His father had frost in his beard in cold weather and in hot weather he sweated very much. He liked to work in the sun on the farm because he did not have to and he loved manual work, which Nick did not. Nick loved his father but hated the smell of him and once when he had to wear a suit of his father’s underwear that had gotten too small for his father it made him feel sick and he took it off and put it under two stones in the creek and said that he had lost it. He had told his father how it was when his father had made him put it on but his father had said it was freshly washed. It had been, too. When Nick had asked him to smell of it his father sniffed at it indignantly and said that it was clean and fresh. When Nick came home from fishing without it and said he lost it he was whipped for lying.
Afterwards he had sat inside the woodshed with the door open, his shotgun loaded and cocked, looking across at his father sitting on the screen porch reading the paper, and thought, “I can blow him to hell. I can kill him.” Finally he felt his anger go out of him and he felt a little sick about it being the gun that his father had given him. Then he had gone to the Indian camp, walking there in the dark, to get rid of the smell. There was only one person in his family that he liked the smell of; one sister. All the others he avoided all contact with. That sense blunted when he started to smoke. It was a good thing. It was good for a bird dog but it did not help a man.
“What was it like, Papa, when you were a little boy and used to hunt with the Indians?”
“I don’t know,” Nick was startled. He had not even noticed the boy was awake. He looked at him sitting beside him on the seat. He had felt quite alone but this boy had been with him. He wondered for how long. “We used to go all day to hunt black squirrels,” he said. “My father only gave me three shells a day because he said that would teach me to hunt and it wasn’t good for a boy to go banging around. I went with a boy named Billy Gilby and his sister Trudy. We used to go out nearly every day all one summer.”
“Those are funny names for Indians.”
“Yes, aren’t they,” Nick said.
“But tell me what they were like.”
“They were Ojibways,” Nick said. “And they were very nice.”
“But what were they like to be with?”
“It’s hard to say,” Nick Adams said. Could you say she did first what no one has ever done better and mention plump brown legs, flat belly, hard little breasts, well holding arms, quick searching tongue, the flat eyes, the good taste of mouth, then uncomfortably, tightly, sweetly, moistly, lovely, tightly, achingly, fully, finally, unendingly, never-endingly, never-to-endingly, suddenly ended, the great bird flown like an owl in the twilight, only it was daylight in the woods and hemlock needles stuck against your belly. So that when you go in a place where Indians have lived you smell them gone and all the empty pain killer bottles and the flies that buzz do not kill the sweetgrass smell, the smoke smell and that other like a fresh cased marten skin. Nor any jokes about them nor old squaws take that away. Nor the sick sweet smell they get to have. Nor what they did finally. It wasn’t how they ended. They all ended the same. Long time ago good. Now no good.
And about the other. When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first. He could thank his father for that.
“You might not like them,” Nick said to the boy. “But I think you would.”
“And my grandfather lived with them too when he was a boy, didn’t he?”
“Yes. When I asked him what they were like he said that he had many friends among them.”
“Will I ever live with them?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “That’s up to you.”
“How old will I be when I get a shotgun and can hunt by myself?”
“Twelve years old if I see you are careful.”
“‘I wish I was twelve now.”
“You will be, soon enough.”
“What was my grandfather like? I can’t remember him except that he gave me an air rifle and an American flag when I came over from France that time. What was he like?”
“He’s hard to describe. He was a great hunter and fisherman and he had wonderful eyes.”
“‘Was he greater than you?”
“He was a much better shot and his father was a great wing shot too.”
“I’ll bet he wasn’t better than you.”
“Oh, yes he was. He shot very quickly and beautifully. I’d rather see him shoot than any man I ever knew. He was always very disappointed in the way I shot.”
“Why do we never go to pray at the tomb of my grandfather?”
“We live in a different pan of the country. It’s a long way from here.”
“In France that wouldn’t make any difference. In France we’d go. I think I ought to go to pray at the tomb of my grandfather.”
“Sometime we’ll go.”
“I hope we won’t live somewhere so that I can never go to pray at your tomb when you are dead.”
“We’ll have to arrange it.”
“Don’t you think we might all be buried at a convenient place? We could all be buried in France. That would be fine.”
“I don’t want to be buried in France,” Nick said.
“Well, then, we’ll have to get some convenient place in America. Couldn’t we all be buried out at the ranch?”
“That’s an idea.”
“Then I could stop and pray at the tomb of my grandfather on the way to the ranch.”
“You’re awfully practical.”
“Well, I don’t feel good never to have even visited the tomb of my grandfather.”
“We’ll have to go,” Nick said. “I can see we’ll have to go.”
