“Teddy! Teddy!” The call had sounded so often that to Teddy himself his name had undergone that strange transformation where it had become a senseless word, without end or meaning. He was sick of it. If he heard it once more, he told himself, he would smash something—preferably the stage scenery. One prop pulled out and there would be a splendid crash.
But he had no time to waste, pulling props or contemplating ruin. He was hurrying as fast as he could. He stacked a heap of gossamer costume on a rickety chair, started off in answer to a plaintive cry, and then rushed back just in time to keep the costume from tumbling down. “Teddy! Come here a minute.” There was no time to say “please,” no time for anyone to adopt the usual pretence that they were asking him and not ordering. He put the costume down again, more firmly, and tore off in the direction of the ladies’ dressing-room. Mrs. Saville-Sanders wanted to be pinned up.
“Teddy!” That was Bob, at the other end of the stage. “I need some help here.”
“Teddy! What in hell did you do with that foundation cream?”
“Teddy! Come and fix my eyebrows. I look like a ruin. What’s the matter?”
“Teddy Madden, come and tell me where to put this jar. You stand out there and look. Do you think so? No, I’m sure you’re wrong....”
“Ted, Gwen Saville-Sanders wants you to fix the flower that goes in her hair. Hurry up, for God’s sake. She’s on a rampage.”
He dashed into the dressing-room again and Phyllis Parker snatched up a wrapper and screamed. Startled, he paused and glanced at her. Her legs were long and bare beneath the wrapper: she clutched it to her flat bosom like Diana surprised in the bath, and glared at him.
“Oh, don’t be such a damn fool!” he snarled, overwhelmed by the imbecility of it. “D’you think I havetime....”
“Teddy! Teddee.. ee.. ee.” A maliciously long-drawn wail that set his teeth on edge. He was dripping with sweat and his face was smeared with dust and plaster. For a quarter of an hour the audience had been clapping spasmodically, now someone had started them off on a slow, ominous, steady applause that beat on his ears terrifyingly. Well, what if they did get tired and go home? Of course they wouldn’t, but what if they did? He would be glad. He wanted more than anything in the world to go into a corner and sleep; if anyone called him he would show his teeth like a rat. One more idiot yelling for him....
The stage director came in and held up his hand, spreading an area of quiet through the crowd until it reached the outer corners.
“Silence! Silence! please. Everyonemustbe more quiet. I was out in the back, the very back, and I could hear you all the way out there. Please be more careful, even if you are excited. Now then, is everyone ready? Are all the props in place? Madden, have you looked it all over? All right then. I’m going to give the signal.... Curtain!”
In the hush behind the scenes following the creaking of the curtain, Teddy escaped and crept out into the audience through the side door. He wiped his face and tried to relax, refusing to look about him, even at the stage, until he should have regained his temper. The affair was well under way when he allowed himself to look.
Well, it seemed to be going without too much of a hitch. It was impossible to follow it closely after so many rehearsals. Unless someone made a new error, he wouldn’t even notice the customary little slips that they were so used to. He was fogged, worn out. His head drooped to one side and he began to breathe with a dangerous regularity, then caught himself up and straightened his back. The trouble was that he had not had a drink all day. He had promised Mrs. Saville-Sanders to see to it that no one was drunk at the opening of the Vaudeville, and in the face of careful taboo, how could he have managed to take anything for himself? No, it was better this way. But now it was safe: as soon as he had a chance he’d get something. No one would be able to last through the Ball without a little help. His head slumped down again.
Through the uncomfortable doze he heard the long-drawn clapping that meant the end of the first act. He sat up quickly as the lights went on. They’d be needing him. He went back to the stage door, stopping with Billy Trewartha, who was in charge of the curtain.
“Got a drink?” he asked. It was an unnecessary question, since he had stopped Billy twice from taking nips before the show started. Billy harboured no grudge, however. He took a flask out and mounted guard while Teddy did his best to repair his nerves.
