Jubilee Trail

by Gwen Bristow

  Florinda shivered like a paper in the wind. The Brute’s steady voice was almost ruthless.

  “You will have to see your hands,” he said, “as long as you live.”

  Florinda caught her breath.

  “Your gloves will hide the scars from other people,” said the Brute, “but they will never hide the scars from you.”

  “Oh, damn you,” she said. “Damn you.” She jerked her shoulder out from his grasp, and still looking down she said, “All right. I’ll tell you. It was my child. My little girl. Her name was Arabella.”

  The Brute started. He had not known she had ever had a child.

  “That’s why I went into a panic,” said Florinda. She spoke shortly, almost angrily. “When the fire caught my dress, just for a minute I saw it again. Like it was happening right there. That’s why I screamed. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  The Brute did not answer at once. When he did, his voice was low and full of compassion.

  “No wonder you screamed. No wonder you cannot bear to think of it. An accident like that.”

  Florinda doubled her fists into knots on her lap. “It wasn’t an accident,” she said through her teeth. “Brute, it wasn’t an accident. She was murdered.”

  The Brute took both her hands in his, and held them. After a moment Florinda looked up at him, and he thought her eyes had a pitiful bewilderment, like the eyes of a child who has suffered a great deal of pain. He sat down by her on the bench.

  “She was murdered by a drunken beast,” said Florinda. “I had married him because he said he would help me take care of her. I wanted somebody to help me take care of her. I was making lots of money at the Jewel Box, but I got worried for fear of what might become of Arabella if I should die, or if I should have a fall like my mother. I couldn’t bear to think of her living in tenements with broken windows like I did, or having to go to work when she was eight years old. Her father didn’t take any interest in her, he’d never even seen her. I didn’t expect him to. He was a gent, very rich. He knew I’d had the baby and he was quite generous about it, he gave me money to take me through the time when I’d have to be out of the show. But his family was very high-toned and his mother would have raised Cain if she’d found out he’d been carrying on with an actress. I knew if anything happened to me I couldn’t count on him.

  “So I got married, to a man named William Cadwallader Mallory. He pretended to be so nice and so fond of Arabella. But he married me because he was mad for liquor and gambling, and his family had disowned him and he was desperate for money. And I had money in the bank and I was blazing with jewels, and he knew if he could get me down in front of a judge and marry me it would all belong to him. I didn’t know that, I never thought of it, that’s the kind of fool I was.”

  Florinda was talking fast and jerkily, getting her hidden hurt into words after years of not being able to do so. The Brute did not interrupt her. She went on.

  “I couldn’t get a divorce and I couldn’t get away from him. I quit the show and tried to hide, but no matter where I went he found me, and he was always drunk and wanting money. Then at last he was arrested with some other fellows for street fighting and the judge put them in jail. I thought I could leave town while he was in jail and he’d never find me again. I got ready to take a boat. One afternoon I was ironing clothes. I had made up a big fire to heat the irons. Arabella was scampering around, she was nearly two years old then and meddling with everything. I put her in a chair with her dolls, and I tied her to the chair with a belt so she couldn’t climb out and handle the hot irons: My things were all over the room, half packed, and my jewelry was in a box on the table. I was singing while I ironed, and Arabella tried to sing too, and I looked around and laughed at her and she laughed back, and she was so beautiful, and then the door opened and there stood William Mallory.”

  Florinda pulled in her breath with a sound like a rattle.

  “The governor had let him out of jail. He had been drinking but he was not blind drunk. He tried to get the box of jewelry and I grabbed it and cried out that he was not going to have it because it belonged to my child. He said, To hell with your bastard,’ and he kicked over her chair and sprang at me to get the box. I heard Arabella scream but he had me pinned to the wall and he was in front of me so for a minute I couldn’t see her. I dropped the box on the floor and struck at him with both fists, and then I saw over his shoulder what he had done. He had knocked her into the fire. I had tied her into that chair and she couldn’t get out. He had knocked the chair into the fire and there in front of me was my child roasting alive.”

