She’s all outa sense.”
Tom said,
“Hell!
She’s wore out.
If she don’t get some res’ pretty soon, she ain’ gonna las’. She’s jes’ wore out.
Anybody comin’ with me?
I’m gonna wash, an’ I’m gonna sleep in the shade—all day long.”
He moved away, and the other men followed him.
They took off their clothes in the willows and then they walked into the water and sat down.
For a long time they sat, holding themselves with heels dug into the sand, and only their heads stuck out of the water.
“Jesus, I needed this,” Al said.
He took a handful of sand from the bottom and scrubbed himself with it.
They lay in the water and looked across at the sharp peaks called Needles, and at the white rock mountains of Arizona.
“We come through them,” Pa said in wonder.
Uncle John ducked his head under the water.
“Well, we’re here.
This here’s California, an’ she don’t look so prosperous.”
“Got the desert yet,” said Tom. “An’ I hear she’s a son-of-a-bitch.”
Noah asked,
“Gonna try her tonight?”
“What ya think, Pa?” Tom asked.
“Well, I don’ know.
Do us good to get a little res’, ’specially Granma.
But other ways, I’d kinda like to get acrost her an’ get settled into a job.
On’y got ’bout forty dollars left.
I’ll feel better when we’re all workin’, an’ a little money comin’ in.”
Each man sat in the water and felt the tug of the current.
The preacher let his arms and hands float on the surface.
The bodies were white to the neck and wrists, and burned dark brown on hands and faces, with V’s of brown at the collar bones.
They scratched themselves with sand.
And Noah said lazily,
“Like to jus’ stay here.
Like to lay here forever. Never get hungry an’ never get sad.
Lay in the water all life long, lazy as a brood sow in the mud.”
And Tom, looking at the ragged peaks across the river and the Needles downstream:
“Never seen such tough mountains.
This here’s a murder country.
This here’s the bones of a country.
Wonder if we’ll ever get in a place where folks can live ’thout fightin’ hard scrabble an’ rocks.
I seen pitchers of a country flat an’ green, an’ with little houses like Ma says, white.
Ma got her heart set on a white house.
Get to thinkin’ they ain’t no such country.
I seen pitchers like that.”
Pa said,
“Wait till we get to California. You’ll see nice country then.”
“Jesus Christ, Pa!
This here is California.”
Two men dressed in jeans and sweaty blue shirts came through the willows and looked toward the naked men.
They called,
“How’s the swimmin’?”