The Pirate shook his head. “No: I cannot do that. It is promised. I have nearly a thousand two-bitses. When I have a thousand I will buy a gold candlestick for San Francisco de Assisi.
“Once I had a nice dog, and that dog was sick; and I promised a gold candlestick of one thousand days if that dog would get well. And,” he spread his great hands, “that dog got well.”
“Is it one of these dogs?” Pilon demanded.
“No,” said the Pirate. “A truck ran over him a little later.”
So it was over, all hope of diverting the money. Danny [55] and Pablo morosely lifted the heavy bag of silver quarters, took it in the other room, and put it under the pillow of Danny’s bed. In time they would take a certain pleasure in the knowledge that this money lay under the pillow, but now their defeat was bitter. There was nothing in the world they could do about it. Their chance had come, and it had gone.
The Pirate stood before them, and there were tears of happiness in his eyes, for he had proved his love for his friends.
“To think,” he said, “all those years I lay in that chicken house, and I did not know any pleasure. But now,” he added, “oh, now I am very happy.”
VIII
How Danny’s Friends sought mystic treasure on Saint Andrew’s Eve. How Pilon found it and later how a pair of serge pants changed ownership twice.
IF HE had been a hero, the Portagee would have spent a miserable time in the army. The fact that he was Big Joe Portagee, with a decent training in the Monterey jail, not only saved him the misery of patriotism thwarted, but solidified his conviction that as a man’s days are rightly devoted half to sleeping and half to waking, so a man’s years are rightly spent half in jail and half out. Of the duration of the war, Joe Portagee spent considerably more time in jail than out.
In civilian life one is punished for things one does; but army codes add a new principle to this—they punish a man for things he does not do. Joe Portagee never did figure this out. He didn’t clean his rifle; he didn’t shave; and once or twice, on leave, he didn’t come back. Coupled with these shortcomings was a propensity Big Joe had for genial argument when he was taken to task.
Ordinarily he spent half his time in jail; of two years in [56] the army, he spent eighteen months in jail. And he was far from satisfied with prison life in the army. In the Monterey jail he was accustomed to ease and companionship. In the army he found only work. In Monterey only one charge was ever brought against him: Drunk and Disorderly Conduct. The charges in the army bewildered him so completely that the effect on his mind was probably permanent.
When the war was over, and all the troops were disbanded, Big Joe still had six months’ sentence to serve. The charge had been: “Being drunk on duty. Striking a sergeant with a kerosene can. Denying his identity (he couldn’t remember it, so he denied everything). Stealing two gallons of cooked beans. And going A.W.O.L. on the Major’s horse.”
If the Armistice had not already been signed, Big Joe would probably have been shot. He came home to Monterey long after the other veterans had arrived and had eaten up all the sweets of victory.
When Big Joe swung down from the train, he was dressed in an army overcoat and tunic and a pair of blue serge trousers.
The town hadn’t changed much, except for prohibition; and prohibition hadn’t changed Torrelli’s. Joe traded his overcoat for a gallon of wine and went out to find his friends.
True friends he found none that night, but in Monterey he found no lack of those vile and false harpies and pimps who are ever ready to lead men into the pit. Joe, who was not very moral, had no revulsion for the pit; he liked it.
Before very many hours had passed, his wine was gone, and he had no money; and then the harpies tried to get Joe out of the pit, and he wouldn’t go. He was comfortable there.
When they tried to eject him by force, Big Joe, with a just and terrible resentment, broke all the furniture and all the windows, sent half-clothed girls screaming into the night; and then, as an afterthought, set fire to the house. It was not a safe thing to lead Joe into temptation; he had no resistance to it at all.
A policeman finally interfered and took him in hand. The Portagee sighed happily. He was home again.
[57] After a short and juryless trial, in which he was sentenced to thirty days, Joe lay luxuriously on his leather cot and slept heavily for one-tenth of his sentence.
The Portagee liked the Monterey jail. It was a place to meet people. If he stayed there long enough, all his friends were in and out. The time passed quickly. He was a little sad when he had to go, but his sadness was tempered with the knowledge that it was very easy to get back again.
He would have liked to go into the pit again, but he had no money and no wine. He combed the streets for his old friends, Pilon and Danny and Pablo, and could not find them. The police sergeant said he hadn’t booked them for a long time.
“They must be dead,” said the Portagee.
He wandered sadly to Torrelli’s, but Torrelli was not friendly toward men who had neither money nor barterable property, and he gave Big Joe little solace; but Torrelli did say that Danny had inherited a house on Tortilla Flat, and that all his friends lived there with him.
Affection and a desire to see his friends came to Big Joe. In the evening he wandered up toward Tortilla Flat to find Danny and Pilon. It was dusk as he walked up the street, and on the way he met Pilon, hurrying by in a businesslike way.
“Ai, Pilon. I was just coming to see you.”
“Hello, Joe Portagee.” Pilon was brusque. “Where you been?”
“In the army,” said Joe.
Pilon’s mind was not on the meeting. “I have to go on.”
“I will go with you,” said Joe.
Pilon stopped and surveyed him. “Don’t you remember what night it is?” he asked.
“No. What is it?”
“It is Saint Andrew’s Eve.”
Then the Portagee knew; for this was the night when every paisano who wasn’t in jail wandered restlessly through the forest. This was the night when all buried treasure sent up a faint phosphorescent glow through the ground. There was plenty of treasure in the woods too. Monterey had been invaded many times in two hundred years, and each time valuables had been hidden in the earth.
[58] The night was clear. Pilon had emerged from his hard daily shell, as he did now and then. He was the idealist tonight, the giver of gifts. This night he was engaged in a mission of kindness.
“You may come with me, Big Joe Portagee, but if we find any treasure I must decide what to do with it: If you do not agree, you can go by yourself and look for your own treasure.”
Big Joe was not an expert at directing his own efforts. “I will go with you, Pilon,” he said. “I don’t care about the treasure.”
The night came down as they walked into the forest. Their feet found the pine-needle beds. Now Pilon knew it for a perfect night. A high fog covered the sky, and behind it the moon shone, so that the forest was filled with a gauze-like light. There was none of the sharp outline we think of as reality. The tree trunks were not black columns of wood, but soft and unsubstantial shadows. The patches of brush were formless and shifting in the queer light. Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it.
Now and then Pilon and Big Joe passed other searchers who wandered restlessly, zigzagging among the pines. Their heads were down, and they moved silently and passed no greeting. Who could say whether all of them were really living men? Joe and Pilon knew that some were shades of those old folk who had buried the treasures; and who, on Saint Andrew’s Eve, wandered back to the earth to see that their gold was undisturbed. Pilon wore his saint’s medallion, hung around his neck, outside his clothes; so he had no fear of the spirits. Big Joe walked with his fingers crossed in the Holy Sign. Although they might be frightened, they knew they had protection more than adequate to cope with the unearthly night.