Cimarron

by Edna Ferber

  “Oh, Yancey darling, sometimes I think you’re younger than Cim.”

  “What would you like me to be, honey? A venerable Venable? ‘A man whose blood is very snow-broth; one who never feels the wanton stings and motions of the sense’?”

  Sabra, except for Yancey’s growing restlessness, was content enough. The children were well; the paper was prospering; she had her friends; the house had taken on an aspect of comfort; they had added another bedroom; Arita Red Feather and Isaiah together relieved her of the rougher work of the household. She was, in a way, a leader in the crude social life of the community. Church suppers; sewing societies; family picnics.

  One thing rankled deep. Yancey had been urged to accept the office of Territorial delegate to Congress (without vote) and had refused. All sorts of Territorial political positions were held out to him. The city of Guthrie, Capital of the Territory, wooed him in vain. He laughed at political position, rejected all offers of public nature. Now he was being offered the position of Governor of the Territory. His oratory, his dramatic quality, his record in many affairs, including the Pegler murder and the shooting of the Kid, had spread his fame even beyond the Southwest.

  “Oh, Yancey!” Sabra thought of the Venables, the Marcys, the Vians, the Goforths. At last her choice of a mate was to be vindicated. Governor!

  But Yancey shook his great head. There was no moving him. He would go on the stump to make others Congressmen and Governors, but he himself would not take office. “Palavering to a lot of greasy office seekers and panhandlers! Dancing to the tune of that gang in Washington! I know the whole dirty lot of them.”

  Restless. Moody. Irritable. Riding out into the prairies to be gone for days. Coming back to regale Cim with stories of evenings spent on this or that far-off Reservation, smoking and talking with Chief Big Horse of the Cherokees, with Chief Buffalo Hide of the Chickasaws, with old Black Kettle of the Osages.

  But he was not always like this. There were times when his old fiery spirit took possession. He entered the fight for the statehood of Oklahoma Territory, and here he encountered opposition enough even for him. He was for the consolidation of the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory under single statehood. The thousands who were opposed to the Indians—who looked upon them as savages totally unfit for citizenship—fought him. A year after their coming to Oklahoma the land had been divided into two territories—one owned and occupied by the Indian Tribes, the other owned by the whites. Here the Cravats lived, on the border line. And here was Yancey, fighting week after week, in the editorial and news columns of the Oklahoma Wigwam, for the rights of the Indians; for the consolidation of the two halves as one state. Yet, unreasonably enough, he sympathized with the Five Civilized Tribes in their efforts to retain their tribal laws in place of the United States Court laws which were being forced upon them. He made a thousand bitter enemies. Many of the Indians themselves were opposed to him. These were for separate statehood for the Indian Territory, the state to be known as Sequoyah, after the great Cherokee leader of that name.

  Sabra, who at first had paid little enough heed to these political problems, discovered that she must know something of them as protection against those times (increasingly frequent) when Yancey was absent and she must get out the paper with only the uncertain aid of Jesse Rickey.

  She dared not, during these absences of Yancey, oppose outright his political and Territorial stand. But she edged as near the line as she could, for her hatred of the Indians was still deep and (she insisted) unconquerable. She even published—slyly—the speeches and arguments of the Double Statehood party leaders, stating simply that these were the beliefs of the opposition. They sounded very reasonable and convincing as the Wigwam readers perused them.

  Sabra came home one afternoon from a successful and stirring meeting of the Twentieth Century Philomathean Culture Club (the two had now formed a pleasing whole) at which she had read a paper entitled, Whither Oklahoma? It had been received with much applause on the part of Osage’s twenty most exclusive ladies, who had heard scarcely a word of it, their minds being intent on Sabra’s new dress. She had worn it for the first time at the club meeting, and it was a bombshell far exceeding any tumult that her paper might create.

  Her wealthy Cousin Bella French Vian, visiting the World’s Fair in Chicago, had sent it from Marshall Field’s store. It consisted of a blue serge skirt, cut wide and flaring at the hem but snug at the hips; a waist-length blue serge Eton jacket trimmed with black soutache braid; and a garment called a shirtwaist to be worn beneath the jacket. But astounding—revolutionary—as all this was, it was not the thing that caused the eyes of feminine Osage to bulge with envy and despair. The sleeves! The sleeves riveted the attention of those present, to the utter neglect of Whither Oklahoma? The balloon sleeve now appeared for the first time in the Oklahoma Territory, sponsored by Mrs. Yancey Cravat. They were bouffant, enormous; a yard of material at least had gone into each of them. Every woman present was, in her mind, tearing to rag strips, bit by bit, every gown in her own scanty wardrobe.

