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The late moon arose before the first rooster crowed. Kino opened his
eyes in the darkness, for he sensed movement near him, but he did not
move. Only his eyes searched the darkness, and in the pale light of the
moon that crept through the holes in the brush house Kino saw Juana
arise silently from beside him. He saw her move toward the fireplace.
So carefully did she work that he heard only the lightest sound when
she moved the fireplace stone. And then like a shadow she glided toward
the door. She paused for a moment beside the hanging box where Coyotito
lay, then for a second she was black in the doorway, and then she was
gone.
And rage surged in Kino. He rolled up to his feet and followed her as
silently as she had gone, and he could hear her quick footsteps going
toward the shore. Quietly he tracked her, and his brain was red with
anger. She burst clear out of the brush line and stumbled over the
little boulders toward the water, and then she heard him coming and she
broke into a run. Her arm was up to throw when he leaped at her and
caught her arm and wrenched the pearl from her. He struck her in the
face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and he
kicked her in the side. In the pale light he could see the little waves
break over her, and her skirt floated about and clung to her legs as
the water receded.
Kino looked down at her and his teeth were bared. He hissed at her like
a snake, and Juana stared at him with wide unfrightened eyes, like a
sheep before the butcher. She knew there was murder in him, and it was
all right; she had accepted it, and she would not resist or even
protest. And then the rage left him and a sick disgust took its place.
He turned away from her and walked up the beach and through the brush
line. His senses were dulled by his emotion.
He heard the rush, got his knife out and lunged at one dark figure and
felt his knife go home, and then he was swept to his knees and swept
again to the ground. Greedy fingers went through his clothes, frantic
fingers searched him, and the pearl, knocked from his hand, lay winking
behind a little stone in the pathway. It glinted in the soft moonlight.
Juana dragged herself up from the rocks on the edge of the water. Her
face was a dull pain and her side ached. She steadied herself on her
knees for a while and her wet skirt clung to her. There was no anger in
her for Kino. He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things
to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that
Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his
strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the
mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would
surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made
him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she
could not live without a man. Although she might be puzzled by these
differences between man and woman, she knew them and accepted them and
needed them. Of course she would follow him, there was no question of
that. Sometimes the quality of woman, the reason, the caution, the
sense of preservation, could cut through Kino's manness and save them
all. She climbed painfully to her feet, and she dipped her cupped palms
in the little waves and washed her bruised face with the stinging salt
water, and then she went creeping up the beach after Kino.
A flight of herring clouds had moved over the sky from the south. The
pale moon dipped in and out of the strands of clouds so that Juana
walked in darkness for a moment and in light the next. Her back was
bent with pain and her head was low. She went through the line of brush
when the moon was covered, and when it looked through she saw the
glimmer of the great pearl in the path behind the rock. She sank to her
knees and picked it up, and the moon went into the darkness of the
clouds again. Juana remained on her knees while she considered whether
to go back to the sea and finish her job, and as she considered, the
light came again, and she saw two dark figures lying in the path ahead
of her. She leaped forward and saw that one was Kino and the other a
stranger with dark shiny fluid leaking from his throat.
Kino moved sluggishly, arms and legs stirred like those of a crushed
bug, and a thick muttering came from his mouth. Now, in an instant,
Juana knew that the old life was gone forever. A dead man in the path
and Kino's knife, dark-bladed beside him, convinced her. All of the
time Juana had been trying to rescue something of the old peace, of the
time before the pearl. But now it was gone, and there was no retrieving
it. And knowing this, she abandoned the past instantly. There was
nothing to do but to save themselves.
Her pain was gone now, her slowness. Quickly she dragged the dead man
from the pathway into the shelter of the brush. She went to Kino and
sponged his face with her wet skirt. His senses were coming back and he
moaned.
"They have taken the pearl. I have lost it. Now it is over," he said.
"The pearl is gone."
Juana quieted him as she would quiet a sick child. "Hush," she said. - "Here is your pearl. I found it in the path. Can you hear me now? Here
is your pearl. Can you understand? You have killed a man. We must go
away. They will come for us, can you understand? We must be gone before
the daylight comes."