The second act was launched and he went back to his old seat. The audience was taking it pretty well. Of course the people in front would like it because it was a family affair, but these chaps didn’t have to applaud unless they meant it. The broad comedy went over much better than the highbrow offerings. Natural enough, he reflected; it was really much better. He craned his neck and took one glimpse of the front rows, then sat back, satisfied with their carefully appreciative expressions.
Next act started off awkwardly, some mix-up with the lights to begin with, and a lot of frantic flashing—yellow and red and blue, each new colour greeted with irreverent applause. The curtain went up before it should have, too. Perhaps Billy had finished the flask too soon. Oh well, it was not too bad. The light was fixed at last as it should be; a single red beam at the corner of the stage. Then Phil Ray stepped into it and walked slowly, or rather danced—for his step was controlled and deliberate—to the centre. His arm was raised, covering his eyes, and he crouched as he walked. In the centre of the stage he stopped, turned slowly in a series of notes from the music, and paused again. The playing was louder, working up to a crescendo. He dropped his arms, stretched them down along his sides, then flung them back and stood with his chest high, his ribs sharply serrated, his neck ridged with shadow as his head fell back. The shaded half of his body looked purple in the red light, shining from an angle. He was naked.
There was a stir, a gathering disturbance in the audience. Suddenly the rustling and whispering concentrated in the centre of the second row. In the darkness Teddy thought he saw a great moving shadow. What could it be? Someone was talking, forgetting to whisper. Someone was arguing. An usher opened the door into the lobby and held it; someone was going out. The electric light streamed in from the back, near Teddy, and illuminated the majestic form of Mrs. Montgomery Pearson, walking out of the door. She walked like a sacred elephant, and her jet necklace swung back and forth across her armoured bosom. She moved slowly, with upheld nose but downcast eyes, into the pure air of the outer night; after her, blinking a little and stooping more than usual beneath the horrid burden of so many astounded stares, Mr. Montgomery Pearson followed with her shawl.
The door swung shut behind them and the house was in darkness again. Only the red light persisted, shining on the imperturbable Phil, who went on dancing. Teddy managed to get backstage just as the act ended.
Back there they were not taking it as humorously as he had expected. Phil came off the stage in a fit of hysteria and everyone was comforting him. The place was in a mess: everyone was indulging in the luxury of indignation, and Teddy leaped into the middle of it until the stage-manager extricated him and sent him forth to calm down the performers. Bob was the most militant: he was all for sending the Pearsons out of town by official order from the Mayor.
“I can see the humour of it as quickly as anyone can, my dear boy,” he explained to Teddy, “but damn it, we must protect the colony. What’s to happen to free speech and all that if we allow the bigots to criticize us?”
“I’ll start circulating a petition tomorrow,” said Gwen. “Teddy, remind me of it in the morning.”
“Teddy,” said the stage-manager, “see if you can’t make the property men get down to work. I promised the undertaker that he can have the chairs back in time for a bridge party tomorrow.”
“That reminds me,” Mrs. Saville-Sanders said, “that I want to talk to you when you have a moment to spare, Teddy.”
Phil plucked at his arm and asked him feebly if it would be wise to bring action for libel. Bob thought that it would, and walked off with him, saying, “I’ll give you the address of my attorney in Albuquerque.”
“Before I forget,” Mrs. Saville-Sanders persisted, “I want to ask you to be sure to come to my bridge on the eleventh, Teddy. Don’t forget, will you? I shall count on you. And I wanted to say that you’ve been a dear boy and a great help tonight. I don’t know what we should have done without you.” She turned to Bob, who had come back. “That’s a nice boy,” she added.
His heart bounded in triumph. The accolade at last!
“Teddy! Come here a minute, will you? Someone has got to help me pack up the costumes.”
He ran gaily to obey the last order of the evening. All was well. His face was as the face of Wellington after Waterloo.