Part II
Short Stories Published in Books or Magazines Subsequent to “The First Forty-nine”
One Trip Across
YOU KNOW HOW IT IS THERE EARLY IN the morning in Havana with the bums still asleep against the walls of the buildings; before even the ice wagons come by with ice for the bars? Well, we came across the square from the dock to the Pearl of San Francisco Café to get coffee and there was only one beggar awake in the square and he was getting a drink out of the fountain. But when we got inside the café and sat down, there were the three of them waiting for us.
We sat down and one of them came over.
“Well,” he said.
“I can’t do it,” I told him. “I’d like to do it as a favor. But I told you last night I couldn’t.”
“You can name your own price.”
“It isn’t that. I can’t do it. That’s all.”
The two others had come over and they stood there looking sad. They were nice-looking fellows all right and I would have liked to have done them the favor.
“A thousand apiece,” said the one who spoke good English.
“Don’t make me feel bad,” I told him. “I tell you true I can’t do it.”
“Afterwards, when things are changed, it would mean a good deal to you.”
“I know it. I’m all for you. But I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I make my living with the boat. If I lose her I lose my living.”
“With the money you buy another boat.”
“Not in jail.”
They must have thought I just needed to be argued into it because the one kept on.
“You would have three thousand dollars and it could mean a great deal to you later. All this will not last, you know.”
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t care who is President here. But I don’t carry anything to the States that can talk.”
“You mean we would talk?” one of them who hadn’t spoken said. He was angry.
“I said anything that can talk.”
“Do you think we are lenguas largas?”
“No.”
“Do you know what a lengua larga is?”
“Yes. One with a long tongue.??
?
“Do you know what we do with them?”
“Don’t be tough with me,” I said. “You propositioned me. I didn’t offer you anything.”
“Shut up, Pancho,” the one who had done the talking before said to the angry one.
“He said we would talk,” Pancho said.
“Listen,” I said. “I told you I didn’t carry anything that can talk. Sacked liquor can’t talk. Demijohns can’t talk. There’s other things that can’t talk. Men can talk.”
“Can Chinamen talk?” Pancho said, pretty nasty.
“They can talk, but I can’t understand them,” I told him.
“So you won’t?”
“It’s just like I told you last night. I can’t.”
“But you won’t talk?” Pancho said.
The one thing that he hadn’t understood right had made him nasty. I guess it was disappointment, too. I didn’t even answer him.
“You’re not a lengua larga, are you?” he asked, still nasty.
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s that? A threat?”
“Listen,” I told him. “Don’t be so tough so early in the morning. I’m sure you’ve cut plenty people’s throats. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”
“So you’re sure I’ve cut people’s throats?”
“No,” I said. “And I don’t give a damn. Can’t you do business without getting angry?”
“I am angry now,” he said. “I would like to kill you.”
“Oh, hell,” I told him, “don’t talk so much.”
“Come on, Pancho, the first one said. Then, to me, “I am very sorry. I wish you would take us.”
“I’m sorry, too. But I can’t.”
The three of them started for the door, and I watched them go. They were good-looking young fellows, wore good clothes; none of them wore hats, and they looked like they had plenty of money. They talked plenty of money, anyway, and they spoke the kind of English Cubans with money speak.
Two of them looked like brothers and the other one, Pancho, was a little taller but the same sort of looking kid. You know, slim, good clothes, and shiny hair. I didn’t figure he was as mean as he talked. I figured he was plenty nervous.
As they turned out of the door to the right, I saw a closed car come across the square toward them. The first thing a pane of glass went and the bullet smashed into the row of bottles on the show-case wall to the right. I heard the gun going and, bop, bop, bop, there were bottles smashing all along the wall.
I jumped behind the bar on the left side and could see looking over the edge. The car was stopped and there were two fellows crouched down by it. One had a Thompson gun and the other had a sawed-off automatic shotgun. The one with the Thompson gun was a nigger. The other had a chauffeur’s white duster on.
One of the boys was spread out on the sidewalk, face down, just outside the big window that was smashed. The other two were behind one of the Tropical beer ice wagons that was stopped in front of the Cunard bar next door. One of the ice-wagon horses was down in the harness, kicking, and the other was plunging his head off.
One of the boys shot from the rear corner of the wagon and it ricocheted off the sidewalk. The nigger with the tommy gun got his face almost into the street and gave the back of the wagon a burst from underneath and sure enough one came down, falling toward the sidewalk with his head above the curb. He flopped there, putting his hands over his head, and the chauffeur shot at him with the shotgun while the nigger put in a fresh pan, but it was a long shot. You could see the buckshot marks all over the sidewalk like silver splatters.
