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Robinson Jeffers - Give Your Heart To The Hawks
Work rating: Low

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I
The apples hung until a wind at the equinox,
That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass
Under the old trees with rosy fruit.
In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a basket,
The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.
                                        Her husband`s brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy`s
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. "Michael, you beast." She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.
                                  Fayne snatched for it and missed;
Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small
Finely cut features in a dance of delight;
Fayne with one sweep flung at his face
All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,
A fragrant volley, and while he staggered under it,
The hat fallen from his head, she found one thoroughly
Soft-rotten, brown in the long white grass, and threw
For the crown of his dark head but perfectly missed,
Crying "Quits. We`re even." They stood and warily smiled at each other
In the heavy-sweet apple air.
                                             The garden was sunken lower than
the little fields; it had many fragrances
And its own shadow, while the cows lay in the stream-bed, large
sycamore leaves dropped on their flanks; the yellow
Heads of the hills quivered with sun and the straining sea-glare.
Fayne said, "Where did it go, poor thing?"
Looking for the little serpent. Michael said gravely, "That`s to
remember me by. I wish I could do worse.
I`m going away." "What?" "From here again."
"Oh, no." "I am, though." "No, Michael."
"Freckles," he answered, "didn`t it ever occur to you
That it`s fairly dull here? I`m going up to town again.
I`ve got to earn money and spend it and hear the motors."
She said dismally, "What about me? Who`ll there be to talk to?"
"Lance, of course." "I love him dearly; he`s not fun exactly.
He wouldn`t stick a rattlesnake up my leg."
"Gopher-snake," he shouted. They stood and laughed at each
other,
And Michael: "I was over the ridge to Drunken Charlie`s,
Fixing up a little party for Saturday.
There`ll be a moon in the evening. I leave Monday."
Fayne said unhappily, "Help me pick up the apples
I poured on you."

II
                                 Michael was taking Mary Abbey;
The Dolmans came, and Will Howard with two girls,
And Leo Ramirez with his sister Nell, so that the youth
Of the coast was all there. They met at Erasers`
And crossed the ridge; and were picketing the horses
Where they could ride no farther, on the airy brink
Above the great slides of the thousand-foot cliff.
They were very gay, colorful mites on the edge of the world.
The men divided the pack to carry;
Lance Eraser, being strongest, took most.
                                                                 Far down below, the
broad ocean burned like a vast cat`s eye
Pupilled by the track of sun; but eastward, beyond the white-grassed
hump of the ridge, the day moon stood bleak
And badly shaped, face of stained clay, above the limestone fang
of one of the Ventana mountains
Just its own color. Lance, looking back, saw his wife talking to
Michael, her cinnabar-colored hair
Like a flag of life against the pale east. That moment he saw the
horses plunging against the sky
And heard a noise like a sharp head of water from a narrow pipe;
a girl cried out,
Lance dropped his pack and returned. Will Howard was looking
for stones
But found none, but Lance found a burnt fence-post, relic of an
ancient fire. The snake lay with raised head,
The rattle of its tail making that noise of sharp water running; a
big rattler, but very small
At bay in the circle of the laughing men. Lance struck for its head,
but the snake that moment struck at the rope`s end
That Michael was flicking at it, so that Lance`s blow failed, the
fence-post broke to bits in his hand,
The snake not harmed; then Michael laughing with pleasure
whipped the creature to death with the doubled rope
And set his heel on the head; Lance damned all rotten wood, his
blond face flushing
Dark through the sunburn. Michael cut off the victim`s
Tail with the ten rattles to give to Mary;
The other young men quieted the horses, and caught
One that had dragged away the bush it was tied to.
Lance would not wait, he picked up his pack and went
Alone down the zigzag path; but after a moment
His temper cleared.
                               Far down, short of the cat`s-eye ocean, they
saw like a brown pebble
Drunken Charlie`s hut in a gorge of the cliff, a feather of smoke,
and his boat like a split berry
Of bladdery seaweed up the thin strand; and Lance stood waiting
down the wild cliffside, his light-brown hair
Golden with sun, his hat and the pack laid down. The warm wind
up the mountain was wild with fragrance,
Chiefly the scent of the chiya bushes, that wear rosettes of seed
Strung on the stem. The girls squealed as they scrambled down,
when the brittle trap-rock broke underfoot,
Small fragments ran over on the next below. When they came to
the foot of the cliff Michael said, "Now," and offered
A bottle hot from his pocket. "It`s time." Mary Abbey refused
it but the others drank, from mouth to mouth,
Stinging fire from the slobbered bottle-neck.
                                                                       The sun was low
But had played all day on this southwestward
Cliff over the burning-glass water and the air
Still swirled with heat; the headland of Eraser`s Point
Stopped off the trade-wind here. Fayne Fraser a little dizzily
Looked seaward, left of the blazing sun-track, and saw the track
of the northwest gale and the running waves
Like an endless army of horse with banners going by offshore;
her eyes followed them, a ruled line southward
Of violent water, converging toward the bronze headland beyond
headland of the mountain coast; and someone was saying,
"It`s hot, we`ll swim." "Before we eat," someone said.
The girls twittered together and clustered northward
To a little cove beyond a fair spit of rock;
The men remained on this side.
                                                                Fayne undressed beside Mary
Abbey,
And was careful of words, because she`d sucked from the bottle
more than she meant to, and had small experience of drinking.
She said carefully, "Where did those girls of Will Howard`s
come from?" "Nina told me," she answered; "waitresses
Down from the city on their vacation." "Honestly are they? I
guessed it." "No," Mary said, "they`re nice girls."