At the door of the Gymnasium, Blake halted suddenly, peered around the room, and swore under his breath. Hearing his own whispering voice was a comfort to him, but it did not dispel his panic. It was embarrassing, torturing, to be so early at the Ball. Anyone seeing him would think that he was eager. He could not bear to be eager, or to be thought so. No one had come but the orchestra and a few town people who had not gone to the Vaudeville. Had they seen him? He withdrew to the darkness outside and plucked nervously at the elastic that held the tall sombrero on his head. If anyone should see him now they would think that he was being kept waiting by someone. Irresolutely he turned and went to his car, to sit there, he told himself grimly, until he had counted twenty people going in to fill up that appalling room.
How had he happened to be so early? He wondered what he was missing, and had a spasm of jealousy. Now he was sorry that he had dashed so quickly after the show. He had been so afraid that Mary would ask him to take Phyllis or Lucy over to the Gymnasium. He had wanted to start this evening of festival all alone and unhampered. He had gone for a short drive, the Circle Drive up towards Taos, and had been confident he would be late. Probably they were still at the theatre, talking about the Pearson business.
He crouched there smoking until he had counted his twenty people. He decided to count ten more before risking an entrance. At twenty-seven he saw Teddy coming with a crowd, showing the tickets of the party and carrying coats to be checked and in general being very useful. If Teddy had come, it would be safe. Blake stood up and went into the Gym. The orchestra had begun to play listlessly, saving its energy for later. Teddy greeted him impatiently.
“Where were you? I lost everybody,” he said. “I just picked this crowd up. Gwen and the others went tooting off and I thought you’d be with them. Where’s your mother? None of them are here. What’s the idea?”
Blake explained that his mother had gone with Mrs. Saville-Sanders for an extempore committee meeting. “I heard them say they’d have some coffee and get the important business over with right away. I ran away. It’s probably awfully dull. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Teddy tried to thrust his hands into his pockets, but his velvet trousers had no pockets. “It’s very queer,” he said. “Why didn’t they ask me too? I had a lot of things to say; I must say it’s queer. Do you think it means anything?”
Blake thought he understood. “I hate to miss things, too,” he said. “It isn’t anything, though. You weren’t on the committee, that’s all.”
“I suppose that’s why.” Teddy looked at the door. “Here they are now, anyway. Whatever it was, it didn’t take long.”
The room had filled and the officials of the party had begun to line people up for the Grand March. Mary, loitering behind with the matrons, tried to persuade Blake to go in, but he resisted her.
“You go in, if you want to,” he suggested. “I haven’t any partner; I don’t want to go. You walk with Madden. He wants to march.”
They walked off arm in arm and he climbed to a bench and stood perched on high, to see more clearly. It was very colourful and pleasant; the Gymnasium did not look exactly like a palace, but it didn’t look at all like a schoolroom. In the centre, the marchers were lined up and the orchestra began to play “La Cucha-racha.” They marked time, moved, started off, and he saw them one by one as they passed. Some of the costumes were beautiful. Many of them had no appreciable connection with the period of the Conquistadores, but no one cared about that. The girls, at least, were faithful to their conceptions of Spain. There were short-skirted women with flat black hats, and long-skirted girls very bouffant and draped with lacy shawls. There were women with mantillas and women who had had to tie their high combs to their heads with silver ribbons or elastics, to hold them on in spite of their Eton crops. Some women had dressed for evening and then had relented enough to put roses in their hair. The men were armoured knights and cowboys and trappers and Indians. All sorts of Indians. Some were dressed in costumer’s leather and buckskin and some were last-minute affairs of plain shirts with tails out, and moccasins. Phil Ray had rebelled at the indeterminate Indian tendency: in reaction he was wearing a slouch cap and checked trousers from one of his dance costumes, and if anyone asked him why, he retorted, “I’m an Apache.”
Everyone—men and women—had taken advantage of the Carnival to do what they wanted to do in the matter of paint. Boys were languishing and red-lipped, with fierce cork mustaches and Vandykes and heavy hairy eyebrows. Girls’ cheeks flamed orange and scarlet. As the room grew warmer, everyone began to streak slightly.
