The Wayward Bus

by John Steinbeck

A picture had projected itself on her mind, the pattern of what would happen.

“Let’s think about it,” she said. “This is pretty country. I’d like to live in the country some time.” A picture had projected itself on her mind, the pattern of what would happen. She would fix Norma up. She could be kind of pretty if she was careful. And then Norma would meet a boy and naturally she’d bring him home to show him off and the boy would make passes at Camille and Norma would hate her. That’s the way it would happen. That’s the way it had happened. But what the hell! It would be fun before it happened. And maybe she could anticipate it and never be in when Norma brought a boy home.

Why not admit I’m jealous? I’m jealous. All right. Does admitting it make me any less jealous? No, it does not.

Mildred Pritchard felt the telegraph poles whipping by as little blows on her eyes. She had her glasses on again. She watched Juan’s face in the mirror. She could see little more than a profile from her angle. She noticed that he raised his head to look back at the blonde every minute or so, and she felt a bitter anger. She was confused about what had happened that morning. No one knew, of course, unless Juan Chicoy had guessed. She was still a little swollen and itchy from the thing. A sentence kept repeating itself in her mind. She’s not a blonde and she’s not a nurse and her name is not Camille Oaks. The sentence went on, over and over. And then she chuckled at herself inwardly. “I’m trying to destroy her,” she thought. “I’m doing a stupid thing. Why not admit I’m jealous? I’m jealous. All right. Does admitting it make me any less jealous? No, it does not. But she forced my father to make a fool of himself. All right. Do I care whether my father is a fool? No, I do not—if I’m not with him. I don’t want people to think I’m his daughter, that’s all. No, that’s not true either. I don’t want to go to Mexico with him. I can hear everything he’ll say.”

Mr. Pritchard was bored and tired. He could be very irritating when he was bored. He twitched. “This looks like rich country,” he said to his wife. “California raises most of the vegetables for the United States, you know.”

Mrs. Pritchard could hear herself talking after she got home.

Mrs. Pritchard could hear herself talking after she got home. “Then we drove through miles and miles of green fields with poppies and lupines, just like a garden. There was a blond girl got on at a funny little place and the men made fools of themselves, even Elliott. I joshed him about it for a week afterward.” She’d write it in a letter. “And I’m pretty sure the poor little painted thing was just as nice and sweet as could be. She said she was a nurse, but I think she was probably an actress—little parts, you know. There are so many of them in Hollywood. Thirty-eight thousand listed. They’ve got a big casting agency. Thirty-eight thousand.” Her head nodded a little. Bernice was sleepy and hungry. “I wonder what adventures we’ll have now,” she thought.

She claimed and got the most outrageous favors from strangers simply by asking nicely.

Now Pimples saw the ugly scars for the first time. He had to lean sideways to see them, and a stab of pain entered his chest. He felt a deep and unreasoning sorrow, but the sorrow was sexual too.

Camille was saying softly to Norma, “Then there’s this Wee Kirk i’ the Heather.1 I guess that’s the prettiest cemetery in the world. You know, you have to get a ticket to get in. I like just to walk around in there. It’s so beautiful and the organ plays nearly all the time and you find people buried there that you’ve seen in pictures. I always said I’d like to be buried there.”

“Elliott, are you trying to sit in that lady’s lap?”

He had found that to make a man mention his own name would put that man at a slight disadvantage. For a man to speak his own name made him a little naked and unprotected.

“It’s coming on to rain,” Van Brunt said happily. Juan grunted. “I had a brother-in-law kicked to death by a horse,” he observed.

The doctors said they would get over it just as soon as they lived a good normal life for a while.

“Like after the last war?” Ernest asked. It was a double brush, and Mr. Pritchard began to wonder if he’d been right about Horton. There was a kind of a brutality about Horton. He had a kind of swagger and a headlong quality so many ex-soldiers had. The doctors said they would get over it just as soon as they lived a good normal life for a while. They were out of line. Something would have to be done.

The San Ysidro River runs through the San Juan valley, turning and twisting until it discharges sluggishly into Black Rock Bay under the protection of Bat Point.

The San Ysidro River runs through the San Juan valley, turning and twisting until it discharges sluggishly into Black Rock Bay under the protection of Bat Point. The valley itself is long and not very wide, and the San Ysidro River, having not very far to run, makes the most of what distance it has by moving from one side of the level stretch to the other. Here it cuts under a cliff, against a mountain, and then it spreads thinly out on sand-banks. During a good part of the year there is no surface water at all, and the sandy bed grows full of willows which stretch their roots down toward underground water.

