of the men. She was tired. Quickly her mind had
gone over the possibilities. Mildred Pritchard was unattached and
already Mildred didn't like her. But the girl who had quit was out there
in the bus. Camille hurried out the door and climbed in. As quickly as
they could, Ernest Horton and Mr. Pritchard followed, but Camille was in
the bus. Norma sat quite still. Her eyes were hostile and her nose red
and shiny. Norma was very much frightened at what she had done.

Camille said, "Would you mind if I sit with you, honey?"

Norma turned her head stiffly and regarded the blonde. "There's plenty
of seats," she said.

"Would you mind? I'll tell you why later."

"Suit your own convenience," said Norma grandly. She could tell that
this girl was expensively dressed. It didn't make sense. People didn't
want to sit with Norma. But there was a reason. Maybe a mysterious
reason. Norma knew her movies. Things like this could turn into nine
reels of pure delight. She moved over near the window and made room.

"How far are you going?" Norma asked.

"To L. A."

"Why, I'm going there too! Do you live there?"

"Off and on," said Camille. She noticed that the men who had come piling
out of the lunchroom had seen her sit down with Norma. Their drive
slowed down. There was going to be no competition. They clustered around
the rear end of the bus to have the bags put in the luggage compartment.

Juan lingered at the lunchroom door with Alice looking through the
screen at him. "Take it easy," he said. "Had a god-damn mess all
morning. Try to get it cleared up before I get home."

A sharpness came on Alice's face. She was about to answer.

Juan went on, "Or one of these days I won't get home."

Her breath caught. "I just don't feel good," she whined.

"Well, start feeling good, then, and don't run it into the ground.
Nobody likes sick people very long. Nobody. Get that straight." His eyes
were not looking at her but around her and through her, and panic came
over Alice. Juan turned away and walked toward the bus.

Alice leaned her elbows on the cross piece of the screen door. Big soft
tears filled her eyes. "I'm fat," she said quietly, "and I'm old. Oh,
Jesus, I'm old!" The tears ran into her nose. She snorted them back. She
said, "You can get young girls, but what can I get? Nothing. An old
slob." She sniffled quietly behind the screen.

Mr. Pritchard would have liked to have sat behind the blonde to watch
her, but Mrs. Pritchard took a seat near the front and he had to sit
down beside her. Mildred sat alone on the other side and behind them.
Pimples climbed on and he got the seat Mr. Pritchard wanted, and Ernest
Horton sat with him.

Juan noticed with dismay that Van Brunt took the seat directly behind
the driver's seat. Juan was nervous. He hadn't had much sleep and some
kind of hell had been popping since early morning. He got the bags
neatly stacked in the rear trunk, pulled the canvas cover down, and
closed the door of the trunk. He waved his hand at Alice leaning inside
the screen door. He knew from her posture that she was crying and he
intended that she should. She'd got out of hand. He wondered why he
stayed with her. Just pure laziness, he guessed. He didn't want to go
through the emotional turmoil of leaving her. In spite of himself he'd
worry about her and it was too much trouble. He'd need another woman
right away and that took a lot of talking and arguing and persuading. It
was different just to lay a girl but he would need a woman around, and
that was the difference. You got used to one and it was less trouble.
Besides Alice was the only woman he had ever found outside of Mexico who
could cook beans. A funny thing. Every little Indian in Mexico could
cook beans properly and no one up here except Alice--just enough juice,
just the right flavor of the bean without another flavor mixed up with
it. Here they put tomatoes and chili and garlic and such things in the
beans, and a bean should be cooked for itself, with itself, alone. Juan
chuckled. "Because she can cook beans," he said to himself.

But there was another reason too. She loved him. She really did. And he
knew it. And you can't leave a thing like that. It's a structure and it
has an architecture, and you can't leave it without tearing off a piece
of yourself. So if you want to remain whole you stay no matter how much
you may dislike staying. Juan was not a man who fooled himself very
much.

He was almost to the bus when he turned back and walked quickly to the
screen door. "Take care of yourself," he said. His eyes were warm. "Get
a slug of liquor for that tooth." He turned away and walked back to the
bus. She'd be drunker than a skunk when he got back, but maybe that
would blow out her tubes and she'd feel better. He would sleep in
Norma's bed if Alice passed out. He couldn't stand the smell of her when
she was drunk. She had an acid, bitter smell.

Juan glanced up at the sky. The air was still but up high a wind was
blowing, bringing legions of new clouds over the mountains, and these
clouds were flat and they were joining together and moving in on one
another as they hurried across the sky. The big oaks still dripped water
from the morning rain and the geranium leaves held shining drops in the
centers. There was a hush on the land and a great activity.

Much as he hated to give Van Brunt any credit, Juan was afraid it was
going to rain some more, and soon. He climbed up the steps of the bus.
Van Brunt caught him before he even sat down.

"Know where that wind's coming from? Southwest. Know where those clouds
are coming from? Southwest. You know where our rain comes from?" he
demanded triumphantly. "Southwest."

"O.K., and we're all gonna die sometime," said Juan. "Some of us pretty
horribly. You might get run over by a tractor. Ever seen a man run over
by a tractor?"

"How do you figure that?" Van Brunt demanded.

"Let it rain," said Juan.

"I don't own a tractor," said Van Brunt. "I got four pair of the best
horses in this state. How do you figure that tractor?"

Juan stepped on the starter. It had a high, thin, scratchy sound, but
almost immediately his motor started and it sounded good. It sounded
smooth and nice. Juan turned in his seat.

"Kit," he called, "keep listening to that rear end."

"O.K.," said Pimples. He felt good about Juan's confidence.

Juan waved his hand to Alice and closed the bus door with his lever. He
couldn't see what she was doing through the screen. She would let him
get out of sight before she brought out a bottle. He hoped she wouldn't
get into any trouble.

Juan drove around the front of the lunchroom and turned right into the
black-top road that led to San Juan de la Cruz. It wasn't a very wide
road but it was fairly smooth and the crown had a high arch so that it
shed the water nicely. The valley and the hills were splashed with gouts
of sunlight, and they were fenced with the moving shadows of clouds
rushing across the sky. The sun spots and the shadows were somber gray,
threatening and sad.

"Sweetheart" bumped along at forty. She was a good bus and the rear end
sounded good too.

"I never liked tractors," said Mr. Van Brunt.

"I don't either," Juan agreed. He felt fine all of a sudden.

Van Brunt couldn't let it alone. Juan had succeeded beyond his hopes.
Van Brunt turned his head sideways on his stiff neck. "Say, you're not
one of these fortunetellers or anything like that?"

"No," said Juan.

"Because I don't believe any stuff like that," said Van Brunt.

"Neither do I," said Juan.

"I wouldn't have a tractor on the place."

Juan was about to say "I had a brother who was kicked to death by a
horse," but he thought, "Aw, nuts, the guy's a pushover. I wonder what
he's scared of."




CHAPTER 9


The highway to San Juan de la Cruz was a black-top road. In the twenties
hundreds of miles of concrete highway had been laid down in California,
and people had sat back and said, "There, that's permanent. That will
last as long as the Roman roads and longer, because no grass can grow up
through the concrete to break it." But it wasn't so. The rubber-shod
trucks, the pounding automobiles, beat the concrete, and after a while
the life went out of it and it began to crumble. Then a side broke off
and a hole crushed through and a crack developed and a little ice in the
winter spread the crack, so the resisting concrete could not stand the
beating of rubber and broke down.

Then the county maintenance crews poured tar in the cracks to keep the
water out, and that didn't work, and finally they capped the roads with
an asphalt and gravel mixture. That did survive, because it offered no
stern face to the pounding tires. It gave a little and came back a
little. It softened in the summer and hardened in the winter. And
gradually all the roads were capped with shining black that looked
silver in the distance.

The San Juan road ran straight for a long way through level fields, and
the fields were not fenced because cattle didn't wander any more. The
land was too valuable for grazing. The fields were open to the highway.
They terminated in ditches beside the road. And in the ditches the wild
mustard grew rankly and the wild turnip with its little purple flowers.
The ditches were lined with blue lupines. The poppies were tightly
rolled, for the open flowers had been beaten off by the rain.

The road ran straight toward the little foothills of the first
range--rounded, woman-like hills, soft and sexual as flesh. And the
green clinging grass had the bloom of young skin. The hills were rich
and lovely with water, and along the smooth and beautiful road
"Sweetheart" rolled. Her washed and shining sides reflected in the water
of the ditches. The little tokens swung against the windshield--the tiny
boxing gloves, the baby's shoe. The Virgin of Guadalupe on her crescent
moon on top of the instrument board looked benignly back at the
passengers.

There was no rough or ill sound from the rear end, just the curious
whine of the transmission. Juan settled back in his seat prepared to
enjoy the trip. He had a big mirror in front of him so that he could
watch the passengers, and he had a long mirror out the window in which
he could see the road behind. The road was deserted. Only a few cars
passed, and none came from the direction of San Juan. At first this
puzzled him unconsciously, and then he began to worry actively. Perhaps
the bridge was out. Well, if it was he would have to come back. He'd
take the whole crowd of passengers into San Ysidro and turn them loose
there. If the bridge was out, there would be no bus line until it was in
again. He noticed in his mirror that Ernest Horton had got his sample
case open and was showing Pimples some kind of gadget that whirled and
flashed and disappeared. And he noticed that Norma and the blonde had
their heads together and were talking. He increased his speed a little.

He didn't think he was going to do anything about the blonde. There
wasn't any possible way to get at her. And Juan was old enough not to
suffer from something that was out of possibility. Given the opportunity
there wasn't any question about what he would do. He had felt a wrench
in the pit of his stomach when he first saw the blonde.

Norma had been stiff with Camille so far. She was so frozen up it took
her some time to thaw. But Camille needed Norma as a kind of a shield,
and they had their destination in common.

"I've never been in L. A. or Hollywood," Norma confided softly so that
Ernest could not hear. "I won't know where to go or anything."

"What are you going to do?" Camille asked.

"Get a job, I guess. Waitress or something. I'd like to get in
pictures."

Camille's mouth tightened in a smile. "You get a job waitressing first,"
she said. "Pictures are a very tough racket."

"Are you an actress?" Norma asked. "You look like you might be an
actress."

"No," said Camille. "I work for dentists. I'm a dental nurse."

"Well, do you live in a hotel, or a room, or a house?"

"I don't have any place to live," said Camille. "I used to have an
apartment with a girl friend before I went to Chicago to work."

Norma's eyes grew eager. "I've got a little money put away," she said.
"Maybe we could get an apartment together. Say, if I got a job in a
restaurant it wouldn't cost hardly anything for food. I could bring
stuff home." A hunger was growing in Norma's eyes. "Why, maybe sharing
the rent it wouldn't be much. I could make good tips, maybe."

Camille felt a warmth for the girl. She looked at the red nose and the
dull complexion, the small pale eyes. "We'll see how it goes," she said.

Norma leaned close. "I know your hair's natural," she said. "But maybe
you could show me how to kind of touch mine up. My hair's mousy. Just
mousy."

Camille laughed. "You'd be surprised if you knew what color my hair is,"
she said. "Hold still a minute." She studied Norma's face, trying to
visualize what cold cream and powder and mascara could do for her, and
she thought of the hair shining and waved, and the eyes made a little
larger with eyeshadow, and the mouth reshaped with lipstick. Camille
hadn't any illusions about beauty. Loraine was a washed-out little rat
without make-up but Loraine did all right. It would be fun and company
to make this girl over and to give her some confidence. It might even be
better than Loraine.

"Let's think about it," she said. "This is pretty country. I'd like to
live in the country some time." A picture had projected itself on her
mind, the pattern of what would happen. She would fix Norma up. She
could be kind of pretty if she was careful. And then Norma would meet a
boy and naturally she'd bring him home to show him off and the boy would
make passes at Camille and Norma would hate her. That's the way it would
happen. That's the way it had happened. But what the hell! it would be
fun before it happened. And maybe she could anticipate it and never be
in when Norma brought a boy home.

She felt warm and friendly. "Let's think about it," she said.

On the highway ahead Juan saw a crushed jackrabbit. Lots of people liked
to run over things like that, but Juan didn't. He moved his steering
wheel so that the flattened carcass passed between the wheels and there
was no crunching under the tires. He had the bus at forty-five. The big
highway busses sometimes went sixty miles an hour, but Juan had plenty
of time. The road was straight for another two miles before it began
wandering into the soft foothills. Juan took one hand off the wheel and
stretched.

Mildred Pritchard felt the telegraph poles whipping by as little blows
on her eyes. She had her glasses on again. She watched Juan's face in
the mirror. She could see little more than a profile from her angle. She
noticed that he raised his head to look back at the blonde every minute
or so, and she felt a bitter anger. She was confused about what had
happened that morning. No one knew, of course, unless Juan Chicoy had
guessed. She was still a little swollen and itchy from the thing. A
sentence kept repeating itself in her mind. She's not a blonde and she's
not a nurse and her name is not Camille Oaks. The sentence went on, over
and over. And then she chuckled at herself inwardly. "I'm trying to
destroy her," she thought. "I'm doing a stupid thing. Why not admit I'm
jealous? I'm jealous. All right. Does admitting it make me any less
jealous? No, it does not. But she forced my father to make a fool of
himself. All right. Do I care whether my father is a fool? No, I do
not--if I'm not with him. I don't want people to think I'm his daughter,
that's all. No, that's not true either. I don't want to go to Mexico
with him. I can hear everything he'll say." She was uncomfortable and
the movement of the bus was not helping. "Basketball," she thought,
"that's the stuff." She flexed the muscles of her thighs and thought
about the engineering student with the crew-cut hair. She pictured her
affair with him.

Mr. Pritchard was bored and tired. He could be very irritating when he
was bored. He twitched. "This looks like rich country," he said to his
wife. "California raises most of the vegetables for the United States,
you know."

Mrs. Pritchard could hear herself talking after she got home. "Then we
drove through miles and miles of green fields with poppies and lupines,
just like a garden. There was a blond girl got on at a funny little
place and the men made fools of themselves, even Elliott. I joshed him
about it for a week afterward." She'd write it in a letter. "And I'm
pretty sure the poor little painted thing was just as nice and sweet as
could be. She said she was a nurse, but I think she was probably an
actress--little parts, you know. There are so many of them in Hollywood.
Thirty-eight thousand listed. They've got a big casting agency.
Thirty-eight thousand." Her head nodded a little. Bernice was sleepy and
hungry. "I wonder what adventures we'll have now," she thought.

When his wife slipped into her daydream Mr. Pritchard knew it. He had
been married to her long enough to know when she wasn't listening to
him, and ordinarily he went right on talking. He often clarified his
thinking about business or politics by telling his thoughts to Bernice
when she wasn't listening. He had a trained memory for figures and for
bits of information. He knew approximately how many tons of sugar beets
were produced in the Salinas valley. He had read it and retained it in
spite of the fact that he had no use whatever for the information. He
felt that such information was good to know and he had never questioned
its value or why it might be good to know. But now he had no inclination
toward knowledge. A powerful influence was battering at him from the
rear of the bus. He wanted to turn around and look at the blonde. He
wanted to sit where he could watch her. Horton and Pimples were behind
him. He couldn't just sit opposite and look at her.

Mrs. Pritchard asked, "How old do you think she is?" And the question
shocked him because he had been wondering the same thing.

"How old who is?" he asked.

"The young woman. The blond young woman."

"Oh, her. How should I know?" His answer was so rough that his wife
looked a little bewildered and hurt. He saw it and tried to cover his
mistake. "Little girls know more about little girls," he said. "You
could tell better than I could."

"Why? I don't know. Well, with that make-up and the hair tint it's hard
to tell. I just wondered. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, I
guess."

"I wouldn't know about that," said Mr. Pritchard. He looked out the
window at the approaching foothills. His palms were a little damp and
the magnet drew at him from the rear of the bus. He wanted to look
around. "I don't know about that," said Mr. Pritchard. "But I'm
interested in that young Horton. He's young, and he's got lots of
get-up, and he's got ideas. He really caught my fancy. You know, I might
find a place for a man like that in the organization." This was
business.

Bernice too could draw a magic circle around herself, with motherhood,
or say, menstruation, a subject like that, and no man could or would try
to get in. Business was her husband's magic circle. She had no right to
go near him when it was business. She had no knowledge nor interest in
business. It was his privacy and she respected it.

"He seems a nice young man," she said. "His grammar and his
background--"

"My God, Bernice!" he cried irritably. "Business isn't background and
grammar. It's what you can produce. Business is the most democratic
thing in the world. It's what you can do that counts."

He was trying to remember what the blonde's lips looked like. He
believed that full-lipped women were voluptuous. "I'd like to have a
little talk with Horton before he gets away," Mr. Pritchard said.

Bernice knew that he was restless.

"Why don't you talk to him now?" she suggested.

"Oh, I don't know. He's sitting with that boy."

"Well, I'm sure that boy will move if you ask him nicely." She was
convinced that anyone would do anything if nicely asked. And in her case
she was right. She claimed and got the most outrageous favors from
strangers simply by asking nicely. She would ask a bellboy to carry her
bags four blocks to the station because it was too close, really, to get
a cab, and then thank him nicely and give him a dime.

Now she knew she was helping her husband to do something he wanted to
do. What it was she didn't quite know. She wanted to get back to writing
the imaginary letter about their trip. "Elliott is so interested in
everything. He had long talks with everyone. I guess that's why he's so
successful. He takes such an interest. And he's so thoughtful. There was
a boy with big pimples and Elliott didn't want to disturb him, but I
told him just to ask nicely. People do love nice manners."

Mr. Pritchard was cleaning his nails again with the gold appliance he
wore on his watch chain.

Pimples' eyes were on the back of Camille's head. But first when he had
sat down he made sure that he couldn't see her legs under the seat, not
even her ankles. Now and then she turned to look out of the window, and
he could see her profile, the long, darkened eyelashes which curled
upward, the straight, powdered nose, nostrils a little coated with
tobacco smoke and the dust of traveling. Her upper lip curved upward to
a sharp line before it pillowed out in its heavy red petal, and Pimples
could see the downy hair on her upper lip. For some reason this aroused
him agonizingly. When her head was turned straight ahead he could see
one of her ears where the hair parted a little and exposed it. He could
see the heavy lobe and the crease behind her ear where it fitted so
close to her head. The edge of her ear was fluted. As he stared at the
ear she almost seemed to be conscious of his look, for she raised her
chin and shook her head from side to side so that the part in her hair
fell together and concealed the ear. She got a comb from her purse
because the backward shake had uncovered the deep forceps scars along
her jaw. Now Pimples saw the ugly scars for the first time. He had to
lean sideways to see them, and a stab of pain entered his chest. He felt
a deep and unreasoning sorrow, but the sorrow was sexual too. He
imagined himself holding her head in his arms and stroking the poor
scars with his finger. He swallowed several times.

Camille was saying softly to Norma, "Then there's this Wee Kirk i' the
Heather. I guess that's the prettiest cemetery in the world. You know,
you have to get a ticket to get in. I like just to walk around in there.
It's so beautiful and the organ plays nearly all the time and you find
people buried there that you've seen in pictures. I always said I'd like
to be buried there."

"I don't like to talk about things like that," said Norma. "It's bad
luck."

Pimples had been vaguely discussing the Army with Ernest Horton. "They
say you can learn a trade and travel all over. I don't know. I'm taking
a course in radar engineering. It starts next week by mail. I guess
radar is going to be pretty hot stuff. But you can get a real good
course in radar in the Army."

Ernest said, "I don't know how it would be in peacetime. You can have it
when there's a war."

"Did you get to do some real fighting?"

"I didn't ask for it but I got it."

"Where were you?" Pimples asked.

"All over hell," said Ernest.

"Maybe I could get a good line and get in selling, like you," Pimples
suggested.

"Oh, that's just plain starvation till you get your contacts," Ernest
said. "It took me five years to build up my contacts and then I got
drafted. I'm just getting back on my feet now. You can't just step into
it and you've got to work at it. It doesn't look like work but it is. If
I was to start over again I'd learn a trade so I could have a home.
Pretty nice to have a wife and a couple of kids." Ernest always said
this. When he was drunk he believed it. He didn't want a home. He loved
moving around and seeing different people. He would run away from a home
immediately. Once he had been married, and the second day he had walked
out, leaving a thoroughly frightened and angry wife, and he never saw
her again, nor wrote to her. But he saw her picture once. She was picked
up for marrying five men and drawing Army allotments from each one. What
a dame. A real hustler. Ernest almost admired her. There was hustling
that paid dividends.

"Why don't you go back to school?" he asked Pimples.

"I don't want no fancy stuff," said Pimples. "Them college boys are just
a bunch of nances. I want a man's life."

Camille had leaned close to Norma and was whispering in her ear. The two
girls were shaking with laughter. The bus surged around the bend and
entered the hill country. The road cut between high banks, and the soil
of the cuts was dark and dripping with water. Little goldy-backed ferns
clung to the gravel and dripped with rain. Juan put his right hand on
the wheel and let his elbows hang free. There would be fifteen minutes
of twisting hill road now with no straight stretches at all. He glanced
in his rear-view mirror at the blonde. Her eyes were puckered with
laughter and she'd covered her mouth with spread fingers the way little
girls do.

Mr. Pritchard, going back, was not careful, and when the bus took a
curve he was flung sideways. He clutched at the seat-back, missed it,
and fell sprawling on Camille's lap. His right hand reaching to break
his fall whipped her short skirt up and his arm went between her knees.
Her skirt was slightly torn. She helped him disengage himself and she
pulled down her skirt. Mr. Pritchard was blushing violently.

"I'm very sorry," he said.

"Oh, it's all right."

"But I've torn your skirt."

"I can mend it."

"But I must pay to have it mended."

"I'll just patch it up myself. It isn't bad." She looked at his face and
knew that he was prolonging the affair as much as he could. "He'll want
to know what address to send the money to," she thought.

Mrs. Pritchard called, "Elliott, are you trying to sit in that lady's
lap?"

Even Juan laughed then. Everyone laughed. And suddenly the bus was not
full of strangers. Some chemical association was formed. Norma laughed
hysterically. All the tension of the morning came out in her laughter.

Mr. Pritchard said, "I must say, you take it very well. I didn't come
back here to sit in your lap. I wanted to have a few words with this
gentleman. Son," he said to Pimples, "would you mind moving for just a
little while. I have some business I'd like to talk over with Mr.--I
don't think I heard your name."

"Horton," said Ernest, "Ernest Horton."

Mr. Pritchard had a whole series of tactics for getting on with people.
He never forgot the name of a man richer or more powerful than he, and
he never knew the name of a man less powerful. He had found that to make
a man mention his own name would put that man at a slight disadvantage.
For a man to speak his own name made him a little naked and unprotected.

Camille was looking at her torn skirt and talking softly to Norma. "I
always wanted to live on a hill," she said. "I love hills. I love to
walk in hills."

"It's all right after you're rich and famous," Norma said firmly. "I
know people in pictures that every chance they get, why, they go hunting
and fishing and wear old clothes and smoke a pipe."

Camille was bringing Norma out. She had never in her whole life felt so
excited and free. She could say anything she wanted. She giggled a
little.

"It's nicer to wear old dirty clothes if you've got a closet full of
nice fresh clean ones," she said. "Old clothes are the only kind I've
got and I'm god-damned sick of it." She glanced at Camille to see how
she'd react to such candor.

Camille nodded. "You aren't kidding, sister." Something very strong and
sympathetic was growing up between these two. Mr. Pritchard tried to
hear the conversation but he couldn't.

The ditches beside the highway ran full with water descending toward the
valley. The heavy clouds were massing for a new attack.

"It's coming on to rain," Van Brunt said happily.

Juan grunted. "I had a brother-in-law kicked to death by a horse," he
observed.

"Couldn't have used any sense," said Van Brunt. "Horse kicks a man, it's
usually the man's fault."

"Killed him anyway," said Juan, and he settled into silence.

The bus was nearing the top of the grade and the turns were becoming
tighter all the time.

"I was very much interested in our little talk this morning, Mr. Horton.
It's a pleasure to talk with a man with some get-up and go. I'm always
on the look-out for men like that for my organization."

"Thanks," said Ernest.

"We're having trouble right now with these returning veterans," said Mr.
Pritchard. "Good men, you understand. And I think everything should be
done for them--everything. But they've been out of the run. They're
rusty. In business you've got to keep up every minute. A man that has
kept up is twice as valuable as a man that has been out of the mill, so
to speak." He looked at Ernest for approval. Instead he saw a kind of
hard, satiric look come into Ernest's eyes.

"I see your point," Ernest said. "I was four years in the Army."

"Oh!" said Mr. Pritchard. "Oh, yes--you're not wearing your discharge
button, I see."

"I've _got_ a job," Ernest said.

Mr. Pritchard fumbled with his thoughts. He had made a bad mistake. He
wondered what the thing was in Ernest's lapel button. It looked
familiar. He should know. "Well, they're a fine bunch of boys," he said,
"and I only hope we can put in an administration that will take care of
them."

"Like after the last war?" Ernest asked. It was a double brush, and Mr.
Pritchard began to wonder if he'd been right about Horton. There was a
kind of a brutality about Horton. He had a kind of swagger and a
headlong quality so many ex-soldiers had. The doctors said they would
get over it just as soon as they lived a good normal life for a while.
They were out of line. Something would have to be done.

"I'm the first one to come to the defense of our veterans," Mr.
Pritchard said. He wished to God he could get off the subject. Ernest
was looking at him with a slightly crooked smile that he was beginning
to recognize in applicants for jobs. "I just thought I'd like to
interview a man with your get-up and go," Mr. Pritchard said uneasily.
"When I get back from my vacation I'd be very glad to have you call on
me. We can always make room for a man who's got it."

"Well, sir," said Ernest, "I get very sick of running around the country
all the time. I often thought I'd like to have a home and a wife and a
couple of kids. That's the real way to live. Come home at night and lock
the whole world outside, and a boy and a girl, maybe. This sleeping in
hotels isn't living."

Mr. Pritchard nodded. "You're four-square right," he said, and he was
very much relieved. "I'm just the right man to say that to. Twenty-one
years married and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"You've been lucky," said Ernest. "Your wife's a fine-looking woman."

"And she's a fine woman," said Mr. Pritchard. "The most thoughtful
person in the world. I often wonder what I'd do without her."

"I was married once," said Ernest. "My wife died." His face was sad.

"I'm sorry," said Mr. Pritchard. "And this may sound silly. Time does
heal wounds. And maybe some day--well, I wouldn't give up hope."

"Oh, I don't."

"I didn't mean to pry into your affairs," said Mr. Pritchard, "but I've
been thinking about your idea for those lapel slipcovers for a dark suit
to convert into a tuxedo. If you're not tied up with anyone I thought we
might--well, talk about doing a little business."

"Well," said Ernest, "it's like I told you. Clothes manufacturers won't
want something that will rule out some of their business. I just don't
see the angle right now."

Mr. Pritchard said, "I forget whether you said you had applied for a
patent."

"Well, no. I told you. I just registered the idea."

"How do you mean, registered?"

"Well, I wrote out a description and made some drawings and put it in an
envelope and mailed it to myself, registered mail. That proves when I
did it because that envelope is sealed."

"I see," said Mr. Pritchard, and he wondered whether such a method would
have any standing in court. He didn't know. But it was always better to
take the inventor in on a percentage. Only the really big fellows could
afford to lift an invention whole. The big fellows could afford a long
fight. They figured it was cheaper than cutting in an inventor and the
figures proved they were right. But Mr. Pritchard's firm wasn't big
enough and, besides, he always thought that generosity paid off.

"I've got an idea or two that might work out," he said. "Course, it'll
take some organization. Now, suppose you and I could make a deal. This
is just a supposition, you understand. I'd handle the organization and
we would take a percentage of profit after expenses."