"That yellow-haired one, she`s bad." "No," Mary said. Fayne
said, "Did you see her face when she looked at Michael
Across that bottle?" "Oh, no," Mary answered. ". . . Well. Are
you ready, Mary? Let`s go."
They limped down to the waves, giggling and wincing.
Fayne had tied a broad handkerchief around her hair
To shed the spray; she swam out farther than others,
Mary remained along shore.
                                                The other side of the rock-spit
The men had bathed, and had come up strand again
To dry by the driftwood fire; all except Michael,
Who loved to swim. Lance Fraser stood by the fire, his broad
smooth chest, grooved between the square plates
Of heavy muscle, steamed and was ruddy in the glowing heat. He
narrowed his eyes to look seaward
And saw Michael`s left arm, over the speck of his head, lift, reach and dip,
Swimming side-stroke; two white arms flashing swanlike on either
side of a handkerchief-hooded head
Emerged from the scales of light on the edge of the sun-dazzle.
The swimmers approached each other,
And met this side the long brown stain of the breathing kelp-bed.
Lance frowned,
But only thinking that they were too far out
And making a show of themselves.
On the pleasant water
Michael had called to Fayne, "I`ve something for you.
Come here a minute." She hardly dared, and thought
In the flashing joy of the sea, "Oh, the water covers us.
What have you got?" "Gin for girls.
We`ve got a fire on this side." They met laughing,
And reached the bottle from hand to hand and floated decorously
Separate again. Fayne looked toward shore, and saw the vast
cliff in the flare of sundown soaring above
Like beaten gold, the imperfect moon-disk gold on its brow; the
tiny distinct white shapes of men
Around their spot of fire in the flat blue sea-shadow. She breathed
hard and said,
"My God, how beautiful. Oh, Michael, stay here at home."
He answered with a watery yell of pleasure, submerging his mouth
To roar as the sea-lions do.
Fayne trailed the bottle
And swam ashore. There was nothing to dry herself with;
The chill of the water had touched her blood, she sucked breath gustily
Through clicking teeth. She sipped from the salted bottle,
And dressed, but shivered still.
She sunned herself by the fire,
Watching with fascinated speculation of pain
The antennae of lobsters like spikes of jointed grass
Above the heating water in a five-gallon tin
Writhe at the sky, lives unable to scream.

III
Under the vast calm vaulting glory of the afterglow, low smoky
rose and delicately
Stratified amber, soaring purple; then rose again, luminous and
virginal, floating the moon,
High up a scoured hollow of the cliff
Cormorants were settling to roost on the jags and ledges.
They writhed long Negro snake-throats and shot
Sharp heads at each other, shaking out sooty wings
And angry complaining cries.
                                                   Below, on the thread of beach,
The lonely fisherman who was called Drunken Charlie,
Fire glowing on his drugged eyes, wide beard and lank hair,
Turned meat on the grid over the barbecue-pit
And talked to himself all the time. Michael Fraser knelt
By a turned chest that served for table and poured
From a jug into cups, fierce new distillate
From Charlie`s cliff-hidden kettle.
Fayne Fraser shook half-dried hair,
The color of the coals at the heart of the fire
But darkening as light decreased, and went to Lance
Who stood alone at the waves` edge, turning his back on the
world, and the wet sand
Raised by his weight on either side of his foot-soles ran water and
glistened in the still light. Fayne said
"Are you cross, dear?" She pushed up his rolled sleeve and clasped
her fingers on the broad trunk of his arm
Above the elbow, "Dear, are you sad?" "I? No," he said, "What
about?" "You haven`t spoken to anyone
Since we were swimming." "Why should I? You were out too
far, though." "Oh, I can swim.
And Michael was there to help me if I`d got tired." "By God, no,"
Lance said, with a sharp vision in his mind
Of her bright nakedness, the shining whiteness and the red hair.
She understood and said softly, "Well,
I didn`t need help. But he`s our brother." "Certainly; I didn`t
mind him," he answered. "But I did hate
To think that rabble of girls could look at you; it isn`t decent."
She said, "They didn`t seem interested.
Come, drink and eat. Those waitress women are passing the paper
plates." He saw that vision once more,
The form and whiteness, the little gay-colored flower of the
pubic hair, and groaned, as a thick bull
Alone in the field groans to himself, not knowing why the hot
brow and the hooves itch for destruction.
Fayne to cure his unhappiness hasted and returned
Fetching two cups of the fire Michael was pouring.
                                                                               After they had
eaten, twilight and moonlight came;
The fire burned smaller and brighter; they were twelve around
it; and drinks were poured. The bearded fisherman seemed
Stiffly asleep, with open eyes like a drowned man`s
Glazed by the yellow firelight. Tom Dolman and Leo Ramirez
Roughed at each other, and Nina Dolman
Sitting between them cried out; then Michael said,
"Get up and wrestle." All but the fisherman turned
To watch them circle clumsily on the damp sand
And suddenly lock, into one quadruped body reeling
Against the dark band of ocean and the low sky.
Ramirez had the low hold but Dolman was the heavier man;
They tugged and sobbed; Ramirez was lifted high
And writhed on the other`s shoulder by the evening star,
But the strained column staggered and crumbled, the Spaniard
Fell uppermost and was the first to rise up.
Michael asked very gravely, "Who was the winner?
The winner may challenge Lance." Ramirez gasping and laughing
Said, "Drunk; not to that extent." "Then gather firewood.
The fire`s got low."
The yellow-haired one of the two girls Will Howard had brought
Sat in the sand beside Lance Fraser; she leaned on his shoulder
and held a cup to his mouth and said
"Please drink it for me: things are beginning to go `round in
circles." He drank; then Fayne on his other side
Grew suddenly cool and quite clear; she leaned across him and
said, "That hair in the cup! Well, you drank it.
