by Gwen Bristow
Charles had sunk into an ugly unconsciousness. She thought she would have killed him with the meat-knife before she would have let him take Stephen, and wreak vengeance again for his shriveled little body and his scorched little soul.
THIRTY-FIVE
GARNET HAD TAKEN STEPHEN upstairs to be out of sight in case Charles woke suddenly, and now she sat at the table finishing her supper. At first she had said she could not eat anything, but Florinda cut off a chunk of beef the size of her fist and put it on a plate with big spoonfuls of beans and cornmeal mush, saying, “There. A dish of wholesome food never hurt anybody.” After the first few bites Garnet agreed with her. Food was a great restorer.
Hands on her hips, Florinda stood looking down at the sodden lump of Charles. With his arms sprawled over the table and his head down between them, Charles was snoring. His mouth was half open, showing the edges of his teeth; his face was wet, and a sourish smell of liquor hovered around him. Florinda gave him a poke, and when he made no response she shrugged.
“Temporarily dead,” she commented. Puckering her lips, she glanced over at Garnet. “Now what,” she inquired, “are we going to do with him?”
“Where is Mickey?” Garnet asked.
“Fast asleep on a blanket in the gambling room.”
“And Silky?”
“Silky’s gone a-courting.”
Garnet nodded. She should have known that. Florinda’s partnership with Silky remained strictly business, but there were several pretty native girls in Los Angeles who liked him and who were not troubled by the present strain on international relations. Now that the saloon had to close at sunset, Silky rarely spent an evening at home. Florinda continued,
“So you and I, all by our little selves, have got to dispose of this scrambled egg.”
Garnet rested her chin on her fists, scowling. She was afraid of Charles, and she did not want him waking up under the same roof with Stephen. She and Florinda could have dragged him outside and thrown him down among the wild oats to sleep it off, but they did not dare to. Charles was no common drunk. He was a man of influence, and if he was not treated with respect he would be likely to tell Captain Gillespie that Silky’s Place was disorderly and ought to be closed for good.
“We’ll have to take some blankets to the gambling room and put him in there,” Garnet said at length. “And we’d better leave a note for Silky, so he’ll know.”
“I guess that’s the best we can do,” Florinda agreed reluctantly, glancing at Charles again. “He doesn’t seem to be in any mad rush to leave. Well, you write the note to Silky and I’ll wash these dishes.”
She picked up the pot of hot water from the hearth-stove. Garnet tore a blank page from one of the ledgers, and took the pen and ink from the shelf. As she dipped the pen into the ink she heard footsteps on the side porch and the sound of men’s voices beyond the door. She started and looked around.
“Sh!” whispered Florinda. “Be quiet and they’ll think we’re all asleep, and maybe they’ll go away.”
Her hands in the dishpan, she held the dishes lest they clink against each other. There was a knock on the door. “Garnet! Florinda!” called a voice outside. Charles squirmed uneasily but did not wake up. The men on the porch called again.
“Hell’s blazes,” said Florinda. “Garnet, my hands are all soapy—go speak to them through the crack of the door. Say we’re not going to let them in and they may as well go on. If they’re after the usual, send ’em to Estelle’s.”
Garnet had not yet developed enough nonchalance to direct customers to Estelle’s house. But she went to the door, which was still rattling as the callers knocked on it. Her lips to the crack above the bolt, she said,
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but this place is closed until noon tomorrow. Captain Gillespie’s orders.”
“Is that Garnet?” said one of the voices outside. “Let us in! This is John Ives.”
“Oh good heavens!” Garnet exclaimed, laughing as another voice beyond the door went on,
“It is also me. Nikolai Grigorievitch Karakozof the Handsome Brute. It is also Pablo and Vicente and the horses and we are hungry. Let us in.”
Her hands awkward with eagerness, Garnet pushed back the bolt. As the door opened John said, “Good evening,” and the Handsome Brute picked her up and swung her around and hugged her in his enormous comforting arms. “Oh Brute,” she said, “oh John, I’m so glad to see you!” The Brute laughed with great lovable warmth, and kissed her on both cheeks before he set her down. Florinda, with the speed she had learned in years of quick-changes backstage, had already dried her hands and put on her mitts. Rushing to John and the Brute she flung an arm impartially about each of them and kissed them both. “Oh, you darlings!” she sighed. “You sweaty dusty revolting unshaven darlings, I do love you so!”
Garnet put the pot of beans on the hearth-stove to warm while Florinda got out the wine. A bottle in his fist, the Brute sat down on the floor. John went outside with drinks for the boys, and told them the beans would be dished up by the time they had unloaded the horses and put them into Silky’s corral. Standing in the doorway so he could direct them if necessary, John beckoned to Garnet. As she came over to him he slipped off his leather gloves and took her hands in both of his, looking down at her intently. His face was coppery with sunburn, and three days’ stubble was black on his jaw. In his dark face, his eyes looked green as absinthe.
“How are you, Garnet?” he asked her. “Please don’t smile politely and say ‘Very well, thank you.’ I have a reason for wanting to know.”
