The Octopus: A Story of California

Two days after leaving Bonneville, Presley is aboard Cedarquist’s India-bound ship—the Swanhilda, the very ship on which S. Behrman died. Before sailing to India, however, the vessel stops in San Francisco, where Presley visits Cedarquist’s office.

Cedarquist greets Presley and remarks briefly on Lyman’s political success with the Railroad, who recently named Lyman their favored candidate for the governor of California. However, Cedarquist is more interested in sharing about his new business venture: He’s done well to use his clipper wheat ships for Eastern trade, and the Swanhilda is the mother of the fleet. After rambling spiritedly about how much (and how riskily) he’s invested in this enterprise, he shoos Presley out the door with a “bon voyage.” As Presley walks into the street, he sees an ostentatious advertisement for Lyman’s election campaign.

With Presley back aboard the Swanhilda, the ship pushes off into the Pacific. The California coast fades into a hazy line of mountains on the horizon, and Presley thinks about everything held within that piece of land: his home, Bonneville, Guadalajara, Los Muertos, Quien Sabe—and the “terrible drama” of it all. His memory surveys the panorama of events leading up to the bloody tragedy. In the end, the Railroad won, and the ranches were commandeered by the twisting arms of a monstrous “octopus.” The beast corrupted Lyman, derailed Magnus, and killed others. Presley ruminates on the godforsaken dominoes that fell.

On the brink of despair over the future, Presley suddenly remembers Vanamee’s words that “[d]eath and grief are little things” (635); that life is more real than death; that a person cannot judge the whole of existence based only on what little reality they see; that all things are ultimately “perfect.” Presley thinks to himself that even as men are murdered, as women starve, and as children suffer, the wheat remains. The crop is “unassailable, undefiled,” indifferent to humankind but nevertheless a source of life and nourishment for them.

Presley’s perspective shifts, widens. He sees that, in the end, wickedness fades—and truth and goodness prevail.