The Grapes of Wrath (13 page)

Casy said, “If I was still a preacher I’d say the arm of the Lord had struck. But now I don’t know what happened. I been away. I didn’t hear nothin’.” They walked toward the concrete well-cap, walked through cotton plants to get to it, and the bolls were forming on the cotton, and the land was cultivated.

“We never planted here,” Joad said. “We always kept this clear. Why, you can’t get a horse in now without he tromps the cotton.” They paused at the dry watering trough, and the proper weeds that should grow under a trough were gone and the old thick wood of the trough was dry and cracked. On the well-cap the bolts that had held the pump stuck up, their threads rusty and the nuts gone. Joad looked into the tube of the well and spat and listened. He dropped a clod down the well and listened. “She was a good well,” he said. “I can’t hear water.” He seemed reluctant to go to the house. He dropped clod after clod down the well. “Maybe they’re all dead,” he said. “But somebody’d a told me. I’d a got word some way.”

“Maybe they left a letter or something to tell in the house. Would they of knowed you was comin’ out?”

“I don’ know,” said Joad. “No, I guess not. I didn’ know myself till a week ago.”

“Le’s look in the house. She’s all pushed out a shape. Something knocked the hell out of her.” They walked slowly toward the sagging house. Two of the supports of the porch roof were pushed out so that the roof flopped down on one end. And the house-corner was crushed in. Through a maze of splintered wood the room at the corner was visible. The front door hung open inward, and a low strong gate across the front door hung outward on leather hinges.

Joad stopped at the step, a twelve-by-twelve timber. “Doorstep’s here,” he said. “But they’re gone—or Ma’s dead.” He pointed to the low gate across the front door. “If Ma was anywheres about, that gate’d be shut an’ hooked. That’s one thing she always done—seen that gate was shut.” His eyes were warm. “Ever since the pig got in over to Jacobs’ an’ et the baby. Milly Jacobs was jus’ out in the barn. She come in while the pig was still eatin’ it. Well, Milly Jacobs was in a family way, an’ she went ravin’. Never did get over it. Touched ever since. But Ma took a lesson from it. She never lef’ that pig gate open ’less she was in the house herself. Never did forget. No—they’re gone—or dead.” He climbed to the split porch and looked into the kitchen. The windows were broken out, and throwing rocks lay on the floor, and the floor and walls sagged steeply away from the door, and the sifted dust was on the boards. Joad pointed to the broken glass and the rocks. “Kids,” he said.
“They’ll go twenty miles to bust a window. I done it myself. They know when a house is empty, they know. That’s the fust thing kids do when folks move out.” The kitchen was empty of furniture, stove gone and the round stovepipe hole in the wall showing light. On the sink shelf lay an old beer opener and a broken fork with its wooden handle gone. Joad slipped cautiously into the room, and the floor groaned under his weight. An old copy of the Philadelphia
Ledger
was on the floor against the wall, its pages yellow and curling. Joad looked into the bedroom—no bed, no chairs, nothing. On the wall a picture of an Indian girl in color, labeled Red Wing. A bed slat leaning against the wall, and in one corner a woman’s high button shoe, curled up at the toe and broken over the instep. Joad picked it up and looked at it. “I remember this,” he said. “This was Ma’s. It’s all wore out now. Ma liked them shoes. Had ’em for years. No, they’ve went—an’ took ever’thing.”

The sun had lowered until it came through the angled end windows now, and it flashed on the edges of the broken glass. Joad turned at last and went out and crossed the porch. He sat down on the edge of it and rested his bare feet on the twelve-by-twelve step. The evening light was on the fields, and the cotton plants threw long shadows on the ground, and the molting willow tree threw a long shadow.

Casy sat down beside Joad. “They never wrote you nothin’?” he asked.

“No. Like I said, they wasn’t people to write. Pa could write, but he wouldn’. Didn’t like to. It give him the shivers to write. He could work out a catalogue order as good as the nex’ fella, but he wouldn’ write no letters just for ducks.” They sat side by side, staring off into the distance. Joad laid his rolled coat on the porch beside him. His independent hands rolled a cigarette, smoothed it and lighted it, and he inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out through his nose. “Somepin’s wrong,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on her. I got an itch that somepin’s wronger’n hell. Just this house pushed aroun’ an’ my folks gone.”

Casy said, “Right over there the ditch was, where I done the baptizin’. You wasn’t mean, but you was tough. Hung onto that little girl’s pigtail like a bulldog. We baptize’ you both in the name of the Holy Ghos’, and still you hung on. Ol’ Tom says, ‘Hol’ ’im under water.’ So I shove your head down till you start to bubblin’ before you’d let go a that pigtail.
You wasn’t mean, but you was tough. Sometimes a tough kid grows up with a big jolt of the sperit in him.”

