Tortilla Flat (10 page)

The grace was not quite so sharp to Pilon when he could not tell Big Joe about it, but he sat and watched the treasure place while the sky grayed and the dawn came behind the fog. He saw the pine trees take shape and emerge out of obscurity. The wind died down and the little blue rabbits came out of the brush and hopped about on the pine needles. Pilon was heavy-eyed but happy.

When it was light he stirred Big Joe Portagee with his foot. “It is time to go to Danny’s house. The day has come.” Pilon threw the cross away, for it was no longer needed, and he erased the circle. “Now,” he said, “we must make no mark, but we must remember this by trees and rocks.”

“Why don’t we dig now?” Big Joe asked.

“And everybody in Tortilla Flat would come to help us,” Pilon said sarcastically.

They looked hard at the surroundings, saying, “Now there are three trees together on the right, and two on the left. That patch of brush is down there, and here is a rock.” At last they walked away from the treasure, memorizing the way as they went.

At Danny’s house they found tired friends. “Did you find any?” the friends demanded.

“No,” said Pilon quickly, to forestall Joe’s confession.

“Well, Pablo thought he saw the light, but it disappeared [63] before he got to it. And the Pirate saw the ghost of an old woman, and she had his dog with her.”

The Pirate broke into a smile, “That old woman told me my dog was happy now,” he said.

“Here is Big Joe Portagee, back from the army,” announced Pilon.

“Hello, Joe.”

“You got a nice place, here,” said the Portagee, and let himself down easily into a chair.

“You keep out of my bed,” said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.

The Pirate went out and took his wheelbarrow and started into the forest to cut his kindlings; but the other five men lay down in the sunshine that broke through the fog, and in a little while they were asleep.

It was midafternoon before any of them awakened. At last they stretched their arms and sat up and looked listlessly down at the bay below, where a brown oil tanker moved slowly out to sea. The Pirate had left the bags on the table, and the friends opened them and brought out the food the Pirate had collected.

Big Joe walked down the path toward the sagging gate. “See you later,” he called to Pilon.

Pilon anxiously watched him until he saw that Big Joe was headed down the hill to Monterey, not up toward the pine forest. The four friends sat down and dreamily watched the evening come.

At dusk Joe Portagee returned. He and Pilon conferred in the yard, out of earshot of the house.

“We will borrow tools from Mrs. Morales,” Pilon said. “A shovel and a pickax stand by her chicken house.”

When it was quite dark they started. “We go to see some girls, friends of Joe Portagee’s,” Pilon explained. They crept into Mrs. Morales’ yard and borrowed the tools. And then, from the weeds beside the road, Big Joe lifted out a gallon jug of wine.

“Thou has sold the treasure,” Pilon cried fiercely. “Thou art a traitor, oh dog of a dog.”

Big Joe quieted him firmly. “I did not tell where the [64] treasure was,” he said with some dignity. “I told like this, ‘We found a treasure,’ I said, ‘but it is for Danny. When Danny has it, I will borrow a dollar and pay for the wine.’ ”

Pilon was overwhelmed. “And they believed, and let you take the wine?” he demanded.

“Well—” Big Joe hesitated. “I left something to prove I would bring the dollar.”

Pilon turned like lightning and took him by the throat. “What did you leave?”

“Only one little blanket, Pilon,” Joe Portagee wailed. “Only one.”

Pilon shook at him, but Big Joe was so heavy that Pilon only succeeded in shaking himself. “What blanket?” he cried. “Say what blanket it was you stole.”

Big Joe blubbered. “Only one of Danny’s. Only one. He has two. I took only the little tiny one. Do not hurt me, Pilon. The other one was bigger. Danny will get it back when we find the treasure.”

Pilon whirled him around and kicked him with accuracy and fire. “Pig,” he said, “dirty thieving cow. You will get the blanket back or I will beat you to ribbons.”

Big Joe tried to placate him. “I thought how we are working for Danny,” he whispered. “I thought, ‘Danny will be so glad, he can buy a hundred new blankets.’ ”

“Be still,” said Pilon. “You will get that same blanket back or I will beat you with a rock.” He took up the jug and uncorked it and drank a little to soothe his frayed sensibilities; moreover, he drove the cork back and refused the Portagee even a drop. “For this theft you must do all the digging. Pick up those tools and come with me.”

Big Joe whined like a puppy and obeyed. He could not stand against the righteous fury of Pilon.

