The Pastures of Heaven (8 page)

“Well just don't let me catch you at it.”

After a number of repetitions of this order, a conviction crept into the thickened cells of Alice's brain that she would really like to see Jimmie Munroe. She even had a dream about him, which shows how deeply she was stirred. Alice very rarely dreamed about anything. In her dream, a man who looked like the Indian on her room calendar, and whose name was Jimmie, drove up in a shiny automobile and gave her a large juicy peach. When she bit into the peach, the juice ran down her chin and embarrassed her. Then her mother awakened her for she was snoring. Katherine was glad her daughter snored. It was one of the equaling imperfections. But at the same time it was not ladylike.

Shark Wicks received a telegram. “Aunt Nellie passed away last night. Funeral Saturday.” He got into his Ford and drove to the farm of John Whiteside to say he couldn't attend the school board meeting. John Whiteside was clerk of the board. Before he left, Shark looked worried for a moment and then said, “I been wanting to ask you what you thought about that San Jose Building and Loan Company.”

John Whiteside smiled. “I don't know much about that particular company,” he said.

“Well, I've got thirty thousand lying in the bank drawing three per cent. I thought I could turn a little more interest than that if I looked around.”

John Whiteside pursed his lips and blew softly and tapped the stream of air with his forefinger. “Offhand, I'd say Building and Loan was your best bet.”

“Oh, that ain't my way of doing business. I don't want bets,” Shark cut in. “If I can't see a sure profit in a thing, I won't go into it. Too many people bet.”

“That was only a manner of speaking, Mr. Wicks. Few Building and Loan Companies go under. And they pay good interest.”

“I'll look into it anyway,” Shark decided. “I'm going up to Oakland for Aunt Nellie's funeral, and I'll just stop off a few hours in San Jose and look into this company.”

At the Pastures of Heaven General Store that night there were new guesses made at the amount of Shark's wealth, for Shark had asked the advice of several men.

“Well anyway, there's one thing you can say,” T. B. Allen concluded, “Shark Wicks is nobody's fool. He'll ask a man's advice as well as the next one, but he's not going to take anybody's say-so until he looks into it himself.”

“Oh, he's nobody's fool,” the gathering concurred.

Shark went to Oakland on Saturday morning, leaving his wife and daughter alone for the first time in his life. On Saturday evening Tom Breman called by to take Katherine and Alice to a dance at the schoolhouse.

“Oh, I don't think Mr. Wicks would like it,” Katherine said, in a thrilled, frightened tone.

“He didn't tell you not to go, did he?”

“No, but—he's never been away before. I don't think he'd like it.”

 

“He just never thought of it,” Tom Breman assured her. “Come on! Get your things on.”

“Let's go, Ma,” said Alice.

Katherine knew her daughter could make such an easy decision because she was too stupid to be afraid. Alice was no judge of consequences. She couldn't think of the weeks of torturing conversation that would follow when Shark returned. Katherine could hear him already. “I don't see why you'd
want
to go when I wasn't here. When I left, I kind of thought you two would look after the place, and the first thing you did was run off to a dance.” And then the questions—“ Who did Alice dance with? Well—what did he say? Why didn't you hear it? You ought to of heard.” There would be no anger on Shark's part, but for weeks and weeks he would talk about it, just keep talking about it until she hated the whole subject of dances. And when the right time of the month came around, his questions would buzz like mosquitoes, until he was sure Alice wasn't going to have a baby. Katherine didn't think it worth the fun of going to the dance if she had to listen to all the fuss afterwards.

 

“Let's go, Ma,” Alice begged her. “We never went any place alone in our lives.”

A wave of pity arose in Katherine. The poor girl had never had a moment of privacy in her life. She had never talked nonsense with a boy because her father would not let her out of earshot.

“All right,” she decided breathlessly. “If Mr. Breman will wait 'til we get ready, we
will
go.” She felt very brave to be encouraging Shark's unease.

