Tortilla Flat (13 page)

The Pirate came in, bearing a bag of mackerels. The friends cooked the fish and had their dinner. The baby would not even eat mackerel. Every now and then one of the friends jumped up and ran to look at the baby. When supper was over, they sat about the stove and prepared for a quiet evening.

The corporal had been silent, had given no account of himself. The friends were a little hurt at this, but they knew he would tell them in time. Pilon, to whom knowledge was as gold to be mined, made a few tentative drills into the corporal’s reticence.

“It is not often that one sees a young soldier with a baby,” he suggested delicately.

The corporal grinned with pride.

Pablo added, “This baby was probably found in the garden of love. And that is the best kind of babies, for only good things are in it.”

“We too have been soldiers,” said Danny. “When we die, we will go to the grave on a gun carriage, and a firing squad will shoot over us.”

They waited to see whether the corporal would improve upon the opportunity they had offered. The corporal looked his appreciation. “You have been good to me,” he said. “You have been as good and kind as my friends in Torreón would be. This is my baby, the baby of my wife.”

“And where is your wife?” Pilon asked.

The corporal lost his smile. “She is in Mexico,” he said. Then he grew vivacious again. “I met a man, and he told me a curious thing. He said we can make of babies what we will. He said, ‘You tell the baby often what you want him to do, and when he grows up he will do that.’ Over and over I tell this baby, ‘You will be a
generál
.’ Do you think it will be so?”

The friends nodded politely. “It may be,” said Pilon. “I have not heard of this practice.”

“I say twenty times a day, ‘Manuel, you will be a
generál
some day. You will have big epaulets and a sash. [85] Your sword will be gold. You will ride a palomino horse. What a life for you, Manuel!’ The man said he surely will be a
generál
if I say it so.”

Danny got up and went to the apple box. “You will be a
generál
,” he said to the baby. “When you grow up you will be a great
generál
.”

The others trooped over to see whether the formula had had any effect.

The Pirate whispered, “You will be a
generál
,” and he wondered whether the same method would work on a dog.

“This baby is sick all right,” Danny said. “We must keep him warm.”

They went back to their seats.

“Your wife is in Mexico—” Pilon suggested.

The corporal wrinkled his brows and thought for a while, and then he smiled brilliantly. “I will tell you. It is not a thing to tell to strangers, but you are my friends. I was a soldier in Chihuahua, and I was diligent and clean and kept oil in my rifle, so that I became a
caporál
. And then I was married to a beautiful girl. I do not say that it was not because of the chevrons that she married me. But she was very beautiful and young. Her eyes were bright, she had good white teeth, and her hair was long and shining. So pretty soon this baby was born.”

“That is good,” said Danny. “I should like to be you. There is nothing so good as a baby.”

“Yes,” said the corporal, “I was glad. And we went in to the baptism, and I wore a sash, although the book of the army did not mention it. And when we came out of that church, a
capitán
with epaulets and a sash and a silver sword saw my wife. Pretty soon my wife went away. Then I went to that
capitán
and I said, ‘Give me back my wife,’ and he said, ‘You do not value your life, to talk this way to your superior.’ ” The corporal spread his hands and lifted his shoulders in a gesture of caged resignation.

“Oh, that thief!” cried Jesus Maria.

“You gathered your friends. You killed that
capitán
,” Pablo anticipated.

The corporal looked self-conscious. “No. There was nothing to do. The first night, someone shot at me through the window. The second day a field gun went off by [86] mistake and it came so close to me that the wind knocked me down. So I went away from there, and I took the baby with me.”

There was fierceness in the faces of the friends, and their eyes were dangerous. The Pirate, in his corner, snarled, and all the dogs growled.

“We should have been there,” Pilon cried. “We would have made that
capitán
wish he had never lived. My grandfather suffered at the hands of a priest, and he tied that priest naked to a post in a corral and turned a little calf in with him. Oh, there are ways.”