They were wooden bridges, backed and suspended by steel rods, and each one was supported in the middle and at the ends by concrete piers. The wood was painted dark red and the iron was dark with rust. On the river side of each bridge backwaters of piles and braided, mattressed willow deflected the water toward the spans and kept the gnawing current from undermining the bridgeheads.

In the middle of the valley, which is on a direct line between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz, the river makes a great loop, ranging from side to side of the level valley, casting its coil against the mountain on the eastern edge and moving away to cross the fields and farmlands. In the old times the road followed the loop of the river and crawled up the side of the hill to avoid crossing. But with the coming of engineers and steel and concrete, two bridges had been thrown over the river, and these cut out twelve miles of the San Ysidro’s playfulness. They were wooden bridges, backed and suspended by steel rods, and each one was supported in the middle and at the ends by concrete piers. The wood was painted dark red and the iron was dark with rust. On the river side of each bridge backwaters of piles and braided, mattressed willow deflected the water toward the spans and kept the gnawing current from undermining the bridgeheads. These bridges were not very old, but they had been built at a time when the tax rate was not only low, but much of it uncollectable because of what was called “hard times.” The county engineer had found it necessary to build within a budget that allowed only the simplest construction. His timber should have been heavier and his struts more numerous, but he had to build a bridge within a certain cost and he did. And every year the farmers of the middle valley watched the river with cynical apprehension. They knew that some time there would be a quick and overwhelming flood that would take the bridges out. Every year they petitioned the county to replace the wooden bridges, but there weren’t enough votes in the rural section to make the petitions mandatory. The large towns, which had not only the votes but the taxable assets, got the improvements. People were not moving to the medium-rich farmlands. A good service-station corner in San Juan had a higher assessed valuation than a hundred acres of grainland in the valley. The farmers knew that it was only a question of time before the bridges were destroyed and then, they said, the county would god-damned well come to its senses.

Mr. and Mrs. Breed were unofficial custodians of the bridge, and at flood time their phone rang constantly and they supplied information about the river’s rise.

And he had seen a few planks of planed lumber come twisting down, and then a piece of roof with shingles still on, and then the drowned, bobbing body of McElroy’s black Angus bull, square and short-legged.

“I’m going to take a look at the bridge,” said Juan.

Breed said, “It don’t make any sense.” Juan laughed. “I know, that’s what I like about it.

“He used to tell one about Pancho Villa.3 He said a poor woman came to Villa and said, ‘You have shot my husband and now I and the little ones will starve.’ Well, Villa had plenty of money then. He had the presses and he was printing his own. He turned to his treasurer and said, ‘Roll out five kilos of twenty-peso bills for this poor woman.’ He wasn’t even counting it, he had so much. So they did and they tied the bills together with wire and that woman went out. Well, then a sergeant said to Villa, ‘There was a mistake, my general. We did not shoot that woman’s husband. He got drunk and we put him in jail.’ Then Pancho said, ‘Go immediately and shoot him. We cannot disappoint that poor woman.’ ” Breed said, “It don’t make any sense.” Juan laughed. “I know, that’s what I like about it. God, that river is eating around the back of the breakwater.”

“I tried to phone and find out but I can’t get anybody. And suppose you cross this one and the other one’s out, and you come back and this one’s out? You’d be trapped in the bend. You’d have some mighty sore passengers.”

“Forty-seven cents for a mean little can of peaches!”

“Oh, I won’t vote. That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. Seems to me the driver ought to make the decisions, like a captain of a ship.”

Something about the recent association made Camille say, “I vote for the old road. I’m so tired and dirty now, nothing would make much difference to me.” Juan looked down and his eyes sharpened when he saw Norma’s face. She didn’t look like the same girl. And Norma knew he had noticed. “I say the old road,” she said breathlessly. Ernest Horton found a chair, the one Mrs. Breed ordinarily used when her legs swelled up in the afternoons. He had been watching the counting of noses. “I don’t much care,” he said. “Of course, I’d like to get to L.A., but it don’t make much difference. I’ll stick with the others, whatever they say.” Van Brunt put the can down loudly on the counter. “It’s going to rain,” he said. “That back road can get awful slippery. You might not make it up over the hill, to the eastward. It’s steep and slick. If you mired down there I don’t know how you’d ever get out.” “But you’re the one that suggested it,” Mildred said. “I’m just getting all the objections down,” Van Brunt said. “Just getting them in order.” “How would you vote?” Juan asked. “Oh, I won’t vote. That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. Seems to me the driver ought to make the decisions, like a captain of a ship.”

