But the questions lurked there, ready to spring at him, check and recheck as he would. He saw a sign, 5-COURSE DINNER, 35 CENTS. He still had ninety cents, and went in, ordered steak and fried potatoes, the hungry man’s dream of heaven. He ate, put a ten-cent tip under the plate. He ordered cigarettes, lit one, inhaled. He got up to go. A newspaper was lying on the table.
He froze as he saw the headline:
IV
On the street, he bought a paper, tried to open it under a street light, couldn’t, tucked it under his arm. He found Highway 101, caught a hay truck bound for San Francisco. Going out Sunset Boulevard, it unexpectedly pulled over to the curb and stopped. He looked warily around. Down a side street, about a block away, were the two red lights of a police station. He was tightening to jump and run, but the driver wasn’t looking at the lights. “I told them bums that air hose was leaking. They set you nuts. Supposed to keep the stuff in shape and all they ever do is sit around and play blackjack.”
The driver fished a roll of black tape from his pocket and got out. Lucky sat where he was a few minutes, then climbed down, walked to the glare of the headlights, opened his paper. There it was:
L. R. NOTT, R. R. MAN. KILLED The decapitated body of L. R. Nott, 1327 De Soto Street, a detective assigned to a northbound freight, was found early this morning on the track near San Fernando station. It is believed he lost his balance while the train was shunting cars at the San Fernando siding and fell beneath the wheels. Funeral services will be held tomorrow from the De Soto Street Methodist Church.
Mr. Nott is survived by a widow, formerly Miss Elsie Snowden of Mannerheim, and a son, L. R. Nott, Jr., 5.
He stared at it, refolded the paper, tucked it under his arm, walked back to where the driver was taping the air hose. He was clear, and he knew it. “Boy, do they call you Lucky? Is your name Lucky? I’ll say it is.”
He leaned against the trailer, let his eye wander down the street. He saw the two red lights of the police station-glowing. He looked away quickly. A queer feeling began to stir inside him. He wished the driver would hurry up.
Presently he went back to the headlights again, found the notice, re-read it. He recognized that feeling now; it was the old Sunday-night feeling that he used to have back home, when the bells would ring and he would have to stop playing hide in the twilight, go to church, and hear about the necessity for being saved. It shot through his mind, the time he had played hookey from church, and hid in the livery stable; and how lonely he had felt, because there was nobody to play hide with; and how he had sneaked into church, and stood in the rear to listen to the necessity for being saved.
His eyes twitched back to the red lights, and slowly, shakily, but unswervingly he found himself walking toward them.
“I want to give myself up.”
“Yeah, I know, you’re wanted for grand larceny in Hackensack, New Jersey.”
“No, I—”
“We quit giving them rides when the New Deal come in. Beat it.”
“I killed a man.”
“You—?... When was it you done this?”
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“Near here. San Fernando. It was like this—”
“Hey, wait till I get a card... Okay, what’s your name?
“Ben Fuller.”
“No middle name?”
“They call me Lucky.”
“Lucky like in good luck?”
“Yes, sir... Lucky like in good luck.”
Brush Fire
He banged sparks with his shovel, coughed smoke, cursed the impulse that had led him to heed that rumor down in the railroad yards that CCC money was to be had by all who wanted to fight this fire the papers were full of, up in the hills. Back home he had always heard them called forest fires, but they seemed to be brush fires here in California. So far, all he had got out of it was a suit of denims, a pair of shoes, and a ration of stew, served in an army mess kit. For that he had ridden twenty miles in a jolting truck out from Los Angeles to these parched hills, stood in line an hour to get his stuff, stood in line another hour for the stew, and then labored all night, the flames singeing his hair, the ground burning his feet through the thick brogans, the smoke searing his lungs, until he thought he would go frantic if he didn’t get a whiff of air.
Still the thing went on. Hundreds of them smashed out flames, set backfires, hacked at bramble, while the bitter complaint went around: “Why don’t they give us brush hooks if we got to cut down them bushes? What the hell good are these damn shovels?” The shovel became the symbol of their torture. Here and there, through the night, a grotesque figure would throw one down, jump on it, curse at it, then pick it up again as the hysteria subsided.
“Third shift, this way! Third shift, this way. Bring your shovels and turn over to shift number four. Everybody in the third shift, right over here.”
It was the voice of the CCC foreman, who, all agreed, knew as much about fighting fires as a monkey did. Had it not been for the state fire wardens, assisting at critical spots, they would have made no progress whatever.
“All right. Answer to your names when I call them. You got to be checked off to get your money. They pay today two o’clock, so yell loud when I call your name.”
“Today’s Sunday.”
“I said they pay today, so speak up when I call your name.”
The foreman had a pencil with a little bulb in the end of it which he flashed on and began going down the list.
“Bub Anderson, Lonnie Beal, K. Bernstein, Harry Deever...” As each name was called there was a loud “Yo,” so when his name was called, Paul Larkin, he yelled “Yo” too. Then the foreman was calling a name and becoming annoyed because there was no answer. “Ike Pendleton! Ike Pendleton!”
“He’s around somewhere.”
“Why ain’t he here? Don’t he know he’s got to be checked off?”
“Hey, Ike! Ike Pendleton!”
He came out of his trance with a jolt. He had a sudden recollection of a man who had helped him to clear out a brier patch a little while ago, and whom he hadn’t seen since. He raced up the slope and over toward the fire.
Near the brier patch, in a V between the main fire and a backfire that was advancing to meet it, he saw something. He rushed, but a cloud of smoke doubled him back. He retreated a few feet, sucked in a lungful of air, charged through the backfire. There, on his face, was a man. He seized the collar of the denim jacket, started to drag. Then he saw it would be fatal to take this man through the backfire that way. He tried to lift, but his lungful of air was spent: he had to breathe or die. He expelled it, inhaled, screamed at the pain of the smoke in his throat.
He fell on his face beside the man, got a little air there, near the ground. He shoved his arm under the denim jacket, heaved, felt the man roll solidly on his back. He lurched to his feet, ran through the backfire. Two or three came to his aid, helped him with his load to the hollow, where the foreman was, where the air was fresh and cool.
“Where’s his shovel? He ought to have turned it over to—”
“His shovel! Give him water!”
“I’m gitting him water; but one thing at a time—”
“Water! Water! Where’s that water cart?”
The foreman, realizing belatedly that a life might be more important than the shovel tally, gave orders to “work his arms and legs up and down.” Somebody brought a bucket of water, and little by little Ike Pendleton came back to life. He coughed, breathed with long shuddering gasps, gagged, vomited. They wiped his face, fanned him, splashed water on him.