Too great beauty is almost as great a disadvantage to a country girl as ugliness is. When the country boys looked at Alice, their throats tightened, their hands and feet grew restless and huge, and their necks turned red. Nothing could force them to talk to her nor to dance with her. Instead, they danced furiously with less beautiful girls, became as noisy as self-conscious children and showed off frantically. When her head was turned, they peeked at Alice, but when she looked at them, they strove to give an impression of unawareness of her presence. Alice, who had always been treated in this way, was fairly unconscious of her beauty. She was almost resigned to the status of a wall flower at the dances.

 

Jimmie Munroe was leaning against a wall with elegant nonchalance and superb ennui when Katherine and Alice entered the schoolhouse door. Jimmie's trousers had twenty-seven inch bottoms, his patent leather shoes were as square across the toes as bricks. A black jazzbow tie fluttered at the neck of a white silk shirt, and his hair lay glitteringly on his head. Jimmie was a town boy. He swooped like a lazy hawk. Before Alice had taken off her coat he was beside her. In the tired voice he had acquired in high school he demanded, “Dancing, baby?”

“Huh?” said Alice.

“How'd you like to dance with me?”

“Dance, you mean?” Alice turned her smoky, promiseful eyes on him, and the stupid question became humorous and delightful, and at the same time it hinted at other things which moved and excited even the cynical Jimmie.

“Dance?” he thought she asked. “Only dance?” And in spite of his high school training, Jimmie's throat tightened, his feet and hands shifted nervously and the blood rose to his neck.

Alice turned to her mother who was already talking with Mrs. Breman that peculiar culinary gabble of housekeepers. “Ma,” said Alice, “can I dance?”

Katherine smiled. “Go on,” she said, and then, “Enjoy yourself for once.”

Jimmie found that Alice danced badly. When the music stopped, “It's hot in here, isn't it? Let's stroll outside,” he suggested. And he led her out under the willow trees in the schoolhouse yard.

Meanwhile a woman who had been standing on the porch of the schoolhouse went inside and whispered in Katherine's ear. Katherine stared up and hurried outside. “Alice!” she called wildly. “Alice, you come right here!”

When the wayward two appeared out of the shadows, Katherine turned on Jimmie. “You keep away, do you hear me? You keep away from this girl or you'll get into trouble.”

Jimmie's manhood melted. He felt like a sent-home child. He hated it, but he couldn't override it.

Katherine led her daughter into the schoolhouse again. “Didn't your father tell you to keep away from Jimmie Munroe? Didn't he?” she demanded. Katherine was terrified.

“Was that him?” Alice whispered.

“Sure it was. What were you two doing out there?”

“Kissing,” said Alice in an awed voice.

Katherine's mouth dropped open. “Oh, Lord!” she said. “Oh, Lord, what shall I do?”

“Is it bad, Ma?”

Katherine frowned. “No—no, of course it's not bad,” she cried. “It's—good. But don't you ever let your father know about it. Don't you tell him even if he asks you! He—why, he'd go crazy. And you sit here beside me the rest of the evening, and don't you see Jimmie Munroe any more, will you? Maybe your father won't hear about it. Oh, Lord, I hope he don't hear about it!”

On Monday Shark Wicks got off the evening train in Salinas, and took a bus to the cross-road which ran from the highway into the Pastures of Heaven. Shark clutched his bag and began the four mile walk home.

The night was clear and sweet and heavy with stars. The faint mysterious sounds of the hills welcomed him home and set up reveries in his head so that he forgot his footsteps.

He had been pleased with the funeral. The flowers were nice, and there were so many of them. The weeping of the women and the solemn tip-toeing of the men had set up a gentle sorrow in Shark which was far from unpleasant. Even the profound ritual of the church, which no one understands nor listens to, had been a drug which poured sweet mysterious juices into his body and his brain. The church opened and closed over him for an hour, and out of his contact he had brought the drowsy peace of strong flowers and drifting incense, and the glow of relationship with eternity. These things were wrought in him by the huge simplicity of the burial.

