Presence: Stories Page 9

  He stood beside her again, waiting. He smiled and said, “You got a job cut out for yourself. There’s twenty-five miles of beach we can cruise, throwing back fish.” She laughed and drew his head down and kissed him, and he hugged her, and she said, “Just those two. Go on, Sam. They might be alive.”

  He laughed again and picked up one of the fish, knowing that it was even more unjust for two to die when fifty had been saved, and as he tossed it to the waves a dog appeared. It was a big, brown retriever with sea-matted hair, and it leaped into the waves and dipped its head into the water, raised up with the sea robin gently cradled in its mouth, and came back with great pride to lay it carefully at Sam’s feet. “God, look how gently he brings it back!” Sam said.

  “Oh, dear!” She laughed and bent toward the stern face of the buff-eyed dog. The dog returned her a look of athletic determination. “You mustn’t do that!” Helplessly she looked at Sam, who picked up the fish and threw it back. Again the dog leaped in and retrieved it and now with enormous élan and pride nearly danced back to Sam, laid it at his feet, and stood waiting for the next throw, its legs trembling with eagerness.

  “Well?” he said to her. “There you are. There’s a whole conspiracy against these two fish. This guy was trained to help man; man has to eat and something’s got to die, puss . . .”

  As he spoke a silvery minnow slid out of the mouth of the sea robin at his feet. “Look at that now!” he yelled. “See? What about that little fish?”

  “Yes!” she said, like an admission.

  “You see? The victims make other victims.”

  “Well, hurry, throw it back anyway.”

  “But this character keeps bringing it back. This fish is doomed,” he said, and they were both laughing, but she had in her head a clock which was telling her that every second counted, and she started to bend toward the fish at his feet despite her repugnance at touching it. He moved her hand away and picked it up, threw it, and when the dog turned and went into the water for it, he ran a few yards along the beach to the other fish and threw it in.

  “Now,” he said a little breathlessly as the dog returned with the first fish, “now there’s one. This is a positively doomed fish on the principle that man has to eat and this dog is part of the scheme to feed him.” But now even he could not take his eyes from the fish, which had taken to breathing rapidly, what with the shocks of being thrown into the water and being picked up by the dog and flying through the brisk wind. “This fish wishes you’d let it die in peace!” He laughed.

  She looked around almost frantically, still smiling and laughing with him, and saw a stick and ran, ran with the dancer’s leaping stride, and the dog glanced at her, then watched her as she waved the stick and called to him. She threw it into the sea, and the dog streaked into the water after it; and Sam picked up the last fish quickly and flung it, and it arched with life as it slid into a wave.

  The beach was now clean, and the fishermen were busy stowing their nets, and the two walked away toward the road. “I’m sorry, Sam, but they were alive, and if nobody’s going to eat them . . .”

  “Well, the tide would have taken them out dead, puss, and they’d have been eaten by other fish. They wouldn’t have been wasted.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  They walked, holding each other by the hand, and she was silent. He felt a great happiness opening in him that she had laid his hand on the fish which were now swimming in the sea because he had lifted them. Now she looked up at him like a little girl, with that naked wonder in her face, even as she was smiling in the way of a grown woman, and she said, “But some of them might live now till they’re old.”

  “And then they’ll die,” he said.

  “But at least they’ll live as long as they can.” And she laughed with the woman part of her that knew of absurdities.

  “That’s right,” he said, “they’ll live to a ripe old age and grow prosperous and dignified . . .”

  She burst out laughing. “And see their children grown up!”

  He kissed her on her lips, blessing her and her wish. “Oh, how I love you,” she said with tears in her eyes. Then they walked home.

  [1960]

  The Misfits

  Wind blew down from the mountains all night. A wild river of air swept and swirled across the dark sky and struck down against the blue desert and hissed back into the hills. The three cowboys slept under their blankets, their backs against the first upward curve of the circling mountains, their faces toward the desert of sage. The wind and its tidal washing seethed through their dreams, and when it stopped there was a lunar silence that caused Gay Langland to open his eyes. For the first time in three nights he could hear his own breathing, and in the new hush he looked up at the stars and saw how clear and bright they were. He felt happy and slid himself out of his blankets and stood up fully dressed.

  On the silent plateau between the two mountain ranges Gay Langland was the only moving thing. He turned his head and then his body in a full circle, looking into the deep blue sky for sign of storm. He saw that it would be a good day and a quiet one. He walked a few yards from the two other sleepers and wet the sandy ground. The excitement of the stillness was awakening his body. He returned and lit the bundle of dry sage he had gathered last night, dropped some heavier wood on the quick flames, perched the blackened coffeepot on the stones surrounding the fire bed, and sat on one heel, staring at the fresh orange embers.

