He slapped the reins on the horse’s flank, and Leslie steadied herself as the carriage moved away from the jail. She ignored the eyes that followed their departure. The warm sun felt good to her. It seemed to ease her trembling. She sat back, relieved that the confrontation with her uncle and Younger was over.
They were passing through a part of town that Leslie had not seen from the windows of the Bricewood West. Here streets were laid out in the familiar New England grid that she was so used to, lined with row upon neat row of sturdy homes. She could hardly believe her eyes. She had thought the town consisted of the hotel, the livery stable where her uncle had left the horses, and the wide street lined with saloons and stores that she had ridden down in the parade.
“Oh,” she sighed, “this is like a real city!”
Kincaid chuckled. “You sound homesick.”
“I guess I am,” she admitted. “What are those?” she asked, pointing at trees with blue-green, spiny branches that reached twenty-five or thirty feet into the air, lining the dirt road on either side of them, providing filtered shade.
“Paloverde trees,” he chuckled. “I wanted tree-lined roads for Jennie. We transplanted them from the desert.”
“You certainly went to a lot of trouble. You must love your wife very much.”
“When you meet her, you’ll understand,” he said simply.
Leslie fell silent, glancing at the houses, which appeared to be smaller versions of the spacious rectangular structures of New England, half-timber, half-clapboard, with steep roofs and tiny casement windows, except they had exterior chimneys instead of the central chimneys of New England. The eaves projected more, and the houses looked stark and uncomfortable perching on flat grassless lots, sometimes separated by fences, sometimes not. Most of them were two- and three-story—ungainly, top-heavy, and boxy. They were the kind of houses she was accustomed to, but they looked so forlorn here, surrounded by sand, rocks, and Paloverde trees. One was a perfect copy of the cozy, white-washed Dutch houses with their stone gables and projecting eaves. One was modeled after the rural Jacobean English houses. She recognized the grandiose baroque style, the geometrical gables, exterior chimneys, and stair towers. Inside she could almost see the elaborate moldings, carved balustrades, massive wooden doors, and arched doorways crowned with delicate fan windows. No doubt there would be four rooms to each story. Next door was an elegant, boxlike brick structure of classical Georgian style.
If she closed her eyes so she could not see the strange trees, and the stark lots, if she nestled these houses in imaginary spruce, willow, and ash trees, she could be back in Massachusetts. But even without that assistance she had to admit that this was a real neighborhood. It lacked the classic precision of planned eastern communities, the roads were not paved or even cobbled, but it was apparent that this had not been a random happening. She could hardly believe it.
“Is this…I mean, how long have these houses been here?”
Kincaid laughed. “Not very long. This happens to be my first humble attempt at subdividing land. What do you think of it?”
“Why, it’s marvelous, but where did you find so many people who could afford nice houses? I mean, it is not exactly Boston, but it’s not Phoenix either.”
“When I came here the first time in 1882—that’s when the railroad reached here—there were two thousand people. It was a pleasant little community that had just been incorporated into a city. For miles all you could see was sand and rocks, relieved occasionally by clumps of ocotillo shrub, cactus, and a few Paloverde trees. Now there are almost four thousand people. I imported many of them myself, to run the hotel, the railroad, the bank, my ranch. In 1864 this was nothing more than a site where a man by the name of John Smith pitched his tents for a hay camp to fulfill a forage contract for the army outpost at Fort McDowell. They named it Phoenix because this town was built on the ruins of an Old Indian pueblo.
“Actually it was a more pleasant town before the railroad, because now we get the cattle drovers who are a wild bunch. In 1882 we already had a school house, two churches, and the first ice factory in the Arizona territory. I remember when old Abe delivered ice in a wheelbarrow for seven cents a pound.”
A wagon with children in the back, staring at them with solemn eyes, rattled past, raising a dust cloud.
