“You don’t take it seriously.”
“What does that mean? Maybe we don’t take it too seriously.”
“I’m off home,” Steve said, sulking. “You coming, Hank?”
“I’m going back to my place. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Tom wants a town meeting at the church tomorrow night,” Carmen told us. “Did you know?”
None of us did, and we agreed to try to get together before the meeting, and read another chapter.
“What’s the meeting about?” Steve asked.
“San Diego,” said Carmen.
Steve stopped walking away.
“Tom’ll bring up the question of helping the San Diegans fight the Japanese,” I said. “I told you about that.”
“I’ll be there,” Steve assured us sternly, and with that he was off. I helped Kathryn scrape the new loaves off the trays, and took one home to Pa, gnawing at one end of it and wondering how many days it would take to fly across the sea.
12
Usually our big meetings were held in Carmen’s church, but this time she and Tom had been nagging every person in the valley to come—Tom had even gone into the back country to roust Odd Roger—so the church, which was a narrow barnlike building in the Eggloffs’ pasture, wasn’t going to be quite big enough, and we were meeting at the bathhouse. Pa and I got there early and helped Tom start the fire. As I carried in wood I had to dodge Odd Roger, who was inspecting the floor and walls for grubs, one of his favorite foods. Tom shook his head as he eyed Roger. “I don’t know if it was worth the trouble dragging him here.” Tom seemed less excited about the meeting than I’d expected him to be, and unusually quiet. I myself was really hopping around; tonight we were going to join the resistance, and become part of America again, at long last.
Outside the evening sky was streaked with mare’s tail clouds still catching some light, and a stiff wind blew onshore. People talked and laughed as they approached the bathhouse, and I saw lanterns sparking here and there through the trees. Across the Simpsons’ potato patch their dogs were begging with pathetic howls to join us. Steve and all his brothers and sisters arrived, and we sat down on the tarps. “So I saw that the shark had his big mouth open and was about to swallow me,” Steve was telling them, “and I stuck my oar between his jaws so he couldn’t bite me. But I had to hang on to the oar to keep from being sucked down whole, and I was running out of air too. I had to figure something out.”
Then John and Mrs. Nicolin rounded the bend in the river path, and their kids got inside quick. Marvin and Jo Hamish ambled across the bridge, Jo in a white shift that billowed away from her quickening belly. I remembered the conversation at the ovens, and wondered what she had growing in her this time. And then people were coming from everywhere, descending on the bathhouse from every direction. A gaggle of Simpson and Mendez kids appeared around the side of the grain barrows, leading their fathers, who conferred heads together as they walked. Rafael and Mando and Doc came down the hill across the river, and behind them were Add and Melissa Shanks. I waved at Melissa and she waved back, her black hair flying downwind. A bit later Carmen and Nat Eggloff trooped out of the woods, carrying a heavy lantern between them and arguing, while Manuel Reyes and his family hurried behind them to stay in the lantern light. It sounded like a swap meet was crammed into the bathhouse, and when the Marianis arrived I thought we might have more than a capacity crowd. But it was cold outside, so Rafael took over and sat everyone down: the men against the walls, the little kids in their mothers’ laps, our gang in one of the empty bathing tubs. When we were done the whole population of the valley was packed in like fish in a box, ready to go to market. Lanterns were hung on the walls and some big logs in the fire caught, and the room blazed like it never did during baths. The chattering was so loud off the sheet metal roof that the babies started to shriek and cry, and the rest of us were nearly as excited, because we never got together in such a way except for Christmas and the rare valley meeting.
Tom moved about the room slowly, talking with folks he hadn’t seen in a while. He called the meeting to order as he went, but the visiting continued despite his announcements, and others had begun to circulate and argue behind him. Lots of people had nothing but questions, however, and when Marvin said to Tom, “So what’s this all about?” the question was repeated, and the room grew quieter.