Her bleaches have made it brittle so it keeps falling." "Oh," the
other gasped, "that`s not true." "It`s pretty," Fayne said,
"Only the black half inch at the roots. Is your name Lois? What`s
your name?" "Lois." "Lean the other way,
Lois." Then Lance said angrily, "Be quiet, will you," and got up
To fetch more firewood.
                                       A timber from one of the four ships
That have broken in half a century off Fraser`s Point
Lay near and dry; Ramirez and Howard had brought it,
But the axe was lost in the sand. Lance up-ended it,
An ivory-white pillar under the moon,
Garnished with great iron bolts. He wedged his fingers
Into a crack and suddenly straining tore it in two;
The splitting made a great noise under the cliff,
The sea being quiet. Lance felt himself curiously
Numbed, as if the sharp effort had strained the whiskey
Out of his blood through the sheathes of his nerves;
His body obeyed as ever but felt a distance
Blocked off and alien. He took the halves of the timber
Under each arm and a bolt in his hand,
For two or three had fallen out of the wood,
This one straight, long and heavy. After he had laid
His logs on the fire he saw the fisherman`s
Firelight-discolored eyes, and called "Hey! Charlie."
Still the man slept. Lance, wavering a little, reached
Over Will Howard`s shoulder and took the cup from his hand,
Drank half, poured the other half on Charlie`s long hair;
It dribbled into his beard; he coughed and awoke.
Lance said "D`you ever have rattlesnakes down here?
I snicked at one up the cliff with a rotten stick;
But this`d fix `em." He gave him the iron bar;
Charlie posted it carefully up in the sand
Between his feet and answered, "Mm; but there`s Injuns."
"What?" "All that was cleared out of the country.
Where did you think they got to? They ain`t got ships.
Down here they are." The dark-haired girl that Will Howard
had brought
Suddenly stood up from the fire, she went toward the sea and
was heard vomiting. Charlie nodded and said,
"There`s one o` them now. Most nights I see their fires away
down the beach." Mary Abbey whispered to Michael,
"Don`t take any more. Time to go home." "Ah no," he said,
"dear, we just got here." Fayne came to Lance
And said, "Don`t drink any more. Time to go home." He answered
briskly, "Since when are you giving orders?"
"Since you`re not fit to." She knew while the words made in her
throat, "Now he`ll be angry," a pale rush of anger
Ran to meet his; the memory of all his bad-tempered times, his
heavy earnestness and lack of laughter,
Pierced like a mountain-peak the cloud in her mind, "Oh, I do
hate you."
He stared, more astonished than angry, and saw her face
Lean, sharp, bled white, each freckle black as a mole
Against its moon-gleam pallor. "That`s how you feel, ah?"
He turned his back. She thought, "He`ll never forgive me:
Let him not," and saw the Dolmans, Nina and Tom,
Seeking the way up the cliff, Mary Abbey with them,
Fayne went and said, "Michael, I`ve lost my cup,
Aren`t there any more cups?" "I`ll hold the jug:
You hold your mouth." "Oo, I need water with it."
"No, you don`t." Half of the sip went strangling
Into her throat, half ran by her little chin
And trickled between her breasts. She looked at the fire,
Then at the moon, both blurred fantastically,
Red burrowed, white wavered high. Michael said, "My girl`s
gone."
Fayne said, "Oh, and yours?" He said "That`s no sense. That`s very."
She laughed and answered, "They don`t."
                                                                  The moon suspended
in her great antelope-leap from the head of the cliff
Hung pouring whiteness along the narrow runway of sand and
slide-rock under the continent`s foot,
A watery glittering and secret place, walled from the world,
closed by the cliff, ditched by the ocean.
Drunken Charlie dreamed by the dying fire;
Will Howard and Nell Ramirez were one slight point
Far down the white beach. Yellow-haired Lois
Spilled her drink and said, "Seeing is believing.
Come on, I`ll show you." She smiled at Lance, "Come, dear.
Sadie`s passed out; it`s all right wi` Sadie,"
And to Leo Ramirez, "Come if you like, dark boy."
He swayed and stammered, "Responsible; Sister Nell.
Keep an eye on young sister." "Ah, go and find her."
"Not till I see the picture on Sadie`s stomach."
They wandered toward Drunken Charlie`s little hollow skiff
And its black shadow, drawn up the moonlight strand.
Lance thought, "Here`s a boat, let`s break it," and thought with
an ache of shame,
"I wouldn`t think that, only being drunk." The center of his
mind made savage war on rebellious out-liers
In breathless darkness behind the sweating forehead; while Leo
Ramirez, seeing the bright fish-scales glued
With blood and slime to the boat-thwarts glitter like a night of
stars, began to sing a stale song: "We`ll always,
Be young and gay. We`ll always, feel that way." Lois said "Shut
up," and led them around the boat,
Her friend lay in the moonlight nestled against it. Lois knelt
down and gently drew her by the shoulder;
She groaned in her sleep, resisting. Lois laughed, "The boys want
to see it, Sadie," and tugged, and turned her
Onto her back, the stained pale face up to the moonlight; the
teeth in the opened mouth glittered,
And sour breath crossed them, while Lois turned up the blouse,
loosened the band and jerked up the linen shift
To show a three-masted sailing-ship tattooed with black and red
inks on the soft white belly
Below the breasts. "My God," Ramirez said, "there it is."
Lois answered, "A fellow dared her," and looked for Lance,
Who trembled and said, "Cover her up, damn you."