“We lived at the hotel then, and Jennie was anxiously awaiting the birth of our son,” he said over the noise of the wagon. “The Phoenix Hotel had a swimming pool behind it with a canvas roof. She spent half her time sitting in the water and the other half sipping iced tea. I really shouldn’t have let her stay here. I should have sent her north where she would have been comfortable, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I had to be here, so she felt like she had to be here. We’ve never been very good at separations.”
“How many children do you have?”
“Two.”
“Which one of these houses is yours?”
“We’re almost there. Jennie wanted to get as far from the stockyards as possible. We have corrals that hold two thousand head, and sometimes the wind shifts.”
They passed a row of houses, these more elegant than the rest. Then he slowed the horse and nodded at the house on the corner, facing south. It was like nothing she had seen before: it looked like the Spanish missions she had seen, except there was a simple elegance in the lines that marked it as a home.
“That brick is called adobe. It’s made from the clay of this region. We fired it in a kiln we transported from Minnesota.”
“It reminds me of a monastery.”
He laughed. “That’s because I stole a lot of my ideas from the Jesuits. It gets very hot here. I used foot-thick adobe walls to keep the heat out and recessed the doors and windows under a generous roof overhang so that the sun doesn’t shine on them. It helps.”
The front of the house had a series of curved arches opening onto a deep porch. Inside, there were two massive mahogany doors that looked as if this pirate of a man had stolen them from some feudal castle. The roof was red tile and gleamed in the sunlight. Kincaid chuckled at her silence. “Total freedom encourages eccentricity. I must admit that I was tempted to do something modern, but Jennie prefers either Classic Greek Revival or Gothic, so we compromised.”
“What do you call it? I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it.”
“I stole my ideas from the Indian pueblos, the Jesuits, and our neighbors to the south—the Mexicans.”
“It is magnificent! You designed this yourself?”
“You are very kind. I am an engineer…with aspirations. I don’t believe architects create. I think they compile. The first job of any good designer is to discover what works well in the area where he intends to build. The second is to organize those things into a design. Heat calls for thick walls and that generous overhang.”
“Oh! That’s very good. You know…when I was on the train, coming here, I talked to a young man named John Loving. He called you a visionary. I can see that he was right.”
“John is very kind. I have imagination. I don’t know if that qualifies me as a visionary, but I can’t help remembering something I learned in school about Major Stephen Harriman Long, a man who explored far more territory than Lewis and Clark, and gained almost no fame for it, because he was consistently unimpressed. He toured the richest farming region of the eastern seaboard, around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and found it depressing. I believe the words he used were ‘sinks of dissipation and debauchery.’ When he reached the site of what would be Chicago he wrote in his journal that it was unfit for either commerce or agriculture. He was later given credit for convincing Americans that the Great Plains was a desert. He saw mountain ranges merely as obstacles. A man totally without imagination. I look at a desert and imagine any number of possibilities. All it takes is a little water, a road, maybe a railroad, and cities sprout like mushrooms. I think in quarter-acre lots. It is an occupational hazard. Leave it to me and the entire continent past the Mississippi River will be su
bdivided.”
“I prefer your vision to many others I’ve heard. I am tired of fat, fashionable frame houses. I think I like your western architecture.”
“That’s partly why I’m here instead of in New York. The East has become exhausted, sluggish, and inhibited. Here we have space to be innovative and the opportunity to build whole cities in a decade. We are not tied to a uniform ceremonious style or any other style. I prefer western barbarism to eastern philistinism.”
“You have real plants! A real garden!” she cried, noticing the shrubs for the first time.
“My wife is from New York. She insists on the civilizing influence of a thoroughly irrigated garden around any house she lives in.”
“It’s so beautiful!”
“Then why the tears?” he asked gently.
“You’re very observant,” she smiled, dabbing quickly at her eyes. “It just made me homesick, that’s all.”
“Where are you from?”
“Massachusetts, Wellesley,” she sniffed.
“Beautiful country.”
She sniffed again. “Yes.” Oh, God! She missed it so much! Now that she was letting down she felt tears crowding up and struggled to control them.
