Return to La Paz with Coyotito's body
Kino and Juana's return to La Paz with the body of their son Coyotito is the final, irreversible consequence of the great pearl's promise. It is an event that, as the narrator states, "everyone in La Paz remembers" — a moment that passes from direct memory into legend, told by those whose fathers and grandfathers witnessed it. The return transforms the couple from ordinary villagers into figures of communal myth, stripped of all hope and walking through a town that recoils in awe and fear.
The Procession into the City
It was late in the golden afternoon when the first little boys ran hysterically into the town and spread the word that Kino and Juana were coming back. Everyone hurried to see them. The sun was settling toward the western mountains, and the shadows on the ground were long — a quality that perhaps left the deep impression on those who saw them. The two came from the rutted country road into the city, not walking in single file as usual, with Kino ahead and Juana behind, but side by side. The sun was behind them and their long shadows stalked ahead, and they seemed to carry two towers of darkness with them. Kino had a rifle across his arm, and Juana carried her shawl like a sack over her shoulder. In it was a small, limp, heavy bundle. The shawl was crusted with dried blood, and the bundle swayed a little as she walked.
The Appearance of the Couple
Juana's face was hard and lined and leathery with fatigue and with the tightness with which she fought fatigue. Her wide eyes stared inward on herself; she was as remote and as removed as Heaven. Kino's lips were thin and his jaws tight, and the people say that he carried fear with him, that he was as dangerous as a rising storm. The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side; that there was almost a magical protection about them. Those who had rushed to see them crowded back and let them pass and did not speak to them.
The Town's Reaction
Kino and Juana walked through the city as though it were not there. Their eyes glanced neither right nor left nor up nor down, but stared only straight ahead. Their legs moved a little jerkily, like well-made wooden dolls, and they carried pillars of black fear about them. As they walked through the stone and plaster city, brokers peered at them from barred windows, servants put one eye to a slitted gate, and mothers turned the faces of their youngest children inward against their skirts. Kino and Juana strode side by side through the stone and plaster city and down among the brush houses, and the neighbors stood back and let them pass. Juan Tomás raised his hand in greeting and did not say the greeting and left his hand in the air for a moment uncertainly.
The Final Act at the Shore
In Kino's ears the Song of the Family was as fierce as a cry. He was immune and terrible, and his song had become a battle cry. They trudged past the burned square where their house had been without even looking at it. They cleared the brush that edged the beach and picked their way down the shore toward the water. They did not look toward Kino's broken canoe. When they came to the water's edge they stopped and stared out over the Gulf. Kino laid the rifle down, dug among his clothes, and held the great pearl in his hand. He looked into its surface and it was gray and ulcerous. Evil faces peered from it into his eyes, and he saw the light of burning. In the surface of the pearl he saw the frantic eyes of the man in the pool. And in the surface of the pearl he saw Coyotito lying in the little cave with the top of his head shot away. The pearl was ugly; it was gray, like a malignant growth. Kino heard the music of the pearl, distorted and insane. His hand shook a little, and he turned slowly to Juana and held the pearl out to her. She stood beside him, still holding her dead bundle over her shoulder. She looked at the pearl in his hand for a moment and then looked into Kino's eyes and said softly, "No, you." Kino drew back his arm and flung the pearl with all his might. Kino and Juana watched it go, winking and glimmering under the setting sun. They saw the little splash in the distance, and they stood side by side watching the place for a long time.