Lois blinking drew down the blouse. Ramirez giggled,
"My God, a U. S. flag at the peak," and reached
Over Lois`s shoulder to raise the cloth;
Lance struck and felled him, and stepping across him fallen
Leaned and strode toward the cliff and the red coals
That had been the fire.
                                     Drunken Charlie lay on the sand,
The iron bolt erect by his feet; Lance caught it up
And smashed the jug, and saw the remnant of whiskey
Glitter among the shards to sink into sand.
He ground his teeth; he saw in his mind in the stream of images
A second jug, and began to search for it.
                                                                The tide had fallen, the
steep ribbon of beach was but little wider,
But the sea was become so flattened that no waves flashed. Enormous
peace of the sea, white quiet of the cliff,
And at their angle and focus a few faint specks of humanity
happy in liquor or released in sleep,
But Lance alone. Then noises like the cries of a woman screaming,
bird after bird of sharp-colored sound
Flew on the face of the cliff, tattered wild wings against jagged
rocks. On the cliffhead the patient horses
Turned their ears, grooving small wrinkles about the roots of the
cartilage, but did not lift up their heads;
And the sea was not moved, nor the moonlight quivered. Will
Howard was lying beside Nell Ramirez; they`d fallen asleep
Before he had his desire; they sighed and stirred in the sand. He
murmured "Oh, somebody`s got hysterics,"
And wriggled his fingers, which had grown painfully numb
between her plump knees. But Lois, Leo Ramirez
And Drunken Charlie heard the sounds nearer; they went in a
wind of fear to find out their fountain,
And Sadie awoke in the sand and followed heavily,
Falling but once, catching her clothes that slipped,
Whining at the hollow pain in her skull.
                                                                Beyond a rock
Stood Lance, high white in the moon-glaze, distorted, taller than human;
Lois said, "Dearie?" He babbled, "Oh Jesus Christ Oh Jesus
Christ Oh Jesus Christ,"
Behind him in a great shadow of her hair darkened
By the rock-shadow Fayne turned her white wedge of face
With three holes in it. She was kneeling, bent S-shape,
And seemed to stare up from the very ground. She said, "I think
It is finished. Water please. Water please.
He fell down from the cliff." Then Michael`s feet were seen,
And thence the prone extended ridge of his body
Ending indefinitely under Fayne`s face.
Lois cried, "He`s hurt." But they dared not approach
For Lance standing between, high and twisted
Like a dead tree. Lance said, "I . . ." Fayne cried,
"He fell down from the cliff." They all stood silent,
Lois`s mouth opened and closed on silence
Three times, then asked, "Is he hurt?" Lance said, "Oh Christ.
I ..." Fayne cried so that his words were hidden,
And stood up and said, "He has died. Michael.
He was climbing the cliff and fell, his foot caught on that bush;
He struck his head on that rock, on that edge of rock.
It is all broken in. Oh, we loved him."
Ramirez said, "What for did he climb up there?"
"Have we drunk waterY* Fayne said. But Lance began
To shake, like a tall dead mast of redwood that men are felling,
It is half cut through, each dip of the axe the sonorous timber
quivers from the root up to the cloud,
He said "I caught them . . ." "He caught him," Fayne cried,
"when he fell but he could not save him." "I killed . . ."
"You are wild with sorrow
He fell head down whether you`d tried to catch him or not.
You are not to blame." He said, "It is horrible
To hear the lies from her mouth like bees from a hot hive: I am
the one," but Fayne running to him
Made an animal moan in her throat in time to hide what he said.
She came to Lance, and her face
Like a held spear, and said, "Drunkard.
Too drunk to be understood. Keep still until you can talk and be
understood." He drew backward from her,
Shuddering like a horse from a snake, but when his back was
against the rock he stammered, "I
Will find my time." "Yes," she answered, "be quiet now. Tomorrow
when you are better they`ll understand you."
"Is he dead?" "Keep still. Will you shame his end
With drunkard babbling? For he was the dearest," she said, "in
the world to all of us. Lovelier than morning light
On the mountain before the morning. There is not one of us
would not have died for him: I would, I would, I would,"
She cried writhing, "but not lose Lance too. How can I plan to
save him, I`ve got what I can`t bear?
You are all our friends."
She set her hands in the masses of red-dark hair, dark in the
moonlight, and tearing it, with her white face
To the white moon: "That eye`s blind. Like Juan Arriba`s old
mare he used to beat on the face,
Her eyes froze white like that. He was larking on the cliff and
fell." She seemed to be treading a tragic dance,
She was scuffling sand to cover the bolt of shipwreck that lay in
the shadow of the rock; she wrung her hands
And knelt moaning by Michael`s head; she rose with blood on her
hand and fibers of hair, and ran
To the rock under the cliff. "This rock killed him. He fell on this
edge," she drew her hand on the edge
And the rock was stained. Then Sadie was heard gasping from
her poor stained face. One or two looked at her. "O-uh,"
She whispered hoarsely, "we was having fun!"
                                                                         Lance moved at
length, like a dead man walking, toward his dead brother,
And stooped as one stoops to gather a sleeping child. Fayne ran
and said, "No, the man. No, the man.
He has to come." Lance turned toward her his face like a paralyzed man`s
Slack with peace, and said softly, "The man."
"He`d think wrong has been done. I can`t think . . . coroner.
Don`t take him up." "Home?" he said,
Seeming gently surprised; he gathered the body
Into his arms and walked along the foot of the cliff.
Fayne stayed behind a moment, the others following.