Three times they marched round the room until Blake was heartily tired of “La Cucha-racha.” So was someone else. A determined young man stepped from the march and went up to whisper into the ear of the orchestra leader. The signal was given, the tune changed at last, and the line melted into a dance. Blake remembered his duty and climbed down to claim Mary until the first intermission after the dance. Afterwards he went back to the line of wall-flowers to watch the others. He was standing behind a line of old women who had “just come to look on,” and listened to what they were saying while he kept his eyes fixed on the dancers. They were amusing, but horrible. They were so spiteful and helpless. The worst of it was that they all agreed; if one of them said something they all nodded and added to the statement. They agreed on the prettiest costume; they nodded in concert if one of them ventured a view on the morals of some unfortunate girl who danced by.
During the third dance, well on towards midnight, he plucked up courage enough to leave the faded ladies and claim Gin for a dance. She was in high spirits. He had watched her from across the floor; now that she was in his arms breathing in his face he understood better why she was so excited. Corn liquor, probably. They went twice around the room without speaking.
“Are you having a good time?” she asked him then. “You look glum.”
“Not very. Does anyone?”
“Oh I do,” she said. “I love crowds, don’t you? Everybody in the world is here. Even from Taos. It’s simply marvelous. Have you seen Phil? Isn’t he rare?”
He glanced at her obliquely and decided that she was pretending. No one could be enjoying it, really. Everyone was trying too hard, as they always did in crowds. He was depressed. Merry-making always seemed to leave him out. Was it his own fault? Of course the wags were busy, being clownish. Clowns were always too busy to think about enjoyment itself. Why couldn’t he be like that? If he could even stop thinking about himself it would be more comfortable, but he couldn’t. No one ever could. Mary couldn’t, or Teddy.
The dance was ended; she took his arm and started to lead him from the room.
“Where are we going?” he asked suspiciously.
“Out to the car. I want a drink, don’t you? Harvey’s waiting.”
“No. If you don’t mind, I won’t come along.” He was afraid of Harvey; afraid that he would be in the way. Harvey had danced with Gin held very close, in a very proprietary manner.
She tugged at him. “Come along. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to, but please come on. Please. I hate sitting out there alone with him.”
That settled it and he stopped short. “No,” he said flatly. “No I won’t.”
She cried out impatiently and began to argue, as he knew she would. But whatever she was saying, he did not hear; he was suddenly listening to another voice behind him, that struck him with terror.
“There’s Blake Lennard,” he heard, and knew it was Maria. “Oh Blake! turn around.”
He obeyed, but he was very fearful. Maria was hanging to the arm of Mrs. Lyons, and she was dressed magnificently in a Spanish dress of black lace. Inherited, probably. She narrowed her eyes as she smiled and he thought nervously that she looked like the—was it basilisk or obelisk? Mrs. Lyons, always stupid, now beamed at them maternally as Maria seized his free arm. Maria ignored Gin completely. “Aren’t you going to dance with me?” she asked him.
“Surely. See you later—just a minute.” He pulled away and hurried out, with Gin looking back wonderingly at the little girl.
“Good heavens. Who is that little vamp? What’s been going on between you?” She was giggling.
“Where’s the car?” he asked impatiently. “I’d better stay a while.”
Harvey, when they found him packed down in the back seat of his auto, was very jovial, and if he objected to Blake’s presence he at least gave no indication of it. He was very insistent upon sharing his bottle.
Blake still held out. “I don’t like the taste, really.”
“He’s got to keep his wits about him tonight,” Gin explained, and patted his shoulder affectionately. “Don’t you make him take anything if he doesn’t want to. He’s saving himself for a little girl back there who’s waiting for a dance. You ought to see her, and the way she looks at him!” She laughed heartily. “Blake’s been carrying on behind our backs, that’s what the trouble is. Carrying on!”