"I was attacked," Kino said uneasily. "I struck to save my life."
"Do you remember yesterday?" Juana asked. "Do you think that will
matter? Do you remember the men of the city? Do you think your
explanation will help?"
Kino drew a great breath and fought off his weakness. "No," he said.
"You are right." And his will hardened and he was a man again.
"Go to our house and bring Coyotito," he said, "and bring all the corn
we have. I will drag the canoe into the water and we will go."
He took his knife and left her. He stumbled toward the beach and he
came to his canoe. And when the light broke through again he saw that a
great hole had been knocked in the bottom. And a searing rage came to
him and gave him strength. Now the darkness was closing in on his
family; now the evil music filled the night, hung over the mangroves,
skirled in the wave beat. The canoe of his grandfather, plastered over
and over, and a splintered hole broken in it. This was an evil beyond
thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a
boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself,
and a wounded boat does not heal. There was sorrow in Kino's rage, but
this last thing had tightened him beyond breaking. He was an animal
now, for hiding, for attacking, and he lived only to preserve himself
and his family. He was not conscious of the pain in his head. He leaped
up the beach, through the brush line toward his brush house, and it did
not occur to him to take one of the canoes of his neighbors. Never once
did the thought enter his head, any more than he could have conceived
breaking a boat.
The roosters were crowing and the dawn was not far off. Smoke of the
first fires seeped out through the walls of the brush houses, and the
first smell of cooking corncakes was in the air. Already the dawn birds
were scampering in the bushes. The weak moon was losing its light and
the clouds thickened and curdled to the southward. The wind blew
freshly into the estuary, a nervous, restless wind with the smell of
storm on its breath, and there was change and uneasiness in the air.
Kino, hurrying toward his house, felt a surge of exhilaration. Now he
was not confused, for there was only one thing to do, and Kino's hand
went first to the great pearl in his shirt and then to his knife
hanging under his shirt.
He saw a little glow ahead of him, and then without interval a tall
flame leaped up in the dark with a crackling roar, and a tall edifice
of fire lighted the pathway. Kino broke into a run; it was his brush
house, he knew. And he knew that these houses could burn down in a very
few moments. And as he ran a scuttling figure ran toward him- Juana,
with Coyotito in her arms and Kino's shoulder blanket clutched in her
hand. The baby moaned with fright, and Juana's eyes were wide and
terrified. Kino could see the house was gone, and he did not question
Juana. He knew, but she said, "It was torn up and the floor dug- even
the baby's box turned out, and as I looked they put the fire to the
outside."
The fierce light of the burning house lighted Kino's face strongly.
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"Who?" he demanded.
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"I don't know," she said. "The dark ones."
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The neighbors were tumbling from their houses now, and they watched the
falling sparks and stamped them out to save their own houses. Suddenly
Kino was afraid. The light made him afraid. He remembered the man lying
dead in the brush beside the path, and he took Juana by the arm and
drew her into the shadow of a house away from the light, for light was
danger to him. For a moment he considered and then he worked among the
shadows until he came to the house of Juan Tomas, his brother, and he
slipped into the doorway and drew Juana after him. Outside, he could
hear the squeal of children and the shouts of the neighbors, for his
friends thought he might be inside the burning house.
The house of Juan Tomas was almost exactly like Kino's house; nearly
all the brush houses were alike, and all leaked light and air, so that
Juana and Kino, sitting in the corner of the brother's house, could see
the leaping flames through the wall. They saw the flames tall and
furious, they saw the roof fall and watched the fire die down as
quickly as a twig fire dies. They heard the cries of warning of their
friends, and the shrill, keening cry of Apolonia, wife of Juan Tomas.
She, being the nearest woman relative, raised a formal lament for the
dead of the family.
Apolonia realized that she was wearing her second-best head shawl and
she rushed to her house to get her fine new one. As she rummaged in a
box by the wall, Kino's voice said quietly, "Apolonia, do not cry out.
We are not hurt."
"How do you come here?" she demanded.
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"Do not question," he said. "Go now to Juan Tomas and bring him here
and tell no one else. This is important to us, Apolonia."