She cast quick looks over the rocks and sand;
One end of the rusty bolt was visible still;
She leaned toward it and fell on her face. She labored up
And went ten steps to the ebb and flung the iron
To the water edge.
                                 Lance walked along the foot of the cliff.
He turned, not where the path went up, and walked
Into the face of the cliff, and stood there walking
Like an ox in a tread-mill, until Ramirez
Showed him the path. Fayne went up behind him.
Half way up
He awoke a moment out of his automatism
To feel failure and pain, his breathing like knives, and the failure
Of his eyes; it was impossible to see the path;
He checked a step and fell forward.
                                                          Fayne came up to him
And stood; there was nothing that she could do. They lay
Very peacefully together, Lance`s face
On his brother`s breast. She looked across them;
Terribly far down the moonlight cliff crouched the dark sea.
Ramirez came up and stood. Fayne said they had not the strength
to carry up either of the fallen, and so
They had to wait. They heard a faint breeze through the dry
bushes; and the crying of sea-lions far down below,
Where eight or ten were lying in a circle by the softly heaving
kelp-bed, as their custom is, and gazed
With great mild eyes at the sky and the night of water. Then
they sing in their manner, lifting up sleek
Dark-shining muzzles to the white moon, making a watery noise
of roaring and a lonely crying
For joy of life and the night.
                                              At length Lance
Began to paw with his feet like a dreaming hound,
And some stones fell. He knelt and stood up
And took his burden and went up.
                                                      When they entered the sleeping
farmstead,
Fayne led the horse; Lance held his brother and rode behind him,
It would be hard to tell which one was slain
If the moon shone on their faces. The horse stopped and sighed
By the garden-gate; Lance did not move to dismount,
But sat and held up his brother. Fayne came beside,
Reaching to help; Lance whispered "Ah, ah, thank God."
"What?" "He may be saved, Fayne.
He is hot under the arms and I heard him breathe."
"You heard the horse breathe," she said. They lifted down
The unmanageable weight.
                                             Oh, ignorant penitents,
For surely the cause is too small for so much anguish.
To be drunk is a folly, to kill may call judgment down,
But these are not enormous evils,
And as for your brother, he has not been hurt.
For all the delights he has lost, pain has been saved him;
And the balance is strangely perfect,
And why are you pale with misery?
Because you have saved him from foolish labors and all the vain
days?
From desires denied, and desires staled with attaining,
And from fear of want, and from all diseases, and from fear of
death?
Or because you have kept him from becoming old,
When the teeth drop and the eyes dim and the ears grow dull,
And the man is ashamed?
Surely it is nothing worse to be slain in the overflowing
Than to fall in the emptiness;
And though this moon blisters the night,
Darkness has not died, good darkness will come again;
Sometimes a fog will come in from sea,
Sometimes a cloud will crop all the stars.

IV
The moonlight from the west window was a square cloth
Laid on the floor, with one corner on the bed,
Lying over Michael`s hand; they had taken him
To his own room. Fayne whispered: "Now we must tell them.
Your mother may die-her sick heart.
Don`t let her die too bitterly. For this one night, dear,
Say nothing worse than `Michael`s gone.` Spare her something
Until she has cried. Four hours` mercy. By morning
That heart of hers will be seasoned." Fayne strained in the dark
To see his face. He answered in a short while,
"How many mornings I`ve come in here
And routed him out of bed. He always was a late sleeper.
Sound asleep, Mother." Fayne caught his arm. "Can`t you hear me?"
"You," he said, "keep your hands off! . . . Until morning
I`ll say he fell."
It was not morning, but the moon was down.
The old mother sat by the bed with her hand on Michael`s, regularly
her great fat-swollen body
Jerked with a sob, and tears were spurted from her closed eyes.
Old Fraser sat with his fists evenly
Together on his knees, his bony face held erect, the brown eyes in
their hollows red with lamplight.
Fayne heard the noise of a motor starting and left the room.
He was backing out the big truck,
The shed was full of the headlight glare, the ruby tail-light
glowed by the axle. Before she could come
It had crept out; its light swung up the driveway by the stooping
sycamore
And picked from darkness the heavy timbers of the high corrals
and the white beehives remote on the hill;
Fayne ran down the river of light to the gate and closed it, and
stood in the gate for fear he might smash through;
But Lance came wearily to open; stooping, tall,
Black on the light. She said, "Oh, where?" "You know.
Tell dad to come to Salinas and get the truck;
There wasn`t enough gas in the little one."
She answered, "Can the sheriff make us happy again?
Or the judge make Michael alive again?" "Open the gate."
"Yes, dear. Listen to me. When Arriba and his boys
Stole cows of ours, did you run to the courthouse?
We take care of ourselves down here. What we have done
Has to be borne. It`s in ourselves and there`s no escaping,
The state of California can`t help you bear it.
That`s only a herd of people, the state.
Oh, give your heart to the hawks for a snack o` meat
But not to men." When she touched him with her hands,
Pleading, he sighed and said, "If I`d been nearer
My decent mind, it would have been you, not Michael.
Did y` love him? Or was it only because you`re female
And were drunk, female and drunk?" "Oh. Hush. I was begging him
Not to leave us, as I`m begging you. He promised me, dear.
He said he`d not go away. I kissed him for that; he was our brother;
And you came behind." Lance`s blackness of his leaning bulk
Vibrated in the light-beam. "It`d be a pity for me then.
I can`t see clear, in the dirty streaming memories . . .
Don`t be afraid; your part will be secret.
I`ll say I killed him for nothing, a flea-bite quarrel,
Being beastly drunk." "He was killed," she answered, "for nothing."
"It`s a great pity for me then.