  Sabra returned home, flushed, elated. She entered by way of the newspaper office, seeking Yancey’s approval. Curtseying and dimpling she stood before him. She wanted him to see the new costume before she must thriftily take it off for the preparation of supper. Yancey’s comment, as she pirouetted for his approval, infuriated her.

  “Good God! Sleeves! Let the squaws see those and they’ll be throwing away their papoose boards, and using the new fashion for carrying their babies, one in each sleeve.”

  “They’re the very latest thing in Chicago. Cousin Bella French Vian wrote that they’ll be even fuller than this, by autumn.”

  “By autumn,” echoed Yancey. He held in his hand a slip of paper. Later she knew that it was a telegram—one of the few telegraphic messages which the Wigwam’s somewhat sketchy service received. He was again completely oblivious of the new costume, the balloon sleeves. “Listen, sugar. President Cleveland’s just issued a proclamation setting September sixteenth for the opening of the Cherokee Strip.”

  “Cherokee Strip?”

  “Six million, three hundred thousand acres of Oklahoma land to be opened for white settlement. The government has bought it from the Cherokees. It was all to be theirs—all Oklahoma. Now they’re pushing them farther and farther out.”

  “Good thing,” snapped Sabra, still cross about the matter of Yancey’s indifference to her costume. Indians. Who cared! She raised her arms to unpin her hat.

  Yancey rose from his desk. He turned his rare full gaze on her, his handsome eyes aglow. “Honey, let’s get out of this. Clubs, sleeves, church suppers—God! Let’s get our hundred and sixty acre allotment of Cherokee Strip land and start a ranch—raise cattle—live in the open—ride—this town life is no good—it’s hideous.”

  Her arms fell, leaden, to her side. “Ranch? Where?”

  “You’re not listening. There’s to be a new Run. The Cherokee Strip Opening. You know. You wrote news stories about it only last week, before the opening date had been announced. Let’s go, Sabra. It’s the biggest thing yet. The 1889 Run was nothing compared to it. Sell the Wigwam, take the children, make the Run, get our hundred and sixty, start a ranch, stock up with cattle and horses, build a ranch house and patio; in the saddle all day——”

  “Never!” screamed Sabra. Her face was distorted. Her hands were clutching the air, as though she would tear to bits this plan of his for the future. “I won’t. I won’t go. I’d rather die first. You can’t make me.”

  He came to her, tried to take her in his arms, to pacify her. “Sugar, you won’t understand. It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s the biggest thing in the history of Oklahoma. When the Territory’s a state we’ll own forever one hundred and sixty acres of the finest land anywhere. I know the section I want.”

  “Yes. You know. You know. You knew the last time, too. You let that slut—that hussy—take it away from you—or you gave it to her. Go and take her with you. You�
�ll never make me go. I’ll stay here with my children and run the paper. Mother! Cim! Donna!”

  She had a rare and violent fit of hysterics, after which Yancey, aided clumsily by Arita Red Feather, divested her of the new finery, quieted the now screaming children, and finally restored to a semblance of supper-time order the household into which he had hurled such a bomb. Felice Venable herself, in her heyday, could not have given a finer exhibition of Marcy temperament. It was intended, as are all hysterics (no one ever has hysterics in private), to intimidate the beholder and fill him with remorse. Yancey was properly solicitous, tender, charming, as only he could be. From the shelter of her husband’s arms Sabra looked about the cosy room, smiled wanly upon her children, bade Arita Red Feather bring on the belated supper. “That,” thought Sabra to herself, bathing her eyes, smoothing her hair, and coming pale and wistful to the table, her lip quivering with a final effective sigh, “settles that.”

  But it did not. September actually saw Yancey making ready to go. Nothing that Sabra could say, nothing that she could do, served to stop him. She even negotiated for a little strip of farm land outside the town of Osage and managed to get Yancey to make a payment on it, in the hope that this would keep him from the Run. “If it’s land you want you can stay here and farm the piece at Tuskamingo. You can raise cattle on it. You can breed horses on it.”