“All right,” Tom said hoarsely. He started to tell them about our trip to San Diego. Sitting on the tub edge I looked around at all the faces. It seemed like an awful long time since Lee and Jennings had walked into this same room out of the rain, to tell us of their new train line. So much had happened to me since then that it didn’t seem possible a few weeks could hold it all. I felt like a different person than the one who had listened to Lee and Jennings tell their tales; but I didn’t know exactly how. It was just a feeling, a discomfort, or an ignorance—as if I had to learn everything over again.
The way Tom told it, the San Diegans kept looking to be fools or wastrels, no better than scavengers. So I had to interrupt him from time to time and add my opinion of it—tell them all about the electric batteries and generators, and the broken radio, and the bookmaker, and Mayor Danforth. We were arguing in front of everybody, but I thought they needed to know my side, because Tom was against the southerners. He disagreed with me sharply when I went on about the Mayor. “He lives in style, Henry, because he’s got a gang of men doing nothing but help him run things, that’s all. That’s what gives him the power to send men off east to contact other towns.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “But tell them what they found out east.”
Tom nodded and addressed the others. “He claims that his men have been as far as Utah, and that all the inland towns are banded together in a thing called the American resistance. The resistance, they say, wants to unify America again.”
That hushed everyone. From the wall near the door John Nicolin broke the silence. “So?”
“So,” Tom continued, “he wants us to do our part in this great plan, by helping the San Diegans fight the Japanese on Catalina.” He told them about our conference with the Mayor. “Now we know why dead Orientals have been washing onto our beach. But apparently they haven’t stopped trying to land, and now the San Diegans want our help getting rid of them for good.”
“What exactly do they mean by help?” asked Mrs. Mariani.
“Well…” Tom hesitated, and Doc cut in:
“It means they’d want our rivermouth as an anchorage to base attacks from.”
At the same time Recovery Simpson, Del and Rebel’s pa, said, “It means we’d finally have the guns and manpower to do something about being guarded like we are.”
Both of these opinions got a response from others, and the discussion split into a lot of little arguments. I kept my mouth shut, and tried to listen and find out who was thinking what. I could see that even a group as small as ours could be divided into even smaller groups. Recovery Simpson and old man Mendez led the families who did the bulk of their work in the back country, hunting or trapping or sheep herding; Nat and Manuel and the shepherds were quick to follow Simpson’s lead, usually. Then there were the farmers; everyone did a little of that, but Kathryn directed all the women who grew the big crops. Nicolin’s fishing operation was the third big group, including all the Nicolins, the Hamishes, Rafael and me; and lastly there were the folks who didn’t fit into any one group, like Tom, and Doc, and my pa, and Addison, and Odd Roger. These groupings were false in a way, in that everyone did a bit of everything. But for a while I thought I noticed something; I thought that the hunters, whose work was already like fighting, were going for the resistance, while the farmers, who needed things to be the same from year to year (and who were mostly women anyway), were going against it. That made sense to me, and I bet to myself that the way Nicolin went would decide the issue; but then all around me I saw that there were as many exceptions to my pattern as there were examples of it, and I lost the momentary feeling tha
t I understood what was happening.
Doc was one of the first to defy my expectations. Here he was as old as Tom, almost, and always arguing at the ancients’ table at the swap meet that America had been betrayed by those who wouldn’t fight. It had seemed obvious to me that he would be disagreeing with Tom again, and arguing for joining the San Diegans in their fight. But here he stood saying, “I remember once when Gabino Canyon folks were asked by the Cristianitos Canyon people to join them when they were fighting with Talega Canyon over the wells at the Four Canyon Flat. They did it; but when the fight was over there wasn’t any Gabino Canyon at the swap meet anymore. It was just Cristianitos. The thing is, bigger towns tend to eat up the littler ones around them. Henry will tell you there’s hundreds of people down there—”
“But we’re not just the next canyon over from them,” Steve objected. “There’s miles and miles between us and them. And we should be fighting the Japanese. Every town should be part of the resistance, otherwise it’s hopeless.” He was vehement, and several people nodded, ignoring the talk around them. Steve had a presence, all right. His voice turned people’s ears.