Open the gate." She clung to the timber bolt
To hold it home in the slot, and felt his mind
Tearing itself. "Lance. Lance? Sweetheart:
Believe . . . whatever you need to save you.
I won`t give you up. You can`t remember what happened;
I tell you he fell from the cliff. But if your dreadful
Dream were true, I know you are strong enough
To give your heart to the hawks without a cry
And bear it in lonely silence to the end of life.
What else do you want? Ah. Confession`s a coward
Running to officers, begging help. Not you."
                                                                        She heard
The scrape of slow boots on gravel outside the light-stream,
Across the pulses of the idling motor, and suddenly cried,
"He fell from the cliff." An old man said in the dark,
"They ain`t got consideration. Where was you going
This time o` night, after what`s happened? Your dad wants you.
Your ma`s took bad." Lance moaned and stood still.
Fayne said, "He was going to Lobos to telephone
The doct . . . the coroner. Dearest, you ought to go in.
She suffered great pain before, she was near death.
Old Davie will drive up the coast for you
When daylight comes." "Oh," he said stilly, and turned
His face to the fountains of light; it gleamed without meaning
In the stream of radiance like a stake in a stream,
Except that from exhaustion the pupils of the eyes
Failed to contract, so that their secret interiors
Of their chambers returned the light all sanguine.
At length he kneaded them with his fists and said,
"I can`t see well. You`ll have to help me find the way in.
It`s not a trick of yours, uh?"

V
                                                   His mother lay on the floor,
For Michael`s body lay on the bed. The sun of pain at her heart
had rays like skewers of anguish
Along the left arm and up by the jugular arteries. She dared
not move; her face stood wet-white and still,
With live blue eyes; but the clay-pale lips opened and closed.
Old Eraser had swathed her in hasty blankets.
Fayne entered; Lance behind her stood swaying and stooping
in the door and saw his father
Crouched beside the great cocoon of the blankets; and Michael in
the bed above, and trinkets of Michael`s
That hung on the wall, gleam in the lamplight. The violence of
pain was brief; she whispered "better," and breathed
With greedy shallow passion; her eyes found Lance.
                                                                                  Daylight
grayed slowly into the room;
The lamp ran dry unnoticed. Lance and his father
Labored and carried the heavy old woman to bed.
Fayne brought them food, but Lance refused it. In the afternoon
He walked outdoors for a time, but nothing farther
Than the cattle-pens. Fayne must have been watching for him,
Because she went and walked by his side, and said,
When they were turned from the house, "Mary Abbey was here.
It seems she expected to marry Michael, though he never told us.
She cried a lot." Lance made no sign of hearing her.
Fayne said, looking up sidelong at his cheek and jaw,
Where the flesh hung thin on the bone: "Her griefs not
Like ours, forever; but sharp at present. If she ever
Imagined that you . . . how could we bear her looks? You are
too strong, dear,
To lay on weaker persons a burden
That you alone ought to bear." He strode faster
And stopped, muttering, "He lies up there, like that.
And my mother, like that; and I have done it;
And you talk about Mary Abbey." Fayne said, "I have no time
To choose names, for a man is coming to-day
To question us. He`s sent for. I have to tell you that you must
choose whether to relieve
Your own weakness , . . conscience I mean ... by easy confession,
Or bear the whole weight unhelped. The first way`s easy; you`ll
be acquitted; you`ll be left humbled and soiled,
But free; for confession is not enough; and you were too lost to
remember anything clearly; and I
Am the one witness. I saw him climb on the cliff and fall. So your
conscience will be well comforted,
And fairly cheap. Only your mother perhaps will die of it; your
father and I will swallow our portion;
And the crowd at Salinas
Will have had a good time watching your face in court. It would
be harder, if you’ve a snake in your heart,
To keep it shut there."
                                          He was silent, and drew sharp breath and
said, "A red-haired one. Ah.
A white one with a red brush. Did you do it with him
Or not?" "Leave that," she said stilly; "this choice is now?
He groaned and answered, "My mind`s not quick like yours.
. . . I`ll not lie to them." "Let me show your mind to you;
Be patient a moment still; if I seem cruel,
That`s to save, all that`s left. Look at yourself:
A man who believes his own sweet brother`s blood
Lies on his hands: yet
Too scrupulous to tell a lie, for his mother`s life.
Our minds are wonderful." He meditated, and answered
Heavily, "The sunlight seems dull but red.
What makes it red?" "Your eyes are sick of not sleeping;
Or there`s a forest-fire in the south." "Our minds? Little bottles
That hold all hell. I seem too tired to feel it, though.
I`ll think, I`ll think."
"You have no time for thinking. He will come probably
Within this hour." "Who? Let him come. I`ll tell him
God made them male and female but men have made
So-and-so ... I fall asleep while I talk . . . whiskey eh?
Lighted the sticky fire. It`s not possible
I`d ever done it except that I stumbled on you
In the heart of guilt. I know that." "Believe it then,"
She answered shrilly, and stood twitching her lips
In the white freckled face, in the reddish light of her hair,
"If that will help." "Oh," he said.
"... I wish you had picked from another tree."
She answered: "You are to say that you found him dying.
You heard me cry, and he was down by the rock.
Isn`t that the truth exactly, because you remember
No previous thing? You heard me cry out; you came;
Michael was dying or had died. That`s all. You carried him home.
. . , I wish he`d come."
                                       But the man did not come
Until afternoon the next day. Dark weather, for a stagnant ocean
of cloud was hung on the sky,
And what light shone came colored like the taste of metal through
smoke of burning forests far to the south,
That veiled the coast, so that it seemed brown twilight
In the house, in Michael`s room. A lamp was lighted,
The death-wound viewed. "Who saw him fall?" "I alone.
