The Pastures of Heaven

Set in a California valley called Las Pasturas del Cielo (The Pastures of Heaven), this collection of interrelated stories follows the families of a small farming community whose lives are disrupted, often disastrously, by contact with the Munroe family. A prologue and epilogue frame 10 central stories, each devoted to a different household.

Around 1776, a Spanish corporal pursuing runaway converts from the Carmelo Mission chases a deer over a ridge and discovers a long, green valley of such beauty that he names it the Pastures of Heaven. He dreams of retiring there but dies without returning. Over the next century, squatter families settle the land, and 20 families come to live on small farms around a general store, a post office, and a schoolhouse.

The first story introduces the Battle farm, considered cursed after generations of misfortune: a wife with epilepsy who tried to burn the house, a son killed by a rattlesnake, and a mysterious family that restored the land only to vanish without explanation. Bert Munroe, a middle-aged man who attributes his business failures to a personal curse, buys the farm and moves in with his wife, their daughter Mae, their son Jimmie, and their youngest, Manfred. Bert thrives as a farmer and wins the valley's acceptance. T. B. Allen, the storekeeper, jokes that perhaps the two curses have mated and will produce baby curses, foreshadowing the disasters that follow.

Edward "Shark" Wicks, a farmer who records an imaginary fortune in a secret ledger, obsessively guards the chastity of his beautiful daughter, Alice. When Shark leaves for a family funeral, his wife Katherine takes Alice to a dance, where Jimmie Munroe kisses the girl outside. Shark seizes a rifle and heads for the Munroe house but is intercepted by a deputy. Required to post a bond, he must confess publicly that he has no money and never did. Katherine revives him with unexpected tenderness, and Shark resolves to sell the ranch and start fresh.

Tularecito ("Little Frog"), a foundling raised on Franklin Gomez's ranch, has extraordinary physical strength and artistic gifts but a mind that stopped developing at age five. Forced into school, he draws astonishing animal murals but attacks students who erase his work. When the teacher Miss Morgan reads fairy tales about gnomes, Tularecito becomes convinced they are his people and digs a hole in Bert Munroe's orchard to find them. Bert fills the hole; Tularecito attacks him with a shovel and is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.

Helen Van Deventer, a woman drawn to tragedy, moves to the valley with her daughter Hilda, who has a serious mental health condition. Helen has refused for years to seek professional care, insisting she can endure the burden herself. The valley's peace begins to dissolve Helen's cultivated grief, but Bert Munroe makes a neighborly visit and encounters Hilda at her barred window. The girl begs him to help her escape. That night, Hilda hacks through the bars and flees. Helen takes a shotgun from the gun case. The coroner rules Hilda's death a suicide. Helen tells her doctor she now knows what her life expects of her.

Junius Maltby, a cultured man, moves to the valley for his health and marries a widow. In 1917, influenza kills the widow's two sons, and she contracts black fever during labor and dies without seeing her newborn. Junius names the baby Robert Louis (after Stevenson) and raises the boy in cheerful poverty with his hired man, Jakob Stutz. Robbie thrives at school and becomes a leader among the children, but on visiting day, Mrs. Munroe presents him with new clothes, appalled by his ragged appearance. The boy flushes and bolts, realizing for the first time that he is poor. Junius and Robbie soon leave for San Francisco; Junius tells Miss Morgan he did not realize he was injuring the boy.

Rosa and Maria Lopez, two jovial sisters, sustain themselves by selling their late mother's Mexican dishes. When business lags, they begin offering sexual favors to customers who eat three or more dishes, confessing each sin to a porcelain Virgin in the hallway. Their arrangement endures until Bert and Mrs. Munroe spot Maria giving a ride to a local man and Bert jokes about the situation. Soon the sheriff arrives with a complaint. Rosa announces she will leave for San Francisco and become a prostitute. Maria declares she will go with her.

Molly Morgan, a 19-year-old teacher, arrives for her first job in the valley. Flashbacks reveal a magnificent but absent father who appeared every six months with exotic stories, then vanished when Molly was 12. She thrives until Bert Munroe describes his new hired hand: a drunken drifter who tells wonderful stories and brings presents for Bert's son. Terrified the man might be her father, Molly approaches Bert's car one evening but smells vomit and hears a drunken snore. She flees and tells John Whiteside, the school board clerk, that she must leave immediately, unable to risk confirming the truth. Whiteside drives her to Salinas that night.

Raymond Banks, a jovial chicken farmer, regularly attends executions at San Quentin as a guest of the warden, his old school friend. The solemn ceremony gives him a fullness of emotion his ordinary life cannot provide. Bert Munroe impulsively asks to attend the next hanging but later confesses he has lost his nerve, describing a childhood memory of a botched chicken killing that has haunted him. Raymond, shaken by the account, grows furious. The next morning, he cancels his trip.

Pat Humbert, raised by tyrannical parents who died when he was 30, has spent 10 years fleeing the oppressive rooms of his farmhouse. One afternoon he overhears Mae Munroe admiring the rose-covered house from the road. Inspired, Pat secretly transforms the locked parlor into an elegant period interior copied from a magazine. He rehearses inviting Mae to see it, but when he walks to the Munroe house, he learns that Mae and Bill Whiteside are engaged. Pat retreats to his barn, unable to enter the house.

The Whiteside family saga spans three generations. Richard Whiteside arrived during the Gold Rush and built a large white house with a Boston slate roof to found a dynasty. His wife Alicia bore one son, John, in a birth so difficult she could never have another child. She attempted a second pregnancy years later; the baby died and Alicia became a permanent invalid. John inherited his father's devotion to the house, but his own son Bill proved uninterested in books or tradition. Bill marries Mae Munroe and moves to Monterey to run a Ford dealership. After the wedding, John takes Bert Munroe's suggestion to burn brush behind the house. A whirlwind scoops up sparks and flings them at the building; a spark apparently reaches the basement, where Bert later speculates it ignited a stored kerosene can. The fire engulfs the house, and the heavy slate roof crashes down. John watches quietly and tells Bert he knows how a soul feels watching its body buried.

In the epilogue, a sightseeing bus stops on a ridge above the valley. A businessman envisions subdividing the land. A honeymooning couple acknowledge the appeal but agree they cannot abandon ambition. A young priest imagines a quiet parish, then punishes the thought. An old widower wishes he could live there long enough to make sense of his life. The bus driver confesses he always thinks it would be nice to have a little place down there, and the bus sweeps toward the ocean.