“Oh, stop it. Do you really think I ought to go back and dance?”
“Ought to? How do I know what you’ve been doing with her? You won’t get home alive if you don’t, if that’s what you mean.”
He sighed unhappily. “Give me a drink,” he asked pleadingly, and Harvey shouted with laughter.
He pounded Blake on the back as he handed him the little cup. “That’s the boy. He’s all right, he is.Iused to think Blake was just a sissy, but he’s all right. One of the boys.”
“Of course he’s all right,” said Gin. “I always told you he was. Now he’s turned out to be John Gilbert besides.”
“Stop giggling!” Blake flushed with rage. “You’re always giggling.”
She giggled again. Harvey put his arm around her and she made no effort to push him away. In spite of himself, Blake had to look at them. He couldn’t make up his mind what to do. If he started to go they would object, and insist on his staying. If he went back to the ballroom he would have to dance with Maria; he couldn’t face it. He sat still, being miserable. He tried to keep his eyes off the shadow that was Gin and Harvey, twined in each other’s arms, but there was no help for it. In the corridor made by the tonneaus of the cars, lined up in three straight rows, other people were pouring drinks and sitting close together. He heard the sounds; whisperings and laughter and soft chinking. Any evening at the Country Club it was the same. Why did they come all the way to Santa Fé to do it? He thought again—and again and again—of that hint Maria had given him about Teddy and Revelita. Teddy too? He could not believe it. Teddy, who painted so well and talked so well and was so impatient of all this; just as impatient as he himself had been. Teddy never mentioned it. Would he never understand the rest of the people in the world? Was there nothing for it but to go on alone, travelling by himself through life? He looked disgustedly at Gin, just as she came to a late realization of his mood, and pulled herself away from Harvey.
“Where’s Teddy?” she asked, as casually as if she were continuing a conversation. “I want him. Harvey, go on and get him: you’re falling asleep.”
Harvey stirred and shook his head. “I don’t want to. I’m sleepy.”
“Oh, don’t be mean. Go and get him. I want to tell him something.”
“I’ll get him,” said Blake. He leaped out, disregarding her protests, and went back to the ballroom, forgetting all about Maria until he reached the door. Then, in a panic, he hid behind a tall girl who was going in, and looked around fearfully before he started over to Teddy in the corner. Janie Peabody seized him as he walked by her. He was surprised, because Janie never noticed him any more than he noticed her. Now she was very cordial. She insisted on making him sit next to her, holding his arm and talking very seriously and incoherently. He knew that she was drunk. He remembered that it was one of the things the old ladies said when they sat against the wall at parties; Janie drinks too much. That Peabody girl ought to have more sense. If someone would persuade her to go to a sanatorium—so sad at her age.... He wondered how to get away, but he couldn’t think fast enough. She wanted to dance.
Unhappily, he pulled her to her feet and started around the room. It was unutterably difficult. He couldn’t listen properly to the music, and she was unsteady and leaned heavily on him. When she began to sing he looked at the floor, and this naturally led to many collisions. He looked up again, desperately, and just then Janie decided that she was tired and slumped to the floor. She sat there, laughing.
“This isn’t happening,” he thought frantically. “It’s a dream.”
He persuaded her to stand up again, pulling her by the wrists, and tried to lead her to the side of the room. Just then he caught a glimpse of Mary, white-faced, looking the other way. He had thought that he could not be more miserable, but when he saw her he reached the limit of his endurance. He handed Janie over to Trewartha, and then took a deep breath and walked across the floor to Mary.
“I was looking for you,” he said, abruptly.
She bowed her head. What was she going to say to him?
“You look tired,” he added. “Would you like to go home? It’s pretty late.”
“Thank you, Blake,” she said coldly. “I don’t think that I want you to come with me.”
“Why not?” He suddenly thought he understood. “You don’t want me to come home any more?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. Go away, please. Don’t stop enjoying yourself.”
His anger with Janie burst out now. “You’re the one who’s being dramatic. Very well, I won’t come home.”