A lean gray cat came sneaking out of the barn and crept through the cotton plants to the end of the porch. It leaped silently up to the porch and crept low-belly toward the men. It came to a place between and behind the two, and then it sat down, and its tail stretched out straight and flat to the floor, and the last inch of it flicked. The cat sat and looked off into the distance where the men were looking.

Joad glanced around at it. “By God! Look who’s here. Somebody stayed.” He put out his hand, but the cat leaped away out of reach and sat down and licked the pads of its lifted paw. Joad looked at it, and his face was puzzled. “I know what’s the matter,” he cried. “That cat jus’ made me figger what’s wrong.”

“Seems to me there’s lots wrong,” said Casy.

“No, it’s more’n jus’ this place. Whyn’t that cat jus’ move in with some neighbors—with the Rances. How come nobody ripped some lumber off this house? Ain’t been nobody here for three-four months, an’ nobody’s stole no lumber. Nice planks on the barn shed, plenty good planks on the house, winda frames—an’ nobody’s took ’em. That ain’t right. That’s what was botherin’ me, an’ I couldn’t catch hold of her.”

“Well, what’s that figger out for you?” Casy reached down and slipped off his sneakers and wriggled his long toes on the step.

“I don’ know. Seems like maybe there ain’t any neighbors. If there was, would all them nice planks be here? Why, Jesus Christ! Albert Rance took his family, kids an’ dogs an’ all, into Oklahoma City one Christmus. They was gonna visit with Albert’s cousin. Well, folks aroun’ here thought Albert moved away without sayin’ nothin’—figgered maybe he got debts or some woman’s squarin’ off at him. When Albert come back a week later there wasn’t a thing lef’ in his house—stove was gone, beds was gone, winda frames was gone, an’ eight feet of plankin’ was gone off the south side of the house so you could look right through her. He come drivin’ home just as Muley Graves was goin’ away with the doors an’ the well pump. Took Albert two weeks drivin’ aroun’ the neighbors’ ’fore he got his stuff back.”

Casy scratched his toes luxuriously. “Didn’t nobody give him an argument? All of ’em jus’ give the stuff up?”

“Sure. They wasn’t stealin’ it. They thought he lef ’ it, an’ they jus’ took it. He got all of it back—all but a sofa pilla, velvet with a pitcher of an Injun on it. Albert claimed Grampa got it. Claimed Grampa got Injun blood, that’s why he wants that pitcher. Well, Grampa did get her, but he didn’t give a damn about the pitcher on it. He jus’ liked her. Used to pack her aroun’ an’ he’d put her wherever he was gonna sit. He never would give her back to Albert. Says, ‘If Albert wants this pilla so bad, let him come an’ get her. But he better come shootin’, ’cause I’ll blow his goddamn stinkin’ head off if he comes messin’ aroun’ my pilla.’ So finally Albert give up an’ made Grampa a present of that pilla. It give Grampa idears, though. He took to savin’ chicken feathers. Says he’s gonna have a whole damn bed of feathers. But he never got no feather bed. One time Pa got mad at a skunk under the house. Pa slapped that skunk with a two-by-four, and Ma burned all Grampa’s feathers so we could live in the house.” He laughed. “Grampa’s a tough ol’ bastard. Jus’ set on that Injun pilla an’ says, ‘Let Albert come an’ get her. Why,’ he says, ‘I’ll take that squirt and wring ’im out like a pair of drawers.”’

The cat crept close between the men again, and its tail lay flat and its whiskers jerked now and then. The sun dropped low toward the horizon and the dusty air was red and golden. The cat reached out a gray questioning paw and touched Joad’s coat. He looked around. “Hell, I forgot the turtle. I ain’t gonna pack it all over hell.” He unwrapped the land turtle and pushed it under the house. But in a moment it was out, headed southwest as it had been from the first. The cat leaped at it and struck at its straining head and slashed at its moving feet. The old, hard, humorous head was pulled in, and the thick tail slapped in under the shell, and when the cat grew tired of waiting for it and walked off, the turtle headed on southwest again.

Young Tom Joad and the preacher watched the turtle go—waving its legs and boosting its heavy, high-domed shell along toward the southwest. The cat crept along behind for a while, but in a dozen yards it arched its back to a strong taut bow and yawned, and came stealthily back toward the seated men.