“I don’t know whether we’ll make it or not,” he said happily. And the passengers were a little nervous at his exuberance.

“I don’t know whether we’ll make it or not,” he said happily. And the passengers were a little nervous at his exuberance. The passengers were seated in a bunch, as far forward as they could get. Every one of them felt that Juan was their only contact with the normal, and if they had known what was in his mind they would have been very much frightened. There was a high glee in Juan. He closed the door of the bus and he put his foot twice on the throttle to race his engine before he set the bus in low gear and turned it into the muddy country road. The clouds were almost prepared for the stroke now. He knew that. In the west he could see one cloud fraying down. There it was starting, and it would move over the valley in another spring downpour. The light had turned metallic again with a washed, telescopic quality that meant only violent rain.

Juan was not a deeply religious man. He believed in the Virgin’s power as little children believe in the power of their uncles. She was a doll and a goddess and a good-luck piece and a relative.

Juan was not a deeply religious man. He believed in the Virgin’s power as little children believe in the power of their uncles. She was a doll and a goddess and a good-luck piece and a relative. His mother—that Irish woman—had married into the Virgin’s family and had accepted her as she had accepted her husband’s mother and grandmother. The Guadalupana became her family and her goddess. Juan had grown up with this Lady of the wide skirts standing on the new moon. She had been everywhere when he was little—over his bed to supervise his dreams, in the kitchen to watch over the cooking, in the hall to check him in and out of the house, and on the zaguán door 3 to hear him playing in the street. She was in her own fine chapel in the church, in the classroom in school, and, as if that wasn’t ubiquitous enough, he wore her on a little gold medal on a golden chain about his neck. He could get away from the eyes of his mother or his father or his brothers, but the dark Virgin was always with him. While his other relatives could be fooled or misled and tricked and lied to, the Guadalupana knew everything anyway. He confessed things to her, but that was only a form because she knew them anyway. It was more a recounting of your motives in doing a certain thing than a breaking of the news that you had done it. And that was silly too, because she knew the motives. Then, too, there was an expression on her face, a half smile, as though she were about to break out into laughter. She not only understood, she was also a little amused. The awful crimes of childhood didn’t seem to merit hell, if her expression meant anything. Thus Juan as a child had loved her very deeply and had trusted her, and his father had told him that she was the one set aside especially to watch over Mexicans. When he saw German or Gringo children in the streets he knew that his Virgin didn’t give a damn about them because they were not Mexicans. When you add to this the fact that Juan did not believe in her with his mind and did with every sense, you have his attitude toward Our Lady of Guadalupe.

He nodded and smiled at the Virgin, and she had the little smile on her face too. She knew what was going to happen, but, of course, there was no way of finding that out. He couldn’t run away without sanction. He had to have the approval of the Virgin. It was directly up to her. If she felt strongly about his going back to Alice, she would smooth the road and get the bus through, and he would know that he was set for life with what he had.

This was a man, she thought, a man of complete manness. This was the kind of a man that a pure woman would want to have because he wouldn’t even want to be part woman. He would be content with his own sex. He wouldn’t ever try to understand women and that would be a relief. He would just take what he wanted from them.

He put the bus in first gear and ran at the hole. The water splashed away with a rushing hiss. The rear wheels went into the hole. The bus slipped and floundered. The rear wheels spun and the motor roared and the spinning wheels edged the bumbling body slowly across and slithered it out on the other side.

The bus jerked to a stop. They were coming near to the foothills now and the green billows of land were dimly visible through the rain. Juan half stood up to look down at the roadbed. There was a hole in the road, a hole full of water, no telling how deep. It might drop the bus clear out of sight. He glanced quickly at the Virgin. “Shall I take a chance?” he said under his breath. His front wheels were on the edge of the pool. He grinned, put the bus in reverse, and backed up twenty feet. Van Brunt said, “You going to try a run for it? You’ll get stuck.” Juan’s lips moved silently. “My dear little friend, if you only knew,” he whispered. “If all of the rest of you only knew.” He put the bus in first gear and ran at the hole. The water splashed away with a rushing hiss. The rear wheels went into the hole. The bus slipped and floundered. The rear wheels spun and the motor roared and the spinning wheels edged the bumbling body slowly across and slithered it out on the other side. Juan slipped the gears to second and crawled on. “Must have been a little gravel mixed in with that,” he said over his shoulder to Van Brunt. “Well, you wait till you start up the hill,” Van Brunt said ominously. “You know, for a man that wants to get through you put more things in the way,” Juan said.

for a man that wants to get through you put more things in the way,”

The curtain of the years rolled back, and superimposed on the muddy country road he saw and heard and smelled Mexico, the chattering voices of the market, the squawking parrot in the garden, the quarreling pigs in the street, the flowers and fish and the little modest dark girls in blue rebozos.6 How strange that he had forgotten for so long.