  Florinda’s voice choked in her throat again. Otherwise she did not move.

  “I turned into a tiger. I knocked that man flat on the floor and ran to get my baby. The chair was burning like firewood. I got her free of it. She was blazing all over. I threw her on the floor and rolled her over in the rug to crush out the fire. I don’t know whether I screamed or not. All I know is how I kept trying to beat the fire out of her pitiful little body, and how the room was full of the smell of burning flesh. And then all of a sudden I realized everything was quiet. She was dead. The jewelry was there, scattered on the floor, and Mallory was gone.”

  The Brute had listened to her in silence. But now he said, “Mallory saw what he had done. He got out before you had a chance to kill him.”

  “Yes. But I knew I was going to kill him. At first I couldn’t, because I couldn’t use my hands. But that was all I thought of, to be able to use my hands again so I could kill Mallory. I got a doctor and I did everything he told me. I moved my fingers no matter how much it hurt to do it. I worked and worked on my hands so I could kill Mallory. As soon as the burns had healed enough, I bought a gun and learned to use it. I went about with the gun under my shawl, looking for him. I found him in a gambling palace. I walked up to the roulette table and I didn’t care who saw me. He saw me, and he tried to run, but I didn’t give him time. I whipped out my gun and blew the top of his head off.

  “I got out and they didn’t catch me, because it was night and pouring rain and you couldn’t see a yard ahead of you. But I had trouble anyway. At that same roulette table there were two rich gents named Reese and Selkirk, and they had been having an awful quarrel because Reese had been having an affair with Selkirk’s wife, and they both had guns. When I shot Mallory, Reese did some split-second thinking and put a bullet into Selkirk before the smoke from my shot had cleared into the air. Then he told the police I had shot both men. And nobody cared about a drunken bum like Mallory, but Selkirk was murder at the top of town. I had to get away. My friends from the show came through like a ton of bricks, and they got me on a boat.”

  There was a silence. At length Florinda stirred and pushed back her loose pale hair.

  The Brute said, “This is the first time you have told that story since you left New York, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “It was like you said, all boxed up inside of me. I couldn’t tell it. But somehow it got easier while I was talking.”

  “I thought it would.” There was another pause, then the Brute said, “Your little girl’s father never knew what had happened to her?”

  “Why yes,” said Florinda, “he did. A girl in the show went to him and told him. After I got on the boat he came to see me.

  “It was all very surprising. I never heard anybody talk the way he talked. He had never paid any attention to Arabella, had never even laid eyes on her, but now that she had died like that his conscience blew up inside him. He walked up and down, he called himself names, he said he was no good and never would be. I had to comfort him just as if he was the one in trouble instead of me.

  “Brute, he told me all sorts of strange things that night. He said I was the only girl he’d ever cared for, he never would have let me go except that his mother had found out about me and had threatened to cut him off without a dollar if he ever saw me again, and he had never earned a dollar and didn’t know how. He was scared to death of his mother. He sai
d there was a girl she had picked out for him to marry. He supposed he would marry her. Maybe she’d be the making of him. And I tell you, Brute, I sat there listening to him and I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life. Heaven knows I was never in love with him, he was just another rich boy to me and if it hadn’t been for Arabella I’d have forgotten about him. But I pitied him so much you might call it a kind of affection.”

  Florinda shook her head in wonder at the strange way things went in the world. She lifted her hands and looked at them. The Brute had never seen her look at her hands so candidly, turning them over and over as if she was no longer trying to hide them from herself as well as from other people. After a while she said,

  “Brute, you asked me once why I never took wine. Remember?”

  “Why yes. Do you want to tell me?”