  Yancey shook his head. He took no interest in the farm. It was Sabra who saw to the erection of a crude little farmhouse, arranged for the planting of such crops as it was thought that land would yield. It was very near the Osage Reservation land and turned out, surprisingly enough, doubtless owing to some mineral or geological reason (they knew why, later), to be fertile, though the Osage land so near by was barren and flinty.

  “Farm! That’s no farm. It’s a garden patch. D’you think I’m settling down to be a potato digger and chicken feeder, in a hayseed hat and manure on my boots!”

  September, the month of the opening of the vast Cherokee Strip, saw him well on his way. Cim howled to be taken along, and would not be consoled for days.

  Sabra’s farewell was intended to be cold. Her heart, she told herself, was breaking. The change that these last four years had made in her never was more apparent than now.

  “You felt the same way when I went off to the first Run,” Yancey reminded her. “Remember? You carried on just one degree less than your mother. And if I hadn’t gone you’d still be living in the house in Wichita, with your family smothering you in Southern fried chicken and advice.” There was much truth in this, she had to admit. She melted; clung to him.

  “Yancey! Yancey!”

  “Smile, sugar. Wait till you see Cim and Donna, five years from now, riding the Cravat acres.”

  After all, a hundred other men in Osage were going to make the Cherokee Strip Run. The town—the whole Territory—had talked of nothing else for months.

  She dried her eyes. She even managed a watery smile. He was making the Run on a brilliant, wild-eyed mare named Cimarron, with a strain of Spanish in her for speed and grace, and a strain of American mustang for endurance. He had decided to make the trip from Osage to the Cherokee Outlet on horseback by easy stages so as to keep the animal in condition, though the Santa Fé and the Rock Island roads were to run trains into the Strip. He made a dashing, a magnificent figure as he sat the strong, graceful animal that now was pawing and pirouetting to be off. Though a score of others were starting with him, it was Yancey that the town turned out to see. He rode in his white sombrero, his fine white shirt, his suit with the Prince Albert coat, his glittering high-heeled Texas star boots with the gold-plated spurs. The start was made shortly after sunrise so as to make progress before the heat of the day. But a cavalcade awoke them before dawn with a rat-a-tat-tat of six-shooters and a blood-curdling series of cowboy yips. The escort rode with Yancey and the others for a distance out on the Plains. Sabra, at the last minute, had the family horse hitched to the buggy, bundled Cim and Donna in with her, and—Isaiah hanging on behind, somehow—the prim little vehicle bumped and reeled its way over the prairie road in the wake of the departing adventurers.

  At the last Sabra threw the reins to Isaiah, sprang from the buggy, ran to Yancey as he pulled up his horse. He bent far over in his saddle, picked her up in one great arm, held her close while he kissed her long and hard.

  “Sabra, come with me. Let’s get clear away from this.”

  “You’ve gone crazy! The children!”

  “The children, too. All of us. Come on. Now.” His eyes were blazing. She saw that he actually meant it. A sudden premonition shook her.

  “Where are you going? Where are you going?”

  He set her down gently and was off, turned halfway in his saddle to face her, his white sombrero held aloft in his hand, his curling black locks tossing in the Oklahoma breeze.

  Five years passed before she saw him again.

  15

  Dixie Lee’s girls were riding by on their daily afternoon parade. Sabra recognized their laughter and the easy measured clatter of their horses’ hoofs before they came into view. She knew it was Dixie Lee’s girls. Somehow, the virtuous women of Osage did not laugh much, though Sabra did not put this thought into words, ever in her mind. She glanced up now as they drove by. She was seated at her desk by the window in the front office of the Oklahoma Wigwam. Their plumes, their parasols, their brilliant-hued dresses made a gay garden of color in the monotony of Pawhuska Avenue. They rode in open phaëtons, but without the usual top, so that they had only their parasols to shade their brightly painted faces from the ardent Southwest sun. The color of the parasols and plumes and dresses was changed from day to day, but they always were done in ensemble effect. One day the eyes of Osage’s male population were dazzled (and its female population’s eyes affronted) by a burst of rosy splendor shading from pale pink to scarlet. The next day they would shade from palest lavender to deepest purple. The next, from delicate lemon to orange; the day following they ran the gamut of green. They came four by four, and usually one in each carriage handled the reins, though occasionally a Negro driver occupied the front seat alone. They were not boisterous. Indeed, they conducted themselves in seemly enough fashion except perhaps for the little bursts of laughter and for the fact that they were generous with the ankles beneath the ruffled skirts. Often they carried dolls in their arms. Sometimes—rarely—they called to each other. Their voices were high and curiously unformed, like the voices of little children, and yet with a metallic note in them.

