To a God Unknown

by John Steinbeck

  "It makes me sad," Joseph said. "I wish I could be less sad about it."

  Thomas threw a leg around his saddle horn. "You know what the whole damn country looks like?" he asked. "It looks like a smoking heap of ashes with cinders sticking out." They heard the faint tinkling of the bell again. "Let's see what it is," Thomas said. They turned the horses back uphill. The slope was strewn with great boulders, ruins of perfect mountains that once were, and the trail twisted about among the rocks. "I think I heard that bell go by the house in the night," Thomas said "I thought it was a dream then, but I remember it now that I hear it again. We're nearly to the top now."

  The trail went into a pass of shattered granite, and the next moment the two men looked down on a new fresh world. The downward slope was covered with tremendous redwood trees, and among the great columned trunks there grew a wild tangle of berry vines, of gooseberry, of sword ferns as tall as a man. The hill slipped quickly down, and the sea rose up level with the hilltops. The two men stopped their horses and stared hungrily at the green underbrush. The hills stirred with life. Quail skittered and rabbits hopped away from the path. While the men looked, a little deer walked into an open place, caught their scent and bounced away. Thomas wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "All the game from our side is here," he said. "I wish we could bring our cattle over, but there isn't a flat place for a cow to stand." He turned about to face his brother. "Joseph, wouldn't you like to crawl under the brush, into a damp cool hollow there, and curl up and go to sleep?"

  Joseph had been staring at the up-ended sea. "I wonder where the moisture comes from." He pointed to the long barren sweeps that dropped to the ocean far below. "No grass is there, but here in the creases it's as green as a jungle." And he said, "I've seen the fog heads looking over into our valley. Every night the cool grey fog must lie in these creases in the mountains and leave some of its moisture. And in the daytime it goes back to the sea, and at night it comes again, so that this forest is never kept waiting, never. Our land is dry, and there's no help for it. But here--I resent this place, Thomas."

  "I want to get down to the water," Thomas said. "Come on, let's move." They started down the steep slope on the trail that wound among the columns of the redwoods, and the brambles scratched at their faces. Part of the way down, they came to a clearing, and in it two packed burros stood with drooped heads, and an old, white-bearded man sat on the ground in front of them. His hat was in his lap and his damp white hair lay plastered against his bead. He looked up at the two with sharp shiny black eyes. He held one nostril shut and blew out of the other, and then reversed and blew again.

  "I heard you coming a long way back," he said. And he laughed without making a sound. "I guess you heard my burro bell. It's a real silver bell my burro wears. Sometimes I let one wear it, and sometimes the other." He put on his hat with dignity and lifted his beaked nose like a sparrow. "Where are you going, down the hill?"

  Thomas had to answer, for Joseph was staring at the little man in curious recognition. "We're going to camp on the coast," Thomas explained. "We'll catch some fish, and we'll swim if the sea is calm."

  "We heard your bell a long way back," said Joseph. "I've seen you somewhere before." He stopped suddenly in embarrassment, for he knew he had never really seen the old man before at all.

  "I live over to the right, on a flat," the old man said. "My house is five hundred feet above the beach." He nodded at them impressively. "You shall come to stay with me. You will see how high it is." He paused, and a secret hesitant mist settled over his eyes. He looked at Thomas, and then looked long at Joseph. "I guess I can tell you," be said. "Do you know why I live out there on the cliff? I've only told the reason to a few. I'll tell you, because you're coming to stay with me." He stood up, the better to deliver his secret. "I am the last man in the western world to see the sun. After it is gone to everyone else, I see it for a little while. I've seen it every night for twenty years. Except when the fog was in or the rain was falling, I've seen the sun set." He looked from one to the other, smiling proudly. "Sometimes," he went on, "I go to town for salt and pepper and thyme and tobacco. I go fast. I start after the sun has set, and I'm back before it sets again. You shall see tonight how it is." He looked anxiously at the sky. "It's time to be going. You follow after me. Why, I'll kill a little pig, and we'll roast it for dinner. Come, follow after me." He started at a half run down the trail, and the burros trotted after him, and the silver bell jingled sharply.