  She nodded. “You see, it was a long way from New York to New Orleans and I had plenty of time to think. I wondered why all this had happened to me. I wondered why I didn’t see through Mallory before I married him. And then I figured it out. I had met him at a party, and always when we were together he was very sociable and he would order champagne, or something elegant to drink. And a couple of drinks always sets me floating through a wonderful world. I see everybody the way I want to see them, good and amusing and kind. And then I haven’t got any self-defense. Even a tiny little bit of liquor does things to my head. There are some people like that. I’d heard of them but I hadn’t known I was one of them. But there on the boat to New Orleans I realized I was one of them, and it all worked back to where if I’d never had a drink I would never have married Mallory and Arabella would not have died like that. I don’t know why I didn’t jump off the boat. I quit liquor, but it wasn’t easy. That’s why I’m so sorry for people like Texas. I know they can’t help it.” She smiled compassionately. “Well, I guess that’s all.”

  There was a long silence between them. Florinda moved back and leaned against the wall, stretching her arms above her head. She turned to the Brute, smiling at him gratefully, and he saw her rub her eyes and smother a yawn. “Now you’re sleepy, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes. And oh, Brute, I feel better. Thank you.”

  He got up from the bench. “You go upstairs now and go to bed. I’ll slip out and see how things are, then I’ll come back and see how you are, then I’ll go to sleep here in the kitchen.”

  “All right. Bless you.”

  “Will you throw me down some blankets?” he asked.

  “Yes, come on.”

  She went upstairs, and the Brute waited at the foot of the staircase till she came out of her room with the blankets. She tossed them down to him. The Brute went back through the kitchen and outdoors. In the sky was a faint streak of dawn. The town was silent. The Brute came back inside, bolted the door, and tiptoed up the stairs again.

  He tapped on Florinda’s door, but got no answer, and he opened the door silently. In the faint light he could see that she had gone to sleep. He went in and looked at her. She had pushed her hair up from the back of her head, and it was spread out under her like a fan. She was breathing deeply, and her face had a look of peace. The Brute bent over and touched her hair, and then, very softly, he kissed her on the forehead.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  GARNET WAITED AND WAITED for John to come back from San Francisco.

  At first she was merely puzzled as to why he should stay so long, then she grew apprehensive. She knew he had reached San Francisco safely, because she had heard from him. General Kearny had established a military courier service for the garrisons between San Francisco and San Diego. Since there were no mails, the couriers sometimes carried letters for citizens, and John had taken advantage of this to write to her.

  Like all John’s letters, this one was brief. He said the voyage north had been a stormy one, and the ship had taken twenty days to go from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. But they had had no real trouble. His boys had taken good care of him and his injuries were greatly improved. He could walk now, and as she could see, he could also write. He was leaving in a few days to see his new property, then he would come south again and they would be married.

  But January went by, and February, and March, and John did not arrive.

  Garnet was not usually given to inventing fears. But she thought of a hundred things that might have happened to him. Or was it possible that he did not want to come back? When she thought of this Garnet’s heart gave an angry flutter. No, that was not possible. Not with John. After all he had said to her, he was not changing now. But even if he were, John would not have run away. If he did not want her he would say so.

  But then why didn’t he come back?

  She would have found it a comfort to talk to the Brute, but he had left Los Angeles shortly after the earthquake. The long voyage to Russia required a lot of preparation.

  Florinda reminded Garnet how hard it was to travel in winter. San Francisco was four hundred miles away; the rains up north were heavier than they were here, and the mountains were full of snow. John might have decided to wait for easier weather.

  Garnet exclaimed, “That could be true of anybody else I know. But not John. If John wanted to get here, he would get here. You know John.”

  “Yes,” said Florinda. “Yes, I know John.”

  For a moment Garnet did not answer. It was late at night, and they were both in Florinda’s room. Florinda sat on the floor arranging the chest where she kept her jewelry and her best clothes. Garnet watched her as she put her jewel-case into a corner and folded a silk shawl on top of it. Garnet said, “I believe you still don’t want me to marry him.”

  Florinda looked up. “Why no, Garnet, that’s not true. I think you ought to marry John because you’ll be miserable the rest of your life if you don’t.”

  “But you don’t think much of it, do you?”

