In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page A

house.” They followed the gravelled drive, and in back came to a tiny cottage, newly painted. Harry walked to the door and opened it, and motioned Jim inside.
    The cottage contained one large room and a kitchenette. In the big room there were six steel cots, made up with army blankets. Three men were in the room, two lying on cots and one large man, with the face of a scholarly prizefighter, pecking slowly at a typewriter.
    He looked up quickly when Harry opened the door, and then stood up and came forward smiling. “Hello, Harry,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
    “This is Jim Nolan,” Harry explained. “Remember? His name came up the other night. Jim, this is Mac. He knows more about field work than anybody in the state.”
    Mac grinned. “Glad to see you, Jim,” he said.
    Harry, turning to go, said, “Take care of him, Mac. Put him to work. I’ve got to get out a report.” He waved to the two who were lying down. “’Bye, boys.”
    When the door was closed, Jim looked about the room. The wallboarded walls were bare. Only one chair was in the room, and that stood in front of the typewriter. From the kitchenette came an odor of boiling corned beef. He looked back at Mac, at his broad shoulders and long arms, at his face, wide between the cheek-bones with flat planes under the eyes like those of a Swede. Mac’s lips were dry and cracked. He looked at Jim as closely as he was being inspected.
    Suddenly he said, “Too bad we’re not dogs, we could get that all over with. We’d either be friends or fighting by now. Harry said you were O.K., and Harry knows. Come on, meet the boys. This pale one here is Dick, a bedroom radical. We get many a cake because of Dick.”
    The pale, dark-haired boy on the bed grinned and held out his hand.
    Mac went on, “See how beautiful he is? We call him the Decoy. He tells ladies about the working classes, and we get cakes with pink frosting, huh, Dick?”
    “Go to hell,” said Dick pleasantly.
    Mac, guiding Jim by his arm, turned him toward the man on the other cot. It was impossible to tell how old he was. His face was wizened and battered, his nose crushed flat against his face; his heavy jaw sagged sideways. “This is Joy,” said Mac. “Joy is a veteran, aren’t you, Joy?”
    “Damn right,” said Joy. His eyes flared up, then almost instantly the light went out of them again. His head twitched several times. He opened his mouth to speak, but he only repeated, “Damn right,” very solemnly, as though it finished off an argument. He caressed one hand with the other. Jim saw that they were crushed and scarred.
    Mac explained, “Joy won’t shake hands with anybody. Bones are all broken. It hurts Joy to shake hands.”
    The light flared in Joy’s eyes again. “Why is it?” he cried shrilly. “’Cause I’ve been beat, that’s why! I been handcuffed to a bar and beat over the head. I been stepped on by horses.” He shouted, “I been beat to hell, ain’t I, Mac?”
    “That’s right, Joy.”
    “And did I ever crawl, Mac? Didn’t I keep on calling ’em sons-of-bitches till they knocked me cold?”
    “That’s right, Joy. And if you’d kept your trap shut, they wouldn’t have knocked you cold.”
    Joy’s voice rose to a frenzy. “But they was sons-of-bitches. I told ’em, too. Let ’em beat me over the head with my hands in ’cuffs. Let ’em ride over me! See that hand? That was rode over with a horse. But I told ’em, didn’t I, Mac?”
    Mac leaned over and patted him. “You sure did, Joy. Nobody’s going to make you keep quiet.”
    “Damn right,” said Joy, and the light went out of his eyes again.
    Mac said, “Come on over here, Jim.” He led him to the other end of the room, where the typewriter stood on a little table. “Know how to type?”
    “A little,” said Jim.
    “Thank God! You can get right to work.” Mac lowered his voice. “Don’t mind Joy. He’s slug-nutty. He’s been smacked over the head too much. We take care