Kincaid opened the door and a white-haired woman with deep dimples and smiling eyes was standing in the entry hall as if she had been waiting for them. There was an almost cavelike feeling of coolness the moment Leslie stepped inside.
“Good afternoon, Mr. K.”
“Afternoon, Mrs. Lillian. Is Mrs. Kincaid home?”
“In the library, sir.”
“I want you to meet Leslie Powers. Leslie, Mrs. Lillian has been with the Kincaid family since I was born. She raised me, my brothers and sisters, and ran the family practically single-handed. She is also the repository for the Kincaid family history. Though I admit that there are parts of it she’s been ordered not to discuss, for reasons known only to a few,” he said, chuckling.
Mrs. Lillian smiled and Leslie was completely enchanted with the woman. She looked the perfect grandmother, from her silver-gray hair to the frilly pinafore over her blue silk gown.
“Don’t listen to him, my dear. I have never been good at remembering what I’m not supposed to discuss.”
Mr. Kincaid threw his head back and laughed. “Well, at least you are honest,” he said.
“Welcome to the family, my dear. If you need anything at all, please let me know. I’m always around. The children do not take all my time by any means.” She patted Leslie’s hand and turned. “I’ll go tell the missus you’re home.”
Leslie turned her attention back to the interior of the house and had to control the urge to gape. It was a dream. In the front part the ceilings were at least thirty feet over her head, open to the roof, but the back half of the house had two stories. Sweetly curved stairs seemed to float on the air, so gracefully were they designed. Somehow the long roof-overhang had given the impression that the very house was hugging the ground, almost blending into it.
It was light, airy, open—not anything like she had expected from the massive, heavy look of the outside. There were tall narrow windows that reached all the way up to the ceiling, and while she could tell that sunlight did not fall directly on the windows, except in early morning and late evening, the rooms were not dreary, even at midday.
“This is the sala grande,” he said with a sweeping movement of his right arm to indicate the spacious area to her right that looked like a ballroom. Crystal chandeliers hung on long chains from the high ceiling. Simple wicker furniture and potted palms similar to the ones she had seen in the lobby of the Bricewood West were scattered around the enormous room.
“What does that mean, sala?”
“Spanish for parlor or large room,” he said, smiling. He liked her direct questions. Too many girls either would not have been curious or would have pretended they knew. “Straight ahead is the library, and the room to your extreme left is Jennie’s music room.”
Leslie turned, following the sweep of his hand. From inside the music room, the ceiling looked like it had been made in a waffle iron: recessed squares separated by raised dividers. One enormous window dominated the far wall. It was shaped like a tall, narrow cupola, coming to a point at the top like a triumphal arch. It was at least twelve feet wide and twenty feet tall. Clear leaded glass, with diagonally cut panes, was set flush with the outside wall of the house. Since the walls were so thick, it was deeply recessed into the wall and framed by a wood cornice. Sheer cream-colored lace curtains were pulled back by velvet ribbons, softening the harsh sunlight. Except for a few chairs, an elegant white Steinway grand piano was practically the only piece of furniture in the room. A mirror twelve feet high and as wide as the north wall, probably thirty feet long, brought a gasp to Leslie’s lips.
“Oh,” Kincaid said, “the mirror. My wife was a ballerina before we married. She still goes through her routines every day. Says she feels better…”
“How marvelous!”
“That’s why there’s no rug in here. She needs good solid hardwood.”
“The floor is beautiful. The whole house is beautiful.” She did not exaggerate. It was a house designed to lift spirits as high as the ceilings.
They walked slowly toward the back of the house, and she caught sight of paintings on the staircase enclosure. It was an art lover’s paradise. She felt dizzy with so much to look at. Dozens of paintings, hung on blind cords, were artfully arranged by someone who had an eye for proportion.