His hands were so hard and muscular that she felt as if they could have snapped her fingers like toothpicks. The gentleness of their touch was astonishing.
“I’m perfectly well, John,” she answered. “I mean it,” she insisted, for he was watching her anxiously. With a smile she added, “And I have the most beautiful little boy.”
“Born—let me see—a month ago?”
“Six weeks tomorrow.”
“That’s better. You’ve had more time to get your strength back.”
“John, what do you mean? Is something wrong?”
“There’s plenty wrong, and you probably know it. I wanted to be sure you were strong enough to stand a journey. We’ve come to get you and Florinda out of Los Angeles before the town explodes.”
“Oh John! Thank you!” Garnet exclaimed. Until he spoke, she had not let herself realize how uneasy she had been. John let go her hands and picked up the bottle Florinda had set on the wall-bench beside him, regarding it with disfavor when he saw it held only the ordinary red wine of California.
“Haven’t you got any whiskey, Florinda?” he asked.
Florinda stood by the fireplace cutting meat from the joint. “Yes, brave laddie, but I can’t afford to give it away.”
“Florinda!” Garnet exclaimed in reproach. “Do you know what he’s here for?”
But John, quietly amused, had already drawn a leather purse from his pocket and was taking out a paper. “It’s all right, Garnet. Florinda and I understand each other perfectly. Here’s a credit paper from Mr. Abbott’s, Florinda. Give me a pen and I’ll put a couple of hides on deposit with you.” Florinda had laid down the meat-knife when they heard a snore from the shadow over by the far wall. “Who’s that?” John asked in surprise.
Florinda glanced around. “If you mean the wet subject, that’s Mr. Charles Hale.”
“Oh,” said John, nodding slowly. “But what’s he doing here?”
“He came in and raised hell with Garnet. I haven’t had time to hear the details, so you’ll have to ask her. Meanwhile, you’ll do us a great favor if you’ll get him out of here.”
“We’ll get him out,” John said crisply. “Give me a hand, Nikolai.”
Hurriedly drinking the last of the wine in his bottle, the Brute scrambled to his feet. “I will help. What do you want us to do with him, Florinda?”
“Feed him to the pigs for all I care. And you’d better hurry, because G
illespie has clamped down a ten o’clock curfew and it must be nearly ten by now.”
As soon as John took over, disposal of Charles became simple. John said when Charles came to Los Angeles he was usually the guest of a rich family named Escobar. Between them, John and the Brute got Charles on his feet and out of the house. The girls heard him mumbling as the fresh air began to revive him.
They gave supper to Pablo and Vicente, and told them they could unroll their blankets in the gambling room. But like most Californios, Pablo and Vicente had little use for houses except when it was raining. They went outdoors, and were asleep with their heads on their saddles when John and the Brute returned.
John said they had had no trouble with Charles. On reaching Señor Escobar’s home they told the señor they had found Don Carlos Hale sitting on the ground with his back against a wall and his head in his hands, made ill, no doubt, by sour cornmeal or stale meat. Señor Escobar was not stupid enough to believe this, but he was gentlemanly enough to pretend he did. He told his servants to give every care to the unfortunate Don Carlos, and after an exchange of courteous remarks John and the Brute bowed themselves out and came back to the saloon.
While Garnet set out the beef and beans, John signed a credit paper and Florinda brought him a bottle of whiskey. John asked if they could be ready to leave Los Angeles the day after tomorrow.
“Why yes,” said Garnet. “Of course.”
The Brute, who was eating meat from a big bone he held in his fists, smiled at her across the bone. “I will help you take care of the baby. I like babies.”
“Be careful not to smash him,” Florinda warned. “He’s not much bigger than your hand.” She set another bottle of red wine by the Brute’s elbow, and sat on the edge of the table, across from the wall-bench. “Say, John.”
“Yes?”
“I gather I’m invited to this party.”
“Certainly. We came to get both of you.”
“Don’t tell me you rode all the way down from your rancho just for our sakes.”
“No, we didn’t. We thought everything was quiet in Los Angeles. But since nobody knows what’s happening east of the mountains, nobody knows how much merchandise the traders will bring from Santa Fe this year. So I rode over to Nikolai’s place one day and suggested that we come to town now and put in our orders at the trading posts, in case there’s not enough to go around. On the way here we heard about the situation, and we decided we’d better get you away.”
“A very sweet thought, I’m sure,” said Florinda. But she spoke doubtfully. “Look, Johnny. I’ve got quite an investment in this business. Are you advising me to leave it?”
“Yes I am,” said John, “and I think Silky will have to leave it too.” He went on to explain. “Stockton left only about fifty men in Los Angeles, and Gillespie has sent several of those to San Diego. Besides the garrison, there aren’t twenty Americans in town. In spite of Gillespie’s orders there are still hundreds of Californios in this district who have guns, and Gillespie seems to be doing his best to make them want to shoot.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Florinda said reluctantly. “Well, I guess it’s better to lose money than to get murdered.”
Garnet heard a little cry from Stephen, and stood up. “I’ll be down to help you clear the dishes,” she said to Florinda.