"But they don't want it," Ernest said. "I've asked around."

Mr. Pritchard laid a hand on Ernest's knee. He had a hollow feeling that
he ought to shut up, but he remembered the satiric look in Ernest's eyes
and he wanted Ernest to admire him and to like him. He couldn't shut up.

"Suppose we formed a company and we protected the idea?" he said.
"Patent it, I mean. Now we organize to manufacture this product, a
national advertising campaign--"

"Just a moment," Ernest broke in.

But Mr. Pritchard was carried away. "Now suppose these layouts just
happened to fall into the hands of, say, oh, Hart, Schaffner and Marx or
some big manufacturer like that, or maybe the association. They'd get
ahold of it by accident, of course. Well, maybe they'd like to buy us
out."

Ernest began to look interested. "Buy the patent?"

"Buy not only the patent but the whole company."

"But if they bought the patent then they could kill it," Ernest said.

Mr. Pritchard's eyes were slitted and his pupils shone through his
glasses and a little smile lay on the corners of his mouth. For the
first time since she had got off the bus from San Ysidro he had
forgotten Camille. "Look ahead a little further," he said. "When we sell
and dissolve the company we only pay a capital gain tax on the profits."

"That's smart," said Ernest excitedly. "Yes, sir, that's very smart.
That's blackmail and a very high-class blackmail. Yes, sir, nobody could
touch us."

The smile vanished from Mr. Pritchard's mouth. "What do you mean,
blackmail? We would intend to go ahead and manufacture. We could even
order machinery."

"That's what I mean," said Ernest. "It's very high-class. It's all
wrapped up. You're a smart man."

Mr. Pritchard said, "I hope you don't think it's dishonest. I've been in
business thirty-five years and I've climbed to the head of my company. I
can be proud of my record."

"I'm not criticizing you," Ernest said. "I think you've got a very sound
idea there. I'm for it, only--"

"Only what?" said Mr. Pritchard.

"I'm kind of low on dough," said Ernest, "and I'm gonna need a quick
buck. Oh, well, I can borrow it, I guess."

"What do you need money for? Maybe I could advance--"

"No," said Ernest, "I'll get it myself."

"Is it some new wrinkle you figured out?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"Yes," said Ernest. "I gotta get this idea into the patent office by
carrier pigeon."

"You don't think for one minute--"

"Of course not," said Ernest. "Certainly not. But I'm gonna be happier
when that envelope gets to Washington alone."

Mr. Pritchard leaned back in his seat and smiled. The highway whirled
and twisted ahead, and between two great abutments was the pass into the
next valley.

"You'll be all right, son. I think we can do business. I don't want you
to think I'd take advantage though. My record speaks for itself."

"Oh, I don't," said Ernest. "I don't." He looked secretly at Mr.
Pritchard. "It's just that I've got a couple of very luscious dames in
L. A. and I don't want to get in that apartment and forget everything."
He saw the reaction he wanted.

"I'm going to be two days in Hollywood," Mr. Pritchard said. "Maybe we
could talk a little business."

"Like in these dames' apartment?"

"Well, a man needs some kind of relaxation. I'm going to be at the
Beverly Wilshire. You could call me there."

"I sure will," said Ernest. "What color dame you like best?"

"Don't misunderstand me," said Mr. Pritchard. "I like to sit and have a
scotch and soda but I've got a position, you know. I don't want you to
misunderstand."

"Oh, I don't," said Ernest. "I could maybe pick up the blonde ahead
here, if you want."

"Don't be silly," said Mr. Pritchard.

Pimples had moved forward in the bus. On the underside of his jaw he
felt an itching burn and he knew an eruption was forming. He sat down in
the seat across from Mildred Pritchard. He didn't want to touch the new
place but he was powerless over his hands. His right hand moved upward
and his forefinger rubbed the lump under the chin. It was a very sore
lump. This one was going to be a devil. He knew already what it would
look like. He wanted to squeeze it, to scratch it, to rip it out. His
nerves were on edge. He forced his hand into his coat pocket and
clenched his fist there.

Mildred was staring vacantly out of the window.

"I wish I could go to Mexico," Pimples said.

Mildred looked around at him in surprise. Her glasses caught the light
from his window and glared blindly at him.

Pimples swallowed. "I never been there," he said weakly.

"Neither have I," said Mildred.

"Yeah, but you're going."

She nodded. She didn't want to look at him because she couldn't keep her
eyes from his eczema and that embarrassed him. "Maybe you can go soon,"
she said uneasily.

"Oh, I'll go," said Pimples. "I'll go everywhere. I'm a great traveler.
I'd rather travel than anything. You get experience that way."

She nodded again and took off her glasses in protection against him. Now
she couldn't see him so clearly.

"I thought maybe I'd be a missionary like Spencer Tracy and go to China
and cure them of all those diseases. You ever been to China?"

"No," said Mildred. She was fascinated by his thinking.

Pimples took most of his ideas from moving pictures and the rest from
the radio. "It's very poor people there in China," he said, "some of
them so poor they just starve to death right outside your window if some
missionary don't come along and help them. And if you help them, why,
they love you, and let any Jap come around and make trouble and they
stick a knife right in him." He nodded solemnly. "I think they're just
as good as you and me," he said. "Spencer Tracy just came along and he
cured them up and they loved him--and you know what he done? He found
his own soul. And there was this girl and he didn't know whether he
ought to marry her because she had a past. Of course, it came out it
wasn't her fault and it wasn't even true, but this old dame told lies
about her." Pimples' eyes glowed with pity and enthusiasm. "But Spencer
Tracy didn't believe those lies and he lived in an old palace that had
secret passages and tunnels and--well, then the Japs come."

"I saw the picture," Mildred said.

The bus went into second gear for the last climb. Now it was in the gap
at the top and then it emerged and turned sharp left, and below was the
valley gloomy with gray clouds, and the great loop of the San Ysidro
River gleamed like dark steel under the glowering light. Juan eased the
bus into high gear and began the descent.




CHAPTER 10


The San Ysidro River runs through the San Juan valley, turning and
twisting until it discharges sluggishly into Black Rock Bay under the
protection of Bat Point. The valley itself is long and not very wide,
and the San Ysidro River, having not very far to run, makes the most of
what distance it has by moving from one side of the level stretch to the
other. Here it cuts under a cliff, against a mountain, and then it
spreads thinly out on sandbanks. During a good part of the year there is
no surface water at all, and the sandy bed grows full of willows which
stretch their roots down toward underground water.

Rabbits and raccoons and small foxes and coyotes make their homes in the
willows of the river bottom when the water is down. At the head of the
valley to the north and east the river rises, not as one head, but in
many little branches, so that the source on a map looks like a tree with
small, leafless branches. The dry and stony hills with shoulders and
gullies and canyons do not supply water to the river during all the
year, but when the rains fall in the late winter and spring the rocky
shoulders absorb a little of the water and cast the rest in black
torrents to the little streams that tumble out of the creases, and the
streamlets combine and join larger creeks and the creeks come together
at the northern end of the valley.

So it is that in the late spring, when the hills have digested as much
rain as they can, a heavy storm may swell the San Ysidro River to a
raging flood in a very few hours. Then the foamy yellow water cuts at
the banks and great hunks of farmland cave into the river. Then the
bodies of cows and sheep go tumbling and rolling in the yellow flood. It
is an unstable and precocious river; dead during part of the year and
deadly during another part.

In the middle of the valley, which is on a direct line between Rebel
Corners and San Juan de la Cruz, the river makes a great loop, ranging
from side to side of the level valley, casting its coil against the
mountain on the eastern edge and moving away to cross the fields and
farmlands. In the old times the road followed the loop of the river and
crawled up the side of the hill to avoid crossing. But with the coming
of engineers and steel and concrete, two bridges had been thrown over
the river, and these cut out twelve miles of the San Ysidro's
playfulness.

They were wooden bridges, backed and suspended by steel rods, and each
one was supported in the middle and at the ends by concrete piers. The
wood was painted dark red and the iron was dark with rust. On the river
side of each bridge backwaters of piles and braided, mattressed willow
deflected the water toward the spans and kept the gnawing current from
undermining the bridgeheads.

These bridges were not very old, but they had been built at a time when
the tax rate was not only low, but much of it uncollectable because of
what was called "hard times." The county engineer had found it necessary
to build within a budget that allowed only the simplest construction.
His timber should have been heavier and his struts more numerous, but he
had to build a bridge within a certain cost and he did. And every year
the farmers of the middle valley watched the river with cynical
apprehension. They knew that some time there would be a quick and
overwhelming flood that would take the bridges out. Every year they
petitioned the county to replace the wooden bridges, but there weren't
enough votes in the rural section to make the petitions mandatory. The
large towns, which had not only the votes but the taxable assets, got
the improvements. People were not moving to the medium-rich farmlands. A
good service station corner in San Juan had a higher assessed valuation
than a hundred acres of grain-land in the valley. The farmers knew that
it was only a question of time before the bridges were destroyed and
then, they said, the county would god-damned well come to its senses.

A hundred yards from the first bridge toward Rebel Corners there was a
little general store on the highway. It stocked the groceries, the
tires, the hardware a man bought on Saturday afternoon or when he didn't
have time to drive either to San Juan de la Cruz or to San Ysidro over
the range. This was Breed's General Store. And of late years it had, as
did all country stores, added gas pumps and a stock of automobile
accessories.

Mr. and Mrs. Breed were unofficial custodians of the bridge, and at
flood time their phone rang constantly and they supplied information
about the river's rise. They were used to this. Their one great fear was
that some day the bridge would go out and the new one might be a quarter
of a mile down the river, and then they would have to move their store
or build a new one near the new bridge.

At least half of their trade nowadays was in soft drinks, sandwiches,
gasoline, and candy bought by travelers on the highway. Even the bus
between Rebel Corners and San Juan invariably stopped there. It brought
express packages, and the passengers drank soft drinks. Juan Chicoy and
the Breeds were old and good friends.

And now the river was up, and not only up, but, as Mr. Breed said to his
wife, "there's a backwash cutting in under the piles above the bridge,
and if it cuts a channel in back, there goes your ball game." He had
made half a dozen trips to the bridgehead since daylight. This was a bad
one and Mr. Breed knew it. Thin-lipped and unshaven, he had stood on the
bridge at eight o'clock this morning and watched the tumbling yellow
water laced with yellow foam and dotted with uprooted scrub oak and
cottonwood. And he had seen a few planks of planed lumber come twisting
down, and then a piece of roof with shingles still on, and then the
drowned, bobbing body of McElroy's black Angus bull, square and
short-legged. As it went under the bridge it rolled over on its back,
and Breed could see the wild upturned eyes and the flapping tongue. It
made Breed sick to his stomach.

Everyone knew McElroy's barn was too close to the bank and that bull
cost eighteen hundred dollars. McElroy didn't have that kind of money to
throw away. He didn't see any of the rest of the herd come down, but the
bull would be enough. Mac had put a lot of faith in that bull.

Breed walked farther out on the bridge. The water was only three feet
below the timbers now and Breed could feel the plunging water plaguing
the caissons to protest under his feet. He rubbed his unshaven chin with
his fingers and walked back to the store. He didn't tell his wife about
McElroy's black Angus. It would only make her sad.

When Juan Chicoy called up about the bridge Breed told him the truth.
The bridge was still in, but God knew for how long. The water was still
rising. The bare, stony hills were still emptying their freshets into
the river, and it was clouding up again.

At nine o'clock the lower timbers cleared the flood only by eighteen
inches. Once the pressure came on those struts and braces and a few
uprooted trees banged into the bridge, it was only a question of time.
Breed stood inside his screen door and drummed his fingers on the wire.

"Let me fix you some breakfast," his wife said. "You'd think you owned
the bridge."

"I guess I do in a way," said Breed. "If it went out they'd say it was
my fault. I've called the supervisor's office and I've called the county
engineer. They're both closed. If that channel gets back of the pier,
there goes your ball game."

"You'd better eat some breakfast. I'll make you some wheat cakes."

"All right," Breed said. "Don't make them too thick."

"I never make them thick," said Mrs. Breed. "Want an egg on top?"

"Sure," said Breed. "I don't know whether Juan is going to make it or
not. He's not due for more than an hour yet and, Jesus! how the water is
coming up!"

"No reason to swear," said Mrs. Breed.

Her husband looked around at her. "I'd say this was one of the times
when there's every reason to swear. I'm going to take a drink."

"Before breakfast?"

"Before anything."

She didn't know about the black bull, of course. He went to the wall
phone and rang McElroy's, a three-two ring, and he kept it up until
Pinedale, two miles this side of McElroy's, answered.

"I've been trying to get him too," Pinedale said. "His line's dead. I'm
going to ride up and see if he's all right."

"I wish you would," said Breed. "His new bull went under the bridge this
morning."

Mrs. Breed raised frightened eyes. "Walter!" she cried.

"Well, it's true. I didn't want you to fret."

"Walter! Oh, my God!" said Mrs. Breed.




CHAPTER 11


Alice Chicoy stood inside the screen door and watched the bus pull away.
She let the tears dry on her cheeks.

When the bus passed beyond her view from the door she went to the side
window from which she could see the county road. The bus ran into a
patch of sunlight and gleamed for a moment, and then she couldn't see it
any more. Alice drew a great breath and released it in a luxurious sigh.
It was her day! She was alone. She felt happy and secret, and she felt
sinful too. Slowly she smoothed her dress down over her hips and
caressed her thighs. She looked at her nails. No, later for that.

She looked slowly around the lunchroom. She could still smell cigarette
smoke. There were things to be done, yet it was her day and she went
about them slowly. First she got from the cupboard a cardboard sign that
said "Closed" in large letters. She went outside and hung the sign on a
nail on the edge of the screen door. Then she went inside and closed and
latched the screen door. And she pulled the inner door and turned the
key in it. Next she went from window to window and let down the Venetian
blinds and pulled the slats downward so no one could see in.

The lunchroom was dusky and very quiet. Alice worked deliberately. She
washed and put away the dirty coffee cups and she washed the lunch
counter and the tabletops. The pies she put out of sight under the
counter. Then she brought a broom from the bedroom and swept the floor
and put the dust and the mud and the cigarette butts in the garbage can.
The counter gleamed a little in the dusky light and the tabletops looked
white and clean.

Alice came around the counter and sat on one of the stools. It was her
day! She felt silly and giddy. "Well, why not?" she said aloud. "I don't
have much fun. Bring me," she said, "bring me a double whisky and hurry
it up."

She put her hands on the counter and looked at them carefully. "Poor
work-ruined hands," she whispered, "dear hands." Then in a shout, "Where
the hell is that whisky?" And she answered herself, "Yes, ma'am, it's
coming right up, ma'am."

"Well, that's better," said Alice. "I just want you to know who you're
talking to. Don't put on any lip because you can't get away with it.
I've got my eye on you."

"Yes, ma'am," she answered herself. And she got up and went in back of
the counter.

At the far end and low to the floor there was a small cabinet. Alice
bent over, opened the door, and reached blindly in and brought out a
fifth of Old Grandad bourbon. She picked a water glass from the rack and
carried the bottle and the glass to the counter in front of the stool
where she had been sitting.

"Here you are, ma'am."

"Take it over to that table. Do you think I look like someone that
stands up at bars?"

"No, ma'am."

"And bring another glass. And a bottle of cold beer."

"Yes, ma'am."

She carried all these things to the table beside the door and laid them
out. "You can go now," she said, and answered, "Yes, ma'am."

"But don't go far, I might want something."

As she poured out the beer she giggled to herself. If anybody heard me
they'd think I was crazy. Well, maybe I am. She poured out a fine shot
in the other glass. "Alice," she said, "ready, set, go!" She waved the
glass and drank slowly. She did not toss it. She let the hot, straight
whisky ease and burn and flow over her tongue and in back of her tongue,
and she swallowed slowly and felt the bite on her palate, and the warmth
of the whisky went into her chest and into her stomach. Even after she
had emptied the glass she still held it to her lips. She put down the
glass and she said, "Ah!" and breathed outward harshly.

She could taste the sweet whisky again on her returning breath. Now she
reached for the tumbler of beer. She crossed her legs and drank very
slowly until the glass was empty.

"God!" she said.

It seemed to Alice she had never realized how utterly comfortable and
charming the lunchroom was, the light glimmering down between the
slanting blinds. She heard a truck go by on the highway and it disturbed
her. Suppose something happened to interfere with her day? Well, they'd
have to break the door down. She wouldn't let anyone in. She poured two
fingers of whisky in one glass and four fingers of beer in the other
glass.

"There's more than one way to skin a drink," she said, and she tossed
the whisky in and tossed the beer right in after it. Now, there's an
idea. It doesn't taste the same. The way you drink changes the taste.
Why had no one else ever found that out, only Alice. Somebody should
write that down--"The way you drink makes the taste." There was a little
tension in her right eyelid, and a curious but pleasant pain ran down
the veins of her arms.

"Nobody has time to find out things," she said solemnly. "No time." She
poured half a glass of beer and filled the glass with whisky. "I wonder
if anybody ever tried this before?"

The metal paper-napkin holder was in front of her and she could see her
face in it. "Hello, kid," she said. She waved the glass, and it was as
distorted in the shining metal as her face. "Here's a go, kid. Your
health, kid." And she drank the beer and the whisky the way a thirsty
man drinks milk. "Ah," she said, "that's not so god-damned bad. No sir.
I think I've got something there. That's good."

She adjusted the paper-napkin holder so that she could see herself
better. But a bend in the metal surface made her nose look broken at the
top and fat and bulbous at the bottom. She got up and went around the
counter and into the bedroom, and she brought a round hand mirror back
to the table and propped it against the sugar dispenser. She settled
herself and crossed her legs. "Now there! I'd like to invite you for a
drink." She poured whisky in each glass. "No beer," she said. "All out
of beer. Well, we'll fix that."

She went to the icebox and brought another bottle of beer. "Now, you
see," she said to the mirror, "we first put a little whisky--not too
much--not too little--and we add just the right amount of beer. And
there you are." She pushed one glass toward the mirror and drained the
other one. "Some people are afraid to take a drink," she said. "They
can't handle it."

"Oh, you don't want it? Well, that's your privilege. I'm not going to
make you take it. I'm not going to let it go to waste, either." And she
drank off the other glass. Her cheeks were tingling now as though a
frost were stinging the surface. She brought the mirror close and
inspected herself. Her eyes were damp and shiny. She whipped back a
strand of loose hair.

"No reason to let yourself run down just because you're having a good
time." And without warning a vision flipped into place in her head and
she turned the mirror face down. The vision struck so hard and so
quickly that it was like a blow. Perhaps it was the darkened room. Alice
cried, "I don't want to think about that. I hate to think about that."

But the thought and vision were in. A darkened room and a white bed and
her mother paralyzed, rigid, unmoving, the eyes staring straight up, and
then the white hand rising from the counterpane in a gesture of despair,
a gesture for help. Alice could creep in, no matter how stealthily, and
that hand would rise in frightful helplessness, and Alice would hold it
for a moment and then put it gently down and go out. Every time she came
into that room she would beg the hand not to rise, to lie still, to be
dead, like the rest of the body.

"I don't want to think about that," she cried. "How did that get in?"
Her hand shook and the bottle rattled against the glass. She poured an
enormous drink and drained it, and it caught in her throat so that she
coughed, and she just saved herself from being sick. "That'll fix you,"
she said. "I want to think about something else."

She imagined herself in bed with Juan, but her mind slipped on past
that. "I could have had any man I wanted," she boasted. "Enough made
passes at me, God knows, and I didn't give in much." Her lips writhed
away from her teeth a little salaciously. "Maybe I should of while I
could. I'm getting along--That's a god-damned lie," she shouted, "I'm as
good as I ever was. I'm better! Who the hell wants a skinny bitch that
don't know what to do? No real man wants stuff like that. I could go
right out now and pick them off like flies."

The bottle was a little less than half full now. She spilled some in
pouring and giggled at herself. "I do believe I'm getting a little
drunk," she said.

There came a great knocking at the screen door and Alice froze and sat
silent. The knocking came again. A man's voice called, "Nobody here. I
thought I heard talking."

"Well, try it again. They might be in back," a woman's voice answered.

Alice picked up the hand mirror gently and looked at herself. She nodded
her head and closed one eye in a large wink. The knocking came again.

"I tell you there's nobody here."

"Well, try the door."

Alice heard the rattling of the screen door.

"It's locked up," the man said, and the woman replied, "It's locked on
the inside. They must be in there."

The man laughed and his feet scraped on gravel. "Well, if they're in
there they want to be alone. Don't you ever want to be alone, baby? With
me, I mean."

"Oh, shut up," said the woman. "I want a sandwich."

"For that you'll have to wait."

Alice wondered why she hadn't heard the car or the footsteps on the
gravel before the knock. "I'll bet I'm plastered," she thought. She
could hear the car drive away all right.

"Can't take 'no' for an answer," Alice said aloud. "Just because a
person wants to take a day to rest and get pulled together, why, they've
got to have a god-damned sandwich."

She held up the bottle and squinted judiciously through the glass. "Not
a lot left." She became frightened. Suppose she should run out before
she was ready? And then she nodded and smiled to herself. There were two
bottles of port wine right in the back of that cabinet. They gave her a
sense of security and she poured herself a big drink and sipped at it.
Juan didn't like to be around women when they were drinking. He said
their faces got crooked and he hated that. Well, Alice would just show
him. She drank half the whisky in her glass and stood up heavily.

"Now, you just stay here and wait for me," she said politely to the
glass. Turning the edge of the counter she swayed a little, and the
corner bit into her side just above the hip. "That's going to be black
and blue," she said. She crossed the bedroom and went into the bathroom.

She dampened the washcloth and rubbed soap into it till she had a thick
paste and then she scrubbed her face. She scrubbed hard beside her nose
and in the little crease that crossed her chin. She put the cloth over
her little finger and twisted it into her nostrils and she washed her
ears. Then, with her eyes squinted shut, she rinsed the soap off and
looked at herself in the mirror over the basin. Her face seemed very red
and her eyes were a little bloodshot. For a long time she worked on her
face. Cream, and then that rubbed off on a towel. She inspected the
towel for dirt and found it. She worked at her eyebrows with a brown
eyebrow pencil. The lipstick gave her some trouble. She got a blob of
carmine red too low on her under lip and had to wipe it all off on the
towel and start again. She made her lips very full and then put them
together and rolled one against the other, and she looked at her teeth
and rubbed some lipstick off with her towel. She should have washed her
teeth before she put on the lipstick. Now powder. That would take the
redness out of her face. Then she brushed her hair. She had never liked
her hair. Holding it this way and that for effect, she began to lose
interest.

In the bedroom she dug out a close-fitting black felt hat with a kind of
a visor. She pushed her hair up inside the hat and angled the brim
rakishly.

"Now," she said, "now we'll see how a woman's face gets crooked. I wish
Juan would come home right now. He'd change his tune."

In the bedroom she got the bottle of Bellodgia from her dresser drawer
and put perfume on her bosom and on the lobes of her ears and at her
hair line. And she patted a little on her upper lip. "I like to smell it
too," she said.

She walked back to the lunchroom, carefully avoiding the corner that had
struck her before. It was even darker than it had been, for the clouds
were getting thick and very little light was coming through. Alice sat
down at her table and adjusted her hand mirror. "Pretty," she said,
"you're kind of pretty. What are you doing this evening? Would you like
to go dancing?"

She poured off the drink in her glass. Suppose that driver for the Red
Arrow Line should come by and knock on the door. She'd let him in. He
was a great kidder. She'd give him a drink or two and then she'd show
him a thing or two.

"Red," she'd say, "you set yourself up as a great kidder but I'm going
to show you something. There's some kidding on the level." She let her
mind dwell on his narrow waist and heavy muscled forearms. He wore a
broad belt around his blue jeans, and the jeans--well, the guy was O.K.
Something about thinking of those jeans. There was a copper rivet at the
bottom where the fly started. And something about that rivet brought
sorrow to Alice. Bud had had one. A copper rivet just there. She tried
to evade this vision too, and failing, gathered it--gathered it to her
mind. He had begged her over and over again. And finally they walked
four miles out to the picnic grounds. Bud carried the lunch--hard-boiled
eggs and ham sandwiches and an apple pie. Alice bought the pie but she
told Bud she made it. And he didn't even wait for the lunch.

He hurt her. And after, she said, "Where are you going?"

"I've got work to do," Bud said.

"You said you love me."

"Did I?"

"You aren't going to leave me, Bud?"

"Listen, sister, you got laid, that's all. I didn't sign no long-term
contract."

"But it's the first time, Bud."

"There's got to be a first time for everybody," he said.

Alice was crying over herself now. "It's no damn good!" she shouted at
herself in the mirror. "None of it's any damn good." She blubbered while
she drank off another whisky and poured the last of the bottle into her
glass.

All the others were no damn good, either, and what had she now? A
stinking job with bed privileges and no pay. That's what. And married to
a stinking greaser, that's what. Married to him! Too far out in the
country to go to the movies. Got to sit in a stinking lunchroom.

She put her head down on her arms and cried broken-heartedly. And a
second Alice could hear her crying. A second Alice stood at her shoulder
and watched her. Got to walk on eggs all the time to keep him happy. She
raised her head and looked in the mirror. The lipstick was smeared all
over her upper lip. Her eyes were red and her nose was running. She
reached for the napkin container, pulled out two paper napkins, and blew
her nose. She balled up the paper and threw it on the floor.

What did she want to keep this joint clean for? Who cared? Who gave a
damn about her? Nobody! But she could take care of herself. Nobody was
going to kick Alice around and get away with it. She emptied the last of
the whisky.

Getting out the port wine was a job. She staggered and fell against the
sink. There was hot pressure against the inside of her nose and her
breath whistled in her nostrils. She stood the bottle of port wine on
the counter and got a corkscrew. The bottle fell over when she tried to
get the corkscrew into it, and the second time the cork broke into small
pieces. She pushed the rest of it into the bottle with her thumb and
lunged back to the table.

"Soda pop," she said. She filled her glass full of the dark red wine.
"Wish there was some more whisky." Her mouth was dry. She drank half the
tumbler of wine thirstily. "Why, that's good," she giggled. Maybe she'd
always have whisky first to give flavor to the wine.

She drew the mirror close to her. "You're an old bag," she said
bitterly. "You're a dirty drunken old bag. No wonder nobody wants you. I
wouldn't have you myself."

The image in the mirror was not double but it had double outlines, and
at the outside of her range of vision Alice could feel the room begin to
rock and sway. She drank the rest of the glass and choked and sputtered
and the red wine ran out of the corners of her mouth. She missed the
glass and poured wine over the tabletop before she got her glass filled.
Her heart was pounding. She could hear it, and she could feel it beat in
her arms and shoulders and in the veins on her breasts. She drank
solemnly.

I'm gonna pass out, and a damn good thing. I wish I would never come to.
I wish that would be the end of it--the end of it--the end of it--Show
these bastards I don't have to live if I don't want to. I'll show 'em.

And then she saw the fly. He wasn't an ordinary house-fly but a newborn
bluebottle, and his body shone with an iridescent blue sheen. He had
come to the table and was standing on the edge of the pool of wine. He
dipped his proboscis and went back to cleaning himself.

Alice sat perfectly still. Her flesh crawled with hatred. All her
unhappiness, all her resentments, centered in the fly. With an effort of
will she forced the two images of the fly to be one image. "You son of a
bitch," she said softly. "You think I'm drunk. I'll show you."