“Miles aren’t going to matter if the train works,” Doc answered. So he was against joining. Shaken, I was about to ask him how he could drop all his swap meet talk just when the chance for action had arrived, when Tom said real loudly, “Hey? Let’s go it one at a time now.”
Rafael jumped in the gap. “We should fight the Japanese every chance we get. Face it, they’re hemming us in. We’re like fish in a big purse net. And they’re not only keeping us from the world, they’re keeping us from each other, by bombing tracks and bridges.”
“We only have the San Diegans’ word for those attacks,” Doc said. “How do we know they’re telling the truth?”
“Of course they’re telling the truth,” Mando said indignantly. He waved a fist at his pa: “Henry and Tom saw the bombs hit the tracks.”
“That may be so,” Doc admitted. “But it doesn’t mean everything else they said is true. Could be they want us scared and looking for help. That Mayor of San Diego will start thinking he’s Mayor of Onofre the moment we join him.”
“But what could he do to us?” Recovery said. The other hunters nodded, and Recovery stepped forward to take the argument from Doc and Mando. “All it means is that we’ll be dealing with one more town, just like we deal with all the towns that come to the swap meet.”
Doc dropped on Cov’s argument like a pelican flopping on a fish. “Exactly not! San Diego’s a lot bigger than us, and they don’t just want to trade. Like you said, Cov, they’ve got a lot of guns.”
“They ain’t going to shoot us,” Cov said. “Besides, they’re fifty miles away.”
“I agree with Simpson,” old man Mendez said. “An alliance like this is part of knitting things up again. Those folks don’t want anything we have, and they couldn’t do anything to us if they did. They just want help in a fight that’s our fight too, whether we join it or not.”
“That’s what I say,” Rafael added firmly. “They’re holding us down, those Japanese! We’ve got to fight them just to stand up.”
Steve and I nodded our heads like puppets in a swap meet puppet show. Gabby stuck his fist between us and shook it triumphantly. I hadn’t known Rafe felt so strongly about our situation, because it wasn’t something he talked about. The gang was impressed. I felt Steve shifting in the tub, twitching catlike as he nerved himself to stand up and pitch in with those who wanted to fight. But before he did his father stepped out from the wall he had been leaning against, and spoke.
“We should be working. That’s what we should be doing. We should be gathering food and preserving it, building more shelter and improving what we got, getting more clothes and medicines from the meets. Getting more boats and gear, firewood, all of that. Making it all work. That’s your job, Rafe. Not trying to fight people out there who have a million times the power we do. That’s a dream. If we do anything in the way of fighting, it should be right here in this valley, and for this valley. Not for anybody else. Not for those clowns down south, and sure not for any idea like America.” He said it like the ugliest sort of curse, and glared at Tom as he said it. “America’s gone. It’s dead. There’s us in this valley, and there’s others in San Diego, Orange, behind Pendleton, over on Catalina. But they’re not us. This valley is the biggest country we’re going to have in our lives, and it’s what we should be working for, keeping everyone in it alive and healthy. That’s what we should be doing, I say.”
The bathhouse was pretty quiet after that. So John was against it. And Tom, and Doc.… I felt like the wind had been taken out of our sails by John, but Rafael rose to speak. “Our valley isn’t big enough to think that way, John. All the people we trade with depend on us, and we depend on them. We’re all countrymen. And we’re all being held down by the guards on Catalina. You can’t deny that, and you got to agree that working for us in this valley means being free to develop when we can. The way it is, we don’t have that freedom.”