“That’s your own affair.” She opened her fan and started to wave it delicately. “Mother....”
“Blake, please. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
He muttered, “No we won’t,” and started away, feeling decidedly ill with passion. On his way to the door he blundered into Mrs. Lyons, who stopped him.
“So you’re leaving us?” She smiled down at him with her customary indiscriminate fondness for youth.
He managed to collect his manners, saying politely, “It’s a nice party, but I’m sleepy.”
“I didn’t mean tonight,” she explained. “Wednesday I mean. I understand you’re really leaving on Wednesday. Such a shame, when you’re having a good time! My boys hate to go back to school.”
His jaw dropped as if someone had hit him on the back of the head. “Wednesday?”
“Did I misunderstand?” she said. “I’m sure your mother said Wednesday.” “Oh, of course. Yes, Wednesday. Well, I must be going. Good-night.”
But that was in four days! He walked towards Teddy, instinctively seeking help. Why hadn’t she told him? She had been too excited, probably; she had forgotten or put it off until she would have more time to argue. He rallied in his despair, and grew calm.
“Teddy,” he said, over Lucy’s shoulder, “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Shhh.” Teddy waved him to silence. Bob was talking to Lucy Parker, and he wanted to listen.
“It’s a modern orgy,” he was saying. “It’s the nearest approach to a public orgy that we’ll ever have in New Mexico.”
Lucy glanced around, with her lips pursed scornfully, and remarked that for an orgy it was very dull indeed. “Look, there’s hardly anyone here to perform. Everyone is being either very dull or most circumspect.”
“Of course,” said Bob triumphantly. “That’s the modern note. All the essence of the orgy is in the aftermath. We’ve lost the knack for public vice. We’ve——”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” whispered Blake, “come on. This is awfully important.”
“What is it?” They strolled off.
“I’m in a mess. I just found out—Oh, Lord.” He had caught sight of Maria coming towards him. “Come on outside. I’ll never be able to tell you in here. It’s terrible.”
They stepped out of the door and were almost knocked over by Gin, who was in a whirl of dishevelled shawl and escaping hair. She flung herself upon them.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” she cried. “Take me home. I’m in the most awful mess.”
“Another?” asked Teddy. “Well, tell us all about it.”
They went to Blake’s car and crowded into the front seat.
Teddy nodded to Gin. “Well, tell yours first.”
“I couldn’t possibly tell you,” she said. “It’s too involved. It’s indecent besides. Just get me out of here before Harvey finds me, because he’s in a state and if I see him again I’ll pull his hair out.” She laughed in a shrill voice. “The old sheep,” she said hysterically. “He acts exactly like a sheep.”
“Well, then, wait a minute. Blake’s really in trouble.”
“Oh.” She calmed down immediately. “I’m sorry. Is it serious?”
Blake sat tragically slumped, with his chin propped on his hands over the steering-wheel. “I just heard that Mother’s shipping me off on Wednesday,” he said.
The others gasped in chorus.
“Wednesday!” cried Gin. “You mean to school? California? But that’s just four days from now!”
“Three days. Today is tomorrow. I mean it’s three o’clock.”
In the silence the music in the Gymnasium sounded foolish and far away. Someone scuffled and laughed in one of the nearby automobiles. “You can’t argue with your mother?” Gin asked.
“No. She’s in a state about something. I can’t even talk to her decently.”
Teddy said, “Wait till morning. Maybe she’ll be all right then.”
“No, I don’t dare risk it. It wouldn’t do any good. I’ll just have to go unless I get away before she catches me.”
They must have understood him, for they remained silent. A little breeze came from the mountains.
Gin took a quick, noisy breath and cried, “Well, why shouldn’t you? Let’s all go away now. This minute, while we have a chance.”
Teddy said nothing. They looked at him imploringly, waiting, but he did not say anything. At last Gin took him by the shoulders and shook him.