  Gay Langland was forty-five years old but as limber as he had ever been in his life. The light of his face brightened when there were things to do, a nail to straighten, an animal to size up, and it dimmed when there was nothing in his hands, and his eyes then went sleepy. When there was something to be done in a place he stayed there, and when there was nothing to be done he went from it. He had a wife and two children less than a hundred miles from here whom he had not seen in more than three years. She had betrayed him and did not want him, but the children were naturally better off with their mother. When he felt lonely for them all he thought of them longingly, and when the feeling passed he was left without any question as to what he might do to bring them all back together again. He had been born and raised on rangeland, and he did not know that anything could be undone that was done, any more than falling rain could be stopped in midair. And he had a smile and a look on his face that was in accordance. His forehead was evenly tracked with deep ridges, as though his brows were always raised a little expectantly, slightly surprised, a little amused, and his mouth friendly. His ears stuck out, as they often do with little boys or young calves, and he had a boy’s turned-up snub nose. But his skin was browned by the wind, and his small eyes looked and saw and, above all, were trained against showing fear.

  Gay Langland looked up from the fire at the sky and saw the first delicate stain of pink. He went over to the sleepers and shook Guido Racanelli’s arm. A grunt of salutation sounded in Guido’s head, but he remained on his side with his eyes shut. “The sumbitch died off,” Gay said to him. Guido listened, motionless, his eyes shut against the firelight, his bones warm in his fat. Gay wanted to shake him again and wake him, but in the last two days he had come to wonder whether Guido was not secretly considering not flying at all. The plane’s engine was rattling its valves and one shock absorber was weak. Gay had known the pilot for years and he knew and respected his moods. Flying up and down these mountain gorges within feet of the rock walls was nothing you could pressure a man to do. But now that the wind had died Gay hoped very much that Guido would take off this morning and let them begin their work.

  He got to his feet and again glanced skyward. Then he stood there thinking of Roslyn. And he had a strong desire to have money in his pocket that he had earned himself when he came to her tonight. The feeling had been returning again and again that he had somehow passed the kidding point and that he had to work again and earn his way as he always had before he met her. Not that he di
dn’t work for her, but it wasn’t the same. Driving her car, repairing her house, running errands—all that stuff wasn’t what you would call work. Still, he thought, it was too. Yet, it wasn’t either.

  He stepped over to the other sleeper and shook him. Perce Howland opened his eyes.

  “The sumbitch died, Perce,” Gay said.

  Perce’s eyes looked toward the heavens and he nodded. Then he slid out of his blankets and walked past Gay and stood wetting the sand, breathing deeply as in sleep. Gay always found him humorous to watch when he woke up. Perce walked into things and sometimes stood wetting his own boots. He was a little like a child waking up, and his eyes now were still dreamy and soft.

  Gay called over to him, “Better’n wages, huh, Perce?”

  “Damn right,” Perce muttered and returned to the fire, rubbing his skin against his clothes.

  Gay kneeled by the fire again, scraping hot coals into a pile and setting the frying pan over them on stones. He could pick up hot things without feeling pain. Now he moved an ember with his finger.

  “You make me nervous doing that,” Perce said, looking down over his shoulder.

  “Nothin’ but fire,” Gay said, pleased.

  They were in silence for a moment, both of them enjoying the brightening air. “Guido goin’ up?” Perce asked.

  “Didn’t say. I guess he’s thinkin’ about it.”

  “Be light pretty soon,” Perce warned.

  He glanced off to the closest range and saw the purple rocks rising in their mystery toward the faintly glowing stars. Perce Howland was twenty-two, hipless and tall, and he stood there as effortlessly as the mountains he was looking at, as though he had been created there in his dungarees, with the tight plaid shirt and the three-button cuffs, the broad-brimmed beige hat set back on his blond head, and his thumbs tucked into his belt so his fingers could touch the engraved belt buckle with his name spelled out under the raised figure of the bucking horse. It was his first bucking-horse prize, and he loved to touch it when he stood waiting, and he liked to wait.

  Perce had known Gay Langland for only five weeks, and Guido for three days. He had met Gay in a Bowie bar, and Gay had asked him where he was from and what he was doing, and he had told Gay his story, which was the usual for most of the rodeo riders. He had come on down from Nevada, as he had done since he was sixteen, to follow the local rodeos and win some money riding bucking horses, but this trip had been different, because he had lost the desire to go back home again.

  They had become good friends that night when Gay took him to Roslyn’s house to sleep, and when he woke in the morning he had been surprised that an educated eastern woman should have been so regular and humorous and interested in his opinions. So he had been floating around with Roslyn and Gay Langland, and they were comfortable to be with; Gay mostly, because Gay never thought to say he ought to be making something of his life. Gay made him feel it was all right to go from day to day and week to week. Perce Howland did not trust anybody too far, and it was not necessary to trust Gay because Gay did not want anything of him or try to manipulate him. He just wanted a partner to go mustanging, and Perce had never done anything like that and he wanted to see how it was. And now he was here, sixty miles from the nearest town, seven thousand feet up in the air, and for two days waiting for the wind to die so the pilot could take off into the mountains where the wild horses lived.

  Perce looked out toward the desert, which was beginning to show its silent horizon. “Bet the moon looks like this if anybody could get there.”

