Who can we shoot?
"That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll
go after him. He's the one to kill."
"You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The
bank told him, 'Clear those people out or it's your job.' "
"Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a board of
directors. I'll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank."
The driver said, "Fellow was telling me the bank gets
orders from the Ivast. The orders were, 'Make the land show
profit or we'll close you up.' "
"But where does it stop* Who can we shoot? I don't aim
to starve to death before I kill the man that's starving me."
"I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the
thing isn't men at all. Maybe, like you said, the property's
doing it. Anyway I told you my orders."
"I got to figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure.
There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earth- quakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God
that's something we can change."
The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ten feet wide.
And back he came. The iron guard bit into the house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand.
His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And
all of them stared after the tractor.
-Steinbeck |
