The Pearl Chapter V

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