  "Come," Joseph said. "Let's go with him."

  But Thomas hung back. "The man is crazy. Let him go on."

  "I want to go with him, Thomas," Joseph said eagerly. "He isn't crazy, not violently crazy. I want to go with him."

  Thomas had the animals' fear of insanity "I'd rather not. If we do go with him, I'll take my blankets off into the brush."

  "Come on, then, or we'll lose him." They clucked up their horses and started down the hill, through the underbrush and in and out among the straight red pillars of the trees. So fast had the old man gone that they were nearly down before they took sight of him. He waved his hand and beckoned to them. The trail left the crease where the redwoods grew and led over a bare ridge to a long narrow flat. The mountains sat with their feet in the sea, and the old man's house was on the knees. All over the flat was tall sagebrush. A man riding the trail could not be seen above the scrub. The brush stopped a hundred feet from the cliff, and on the edge of the abyss was a pole cabin, hairy with stuffed moss and thatched with a great pile of grass. Beside the house there was a tight pigpen of poles, and a little shed, and a vegetable garden, and a patch of growing corn. The old man spread his arms possessively.

  "Here is my house." He looked at the lowering sun. "There's over an hour yet. See, that hill is blue," he said, pointing. "That's a mountain of copper." He started to unpack the mules, laying his boxes of supplies on the ground. Joseph slipped his saddle and hobbled his horse, and Thomas reluctantly did the same. The burros trotted away into the brush, and the horses hopped after them.

  "We'll find them by the bell," said Joseph. "The horses will never leave the burros."

  The old man led them to the pigpen, where a dozen lean wild pigs eyed them suspiciously and tried to force their way through the farther fence. "I trap them?' He smiled proudly. "I have my traps all over. Come, I'll show you." He walked to the low, thatched shed and, leaning down, pointed to twenty little cages, woven and plaited with willows. In the cages were grey rabbits and quail and thrushes and squirrels, sitting in the straw behind their wooden bars and peering out. "I catch all of them in my box-traps. I keep them until I need them."

  Thomas turned away. "I'm going for a walk," he said sharply. "I'm going down the cliff to the ocean."

  The old man stared after him as he strode away. "Why does that man hate me?" he demanded of Joseph. "Why is he afraid of me?"

  Joseph looked affectionately after Thomas. "He has his life as you have, and as I have. He doesn't like things caged. He puts himself in the place of the beasts, and can feel how frightened they are. He doesn't like fear. He catches it too easily." Joseph smoothed down his beard. "Let him alone. He'll come back after a while."

  The old man was sad. "I should have told him. I am gentle with the little creatures. I don't let them be afraid. When I kill them, they never know. You shall see." They strolled around the house, toward the cliff. Joseph pointed to three little crosses stuck in the ground close to the cliff's edge.

  "What are those?" he asked. "It's a strange place for them."

  His companion faced him eagerly. "You like them. I can see you like them. We know each other. I know things you don't know. You will learn them. I'll tell you about the crosses. There was a storm. For a week the ocean down there was wild and grey. The wind blew in from the center of the sea. Then it was over. I looked down the cliff to the beach. Three little figures were there. I went down my own trail that I built with my hands. I found three sailors washed up on the beach. Two were dark men, and one was light. The l
ight one wore a saint's medallion on a string around his neck. Then I carried them up here. That was work. And I buried them on the cliff. I put the crosses there because of the medallion. You like the crosses, don't you?" His bright black eyes watched Joseph's face for any new expression.

  And Joseph nodded. "Yes, I like the crosses. It was a good thing to do."

  "Then come to see the sunset place. You'll like that, too." He half ran around his house in his eagerness. A little platform was built on the cliff's edge, with a wooden railing in front and a bench a few feet back. In front of the bench was a large stone slab, resting on four blocks of wood, and the smooth surface of the stone was scoured and clean. The two men stood at the railing and looked off at the sea, blue and calm, and so far below that the rollers sliding in seemed no larger than ripples, and the pounding of the surf on the beach sounded like soft beating on a wet drum-head. The old man pointed to the horizon, where a rim of black fog hung. "It'll be a good one," he cried. "It'll be a red one in the fog. This is a good night for the pig."