They tried to find the treasure for a long time. It was late when Pilon pointed to three trees in a row. “There!” he said.

They searched about until they found the depression in the ground. There was a little moonlight to guide them, for this night the sky was free of fog.

Now that he was not going to dig, Pilon developed a new theory for uncovering treasure. “Sometimes the money is in sacks,” he said, “and the sacks are rotted. If you dig [65] straight down you might lose some.” He drew a generous circle around the hollow. “Now, dig a deep trench around, and then he will come
up
on the treasure.”

“Aren’t you going to dig?” Big Joe asked.

Pilon broke into a fury. “Am I a thief of blankets?” he cried. “Do I steal from the bed of my friend who shelters me?”

“Well, I ain’t going to do all the digging,” Big Joe said.

Pilon picked up one of the pine limbs that only the night before had served as part of the cross. He advanced ominously toward Big Joe Portagee. “Thief,” he snarled. “Dirty pig of an untrue friend. Take up that shovel.”

Big Joe’s courage flowed away, and he stooped for the shovel on the ground. If Joe Portagee’s conscience had not been bad, he might have remonstrated; but his fear of Pilon, armed with a righteous cause and a stick of pine wood, was great.

Big Joe abhorred the whole principle of shoveling. The line of the moving shovel was unattractive. The end to be gained, that of taking dirt from one place and putting it in another, was, to one who held the larger vision, silly and gainless. A whole lifetime of shoveling could accomplish practically nothing. Big Joe’s reaction was a little more simple than this. He didn’t like to shovel. He had joined the army to fight and had done nothing but dig.

But Pilon stood over him, and the trench stretched around the treasure place. It did no good to profess sickness, hunger, or weakness. Pilon was inexorable, and Joe’s crime of the blanket was held against him. Although he whined, complained, held up his hands to show how they were hurt, Pilon stood over him and forced the digging.

Midnight came, and the trench was three feet down. The roosters of Monterey crowed. The moon sank behind the trees. At last Pilon gave the word to move in on the treasure. The bursts of dirt came slowly now; Big Joe was exhausted. Just before daylight his shovel struck something hard.

“Ai,” he cried. “We have it, Pilon.”

The find was large and square. Frantically they dug at it in the dark, and they could not see it.

“Careful,” Pilon cautioned. “Do not hurt it.”

[66] The daylight came before they had it out. Pilon felt metal and leaned down in the gray light to see. It was a goodsized square of concrete. On the top was a round brown plate. Pilon spelled out the words on it:

UNITED STATES GEODETIC SURVEY + 1915 + ELEVATION 600 FEET

Pilon sat down in the pit and his shoulders sagged in defeat.

“No treasure?” Big Joe asked plaintively.

Pilon did not answer him. The Portagee inspected the cement post and his brow wrinkled with thought. He turned to the sorrowing Pilon. “Maybe we can take this good piece of metal and sell it.”

Pilon peered up out of his dejection. “Johnny Pom-pom found one,” he said with a quietness of great disappointment. “Johnny Pom-pom took the metal piece and tried to sell it. It is a year in jail to dig one of these up,” Pilon mourned. “A year in jail and two thousand dollars fine.” In his pain Pilon wanted only to get away from this tragic place. He stood up, found a weed in which to wrap the wine bottle, and started down the hill.

Big Joe trotted after him solicitously. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Pilon.

The day was bright when they arrived at the beach, but even there Pilon did not stop. He trudged along the hard sand by the water’s edge until Monterey was far behind and only the sand dunes of Seaside and the rippling waves of the bay were there to see his sorrow. At last he sat in the dry sand, with the sun warming him. Big Joe sat beside him, and he felt that in some way he was responsible for Pilon’s silent pain.

Pilon took the jug out of its weed and uncorked it and drank deeply, and because sorrow is the mother of a general compassion, he passed Joe’s wine to the miscreant Joe.

“How we build,” Pilon cried. “How our dreams lead us. I had thought how we would carry bags of gold to Danny. I could see how his face would look. He would be surprised. For a long time he would not believe it.” He took [67] the bottle from Joe Portagee and drank colossally. “All this is gone, blown away in the night.”

The sun was warming the beach now. In spite of his disappointment Pilon felt a traitorous comfort stealing over him, a treacherous impulse to discover some good points in the situation.

Big Joe, in his quiet way, was drinking more than his share of the wine. Pilon took it indignantly and drank again and again.