  “Madge, looka! When we get to the end of Pawhuska we’ll race you to Coley’s Gulch and back.” These afternoon races became almost daily sporting events, and the young bloods of Osage got into the habit of stationing themselves along the road to bet on the pale pink plumes or the deep rose plumes.

  “Heh, go it, Clemmie! Whip him up, Carmen. Give him the whip! Come on! Whoop-ee! Yi!” Plumes whirling, parasols bobbing, skirts flying, shrill shouts and screams of laughter from the edge of town. But on the return drive their behavior was again seemly enough, their cheeks flushed with a natural color beneath the obvious red.

  Sabra’s face darkened now as she saw them driving slowly by. Dixie Lee never drove with them. Sabra knew where she was this afternoon. She was down in the back room of the Osage First National Bank talking business to the President, Murch Rankin. The business men of the town were negotiating for the bringing of the packing house and a plough works and a watch factory to Osage. Any one of these industries required a substantial bonus. The spirit of the day was the boom spirit. Boom the town of Osage. Dixie Lee was essentially a commercial woman—shrewd, clear headed. She had made a great success of her business. It was one of the crude town’s industries, and now she, as well as the banker, the hardware man, the proprietor of the furniture store, the meat market, the clothing store, contributed her share toward coaxing new industries to favor Osage. That way lay prosperity.

  Dixie Lee was a personage in the town. Visitors came to her house now fro
m the cities and counties round about. She had built for herself and her thriving business the first brick structure in the wooden town; a square, solid, and imposing two-story house, its bricks formed from the native Oklahoma red clay. Cal Bixby had followed close on it with the Bixby Block on Pawhuska Avenue, but Dixie Lee had led the way. She had commissioned Louie Hefner to buy her red velvet and gold furniture and her long gilt-framed mirrors, her scarlet deep-pile carpet—that famous velvet-pile carpet in which Shanghai Wiley, that bearded, cultured, and magnetic barbarian, said he sank so deep that for a terrified moment he fell into a panic, being unable to tell which was red carpet and which his own flowing red beard. Dixie herself had gone East for her statues and pictures. The new house had been opened with a celebration the like of which had never been seen in the Southwest. Sabra Cravat, mentioning no names, had had an editorial about it in which the phrases “insult to the fair womanhood of America” and “orgy rivaling the Bacchanalian revels of history” (Yancey’s library stood her in good stead these days) figured prominently. Both the Philomathean Society and the Twentieth Century Culture Club had, for the duration of one meeting at least, deserted literature and culture for the discussion of the more vital topic of Dixie Lee’s new mansion.

  It was—this red brick brothel—less sinister than these good and innocent women suspected. Dixie Lee, now a woman of thirty or more, ruled it with an iron hand. Within it obtained certain laws and rules of conduct so rigid as to be almost prim. In a crude, wild, and nearly lawless country the brick mansion occupied a strange place, filled a want foreign to its original purpose. It was, in a way, a club, a rendezvous, a salon. For hundreds of men who came there it was all they had ever known of richness, of color, of luxury. The red and gold, the plush and silk, the perfume, the draperies, the white arms, the gleaming shoulders sank deep into their hard-bitten senses, long starved from years on wind-swept ranches, plains dust bedeviled, prairies baked barren by the fierce Southwest sun. Here they lolled, sunk deep in rosy comfort, while they talked Territory politics, swapped yarns of the old cattle days, played cards, drank wines which tasted like sweet prickling water to their whisky-scarred palates. They kissed these women, embraced them fiercely, thought tenderly of many of them, and frequently married them; and these women, once married, settled down contentedly to an almost slavish domesticity.