  The sun was growing larger as it slipped down the sky. "You sit here every day?" Joseph asked. "You never miss?"

  "I never miss except when the clouds cover. I am the last man to see it. Look at a map and you'll see how that is. It is gone to everyone but me." He cried, "I'm talking while I should be getting ready. Sit on the bench there and wait."

  He ran around the house. Joseph heard the angry squealing of the pig, and then the old man reappeared, carrying the struggling animal in his arms. He had trussed its legs all together. He laid it on the stone slab and stroked it with his fingers, until it ceased its struggling and settled down, grunting contentedly.

  "You see," the old man said, "it must not cry. It doesn't know. The time is nearly here, now." He took a thick short-bladed knife from his pocket and tried its edge on his palm, and then his left hand stroked the pig's side and he turned to face the sun. It was rushing downward toward the far-off rim of fog, and it seemed to roll in a sac of lymph. "I was just in time," the old man said. "I like to be a little early."

  "What is this," Joseph demanded. "What are you doing with the pig?"

  The old man put his finger to his lips. "Hush! I'll tell you later. Hush now."

  "Is it a sacrifice? Are you sacrificing the pig?" Joseph asked. "Do you kill a pig every night?"

  "Oh no. I have no use for it. Every night I kill some little thing, a bird, a rabbit or a squirrel. Yes, every night some creature. Now, it's nearly time." The sun's edge touched the fog. The sun changed its shape; it was an arrowhead, an hour glass, a top. The sea turned red, and the wave-tops became long blades of crimson light. The old man turned quickly to the table. "Now!" he said, and cut the pig's throat. The red light bathed the mountains and the house. "Don't cry, little brother." He held down the struggling body. "Don't cry. If I have done it right, you will be dead when the sun is dead." The struggling grew weaker. The sun was a flat cap of red light on the fog wall, and then it disappeared, and the pig was dead.

  Joseph had been sitting tensely on his bench, watching the sacrifice. "What has this man found?" he thought. "Out of his experience he has picked out the thing that makes him happy." He saw the old man's joyful eyes, saw how in the moment of the death he became straight and dignified and large. "This man has discovered a secret," Joseph said to himself. "He must tell me if he can."

  His companion sat on the bench beside him now, and looked out to the edge of the sea, where the sun had gone. And the sea was dark and the wind was whipping it to white caps. "Why do you do this?" Joseph asked quietly.

  The old man jerked his head around. 'Why?" he asked excitedly. And then he grew more calm. "No, you aren't trying to trap me. Your brother thinks I'm crazy. I know. That s why he went to walk. But you don't think that. You're too wise to think that." He looked out on the darkening sea again. "You really want to know why I watch the sun--why I kill some little creature as it disappears." He paused and ran his lean fingers through his hair. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I have made up reasons, but they aren't true. I have said to myself, 'The sun is life. I give life to life'--'I make a symbol of the sun's death.' When I made these reasons I knew they weren't true." He looked around for corroboration.

  Joseph broke in, "These were words to clothe a naked thing, and the thing is ridiculous in clothes."

  "You see it. I gave up reasons. I do this because it makes me glad. I do it because I like to."

  Joseph nodded eagerly. "You would be uneasy if it were not done. You would feel that something was left unfinished."

  "Yes," the old man cried loudly. "You understand it. I tried to tell it once before. My listener couldn't see it. I do it for myself. I can't tell that it does not help the sun. But it is for me. In the moment, I am the sun. Do you see? I, through the beast, am the sun. I burn in the death." His eyes glittered with excitement. "Now you know."

  "Yes," Joseph said. "I know now. I know for you. For me there is a difference that I don't dare think about yet, but I will think about it."

  "The thing did not come quickly," the old man said.

