There was an embarrassed silence. Candy stole a look at Lennie. Then he coughed. “Why . . . . Curley . . . . he got his han’ caught in a machine, ma’am. Butt his ban’.”
She watched for a moment, and then she laughed. “Baloney! What you think you’re sellin’ me? Curley started som’pin’ he didn’ finish. Caught in a machine -baloney! Why, he ain’t give nobody the good of onetwo since he got his ban’ bust. Who bust him?”
Candy repeated sullenly, “Got it caught in a machine.”
“Awright,” she said contemptuously. “Awright, cover ‘im up if ya wanta. Whatta I care? You bindle bums think you’re so damn good. Whatta ya think I am, a kid? I tell ya I could of went with shows. Not jus’ one, neither. An’ a guy tol’ me he could put me in pitchers. . . :’ She was breathless with indignation. “Sat’iday night. Ever’body out doin’ som’pin’. Ever’body! An’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs-a nigger an’ a dum-dum and a lousy of sheep-n’ Orin’ it because they ain’t nobody else.”
Lennie watched her, his mouth half open. Crooks had retired into the terrible protective dignity of the Negro. But a change came over old Candy. He stood up suddenly and knocked his nail keg over backward. “I had enough,” he said angrily. “You ain’t wanted here. We told you you ain’t. An’ I tell ya, you got floozy idears about what us guys amounts to. You ain’t got sense enough in that chicken head to even see that we ain’t stiffs. S’pose you get us canned. S’pose you do. You think we’ll hit the highway an’ look for another lousy two-bit job like this. You don’t know that we got our own ranch to go to, an’ our own house. We ain’t got to stay here. We gotta house and chickens an’ fruit trees an’ a place a hunderd time prettier than this. An’ we got fren’s, that’s what we got. Maybe there was a time when we was scared of gettin’ canned, but we ain’t no more. We got our own lan’, and it’s ours, an’ we c’n go to it”
Curley’s wife laughed at him. “Baloney,” she said. “I seen too many you guys. If you had two bits in the worl’, why you’d be in gettin’ two shots of corn with it and suckin’ the bottom of the glass. I know you guys.”
Candy’s face had grown redder and redder, but before she was done speaking, he had control of himself. He was the master of the situation. “I might of knew,” he said gently. “Maybe you just better go along an’ roll your hoop. We ain’t got nothing to say to you at all. We know what we got, and we don’t care whether you know it or not. So maybe you better jus’ scatter along now, ’cause Curley maybe ain’t gonna like his wife out in the barn with us `bindle stiffs.”‘
She looked from one face to another, and they were all closed against her. And she looked longest at Lennie, until he dropped his eyes in embarrassment. Suddenly she said, “Where’d you get them bruises on your face?”
Lennie looked up guiltily. “Who-me?”
“Yeah, you.”
Lennie looked to Candy for help, and then he looked at his lap again. “He got his han’ caught in a machine,” he said.
Curley’s wife laughed. “O.K., Machine. I’ll talk to you later. I like machines.”
Candy broke in. “You let this guy alone. Don’t you do no messing aroun’ with him. I’m gonna tell George what you says. George won’t have you messin’ with Lennie.”
“Who’s George?” she asked. “The little guy you come with?”
Lennie smiled happily. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s the guy, an’ he’s gonna let me tend the rabbits.”
“Well, if that’s all you want, I might get a couple rabbits myself.”
Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. “I had enough,” he said coldly. “You got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus’ get out, an’ get out quick. If you don’t, I’m gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more.”
She turned on him in scorn. “Listen, Nigger,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open. your trap?”
Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.
She closed on him. “You know what I could do?”
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed? himself against the wall. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”
Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego-nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, “Yes, ma’am,” and his voice was toneless.
For a moment she stood over him. as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two.
Old Candy was watching her, fascinated. “If you was to do that, we’d tell,” he said quietly. “We’d tell about you framin’ Crooks.”
“Tell an’ be damned,” she cried. “Nobody’d listen to you, an’ you know it. Nobody’d listen to you.”
Candy subsided. “No …” he agreed. “Nobody’d listen to us.”
Lennie whined, “I wisht George was here. I wisht George was here.”
Candy stepped over to him. “Don’t you worry none,” he said. “I jus’ heard the guys comin’ in. George’ll be in the bunk house right now, I bet.” He turned to Curley’s wife. “You better go home now,” he said quietly. “If you go right now, we won’t tell Curley you was here.”
She appraised him coolly. “I ain’t sure you heard nothing.”
“Better not take no chances,” he said. “If you ain’t sure, you better take the safe way.”
She turned to Lennie. “I’m glad you bust up Curley a little bit. He got it comin’ to him. Sometimes I’d like to bust him myself.” She slipped out the door and disappeared into the dark barn. And while she went through the barn, the halter chains rattled, and some horses snorted and some stamped their feet.
Crooks seemed to come slowly out of the layers of protection he bad put on. “Was that the truth what you said about the guys come back?” he asked.
“Sure. I heard ’em.”
“Well, I didn’t hear nothing.”
“The gate banged,” Candy said, and he went on, “Jesus Christ, Curley’s wife can move quiet. I guess she had a lot of practice, though.”
Crooks avoided the whole subject now. “Maybe you guys better go,” he said. “I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ’em.”
Candy said, “That bitch didn’t ought to of said that to you.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Crooks said dully. “You guys comin’ in an’ settin’ made me forget. What she says is true.”
The horses snorted out in the barn and the chains rang and a voice called, “Lennie. Oh, Lennie. You in the barn?”
“It’s George,” Lennie cried. And he answered, “Here, George. I’m right in here.”
In a second George stood framed in the door, and he looked disapprovingly about. “What you doin’ in Crooks’ room? You hadn’t ought to lie here.”
Crooks nodded “I tol’ ’em, but they come in anyways.”
“Well, why’n’t you kick’em out?”
“I di’n’t care much,” said Crooks. “Lennie’s a nice fella.”
Now Candy aroused himself. “Oh, George! I been figurin’ and figurin’. I got it doped out how we can even make some money on them rabbits.”
George scowled. “I thought I tol’ you not to tell nobody about that.”
Candy was crestfallen. “Didn’t tell nobody but Crooks.”
George said, “Well you guys get outta here. Jesus, seems like I can’t go away for a minute.”
Candy and Lennie stood up and went toward the door. Crooks called, “Candy!”
“Huh?”
“‘Member what I said about hoein’ and doin’ odd jobs?”
“Yeah,” said Candy. “I remember.”
“Well, jus’ forget it,” said Crooks. “I didn’ mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’ want to go no place like that.”
“Well, O.K., if you feel like that. Good-night”
The three men went out of the door. As they went through the barn the horses snorted and the halter chains rattled.
Crooks sat on his bunk and looked at the door’ for a moment, and then he reached for the liniment bottle. He pulled out his shirt in back, poured a little, liniment in his pink palm and, reaching around, he, fell slowly to rubbing his back.
CHAPTER 5
ONE end of the great barn was piled high with new hay and over the pile hung the four-taloned jackson fork suspended from its pulley. The hay came down like a mountain slope to the other end of the barn, and there was a level place as yet unfilled with the new crop. At the sides the feeding racks were visible, and between the slats the heads of horses could be seen.