John just shook his head. Beside me Steve hissed. He was near boiling over—his hands were clenched into white fists as he tried to hold himself in. This was nothing new. Steve always disagreed with his father at meetings. But John wouldn’t abide Steve crossing him in public, so Steve always had to stay shut up. The usual meeting ended with Steve bursting with indignation and resentful anger. I don’t know that this meeting would have been any different, but for Mando speaking up earlier, and arguing with Doc. Steve had noted that; and could he stand by silent, not daring to do what little Armando Costa had? Not a chance. And then I had been arguing with Tom all night. There were too many fires under Steve at once, and all of a sudden he popped up, face flushed and fists trembling at his sides. He looked from person to person, at anybody but his pa.
“We’re all Americans no matter what valley we come from,” he said rapidly. “We can’t help it and we can’t deny it. We were beat in a war and we’re still paying for it in every way, but some day we’ll be free again.” John stared at him fiercely, but Steve refused to back down. “When we get there it’ll be because people fought every chance they could get.”
He plopped back down on the tub edge, and only then did he look across the room at John, challenging him to reply. But John wasn’t going to reply; he didn’t deign to argue with his son in public. He just stared at him, his color high. There was an uncomfortable pause as everyone saw what was happening—saw John denying Steve’s right to join the discussions.
Tom looked up from warming his hands at the fire, and saw what was going on. “What about you, Addison?” he said.
Add was against the wall, Melissa seated at his feet; he stroked Melissa’s glossy hair from time to time, and watched the rest of us carefully as we argued. Now Melissa looked down, her lower lip between her teeth. If it were true that Add dealt with scavengers, then he would likely have problems if we joined raids in Orange County. But he shrugged and met our stares boldly, as if it didn’t matter a damn to him. “I don’t care much one way or the other.”
“Pinché!” old Mendez said. “You must have some opinion.”
“No,” drawled Add, “I don’t.”
“That helps a lot,” said Mendez. Gabby looked surprised to see his father speak; old Mendez was a silent man.
“Yeah, Add, what did you come for, anyway?” Marvin said.
“Wait a minute.” It was my pa, scrambling to his feet. “Ain’t a crime to come here without an opinion one way or other. That’s why we talk.”
Addison gave Pa a polite nod. That was just like Pa; the only time he spoke was to defend silence.
Doc and Rafael ignored Pa and went at it again, getting heated. There were arguments breaking out all over, so they could say angry things without embarrassing the other. “You’re always wanting to play with those guns of yours,” Doc said scornfully. Eyes flashing under his thick black brows, Rafael came back: “When you’re the only medical care in the valley, we ai
n’t doing so well you must admit.” No one who heard them liked such talk, and I waved a hand between them and said, “Let’s not get personal, eh?”
“Oh we’re just talking about our lives is all,” Rafe snapped sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want to get personal about it. But I tell you, the doctor here is going to kiss snake’s butt if he thinks I mess with guns just for the fun of it.”
“But you guys are friends—”
“Hey!” Tom cried, sounding weary. “We haven’t heard from everyone yet.”
“What about Henry?” Kathryn said. “He went to San Diego too, so he’s seen them. What do you think we should do?” She gave me a look that was asking for something, but I couldn’t tell what it was, so I said what I was thinking and hoped it would do.
“We should join the San Diegans,” I said. “If we feel like they’re trying to make us part of San Diego, we can destroy the tracks and be rid of them. If we don’t, we’ll be part of the country again, and we’ll learn a lot more about what’s going on inland.”
“I learn all I want to know at the swap meet,” Doc said. “And wrecking the tracks isn’t going to stop them coming in boats. If there’s a thousand of them, as they say, and we number, what, sixty?—and most of them kids?—then they can pretty much do what they want with this valley.”
“They can whether we agree or not,” Cov said. “And if we go along with them now, maybe we can get what we want out of it.”
John Nicolin looked especially disgusted at that sentiment, but before he could speak I said, “Doc, I don’t understand you. At the swap meets you’re always grousing for a chance to get back at them for bombing us. Now here we got the chance, and you—”
“We don’t got the chance,” Doc insisted. “Not a thing’s changed—”
“Enough!” Tom said. “We’ve heard all that before. Carmen, it’s your turn.”