“You’re not going to back out, are you?” she begged. “You want to go away, don’t you? You said you did. Come on. Blake, you tell him.”
Blake couldn’t speak. “Oh, all right,” said Gin petulantly. “Neither of you mean it. Come on, Blake, let’s get out and leave him here. He can stay in this old town till he rots. I’m going to Mexico.”
Blake’s mind seemed to burn up in a quick ecstatic thought of it. He shuddered.
Teddy spoke at last. “Of course I’m going. Don’t be an ass. I’m just thinking.” He sat still, and then said, “First we’d better get coats. Give me the checks. It’s going to be cold.”
“Oh,” Gin cried impatiently, “we don’t need coats. Come on.”
“Wait a minute. Give me the check, you lunatic.” She handed it to him; he took Blake’s and went to the door. When he came back with the coats——“There,” he said. “We don’t have to be quite half cocked, do we? Now about money. We’ll need gas, Gin: try to snap out of it. I’m broke. Is everyone?”
“No,” said Blake, “I’ve got fifteen dollars.”
“I cashed my salary today,” said Gin. “I have twenty. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“It’s got to be. All right, let’s go. Let’s see where we can be by morning.” He wrapped his coat around him and sat back.
Blake laughed loudly. “Ready?” he called. “Everybody ready?”
“Let’s go!”
The engine raced for a minute. Blake backed the car, then started down the road to Albuquerque.
Before they had come to the gap that cuts a sharp high line of hills and marks the half-way point to Albuquerque, the sun came up. It was gloriously melodramatic over the little crawling black car; it spouted red and orange over the sky, and the fresh midsummer wind was cool and ethereal. Gin held up her chin and closed her eyes for a second, sniffing. Then she opened them hastily, for she was driving and it would not do to go to sleep. Not that she felt sleepy; she was still tingling and wide-awake. She peered into the mirror at Blake, asleep and white-faced in the tonneau, and wondered at his indifference. But the poor kid had been through a rotten night: only in the last half-hour he had stopped jerking and looking back over his shoulder at the empty black road behind them. It was awful to be a kid. Even the law wouldn’t help.
Thinking of the law, she felt afraid again. It was time to ask Teddy the question she had thought of hours before, but had put out of her mind.
“Teddy,” she said in a low voice. He woke from his doze, beside her, and cocked an eyebrow. “Teddy, are we all right with Blake?”
“Why not?” His voice was husky: a morning voice.
“Couldn’t we get into trouble driving off with the car like this?”
“No. It’s his car. His own car.”
“I don’t mean robbery; I mean the Mann act, or kidnapping, or whatever you call it. He’s a minor, isn’t he?”
She watched him and grew more uneasy, for worry appeared on his face.
“Gosh,” he murmured. “I don’t know anything about the law.... You think they might send the police after us?”
She shrugged helplessly. He pondered for a minute, then turned around and tugged at Blake’s foot.
“Wake up, kid—you can sleep again in a minute. Listen; how worried do you think your mother will be?”
Blake sat up with a guilty jerk and rubbed his eyes. He was frightened at first; then he remembered and smiled. Watching him through the driving mirror, Gin knew that she would fight for him no matter what the police did. She’d keep him out of school if he didn’t want to go back. She’d take care of him.
“What did you say?”
“We were wondering about your mother,” said Teddy. “Will she send the police after us? You’re a runaway, you know.”
The air was growing lighter, changing to pink. Blake looked around him at the passing juniper-bushes and said slowly, “She won’t think I’ve gone. Not till this afternoon. I said I wouldn’t be coming home; she’ll think I went with you.”
“But when she finds out?”
“I’ll tell her myself. I’ll telegraph something, and then I think she’ll be too proud to send after me. Don’t you worry; I’m not worried. Isn’t this great? Isn’t it? Let me drive awhile.”
“We’re going to wash as soon as we reach the river,” Gin said flatly, “colds or no colds.”