Her eyes were wary and smart. Slowly, slowly, she slipped sideways from
the table and crouched low to the floor, supporting herself with her
hand. She kept her eyes on the fly. He had not moved. She crept over to
the counter and went behind it. A dish towel was lying on the stainless
steel sink. She took it in her right hand and folded it carefully. It
was too light. She dampened it under the tap and squeezed out the excess
water. "I'll show the son of a bitch," she said, and she moved catlike
along the counter. The fly was still there, still shining.

Alice raised her hand and let the towel fall back on her shoulder. Step
by careful step she moved close, her hand raised and flexed. She struck.
Bottle and glasses and sugar dispenser and napkin holder all crashed to
the floor. The fly zoomed and circled. Alice stood still, following him
with her eyes. He landed on the lunch counter. She lunged, striking at
him, and when he rose again she flailed the air with the towel.

"That's not the way," she said to herself. "Creep up on him. Creep up on
him." The floor tilted under her feet. She put out her hand and
supported herself on the stool. Where was he now? She could hear the
buzz. The angry, sickening whine of his wings. He's got to land
sometime, somewhere. She felt sickness rising in her throat.

The fly made a series of loops and eights and circles and then settled
down to low, swooping flights from one end of the room to the other.
Alice waited. There was darkness crowding in on the edges of her vision.
The fly landed with a little plop on the box of cornflakes on the top of
the great pyramid of dry cereals on the shelf behind the counter. He
landed on the "C" of "corn" and moved restlessly over to the "O". He
stood very still. Alice snuffled.

The room was rocking and whirling but with will power the fly and the
area around him were unblurred. Her left hand reached back to the
counter and her fingers crept across it. She moved silently, slowly,
around the end of the counter. She raised her right hand very, very
carefully. The fly sprang forward a step and paused again. He was ready
to take off. Alice sensed it. She sensed his rise before he rose. She
swung with all the weight of her body. The wet towel smashed against the
pyramid of cardboard boxes and followed through. Boxes and a row of
glasses and a bowl of oranges crashed to the floor behind the counter
and Alice fell on top.

The room rushed in on her with red and blue lights. Under her cheek a
broken box spilled out its cornflakes. She raised her head once and then
put it down again and a rolling darkness dropped over her.

The lunchroom was dusky and very quiet. The fly moved to the edge of the
drying pool of wine on the white tabletop. For a moment he sensed in all
directions for danger, and then deliberately he dipped his flat
proboscis into the sweet, sticky wine.




CHAPTER 12


The clouds piled in gray threat on threat and a blue darkness settled on
the land. In the San Juan valley the darker greens seemed black and the
lighter green of grass, a chilling wet blue. "Sweetheart" came rolling
heavily along the highway and the aluminum paint on her gleamed with the
evil of a gun. Away to the south a bank of dark cloud fringed off into
rain and the curtain of it descended slowly.

The bus pulled in close to the gas pumps in front of Breed's store and
stopped. The little boxing gloves, the baby shoe, swung back and forth
in little pendulum jerks. Juan sat in the seat after the bus had
stopped. He raced the motor for a moment, listening to it, and then he
sighed and turned the key and the engine stopped.

"How long are you going to wait here?" Van Brunt asked.

"I'm going to take a look at the bridge," said Juan.

"It's still there," Van Brunt said.

"So are we," said Juan. He pulled the lever to open the door.

Breed came out of his screen door and walked toward the bus. He shook
hands with Juan. "Aren't you a little late?"

"I don't think so," said Juan, "unless my watch is off."

Pimples climbed down and stood beside them. He wanted to be ahead so he
could see the blonde get off the bus.

"Got any coke?" he asked.

"No," said Breed. "Few bottles of Pepsi-Cola. Haven't had any coke for a
month. It's the same stuff. You can't tell them apart."

"How's the bridge?" Juan asked.

Mr. Breed shook his head. "I think here goes your ball game. Take a look
for yourself. I don't like it."

"There's no break yet?" Juan asked.

"She could go like that," said Breed, and he sideswiped the palms of his
hands together. "She's got a strain on her that makes her cry like a
baby. Let's take a look."

Mr. Pritchard and Ernest climbed down from the bus and then Mildred and
Camille, with Norma behind her. Camille was expert. Pimples didn't see
anything.

"They got some Pepsi-Cola," Pimples said. "You like to have one?"

Camille turned to Norma. She was beginning to see how Norma could be
valuable. "Like a drink?" she asked.

"Well, I wouldn't mind," said Norma.

Pimples tried not to show his disappointment. Breed and Juan strolled
down the highway toward the river. "Going to look at the bridge," Juan
called over his shoulder.

Mrs. Pritchard called from the step, "Dear, do you think you could get
me a cold drink? Just water if there isn't anything else. And ask where
the 'you-know-what' is."

"It's around back," said Norma.

Breed fell into step beside Juan as they strode toward the bridge. "I've
been expecting her to go out every year," he said. "I wish we'd get a
bridge so when a big rain came I could sleep at night. I just lay in bed
and hear the rain on the roof, but I'm listening for the bridge to go
out. And I don't even know what kinda sound she'll make when she goes."

Juan grinned at him. "I know how that is. I remember in Torren when I
was a little kid. We used to listen at night for the popping that meant
fighting. We kinda liked the fighting, but it always meant my old man
would go away for a while. And at last he went away and he didn't come
back. I guess we always knew that would happen."

"What became of him?" Breed asked.

"I don't know. Somebody got him, I guess. He couldn't stay home when
there was any fighting. He had to get in it. I don't think he much cared
what they were fighting about. When he came home he was full of stories
every time." Juan chuckled. "He used to tell one about Pancho Villa. He
said a poor woman came to Villa and said, 'You have shot my husband and
now I and the little ones will starve.' Well, Villa had plenty of money
then. He had the presses and he was printing his own. He turned to his
treasurer and said, 'Roll out five kilos of twenty-peso bills for this
poor woman.' He wasn't even counting it, he had so much. So they did and
they tied the bills together with wire and that woman went out. Well,
then a sergeant said to Villa, 'There was a mistake, my general. We did
not shoot that woman's husband. He got drunk and we put him in jail.'
Then Pancho said, 'Go immediately and shoot him. We cannot disappoint
that poor woman.'"

Breed said, "It don't make any sense."

Juan laughed. "I know, that's what I like about it. God, that river is
eating around the back of the breakwater."

"I know. I tried to phone and tell them," said Breed. "I can't get
anybody on the phone."

They walked together out on the wooden bridge. And the moment Juan
stepped on the flooring he could feel the thrumming vibration of the
water. The bridge shivered and trembled. And there was a deep hum in the
timbers that was louder than the rush of the water. Juan looked over the
side of the bridge. The supporting timbers were under water and the
river foamed and bubbled under it. And the whole bridge trembled and
panted, and there were little strained cries from the timbers where the
iron turn-bolts went through. As they watched, a great old live oak tree
came rolling heavily down the stream. When it struck the bridge and
turned, the whole structure cried out and seemed to brace itself. The
tree caught in the submerged underpinning and there came a shrill,
ripping sound from under the bridge. The two men moved quickly back off
the bridgehead.

"How fast is she coming up?" Juan asked.

"Ten inches in the last hour. Of course, she might start to go down now.
Might have reached flood."

Juan looked at the side of the supporting streamers. His eye found a
brown bolthead on the edge of the water and he kept his eyes on it. "I
guess I could make it all right," he said. "I could make a run for it.
Or I could get the passengers to walk across and I could drive over and
pick them up on the other side. How's the other bridge?"

"I don't know," said Breed. "I tried to phone and find out but I can't
get anybody. And suppose you cross this one and the other one's out, and
you come back and this one's out? You'd be trapped in the bend. You'd
have some mighty sore passengers."

"I'm going to have some mighty sore passengers anyway," said Juan. "I've
got one--no, two--that are going to raise hell no matter what happens. I
know the signs. You know a man named Van Brunt?"

"Oh, that old fart! Yes, I know him. He owes me thirty-seven dollars. I
sold him some alfalfa seed and he claimed it was no good. Wouldn't pay
for it. He's got bills all over the county. Nothing he buys is any good.
I wouldn't sell him a candy bar on credit. He'd claim it wasn't sweet.
So you got him along?"

"I got him," said Juan. "And I got a man from Chicago. Big business bug.
He's going to be pretty sore if things don't come out the way he wants
them to."

"Well," said Breed, "you got to make up your own mind."

Juan looked at the threatening sky. "I guess it's going to rain, all
right. And with the hills full up it'll all dump right into the river. I
could get over all right, but about what chance have I got to get back?"

"About ten per cent," said Breed. "How's your wife?"

"Not too good," said Juan. "She's got a toothache."

"It pays to keep your teeth up," said Breed. "Should go to the dentist
every six months."

Juan laughed. "I know. Are you acquainted with anybody that does?"

"No," said Breed. He liked Juan. He didn't even consider him a
foreigner.

"I don't either," said Juan. "Well, there's one other way to stay out of
trouble with the passengers."

"What's that?"

"Let them decide. This is a democracy, isn't it?"

"They'll just get to fighting."

"Well, what's wrong with that if they fight each other?" said Juan.

"You've got something there," Breed said. "But I'll tell you one thing.
Whatever side everybody else is on, Van Brunt is gonna be on the other
side. There's a fellow wouldn't vote for the second coming of Christ if
it was a popular measure."

"He's all right," said Juan. "You just gotta know how to handle him. I
had a horse once that was so ornery that if you reined left he'd turn
right. I fooled him. I did everything opposite and he thought he was
getting his own way. You could get Van Brunt to do almost anything by
disagreeing with him."

"I'm going to forbid him to pay that thirty-seven dollars," said Breed.

"It might work at that," Juan said. "Well, the river isn't at flood.
That bolthead is covered. I'm going to see what the passengers want to
do."

Back in the store Pimples felt a little cheated. He had been maneuvered
into buying both Norma and Camille a Pepsi-Cola. Try as he would, he
couldn't separate Camille from Norma. And it wasn't Norma's fault.
Camille was using her.

Norma was flushed with pleasure. She had never been so happy in her
life. This beautiful creature was nice to her. They were friends. And
she didn't say they'd live together. She said she'd see how things
worked out. For some reason this gave Norma a great deal of confidence.
People had not been nice to Norma. They had said "yes" to things and
then wormed out of them. But this girl, who looked like everything Norma
wanted to be, said "she'd see." In her mind Norma could see the
apartment they would get. It would have a velvet davenport and a coffee
table in front of it. And the drapes would be wine-colored velvet.
They'd have a radio and phonograph combination, of course, and plenty of
records. She didn't like to think past that. It was almost like spoiling
her luck to think past that. There was a kind of an electric blue for
the davenport.

She raised her glass of Pepsi-Cola and let the sweet, biting drink run
down her throat, and in the middle of the swallow despair settled down
on her like a heavy gas. "It won't ever happen," her mind cried. "It'll
get away! It'll be just like always and I'll be alone again." She
squeezed her eyes shut and wiped the back of her hand across them. When
she opened her eyes again she was all right. "I'll save it," she
thought. "Little by little I'll make the apartment, and then if it
doesn't happen I'll still have it." A hardness came over her and an
acceptance. "If any of it comes through it'll just be gravy. But I can't
expect it, I can't let myself expect it. That will take it away from
me."

Pimples said, "I've got plenty of plans. I'm studying radar. That's
going to be a very important job. Fellow that knows radar is going to be
fixed pretty nice. I think a person's got to look ahead, don't you? You
take some people, they don't look ahead into the future and they end up
right where they started." A little smile was fixed on Camille's lips.

"You've got something there," she said. She wished she could get away
from this kid. He was a nice kid, but she just wished she could get away
from him. She could practically smell him. "Thank you very much for the
drink," she said. "I think I'll just go and freshen up a little. You
want to come, Norma?"

A look of devotion came on Norma's face. "Oh, yes," she said, "I guess I
ought to freshen up too." Everything Camille said was right, was dainty
and fine. "Oh, Jesus Christ, let it happen!" Norma cried in her mind.

Mrs. Pritchard was sipping a lemonade. It had taken a little time to get
it because they didn't serve lemonade. But when Mrs. Pritchard had
pointed out the lemons in the grocery section and had even offered to
squeeze them herself--well, there was nothing Mrs. Breed could do, and
she'd made it.

"I just can't drink old bottled things," Mrs. Pritchard explained. "I
like just the pure fruit juice." Mrs. Breed resentfully went down under
this wave of sweetness. Mrs. Pritchard sipped her lemonade and looked
through a rack of postcards on the novelty counter. There were pictures
of the courthouse in San Juan de la Cruz and of the hotel in San Ysidro
which was built over a hot spring of epsom salts. A fine old hotel much
frequented by rheumatic people who bathed in the strong waters. The
hotel was called a Spa on the postcards. There were other items on the
novelty counter. Painted plaster dogs and glass pistols full of colored
candy and bright kewpie dolls and fancy redwood boxes of glace
California fruits. And there were lamps whose shades turned when the
lights were on so that the forest fires and ships under full sail moved
and shone in a very lifelike manner.

Ernest Horton stood at the counter too and looked at the display with a
certain amount of contempt. He said to Mr. Pritchard, "Sometimes I think
I ought to open a novelty store with all new stuff. Some of this old
stuff's been on the market for years and nobody buys it. Now my company
has nothing but up-and-coming stock, all new."

Mr. Pritchard nodded. "Gives a man confidence to work for a firm he
knows is on its toes," he said. "That's why I think you might like to
work for us. You could be sure we're on our toes every hour of the day."

Ernest said, "Excuse me, I'm going to get my case. I've got an item that
really isn't before the public yet but it's gone like hot cakes to the
trade already, just to the trade. I'd like to place a few here, maybe."

He went out quickly and lugged his sample case in. He opened it and
brought out a cardboard box. "Plain wrapping, you see. That's for the
surprise." He opened the box and took out a perfect little high tank
toilet twelve inches high. There was the box and a little chain with a
brass knob on the bottom, and the toilet bowl was white. And it even had
a little seat cover colored to look like wood.

Mrs. Breed had moved down in back of the counter. "My husband does all
the buying," she said. "You'll have to see him."

"I know," said Ernest. "I just want you to look at this item. It sells
itself."

"What's it for?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"You just watch," said Ernest. He pulled the little chain and
immediately the toilet bowl flushed with a brown fluid. Ernest lifted
the toilet seat right out of the bowl and it was a small glass. "That's
one ounce," he said triumphantly. "If you want a double shot, say for a
highball, you pull the chain twice."

"Whisky!" cried Mr. Pritchard.

"Or brandy, or rum," said Ernest. "Anything you want. See, here in the
tank is the place you fill it, and the tank is guaranteed plastic. It
knocks 'em cold. I've got orders for eighteen hundred of this little
item already. It's a knockout. It gets a laugh every time."

"By George, that's clever," Mr. Pritchard said. "Who thinks these things
up?"

"Well," Ernest explained, "we've got an idea department. Everybody puts
ideas in. This item was suggested by our salesman in the Great Lakes
area. He'll make himself a nice bonus. Our company gives two per cent of
the profits to any employee who sends in a workable idea."

"It's clever," Mr. Pritchard repeated. In his mind he could see Charlie
Johnson when he first saw it. Charlie would want to rush right out and
get one for himself. "What do you get for them?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"Well, this one retails for five dollars. But if you don't mind my
making the suggestion, we have a model that sells for twenty-seven
fifty."

Mr. Pritchard pursed his lips.

"But look what you get," Ernest went on. "This one is plastic. The
better item is--well, the box is oak and is made of old whisky barrels
so that it'll take the liquor fine. The chain is real silver and it has
a Brazilian diamond for a knob. The bowl is porcelain, real toilet
quality porcelain, and the seat is hand-carved mahogany. And on the box
there's a little silver plate for, if, like you wanted to present it to
a lodge or a club, your name goes on that."

"It sounds like a good value," Mr. Pritchard said. His mind was made up.
He knew how he would get the better of Charlie Johnson now. He would
give one of the toilets to Charlie. But on the plate he would put
"Presented to Charlie Johnson, the all-American soandso, by Elliott
Pritchard," and then let Charlie show off all he wanted to. Everybody
would know who had the idea first.

"You haven't got one with you, have you?" he asked.

"No, you have to order."

Mrs. Pritchard spoke up. She had moved close, quietly. "Elliott, you're
not going to get one of those. Elliott, they're vulgar."

"I wouldn't have it around if there were ladies, of course," said Mr.
Pritchard. "No, little girl. Know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna send
one of them to Charlie Johnson. That'll get back at him for sending me
that stuffed skunk. Yes, sir, I'll fix him."

Mrs. Pritchard explained. "Charlie Johnson was Mr. Pritchard's roommate
in college. They have the wildest jokes. They're like little boys when
they get together."

"Now," said Mr. Pritchard seriously, "if I ordered one, could you have
it sent to an address I'll give you? And could you have it engraved?
I'll write what I want you to put on the plate."

"What are you going to say?" Bernice asked.

"Little girls keep their noses out of big man's business," said Mr.
Pritchard.

"I'll bet it'll be awful," said Bernice.

Mildred was in the dumps. She felt heavy and tired and she wasn't
interested in anything. She was sitting in a twisted wire candy-store
chair all by herself at the end of the counter. Cynically she had
watched Pimples trying to get the blonde alone. The trip had let her
down. She was disgusted with herself and what had happened. What kind of
a girl was she if a bus driver could set her off? She shivered a little
with distaste. Where was he now? Why didn't he come back? She smothered
her impulse to get up and go look for him. Van Brunt's voice sounded
beside her so that she jumped.

"Young lady," he said, "your skirt shows. I thought you'd like to know."

"Oh, yes. Thank you very much."

"You might have gone all day thinking you were all fixed up if somebody
didn't tell you," he said.

"Oh, yes, thank you." She stood up and, leaning backward, pushed her
skirt against her legs so that she could see. There was an inch of slip
showing behind.

"I think it's better to be told things like that," Van Brunt said.

"Oh, it is. I guess I broke a shoulder strap."

"I don't care to hear about your underwear," he said coldly. "My only
remark is--and I repeat it--your skirt shows. I don't want you to think
I had any other motive."

"I don't," said Mildred helplessly.

Van Brunt went on, "Too many young girls get self-conscious of their
legs. They think everybody is looking at them."

Suddenly Mildred was laughing wildly like a sick woman.

"What's so funny?" Van Brunt demanded angrily.

"Nothing," said Mildred. "I just thought of a joke." She had remembered
that Van Brunt had never missed any show of legs all morning.

"Well, if it's that funny, tell it," he said.

"Oh, no. It's a personal joke. I'll go out and fix my strap." She looked
at him and then, deliberately, she said, "You see, there are two straps
on each shoulder. One is for the slip and the other supports the
brassire and the brassire holds the breasts up firmly." She saw Van
Brunt's color come up out of his collar. "There isn't anything below
that until the panties, if I wore panties, which I don't."

Van Brunt turned and walked away quickly and Mildred felt better. Now
the old fool wouldn't have a comfortable moment. She could watch him and
maybe later trick him and catch him in the act. She got up, laughing to
herself, and went out around the back of the store to the lean-to marked
"Ladies."

A lattice covered the door and the morning glory was beginning to climb
up. Mildred stood in front of the closed door. She could hear Norma
talking to the blonde inside. She listened. Maybe this would make the
trip worth while, just listening to people talk. Mildred liked to
eavesdrop on people. Sometimes her liking to bothered her. She could
listen to inanities with interest. But of all the listening, the best
was in women's rest rooms. The freedom of women in any room where there
was a toilet, a mirror, and a washbowl had interested her for a long
time. She had once written a paper in college, which had been considered
daring, in which she had maintained that women lost their inhibitions
when their skirts were up.

It must be either that, she thought, or the certainty that man, the
enemy, could never invade this territory. It was the one place in the
world where women could be certain there would be no men. And so they
relaxed and became outwardly the people they were inwardly. She had
thought a great deal about it. Women were more friendly or more vicious
to one another in public toilets, but on personal terms. Perhaps that
was because there were no men. Because, where there were no men, there
was no competition, and their poses dropped from them.

Mildred wondered whether it was the same in men's toilets. She just
didn't think it was likely, because men had many competitions besides
women, while most of women's insecurities had to do with men. Her paper
on the subject had been returned marked "Not carefully thought out." She
planned to do it over again.

Out in the store she had not been friendly toward Camille. She just
didn't like her. But she knew her dislike would not carry into the rest
room. She thought, "Isn't it strange that women will compete for men
they don't even want?"

Norma and Camille were talking on and on. Mildred put her hand on the
door and pushed it open. In the small room were a toilet stall and a
washbowl with a square mirror over it. A dispenser of paper seatcovers
was on one wall, and paper towels beside the basin. A slot machine for
sanitary pads was on the wall beside the frosted glass window. The
concrete floor was painted dark red and the walls were thick with layers
of white paint. There was a sharp smell of perfumed disinfectant in the
air.

Camille was seated on the toilet and Norma stood in front of the mirror.
They both looked at Mildred as she came in.

"Want to get in here?" Camille asked.

"No," said Mildred. "I've got a drooping strap on my slip."

Camille looked down at the skirt. "You have all right. No, not that
way," she said to Norma. "You see the way your hair line goes? Well,
make the eyebrows go up a little on the outside, just a little. Wait,
honey. Wait a minute and I'll show you."

She stood up and moved to Norma. "Turn around so I can see you. There,
now. And there, now look at yourself. See how it kind of brings down
your hairline a little bit? Your forehead's high so you try to bring it
down. Now look, close your eyes." She took the eyebrow pencil from Norma
and rubbed it gently on the lower lids just below the lashes, making the
line a little darker as it passed the outside corners.

"You've got the mascara on too thick, honey," she said. "See how the
lashes stick together? Use more water and take a little more time. Wait
a minute." She brought out of her purse a little plastic case of
eyeshadow. "Now you go careful with this stuff." She dipped her finger
into the blue paste, rubbed a little on each of Norma's upper eyelids,
making it heavier toward the outside corners. "Now, let me see." She
inspected her work. "Look, honey, you keep your eyes too wide, like a
rabbit. Let your upper lids down a little bit. No, and don't squint.
Just let your upper lids droop down a little bit. There, like that. Now
look at yourself. See the difference?"

"My God, I look different," Norma said. Her voice was awed.

"Sure you do. Now, you've got the lipstick on all wrong. Look, honey,
your lower lip is too thin. So is mine. Bring the lipstick down a little
bit here, and a little here."

Norma stood still like a good child and let her work.

"See? Heavier in the corners," Camille said. "Now your lower lip looks
fuller."

Mildred said, "You're good. I could use some advice too."

"Oh, well," said Camille. "It's pretty simple."

"That's theatrical make-up," Mildred said. "I mean it's a kind of
theatrical type make-up."

"Well, you know, dealing with the public--dentists use their nurses
almost like receptionists."

"Oh, damn it!" Mildred exclaimed. "This strap isn't loose, it's broken."
She peeled her dress off her shoulder and she had a little silken string
in her hand.

"You'll have to pin it," Camille said.

"But I haven't got a pin and my needle and thread's in one of the
suitcases!"

Camille opened her purse again, and in the lining were half a dozen tiny
safety pins. "Here," said Camille, "I always go heeled." She unfastened
one of the pins. "You want me to fix it for you?"

"If you don't mind. My damned eyes. I can't see anything."

Camille pulled the loose slip up, folded the end of the strap, and
pinned it firmly to the edge of the slip. "That's hardly all right, but
at least it doesn't show. It's still a pin job. You always been
shortsighted, honey?"

"No," said Mildred. "I was all right until--well, right when I was about
fourteen. One doctor said it had to do with puberty. He said some girls
get their eyesight back when they have their first baby."

"That's tough," said Camille.

"It's a damn nuisance," Mildred said. "I don't care how much they make
new shapes of glasses. They still aren't very good looking."

"Ever heard of that kind that fit right down against the eyes?"

"I've thought about it and I haven't done anything about it. I guess I'm
scared to have anything touch my eyes."

Norma was still regarding herself with wonder in the mirror. Her eyes
had suddenly become larger and her lips fuller and softer and the wet
rat look had gone from her face.

"Isn't she wonderful?" Norma said to no one. "Isn't she just wonderful?"

Camille said, "She's gonna be a pretty kid when she learns a few tricks
and gets some confidence. We'll touch up that hair, honey, as soon as we
get in."

"You mean you've thought it over?" Norma cried. "You mean we'll get the
apartment?" She whirled on Mildred. "We're going to have an apartment,"
she said breathlessly. "We're going to have a davenport and Sunday
morning we'll wash and set our hair--"

"We'll see," Camille broke in. "We'll just have to see how things work
out. Here's the two of us without jobs and already she's got a duplex
rented. Hold your horses, honey."

"It's a funny trip," Mildred said. "We're on our way to Mexico.
Everything's gone wrong from the start. My father wanted to see the
country. He thinks we might settle in California some time. So he wanted
to take the bus to Los Angeles. He thought he could see the country
better."

"Well, he can," said Camille.

"He can see too much of it maybe," Mildred said. "But did you ever see
such a collection of people as we've got?"

"They're all about the same," said Camille.

"I like Mr. Chicoy," said Mildred. "He's part Mexican, you know. But
that boy! I've got a feeling he'd climb all over you if you weren't
careful."

"Oh, he's all right," Camille said. "He's just a little goaty. Most kids
are like that. He'll probably get over it."

"Or maybe he won't," said Mildred. "Did you take a good look at that old
fellow, Van Brunt? He didn't get over it. It just ingrew. That's a
pretty filthy man in his mind."

Camille smiled. "He's pretty old," she said.

Mildred went into the little cubicle and sat down. "There's something I
wanted to ask you," she said. "My father thinks he's seen you somewhere.
He's got a pretty good memory. Did you ever see him?"

For a second Mildred saw the hostility in Camille's eyes, saw the
tightened mouth, and she knew she'd touched something sore. And
instantly Camille's face was placid again.

"I think I must look like somebody else," she said. "This time he's made
a mistake unless he saw me in the street somewhere."

"On the level?" Mildred asked. "I'm not trying to catch you now. I just
wondered."

The friendliness, the companionship, the relaxation, slipped from the
room. It was as though a man had entered. Camille's eyes stabbed at
Mildred. "He made a mistake," she said coldly. "You can take that any
way you want."

The door opened and Mrs. Pritchard came in. "Oh, there you are," she
said to Mildred. "I thought you'd wandered off."

"Oh, I broke a strap on my slip," said Mildred.

"Well, hurry up. Mr. Chicoy's back and there's quite an argument going
on--Thank you, dear," she said to Norma, who had moved away from the
basin to make room for her. "I'll just moisten my handkerchief and take
a little of the dust off--Why don't you have a lemonade?" she said to
Mildred. "That nice woman doesn't mind making them at all. I told her
she'd be quite famous if she just served pure fruit juices."

Suddenly Camille said, "I wish we could get something to eat. I'm
getting hungry. I'd like something good."

"So would I," said Mrs. Pritchard.

"I'd like a cold cracked crab with mayonnaise and a bottle of beer,"
Camille said.

"Well, I've never had crab that way," said Mrs. Pritchard, "but I wish
you could have tasted the way my mother fried butterfish. She used to
take an old-fashioned cast-iron skillet--and the fish, it had to be very
fresh and very carefully trimmed. She'd make a batter with brown toasted
crumbs--bread crumbs, not cracker crumbs--and she'd put a whole
tablespoon--no, two tablespoonfuls--of Worcestershire sauce in a beaten
egg. I think that was the secret."

"Mother," said Mildred, "don't start on the butterfish recipe."

"You'd better have a lemonade," said Mrs. Pritchard. "It'd clean up your
skin. A good long trip makes a person blotchy."

"I wish we'd get moving," Mildred said. "We can get lunch in the next
town. What's its name?"

"San Juan de la Cruz," said Norma.

"San Juan de la Cruz," Mrs. Pritchard repeated softly. "I think the
Spanish names are so pretty."