“I was only a
caporál
,” said the boy. “I had to run away.” Tears of shame were in his eyes. “There is no help for a
caporál
when a
capitán
is against him; so I ran away, with the baby Manuel. In Fresno I met this wise man, and he told me I could make Manuel be what I wished. I tell that baby twenty times every day, ‘You will be a
generál
. You will wear epaulets and carry a golden sword.’ ”

Here was drama that made the experiments of Cornelia Ruiz seem uninteresting and vain. Here was a situation which demanded the action of the friends. But its scene was so remote that action was impossible. They looked in admiration at the corporal. He was so young to have had such an adventure!

“I wish,” Danny said wickedly, “that we were in Torreón now. Pilon would make a plan for us. It is too bad we cannot go there.”

Big Joe Portagee had stayed awake, a tribute to the fascination of the corporal’s story. He went to the apple box and looked in. “You going to be a general,” he said. And then, “Look! This baby is moving funny.” The friends crowded around. The spasm had already started. The little feet kicked down and then drew up. The hands clawed about helplessly, and then the baby scrabbled and shuddered.

“A doctor,” Danny cried. “We must have a doctor.” But he and everyone knew it was no use. Approaching death wears a cloak no one ever mistakes. While they watched, the baby stiffened and the struggle ended. The mouth dropped open, and the baby was dead. In kindness Danny covered the apple box with a piece of blanket. The [87] corporal stood very straight and stared before him, so shocked that he could not speak nor think.

Jesus Maria laid a hand on his shoulder and led him to a chair. “You are so young,” he said. “You will have many more babies.”

The corporal moaned, “Now he is dead. Now he will never be a
generál
with that sash and that sword.”

There were tears in the eyes of the friends. In the corner all the dogs whined miserably. The Pirate buried his big head in the fur of Señor Alec Thompson.

In a soft tone, almost a benediction, Pilon said, “Now you yourself must kill the
capitán
. We honor you for a noble plan of revenge, but that is over and you must take your own vengeance, and we will help you, if we can.”

The corporal turned dull eyes to him. “Revenge?” he asked. “Kill the
capitán?
What do you mean?”

“Why, it was plain what your plan was,” Pilon said. “This baby would grow up, and he would be a
generál
; and in time he would find that
capitán
, and he would kill him slowly. It was a good plan. The long waiting, and then the stroke. We, your friends, honor you for it.”

The corporal was looking bewilderedly at Pilon. “What is this?” he demanded. “I have nothing to do with this
capitán
. He is the
capitán
.”

The friends sat forward.

Pilon cried, “Then what was this plan to make the baby a
generál?
Why was that?”

The corporal was a little embarrassed then. “It is the duty of a father to do well by his child. I wanted Manuel to have more good things than I had.”

“Is that all?” Danny cried.

“Well,” said the corporal, “my wife was so pretty, and she was not any
puta
, either. She was a good woman, and that
capitán
took her. He had little epaulets, and a little sash, and his sword was only of a silver color. Consider,” said the corporal, and he spread out his hands, “if that
capitán
, with the little epaulets and the little sash, could take my wife, imagine what a
generál
with a big sash and a gold sword could take!”

There was a long silence while Danny and Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria and the Pirate and Big Joe Portagee [88] digested the principle. And when it was digested, they waited for Danny to speak.

“It is to be pitied,” said Danny at last, “that so few parents have the well-being of their children at heart. Now we are more sorry than ever that the baby is gone, for with such a father, what a happy life he has missed.”

All of the friends nodded solemnly.

“What will you do now?” asked Jesus Maria, the discoverer.

“I will go back to Mexico,” said the corporal. “I am a soldier in my heart. It may be, if I keep oiling my rifle, I myself may be an officer some day. Who can tell?”

The six friends looked at him admiringly. They were proud to have known such a man.

How, under the most adverse circumstances, love came to Big Joe Portagee
.

FOR
Big Joe Portagee, to feel love was to do something about it. And this is the history of one of his love affairs.

It had been raining in Monterey; from the tall pines the water dripped all day. The paisanos of Tortilla Flat did not come out of their houses, but from every chimney a blue column of pinewood smoke drifted so that the air smelled clean and fresh and perfumed.

At five o’clock in the afternoon the rain stopped for a few moments, and Big Joe Portagee, who had been under a rowboat on the beach most of the day, came out and started up the hill toward Danny’s house. He was cold and hungry.