  "Now it is nearly perfect." He leaned over and put his hands on Joseph's knees. "Some time it will be perfect. The sky will be right. The sea will be right. My life will reach a calm level place. The mountains back there will tell me when it is time. Then will be the perfect time, and it will be the last." He nodded gravely at the slab where the dead pig lay. "When it comes, I, myself, will go over the edge of the world with the sun. Now you know. In every man this thing is hidden. It tries to get out, but a man's fears distort it. He chokes it back. What does get out is changed--blood on the hands of a statue, emotion over the story of an ancient torture--the giving or drawing of blood in copulation. Why," he said. "I've told the creatures in the cages how it is. They are not afraid. Do you think I am crazy?" he demanded.

  Joseph smiled. "Yes, you're crazy. Thomas says you are. Burton would say you are. It is not thought safe to open a clear path to your soul for the free, undistorted passage of the things that are there. You do well to preach to the beasts in the cage, else you might be in a cage yourself."

  The old man stood up and picked up the pig and carried it away. He brought water and scrubbed the blood off the slab and dusted the ground under it with fresh gravel.

  It was almost dark when he had finished cleaning the little pig. A great pale moon looked over the mountains, and its light caught the white-caps as they rose and disappeared. The pounding of the waves on the beach grew louder. Joseph sat in the little cave-like hut and the old man turned pieces of the pig on a spit in the fireplace. He talked quietly about the country.

  "The tall sage hides my house," he said. "There are little cleared places in the sage. I've found some of them. In autumn the bucks fight there. I can hear the clashing of their horns at night. In the spring the does bring their spotted fawns to those same places to teach them. They must know many things if they are to live at all--what noises to run from; what the odors mean, how to kill snakes with their front hoofs." And he said, "The mountains are made of metal; a little layer of rock and then black iron and red copper. It must be so."

  There were footsteps outside the house. Thomas called, "Joseph, where are you?"

  Joseph got up from the floor of the hut and went out. "The dinner is waiting. Come in and eat," he said.

  But Thomas protested. "I don't like to be with this man. I have abalones here. Come down to the beach. We'll build a fire and eat down there. The moon lights up the trail."

  "But the supper is ready," Joseph said. "Come in and eat, at least."

  Thomas entered the low house warily, as though he expected some evil beast to pounce upon him out of a dark corner. There was no light except from the fireplace. The old man tore at his meat with his teeth and threw the bones into the fire, and when he was finished, he stared sleepily into the blaze.

  Joseph sat beside him. "Where did you come from?" Joseph asked. "What made you come here?"

  "What do you say?"<
br />
  "I say, why did you come here to live alone?" The sleepy eyes cleared for a moment and then drooped sullenly. "I don't remember," he said. "I don't want to remember I would have to think back, looking for what you want. If I do that, I'll stumble against other things in the past that I don't want to meddle with. Let it alone."

  Thomas stood up. "I'll take my blanket out on the cliff to sleep," he said.

  Joseph followed him out of the house, calling "Good-night,' over his shoulder. The brothers walked in silence toward the cliff and laid their blankets side by side on the ground.

  "Let's ride up the coast tomorrow," Thomas begged. "I don't like it here."

  Joseph sat on his blankets and watched the faint far movement of the moonlit sea. "I'm going back tomorrow, Tom," he said. "I can't stay away. I must be there in case anything happens."

  "Yes, but we'd planned to stay three days," Thomas objected. "I'll need a rest from the dust if I'm to drive the cows a hundred miles, and so will you."

  Joseph sat silent for a long time. "Thomas," he asked. "Are you asleep yet?"

  "No."

  "I'm not going with you, Thomas. You take the cows. I'll stay with the ranch."

  Thomas rolled up on his elbow. "What are you talking about? Nothing will hurt the ranch. It's the cows we have to save."

  "You take the cows," Joseph repeated. "I can't go away. I've thought of going, I've put my mind to the act of going, and I can't. Why, it'd be like leaving a sick person." Thomas grunted, "Like leaving a dead body! And there's no harm in that."