Norma took a long, astonished look at herself in the mirror before they
went out. She drooped her eyes. It was going to take practice to
remember to do that all the time, but it changed her whole appearance
and she liked it.




CHAPTER 13


Juan sat on a stool drinking a Pepsi-Cola and rubbing the shiny end of
his amputated finger over the corduroy ridges of his trousers. When the
women came around from the back and entered the store he looked up at
them and the rubbing of his finger became a tapping.

"Is everybody here?" he asked. "No, there's one missing. Where's Mr. Van
Brunt?"

"I'm over here." He spoke from behind the counter on the grocery side,
where, concealed by a stacked wall of canned coffee, he was inspecting
the shelves idly.

Mr. Pritchard said, "I want to know when we can get started. I have
connections to make."

"I know," Juan said gently, "and that's what I want to talk about. The
bridge is not safe. I can probably get across it. But there's another
bridge and it may be out, or it may go out. We can't get any news about
it. If we get into the bend of the river with both bridges out, we'd be
caught, and nobody could make any connections. Now, I'm willing to take
a vote and do anything the majority of the passengers want to do. I'll
make a run for it and take a chance, or I'll take you back and you can
make other plans. It's up to you. But when you make up your minds I want
you to stick to the verdict."

He raised the bottle and drank the Pepsi-Cola.

"I haven't the time," Mr. Pritchard said loudly. "Look, my friend. I've
had no vacation since the war started. I've been making the implements
of war that gave us the victory, and this is my first vacation. I just
haven't the time to go gallivanting all over the country. I need a rest.
I only have a few weeks and this is eating them up."

Juan said, "I'm sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose, you know, and if you
got caught in the bend of the river you might lose a lot more time and I
might lose the bus getting it across. The bridge is strained to the
breaking point. It may come down any minute. The only other choice is to
go back."

Van Brunt came from behind the stack of coffee. He had a two-and-a-half
pound can of sliced peaches in his hand. He crossed the store to Mrs.
Breed. "How much?" he asked.

"Forty-seven cents."

"My God! For a can of peaches?"

"The profit hasn't changed," she said. "We've just got to pay more for
them."

Van Brunt threw a half-dollar violently down on the counter. "Open 'em
up," he said. "Forty-seven cents for a mean little can of peaches!"

Mrs. Breed put the can in a wall opener, turned the crank, and stopped
just as the edge raised. She passed the can over the counter to Van
Brunt. He drank off part of the juice first, then reached in and picked
out a yellow slice with his fingers. He held it over the open can to
drip.

"Now I heard what you said," he observed. "You think you can waste our
time. I've got to get in to the courthouse and I've got to get in this
afternoon. And it's up to you to get me through. You're a common
carrier, subject to the rules of the railroad commission."

"That's what I'm trying to do," said Juan. "And one of the rules of the
commission is don't kill the passengers."

"It comes of not knowing the country," Van Brunt went on. "There ought
to be a strict law that you've got to know the country before you can
drive a bus." He waved a slice of peach and flipped it into his mouth
and picked up another slice between his thumb and forefinger. He was
enjoying himself.

"You said there was only two things to do. Well, there's three. You
don't know about the old road that was there before they put in those
damn-fool bridges. It goes right around the outside of the bend. The
stagecoaches used to use it."

Juan looked questioningly at Mr. Breed. "I heard about it, but what
condition is it in?"

"Stages used it for over a hundred years," said Van Brunt.

Mr. Breed said, "I know it's all right for a couple of miles, but I
don't know it beyond that. It goes up the side of the mountain to the
east, there. It might be washed out. I haven't been over it since way
before the rains."

"You've got your choice," Van Brunt said. He waved his piece of peach,
flung it into his mouth, and talked around it. "I told you it was going
to rain. I told you the river would be up, and now, when you're stuck, I
tell you how to get out of it. Do I have to drive your god-damned bus
too?"

Juan bawled, "Keep your pants on and watch your language. There's ladies
here."

Van Brunt tilted the can and drank the rest of the juice, straining the
peaches out with his teeth. The thick juice ran down his chin and he
wiped it off with his sleeve. "God, what a trip!" he said. "Right from
the beginning."

Juan turned and faced the other passengers. "Well, there it is. My
franchise says I'm supposed to go on the highway. I don't know the old
road. I don't know if I could get through or not. It's up to you to
decide what you want to do. If we get hung up I don't want to be to
blame."

Mr. Pritchard said, "I like to see things get done. Now, I've got to get
to Los Angeles, man. I've got airplane tickets for Mexico City. Do you
know what they cost? And the planes are booked solid. We've got to get
through. Let's get some action on this. You think the bridge is
dangerous?"

"I know it's dangerous," said Juan.

"Well," said Mr. Pritchard, "you say you don't know whether you can get
through on the old road?"

"That's right," said Juan.

"So you've got two gambles and one sure thing. And the sure thing don't
get you through either. Hmmmm," said Mr. Pritchard.

"What do you think, dear?" Mrs. Pritchard said. "We've got to do
something. I haven't had a good bath for three days. Dear, we've got to
do something."

Mildred said, "Let's try the old road. It might be interesting." She
glanced at Juan to see how he would take this attitude, but already his
eyes had moved from her to Camille.

Something about the recent association made Camille say, "I vote for the
old road. I'm so tired and dirty now, nothing would make much difference
to me."

Juan looked down and his eyes sharpened when he saw Norma's face. She
didn't look like the same girl. And Norma knew he had noticed. "I say
the old road," she said breathlessly.

Ernest Horton found a chair, the one Mrs. Breed ordinarily used when her
legs swelled up in the afternoons. He had been watching the counting of
noses.

"I don't much care," he said. "Of course, I'd like to get to L. A., but
it don't make much difference. I'll stick with the others, whatever they
say."

Van Brunt put the can down loudly on the counter. "It's going to rain,"
he said. "That back road can get awful slippery. You might not make it
up over the hill, to the eastward. It's steep and slick. If you mired
down there I don't know how you'd ever get out."

"But you're the one that suggested it," Mildred said.

"I'm just getting all the objections down," Van Brunt said. "Just
getting them in order."

"How would you vote?" Juan asked.

"Oh, I won't vote. That's the silliest thing I ever heard of. Seems to
me the driver ought to make the decisions, like a captain of a ship."

Pimples went to the candy counter. He laid down a dime and picked up two
Baby Ruths. He put one in his side pocket to give to Camille when he
could get her alone, and the other he unwrapped slowly. A wild, exciting
thought had just popped into his mind. Suppose they went over the bridge
and right in the middle the span broke and the bus fell into the river?
Pimples would be thrown clear, but the blonde would be trapped in the
bus. And Pimples dived and dived and he was nearly dead, but at last he
broke a window and pulled Camille out and he swam ashore and laid her,
unconscious, on the green grass and he rubbed her legs to get the
circulation started. But better, he turned her over and he put his hands
under her breasts and gave her artificial respiration.

But suppose they took the old road and the bus mired down? Then they'd
be there all night, with maybe a fire going, and they'd be together and
sit together in front of the fire with a light on their faces and maybe
a blanket thrown over the two of them.

Pimples said, "I think we'd better try the old road." Juan looked at him
and grinned.

"You've got real Kit Carson blood in you, haven't you, Kit?" And Pimples
knew it was a joke, but it wasn't a mean joke.

"Well, I guess that's everybody but one, and he won't vote. What's the
matter? Do you want to be able to sue?"

Van Brunt swung around to the others. "You're all being crazy," he said.
"Know what he's doing? He's pulling out from under. If anything should
happen he won't get the blame because he could say he only did what you
told him to. No, he's not going to trap me that way."

Mr. Pritchard cleaned his glasses on his white linen handkerchief. "It's
an idea," he said. "I hadn't thought of it quite that way. We're really
giving up our rights."

Juan's eyes glowed with rage. His mouth grew thin and tight. "Get in the
bus," he said. "I'm taking you back to San Ysidro and dumping you. I'm
trying to get you through and you act as though I were trying to murder
you. Come on, get in the bus. I'm sick of it. Since last night I've had
my life turned upside down for your comfort and I'm tired of it. So come
on. We're going back."

Mr. Pritchard walked over to him. "No, I didn't mean that," he said. "I
appreciate what you've done. We all do. I was just trying to think
clearly on all sides of the subject. That's what I do in business. Don't
do anything until you've thought it through."

"I'm sick of it," Juan said again. "You had my bed last night. I just
want to get rid of you."

Van Brunt said, "Don't forget, it was your bus that broke down. It
wasn't our fault."

Juan said evenly, "Mostly, I think, I want to get rid of you."

"Watch yourself," Van Brunt said. "Don't forget, you're a common carrier
with a franchise. After this example it wouldn't be hard to get the
franchise removed."

Juan changed suddenly. He laughed. "Boy, that would be a relief. I'd be
free of people like you, and I can think where I would put that
franchise, rolled up and tied with barbed wire."

Camille laughed aloud and Ernest Horton giggled happily. "I've got to
remember that," he said, "yes, sir. Look, Mr. Chicoy, these two men have
been talking. The rest of us want to go. We'll take our chance. Why
don't you just draw a line and anybody over the line wants to go, the
rest stay here. That's fair enough."

Mildred said, "Mr. Chicoy, I want to go."

"O.K.," said Juan. "That big crack there in the floor. Everybody that
don't want me to take the back road get over on the other side with the
vegetables."

Nobody moved. Juan looked carefully into each face.

"It isn't legal," Van Brunt said. "It won't hold in any court."

"What won't hold?"

"What you're doing."

"It isn't in any court."

"It may be," said Van Brunt.

"You can't come even if you want to," said Juan.

"You just try to keep me off. I've got a ticket and I've got a right to
go on the bus. You just try to keep me off and I'll have you up so fast
it'll make your head spin."

Juan hunched his shoulders. "And you would too," he said. "O.K., let's
get started." He turned to Mr. Breed. "Could you lend me a few tools?
I'll bring them right back."

"What kind of tools?"

"Oh, a pick and shovel."

"Oh, sure. You mean in case you get stuck?"

"Yeah, and have you got a block and tackle?"

"Not a very good one. The blocks are all right, but there's just some
old half-inch line on them. I don't know how much strain it would take.
That's a pretty heavy bus."

"Well, it would be better than nothing," Juan said. "Haven't got any new
line I could buy here, have you?"

"I haven't had a new piece of Manila line since the war started," said
Breed. "But you're welcome to what I have got. Come along. Pick up what
you want."

Juan said, "Come along, Kit, and give me a hand, will you?" The three
went out of the store and around to the back.

Ernest said to Camille, "I wouldn't have missed this. I wouldn't for
anything."

"I just wish I wasn't so tired," she said. "I've been riding busses for
five days. I want to get out of my clothes and get some real sleep for a
couple of days."

"Why didn't you take the train? Chicago, you said?"

"Yes, Chicago."

"Well, you coulda got on the Super Chief and slept all the way to L. A.
That's a nice train."

"Saving pennies," said Camille. "I've got a little piece of change and I
want to lay around for a few weeks before I got to work. And I'd rather
do it in a double bed than a berth."

"Did I catch you right?" he asked.

"You did not," said Camille.

"O.K., you're the boss."

"Look, let's not play," Camille said. "I'm too damn tired to play
guessing games with you."

"O.K., sister, O.K. I'll play any way you want."

"Well, then, let's just sit this one out. Do you mind?"

"You know? I like you," Ernest said. "I'd like to take you out when you
get rested up."

"Well, we'll see how it goes," Camille said. She liked him. She could
talk to him. He knew a few answers and that was a relief.

Norma had been watching them, listening. She was full of admiration for
Camille. She wanted to learn just how it was done. Suddenly she realized
that her eyes were wide open as a rabbit's and she drooped the upper
lids.

Mrs. Pritchard said, "I hope I'm not going to get a headache. Elliott,
see if they have any aspirins, will you?"

Mrs. Breed tore a cellophane bag off a big cardboard display. "You want
one of them? That's a nickel."

"We better have half a dozen," Mr. Pritchard said.

"That'll be twenty-six cents with tax."

"You needn't have got so many, Elliott," Mrs. Pritchard said. "I have a
bottle of five-hundred in my bag."

"It's best to be prepared," he answered. He knew her headaches and they
were dreadful. They twisted her face and reduced her to a panting,
sweating, grinning, quivering blob of pain. They filled a room and a
house. They got into everyone around her. Mr. Pritchard could feel one
of her headaches through walls. He could feel it all over his body, and
the doctor said there was nothing to do about it. They injected calcium
and they gave her sedatives. The headaches usually came when she was
nervous and when things, through no fault of her own, were not going
well.

Her husband would have liked to protect her. They seemed to be selfish,
these headaches, and yet they were not. The pain was real. No one could
simulate such agonizing pain. Mr. Pritchard dreaded them more than
anything in the world. A good one could make the whole house vibrate
with horror. And they were a little like conscience. Try as he would,
Mr. Pritchard could never lose the feeling that they were in some way
his fault. Not that Mrs. Pritchard ever said anything or indicated that
this might be so. In fact she was very brave. She tried to muffle her
screams with a pillow.

Mr. Pritchard didn't bother her much in bed--very seldom, in fact. But
in a curious way he tied up his occasional lust and his loss of
self-control with her headaches. It was planted deep in his mind that
this was so, and he didn't know how it had got planted. But he did have
a conscience about it. His bestiality, his lust, his lack of
self-control, were the cause. And he didn't have any means of saving
himself. Sometimes he found himself hating his wife very deeply because
he was unhappy. He stayed in his office overtime when she had a
headache, and sometimes he just sat at his desk for hours, staring at
the brown paneling, his body throbbing with his wife's pain.

In the middle of one of her worst spells she would try to save him. "Go
to a movie," she would moan. "Go over to Charlie Johnson's. Take some
whisky. Get drunk. Don't stay here. Go to a movie." But it was
impossible. He couldn't.

He put the six little transparent bags into his coat pocket. "Would you
like to take a couple now, just in case?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I think I'm going to be all right." She smiled her
brave, sweet smile.

Mildred, when she heard the first mention of aspirin, went to the
grocery side and studied the OPA price-ceiling chart on the wall. Her
mouth pinched tight and her throat was convulsed. "Oh, Jesus Christ,"
she said softly under her breath. "Oh, Christ, is she going to start
that already?" Mildred didn't quite believe the headaches. She'd never
had a bad headache herself, only mild periodic ones and a few hangover
headaches at school. She called her mother's psychosomatic and
psychotic, and she dreaded them even more than her father did. As a
little girl she had run from them and gone to earth in the cellar or in
the space behind the cabinet in the sewing room. And usually she was
pulled out and taken in to her mother because when mother had a headache
she needed love and she needed to be petted. Mildred thought of the
headaches as a curse. She hated them. And she hated her mother when she
had them.

For a time Mildred had thought them pure sham, and even now, when
through reading she knew the pain was real, Mildred still considered the
headaches a weapon her mother used with complete cunning, with complete
brutality. The headaches were pain to her mother, truly, but they
governed and punished the family too. They brought the family to heel.
Certain things her mother didn't like were never done because they
brought on a headache. And when she was at home, Mildred knew that her
fear about getting into the house not later than one in the morning was
caused by the almost certainty that her mother would get a headache if
she didn't.

Between headaches you forgot how devastating they were. Mildred thought
that a psychiatrist was what her mother needed. And Bernice would have
done anything. She wanted to do anything. It was Mr. Pritchard who put
his foot down. He didn't believe in psychiatrists, he said. But actually
he did believe in them, so much that he was afraid of them. For Mr.
Pritchard had gradually come to depend on the headaches. They were in a
way a justification to him. They were a punishment on him and they gave
him sins to be atoned for. Mr. Pritchard needed sins. There were none in
his business life, for the cruelties there were defined and pigeonholed
as necessity and responsibility to the stockholders. And Mr. Pritchard
needed personal sins and personal atonement. He denounced the idea of a
psychiatrist angrily.

Mildred forced herself to turn around and go back to her mother. "Are
you all right, dear?"

"Yes," Bernice said brightly.

"No headache?"

Bernice was apologetic. "I just had a twinge and it frightened me," she
said. "I could never forgive myself if I had one of those horrible
things and ruined papa's trip."

Mildred felt a little shiver of fear at this woman who was her
mother--at her power and her ruthlessness. It must be unconscious. It
had to be. Mildred had seen and heard the engineering of this trip to
Mexico. Her father hadn't wanted to go. He would have liked to take a
vacation by just staying home from the office, which would mean that he
would go to the office every day; but by going at odd hours and
returning, not by the clock but by his feeling, he would have had a
sense of vacation and rest.

But the trip to Mexico had been planted. When and how? Mildred didn't
know and her father didn't know. But gradually he became convinced not
only that it was his idea, but that he was forcing his family with him.
And this gave him a fine sense of being boss in his own home. He had
walked through closing door after closing door in the maze. It was
rather like a trap nest. A hen finds a hole, looks in, sees there is a
bit of grain, steps through the door--the door closes. Well, here is a
nest. It's dark and quiet. Why not lay an egg? It'd be a good joke on
whoever left that door open.

Her father had almost forgotten that he didn't want to go to Mexico.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard were doing it for Mildred. That was really
the safe thing. She was studying Spanish in college, a language she was
incapable of understanding, just as her instructors were. Mexico would
be just the place to practice up. Her mother said there was no way of
learning a language like having to use it.

Mildred, looking at her mother's sweet, relaxed face, simply could not
believe that this woman could engineer a thing and then destroy it. Why?
And she would do it. She had planted the idea. Sure as hell she was
going to have a headache. But she would wait until she was out of touch
with doctors, until her headache would cause the greatest possible
impression. It was hard to believe. Mildred didn't think her mother
really knew what she was doing. But there was a doughy lump in Mildred's
chest and it weighed down on her stomach. The headache was coming. She
knew it.

She envied Camille. Camille was a tramp, Mildred thought. And things
were so much easier for a tramp. There was no conscience, no sense of
loss, nothing but a wonderful, relaxed, stretching-cat selfishness. She
could go to bed with anyone she wanted to and never see him again and
have no feeling of loss or insecurity about it. That was the way Mildred
thought it was with Camille. She wished she could be that way, and she
knew she couldn't. Couldn't because of her mother. And the unbidden
thought entered her mind--if her mother were only dead Mildred's life
would be so much simpler. She could have a secret little place to live
somewhere. Almost fiercely, she brushed the thought away. "What a foul
thing to think," she said to herself ceremoniously. But it was a dream
she often had.

She looked out the front window. Pimples had helped to put the block and
tackle into the bus, and the Manila line had grease on it and the grease
had got on Pimples' chocolate brown trousers. He was trying to rub out
the spot with a handkerchief. "Poor kid," Mildred thought, "that's
probably his only suit." She was going to tell him not to touch it when
she saw him go to the gasoline pump and put a little of the gas on his
handkerchief and go to work expertly on the spot.

And there was Juan calling, "Come on, you folks."




CHAPTER 14


The back road around the San Ysidro River bend was a very old road, no
one knew how old. It was true that the stage coaches had used it, and
men on horseback. In the dry seasons the cattle had been driven over it
to the river, where they could lie in the willows during the heat of the
day and drink from holes dug in the river bed. The old road was simply a
slice of country, uncultivated to start, marked only by wheel ruts and
pounded by horses' hoofs. In the summer a heavy cloud of dust arose from
its surface when a wagon went by, and in winter, paste-like mud spurted
from under horses' feet. Gradually the road became scooped out so that
it was lower than the fields through which it traveled, and this made it
a long lake of standing water in the winter, sometimes very deep.

Then it was that men with plows made ditches on either side, with the
embankments toward the road. And then cultivation came in and the cattle
became so valuable that the owners of the property along the road put up
fences to keep their cattle in and other people's cattle out.

The fences were split redwood posts set in the ground with one-by-six
planks nailed halfway up connecting them. And along the top of the posts
was old-fashioned barbed wire, a strip of twisted metal with sharpened
spikes. The fences weathered in the sun and rain, the redwood planks and
the posts turned light gray and gray-green, and lichens grew on the wood
and moss formed on the shady sides of the posts.

Walking men burning with messages came by and painted their messages on
the planks. "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"--"Sinner,
come to God"--"It is late"--"Wherefore shall it profit a man..."--"Come
to Jesus." And other men put other signs on the fence with stencils.
"Jay's Drugs"--"Cyrus Noble--The Doctors' Whisky"--"San Ysidro Bicycle
Shop." These signs were all weathered and dimmed now.

As the fields were used less for grazing and more for wheat and oats and
barley, the farmers began to remove from their fields the weeds, the
field turnip, the yellow mustard, the poppies and thistles and
milkweeds, and these refugees found a haven in the ditches beside the
road. The mustard stood seven feet high in the late spring, and
red-winged blackbirds built their nests under the yellow flowers. And in
the damp ditches the water cress grew.

The ditches beside the road under the high growth of weeds became the
home of weasels and bright-colored water snakes, and the drinking places
for birds in the evening. The meadow larks sat all morning on the old
fences in the spring and whistled their yodeling song. And the wild
doves sat on the barbed wire in the evening in the fall, shoulder to
shoulder for miles, and their call rang down the miles in a sustained
note. At evening the night hawks coursed along the ditches, looking for
meat, and in the dark the barn owls searched for rabbits. And when a cow
was sick the great ugly turkey buzzards sat on the old fence waiting for
death.

The road was well-nigh abandoned. Only a few families who had farms that
could not be reached in any other way ever used it any more. Once there
had been many little holdings here, with a man living close to his acres
and his farm behind him and his vegetable patch under the parlor window.
But now the land stretched away, untenanted, and the little houses and
the old barns stood windowless and gray and unpainted.

                 *        *        *        *        *

As noon came on the clouds hurried in from the southwest and bunched
together. It is the rule that the longer the clouds prepare, the longer
the rain will continue. But it was not ready yet. There were still some
patches of blue sky and now and then a blinding flash of sun struck the
ground. Once a tall cloud cut sun streaks into long, straight ribbons.

Juan had to drive back a little along the highway to reach the entrance
to the old road. Before he turned into it he stopped the bus and got
down and walked ahead. He felt the greaselike mud under his feet. And
Juan knew a sense of joy. He had been trying to push his carload of
cattle bodily about their business in which he had no interest. There
was almost a feeling of malice in him now. They had elected this road,
and it might be all right. He had a happy vacation-feeling. They wanted
it, now let them take it. He would see what they would do if the bus
stalled. He dug his toe into the mixed mud and gravel before he turned
back. He wondered what Alice was doing. He knew damn well what Alice was
doing. And if he wrecked the bus--well, he might just walk away from it,
just walk away and never come back. It was a very happy vacation-feeling
he had. His face was glowing with pleasure when he climbed into the bus.

"I don't know whether we'll make it or not," he said happily. And the
passengers were a little nervous at his exuberance.

The passengers were seated in a bunch, as far forward as they could get.
Every one of them felt that Juan was their only contact with the normal,
and if they had known what was in his mind they would have been very
much frightened. There was a high glee in Juan. He closed the door of
the bus and he put his foot twice on the throttle to race his engine
before he set the bus in low gear and turned it into the muddy country
road.

The clouds were almost prepared for the stroke now. He knew that. In the
west he could see one cloud fraying down. There it was starting, and it
would move over the valley in another spring downpour. The light had
turned metallic again with a washed, telescopic quality that meant only
violent rain.

Van Brunt said brightly, "The rain's coming."

"Looks like," said Juan, and he turned his bus into the road. He had
good tread on his tires, but as he left the black-top he could feel the
rubber slip a little on the greasy mud and the rear end swing in a small
arc. But there was a bottom to it, and the bus lumbered over the road.
Juan put it in second gear. He would keep it there probably for the
whole distance.

Mr. Pritchard called above the beat of the motor, "How long is this
detour?"

"I don't know," said Juan. "I've never been over it. They say thirteen
or fifteen miles--something like that." He hunched over the wheel and
his eyes lifted from the road and glanced at the Virgin of Guadalupe in
her little shrine on top of his instrument board.

Juan was not a deeply religious man. He believed in the Virgin's power
as little children believe in the power of their uncles. She was a doll
and a goddess and a good-luck piece and a relative. His mother--that
Irish woman--had married into the Virgin's family and had accepted her
as she had accepted her husband's mother and grandmother. The
Guadalupana became her family and her goddess.

Juan had grown up with this Lady of the wide skirts standing on the new
moon. She had been everywhere when he was little--over his bed to
supervise his dreams, in the kitchen to watch over the cooking, in the
hall to check him in and out of the house, and on the zagun door to
hear him playing in the street. She was in her own fine chapel in the
church, in the classroom in school, and, as if that wasn't ubiquitous
enough, he wore her on a little gold medal on a golden chain about his
neck. He could get away from the eyes of his mother or his father or his
brothers, but the dark Virgin was always with him. While his other
relatives could be fooled or misled and tricked and lied to, the
Guadalupana knew everything anyway. He confessed things to her, but that
was only a form because she knew them anyway. It was more a recounting
of your motives in doing a certain thing than a breaking of the news
that you had done it. And that was silly too, because she knew the
motives. Then, too, there was an expression on her face, a half smile,
as though she were about to break out into laughter. She not only
understood, she was also a little amused. The awful crimes of childhood
didn't seem to merit hell, if her expression meant anything.

Thus Juan as a child had loved her very deeply and had trusted her, and
his father had told him that she was the one set aside especially to
watch over Mexicans. When he saw German or Gringo children in the
streets he knew that his Virgin didn't give a damn about them because
they were not Mexicans.

When you add to this the fact that Juan did not believe in her with his
mind and did with every sense, you have his attitude toward Our Lady of
Guadalupe.

The bus slithered along the muddy road, moving very slowly and leaving
deep ruts behind. Juan flicked his eyes to the Virgin and he said in his
mind, "You know that I have not been happy and also that out of a sense
of duty that is not natural to me I have stayed in the traps that have
been set for me. And now I am about to put a decision in your hands. I
cannot take the responsibility for running away from my wife and my
little business. When I was younger I could have done it, but I am soft
now and weak in my decisions. And I am putting this in your hands. I am
on this road not of my own volition. I have been forced here by the
wills of these people who do not care anything for me or for my safety
or happiness, but only for their own plans. I think they have not even
seen me. I'm an engine to get them where they are going. I offered to
take them back. You heard me. So I am leaving it to you, and I will know
your will. If the bus mires down so that ordinary work will let me get
it out and proceed, I will get it out. If ordinary precaution will keep
the bus safe and on the road, I will take that precaution. But if you,
in your wisdom, wish to give me a sign by dropping the bus into the mud
up to the axles, or sliding it off the road into a ditch where I
couldn't do anything about it, I will know you approve of what I want to
do. Then I will walk away. Then these people can take care of
themselves. I will walk away and disappear. I will never go back to
Alice. I will take off my old life like a suit of underwear. It is up to
you."

He nodded and smiled at the Virgin, and she had the little smile on her
face too. She knew what was going to happen, but, of course, there was
no way of finding that out. He couldn't run away without sanction. He
had to have the approval of the Virgin. It was directly up to her. If
she felt strongly about his going back to Alice, she would smooth the
road and get the bus through, and he would know that he was set for life
with what he had.

He breathed high in his lungs with excitement and his eyes shone.
Mildred could see his face in the rear-view mirror. She wondered what
terrible joy there was in his mind to make his face light up. This was a
man, she thought, a man of complete manness. This was the kind of a man
that a pure woman would want to have because he wouldn't even want to be
part woman. He would be content with his own sex. He wouldn't ever try
to understand women and that would be a relief. He would just take what
he wanted from them. Her disgust for herself passed, and she felt pretty
good again.

Her mother was writing another letter in her mind. "There we were on
that muddy road, miles from any place. And even the driver didn't know
the road. Well, just anything could happen. Anything. There wasn't a
house in sight and the rain was starting."

