



Produced by John Hamm





THE OCTOPUS

A Story of California

by Frank Norris





BOOK 1




CHAPTER I


Just after passing Caraher's saloon, on the County Road that ran south
from Bonneville, and that divided the Broderson ranch from that of Los
Muertos, Presley was suddenly aware of the faint and prolonged blowing
of a steam whistle that he knew must come from the railroad shops near
the depot at Bonneville. In starting out from the ranch house that
morning, he had forgotten his watch, and was now perplexed to know
whether the whistle was blowing for twelve or for one o'clock. He hoped
the former. Early that morning he had decided to make a long excursion
through the neighbouring country, partly on foot and partly on his
bicycle, and now noon was come already, and as yet he had hardly
started. As he was leaving the house after breakfast, Mrs. Derrick had
asked him to go for the mail at Bonneville, and he had not been able to
refuse.

He took a firmer hold of the cork grips of his handlebars--the road
being in a wretched condition after the recent hauling of the crop--and
quickened his pace. He told himself that, no matter what the time was,
he would not stop for luncheon at the ranch house, but would push on
to Guadalajara and have a Spanish dinner at Solotari's, as he had
originally planned.

There had not been much of a crop to haul that year. Half of the wheat
on the Broderson ranch had failed entirely, and Derrick himself had
hardly raised more than enough to supply seed for the winter's sowing.
But such little hauling as there had been had reduced the roads
thereabouts to a lamentable condition, and, during the dry season of the
past few months, the layer of dust had deepened and thickened to such
an extent that more than once Presley was obliged to dismount and trudge
along on foot, pushing his bicycle in front of him.

It was the last half of September, the very end of the dry season, and
all Tulare County, all the vast reaches of the San Joaquin Valley--in
fact all South Central California, was bone dry, parched, and baked
and crisped after four months of cloudless weather, when the day seemed
always at noon, and the sun blazed white hot over the valley from the
Coast Range in the west to the foothills of the Sierras in the east.

As Presley drew near to the point where what was known as the Lower Road
struck off through the Rancho de Los Muertos, leading on to Guadalajara,
he came upon one of the county watering-tanks, a great, iron-hooped
tower of wood, straddling clumsily on its four uprights by the roadside.
Since the day of its completion, the storekeepers and retailers of
Bonneville had painted their advertisements upon it. It was a landmark.
In that reach of level fields, the white letters upon it could be read
for miles. A watering-trough stood near by, and, as he was very thirsty,
Presley resolved to stop for a moment to get a drink.

He drew abreast of the tank and halted there, leaning his bicycle
against the fence. A couple of men in white overalls were repainting
the surface of the tank, seated on swinging platforms that hung by hooks
from the roof. They were painting a sign--an advertisement. It was all
but finished and read, "S. Behrman, Real Estate, Mortgages, Main Street,
Bonneville, Opposite the Post Office." On the horse-trough that stood
in the shadow of the tank was another freshly painted inscription: "S.
Behrman Has Something To Say To You."

As Presley straightened up after drinking from the faucet at one end of
the horse-trough, the watering-cart itself laboured into view around
the turn of the Lower Road. Two mules and two horses, white with dust,
strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail's pace, their limp
ears marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow
cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's
tenants, a German, whom every one called "Bismarck," an excitable little
man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow of broken English.

"Hello, Bismarck," said Presley, as Hooven brought his team to a
standstill by the tank, preparatory to refilling.

"Yoost der men I look for, Mist'r Praicely," cried the other, twisting
the reins around the brake. "Yoost one minute, you wait, hey? I wanta
talk mit you."

Presley was impatient to be on his way again. A little more time wasted,
and the day would be lost. He had nothing to do with the management
of the ranch, and if Hooven wanted any advice from him, it was so much
breath wasted. These uncouth brutes of farmhands and petty ranchers,
grimed with the soil they worked upon, were odious to him beyond words.
Never could he feel in sympathy with them, nor with their lives, their
ways, their marriages, deaths