 

Shark had never known his Aunt Nellie very well, but he had thoroughly enjoyed her funeral. In some way his relatives had heard of his wealth, for they treated him with deference and dignity. Now, as he walked home, he thought of these things again and his pleasure speeded up the time, shortened the road and brought him quickly to the Pastures of Heaven General Store. Shark went in, for he knew he could find someone in the store who would report on the valley and its affairs during his absence.

T. B. Allen, the proprietor, knew everything that happened, and also he enhanced the interest of every bit of news by simulating a reluctance to tell it. The most stupid piece of gossip became exciting when old T. B. had it to tell.

No one but the owner was in the store when Shark entered. T. B. let down his chair-back from the wall, and his eyes sparkled with interest.

“Hear you been away,” he suggested in a tone that invited confidence.

“Been up to Oakland,” said Shark. “I had to go to a funeral. Thought I might as well do some business at the same time.”

 

T. B. waited as long for elaboration as he thought decent. “Anything happen, Shark?”

“Well, I don't know if you'd call it that. I was looking into a company.”

“Put any money in?” T. B. asked respectfully.

“Some.”

Both men looked at the floor.

 

“Anything happen while I was gone?”

Immediately a look of reluctance came over the face of the old man. One read a dislike for saying just what had happened, a natural aversion for scandal. “Dance at the schoolhouse,” he admitted at last.

“Yes, I knew about that.”

T. B. squirmed. Apparently there was a struggle going on in his mind. Should he tell Shark what he knew, for Shark's own good, or should he keep all knowledge to himself. Shark watched the struggle with interest. He had seen others like it many times before.

“Well, what is it?” he prodded.

“Hear there might be a wedding pretty soon.”

“Yeah? Who?”

 

“Well, pretty close to home, I guess.”

“Who?” Shark asked again.

T. B. struggled vainly and lost. “You,” he admitted.

Shark chuckled. “Me?”

“Alice.”

Shark stiffened and stared at the old man. Then he stepped forward and stood over him threateningly. “What do you mean? Tell me what you mean—you!”

T. B. knew he had overstepped. He cowered away from Shark. “Now don't, Mr. Wicks! Don't you do nothing!”

“Tell me what you mean! Tell me everything.” Shark grasped T. B. by the shoulder and shook him fiercely.

“Well, it was only at the dance—just at the dance.”

“Alice was at the dance?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What was she doing there?”

“I don't know. I mean, nothing.”

Shark pulled him out of his chair and stood him roughly on his fumbling feet. “Tell me!” he demanded.

The old man whimpered. “She just walked out in the yard with Jimmie Munroe.”

Shark had both of the shoulders now. He shook the terrified storekeeper like a sack. “Tell me! What did they do?”

“I don't know, Mr. Wicks.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, Miss Burke—Miss Burke said—they were kissing.”

Shark dropped the sack and sat down. He was appalled with a sense of loss. While he glared at T. B. Allen, his brain fought with the problem of his daughter's impurity. It did not occur to him that the passage had stopped with a kiss. Shark moved his head and his eyes roved helplessly around the store. T. B. saw his eyes pass over the glass-fronted gun case.

 

 

“Don't you do nothing, Shark,” he cried. “Them guns ain't yours.”

Shark hadn't seen the guns at all, but now that his attention was directed toward them, he leaped up, threw open the sliding glass door and took out a heavy rifle. He tore off the price tag and tossed a box of cartridges into his pocket. Then, without a glance at the storekeeper, he strode out into the dark. And old T. B. was at the telephone before Shark's quick footsteps had died away into the night.

As Shark walked quickly along toward the Munroe place, his thoughts raced hopelessly. He was sure of one thing, though, now that he had walked a little; he didn't want to kill Jimmie Munroe. He hadn't even been thinking about shooting him until the storekeeper suggested the idea. Then he had acted upon it without thinking. What could he do now? He tried to picture what he would do when he came to the Munroe house. Perhaps he would have to shoot Jimmie Munroe. Maybe things would fall out in a way that would force him to commit murder to maintain his dignity in the Pastures of Heaven.