  Gay Langland did not answer. In his mind he could feel the wild horses grazing and moving about in the nearby mountains and he wanted to get to them. Indicating Guido Racanelli, he said, “Give him a shake, Perce. The sun’s about up.”

  Perce started over to Guido, who moved before Perce reached him. “Gettin’ light, Guido,” Perce said.

  Guido Racanelli rolled upright on his great behind, his belly slung over his belt, and he inspected the brightening sky in the distance as though some personal message were out there for him. The pink reflected light brightened his face. The flesh around his eyes was white where the goggles protected his face, and the rest of his skin was burned brown by wind. His silences were more profound than the silences of others because his cheeks were so deep, like the melon-half cheeks of a baboon that curve forward from the mouth. Yet they were hard cheeks, as hard as his great belly. He looked like a jungle bird now, slowly turning his head to inspect the faraway sky, a serious bird with a brown face and white eyes. His head was entirely bald. He took off his khaki army cap and rubbed his fingers into his scalp.

  Gay Langland stood up and walked to him and gave him his eggs and thick bacon on a tin plate. “Wind died, Guido,” Gay said, standing there and looking down at the pilot.

  “It doesn’t mean much what it did down here.” Guido pointed skyward with his thumb. “Up there’s where it counts.”

  “Ain’t no sign of wind up there,” Gay said. Gay’s eyes seemed amused. He did not want to seem committed to a real argument. “We got no more eggs, Guido,” he warned.

  Guido ate.

  Now the sky flared with true dawn, like damp paper suddenly catching fire. Perce and Gay sat down on the ground facing Guido, and they all ate their eggs.

  The shroud of darkness quickly slipped off the red truck which stood a few yards away. Then, behind it, the little plane showed itself. Guido Racanelli ate and sipped his coffee, and Gay Langland watched him with a weak smile and without speaking. Perce blinked contentedly at the brightening sky, slightly detached from the other two. He finished his coffee and slipped a chew of tobacco into his mouth and sucked on it.

  It was a pink day now all around the sky.

  Gay Langland made a line in the sand between his thighs and said, “You goin’ up, Guido?” He looked at Guido directly and he was still smiling.

  Guido thought for a moment. He was older, about fifty. His pronunciation was unaccountably eastern, with sharp r’s. He sounded educated sometimes. He stared off toward the squat little plane. “Every once in a while I wonder what the hell it’s all about,” he said.

  “What is?” Gay asked.

  Perce watched Guido’s face, thoroughly listening.

  Guido felt their attention and spoke with pleasurable ease. He still stared past them at the plane. “I got a lousy valve. I know it, Gay.”

  “Been that way a long time, Guido,” Gay said with sympathy.

  “I know,” Guido said. They were not arguing but searching now. “And we won’t hardly get twenty dollars apiece out of it—there’s only four or five horses back in there.”

  “We knew that, Guido,” Gay said. They were in sympathy with each other.

  “I might just get myself killed, for twenty dollars.”

  “Hell, you know them mountains,” Gay said.

  “You can’t see wind, Gay,” the pilot said.

  Gay knew now that Guido was going up right away. He saw that Guido had just wanted to get all the dangers straight in his mind so he could see them and count them; then he would go out against them.

  “You’re flying along in and out of those passes and then you dive for the sons of bitches, and just when you’re pulling up, some goddam gust presses you down and there you are.”

  “I know,” Gay said.

  There was silence. Guido sipped his coffee, staring off at the plane. “I just wonder about it every once in a while,” the pilot said.

  “Well, hell,” Perce Howland said, “it’s better than wages.”

  “You damn right it is, Perce,” the pilot said thoughtfully.

  “I seen guys get killed who never left the ground,” Perce said.

  The two older men knew that his father had been killed by a bull long ago and that he had seen his father die. He had had his own arms broken in rodeos and a Brahma bull had stepped on his chest. />
  “One rodeo near Salinas I see a fella get his head snapped right clear off his chest by a cable busted. They had this cable drawin’ horses up onto a truck. I seen his head rollin’ away like a bowlin’ ball. Must’ve roll twenty-five yards before it hit a fence post and stopped.” He spat tobacco juice and turned back to look at Guido. “It had a mustache. Funny thing, I never knowed that guy had a mustache. Never noticed it. Till I see it stop rolling and there it was, dust all over the mustache.”

  “That was a dusty mustache,” Gay said, grinning against their deepening morbidity.

  They all smiled. Then time hung for a moment as they waited. And at last Guido shifted onto one buttock and said, “Well, let’s get gassed up.”

  Guido leaned himself to one side with his palm on the ground, then got to his feet by moving in a circle around this palm, and stood up. Gay and Perce Howland were already moving off toward the truck, Perce heisting up his dungarees over his breakfast-full stomach, and the older Gay more sprightly and intent. Guido stood holding one hand open over the fire, watching them loading the six enormous truck tires onto the bed of the truck. Each tire had a twenty-foot length of rope wired to it, and at the end of each rope was a loop. Before they swung the tires onto the truck Gay inspected the ropes to be sure they were securely knotted to the tires, and the loops open and ready for throwing.