“But after all,” he said philosophically, “maybe if we had found gold, it might not have been good for Danny. He has always been a poor man. Riches might make him crazy.”

Big Joe nodded solemnly. The wine went down and down in the bottle.

“Happiness is better than riches,” said Pilon. “If we try to make Danny happy, it will be a better thing than to give him money.”

Big Joe nodded again and took off his shoes. “Make him happy. That’s the stuff.”

Pilon turned sadly upon him. “You are only a pig and not fit to live with men,” he said gently. “You who stole Danny’s blanket should be kept in a sty and fed potato peelings.”

They were getting very sleepy in the warm sun. The little waves whispered along the beach. Pilon took off his shoes.

“Even Stephen,” said Big Joe, and they drained the jug to the last drop.

The beach was swaying gently, heaving and falling with a movement like a ground-swell.

“You aren’t a bad man,” Pilon said. But Big Joe Portagee was already asleep. Pilon took off his coat and laid it over his face. In a few moments he too was sleeping sweetly.

The sun wheeled over the sky. The tide spread up the beach and then retreated. A squad of scampering kildeers inspected the sleeping men. A wandering dog sniffed them. Two elderly ladies, collecting seashells, saw the bodies and hurried past lest these men should awaken in passion, [68] pursue and criminally assault them. It was a shame, they agreed, that the police did nothing to control such matters. “They are drunk,” one said.

And the other stared back up the beach at the sleeping men. “Drunken beasts,” she agreed.

When at last the sun went behind the pines of the hill in back of Monterey, Pilon awakened. His mouth was as dry as alum; his head ached and he was stiff from the hard sand. Big Joe snored on.

“Joe,” Pilon cried, but the Portagee was beyond call. Pilon rested on his elbow and stared out to sea. “A little wine would be good for my dry mouth,” he thought. He tipped up the jug and got not a single drop to soothe his dry tongue. Then he turned out his pockets in the hope that while he slept some miracle had taken place there; but none had. There was a broken pocketknife for which he had been refused a glass of wine at least twenty times. There was a fishhook in a cork, a piece of dirty string, a dog’s tooth, and several keys that fit nothing Pilon knew of. In the whole lot was not a thing Torrelli would consider as worth having, even in a moment of insanity.

Pilon looked speculatively at Big Joe. “Poor fellow,” he thought. “When Joe Portagee wakes up he will feel as dry as I do. He will like it if I have a little wine for him.” He pushed Big Joe roughly several times; and when the Portagee only mumbled, and then snored again, Pilon looked through his pockets. He found a brass pants’ button, a little metal disk which said “Good Eats at the Dutchman,” four or five headless matches, and a little piece of chewing tobacco.

Pilon sat back on his heels. So it was no use. He must wither here on the beach while his throat called lustily for wine.

He noticed the serge trousers the Portagee was wearing and stroked them with his fingers. “Nice cloth,” he thought. “Why should this dirty Portagee wear such good cloth when all his friends go about in jeans?” Then he remembered how badly the pants fitted Big Joe, how tight the waist was even with two fly-buttons undone, how the cuffs missed the shoe tops by inches. “Someone of a decent size would be happy in those pants.”

[69] Pilon remembered Big Joe’s crime against Danny, and he became an avenging angel. How did this big black Portagee dare to insult Danny so! “When he wakes up I will beat him! But,” the more subtle Pilon argued, “his crime was theft. Would it not teach him a lesson to know how it feels to have something stolen? What good is punishment unless something is learned?” It was a triumphant position for Pilon. If, with one action, he could avenge Danny, discipline Big Joe, teach an ethical lesson, and get a little wine, who in the world could criticize him?

He pushed the Portagee vigorously, and Big Joe brushed at him as though he were a fly. Pilon deftly removed the trousers, rolled them up, and sauntered away into the sand dunes.

Torrelli was out, but Mrs. Torrelli opened the door to Pilon. He was mysterious in his manner, but at last he held up the pants for her inspection.

She shook her head decisively.

“But look,” said Pilon, “you are seeing only the spots and the dirt. Look at this fine cloth underneath. Think, señora! You have cleaned the spots off and pressed the trousers! Torrelli comes in! He is silent; he is glum. And then you bring him these fine pants! See how his eyes grow bright! See how happy he is! He takes you on his lap! Look how he smiles at you, sefiora! Is so much happiness too high at one gallon of red wine?”