The rain was starting. Not like the gusts and spurts of the morning, but
a heavy, driving, drumming, businesslike rain that delivered so many
gallons an hour in a given area. And there was no wind. This was
downpour, pure, straight rainfall. The bus hissed and splashed over the
level road, and Juan, when he turned the front wheels a little, could
feel the rear end slide.

"You got any chains?" Van Brunt called.

"No," said Juan happily. "Haven't been able to get chains since before
the war."

"I don't think you're going to make it," said Van Brunt. "You're all
right on the level but you've got to start going uphill pretty soon." He
motioned to the east and the mountains toward which they were crawling.
"The river cuts right up against a bluff," he shouted to the other
passengers. "The road goes up over that bluff. I don't think we're going
to make it."

To Pimples it had been a morning of conflicts and stresses. There
weren't many relaxed moments in his life anyway, but this day had been
particularly tearing. His body burned with excitements. Pimples was
loaded with the concupiscent juices of adolescence. His waking and his
sleeping hours were preoccupied with the one goal. But so variable was
the reaction to the single stimulus that he found himself one moment as
lustful as a puppy on a curtain, the next floundering in thick and
idealistic sentiment, and the next howling with self-condemnation. He
felt then that he was alone, that he, alone, was the great sinner of the
world. He looked with fawning adoration at the self-control of Juan and
other men he knew.

Since she had come into his sight all of his body and his brain yearned
toward Camille, and his yearning went from lustful pictures of himself
and her to visions of himself married to her and settled down with her.
One moment he felt almost forward enough to just out and out ask her,
and the next, her glance in his direction forced a quivering
embarrassment on him.

Again he had tried to get a seat where he could watch her without being
noticed, and again he had failed. He could see the back of her head, but
he could see Norma's profile. So it was that only at this late time did
Pimples notice the change in Norma and, noticing, he drew a deep breath.
She was not the same. He knew that it was only make-up, for he could see
the eyebrow pencil and the lipstick from where he sat, but that wasn't
what sent his blood coursing hotly in his stomach. She was changed.
There was a conscious girlness about her that had not been there before,
and Pimples' wild juices whispered to him. If, as he really knew deep in
his heart, he couldn't have Camille, he might maybe get Norma. He wasn't
as frightened of her as he was of the goddess Camille. Unconsciously he
began to make plans for trapping Norma, overwhelming her. A new pustule
was forming right in front of his left ear. Automatically he scratched
it, and the angry red of his tainted flesh spread outward on his cheek.
He looked secretly at the fingernail that had done the business and put
it in his pocket and cleaned it. He had made his cheek bleed. He took
out his handkerchief and held it to his face.

Mr. Pritchard was worried about getting through and making his
connection. There was a gnawing in him that would not let him rest or
relax. He had tried to laugh it off to himself. He had used all the
ordinary methods for throwing out unpleasant thoughts, and they didn't
work.

Ernest Horton had said Mr. Pritchard's plan was blackmail, and Ernest
had almost indicated that he thought Elliott Pritchard would steal his
slipcover for a dark suit if he wasn't watched. This had at first
outraged Mr. Pritchard--a man of his reputation and standing. And then
he had thought, "Yes, I have standing and reputation in my own
community, but here I have nothing. I am alone. This man thinks I am a
crook. I can't send him to Charlie Johnson so he can get an idea of how
wrong he is." This bothered Mr. Pritchard very much. Ernest had gone
even further. He had indicated that he thought Mr. Pritchard was the
kind of man who would go to an apartment with blondes. He had never done
that in his life. He had to prove to Ernest Horton that his judgment had
been wrong. But how could he do it?

Mr. Pritchard's arm was over the back of the seat, and Ernest was
sitting alone in the seat behind him. The engine of the bus, traveling
in second gear, was loud, and the old body vibrated noisily. There was
only one way--to offer Ernest Horton something, something open and
honest, so that he would see that Mr. Pritchard was not a crook.

A vague thought came back to him. He turned in his seat. "I was
interested in what you said about what your company does with ideas that
come in."

Ernest looked at him with amusement. The guy wanted something. He
suspected the old boy wanted to get in on a party or two. Ernest's boss
was that way. He wanted conferences at night and always ended up in a
whorehouse and was always surprised at how he got there.

"We've got a very nice relationship," Ernest said.

"This idea is nothing much that I had," Mr. Pritchard said. "It's just
something that came to me. You can have it if you want it and if it'll
do you any good."

Ernest waited without comment.

"You take cuff links," Mr. Pritchard said. "Now, I always wear French
cuffs and cuff links, and once you get the links in--well, you've got to
take them out before you can take off the shirt. And if you want to push
up your sleeves to wash your hands you've got to take out the cuff
links. It's easy to put in cuff links before you put on the shirt, but
you can't get your hands through. When you've got the shirt on it's hard
to get the cuff links in. See what I mean?"

"There's that kind that clicks together," Ernest said.

"Yes, but they aren't popular. You're always mislaying or losing part."

The bus stopped. Juan put the car in low gear and moved quickly on.
There was a jar as he hit a hole and a second jar as the rear wheels
went through it, and the bus moved slowly on. The rain drummed heavily
on the roof. The windshield wiper squeaked on the glass.

Mr. Pritchard leaned back farther in his seat and pulled up his sleeve
so that his plain gold cuff links showed. "Now, suppose," he said,
"instead of links or a bar, there was a spring. When you put the cuff on
over your hand the spring would give and you could push the cuff up your
arm to wash, and then the spring would go right back into place." He
watched Ernest's face closely.

Ernest's eyes were half closed in thought. "But how would it look? It
would have to be a steel spring or it wouldn't last."

Mr. Pritchard said eagerly, "I thought that through. On the cheaper ones
you could gold-plate the spring or silver-plate it. But on the expensive
ones, like pure gold or platinum--the quality ones--why, instead of a
bar it's a tube, and when the cuff is at your wrist, why, the little
spring has disappeared right into the tube."

Ernest nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "Yes, sir. Sounds pretty good."

"You can have it," said Mr. Pritchard. "It's yours to make anything you
want out of it."

Ernest said, "My company goes in for a different kind of novelties, but
maybe--maybe I could talk them into it. The best-selling things in the
world--for men, that is--are razors or razor gadgets, pens and pencils,
and personal jewelry. The fellow that don't write five lines a year will
buy a tricky fountain pen for fifteen dollars any day. And jewelry? Yes,
sir, it might work out. What would you want out of it if they thought it
was a good idea?"

"Nothing," Mr. Pritchard said. "Absolutely nothing. It's yours. I like
to help an up-and-coming young fellow." He was beginning to feel good
again. But suppose the thing worked out, this idea he'd cooked up.
Suppose it made a million dollars. Suppose--but he had said it and his
word was good. His word was his bond. If Ernest wanted to show
appreciation, that was up to him. "I don't want a single thing," he
repeated.

"Well, that's mighty nice of you." Ernest took a note-book from his
pocket, made an entry, and tore out the page. "Of course, in a thing
like that I'd have to get an assignment," he said. "If you've got a
moment while you're in Hollywood, maybe you could give me a call and
we'll talk some business. We might be able to do business." His left eye
drooped a little as he said it, and then his eyes turned and rested a
moment on Mrs. Pritchard. He passed the slip to Mr. Pritchard and said,
"Aloha Arms, Hempstead 3255, apartment 12B."

Mr. Pritchard colored a little, took out his wallet and put the paper in
it, and he pushed the paper down in the back of the slot. He didn't
really need to keep it. He could throw it away the first chance he got,
for his memory was good. It would be years before he would forget that
phone number. The system had clicked in his head, his old system. Three
and two are five and repeat. And Hempstead. Hemp is rope. Yellow hemp,
and you can't use anything instead of hemp. He used hundreds of memory
tricks like that. Yellow hemp, blond hemp. His fingers itched to throw
the paper away. Sometimes Bernice looked in his wallet for some change.
He told her to. But he felt danger in his stomach--the miserable feeling
of having been called a thief.

He said to his wife, "You feel all right, little girl?"

"Yes," she said. "I think I fought it off. I just said to myself, 'I
won't let it come. I won't let it interfere with my darling's
vacation.'"

"I'm glad," said Mr. Pritchard.

"And, dear," she went on, "how do you men get such ideas?"

"Oh, they just come to you," he said. "That new shirt with the small
buttonholes is the cause of this one. I got caught in it a few days ago
and nearly had to call for help."

She smiled. "I think you're very nice," she said. And he reached over
and put his hand on her knee and squeezed her leg. She slapped his hand
playfully and in a moment he took it away.

Norma had her head turned so that her mouth was close to Camille's ear.
She spoke as softly as she could because she knew that Pimples was
trying to listen. She was conscious of his gaze, and in a way she was
gratified. She had never been so confident in her life as she was now.

"I haven't really got any family, like you'd call a family," she said.
She was tumbling herself out in front of Camille. She was explaining and
pouring out her life. She wanted Camille to know all about her, the way
she was before this morning and the way she was now, and that would make
Camille her family and would tie this beautiful and sure creature to
her.

"When you're alone you do such funny things," she said. "I used to lie
to people. I'd pretend things to myself. I would--well, do things like
the things I was pretending were true. You know what I'd do? I'd picture
like a certain movie star was--well, was my husband."

It had jumped out. She hadn't intended to go so far. She blushed. She
shouldn't have told that. It was kind of like letting Mr. Gable down.
But she inspected this and found it wasn't so. She didn't feel quite the
same about Mr. Gable as she had. Her feeling had moved on to Camille. It
was a shock to realize it. She wondered if she were being inconstant.

"It's when you don't have any family and no friends," she explained. "I
guess you just make them up if you haven't got them. But now, well, if
we could get an apartment I wouldn't have to make up anything."

Camille turned her face away so she couldn't see the nakedness in
Norma's eyes, the complete defenselessness. "Oh, brother!" Camille
thought. "What have I let myself in for now? I've got a baby. I've gone
and got caught in something. How did this happen? I'm going to have to
make her over and live her life and in a little while it'll probably
bore the hell out of me and I'll be in too deep to get out of it. If
Loraine's shucked off that advertising man and we can go back together,
what am I going to do with this? How did it start? How the hell did I
get into it?"

She turned to Norma. "Listen, honey," she said crisply. "I didn't say we
could do it. I said we'd have to see how it worked out. There's a lot
you don't know about me. For one thing, I'm engaged to be married, and
my boy friend, he thinks it might be pretty soon. So you see, if he
wants to now, why I couldn't go along with you."

Camille saw the despair come into Norma's eyes, like a cold horror, and
the sagging of her cheeks and mouth and how the muscles of her shoulders
and arms collapsed. Camille said to herself, "I can get a room in the
next town and hide out till she gets lost. I can run out on her. I
can--oh, Jesus, how did I let myself in for this? I'm too tired. I need
a hot bath."

Aloud she said, "Don't take it so hard, honey. Maybe he isn't ready.
Maybe--oh, look, honey, maybe it will work out. Maybe it will. Really.
We'll just see how it goes."

Norma compressed her lips tightly and squinted her eyes. Her head
jiggled with the vibration of the bus. Camille didn't want to look at
her. After a time Norma got herself under control. She said quietly,
"Maybe you're ashamed of me, and I wouldn't blame you. I can only be a
waitress, but if you'd show me I could maybe get to be a dental nurse
like you. I'd study nights and I'd work as a waitress in the day-time.
But I'd do it, and then you wouldn't have to be ashamed of me. It
wouldn't be so hard with you to help me."

Camille felt a rolling wave of nausea in her stomach. "Oh, God Almighty!
Now I'm really trapped. What do I say? Tell her another lie? Would it be
better to tell this girl exactly what I do for a living? Or would that
make it worse? That might shock her so she wouldn't want me for a
friend. Maybe that'd be the best thing. No, it would be best just to
lose her in a crowd, I guess."

Norma was saying, "I'd like to have what you'd call a profession that
had some dignity to it, like you."

Camille said in despair, "Look, honey, I'm awful tired. I'm too tired to
think. I've been traveling for days. I'm too worn out to think about
anything. Let's just let it lay for a while. We'll just see how it goes
then."

"I'm sorry," Norma said. "I got excited and I forgot. I won't talk about
it any more. We'll just see how it goes, huh?"

"Yes, we'll see how it goes," said Camille.

The bus jerked to a stop. They were coming near to the foothills now and
the green billows of land were dimly visible through the rain. Juan half
stood up to look down at the roadbed. There was a hole in the road, a
hole full of water, no telling how deep. It might drop the bus clear out
of sight. He glanced quickly at the Virgin. "Shall I take a chance?" he
said under his breath. His front wheels were on the edge of the pool. He
grinned, put the bus in reverse, and backed up twenty feet.

Van Brunt said, "You going to try a run for it? You'll get stuck."

Juan's lips moved silently. "My dear little friend, if you only knew,"
he whispered. "If all of the rest of you only knew." He put the bus in
first gear and ran at the hole. The water splashed away with a rushing
hiss. The rear wheels went into the hole. The bus slipped and
floundered. The rear wheels spun and the motor roared and the spinning
wheels edged the bumbling body slowly across and slithered it out on the
other side. Juan slipped the gears to second and crawled on.

"Must have been a little gravel mixed in with that," he said over his
shoulder to Van Brunt.

"Well, you wait till you start up the hill," Van Brunt said ominously.

"You know, for a man that wants to get through you put more things in
the way," Juan said.

The road began to climb and the water did not stand any more. The
ditches along the side were running full. The driving wheels of the bus
slipped and churned in the ruts. Juan suddenly knew what he was going to
do if the bus piled up. He hadn't known. He had thought he might go to
Los Angeles and get a job driving a truck, but he wouldn't do that. He
had fifty dollars in his pocket. He always carried that much for repair
emergencies, and that would be enough too. He would walk away, but not
far. He'd get under cover and wait until the rain stopped. He might even
sleep some place. For food he would grab one of those pies. Then, when
he was rested, he would walk over to the highway, bum a ride, just wait
at a service station until someone picked him up. He would thumb his way
to San Diego and then he'd go across the border to Tijuana. It would be
nice there, and he might just lie on the beach for two or three days.
The border wouldn't bother him. On this side he'd say he was American.
On the other side he'd be Mexican. Then, when he was ready, he'd go out
of town, maybe catch a ride or maybe just walk over the hills and by the
little streams, perhaps as far as Santo Toms, and there he'd wait for
the mail carrier. He would buy a lot of wine in Santo Toms, and he'd
pay the mail carrier, and then down the peninsula he would go, through
San Quintin, past Ballenas Bay. It might take two weeks through the
rocks and the prickly desert and then across to La Paz. He would see
that he had some money left. At La Paz he would catch a boat across the
gulf to Guaymas or Mazatln, maybe even to Acapulco, and in any of those
places he would find tourists. More at Acapulco than at Guaymas or
Mazatln. And where there were tourists floundering around with the
Spanish language in a strange country Juan would be all right. Gradually
he'd work his way up to Mexico City and there were really tourists. He
could conduct tours, and there were plenty of ways of getting money. He
wouldn't need much.

He chuckled to himself. Why in God's name had he stuck to this as long
as he had? He was free. He could do whatever he wanted to. Let them look
for him. He might even see a note about it in the L. A. papers. They'd
think he was dead and they'd look for his body. Alice would raise hell
for a while. It would give her a great sense of importance. Plenty of
people could cook beans in Mexico. He might lay up with one of those
American women in Mexico City who lived down there to beat the taxes.
With a few good suits of clothes Juan knew he was presentable enough.
Why in hell hadn't he gone back before?

He could smell Mexico in his nose. He couldn't think why he hadn't done
it before. And the passengers? Let them take care of themselves. They
weren't very far out. They'd got so used to throwing their troubles on
other people they had forgotten how to take care of themselves. It would
be good for them. Juan could take care of himself and he was going to
start doing it too. He'd been living a silly kind of life, worrying
about getting pies from one town to the next. Well, that was over.

He glanced up with secret eyes at the Guadalupana. "Oh, I'll keep my
word," he said under his breath. "I'll get them through if you want me
to. But even then I'm not so sure I won't walk away."

His mind plunged with pictures of the sun-beaten hills of Lower
California and the biting heat of Sonora, the chill morning air on the
plateau of Mexico with the smell of pine knots in the huts and the
popcorn smell of toasting tortillas. And a homesickness fell on him like
a sweet excitement. The taste of fresh oranges and the bite of chili.
What was he doing in this country anyway? He didn't belong here.

The curtain of the years rolled back, and superimposed on the muddy
country road he saw and heard and smelled Mexico, the chattering voices
of the market, the squawking parrot in the garden, the quarreling pigs
in the street, the flowers and fish and the little modest dark girls in
blue _rebozos_. How strange that he had forgotten for so long. He
yearned toward the south. He wondered what crazy trap could have kept
him here. Suddenly he was impatient to be away. Why couldn't he just
slam on the brakes and open the door and walk away through the rain? He
could see their stupid faces looking after him and hear their outraged
comments.

He glanced again at the Virgin. "I'll keep my word," he whispered. "I'll
get through if I can." He felt the wheels slip in the mud and he grinned
at the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The river cut in close to the hills now, bringing its border of willows
with it. And the road dodged sideways, away from it. The rain was
thinning out, and from the road they could see the light yellow water
whirling in the broad basin of the river and dragging lines of dirty
foam in twisting streaks. Ahead the road climbed up the hill, and at the
top there was a yellow cut, a kind of cliff, and the road ran in front
of it. At the very top of the yellow cliff, in great faint letters, was
the single word REPENT. It must have been a long and dangerous job for
some wild creature to put it there with black paint, and it was nearly
gone now.

In the cliff of sandstone there were erosion caves cut by the wind and
dug out by animals. The caves looked like dark eyes peering out of the
yellow cliff.

The fences were fairly strong here, and in the upland grass red cows
stood dark and wet and some of them had already borne their spring
calves. The red cows turned their heads slowly and watched the bus as it
ground by, and one old fool of a cow became panic-stricken and ran away,
kicking and bucking as though that would remove the bus.

The roadbed had changed. The gravel gave the bus better footing. The
body bumped and jarred over the rain-rutted gravel, but the wheels did
not slip. Juan looked suspiciously at the Virgin. Was she tricking him?
Would she get him through and force him to make his own decision? That
would be a dirty trick. With no sign from Heaven Juan didn't know what
he would do. The road took a long loop around an old farm and then
climbed toward the cliff in earnest.

Juan had the bus in low gear again and a wisp of steam came out of the
overflow pipe and curled up in front of the radiator. The high point of
the road was right in front of the cliff with its dark caves. Almost
angrily Juan speeded his motor. The wheels threw gravel. There was a
place where the ditch was plugged and water and topsoil flowed across
the road. Juan raced at the dark streak. The front wheels crossed it and
the back wheels spun in the greasy mud. The rear end swung around and
the wheels spun and the hind end of the bus settled heavily into the
ditch.

Juan's face had a fierce grin. He raced his motor and the wheels dug
deeper and deeper. He reversed his direction and spun his wheels, and
the spinning tires dug holes for themselves and settled into the holes,
and the differential rested on the ground. Juan idled his motor. In the
rear-view mirror he could see Pimples looking at him in amazement.

Juan had forgotten that Pimples would know. Pimples' mouth was open.
Juan knew better than that. When you come to a soft place you don't spin
the wheels. Juan could see the questions in Pimples' eyes. Why had he
done it? He wasn't that stupid. He caught Pimples' eye in the mirror and
all he could think to do was to wink secretly. But he saw relief come
over Pimples' face. If it was a plan it was O.K. If there was something
in back of it Pimples would go along. And then a horrible thought
crossed Pimples' mind. Suppose it was Camille. If Juan wanted her
Pimples wouldn't have a chance. He couldn't compete with Juan.

The angle of the bus was sharp. The rear wheels were buried and the
front end stood high up on the road. "Sweetheart" looked like a crippled
bug. Now Van Brunt's face cut out Pimples' reflection in the mirror. Van
Brunt was red and angry and his bony finger cut the air under Juan's
nose.

"So you did it," he cried. "So you tied us up. I knew you'd do it. By
God, I knew you would! How am I going to get into the courthouse now?
How are you going to get us out of this?"

Juan knocked the finger aside with the back of his hand. "Take your
finger out of my face," he said. "I'm sick of you. Now get back to your
seat."

Van Brunt's angry eyes wavered. He suddenly realized that this man was
out of control. He wasn't afraid of the railroad commission or anybody.
Van Brunt backed up a little and sat down on the angled seat.

Juan turned off the ignition and his motor died. The rain pattered on
the roof of the bus. He tapped his palms on the steering wheel for a
moment and then he turned in his seat and faced his passengers. "Well,"
he said. "That does it."

They stared back at him, shocked at the situation. Mr. Pritchard said
softly, "Can't you get us out?"

"I haven't looked yet," said Juan.

"But it seems to me like we're in pretty deep. What are you going to
do?"

"I don't know," said Juan. He wanted to see Ernest Horton's face, to see
if he knew the thing had been deliberate, but Ernest was hidden behind
Norma. Camille showed no effect at all. She had waited too long to be
impatient.

"Sit tight," Juan said. He pulled himself upright against the angled bus
and pushed the door lever. The lock clicked but the door was sprung. It
did not open. Juan stood up and put his foot against the door and pushed
it open. They could hear the hiss of rain on the road and on the grass.
Juan stepped out into the rain and walked around to the back of the bus.
The slanting rain felt cold on his head.

He had done a good job. It would probably take a wrecking car or maybe
even a tractor to get it out. He leaned down and looked underneath to
verify something he already knew. The axles and the differential were
resting on the ground. Through the windows the passengers were looking
out, their faces distorted by the wet glass. Juan straightened up and
climbed back into the bus.

"Well, folks, I guess you'll just have to wait. I'm sorry, but don't
forget you all wanted to come this way."

"I didn't," Van Brunt said.

Juan whirled on him. "God damn it, keep out of this! Don't get me mad
because I'm right on the point of getting mad."

Van Brunt saw that he meant it. He looked down at his hands, pinched up
the loose skin on his knuckles, and rubbed his left hand with his right.

Juan sat sideways in the driver's seat. His eyes flicked over the
Virgin. "All right, all right," he thought to her, "so I cheated a
little bit. Not much, but a little. I guess you're justified now in
making it pretty uncomfortable for me." Aloud he said, "I'll just have
to walk on ahead and phone for a wrecking car. I'll tell them to send
out a taxi for you folks. That shouldn't take very long."

Van Brunt spoke with restraint. "There isn't a place in four miles. The
old Hawkins place is about a mile, but it's standing empty since the
Bank of America took it over. You'll have to go to the county road and
that's a good four miles."

"Well, if I have to go, I have to go," said Juan. "I can only get just
so wet."

Pimples had a rush of friendliness. "I'll go," he said. "You stay here
and let me go."

"No," said Juan, "this is your day off." He laughed. "You just enjoy it,
Kit." He reached over to the instrument board, unlocked the glove box,
and opened the little door. "There's some emergency whisky here," he
said.

He paused. Should he take the pistol--a good Smith & Wesson 45-caliber
revolver with a 6-inch barrel? It would be a shame to leave it. But it
would be a nuisance to have it too. If he got into any kind of trouble
the gun would go against him. He decided to leave it. If he was going to
leave his wife, he could surely leave his gun too. He said lightly, "If
you get jumped by tigers, there's a gun in here."

"I'm hungry," Camille said.

Juan smiled at her. "You take these keys and open up the back. There's a
lot of pies there." He grinned at Pimples. "Don't eat 'em all, son. Now,
you can stay in the bus or you can get out the tarpaulin from the back
and put it on the ground up in those caves if you want. You might even
build a fire in there if you can find any dry wood. I'll get a car sent
out to you soon as I can."

"I'd like to go instead of you," Pimples said.

"No, you stick around and look after things," said Juan, and he saw a
flash of pleasure on Pimples' face. Juan buttoned his jacket tightly
over his chest. "Just sit tight," he said, and he stepped down out of
the bus.

Pimples clambered down after him. He followed Juan a few steps until
Juan turned and waited for him. "Mr. Chicoy," he said softly, "what is
it you got on your mind?"

"On my mind?"

"Yeah. You see--well, you spun them wheels."

Juan put his hand on Pimples' shoulder. "Look, Kit, I'll tell you
sometime. You just hold on for me, will you?"

"Well, sure, Mr. Chicoy, only--I'd just like to know."

"I'll tell you all about it when we get a minute alone," Juan said. "You
just keep these folks from killing each other for a little while, will
you?"

"Well, sure," Pimples said uneasily. "How long you think it'll be before
you get back?"

"I don't know," Juan said impatiently. "How can I tell? You do like I
say."

"Sure. Oh, sure," said Pimples.

"And eat all the pie you want," said Juan.

"But we'll have to pay for it, Mr. Chicoy!"

"Sure," said Juan, and he strode away along the road in the rain. He
knew that Pimples was looking after him and he knew that Pimples sensed
something. Pimples knew he was running out. Juan didn't feel good about
it now. Not the way he thought he would. It didn't seem as good or as
pleasant or as free. He stopped and looked back. Pimples was just
getting into the bus.

The road went past the cliff with its eroded stone caves. Juan turned
off the road and went into the shelter for a moment. The caves and their
overhang were larger than they looked from outside and they were fairly
dry too. In front of the entrance to the largest cave there were three
fire-blackened stones and a battered tin can. Juan stepped back to the
road and walked on.

The rain was thinning out. To his right, down the hill, he could see the
great bend of the river and how it turned and headed back across the
valley through the sodden green fields. The country was too wet. There
was an odor of decay in the air, the fat green stems fermenting. The
road ahead was rain-beaten and rotted by water, but not by wheels.
Nothing had been over it for a long time.

Juan bowed his head into the rain and walked faster. It wasn't so good.
He tried to remember the sunny sharpness of Mexico and the little girls
in blue _rebozos_ and the smell of cooking beans, and instead Alice came
into his head. Alice, looking out of the screen door. And he thought of
the bedroom with its flowered curtains. She liked things nice. She liked
pretty things. The bedspread, now, a giant afghan she had knitted
herself in little squares, and no two the same color. She said she could
get over a hundred dollars for it. And she had knitted every bit of it
herself.

And he thought of the big trees, and how nice it was to lie in a tub
full of hot water in the bathroom, the first real bathroom he had ever
had outside of hotels. And there was always a bar of sweet-smelling
soap. "It's just a god-damned habit," he said to himself. "It's a damned
trap. You get used to a thing and so you think you like it. I'll get
over it the way I'd get over a cold. Sure, it'll be painful. I'll worry
about Alice. I'll be sorry. I'll accuse myself, and it might be I won't
sleep good. But I'll get over it. After a while I won't think about it.
It's just a damned trap." And Pimples' face, trusting and warm, came up
before him. "I'll tell you later. I'll tell you all about it, Kit
Carson." Not many people had trusted Juan that way.

He tried to think of the lake at Chapala, and over its pale smooth water
he saw "Sweetheart," the bus, sagged down in the mud.

Ahead and down the hill to the left, in an indentation of the foothills,
he saw a house and a barn and a windmill with the blades broken and
hanging. That would be the old Hawkins place. Just the set-up he'd been
thinking about. He would go in there, maybe in the house, but more
likely in the barn. An old barn is usually cleaner than an old house.
There was bound to be a little hay or straw in the barn. Juan would
crawl in there and sleep. He wouldn't think about anything. He would
sleep until maybe this time tomorrow, and then he'd walk on to the
county road and pick up a ride. What difference did it make to him about
the passengers? "They can't starve. It won't hurt them at all. It'll be
good for them. It isn't any business of mine."