When he came to the very edge of Tortilla Flat, the skies opened and the rain poured down. In an instant Big Joe was soaked through. He ran into the nearest house to get out of the rain, and that house was inhabited by Tia Ignacia.

The lady was about forty-five, a widow of long standing [89] and some success. Ordinarily she was taciturn and harsh, for there was in her veins more Indian blood than is considered decent in Tortilla Flat.

When Big Joe entered she had just opened a gallon of red wine and was preparing to pour out a glass for her stomach’s sake. Her attempt to push the jug under a chair was unsuccessful. Big Joe stood in her doorway, dripping water on the floor.

“Come in and get dry,” said Tia Ignacia. Big Joe, watching the bottle as a terrier watches a bug, entered the room. The rain roared down on the roof. Tia Ignacia poked up a blaze in her airtight stove.

“Would you care for a glass of wine?”

“Yes,” said Big Joe. Before he had finished his first glass; Big Joe’s eyes had refastened themselves on the jug. He drank three glasses before he consented to say a word, and before the wolfishness went out of his eyes.

Tia Ignacia had given her new jug of wine up for lost. She drank with him as the only means to preserve a little of it to her own use. It was only when the fourth glass of wine was in his hands that Big Joe relaxed and began to enjoy himself.

“This is not Torrelli’s wine,” he said.

“No, I get it from an Italian lady who is my friend.» She poured out another glass.

The early evening came. Tia Ignacia lighted a kerosene lamp and put some wood in the fire. As long as the wine must go, it must go, she thought. Her eyes dwelt on the huge frame of Big Joe Portagee with critical appraisal. A little flush warmed her chest.

“You have been working out in the rain, poor man,” she said. “Here, take off your coat and let it dry.”

Big Joe rarely told a lie. His mind didn’t work quickly enough. “I been on the beach under a rowboat, asleep,” he said.

“But you are all wet, poor fellow.” She inspected him for some response to her kindness, but on Big Joe’s face nothing showed except gratification at being out of the rain and drinking wine. He put out his glass to be filled again. Having eaten nothing all day, the wine was having a profound effect on him.

[90] Tia Ignacia addressed herself anew to the problem. “It is not good to sit in a wet coat. You will be ill with cold. Come, let me help you to take off your coat.”

Big Joe wedged himself comfortably into his chair. “I’m all right,” he said stubbornly.

Tia Ignacia poured herself another glass. The fire made a rushing sound to counteract with comfort the drumming of water on the roof.

Big Joe made absolutely no move to be friendly, to be gallant, even to recognize the presence of his hostess. He drank his wine in big swallows. He smiled stupidly at the stove. He rocked himself a little in the chair.

Anger and despair arose in Tia Ignacia. “This pig,” she thought, “this big and dirty animal. It would be better for me if I brought some cow in the house out of the rain. Another man would say some little friendly word at least.”

Big Joe stuck out his glass to be filled again.

Now Tia Ignacia strove heroically. “In a little warm house there is happiness on such a night,” she said. “When the rain is dripping and the stove burns sweetly, then is a time for people to feel friendly. Don’t you feel friendly?”

“Sure,” said Big Joe.

“Perhaps the light is too bright in your eyes,” she said coyly. “Would you like me to blow out the light?”

“It don’t bother me none,” said Big Joe, “if you want to save oil, go ahead.”

She blew down the lamp chimney, and the room leaped to darkness. Then she went back to her chair and waited for his gallantry to awaken. She could hear the gentle rocking of his chair. A little light came from the cracks of the stove and struck the shiny corners of the furniture. The room was nearly luminous with warmth. Tia Ignacia heard his chair stop rocking and braced herself to repel him. Nothing happened.

“To think,” she said, “you might be out in this storm, shivering in a shed or lying on the cold sand under a boat. But no; you are sitting in a good chair, drinking good wine, in the company of a lady who is your friend.”

There was no answer from Big Joe. She could neither hear him nor see him. Tia Ignacia drank off her glass. She threw virtue to the winds. “My friend Cornelia Ruiz has [91] told me that some of her best friends came to her out of the rain and cold. She comforted them, and they were her good friends.”