The curtain of the years rolled back, and superimposed on the muddy country road he saw and heard and smelled Mexico, the chattering voices of the market, the squawking parrot in the garden, the quarreling pigs in the street, the flowers and fish and the little modest dark girls in blue rebozos. 6 How strange that he had forgotten for so long. He yearned toward the south. He wondered what crazy trap could have kept him here. Suddenly he was impatient to be away. Why couldn’t he just slam on the brakes and open the door and walk away through the rain? He could see their stupid faces looking after him and hear their outraged comments.

Juan’s face had a fierce grin. He raced his motor and the wheels dug deeper and deeper. He reversed his direction and spun his wheels, and the spinning tires dug holes for themselves and settled into the holes, and the differential rested on the ground.

He glanced again at the Virgin. “I’ll keep my word,” he whispered. “I’ll get through if I can.” He felt the wheels slip in the mud and he grinned at the Virgin of Guadalupe. The river cut in close to the hills now, bringing its border of willows with it. And the road dodged sideways, away from it. The rain was thinning out, and from the road they could see the light yellow water whirling in the broad basin of the river and dragging lines of dirty foam in twisting streaks. Ahead the road climbed up the hill, and at the top there was a yellow cut, a kind of cliff, and the road ran in front of it. At the very top of the yellow cliff, in great faint letters, was the single word REPENT. It must have been a long and dangerous job for some wild creature to put it there with black paint, and it was nearly gone now. In the cliff of sandstone there were erosion caves cut by the wind and dug out by animals. The caves looked like dark eyes peering out of the yellow cliff. The fences were fairly strong here, and in the upland grass red cows stood dark and wet and some of them had already borne their spring calves. The red cows turned their heads slowly and watched the bus as it ground by, and one old fool of a cow became panic-stricken and ran away, kicking and bucking as though that would remove the bus. The roadbed had changed. The gravel gave the bus better footing. The body bumped and jarred over the rain-rutted gravel, but the wheels did not slip. Juan looked suspiciously at the Virgin. Was she tricking him? Would she get him through and force him to make his own decision? That would be a dirty trick. With no sign from Heaven Juan didn’t know what he would do. The road took a long loop around an old farm and then climbed toward the cliff in earnest. Juan had the bus in low gear again and a wisp of steam came out of the overflow pipe and curled up in front of the radiator. The high point of the road was right in front of the cliff with its dark caves. Almost angrily Juan speeded his motor. The wheels threw gravel. There was a place where the ditch was plugged and water and topsoil flowed across the road. Juan raced at the dark streak. The front wheels crossed it and the back wheels spun in the greasy mud. The rear end swung around and the wheels spun and the hind end of the bus settled heavily into the ditch. Juan’s face had a fierce grin. He raced his motor and the wheels dug deeper and deeper. He reversed his direction and spun his wheels, and the spinning tires dug holes for themselves and settled into the holes, and the differential rested on the ground. Juan idled his motor. In the rear-view mirror he could see Pimples looking at him in amazement. Juan had forgotten that Pimples would know. Pimples’ mouth was open. Juan knew better than that. When you come to a soft place you don’t spin the wheels. Juan could see the questions in Pimples’ eyes. Why had he done it? He wasn’t that stupid. He caught Pimples’ eye in the mirror and all he could think to do was to wink secretly. But he saw relief come over Pimples’ face. If it was a plan it was O.K. If there was something in back of it Pimples would go along. And then a horrible thought crossed Pimples’ mind. Suppose it was Camille. If Juan wanted her Pimples wouldn’t have a chance. He couldn’t compete with Juan.

The axles and the differential were resting on the ground.

Ahead and down the hill to the left, in an indentation of the foothills, he saw a house and a barn and a windmill with the blades broken and hanging.