He hurried his steps down the hill toward the old Hawkins place. They'd
look for him. Alice would think he was murdered and she'd call in a
sheriff. Nobody ever thought he'd run off like this. That's what made it
such a good joke. Nobody thought he could do it. Well, he'd show them.
Get to San Diego, cross the border, pick up the mail truck to La Paz.
Alice would have the cops out.

He stopped and looked back at the road. His footprints were clear
enough, but the rain would probably wash them out, and he could cover
his tracks if he wanted to. He turned in off the road toward the Hawkins
place.

The old house had gone to pieces very quickly once it was abandoned. A
few wandering boys broke out the windows and stole the lead pipe and the
plumbing, and the doors soon banged themselves silly and fell off their
hinges. The old dark wallpaper, pulled down under wind-driven rain,
revealed under-sheets made from old newspapers with old cartoons--"Foxy
Grandpa" and "Little Nemo" and "Happy Hooligan" and "Buster Brown."
Tramps had been there and had left their litter and burned the door
casings in the old black fireplace. The smell of desertion and damp and
sourness was in the house. Juan looked in the doorway, walked through
and smelled the odor of the vacant house, and went out the back door
toward the barn.

The corral fence was down and the big door off, but inside the barn
smelled fresh. The stalls were polished where the horses had rubbed
against the wood. The corners were cobwebbed. Between the manure windows
were still the candleboxes with the worn brushes and rusty currycombs.
And an old collar and hames and a set of tugs hung on a rack beside the
door. The leather of the collar was split and the padding stuck out.

The barn had no loft. The whole central part had been used to store hay.
Juan walked around the end of the last stall. It was dusky inside and
the light of the sky lanced through broken shakes in the roof. The floor
was covered with short straw, dark with age, and with a slightly musty
smell. Standing still in the entrance, Juan could hear the squeaking of
mice and he could smell the colonies of mice too. From a rafter two
cream-colored barn owls looked down at him and then closed their yellow
eyes again.

The rain had diminished so that there was only a faint puttering on the
roof. Juan went to a corner and with his foot kicked aside a layer of
the dusty top straw. He sat down and then lay back and thrust his hands
behind his head. The barn was alive with secret little sounds, but Juan
was very tired. His nerves itched and he felt mean. He thought perhaps
if he slept he would feel better.

Back in the bus he had felt, in anticipation, a bursting, orgasmic
delight of freedom. But it was not so. He felt miserable. His shoulders
ached, and now that he was relaxed and stretched out he wasn't sleepy.
He wondered, "Won't I ever be happy? Isn't there anything to do?" He
tried to remember old times when it seemed to him that he was happy,
when he had felt pure joy, and little pictures came into his mind. There
was a very early morning with chill air and the sun was coming up behind
the mountains and in a muddy road little gray birds were hopping. There
wasn't any reason for joy, but it had been there.

And another. It was evening and a shining horse was rubbing his lovely
neck on a fence and the quail were calling and there was a sound of
dropping water somewhere. His breath came short with excitement just
remembering it.

And another. He rode in an old cart with a girl cousin. She was older
than he--he couldn't remember what she looked like. The horse shied at a
piece of paper and she fell against him, and to right herself she put
out her hand and touched his leg, and delight bloomed in his stomach and
his brain ached with delight.

And another. Standing at midnight in a great, dim cathedral with a
sharp, barbaric smell of copal smarting his nose. He held a skinny
little candle with a white silk bow tied about it halfway up. And like a
dream, the sweet murmur of the mass came from far away at the high altar
and the drowsy loveliness drew down over him.

Juan's muscles relaxed and he slept in the straw of the deserted barn.
And the timid mice sensed his sleep and came out from under the straw
and played busily and the rain whispered quietly on the barn roof.




CHAPTER 15


The passengers watched Juan walk away and disappear over the brow of the
hill. They didn't speak, not even when Pimples climbed back into the bus
and took his place in the driver's seat. The seats were tilted and each
passenger tried to get comfortable.

At last Mr. Pritchard asked, generally, "How long do you suppose it'll
take him to get a car out here?"

Van Brunt rubbed his left hand nervously. "Can't possibly expect it
under three hours. He's got a four-mile walk. Even if he can get a car
to come out, it'll take them an hour to get started and an hour to get
here. That is, if they'll come out at all. I'm not sure anybody will
come over this road. We should have walked in with him and caught a ride
at the county road."

"We couldn't," said Mr. Pritchard. "We've got all our baggage."

Mrs. Pritchard said, "I didn't want to say anything when you got this
crazy idea, Elliott. After all, it is your vacation."

She had been wanting to explain to the other passengers how people of
the obvious position of the Pritchards should come to find themselves on
a bus--should put themselves in the way of this kind of thing. They must
have been wondering, she thought. Now she turned and addressed them. "We
came out on a train, a nice train--the City of San Francisco, a very
comfortable extra-fare train. And then my funny husband had this crazy
idea of coming down on a bus. He thought he would see the country better
that way."

"Well, we're seeing it, little girl," he said bitterly.

She went on, "My husband said he had been out of touch. He wanted to see
what the people, the real people, were talking about." A delicate malice
was creeping into her voice. "I thought it was silly but it's his
vacation. He's the one who's worked so hard for the war effort. The
wives didn't have much to do, just trying to make out with rationing and
all, and no food in the stores. Why, once for two months we didn't taste
beef. Nothing but chicken."

Mr. Pritchard looked at his wife in some surprise. It was not a common
thing for this edge to come into her voice and it had a strange effect
on him. Suddenly he found himself getting angry, getting wildly,
unreasonably angry. It was her tone that did it. "I wish we'd never
come," he said. "I didn't want to come anyway. I'd have had a real rest
playing a little golf and sleeping in my own bed. I never wanted to
come."

The other passengers watched with curiosity and interest. They were
bored. This might be good. The anger of these two was beginning to fill
the bus.

Mildred said, "Mother, Dad, cut it out."

"You stay out of this," Mr. Pritchard said. "I didn't want to come. I
didn't want to at all. I hate foreign countries, particularly dirty
ones."

Mrs. Pritchard's mouth pinched white and her eyes were cold. "This is a
fine time to tell me about it," she said. "Who made all the plans for it
and bought all the tickets? Who got us on this bus, stalled in the
middle of nowhere? Who did all that? Did I?"

"Mother!" Mildred cried. She had never heard this tone in her mother's
voice before.

"And it seems a strange thing"--Mrs. Pritchard's voice broke a
little--"I try so hard. This trip, when you get it all paid for, is
going to cost three or four thousand dollars. If you didn't want to come
I could have built the little orchid house I've wanted so long, just a
little, tiny orchid house. You said it wouldn't be a good example,
getting it during war, but the war is over now and we take a trip you
didn't want to take. Well, you spoiled it for me now too. I won't enjoy
it. You spoil everything. Everything!" She covered her eyes with her
hand.

Mildred stood up. "Mother, stop it. Mother, stop this right now!"

Mrs. Pritchard moaned a little.

"If you don't stop it I'm going to walk away," Mildred said.

"Go away," said Mrs. Pritchard. "Oh, go away. You don't understand
anything."

Mildred's face set. She picked up her gabardine topcoat and put it on.
"I'm going to walk to the county road," she said.

"That's four miles," Van Brunt said. "You'll spoil your shoes."

"I'm a good walker," said Mildred. She had to get out, her hatred for
her mother was rising in her and making her sick.

Mrs. Pritchard's handkerchief was out and the scent of lavender filled
the bus.

"Pull yourself together," Mildred said harshly. "I know what you're
going to do. You're going to get a headache and punish us. I know you.
One of your fake headaches," she said viciously. "I'm not going to sit
around and see you get away with it."

Pimples watched, fascinated. He was breathing through his mouth.

Mrs. Pritchard looked up at her daughter with horror. "Dear! You don't
believe that!"

"I'm beginning to," said Mildred. "Those headaches come too
opportunely."

Mr. Pritchard said, "Mildred, stop it."

"I'm going on."

"Mildred, I forbid it!"

His daughter whirled on him. "Forbid and be damned!" She buttoned her
coat over her chest.

Mr. Pritchard put out his hand. "Mildred, please, dear."

"I've had enough," she said. "I need the exercise." She stepped out of
the bus and walked rapidly away.

"Elliott," Mrs. Pritchard cried. "Elliott, stop her. Don't let her go."

He patted her arm. "Now, little girl, she'll be all right. We're just
irritable. All of us."

"Oh, Elliott," she groaned, "if only I could lie down. If only I could
get some rest. She thinks my headaches aren't true. Elliott, I'll kill
myself if she believes that. Oh, if I only could stretch out."

Pimples said, "Ma'am, we got some tarpaulins in the back end. We use 'em
to cover the baggage when we carry it on top. If your husband would take
one of them up in that cave, why, you could lay down there."

"Why, that's a wonderful idea," said Mr. Pritchard.

"Lie on the old damp ground?" she demanded. "No."

"No, on a canvas. I could fix you a sweet little bed for a sweet little
girl."

"Well, I don't know," she said.

"Look, dear," he insisted. "Look, I'm going to roll up my topcoat. Now
you just put your head down there, like that. Now, in a little while
I'll come and get you and take you to your own little bed."

She whimpered.

"And rest your head on the pillow and close your eyes."

Pimples said, "Mr. Chicoy told me to bring out the pies if anybody got
hungry. There's four flavors and they're pretty good too. I could eat a
piece right now."

"Let's get that tarpaulin first," Mr. Pritchard said. "My wife is
exhausted. She's about at the end of her strength. You help me fix her a
bed, will you?"

"O.K.," said Pimples. He felt that he was doing all right in Juan's
absence. He felt fine and jaunty. His posture showed his mood for his
shoulders were back and his pale wolf eyes were bright and confident.
There was only one worry in Pimples. He wished he had had sense enough
to throw an old pair of shoes into the bus. His two-toned oxfords were
likely to take a beating from the mud, and that would mean a long job
with a toothbrush to clean them up again. And he couldn't appear to
protect his shoes for that would indicate to Camille that he was not a
devil-may-care fellow. She wouldn't be impressed by a man who was
careful of his shoes even if they were new white and brown oxfords.

Ernest said, "I'm going to have a look at those caves," and he got up
and climbed to the door of the bus. Van Brunt grumbled and followed.

Mrs. Pritchard nestled her cheek in Mr. Pritchard's coat and closed her
eyes. She was filled with dismay. How could she have fought with him in
public--with her own husband? It had never happened before. When it was
necessary to quarrel she always managed that they should be alone. Not
even Mildred was permitted to hear a quarrel. She felt it was vulgar to
fight when people could hear, and, besides, it broke a pattern she had
been years building, the story that because of her sweetness her
marriage was ideal. Everyone she knew believed that. She believed it
herself. Through her own efforts she had built a beautiful marriage and
now she had slipped. She had quarreled. She had let it get out about the
little orchid house.

For a number of years she had wanted such a house. Ever since, in fact,
she had seen an article in _Harper's Bazaar_ about a Mrs. William O.
MacKenzie who had one. The pictures had been lovely. People would say of
Mrs. Pritchard that she had the darlingest little orchid house. It was
precious and valuable. It was better than jewelry or furs. People she
didn't even know would hear about her little orchid house. Secretly she
had learned a great deal about such projects. She had studied plans. She
knew costs of heating systems and humidifiers. She knew where the
original stock was bought and how much it cost. She had studied books on
propagation. And all of this very secretly because she knew that if and
when the time came that she could have it Mr. Pritchard would want to
find out these things and tell her. It was the only way. She didn't even
resent it. That was simply a way of life, the way she had made her
marriage successful. She would be impressed with his knowledge and she
would ask his advice about everything.

But she was worried because she had let the thing slip in anger. Such a
mistake might set her back six months or more. She had planned to have
him suggest it, and by careful reluctance cause him to overcome her
opposition. But now the subject had been mentioned in anger and he would
have a block against it. Unless she was very careful in the future he
might never come around. It had been stupid of her and vulgar of her.

She could hear Norma and Camille talking softly behind her. Her eyes
were closed and she looked so little and so ill that they couldn't
imagine she was listening.

Norma was saying, "One of the things I'd like to have you show me is how
you handle--well, fellas."

Camille laughed shortly. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you take Pimples. I can see how he's been--trying, and he can't
get to first base with you, and at the same time you don't even seem
like you're doing it. And you take that other fella. That salesman.
Well, he's pretty clever and you handled him just like nothing. I wish I
knew how you did it."

Camille was pleased. Much as she might be worried by this incipient
millstone, it was pleasant to have admiration. Now was the time to tell
Norma she wasn't a dental nurse, to tell her about the giant wine glass
and the stags, and yet she couldn't. She didn't really want to shock
Norma. She wanted to be admired.

"Thing I like is you never are mean or nasty about it and still they
never lay a finger on you," Norma continued.

"I never noticed," Camille said. "I guess it's kind of like an
instinct." She chuckled. "I've got a girl friend that can really handle
men. She just don't give a hoot and she's kind of mean with men anyway.
Well, Loraine--that's her name--was--well, she was kind of engaged to
this fellow and he had a good job and so he wasn't any trouble. Loraine
wanted a fur coat. Of course, she had a short wolf jacket and she had a
couple of white fox furs because Loraine is a very popular girl. She's
pretty and little and when she's with girls she'll keep you laughing all
the time. So Loraine wanted a mink coat, not a short one, but a real
full-length one, and they cost three, four thousand dollars."

Norma whistled between her teeth. "Jesus God!" she said.

"Well, one afternoon Loraine said, 'I guess I'll get my fur coat now.'
And I said, 'You're kidding.'

"'You think I'm kidding? Eddie's going to give it to me.'

"'When did he tell you?' I asked her.

"Loraine just laughed. 'He didn't tell me. He don't even know it yet.'

"'Well,' I said. 'Look, you're nuts.'

"'You wanna bet?' Loraine will take a bet on anything.

"I don't bet on things so I said, 'How are you going to go about it?'

"'If I tell you, will you keep it to yourself?' she said. 'It's easy. I
know Eddie. I'm gonna needle him tonight and keep needling him till he
gets mad. And I'm gonna keep right on until he throws a punch at me. I
may even have to step into one because when Eddie's a little drunk he
misses pretty bad. Well, then I'm gonna let Eddie stew in his own juice.
I know Eddie. He'll get to feeling mean and sorry. You want to take that
bet?' she said. 'I'll even lay down a time. I'll bet you I have that
coat by tomorrow night.'

"Well, I don't bet anything, so I said, 'Two bits you don't.'"

Norma's mouth was open with excitement, and a gleam of reflected light
came from between Mrs. Pritchard's closed lashes.

"Did she get it?" Norma demanded.

"Well, I went over to her place Sunday morning. Loraine had a mouse all
right, a real blue shiner, and she had a patch over it and her nose was
cut up too."

"Well, did she get the coat?"

"She got the coat all right," Camille said. There was a frown on her
face, a puzzled look. "She got the coat and it was a beauty. Well, then
she took off all her clothes. There were just two of us there. She
turned that coat inside out and she put it right on next her skin with
the hair next her skin. And then she rolled and rolled on the floor and
she laughed and giggled like she was crazy."

Norma's held breath exhaled slowly. "God," she said, "why did she do
that?"

"I don't know," said Camille. "It was like she--well, it was like she
was a little crazy, kinda nuts."

Mrs. Pritchard's face was glowing. She breathed very rapidly. Her skin
tingled, and there was an aching, itching feeling in her legs and
stomach she had never felt before, and there was an excitement in her
that she had had only once in her life and that was on horseback a long
time ago.

Norma said judiciously, "I don't think it was nice. If she really loved
Eddie and he was going to marry her, I don't think it was a nice thing
to do."

"I don't either," said Camille. "It kind of bothered me about Loraine
and I told her so, but she said, 'Well, some girls just take the longer
way around. I wanted it quick. It'll be the same thing in the end,
anyway. Somebody was gonna work Eddie over.'"

"And did she marry him?"

"Well, no. She didn't."

"I'll bet maybe she never loved him at all," Norma said heatedly. "I'll
bet she just gold-dug Eddie."

"Maybe," said Camille, "but she's been my girl friend for a long time,
and if I ever needed anything she was right there. One time when I had
pneumonia she sat up with me for three days and nights, and I was broke
and she paid the doctor."

"I guess you just can't tell," Norma said.

"No, I guess not," said Camille. "Anyway, you asked me about how to
handle men."

Mrs. Pritchard was beating herself with words. Her reaction had
frightened her. She said to herself, even whispering the words, "What a
horrible, vulgar story. What animals those young girls are. So this is
what Elliott means by 'getting down to the people.' Oh, that's horrible.
We just forget how people are, how nasty they can be. Dear Ellen," she
wrote frantically, and the excitement was still tingling on the insides
of her legs. "Dear Ellen, the trip was terrible between San Ysidro and
San Juan de la Cruz. The bus went into a ditch and we just sat and
waited for hours. My Elliott was very sweet and made me a bed in a funny
cave. You said I would have adventures. Remember? You said I always
would have adventures. Well, I did. There were two vulgar, illiterate
girls on the bus, one of them a waitress and the other was rather
pretty. She was a you-know-what. I was resting and I guess they thought
I was asleep and they went right on talking. I couldn't put in a letter
what they said. I'm still blushing. Gentle people just don't know how
these little things live. It's incredible. I always think it's
ignorance. If we only had better schools and if--well, if you want the
truth--if we who should be examples were just better examples, I'm sure
the whole picture might change, gradually, but certainly."

Ellen would read the letter over and over to people. "I just had a
letter from Bernice. She's having the most exciting adventures. You
know, she always does. Why, I want you to hear what she says. I've never
known anyone who could see the good sides of people the way Bernice
can."

Norma was saying, "If I liked a fella I wouldn't think of doing a thing
like that to him. If he wanted to give me a present he'd have to think
of it himself."

"Well, that's the way I feel about it too," said Camille. "But I haven't
got a fur coat, not even a chubby. And Loraine's got three."

"Well, I don't think it's fair," said Norma. "I don't think I'd like
Loraine." "God Almighty!" Camille cried in her mind. "You don't know if
you'd like Loraine. I wonder if you've got any idea what Loraine would
think of you?" No, she thought, that isn't true. Loraine would probably
take this girl and fix her up and help her. Whatever you could say about
Loraine, nobody could say she wasn't a good scout.




CHAPTER 16


Mildred put her head down to keep the rain from misting her glasses. The
gravelly road felt good under her feet and the exercise made her draw
her breath deeply. It seemed to her that the day was getting darker. It
couldn't be very late, and still an evening light was creeping in,
making light things, such as pieces of quartz and limestone, seem
lighter, and dark things, such as the fence posts, seem black.

Mildred walked quickly, her feet stabbing at the ground and her heels
striking into the gravel. She was trying to push the quarrel out of her
mind. She did not remember having seen her mother and father fight
before. But this had been a practiced thing with a routine-like quality
that indicated it was a far from uncommon process. Her mother must
maneuver the quarrels into the bedroom where no one could hear them. She
had built up and maintained a story of the perfect marriage. This time
the tension had got to a breaking point and there was no bedroom to
retire to. There had been mean little drops of yellow venom in the
quarrel that disturbed Mildred. It was a poison that seeped subtly in,
not an open, honest rage but rather a secret, creeping anger that struck
with a thin, keen blade and then concealed the weapon quickly.

And there was this endless trip to Mexico ahead. Suppose Mildred didn't
come back? Suppose she walked on and caught a ride and
disappeared--rented a room someplace, perhaps on the coast by the sea,
and spent the time on the rocks or on the beach? The idea was very
pleasant to her. She could cook for herself and get to know other people
on the beach. The idea was ridiculous. She hadn't any money. Her father
was very generous--but not with cash. She could charge her clothes and
sign checks in restaurants, but her actual money was always very short.
Her father was generous but very curious. He wanted to know what she
bought and where she ate, and he could find these things out on the
monthly bills.

Of course, she could go to work. She would pretty soon anyway, but not
right yet. No, she had to weather it out. She had to stumble through
this horrible Mexican trip, which could be so wonderful if she were
alone, and then go back to college. It wouldn't be long until she would
go to work, and her father would approve of that. He would say to
Charlie Johnson, "I'd give her anything she wants, but no, sir, she's
got too much get-up-and-go. She's making her own living." And he would
say it with pride, as though some virtue of his own was involved, and he
would never know that she was working for the sake of privacy, so she
could have her own apartment and some spending money, for things he
didn't know about.

At home, for instance, she was free to go to the liquor cabinet any time
she wanted, but she knew that her father had in his memory the exact
level of liquid in every bottle, that if she took three drinks he would
know it immediately. He was a very curious man.

She took off her glasses and wiped them on the lining of her coat and
put them on again. In the road she could see Juan's tracks, long
strides. There were places where his foot had slipped on a rock, and
there were muddy stretches where the whole prints of his feet were
visible, with the line broken by the drives of his toes. Mildred tried
to walk in his tracks, but his step was too long for her, and she felt
the pull on her thighs after she had kept it up for a while.

He was a strange, compelling man, she thought. She was glad she had got
out of that crazy experience of the morning. No sense in it, she knew.
Irritation and functioning glands interplaying--she knew all that. And
she also knew herself to be a girl of strong sexual potential. There
would come a time in the not far future when she would either have to
get married or make some kind of permanent arrangement. Her times of
restlessness and need were growing more frequent. She thought of Juan's
dark face and shining eyes and she was not affected. But there was
warmth in him and honesty. She liked him.

As she cleared the hill she saw the deserted farm below and was
fascinated. She could feel the despondency of the place. She knew she
couldn't pass the house without looking through it. Her steps quickened.
All her interest was aroused.

"Bank foreclosed," Van Brunt had said, "and the family had to move, and
the bank wouldn't be interested in an old house. It was the land they
were taking."

Her strides were almost as long as Juan's now. She came swinging down to
the foot of the hill to the muddy entrance of the farm and suddenly she
stopped. Juan's tracks turned in. She walked along the road a little to
find whether they emerged and continued, but she could find no other
footsteps ahead.

"He must still be in there," she said to herself. "But why? He was going
out to the county road. There couldn't be a telephone here." She grew
cautious as she realized she didn't know what was going on, and she
didn't know much about this man. She walked slowly into the entrance and
moved out on the grass so that her feet would not make a rasping sound
on the gravel.

There was something dangerous about the deserted house. She recalled old
newspaper stories of murders in places like this. Her throat tightened
with fear. "Well," she consoled herself, "I can turn right around and go
out. Nobody's stopping me. Nobody's pushing me in, but I know I must. I
know I won't leave. Maybe those murdered girls could have got away too.
Maybe they were asking for it."

She saw a vision of herself lying on the floor of one of the rooms,
strangled or stabbed, and there was something in the vision that made
her laugh--her glasses were still on. And what did she know about Juan?
He had a wife and a business. Then there was a headline she remembered.
"Father of three in sadist murder. Parson murders choir singer." Why are
so many choir singers and organists murdered, she wondered. There seems
to be a high occupational hazard about choir singing. Choristers are
always being found choked behind the organ. She laughed. She knew she
was going into this house. Should she just clump on in or should she
steal in and catch Juan Chicoy at whatever he was doing? Maybe he was
just going to the toilet.

She put a careful foot on the step and paused when the floorboard
creaked under her weight. She went through the house opening cupboards.
There was an overturned pepper can in the kitchen and a coat hanger in
the closet of the bedroom. She turned her head sideways to look at the
old comic pages under the peeled wallpaper. She read a strip of "Happy
Hooligan." The mule, Maud, drew back her legs and kicked and Cy sailed
through the air, and on the seat of Cy's pants were the imprints of the
mule's hoofs.

She straightened her head. Why hadn't she thought of the barn before?
Mildred crept back to the front porch and looked closely at the boards.
She could see the wet track of Juan's shoes. She followed the track to
the living room and lost it. Then she went to the open back door and
looked out. What a fool she had been, creeping about! There were the
footprints going out, headed, in fact, for the barn.

She went down the broken steps and followed the trail across the lot and
passed the old windmill. She entered the barn and stood listening. There
was no sound. She thought of calling out and gave it up. Slowly she
moved down the line of stalls and around the end stall. It had taken a
little while for her eyes to adjust to the light. She stood in the
entrance to the central part. All the little mice flicked out of sight.
Then she saw Juan lying on his back, his hands cupped behind his head.
His eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly.

"I can go away," Mildred said. "Nobody's keeping me. It will be my
fault. I just want to remember that. He's minding his own business. Oh,
what's this nonsense?"

She took off her glasses and put them in her pocket. The outline of the
man was fuzzy to her now, to her unfocused eyes, but she could still see
him. She walked slowly, carefully, across the straw-covered floor and
when she was beside him she crossed her ankles and let herself down and
sat on her crossed feet. The scar on his lip was white and he breathed
shallowly and evenly. "He was just tired," she said to herself. "He lay
down to rest a moment and he fell asleep. I shouldn't wake him up."

She thought of the people back in the bus--suppose neither she nor Juan
ever came back. What would they do? Her mother would collapse. Her
father would wire the governor--two or three governors. He would call
the FBI. There would be hell to pay. Yet what could they do? She was
twenty-one. When they caught up with her she could say, "I'm twenty-one
and doing what I want to do. Whose business is it?" And suppose she went
to Mexico with Juan? That would be quite a different story, quite a
different thing.

And now little irrelevancies invaded her mind. If he's an Indian or has
Indian blood, how is it someone can creep up on him? She held her eye
corners back to bring his face into focus. It was a scarred, leathery
face, but it was a good face, she thought. The lips were full and
humorous, but they were kind. He would be gentle while he was with a
woman. He might not stay with her for very long, but he would be nice to
her. But he had that wife, that horrid wife, and he stayed with her. God
knows how long. She must have been pretty when he married her, but she
was ugly now. What had happened there? How did that horrid woman hold
him? Maybe he was just like everyone else, like her father. Maybe he was
just held in line by fears and by habit. Mildred didn't see how it could
happen to anyone, but she knew it did. When people got old they grew
frightened of smaller and smaller things. Her father was frightened of a
strange bed or a foreign language or a political party he didn't belong
to. Her father truly believed that the Democratic party was a subversive
organization whose design would destroy the United States and put it in
the hands of bearded communists. He was afraid of his friends and his
friends were afraid of him. A rat race, she thought.

She moved her eyes down over Juan's body, a tough, stringy body that
would get tougher and stringier as he got older. His trousers were a
little wet from the rain and they hugged close to his legs. There was a
neatness about him--a neatness of a mechanic who has just washed up. She
looked at his flat stomach and at his broad chest. She saw no change in
his breathing, no muscular change, but his eyes were open and he was
looking at her. And his eyes were not sleep-heavy, but bright.

Mildred started. Perhaps he hadn't been asleep at all. He might have
watched her come into the barn. She found herself explaining, "I needed
exercise. You know, I've been sitting a long time. I thought I'd walk to
the county road and pick up the car there. And then I saw this old
place. I like old places."

Her feet were going to sleep. She leaned sideways and, supporting
herself with one hand, moved her legs and feet to one side and covered
her knee carefully with her skirt. Her feet buzzed and burned with
returning blood.

Juan did not answer. His eyes were on her face. Slowly he rolled on his
side and supported his head with a hand under his ear. A dark gleam came
into his eyes, and his mouth curled up a little at the corners. His face
was hard, she thought. No way of getting past the eyes into the head. It
was either all on the surface or else it was too completely protected
ever to get at.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

His lips parted a little. "What are you doing here?"

"I told you, I needed exercise. I told you."

"Yes, you told me."

"But what are you doing here?"

He didn't seem really awake. "Me? Oh, I sat down to rest. I went to
sleep. No sleep last night."

"Yes, I remember," she said. She had to go on talking. She was wound up.
"I wondered about you. You don't belong here. I mean, driving a bus. You
belong someplace else."

"Like where?" he asked playfully. His eyes dropped to where the lapels
of her coat crossed.