My husband and others came when I cried." "Where is your husband?"
"With his mother," she answered faintly. "She had an attack,
Her heart, angina, and has to lie still. Shall I
Call him, sir?" her voice hardening, her eyes
Growing hard and narrow. "Pretty soon. Was this young man
In trouble about anything?" "No." "A girl?" "He was engaged
To Miss Abbey." "They had a quarrel, ah?" "No."
"Did he seem cheerful?" "Very." "They always do.
Yesterday I had to drive by Elkhorn Slough
Because a very cheerful old man opened his throat
With his nephew’s pen-knife. I was two hours
Finding that place; the farmers around there they couldn`t tell you
Whether Jesus Christ died on the cross
Or at the battle of Bull Run."
Old Eraser had stood
Nerveless and dreaming over the livid face
Since they uncovered it; abruptly he turned his head
Above his bowed shoulder, saying "It`s enough.
Dog, blaspheme not. Go to your own place.
My son found death in recklessness, I fear in folly;
Write that and leave us alone; go hence and leave us
To mourn and hope." "Well, Mr. Fraser. You understand . . ."
"I am very patient," the old man said, thrusting
His hollowed face toward the other, the closely set
Inflamed brown eyes pushing like the burnt end of a stick
That has been used to stir fire; the man stepped backward.
"Did he say patient! . . . Well, is your husband here?"
Fayne`s mouth jerked and froze hard, her hands quieted.
"I will call him. Come to the room downstairs."
She said at the foot of the stair, "This way, sir. It`s dark.
Will you have to go ... to see the cliff, to see
The cliff?" "Hm, what`s that?" "Where he fell."
"Can we drive there?" "No, ride and walk." "Look here,"
He said, "I`ve come sixty-five miles already.
You`re sure it was accidental?" "Yes." "Well.
I always try to save the family feelings
When the case is not clear." He tried his pen,
Shook it, and wrote. Fayne watched, quiet and cold, thinking that Lance
Would not have to be questioned; he was saved now;
And saw the man to his car. When he had gone
She thought that now she could laugh or cry if she wanted to,
Now Lance was saved, but her nerves and her mind stood quiet.
She looked at the dusty gate and the dark house-gable
In the stagnant air against the black cloud, and perceived that all
events are exact and were shaped beforehand,
And spaced in a steel frame; when they come up we know them;
there is nothing for excitement.
                                                   She went in,
And found Lance in the dark at the head of the stair, bent forward
like a great bird. "Has he gone, Fayne?"
"Did you know he was here?" "I will live on," he answered,
"seems to be best. I loved him well; he died instantly,
No anger nor pain. Davis has dug a place by the children`s
graves."
                     On account of the dull weather
And closing twilight the group on the hilltop was hardly visible
in their vast scene. It was quite evident
That not only Pico Blanco against the north, and the gray Ventanas,
but even every dry fold
And gully of the humbler hills was almost by an infinite measure
of more importance
Than the few faint figures on the bare height,
The truck, and three saddled horses,
And some persons.
The old man swayed and shook, standing praying
At the head of a dug slot
Beside the pile of pale earth.
The heavy great brown-furred sky that covered all things made
a red point in the west, lost it and darkened,
And the Point Sur lighthouse made a thin stabbing from the
northwest.

Swaying on his heels and toes the old man prayed:
"Oh Lord our God, when thy churches fell off from thee
To go awhoring after organ music,
Singing-women and lecturers, then my people
Came out from among them; and when thy last church,
Thy little band, thy chosen, was turned at length
To lust for wealth and amusement and worldly vanities,
I cried against them and I came forth from among them.
I promised thee in that day that I and my house
Would remain faithful, thou must never despair;
I said, though all men forget thee thou hast a fort
Here in these hills, one candle burning in the infidel world,
And my house is thy people.
My children died,
And I laid them in this place and begot more children
To be thy servants, and I taught them thy ways, but they fell
away from thee.
They found their pleasure among the ungodly, and I believe
They made themselves drunk with wine, and my dear son is fallen.
He died on the shore. One half of the curse of Eli has fallen upon me."
He covered his face with his knotted hands and stood gasping,
And said, "I loved him. Here he is, Lord.
Surely thou hast forgiven his sins as I have forgiven them,
And wilt lift him to thy glory on the last day."
The old man stood silent, lifting his face, and fixed his deep
close-set eyes, like the eyes of an old ape,
Small, dark and melancholy under the bar of the brow, between
the wide cheek-bones, fixed them far off
Across the darkening ridges and ocean upon that single red spot
that waned in the western sky,
And said "The world darkens and the end is coming.
I cannot beget more children; I am old and empty,
And my wife is old. All men have turned their faces away from thee;
I alone am thy church. Lord God, I beseech thee not to despair,
But remember thine ancient power, and smite the ungodly on
their mouths
And the faithless churches with utter destruction. For Jesus`
sake, amen." While he prayed, Fayne watched Lance
With pity and fear; and Mary Abbey, who was there with her father,
Kept stealing glances at Lance through her wet eyelashes.
She whispered to Fayne: "Oh, Lance looks dreadfully.
I never knew he loved him so dreadfully."
Fayne answered, "Yes, he did"; and looked up at Lance
With pity and fear. "He looks as if he`d fall sick,"
Mary said. Fayne answered, "No, he is strong.
He hasn`t eaten since Michael died; maybe
He hasn`t slept." Mary said, wiping her eyes,
"His face is so sad and fine, like carved marble.
They say he carried him all the way home, up that cliff."