“Where the hell you s’pose he’s goin’?” said Joad. “I seen turtles all my life. They’re always goin’ someplace. They always seem to want to get there.” The gray cat seated itself between and behind them again.
It blinked slowly. The skin over its shoulders jerked forward under a flea, and then slipped slowly back. The cat lifted a paw and inspected it, flicked its claws out and in again experimentally, and licked its pads with a shell-pink tongue. The red sun touched the horizon and spread out like a jellyfish, and the sky above it seemed much brighter and more alive than it had been. Joad unrolled his new yellow shoes from his coat, and he brushed his dusty feet with his hand before he slipped them on.

The preacher, staring off across the fields, said, “Somebody’s comin’. Look! Down there, right through the cotton.”

Joad looked where Casy’s finger pointed. “Comin’ afoot,” he said. “Can’t see ’im for the dust he raises. Who the hell’s comin’ here?” They watched the figure approaching in the evening light, and the dust it raised was reddened by the setting sun. “Man,” said Joad. The man drew closer, and as he walked past the barn, Joad said, “Why, I know him. You know him—that’s Muley Graves.” And he called, “Hey, Muley! How ya?”

The approaching man stopped, startled by the call, and then he came on quickly. He was a lean man, rather short. His movements were jerky and quick. He carried a gunny sack in his hand. His blue jeans were pale at knee and seat, and he wore an old black suit coat, stained and spotted, the sleeves torn loose from the shoulders in back, and ragged holes worn through at the elbows. His black hat was as stained as his coat, and the band, torn half free, flopped up and down as he walked. Muley’s face was smooth and unwrinkled, but it wore the truculent look of a bad child’s, the mouth held tight and small, the little eyes half scowling, half petulant.

“You remember Muley,” Joad said softly to the preacher.

“Who’s that?” the advancing man called. Joad did not answer. Muley came close, very close, before he made out the faces. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “It’s Tommy Joad. When’d you get out, Tommy?”

“Two days ago,” said Joad. “Took a little time to hitchhike home. An’ look here what I find. Where’s my folks, Muley? What’s the house all smashed up for, an’ cotton planted in the dooryard?”

“By God, it’s lucky I come by!” said Muley. “’Cause ol’ Tom worried himself. When they was fixin’ to move I was settin’ in the kitchen there. I jus’ tol’ Tom I wan’t gonna move, by God. I tol’ him that, an’ Tom
says, ‘I’m worryin’ myself about Tommy. S’pose he comes home an’ they ain’t nobody here. What’ll he think?’ I says, ‘Whyn’t you write down a letter?’ An’ Tom says, ‘Maybe I will. I’ll think about her. But if I don’t, you keep your eye out for Tommy if you’re still aroun’.’‘I’ll be aroun’,’ I says. ‘I’ll be aroun’ till hell freezes over. There ain’t nobody can run a guy name of Graves outa this country.’ An’ they ain’t done it, neither.”

Joad said impatiently, “Where’s my folks? Tell about you standin’ up to ’em later, but where’s my folks?”

“Well, they was gonna stick her out when the bank come to tractorin’ off the place. Your grampa stood out here with a rifle, an’ he blowed the headlights off that cat’, but she come on just the same. Your grampa didn’t wanta kill the guy drivin’ that cat’, an’ that was Willy Feeley, an’ Willy knowed it, so he jus’ come on, an’ bumped the hell outa the house, an’ give her a shake like a dog shakes a rat. Well, it took somepin outa Tom. Kinda got into ’im. He ain’t been the same ever since.”

“Where is my folks?” Joad spoke angrily.

“What I’m tellin’ you. Took three trips with your Uncle John’s wagon. Took the stove an’ the pump an’ the beds. You should a seen them beds go out with all them kids an’ your granma an’ grampa settin’ up against the headboard, an’ your brother Noah settin’ there smokin’ a cigareet, an’ spittin’ la-de-da over the side of the wagon.” Joad opened his mouth to speak. “They’re all at your Uncle John’s,” Muley said quickly.

“Oh! All at John’s. Well, what they doin’ there? Now stick to her for a second, Muley. Jus’ stick to her. In jus’ a minute you can go on your own way. What they doin’ there?”

“Well, they been choppin’ cotton, all of ’em, even the kids an’ your grampa. Gettin’ money together so they can shove on west. Gonna buy a car and shove on west where it’s easy livin’. There ain’t nothin’ here. Fifty cents a clean acre for choppin’ cotton, an’ folks beggin’ for the chance to chop.”

“An’ they ain’t gone yet?”

“No,” said Muley. “Not that I know. Las’ I heard was four days ago when I seen your brother Noah out shootin’ jack-rabbits, an’ he says they’re aimin’ to go in about two weeks. John got his notice he got to get off. You jus’ go on about eight miles to John’s place.
You’ll find your folks piled in John’s house like gophers in a winter burrow.”