"Well," she said uneasily, "I had a funny kind of a thought while I was
walking. I thought maybe you wouldn't come back. You might just keep
going and maybe go back to Mexico. I could see how I might do that if I
were you."

His eyes squinted and he peered into her face. "Are you nuts? What made
you think that?"

"Well, it was just something that came to me. Your life, driving the
bus, I mean, must be pretty dull after--well, after Mexico."

"You haven't been in Mexico?"

"No."

"Then you don't know how dull it is there."

"No."

He raised his head and straightened his arm and put his head down on his
arm. "What do you think would happen to those people back there?"

"Oh, they'd get back somehow," she said. "It isn't far. They wouldn't
starve."

"And what do you think would happen to my wife?"

"Well--" She was confused. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Yes, you did," said Juan. "You don't like her. I'll tell you something.
Nobody likes her except me. One of the reasons I like her is because
nobody likes her." He grinned. "What a liar," he said to himself.

"It was just a crazy thought I had," she said. "I even thought I might
run away too. I thought I would disappear and live by myself and--well,
never see anyone again that I knew." She rose up on her knees and sat
down again on the other side.

Juan looked at her knee. He put out his hand and pulled her skirt down
over it. She flinched when his hand came toward her and then relaxed
uneasily.

"I don't want you to think I followed you in here," she said.

"You don't want me to think it, but you did," said Juan.

"Well, what if I did?"

His hand came out again and rested on her covered knee and fire raced
through her.

"It's not you," she said. Her throat was dry. "I don't want you to think
it's you. It's me. I know what I want. I don't even like you. You smell
like a goat." Her voice staggered along. "You don't know the kind of
life I lead. I'm all alone. I can't tell anyone anything."

His eyes were hot and shiny and they seemed to bathe her in heat.

"Maybe I'm not like anyone else," she went on. "How do I know? But it's
not you. I don't even like you."

"You give yourself a hell of an argument, don't you?" said Juan.

"Look, what are you going to do about the bus?" she demanded. "Are you
going to the road?"

The weight of his hand on her knee increased and then he took his hand
away. "I'm going back and pull the bus out, pull those people through,"
he said.

"Then why did you come here?"

"Something went haywire," he said. "Something I figured out went
haywire."

"When are you going back?"

"Pretty soon."

She looked at his hand, relaxed on the straw in front of her, its skin
dark and shiny and a little wrinkled. "Aren't you going to make a pass
at me?"

Juan smiled and it was a good, open smile. "Yes, I guess so. After you
get through arguing with yourself. You're on both sides now. Maybe
pretty soon you'll decide whether you're for or against and I'll have
something to work on."

"Don't you--don't you want me?"

"Sure," said Juan. "Sure."

"Is it that you know I'll fall into your lap anyway, so you won't have
to take any trouble?"

"Don't get me into your argument," said Juan. "I'm older than you are. I
like this thing very much. I like it so much that I can wait. I can even
go without for a while."

"I could dislike you very much," she said. "You don't give me any pride.
You don't give me any violence to fall back on later."

"I thought you'd have more pride to be left to make up your own mind."

"Well, I don't."

"I guess not," he said. "The women in my country are like that too. They
have to be begged or forced. Then they feel good about it."

"Well, are you always this way?"

"No," said Juan, "only with you. You came here for something. You said
yourself it didn't have anything to do with me."

She looked at her fingers. "It's funny," she said. "I'm what you'd call
an intellectual girl. I read things. I'm not a virgin. I know thousands
of case histories, but I can't make the advances." She smiled quickly
and warmly. "Can't you force me a little?"

His arms stretched out and she fell into place beside him in the straw.

"You won't hurry me?"

"We've got all day," he said.

"Will you despise me or laugh at me?"

"What do you care?"

"Well, I do, whether I want to or not."

"You talk too much," he said. "You just talk too much."

"I know it and it goes on all the time. Will you take me away? Maybe to
Mexico?"

"No," said Juan. "Let's see if you can shut up for a little while."




CHAPTER 17


Pimples took the keys from the ignition lock on the instrument board and
went to the rear of the bus. He unlocked the padlock which defended the
luggage and threw up the lid. The smell of pies came sweetly to his
nose. Mr. Pritchard looked in over his shoulder. The luggage was stacked
tightly in the compartment.

"I guess I'll have to take it all out to get those tarps," said Pimples,
and he began to pull at the wedged suitcases.

"Wait," said Mr. Pritchard. "Let me lift and you pull and we can leave
them all in." He stood on the bumper and strained upward at the bottom
suitcase while Pimples yanked at the heavy fold of canvas. Pimples
worked it from side to side and gradually it came free from under the
luggage.

"Maybe we'd better get a couple of pies while we got it open," Pimples
said. "There's raspberry and lemon cream and raisin and caramel custard
cream. A piece of caramel custard cream would go pretty good now."

"Later," said Mr. Pritchard. "Let's get my wife settled first." He took
one side of the heavy cloth and Pimples the other and they proceeded
toward the cliff with its caves.

It was a fairly common formation. The side of the little hill had
dropped away in some old time, leaving a smooth surface of soft
limestone. Gradually wind and rain cut under from below, while the top
of the cliff was held in place by topsoil and grass roots. And over the
ages several caves were formed under the overhanging cliff. Here a
coyote littered her pups, and here, in the old days when there were such
things, a grizzly bear came to sleep. And in the higher caves the owls
sat during the day.

Three deep, dark caves developed at the bottom of the cliff and a few
small ones higher up. All the cave entrances were now protected from the
rain by the high overhang of the cliff itself. The caves were not
entirely the inventions of nature, for bands of Indians hunting
antelopes had rested here and lived here, and had even fought forgotten
battles here. Later it became a stopping place for white men riding
through the country, and the men had enlarged the caves and built their
fires under the overhang.

The smoke stains on the sandstone were old and some fairly new, and the
floors of the caves were comparatively dry, for this little hill, one
side of which had dropped away, did not receive the drainage from other,
higher hills. A few initials had been scratched on the sandstone cliff,
but the surface was so soft that they soon became illegible. Only the
large, weathering word "Repent" was still clear. The wandering preacher
had let himself down with a rope to put up that great word in black
paint, and he had gone away rejoicing at how he was spreading God's word
in a sinful world.

Mr. Pritchard, carrying his end of the tarpaulin, looked up at the word
"Repent." "Somebody went to a lot of trouble," he said, "a lot of
trouble." And he wondered who had financed such a venture. Some
missionary, he thought.

He and Pimples dropped the tarpaulin under the cliff's overhang while
they went to inspect the caves. The shallow holes were nearly alike,
about five feet high and eight or nine feet wide and ten or twelve feet
deep. Mr. Pritchard chose the cave the farthest toward the right because
it seemed to be drier and because it was a little darker inside. He
thought the darkness would be good for his wife's coming headache.
Pimples helped him spread the tarpaulin.

"I wish we could get some pine boughs or some straw to put underneath
the canvas," Mr. Pritchard said.

"Grass is too wet," said Pimples, "and there ain't a pine tree in fifty
miles."

Mr. Pritchard rubbed the canvas with the butt of his hand to see whether
the cloth was dirty. "She can lie on my overcoat," he said, "and she can
put her fur coat over her."

Ernest and Van Brunt came in to look at the cave.

"We could stay here for weeks if we had anything to eat," Ernest said.

"Well, we may be quite a time at that," said Van Brunt. "If that bus
driver isn't back by tomorrow morning I'm going to walk in. I've had
about all the nonsense I can take."

Pimples said, "I can break out a couple of pies if you folks want."

"That might be a good idea," said Ernest.

"What kind you like?" Pimples asked.

"Oh, any kind."

"The caramel custard cream is nice. It's got graham crackers instead of
crust."

"That'll be fine," said Ernest.

Mr. Pritchard went back to the bus for his wife. He was feeling ashamed
about his anger of a little time ago. He had the hard knot in his
stomach he got when things were not going well, a fistlike knot. Charlie
Johnson said he must have an ulcer, and Charlie was pretty funny about
it. He said no one under twenty-five thousand dollars a year got an
ulcer. It was a symptom of a bank account, Charlie said. And
unconsciously Mr. Pritchard was a little proud of the pain in his
stomach.

When he climbed into the bus, Mrs. Pritchard's eyes were closed.

"We've got your little bed all fixed," Mr. Pritchard said.

Her eyes opened and she stared wildly about.

"Oh!"

"Were you asleep?" he said. "I shouldn't have wakened you. I'm sorry."

"No, dear. It's all right. I was just dozing."

He helped her to her feet. "You can lie on my overcoat and put your
little fur coat over you."

She smiled weakly at his tone.

He helped her down the steps. "I'm sorry I was rude, little girl," he
said.

"It's all right. You're just tired. I know you didn't mean it."

"Well, I'm going to buy you a great big dinner in Hollywood to make up
for it, maybe at Romanoff's, with champagne. Would you like that?"

"You can't be trusted with money," she said playfully. "It's all
forgotten now. You were just tired."--"Dear Ellen, we had the nicest
dinner at Romanoff's and you'll never guess who was at the next
table."--"Why, it's hardly raining at all," she said.

"No, and I want my little girl to get some sleep so she'll be well and
strong."

"Are you sure it's not damp and there aren't any snakes?"

"No, we looked around."

"And no spiders?"

"Well, there weren't any spider webs."

"But how about big, hairy tarantulas? They don't have webs."

"We can look around some more," he said. "The walls are smooth. There's
no place for them to hide." He conducted her to the little cave. "See
how nice? And you can lie with your head up this way so you can look out
if you want to."

He spread his coat and she sat down on it.

"Now, lie down and I'll cover you up."

She was very docile.

"How's my girl's head?"

"Well, it's not as bad as I was afraid it would be."

"That's good," he said. "You get a little nap. Are you comfy?"

She made a little moan of comfort.

"If you want anything just call out. I'll be near."

Pimples came to the cave entrance. His mouth was full and he carried a
pie tin in his hand. "You like to have a piece of pie, ma'am?"

Mrs. Pritchard raised her head and then she shivered and put her head
down. "No, thank you," she said. "It was nice of you to think of me, but
I couldn't eat pie."--"Elliott just treated me like a queen, Ellen. How
many people can say that after they've been married twenty-three years?
I just feel lucky all the time."

Mr. Pritchard looked down at her. Her eyes were closed and there was a
small smile on her lips. He felt the sudden lonely sorrow that came so
often. He remembered, really remembered, the first time it had happened.
He had been five when his little sister was born, and suddenly there
were doors closed against him and he couldn't go into the nursery and he
couldn't touch the baby and the feeling came on him that he was always a
little dirty and noisy and unworthy and his mother was always busy. And
then the cold loneliness had fallen on him, the cold loneliness that
still came to him sometimes, that came to him now. The little smile
meant that Bernice had retired from the world into her own room, and he
couldn't follow her.

He took his gold nail pick from his pocket and opened it and cleaned his
nails as he walked away. He saw Ernest Horton sitting against the cliff
on the other side of the overhang. The high cave was over his head.
Ernest was sitting on some newspapers and as Mr. Pritchard approached he
slipped a double sheet of paper from under him and held it out.

"Most useful things in the world," he said. "You can do anything with
them except read them."

Mr. Pritchard chuckled, took the paper, and sat down on it beside
Ernest. "If you read it in the paper it isn't true," he said, quoting
Charlie Johnson. "Well, here we are. Two days ago I was in a suite in
the Hotel Oakland and now we're in a cave. It just shows, you can't make
plans."

He stared at the bus. Through the window he could see that Pimples was
in there with the two girls and they were eating pie. He felt a strong
urge to join them. He could eat a piece of pie.

Ernest said, "Everything goes to show something. I have to laugh
sometimes. You know, we're supposed to be a mechanical people. Everybody
drives a car and has an icebox and a radio. I suppose people really
think they are mechanical minded, but let a little dirt get in the
carburetor and--well, a car has to stand there until a mechanic comes
and takes out the screen. Let a light go off, and an electrician has to
come and put in a new fuse. Let an elevator stop, and there's a panic."

"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Pritchard. "Americans are pretty
mechanical people all in all. Our ancestors did pretty well for
themselves."

"Sure, they did. So could we if we had to. Can you set the timer on your
car?"

"Well, I--"

"Go further," said Ernest. "Suppose you had to stay out here two weeks.
Could you keep from starving to death? Or would you get pneumonia and
die?"

"Well," said Mr. Pritchard, "you see, people specialize now."

"Could you kill a cow?" Ernest insisted. "Could you cut it up and cook
it?"

Mr. Pritchard found that he was getting impatient with this young man.
"There's a kind of cynicism running around the country," he said
sharply. "It seems to me young people have lost their faith in America.
Our ancestors had faith."

"They had to eat," Ernest said. "They didn't have time for faith. People
don't work much any more. They've got time for faith."

"But they haven't any faith," Mr. Pritchard cried. "What's got into
them?"

"I wonder," Ernest said. "I've even tried to figure it out. My old man
had two faiths. One was that honesty got rewarded some way or other. He
thought that if a man was honest he somehow got along, and he thought if
a man worked hard and saved he could pile up a little money and feel
safe. Teapot Dome and a lot of stuff like that fixed him on the first,
and nineteen-thirty fixed him on the other. He found out that the most
admired people weren't honest at all. And he died wondering, a kind of
an awful wondering, because the two things he believed in didn't work
out--honesty and thrift. It kind of struck me that nobody has put
anything in place of those two."

Mr. Pritchard shook this out of his head. "You can't be thrifty because
of taxes," he said. "There was a time when a man could build up an
estate, but now he can't. Taxes take it all. You're just working for the
government. I tell you, it knocks initiative on the head. No one has any
ambition any more."

"It don't make a lot of difference who you work for if you believe in
it," said Ernest. "The government or anybody else."

Mr. Pritchard interrupted him. "The returning soldiers," he said,
"they're the ones I'm worrying about. They don't want to settle down and
go to work. They think the government owes them a living for life and we
can't afford it."

Ernest's forehead was beaded with perspiration now, and there was a
white line around his mouth and a sick look in his eyes. "_I_ was in
it," he said softly. "No, no, don't worry. I'm not going to tell you
about it. I wouldn't do that. I don't want to."

Mr. Pritchard said, "Of course, I've got the greatest respect for our
soldiers, and I think they should have a voice."

Ernest's fingers crept to his lapel buttonhole. "Sure," he said, "sure,
I know." He spoke as though he addressed a child. "I read in the papers
about our best men. They must be our best men 'cause they got the
biggest jobs. I read what they say and do, and I've got a lot of friends
that you might call bums, and there's awful little difference between
them. I've heard some of the bums get off stuff that sounded even better
than the stuff that the Secretary of State gets off--Oh, what the hell!"
He laughed. "I've got an invention, and it's a rubber drum that you beat
with a sponge. It's for the drunks that want to play traps in the
orchestra. I'm going to take a little walk."

"You're nervous," said Mr. Pritchard.

"Yeah, I'm nervous," Ernest said. "Everybody's nervous. And I'll tell
you something. If we've got to fight somebody again, you know what's the
most awful thing? I'll go too. That's the most awful thing." And he got
up and walked away, back in the direction from which the bus had come.

His head was down and his hands were in his pockets and his feet beat
against the gravel of the road and he was holding his mouth very tight
and he couldn't stop. "I'm nervous," he said, "I'm just nervous. That's
all it is."

Mr. Pritchard stared after him and then he lowered his eyes to his hands
and got out his nail file again and cleaned his nails. Mr. Pritchard was
shaken and he didn't know why. With all Mr. Pritchard's pessimism about
government interference with business, there was always in the back of
his mind a great hopefulness. Somewhere there was a man like Coolidge or
like Hoover, who would come along and take the government out of the
hands of these fools in the administration, and then everything would be
all right. The strikes would stop and everybody would make money and be
happy. It was just around the corner. Mr. Pritchard believed it. He had
no idea that the world had changed. It has just made a few mistakes and
the right man would come along--say, Bob Taft--and everything would get
on an even keel again and these damned experiments would stop.

But this young man bothered him because this was a bright young man, and
he had a feeling of hopelessness. Although he hadn't said it, Mr.
Pritchard knew that Ernest Horton wouldn't even vote for Bob Taft if he
were nominated. And Mr. Pritchard, like most of his associates, believed
in miracles, but he was deeply shaken. Horton hadn't attacked Mr.
Pritchard directly but--now, about the carburetor. Mr. Pritchard let his
mind create the shape of a carburetor. Could he take it apart? Vaguely
he knew that there was a little float in a carburetor, and in his mind
he could see the brass screen and the gaskets.

But he had more important things to think about, he told himself. Horton
had said "if the lights went out"--and Mr. Pritchard tried to think
where the fuse boxes were in his house, and he didn't know. Horton had
been attacking him. Horton didn't like him. Suppose they were stranded
as the young man had said.

Mr. Pritchard closed his eyes and he was standing in the aisle of the
bus. "Don't worry," he said to the other passengers, "I'm going to take
care of everything. I haven't built a big business organization without
some ability, you know. Let's reason this out," he said. "We need food
first. There's some cows in that field back there." And Horton had said
he didn't know how to kill a cow. Well, he'd show him. Probably Horton
didn't know there was a pistol in the compartment on the instrument
board. But Mr. Pritchard knew.

Mr. Pritchard took out the pistol. He got out of the bus and walked away
toward the field and climbed a fence. He held the big black pistol in
his hand. Mr. Pritchard had been to a great many movies. His mind
unconsciously made a dissolve. He didn't see himself kill the cow or cut
it up, but he saw himself come to the overhang again with a great slab
of red meat. "There's food for you," he said. "Now for a fire." And
again he dissolved, and the fire was leaping and a big piece of meat
hung on a stick over the blaze.

And Camille said, "But what about that animal? It belongs to someone."

Mr. Pritchard answered, "Expediency knows no law. The law of survival
comes first. Nobody could expect me to let you people starve."

And suddenly he dissolved again and he shook his head and opened his
eyes. "Stay off that," he whispered to himself. "Keep away from that."
Where had he seen her? If he could just talk to her a little while he
ought to be able to place it. He knew he wasn't wrong because her face
had given him a clutching sensation in his chest. He must not only have
seen her, but something must have happened. He looked toward the bus.
Pimples and the two girls were still inside.

He got to his feet and brushed the seat of his trousers as though the
paper had not protected him from dust. The rain was only misting a
little now, and in the west there were patches of blue sky. Everything
was going to be all right. He walked over to the bus and climbed the
steps. Van Brunt was stretched out on the seat at the rear which went
across the width of the bus. Van Brunt seemed to be asleep. Pimples and
the girls were talking softly so that they wouldn't disturb him.

"What I want in a wife is to be true," Pimples said.

"How about you?" Camille asked. "You figure to be true too?"

"Sure," said Pimples, "if she's the right kind of wife I will."

"Well, suppose she isn't?"

"Well, then I'll show her a thing or two. I'll show her two can play
that game, like Cary Grant done in that movie."

An empty pie tin and another with only a quarter of a pie left were on
the seat across from the group. The two girls sat together and Pimples,
sitting sideways on the seat ahead of them, dropped his arm over the
back.

They all looked up as Mr. Pritchard came in. "You mind if I sit in?" he
said.

"Sure, come on in," said Pimples. "You like to have a piece of pie?
Here's a piece right here." And he handed the pie to Mr. Pritchard and
moved the empty tins so he could sit down.

"Have you got a girl now?" Camille continued.

"Well, kind of a one. But she's--er--well, she's kind of silly."

"Is she true to you?"

"Sure," said Pimples.

"How do you know?"

"Well, I never could--I mean--yeah, I'm sure."

"I guess you'll be getting married pretty soon," Mr. Pritchard said
playfully, "and going in business for yourself."

"No, not for a while," said Pimples, "I'm studying by mail. There's a
big future in radar. Make up to seventy-five dollars a week inside of a
year."

"You don't say?"

"There's fellas that took that course that wrote in and said that's what
they're making," said Pimples. "One of them is a district manager
already, after one year."

"District manager of what?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"Just district manager. That's what he said in his letter, and it's
printed right in the ad."

Mr. Pritchard was beginning to feel good again. Here was ambition. Not
everybody was cynical.

Camille said, "When do you think you'll get married?"

"Oh, not right yet," said Pimples. "I think a fella ought to see the
world a little before he settles down. He ought to get around some. I
might get on a ship. If you know radar, why, you know radio too. I
thought I might get on a ship and be a radio operator for a while."

"But when are you going to finish your course?" Mr. Pritchard asked.

"Well, the lessons are going to start pretty soon now. I've got the
coupon all made out and I'm saving up for the down payment. I took a
test and they say I got plenty of talent. I had three or four letters
from them."

Camille's eyes were very weary. Mr. Pritchard looked at her face. He
knew his eyes were shielded by his glasses. He thought she had a fine
face when you looked at it closely. Her lips were so full and friendly
now, and only her eyes were tired. All the way from Chicago on a bus, he
thought. She didn't look strong enough. He could see the fullness of her
breasts under her suit and the suit was wrinkled. She had turned the
French cuffs of her shirt inside out so that the edges would be clean.
Mr. Pritchard noticed this. It meant neatness to him. He studied little
details.

He felt this girl almost like a perfume. He felt an excitement and a
hunger. It's just that you don't often see a girl like this, so
attractive and so nice, he told himself. And then he heard himself
talking and he hadn't even known he was going to talk.

"Miss Oaks," he said, "I've been thinking, and it occurred to me that
you might like to listen to a little business idea I had. I'm president
of quite a large corporation and I thought--well, I'm sure these young
people would excuse us for a little while if you'd care to hear my
ideas. Would you step over to the cliff there? I have some newspapers to
sit on." He was astonished at his own words.

"Oh, Jesus!" Camille said to herself. "Here it comes."

Mr. Pritchard got down first and gallantly helped Camille off the bus.
He held her elbow as she stepped across the ditch and he guided her
gently to the spread newspapers where he and Ernest had sat. He pointed
downward.

"Oh, I don't know," Camille said. "I've been sitting a long time."

"Well, maybe the change in position will rest you," said Mr. Pritchard.
"You know, when I'm working long hours at my desk I change the height of
my chair about every hour, and I find it keeps me fresh." He helped her
to sit down on the newspapers. She covered her knees with her skirt and
sat hugging her knees against her breast.

Mr. Pritchard sat down beside her. He took off his glasses. "I've been
thinking," he said. "You know, a man in my position has to look ahead
and plan. Now, technically, I'm on a vacation." He smiled. "Vacation--I
wonder what a real vacation would be like."

Camille smiled. The ground felt very hard. She wondered how long this
was going to take.

"Now the main raw product of a successful company is human beings," Mr.
Pritchard said. "I'm always looking for human beings. You can get steel
and rubber any time, but brains, talent, beauty, ambition--that's the
difficult product."

"Look, mister," Camille said, "I'm awful tired."

"I know, my dear, and I'll come to the point. I want to employ you.
That's as simply as I can say it."

"As what?"

"As a receptionist. It's quite a specialized job, and from there you
could become--well, you might even become my personal secretary."

Camille was played out. She looked toward the cave entrance where Mrs.
Pritchard was. She couldn't see anything. "What'll your wife have to say
about that?"

"Well, what's she got to do with it? She doesn't run my business."

"Mister, like I said, I'm tired. We don't have to go through all that.
I'd like to be married. I'd be a good wife, and with a settlement so I
wouldn't have to worry for a while, why, I could even be good to a man."

"I don't see what you're getting at," Mr. Pritchard said.

"Yes, you do," said Camille. "You won't like me because I don't play it
your way. You'd like to take months to get around to it and surprise me
with it, but I'm nearly broke. You say your wife doesn't run your
business, but I say she does. You and your business and everything about
you. I'm trying to be nice but I'm tired. She probably picks your
secretaries and you don't even know it. That's a tough woman."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do," Camille said. "Who bought your tie?"

"Well--"

"She would know about me in a minute. She would. Now let me talk a
little bit. You couldn't ask a girl outright. You'd have to go round
about. But there's only two ways, mister. You either fall in love or you
make a business proposition. If you'd said, 'Here's the way it is. So
much for an apartment and so much for clothes,' why, I could have
thought it out and I could have come to a conclusion, and it might have
worked. But I'm not going to be nibbled to death by ducks. Did you want
to surprise me after two, three months of me sitting at a desk? I'm
getting too old to play."

Mr. Pritchard's chin was stuck out. "My wife does not run my business,"
he said. "I don't know where you got that idea."

"Oh, skip it," said Camille. "But I'd just as soon come up against a
nest of rattlesnakes as your wife if she didn't like me."

"I'm a little surprised at your attitude," Mr. Pritchard said. "I hadn't
thought of any of these things. I was just trying to offer you a job.
You can take it or leave it."

"Oh, brother!" said Camille. "If you can kid yourself into believing
that, God help any girl you get. She'll never know where she stands."

Mr. Pritchard smiled at her. "You're just tired," he said. "Maybe when
you get rested you'll think it over."

The enthusiasm was gone out of his voice and Camille was relieved. She
thought maybe she had made a mistake because he'd be very easy to
handle, a real sucker. Loraine could have taken his shirt in one day.

Mr. Pritchard saw her face differently now. He saw hardness in it and
defiance, and now that he was this close he saw the make-up and how it
was put on, and he felt naked before this girl. It bothered him to have
her talk this way. He had thought if everything worked out--well, he
would--well--but the trouble was that she knew. Only he wouldn't have
called it--well, there was such a thing as being a lady about such
things.

He was confused, and in his confusion he was getting angry again. Twice
in one day to be angry was unusual with him. His neck was getting red
with anger. He had to cover up. He had to for his own sake. He said
crisply, "I simply offered you a job. You don't want it--all right.
There's no reason to be vulgar about it. There's such a thing as being a
lady."

An edge came into her voice. "Look, Mac," she said, "I can play rough
too. This lady business does it. I'm going to tell you something. You
thought you recognized me. Now, do you belong to any clubs like The
Octagon International or The Birds of the World or The Two Fifty--Three
Thousand Club?"

"I'm an Octagon," Mr. Pritchard said stiffly.

"You remember the girl that sits in the wine glass? I've seen what you
boys look like. I don't know what you get out of it and I don't want to
know. But I know it isn't pretty, mister. And maybe you'd know a lady if
you saw one. I don't know." Her voice came in little breaks and there
was almost a hysteria of weariness in her. She jumped to her feet. "I'm
going to take a stroll now, Mac. Don't give me any trouble because I
know you, and I know your wife."

She walked away quickly. Mr. Pritchard watched her go. His eyes were
wide and there was a heavy weight in his chest, a kind of played-out,
physical horror. He watched her pretty body swaying as she went, and he
saw her pretty legs, and his mind took her clothes off, and she was
standing beside the huge glass and the wine was running down in red
streams over her stomach and thighs and buttocks.

Mr. Pritchard's mouth was open and his neck was very red. He looked away
from her and studied his hands. He took out his gold nail file and put
it back in his pocket again. A dizziness came over him. He stood up
uncertainly and walked down under the cliff to the little cave where
Mrs. Pritchard lay.

She opened her eyes and smiled as he entered. Mr. Pritchard lay down
beside her quickly. He pulled up her coat and crawled under it.

"Dear, you're tired," she said. "Elliott! what are you doing? Elliott!"

"Shut up," he said. "You hear me? Shut up! You're my wife, aren't you?
Hasn't a man got any rights with his wife?"

"Elliott, you're mad! Someone'll--someone'll see you." She fought him in
panic. "I don't know you," she said. "Elliott, you're tearing my dress."

"I bought it, didn't I? I'm tired of being treated like a sick cat."

Bernice cried softly in fear and in horror.