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She paused, her hands helpless in front of her, and then, "Yes, my
brother-in-law," she said.
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In a few moments Juan Tomas came back with her. He lighted a candle and
came to them where they crouched in a corner and he said, "Apolonia,
see to the door, and do not let anyone enter." He was older, Juan
Tomas, and he assumed the authority. "Now, my brother," he said.
"I was attacked in the dark," said Kino. "And in the fight I have
killed a man."
"Who?" asked Juan Tomas quickly.
"I do not know. It is all darkness- all darkness and shape of
darkness."
"It is the pearl," said Juan Tomas. "There is a devil in this pearl.
You should have sold it and passed on the devil. Perhaps you can still
sell it and buy peace for yourself."
And Kino said, "Oh, my brother, an insult has been put on me that is
deeper than my life. For on the beach my canoe is broken, my house is
burned, and in the brush a dead man lies. Every escape is cut off. You
must hide us, my brother."
And Kino, looking closely, saw deep worry come into his brother's eyes
and he forestalled him in a possible refusal. "Not for long," he said
quickly. "Only until a day has passed and the new night has come. Then
we will go."
"I will hide you," said Juan Tomas.
"I do not want to bring danger to you," Kino said. "I know I am like a
leprosy. I will go tonight and then you will be safe."
"I will protect you," said Juan Tomas, and he called, "Apolonia, close
up the door. Do not even whisper that Kino is here."
They sat silently all day in the darkness of the house, and they could
hear the neighbors speaking of them. Through the walls of the house
they could watch their neighbors raking through the ashes to find the
bones. Crouching in the house of Juan Tomas, they heard the shock go
into their neighbors' minds at the news of the broken boat. Juan Tomas
went out among the neighbors to divert their suspicions, and he gave
them theories and ideas of what had happened to Kino and to Juana and
to the baby. To one he said, "I think they have gone south along the
coast to escape the evil that was on them." And to another, "Kino would
never leave the sea. Perhaps he found another boat." And he said,
"Apolonia is ill with grief."
And in that day the wind rose up to beat the Gulf and tore the kelps
and weeds that lined the shore, and the wind cried through the brush
houses and no boat was safe on the water. Then Juan Tomas told among
the neighbors, "Kino is gone. If he went to the sea, he is drowned by
now." And after each trip among the neighbors Juan Tomas came back with
something borrowed. He brought a little woven straw bag of red beans
and a gourd full of rice. He borrowed a cup of dried peppers and a
block of salt, and he brought in a long working knife, eighteen inches
long and heavy, as a small ax, a tool and a weapon. And when Kino saw
this knife his eyes lighted up, and he fondled the blade and his thumb
tested the edge.
The wind screamed over the Gulf and turned the water white, and the
mangroves plunged like frightened cattle, and a fine sandy dust arose
from the land and hung in a stifling cloud over the sea. The wind drove
off the clouds and skimmed the sky clean and drifted the sand of the
country like snow.
Then Juan Tomas, when the evening approached, talked long with his
brother. "Where will you go?"
"To the north," said Kino. "I have heard that there are cities in the
north."
"Avoid the shore," said Juan Tomas. "They are making a party to search
the shore. The men in the city will look for you. Do you still have the
pearl?"
"I have it," said Kino. "And I will keep it. I might have given it as a
gift, but now it is my misfortune and my life and I will keep it." His
eyes were hard and cruel and bitter.
Coyotito whimpered and Juana muttered little magics over him to make
him silent.
"The wind is good," said Juan Tomas. "There will be no tracks."
They left quietly in the dark before the moon had risen. The family
stood formally in the house of Juan Tomas. Juana carried Coyotito on
her back, covered and held in by her head shawl, and the baby slept,
cheek turned sideways against her shoulder. The head shawl covered the
baby, and one end of it came across Juana's nose to protect her from
the evil night air. Juan Tomas embraced his brother with the double
embrace and kissed him on both cheeks. "Go with God," he said, and it
was like a death. "You will not give up the pearl?"
"This pearl has become my soul," said Kino. "If I give it up I shall
lose my soul. Go thou also with God."
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