The other fellow pulled the one who was hit back by the legs to behind the wagon, and I saw the nigger getting his face down on the paving to give them another burst. Then I saw old Pancho come around the corner of the wagon and step into the lee of the horse that was still up. He stepped clear of the horse, his face white as a dirty sheet, and got the chauffeur with the big Luger he had, holding it in both hands to keep it steady. He shot twice over the nigger’s head, coming on, and once low.
He hit a tire on the car because I saw dust blowing in a spurt on the street as the air came out, and at ten feet the nigger shot him in the belly with his tommy gun, with what must have been the last shot in it because I saw him throw it down, and old Pancho sat down hard and went over forward. He was trying to come up, still holding onto the Luger, only he couldn’t get his head up, when the nigger took the shotgun that was lying against the wheel of the car by the chauffeur and blew the side of his head off. Some nigger.
I took a quick one out of the first bottle I saw open and I couldn’t tell you yet what it was. The whole thing made me feel pretty bad. I slipped along behind the bar and out through the kitchen in back and all the way out. I went clean around the outside of the square and never even looked over toward the crowd there was coming fast in front of the café and went in through the gate and out onto the dock and got on board.
The fellow who had her chartered was on board waiting. I told him what had happened.
“Where’s Eddy?” this fellow Johnson that had her chartered asked me.
“I never saw him after the shooting started.”
“Do you suppose he was hit?”
“Hell no. I tell you the only shots that came in the café were into the show case. That was when the car was coming behind them. That was when they shot the first fellow right in front of the window. They came at an angle like this—”
“You seem awfully sure about it,” he said.
“I was watching,” I told him.
Then, as I looked up, I saw Eddy coming along the dock looking taller and sloppier than ever. He walked with his joints all slung wrong.
“There he is.”
Eddy looked pretty bad. He never looked too good early in the morning but he looked plenty bad now.
“Where were you?” I asked him.
“On the floor.”
“Did you see it?” Johnson asked him.
“Don’t talk about it, Mr. Johnson,” Eddy said to him. “It makes me sick to even think about it.”
“You better have a drink,” Johnson told him. Then he said to me, “Well, are we going out?”
“That’s up to you.”
“What sort of a day will it be?”
“Just about like yesterday. Maybe better.”
“Let’s get out then.”
“All right, as soon as the bait comes.”
We’d had this bird out three weeks fishing the stream and I hadn’t seen any of his money yet except one hundred dollars he gave me to pay the consul and clear and get some grub and put gas in her before we came across. I was furnishing all the tackle and he had her chartered at thirty-five dollars a day. He slept at a hotel and came aboard every morning. Eddy got me the charter so I had to carry him. I was giving him four dollars a day.
“I’ve got to put gas in her,” I told Johnson.
“All right.”
“I’ll need some money for that.”
“How much?”
“It’s twenty-eight cents a gallon. I ought to put in forty gallons anyway. That’s eleven-twenty.”
He got out fifteen dollars.
“Do you want to put the rest on the beer and the ice?” I asked him.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Just put it down against what I owe you.”
I was thinking three weeks was a long time to let him go but if he was good for it what difference was there? He should have paid every week anyway. But I’ve let them run a month and got the money. It was my fault but I was glad to see it run at first. It was only the last few days he made me nervous but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of getting him plugged at me. If he was good for it, the longer he went the better.
“Have a bottle of beer?” he asked me, opening the box.
“No thanks.”
Just then this nigger we had getting bait comes down the dock and I told Eddy to get ready to cast her off.
The nigger cam
e on board with the bait and we cast off and started out of the harbor, the nigger fixing on a couple of mackerel; passing the hook through their mouth, out the gills, slitting the side and then putting the hook through the other side and out, tying the mouth shut on the wire leader and tying the hook good so it couldn’t slip and so the bait would troll smooth without spinning.
He’s a real black nigger, smart and gloomy, with blue voodoo beads around his neck under his shirt and an old straw hat. What he liked to do on board was sleep and read the papers. But he put on a nice bait and he was fast.
“Can’t you put on a bait like that, Captain?” Johnson asked me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do you carry a nigger to do it?”
“When the big fish run you’ll see,” I told him.
“What’s the idea?”
“The nigger can do it faster than I can.”
“Can’t Eddy do it?”
“No, sir.”
“It seems an unnecessary expense to me.” He’d been giving the nigger a dollar a day and the nigger had been on a rumba every night. I could see him getting sleepy already.
“He’s necessary,” I said.
By then we had passed the smacks with their fish cars anchored in front of Cabanas and the skiffs anchored fishing for mutton fish on the rock bottom by the Morro, and I headed her out where the gulf made a dark line. Eddy put the two big teasers out and the nigger had baits on three rods.