“How cleverly you hang them! Oh! That has to be a William Prior! My mother had one. Isn’t his modeling exquisite? Did you know he is one of the most skillful portraitists in New England? He was a Bostonian, and he could paint flat-featured portraits or excellent rounded features—whichever the client could afford. He is the only artist I’ve ever heard of who put style on a class basis—only his wealthiest customers would pay for the refinement of modeling the features, or I guess people who were acquainted with the more academic proficiencies of European artists. Oh!” She stopped, suddenly self-conscious.
Kincaid chuckled. “I take it you enjoy art.” He seemed relaxed, and not the least put out with her. The nicest smile!
“My mother was an artist and an art teacher. I paint, but not well enough to earn a living at it. She was listed in Who’s Who of American Painters,” she said proudly. “I want to be one of the best landscape artists in America. I studied art at Wellesley, but I want to study in Europe.”
“My wife is the collector. Get her started and she will talk your leg off.”
The library was decorated in celery green with none of the weird grandeur that was so prevalent in the homes of the rich. The walls were papered with soft green silk, and the draperies were of the finest green brocade. The room had a light, fresh look about it that was unlike the heavy, overripe opulence of the period. There was none of the heavy velvets, in deep, rich colors made from the new aniline dyes that were so violent and so popular. Nor did the room have the appearance of being overcrowded, as was the fashion. There was a feeling of sparse elegance in the Kincaid home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They found Mrs. Kincaid seated at a small writing desk beside a tall, narrow, elegantly draped window. She glanced up, smiling. “Just a moment, please. If I don’t write this down, I will forget it.” She wrote quickly and then stood up. “That’s done! Thank goodness,” she said, walking quickly toward them.
“Jennie, love, I’d like you to meet Leslie Powers.”
“Oh, Leslie! I’m so happy to finally meet you,” she said, smiling warmly, directly, into Leslie’s eyes so there could be no mistake about how she felt. Relief flooded Leslie, and she smiled.
“How do you do, Mrs. Kincaid?”
“Please, Leslie, call me Jennifer or Jennie.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t presume…” Leslie demurred.
“I insist. Unless, of course, you want to insult me,” Jennifer said, smiling.
“Oh, no, I would never want
that…”
“Good, then it’s settled.”
Jennifer was a head shorter than her handsome husband. Her waist was slim and her body supple. She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, then smiled at him.
“Well, I was delighted to receive your message about our houseguest. Do they have your train robber in jail now?” she asked, her voice a delight to the ear, pleasing, well modulated.
Kincaid grinned. “Sure looks like it.”
“Thank goodness, Chane,” she said, turning to Leslie. “He has fretted about that for years. It will be a relief to worry about something else.” She paused suddenly. “I can be informal to a fault,” she said, shaking her head. “You would probably like nothing better than an opportunity to rest and collect your thoughts, and we stand here making small talk. Come, Leslie, I’ll show you the way to your room.”
Leslie followed obediently, noticing that while Jennifer was striking as a still portrait, she was even more striking in motion. There was tremendous energy in her—it was apparent in the way she carried herself. She had hair the color of pale summer wheat, highlighted with streaks of silver, a glory of shiny, shimmering tresses drawn back from her dainty ears in cascading curls. She was blessed with radiant skin the color of old Brussels lace, and her cheeks were warmed by a hint of plum that echoed the deep purple of her eyes. Jennifer Kincaid was most assuredly not the type who would make cutting remarks on the street about a total stranger. Mr. Kincaid had not had to explain Leslie’s predicament. Jennifer was naturally compassionate.
“Jennie, love,” Chane said to his departing wife. “Leslie is an artist. She was admiring your collection.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” Jennifer flashed Leslie an excited smile. “Tell me what you think of these,” she asked, taking Leslie’s hand and leading her to the east wall.
The room they called the library was a combination art gallery and reading room. One wall was devoted to books, one to a fireplace, and the other two to paintings hung all the way to the ceiling, which was twelve feet high. The variety and quality of paintings took Leslie’s breath away. There were two Rembrandts, three Claude Monets, two Van Goghs, several Orozcos. Enthralled, she walked the length of each wall, her eyes wide with wonder, like a small girl on a holiday.
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 16