  “Garnet, dearest,” Florinda said slowly, “I don’t want to meddle with your business. But John and I are so much alike. We’ve both lived alone in a sense that you never have, and that’s a hard habit to break. I just wonder if he can give himself up to anybody.”

  Garnet thought this over. She asked, “Is that why he’s staying away so long? Because he’s not used to having anybody worry about him, and he doesn’t realize I’m doing it now?”

  “Yes, I think it is. John is tending to some business of his own, and he hasn’t thought about you pacing the floor in suspense down here. When he does turn up, he’s going to say, ‘But what were you worried about? I told you I’d be here, and here I am.’”

  “Do you think he’s always going to be like this?”

  “I can’t tell,” answered Florinda. “But anybody who’s so used to going his own way, he’ll find it hard to change. And you won’t like that. You can give half and a little more, but you won’t be a piece of jelly.”

  “John wouldn’t want me,” Garnet retorted, “if I were a piece of jelly!”

  “No,” said Florinda, “he wouldn’t want you if you were, but he’s liable to punch you in the nose because you’re not.”

  They did not discuss the matter any further. But when Garnet got up to go to her own room, Florinda smiled and said, “Maybe I’m wrong about John, dear. I hope I am.”

  The next morning they walked over to Mr. Abbott’s to get some cloth for spring dresses. It was a dazzling day, and the anise and the little mustard flowers danced against their skirts as they walked. Florinda remarked that on the way back they might pick some leaves for dinner, and Garnet felt a tug of mingled tenderness and wrath, remembering how John had first showed her how to cook these wild plants.

  They went into Mr. Abbott’s. He greeted them heartily and called for Mr. Collins to come show the ladies those fine calicoes he’d been saving for them. While Mr. Collins unrolled bolts of cloth, Mr. Abbott asked them if they’d heard the news. He was always full of news. Some soldiers had been loafing around here earlier today, and they had told him about poor Colonel Frémont. Too bad. He’d always kind of liked Fr
émont, Mr. Abbott said. The boys had told him Frémont had been court-martialed. Charges were mutiny and disobedience. Found guilty and dismissed from the service. But President Polk had—er, how did they put it?—he had approved the sentence but remitted the dismissal. Probably the President wanted to show appreciation for Frémont’s fine work as an explorer. Still, it was too bad. Mr. Abbott shook his head sadly.

  Garnet was sorry for Frémont, but at the moment she could not be much concerned about any problems but her own. She asked Mr. Abbott if there had been any news from San Francisco. Mr. Abbott ran his hand over his bald head and reflected. Not much had come through of late, he murmured, bad time of year, you know. But he did not like admitting there was no news when he was asked for it, so he began talking about San Francisco. Fine town, he said. Regular American town. Growing fast. Men coming in from Oregon and everywhere. They had hotels and newspapers, and they were even building a schoolhouse for the young ones. Plenty of young ones. Four men to every woman in town, so you could be mighty sure there weren’t any old maids, and the population would be growing even without any help from Oregon. Mr. Abbott chuckled at his own wit. Garnet laughed too, but this was not the sort of news she was looking for.

  Mr. Abbott slapped his fat hands on the counter. “Well bless my soul,” he exclaimed cordially. “Come right in, sir!” Garnet and Florinda turned around, and there was the Handsome Brute.

  When she saw the Brute Garnet’s heart leaped, for he might have news of John. But for the first few minutes she had no chance to ask him. Everybody was greeting him at once, Mr. Abbott and Florinda and Mr. Collins and a native ranchero who had come in to talk about the hide trade. The Handsome Brute said he had ridden in last night to say good-by to his friends in Los Angeles, for he was going north in a few days to take his ship. He had been so covered with mud that he was ashamed to be seen, so he had gone straight to the home of his friend Señor Cereceda, where he often stayed when he was in town. Here he had cleaned up and got a night’s sleep, and the first thing this morning he had gone by the saloon. José had told him the ladies could be found at Mr. Abbott’s, so here he was. And they both grew more beautiful every day, didn’t Mr. Abbott agree with him?