Ahead and down the hill to the left, in an indentation of the foothills, he saw a house and a barn and a windmill with the blades broken and hanging. That would be the old Hawkins place. Just the set-up he’d been thinking about. He would go in there, maybe in the house, but more likely in the barn. An old barn is usually cleaner than an old house. There was bound to be a little hay or straw in the barn. Juan would crawl in there and sleep. He wouldn’t think about anything. He would sleep until maybe this time tomorrow, and then he’d walk on to the county road and pick up a ride. What difference did it make to him about the passengers? “They can’t starve. It won’t hurt them at all. It’ll be good for them. It isn’t any business of mine.” He hurried his steps down the hill toward the old Hawkins place. They’d look for him. Alice would think he was murdered and she’d call in a sheriff. Nobody ever thought he’d run off like this. That’s what made it such a good joke. Nobody thought he could do it. Well, he’d show them. Get to San Diego, cross the border, pick up the mail truck to La Paz. Alice would have the cops out. He stopped and looked back at the road. His footprints were clear enough, but the rain would probably wash them out, and he could cover his tracks if he wanted to. He turned in off the road toward the Hawkins place. The old house had gone to pieces very quickly once it was abandoned. A few wandering boys broke out the windows and stole the lead pipe and the plumbing, and the doors soon banged themselves silly and fell off their hinges. The old dark wallpaper, pulled down under wind-driven rain, revealed under-sheets made from old newspapers with old cartoons—“Foxy Grandpa” and “Little Nemo” and “Happy Hooligan” and “Buster Brown.”9 Tramps had been there and had left their litter and burned the door casings in the old black fireplace. The smell of desertion and damp and sourness was in the house. Juan looked in the doorway, walked through and smelled the odor of the vacant house, and went out the back door toward the barn. The corral fence was down and the big door off, but inside the barn smelled fresh. The stalls were polished where the horses had rubbed against the wood. The corners were cobwebbed. Between the manure windows were still the candleboxes with the worn brushes and rusty currycombs. And an old collar and hames and a set of tugs hung on a rack beside the door. The leather of the collar was split and the padding stuck out. The barn had no loft. The whole central part had been used to store hay. Juan walked around the end of the last stall. It was dusky inside and the light of the sky lanced through broken shakes in the roof. The floor was covered with short straw, dark with age, and with a slightly musty smell. Standing still in the entrance, Juan could hear the squeaking of mice and he could smell the colonies of mice too. From a rafter two cream-colored barn owls looked down at him and then closed their yellow eyes again. The rain had diminished so that there was only a faint put tering on the roof. Juan went to a corner and with his foot kicked aside a layer of the dusty top straw. He sat down and then lay back and thrust his hands behind his head. The barn was alive with secret little sounds, but Juan was very tired. His nerves itched and he felt mean. He thought perhaps if he slept he would feel better.

Nobody ever thought he’d run off like this. That’s what made it such a good joke.

wondered, “Won’t I ever be happy? Isn’t there anything to do?”

When people got old they grew frightened of smaller and smaller things. Her father was frightened of a strange bed or a foreign language or a political party he didn’t belong to. Her father truly believed that the Democratic party was a subversive organization whose design would destroy the United States and put it in the hands of bearded communists.2

“If you read it in the paper it isn’t true,” he said, quoting Charlie Johnson.

“It seems to me young people have lost their faith in America. Our ancestors had faith.”

everybody’s a tramp some time or other. Everybody. And the worst tramps of all are the ones that call it something else.”

A tight smile raised Juan’s lips. “You’ll have to take charge back here, Kit, while I drive. Make them throw their weight on it when I go ahead. You know how. You take charge back here, Kit.”

A tight smile raised Juan’s lips. “You’ll have to take charge back here, Kit, while I drive. Make them throw their weight on it when I go ahead. You know how. You take charge back here, Kit.” Pimples threw down his shovel. “Come on, everybody,” he shouted. “Come on, snap into it! I’ll take the right side. Girls too. Everybody got to shove.” He marshaled his people at the back of the bus. For a second he looked hungrily at Mrs. Pritchard sitting inside. “She’d just be in the way, I guess,” he said. Juan climbed into the bus. “Get out and give a shove,” he said to Mr. Pritchard. The engine started easily enough. Juan let it turn over for a moment. He eased it into compound-low and then he knocked twice on the side of the bus and heard Pimples knock back twice on the rear wall. He speeded his engine a little and let his clutch in. The wheels caught, slipped, groaned, and caught, and “Sweet heart” waddled drunkenly over the bed of rocks and climbed out onto the road. Juan pulled ahead out of the mud on the road and then he set his hand brake. He stood up and looked out the doorway. “Just pile the tools in here on the floor,” he said. “Come on, let’s get moving.” He turned on his lights and the beam lighted the gravel road as far as the top of the little hill.

Juan looked at them and called, “That’s San Juan up ahead.”