The old man ended his prayer, the redwood box
Was lowered with ropes; Lance had the weight at one end,
Old Fraser and Davis at the other. The ropes cut grooves
In the earth edges. While they were shovelling earth,
Mary Abbey, with a sudden abandoned gesture
Of the hand that had the handkerchief in it, ran up to Lance
On the scraped ground. "Don`t grieve so." She reached and touched
His hand on the spade-handle. "It makes me afraid for you.
We all loved him; life has to go on." He jerked his hand,
And looked down at her face with startled eyes
So pale gray-blue that all the light that remained in the world
Under the low black sky seemed to live in them,
Stammering, "No. No. He fell from the cliff." She said, "I know, Lance.
We have to bear it. I loved him too." He gathered his dreaming nerves
Into the bundle again and said, "Oh. All right. Please keep out of
the way for the time.
We have this to do." "Good-bye," she answered patiently. "Father`s
calling me."
                           The pit was filled full and mounded;
Fayne came and said, "What was she saying to you?" "Nothing.
Who?" "Mary Abbey." "I didn`t see her."
"What, Lance? She came and spoke to you." "I`d rather be there
with Michael," he answered. "Dear, you must rouse yourself.
Life has to go on." "Somebody was saying so, I think.
There`s not a hawk in the sky." She answered from a hoarse
throat, "After dark? What are you dreaming?
See, Davie`s turned on the headlights." "I hate them," he said,
"killers, dirty chicken-thieves."
                                                   The farm-truck headlights
Shone on the mounded earth, and cast its enormously lengthened
shadow and the shadows of a few moving
Persons across the world, with the beam of light, over mound
beyond mound of bare autumn hills, and black
Ocean under the black-roofed evening.

VI
                                                                  That night he returned
To lie with Fayne in their bed, but like two strangers
Lying in one bed in a crowded inn, who avoid
Touching each other; but the fifth night
She laid her hand on the smooth strength of his breast,
He pretended to be asleep, she moved against him,
Plucking his throat with her lips. He answered, "After all?
You`re right. If we`re to live in this life
We`ll keep its customs." He approached her confidently,
And had no power. The little irrational anger
At finding himself ridiculous brought to his mind
That worse rage, never before clearly remembered,
But now to the last moment; or imagined. He drew
His limbs from Fayne`s without thinking of her, and lay still,
with shut fists,
Sweating, staring up spirals of awful darkness, that spun away up
and wound over his eyes
Around a hollow gray core with flecks in it. "I am damned unjustly.
I did it in a moment."
                                      But Fayne knew nothing
Of the shut agony beside her; only she was troubled at heart, and
wondering
Whether he had ceased to love her said tenderly, "Sleep,
Darling. I didn`t mean. I didn`t want.
Only I love you." He felt her instinctive hand
Move downward fondling along the flat of his belly.
He set it aside and spoke, so low that her ears
Lost every word between the hair and the pillow.
"What, dearest?" "I know it," he said, "they`re dogs: that was exactly
Fit to tell dogs. I can be damned
At home as well." "Hush, dear." "I don`t make a good murderer,"
He said, "I sweat." She was silent and heard him breathing,
And mourned, "Oh, cover your mind with quietness to-night.
In the morning you`ll face it down again. This will get well with time.
It was really only a dreadful accident." "Very damnable," he said,
"Very true." Fayne said, "We`ll live, sweetheart, to feel it
Only a dreadful accident, and the sad death
Of one we loved." "That`s your smooth skin.
The fires fester on mine. Will you do something
For me?" "Dearest, with all my heart." "An easy kindness:
Shut up your mouth."
                                  He got up after a time;
When he went out she followed, trembling. He turned on her
Outside the door. "I`m not going to Salinas,"
He whispered, "nor bump myself off either.
I`ll not starve your hawks of their snatch o` meat.
Now let me alone for Christ`s sake." She stood and saw him
Against the starlit window at the end steal down
The hallway, go past the stairhead, and enter the empty
Room of his brother. He slept there from that night on,
And seemed to regain calm strength.

VII
                                                              In the course of a month
Rain seemed at hand, the south wind whetting his knife on the
long mountain and wild clouds flying;
Lance and his father set out to burn the hill to make pasture. They
carried fire in forkfuls of straw
Along the base of the south wall of their valley; the horses they
rode snorted against it, and smoke
Boiled, but the seaward end of the hill would only be burnt in
patches. Inland, at the parched end,
A reach of high grass and sage might have led out the fire to the
forest, and Lance rode up
To watch a flame down the wind to black out the danger.
He carried two barley-sacks and went to the Abbeys` trough
At the hill spring to dip them, to beat down the fire`s
Creepings up wind. From that spur of the mountain
He saw the planted pine trees at Abbey`s place,
And riding back with the dipped sacks, the vale
Of his own place, the smoke-mist, and Sycamore Creek
Wound like a long serpent down the small fields.
He set his fires and watched them rage with the wind,
Easily stifling their returns, riding herd
On the black line; then from the base of the hill
Red surf, and the dark spray rolled back by the wind,
Of the other fire came up roaring. The lines met
On the fall of the hill like waves at a river`s mouth
That spout up and kill each other, and hang white spray
On cold clear wind.
A rabbit with blazing fur broke through the back-fire,
Bounding and falling, it passed by Lance and ran
Straight into the stem of a wild lilac bush,
He saw it was blind from the fire, and watching it struggle away
Up its dark pain, saw Mary Abbey coming down the black hill
against the white sky,
Treading on embers. Lance turned and hardened in the saddle,
and saw the vale below him a long trough of smoke
Spilled northward, then Mary came near and said, "I wanted to
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