When he left her she cried with her face nestled close to her fur coat.
Gradually her crying stopped and she sat up and looked out the cave
entrance. Her eyes were ferocious. She raised her hand and set her nails
against her cheek. She drew them down experimentally once and then she
bit her lower lip and slashed downward with her fingernails. She could
feel the blood oozing from the scratches. She put out her hand and
dirtied it on the cave floor and rubbed the dirt into her bleeding
cheek. The blood flowed down through the dirt and down her neck to the
collar of her waist.




CHAPTER 18


Mildred and Juan came out of the barn and she said, "Look, the rain has
stopped. Look at the sun on the mountains. It's going to be beautiful."

Juan grinned.

"You know, I feel wonderful," she said. "I feel wonderful."

"Sure," said Juan.

"Do you feel wonderful enough to hold my mirror? I couldn't see in
there." She took a little square mirror from her purse. "Here. No, a
little higher." She combed her hair quickly and patted some powder on
her cheeks and put on lipstick. She peered very closely in the mirror
because she could see only at short range. "Do you think I'm flippant
for a violated girl?"

"You're all right," he said. "I like you."

"But just that? No more?"

"Do you want me to lie?"

She laughed. "I guess I do a little. No, I don't. And you won't take me
to Mexico?"

"No."

"This is the end then? There isn't any more?"

"How do I know?" Juan asked.

She put the mirror and the lipstick back in her purse and smoothed the
lipstick on, one lip over the other. "Brush the straw off my coat, will
you?"

She turned as he brushed her coat with his hand. "Because," she went on,
"my father and mother don't know about these things. I'm sure I was
conceived immaculately. My mother planted me, a number one bulb, before
the snow came and covered me with soil and sand and manure." She was
giddy. "Can't go to Mexico. What do we do now?"

"Go back and dig out the bus and drive to San Juan." He walked toward
the entrance gate of the old farm.

"Can I take your hand just for a little?"

He looked at the hand with the amputated finger and started to move to
the other side to give her his whole hand.

"No," she said, "I like that one." She took his hand and rubbed her
finger over the smooth skin of the amputation.

"Don't do that," he said. "It makes me nervous."

She clutched his hand tightly. "I won't have to put on my glasses," she
said.

The ranges to the east of them were glowing and gold with the setting
sun. Juan and Mildred turned to the right and started up the hill toward
the bus.

"Will you tell me something as--well, as a payment for my whoring?"

Juan laughed. "What do you want?"

"Why did you come down here? Did you think I'd follow you?"

"You want the truth or do you want to play games?" he asked.

"Well, I'd like both. But no--er--I guess I want the truth first."

"Well, I was running away," said Juan. "I was going to beat my way back
to Mexico and disappear and let the passengers take care of themselves."

"Oh, and why don't you?"

"I don't know," he said. "It went sour. The Virgin of Guadalupe let me
down. I thought I fooled her. She doesn't like fooling. She cut the
heart out of it."

"You don't believe that," she said seriously. "I don't believe it
either. What was the real reason?"

"For what?"

"For you coming down to that old place?"

Juan walked along and his face broke into a wide smile and the scar on
his lip made the smile off-center. He looked down at her and his black
eyes were warm. "I came down here because I hoped you would go for a
walk, and then I thought I might--I might even get you."

She wrapped her arm around his arm and pulled her cheek hard against the
sleeve of his jacket. "I wish it could go on a little more," she said,
"but I know it can't. Good-by, Juan."

"Good-by," he said. And they walked slowly back toward the bus.




CHAPTER 19


Van Brunt lay outstretched on the back seat of the bus. His eyes were
closed but he was not sleeping. His head rested on his right arm and the
weight of his head cut off the full flow of blood to his right hand.

When Camille and Mr. Pritchard left the bus Pimples and Norma were
silent for a while.

Van Brunt listened to age creeping in his veins. He could almost feel
the rustle of blood in his papery arteries, and he could hear his heart
beat with a creaking whistle in it. His right hand was going to sleep,
but it was his left hand that worried him. There wasn't much feeling in
his left hand. The skin was insensitive, as though it were a thick
rubber. He rubbed and massaged his hand when he was alone to bring the
circulation back, and he really knew what was the matter although he
hardly admitted it even to himself.

A few months ago he had fainted, just for a moment, and the doctor had
read his blood pressure and told him to take it easy and he'd be all
right. And two weeks ago another thing had happened. There had been an
electric flash in his head behind his eyes, a feeling like a blinding
blue-white glare for a second, and now he couldn't read any more. It
wasn't that he couldn't see. He saw clearly enough, but the words on a
page swam and ran together and squirmed like snakes, and he couldn't
make out what they said.

He knew very well he had had two little strokes, but it was a secret he
kept from his wife and she kept from him and the doctor kept from both.
And he waited, waited for another one, the one that would flash in his
mind, would flash through his body, and if it didn't kill him, it would
numb out all feeling. Knowing it had made him angry, angry at everyone.
Physical hatred of everyone around him crowded in his throat.

He tried on all possible glasses. He used magnifying glasses on the
newspapers because he himself, with half of his mind, was trying to keep
his condition secret from himself. His angers had a habit now of
bursting from him without warning, but the real horror to him was that
he cried, uncontrollably sometimes, and couldn't stop. Recently he had
awakened early in the morning saying to himself, "Why should I wait for
it?"

His father had died of the same thing, but before he died he had lain
like a gray, helpless worm in a bed for eleven months, and all the money
he had saved for his old age was spent on doctor bills. Van Brunt knew
that if the same thing happened to him the eight thousand dollars he had
in the bank would be gone, and his old wife would have nothing after she
buried him.

As soon as the drugstores opened that day, he went in to see his friend
Milton Boston of the Boston Drug Store.

"I've got to poison some squirrels, Milton," he said. "Give me a little
cyanide, will you?"

"That's damn dangerous stuff," Milton said. "I kinda hate to sell it.
Let me give you some strychnine. It'll do the job just as well."

"No," Van Brunt said, "I've got a government bulletin with a new formula
and it calls for cyanide."

Milton said, "Well, all right. You'll have to sign the poison book, of
course. But look out for that stuff, Van. Look out for it. Don't leave
it around."

They'd been friends for many years. They'd gone in the Blue Lodge
together and had been through the Chairs, and in succeeding years they
had been Worshipful Master of the San Ysidro Lodge, and then Milton went
into the Royal Arch and the Scottish Rite and Van Brunt never went
beyond the third degree. But they had remained friends.

"How much of the stuff do you want?"

"About an ounce, I guess."

"That's an awful lot, Van."

"I'll bring back what I don't use."

Milton was worried. "Don't touch it at all with your hands, will you?"

"I know how to handle it," Van Brunt said.

Then he went into his office in the basement of his house, and with a
sharp pocketknife he pricked the back of his hand. When there was a
little blood coming out, he opened the glass tube of crystals. And then
he stopped. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't tip the crystals into
the cut.

After an hour he took the tube to the bank and put it in his
safety-deposit box along with his will and his insurance policies. He
thought of buying a little ampule to wear around his neck. Then, if the
big one came, he could maybe get it to his mouth the way those people in
Europe did. But he couldn't take it now. Maybe it wouldn't happen.

There was a weight of disappointment on him, and there was anger in him
too. All the people around him who weren't going to die angered him. And
there was another thing that bothered him. The stroke had knocked the
cap off one set of his inhibitions. He had suddenly reachieved powerful
desires. He was pantingly drawn toward young women, even little girls.
He couldn't keep his eyes and his thought from them, and in the midst of
his sick desires he would burst into tears. He was afraid, as a child is
afraid of a strange house.

He was too old to accommodate the personality change of his stroke and
the new nature it gave him. He had never been a reader, but now that he
could not read he was famished for reading. And his temper grew sharper
and more violent all the time until people he had known for years began
to avoid him.

He listened to time passing in his veins and he wanted death to come and
he was afraid of it. Through half-shut eyes he saw the golden light of
the sunset come into the bus. His lips moved a little and he said,
"Evening, evening, evening." The word was very beautiful, and he could
hear the whistling in his heart. A fullness of feeling came on him,
swelled in his chest, swelled in his throat, pulsed in his head. He
thought he was going to cry again. He tried to clench his right hand,
but it was asleep and it wouldn't clench.

And then he became rigid with tension. His body seemed distended, like a
blown-up rubber glove. The evening light blazed in. In back of his eyes
a terrible flickering flash came. He felt himself tumbling and tumbling
toward grayness and toward darkness and into black, black....

The sun touched the western hills and flattened itself, and its light
was yellow and clear. The saturated valley glittered under the level
light. The clean, washed air was crisp. In the fields the flattened
grain and the thick, torpid stems of the wild oats tightened themselves,
and the sheathed petals of the golden poppies loosened a little. The
yellow river boiled and swirled and cut viciously at the banks. In the
back seat of the bus Van Brunt snored hoarsely against his palate. His
forehead was wet. His mouth was open and so were his eyes.




CHAPTER 20


Pimples moved into the seat beside Norma and she gathered her skirts
daintily against her and slid a little toward the window.

"What do you suppose that old guy wants with that girl?" he asked
suspiciously.

"I don't know," said Norma. "But I tell you one thing. She can handle
him. She's a wonderful girl."

Pimples said, "Oh, I don't know. There's other wonderful girls."

Norma flared up. "Like who?" she said, derisively.

"Like you," said Pimples.

"Oh!" She hadn't expected this. She put her head down and stared at her
laced fingers, trying to regain her balance.

"What did you have to go and quit for?" Pimples said.

"Well, Mrs. Chicoy wasn't nice to me."

"I know. She isn't nice to anybody. But I wish you didn't quit. We could
have got together, maybe."

Norma didn't answer. Pimples said, "If you say the word I'll get out one
of the raisin pies. They're pretty nice."

"No. No, thanks. I couldn't eat anything."

"You sick?"

"No."

"Well, if you'd only come back to work at the Corners we could maybe go
into San Ysidro Saturday nights and dance and stuff like that."

"You didn't think of that before," she said.

"I didn't think you liked me."

She became a little arch now. This was a delightful game. "What makes
you think I like you now?" she said.

"Well, you're different now. You kinda changed. I like the way you done
your hair."

"Oh, that," she said. "Well, there wasn't any reason to kinda fix myself
up back at the lunchroom. Who'd see me?"

"I would," Pimples said gallantly. "Come on back. They'll give you your
job again. I guarantee that."

She shook her head. "No, when I quit, I quit. I don't go crawling back.
Besides, there's a future. We've got plans."

"What kind of plans?"

Norma wondered whether she ought to tell. In some ways it was bad luck,
but she found she couldn't help herself. "We're going to get a little
apartment with a nice davenport and a radio. And we're going to have a
stove and an icebox and I'm going to study to be a dental nurse." Her
eyes were shining.

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me and Miss Camille Oaks, that's who. When I'm a dental nurse I can
dress good and we'll go to shows and maybe give little dinners."

"Nuts," he said. "You won't never do that."

"What makes you say that?"

"You just won't. Now, why don't you come back to the Corners? I'm
studying radar and we'll go out together sometimes and you can't
tell--we might get together. You take a girl--she's gonna want to get
married. I'm a young guy. It's--er--it's good for a young guy to have a
wife. It gives him kind of--ambition."

Norma looked into his face, a level, questioning look, to see whether he
was making fun of her. And there was something so direct in her look
that Pimples misinterpreted it and glanced away in embarrassment.

"I know," he said bitterly. "You think you couldn't go with a guy that's
got these things. I done everything. I spent over a hundred dollars
going to doctors and for stuff at the drugstore. But it don't do no
good. There was one doctor says they won't last. He says they'll go away
in a couple more years. But I don't know if that's the truth. Go ahead,"
he said fiercely. "Get your damn apartment. Maybe I got ways of having
fun you never heard of. I don't have to take no guff from nobody." His
voice was completely miserable and he stared down into his lap.

Norma looked at him in amazement. She had never known this kind of
abject pain in anyone but herself. No one ever needed Norma for sympathy
or reassurance. A bubble of warmth burst in her and a kind of
gratefulness.

She said, "Don't you think like that. You don't have to, because if a
girl cared for you she wouldn't think like that. The doctor knew what he
was talking about. I knew three other young fellows, and them things
went away after a while."

Pimples kept his head down. There was still misery in him but an imp was
stirring too. He felt the advantage coming to his side and he began to
use it, and it was a new thing to him, a new discovery. Always he had
blustered with girls and bragged, and this was so easy. A sly imp began
to operate.

"Well, it just gets so you can't stand it," he said. "Sometimes I think
I'll just kill myself." He forced a half sob.

"Now don't you say like that," said Norma. This was a new function for
her too, but one she fitted into probably better than any other.

"Nobody likes me," Pimples said. "Nobody won't have nothing to do with
me."

"Don't you say like that," Norma repeated. "It's not true. I always
liked you."

"No, you never."

"I did too." She laid her hand on his arm in reassurance.

Blindly he reached up and held her hand against his arm. And then his
hand clasped hers and he squeezed her fingers and automatically she
squeezed back. He turned in his seat and flung his arms about her and
pushed his face into hers.

"Don't!" she cried. "Stop that!"

He gripped her more tightly.

"Stop it," she said. "Stop it. That old man back there."

Pimples whispered, "Listen to the old bastard snore. He's pounding his
ear. Come on, come on."

She wedged her elbows against his chest to hold him away. His hands
began plucking at her skirt. "Stop," she whispered. "You just stop." She
knew now that she had been tricked. "Stop it! Let me get out of here!"

"Come on," he said frantically. "Please come on." Pimples' eyes were
glazed and he was fighting with her skirt.

"Stop it, please stop. Suppose--suppose Camille came in? Suppose she saw
what you're--"

Pimples' eyes cleared for a moment. He looked at her evilly. "Suppose
she did. What do you care what that god-damned tramp sees?"

Norma's mouth fell open and her muscles relaxed. She looked at him in
unbelief. She looked at him as though she hadn't heard what he said.
Then her rage was cold and murderous. Her work-hardened muscles set
rigidly. She tore her hand free and hit him in the mouth. She leaped to
her feet and swung at him with both her fists, and he was so startled
that he covered his face with his hands to protect himself.

She was spitting at him like a cat. "You skunk!" she said. "Oh, you
dirty little skunk." And she kicked and shoved and pushed him out into
the aisle, and she ran up the aisle and out of the bus. His feet were
tangled in the stanchions of the seats and he tried to roll over.

A sickness and a weakness came over Norma. Her lips were quivering and
her eyes were streaming. "Oh, the dirty skunk," she cried. "The filthy,
dirty skunk."

She crossed the ditch and flung herself down in the grass and put her
head down on her arms. Pimples got to his feet and peeked out the
window. He didn't know what in the world to do.

Camille, walking slowly back along the road, saw Norma lying face down
in the grass. She stepped across the ditch and leaned over her. "What's
the matter? Did you fall down? What's the matter with you?"

Norma raised her tearful face. "I'm all right," she said.

"Get up," said Camille shortly. "Get up out of that wet grass." She
reached down and jerked Norma to her feet and led her under the cliff
and sat her down on the folded newspapers. "Now, what in the hell is the
matter with you?"

Norma wiped her wet face with her sleeve and destroyed the last of her
lipstick. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, that's your business," said Camille.

"That Pimples. He grabbed me."

"Well, can't you take care of yourself? Do you have to pull a nosedive?"

"That wasn't why."

"Well, what was why?" Camille wasn't really interested. She had her own
troubles.

Norma rubbed her red eyes with her fingers. "I hit him," she said. "I
hit him because he said you was a tramp."

Camille looked quickly away. She stared across the valley where the last
of the sun was disappearing behind the mountains and she rubbed her
cheek with her hand. Her eyes were dull. And then she forced them to
take on life and she forced them to smile and she gave the smile to
Norma.

"Look, kid," she said. "You'll just have to believe this until you find
it out for yourself--everybody's a tramp some time or other. Everybody.
And the worst tramps of all are the ones that call it something else."

"But you aren't."

"Let it lay," said Camille. "Just let it lay. Come on, let's try to do
something with your face. New lipstick isn't as good as a bath but it's
better than nothing."

Camille opened her purse and dug into it and got out a comb.




CHAPTER 21


Juan quickened his footsteps so that Mildred had trouble keeping up with
him.

"Do we have to run?" she asked.

"It'll be a lot easier digging the bus out while it's still light than
floundering around in the dark."

She trotted along beside him. "Do you think you can get it out?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you do that in the first place instead of walking
away?"

He slowed his footsteps for a moment. "I told you," he said. "I told you
twice."

"Oh, yes. You really meant that, then."

"I really mean everything," said Juan.

They came to the bus after the sun had slipped below the range. But the
high clouds were lighted with rose and they threw a rose transparency
over the land and the hills.

Pimples skulked out from behind the bus when Juan approached. There was
a hostile cringing about him. "When are they coming out?" he asked.

"I can't get anyone," Juan said shortly. "We'll have to do it ourselves.
We're going to need help. Where the hell is everybody?"

"Scattered around," said Pimples.

"Well, get out the tarpaulin."

"That lady's got it laying down up there."

"Well, get her up. I want rocks if you can find any and I want planks or
some posts. We may have to tear down some fence. But leave the barbed
wire up so the stock won't get out. And, Pimples--"

Pimples' mouth dropped open and his shoulders sagged. "You said--"

"Get all the men. I'm going to need help. I'll get the big jack out from
under the back seat."

Juan climbed into the bus. It was a little dark in the bus now. He saw
Van Brunt lying on the seat. "You'll have to move so I can get the
jack," he said.

Suddenly Juan leaned close. The eyes of the old man were open and rolled
up, and a harsh, labored snoring came from his mouth, and there was
spittle around the corners of his mouth. Juan turned him over on his
back and his tongue fell into his throat and his in-breathing was
plugged. Juan reached into the open mouth with his fingers and pushed
the tongue down and forward. He shouted, "Pimples! Pimples!" and with
his free hand he knocked on the window with his gold wedding ring.

Pimples climbed into the bus.

"This man's sick, goddammit. Call some help. Blow the horn."

It was Mr. Pritchard who took over Van Brunt. He hated it and yet he had
to do it. Juan cut a little piece of stick and showed him how to hold
down the tongue and wedge the stick against the roof of the mouth so
that the old man could breathe. Mr. Pritchard was revolted by the look
of the man, and the sour odor that came from the laboring chest sickened
him. But he had to do it. He didn't want to think about anything. His
mind wanted to stop. A series of chilling agonies ran through him. His
wife came into the bus and saw him and took the first seat inside the
door, as far from him as possible. And even in the dusky light he could
see the scratches and the blood on her collar. She didn't speak to him.

He said in his mind, "I must have been crazy. I don't know how I could
have done it. Dear, can't you just think I was sick, out of my head?" He
said it in his head. He would give her the little orchid house, and not
such a little one. He'd build her the finest orchid house money could
buy. But he couldn't even mention it for a long time. And the Mexican
trip--they would have to go through with it. It would be horrible, but
they would have to go through with it. How long would it be before the
look would go out of her eyes, the reproach, the hurt, the accusation?
She wouldn't speak for several days, he knew, or when she did it would
be with perfect politeness; short replies and a sweet voice, and her
eyes would not meet his. "Oh, God," he thought, "how do I get into these
things? Why can't it be me here, dying, instead of this old man? He's
never going to have to go through anything again."

He felt the men working under him on the bus. He heard the shovel bite
and the suck of mud and he heard the stone thrown under the wheels. His
wife sat stiffly and her lips were set in a tolerant smile. He didn't
know yet how she was going to handle the situation, but it would come to
her.

She was sad and she said to herself, "I must think no evil. Just because
Elliott went down under a brutishness is no reason for me to lose beauty
and toleration." There was a flicker of triumph in her. "I have
conquered anger," she whispered, "and I have conquered disgust. I can
forgive him, I know I can. But for his own sake it must not be too
soon--for his own good. I'll have to wait." Her face was full of dignity
and hurt.

Outside, Pimples was performing miracles of muscle and fortitude. His
two-toned oxfords were destroyed with mud. Almost purposely he destroyed
them. There was a layer of mud on his chocolate trousers. He violated
his fine clothes. He drove his shovel into the earth and dug down behind
the wheels and underneath the sides and he threw the mud out. He got
down on his knees in the mud to use his hands. His wolf eyes glittered
with effort and the sweat stood out on his forehead. Out of the corner
of his eye he watched Juan. Juan had forgotten, and just at a time when
Pimples needed him most. Pimples drove his shovel into the ground with
gusty bursts of strength.

Ernest Horton took a pickax and crossed the ditch. He picked away the
turf and roots and topsoil until he found what he wanted. The broken
stone from the ancient crash of the hill. He lifted the stones out and
piled them on the grass beside his hole.

Camille came over to him. "I'll help you carry some of these down."

"You'll get all dirty," said Ernest.

"You think I can get any dirtier than I am?" she asked.

He rested the pick head on the ground. "You wouldn't like to give me
your phone number? I'd take you out."

"That was the truth," said Camille. "I don't live any place yet. I
haven't got a number."

"Have it your own way," said Ernest.

"No, this is straight. Where are you going to stay?"

"Hollywood Plaza," said Ernest.

"Well, if you're in the lobby about seven o'clock day after tomorrow, I
might come by."

"Fair enough," said Ernest. "I'll take you to Musso-Franck's for
dinner."

"I didn't say I would," she said. "I said I might. I don't know how I'm
going to feel. If I don't show up, don't drop your watch. I'm too pooped
to figure anything out."

"Fair enough," said Ernest. "I'll stick around till seven-thirty."

"You're a good guy," said Camille.

"I'm just another sucker," said Ernest. "Don't take those big ones. I'll
bring those. You take the little ones."

She picked a rock up in each hand and walked toward the bus.

Juan went to the old fence and tore the posts out of the earth. He tore
down eight of them, but alternate posts, so that the barbed wire would
not fall down. He carried the posts down and went back for more.

The rose afterglow was turning pale pink and a duskiness settled on the
valley. Juan set his jack against a post and under the flange of the
wheel rim, and he lifted one side of the bus. As the wheel rose, Pimples
filled the hole under the tires with rocks.

Juan took another bite and lifted again, and gradually one side of the
bus rose out of the mud. Juan moved his jack to the other side and
raised the other wheel.

Camille and Norma were carrying rocks to fill the holes, while Ernest
dug them out.

Mildred asked, "What can I do?"

"Steady this post while I get a new pinch," said Juan. He was working
furiously against the coming dark. His forehead was glistening with
sweat. Pimples, on his knees in the mud, packed rocks under the wheels,
and the other side of the bus rose out of the mud.

"Let's get it extra high," said Juan, "so we won't have to do it all
over again. I'd like to have these posts in under the wheels."

It was almost dark when they were ready. Juan said, "I want everybody to
give a push when I start. If we can just make three feet we'll be all
right."

"How's the road ahead?" Pimples asked.

"It looked all right to me. God! You raised hell with your clothes."

Pimples' face was sick with disappointment. "It don't amount to
nothing," he said. "What good is clothes?" His tone was so despondent
that Juan stared at him in the half darkness.

A tight smile raised Juan's lips. "You'll have to take charge back here,
Kit, while I drive. Make them throw their weight on it when I go ahead.
You know how. You take charge back here, Kit."

Pimples threw down his shovel. "Come on, everybody," he shouted. "Come
on, snap into it! I'll take the right side. Girls too. Everybody got to
shove." He marshaled his people at the back of the bus. For a second he
looked hungrily at Mrs. Pritchard sitting inside. "She'd just be in the
way, I guess," he said.

Juan climbed into the bus. "Get out and give a shove," he said to Mr.
Pritchard.

The engine started easily enough. Juan let it turn over for a moment. He
eased it into compound-low and then he knocked twice on the side of the
bus and heard Pimples knock back twice on the rear wall. He speeded his
engine a little and let his clutch in. The wheels caught, slipped,
groaned, and caught, and "Sweetheart" waddled drunkenly over the bed of
rocks and climbed out onto the road. Juan pulled ahead out of the mud on
the road and then he set his hand brake. He stood up and looked out the
doorway.

"Just pile the tools in here on the floor," he said. "Come on, let's get
moving."

He turned on his lights and the beam lighted the gravel road as far as
the top of the little hill.




CHAPTER 22


Juan took the bus very slowly over the hill and down the water-scarred
gravel road past the deserted house. As he turned, his headlights picked
out the eyeless house and the broken windmill and the barn.

The night was very black, but a new breeze had come up, bearing the
semenous smell of grass and the spice of lupine. The headlights tunneled
the night over the road and an owl flew flashing in and out of the
light. Far ahead a rabbit crossing the road looked into the lights so
that its eyes glowed red, and then it hopped clear into the ditch.

Juan kept the bus in second gear and missed the water-scored ruts with
his wheels. The inside of the bus was dark except for the dash lights.
Juan let his eyes dart to the Virgin. "I ask only one thing," he said in
his mind. "I gave up the other, but it would be nice if you could make
it so she was sober when I get back."

Mrs. Pritchard was not rigid any more. Her head swayed with the movement
of the bus and she was dreaming. She was dressed in--what--what would
she have on? Something light. It would have to be white. And she was
taking Ellen through her little orchid house. "You wonder why I keep a
few purple orchids?" she asked Ellen. "Well, everybody has relatives who
like purple ones. Even you have, Ellen, you know that. But look over
here. These are just coming--the lovely browns and greens. Elliott
ordered those from Brazil. They came from a thousand miles up the
Amazon."

On the floor of the bus the pickax clinked against the shovel.

Pimples leaned close to Juan's ear. "I could take her over, Mr. Chicoy.
You're tired out. I'll drive if you want."

"No, thanks, Kit, you've had enough."

"But I ain't tired."

"It's all right," said Juan.

Mildred could see Juan's profile against the lighted road. "I wonder how
long I can make the day last. Like a peppermint stick. I'll have to hold
onto today until I can get another one as good."

Over the banging and the bouncing of the bus Mr. Pritchard listened for
the breathing of Van Brunt. He could just barely see the face against
the seat. He found that he hated this man because he was dying. He
inspected his hatred in amazement. He felt that he could strangle this
man easily and get it over with. "What kind of a thing am I?" he cried.
"What makes these horrible things in me? Am I going crazy? Maybe I've
been working too hard. Maybe this is a nervous breakdown."

He leaned close to make sure that the breathing of the sick man was not
cut off. There would be a bad bruise in the roof of his mouth where the
stick was wedged. He heard a little stir and saw that Ernest Horton had
come back and taken the next seat.

"You want me to take over?"

"No," said Mr. Pritchard. "I guess everything's all right. What do you
suppose it is?"

"It's a stroke," said Ernest. "I didn't mean to blast you today. I was
just nervous."

"Just one of those days," said Mr. Pritchard. "When things are pretty
bad my wife says, 'It'll be funny some time.'"

"Well, that's a good way to look at it if you can do it," said Ernest.
"I'll be at the Hollywood Plaza if you want to give me a call. Or try
that apartment some night--that number I gave you."

"I'm going to be all tied up, I'm afraid," said Mr. Pritchard. "I wish
you'd look in at the plant some time, though. We might do business yet."

"We might at that," said Ernest.

Norma sat next to the window now and Camille was by her side. Norma
leaned her elbow on the window sill and looked out at the fluttering
dark. There was a little rim of lighter sky around the edge of a great
dark cloud over the western mountains, and then as the cloud lifted the
evening star shone out of it, clear and washed and steady.

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I
might, get the wish I wish tonight."

Camille turned her head sleepily. "What did you say?"

Norma was silent for a moment. Then she asked softly, "We'll see how it
goes?"

"Yeah, we'll see how it goes," said Camille.

Far ahead and a little to the left a cluster of lights came into
view--little lights winking with distance, lost and lonely in the night,
remote and cold and winking, strung on chains.

Juan looked at them and called, "That's San Juan up ahead."






[End of The Wayward Bus, by John Steinbeck]