The Brute, who was now eating a bowl of beans and chili, halted his spoon in mid-air and smiled at her. Like John, the Brute needed a shave, but instead of being dark with stubble his chin flashed with little gold sparkles. “I will wash the dishes,” said the Brute.
“But you’re our guest,” she objected.
“I am a nice guest,” said the Brute.
“Go on up to your baby,” said John. “We didn’t come to make work for you. See you in the morning.”
“All right then, and thanks,” said Garnet. She picked up a candle. “Good night.”
“Good night,” said John, and the Brute kissed his hand to her. As she reached the staircase she heard Florinda ask,
“Where are you planning to take us, John?”
“Kerridge’s.”
“Back to Doña Manuela! Why John, you darling! She won’t mind?”
“She’ll be delighted, if I know her,” said John. Garnet, climbing the stairs, did not hear what else he said. She was feeling a twinge of surprise that it had not occurred to her to ask John where he was going to take them. Her confidence in him went very deep, she realized now, deeper than she had known.
When she had put Stephen to sleep again she tucked him back into his basket, and setting the candle in a corner out of the draft she opened the shutters. The air was cool after the hot day, and tangy with the scent of sage. Garnet sat on the wall-bench, her arms on the sill, and looked out at the mountains looming against the stars. She was glad to have a few minutes alone. She was desperately tired. She had not said so; she had made up her mind to do whatever she had to do and be gallant about it, but she was tired in body and spirit. Tonight, after that scene with Charles, she felt battered. But she could not rest. The day after tomorrow she would have to set out on another journey.
It seemed to her that she spent most of her life going from one place to another on a long trail that had no end. How good it would be to get somewhere. How good to say, “Now I can stop moving. Here is where I belong. Here I will have quietness, and safety, and peace.”
She put her forehead down on her hands. Quietness and safety and peace—she wondered if there really were any such things. Certainly not here. Her life in California was like the land of California itself. California was a place where you could ride for days and not seem to be going anywhere, a place where the mountains had nothing beyond them but deserts and more mountains. In such a land as this, and in such a life as this, you could only set your jaw and keep going, trying to pretend you were going somewhere. You laughed bravely and poured drinks at the bar, you were gay even with your best friends like Florinda and Texas. You kept on and on, trying to hide from them and from yourself the dull gray truth that you did not know what was going to become of you, and that you were lonely and terribly scared.
From below her Garnet heard the buoyant voices of Florinda and the Brute, and the clatter of dishes as they put the kitchen in order. There was a thud of hoofs in the corral behind the house. She heard John in the corral, speaking to a restless horse. Over past the other side of the plaza, a dog bayed faintly.
There were footsteps on the ground under her window. John came out of the corral and around the side of the house, where she could see him in a shimmer of moonlight. The dry undergrowth cracked as he walked on it. The cactus made a lacework of shadows, and for a moment John paused among them, looking out toward the great black mountains. He had on the shirt and trousers in which he had been riding all day, but as her eyes followed his figure she thought she had never seen a man who had such a look of strong patrician grace. John had muscles like steel, and there was not a man on the trail who could work harder than he. But he moved with such rhythmic ease that wherever he was, indoors or out, he made every other man there look clumsy.
Garnet remembered the first time she had seen him, in Santa Fe. She thought of how he had stood back while Silky and Texas and Penrose made their tipsy compliments, and then with what quiet authority he had got them out when he thought they had been there long enough. He was always like that, among them but not one of them. The other men found him hard and stern and more than a trifle awesome. They respected him, they worked with him, and they let him alone. None of them, except possibly the Brute, had discovered the tenderness that lay under John’s rocky shell. She might not have found it either, if she had not needed it so. But whenever she had needed it John had been there, as he was here now; and this was not the first time she had thought he was like shade and a well in the desert.
All of a sudden, Garnet had a feeling that time had stopped. There was no clock ticking, the earth had ceased to turn, the stars had paused on their way across the sky. Not
hing was happening anywhere. The universe stood in a moment of silence.
Then the whole creation spoke. She did not know, she never did know, whether she said it aloud or whether every star and mountain and cactus-thorn said it for her. But the world within and without her said, “John,” and she knew what it was she had been looking for since those far-off girlish days in New York.
This was where the trail had been leading her. From New York to New Orleans, from New Orleans to Santa Fe, across the desert and over the mountains to California, all the way she had been coming to find John. She loved him and she wanted him. There was nothing surprising about it. It was like opening a door and seeing for the first time something that had always been there.
It had always been there, but until now she had not known it. She had needed all those miles and all the events of them to make her know it. If she had met John two years ago in New York she would have thought him a strange sort of man, sinister and even frightening. This was what she had thought when she did meet him in Santa Fe. In those days she had wanted fun and freedom and a lover who would lead her into romantic adventures. Now she did not want any of that. She simply wanted John.
Below the window, John turned and went back into the house. Garnet watched him, smiling to herself. John had never said a word to suggest that he was in love with her. But he had certainly let her know that he took a lot of interest in her. She felt a warm rush of happiness.
From the foot of the staircase she heard Florinda’s voice.
“Well, good night, fellows. See you tomorrow.”