The sun was high when they came to the bridge and they took turns bathing, hidden more or less from the highway by a bush. Afterwards they had coffee in Albuquerque and sent a telegram to Mary: “Gone to Mexico Healthy Writing Do not Worry Love Blake.”
“There,” said Blake, “that looks perfectly reasonable. Now she won’t worry.”
Teddy drove out of town, while Gin sat in the back and watched him, wondering what he was thinking about it all. Was he enjoying it, or was he beginning to be sorry? His face reflected in the mirror was impassive and close-lipped. She stared at it until her eyes closed under the brightening sun, and she slept.
They stopped at last in a field and lay down in their coats on the ground to sleep, surrounded by stumpy bits of yellow grass growing in the dry soil. Gin dreamed that she was back at her desk in the office in Indiana, typing. A long complicated dream it was, with a dreary wretched atmosphere about it. It was even worse than the real thing had been. She woke in a bad mood; the relief that flooded through her when she found herself lying in a field with her shoulder dented by a rock couldn’t dispel the eerie horror of it. She looked at her watch: it was only noon. Shifting quietly, she lifted the edge of her coat and put it over her head to keep the sun from giving her more bad dreams. A burro was grazing a few yards away. He raised his head as she raised hers, and they looked at each other for some seconds with similar expressions of sun-drenched drowsiness. He sighed and dropped his head to the grass again. Vaguely comforted, she lay down and went to sleep.
They got up at four, because they had seen signs advertising a rodeo at Magdalena. This meant going forty miles out of the road to El Paso, but as Blake pointed out, they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. They drove into town at eight o’clock, when the whole place in the ordinary course of events would be going to bed. Tonight, however, it was different: the dusty streets were trampled with thousands of hoof-marks and people swarmed along the side of the road. Cowboys in blue jeans crowded the stores and leaned against the doors, picking their teeth. Four or five cars were parked on the main street, and in front of the post office a group of Indians sat on the ground, waiting for excitement.
Gin was too stirred to sit quietly. She stood up in the seat as they drove slowly down the road, turning her head this way and that. “It’s sothrilling,” she said. She looked at Teddy and impatiently shoved his shoulder. “Isn’t it thrilling?” she repeated.
“Let’s find something to eat,” he answered. There was a slight argument over this. Gin and Blake wanted to cook their own food, and Teddy was in too much of a hurry. In defence of himself, he developed a plan. He found out where the hotel was, and after making his companions promise not to say anything, he bargained with the proprietor for jobs for the lot of them. Gin, he protested, was a professional waitress and he and Blake were expert dishwashers. The man consented to take them on for the next two days, during the rush, at wages of ten dollars among the three of them, and meals included. Teddy tried to get rooms too, but this was no good. The proprietor compromised by selling them three blankets for fifty cents apiece. Afterwards they ate bowls of chili con carne and drank coffee and condensed milk, then drove out of town to make camp.
Rolled up in her blanket, Gin was almost comfortable. It was romantic and satisfactory under the chilly stars. Once, towards morning, she woke with a jerk and noticed that the world seemed much too large and quiet. She sighed and tried to edge nearer to Blake. The air smelled of sage and horses: she wondered dreamily why she was there, and then she remembered and was happy before she went to sleep again.
Breakfast and lunch next day merged in the kitchen into one long period of torture—aching arms and weary feet for Gin, and greasy, coolish water for Teddy and Blake. She carried trays back and forth from the dining-room and the flies followed everywhere. But the meals were good enough and they would need the money. After lunch, when they had rested and felt more cheerful, they brushed themselves off and went to see the most important part of the rodeo, the bronco-busting. All three of them had seen rodeos, the big famous ones that went even to New York and London, but this one was different and more fun. The horses were really wild, and lots of them were new to the game. The men were not professional riders, but cow-hands who spent most of the year working on ranches.
Gin and Blake and Teddy had never seen anything like it. The riding was thrilling. They stood on tiptoe to watch over the heads of the people who were so unlike the sightseers at Vegas on the Fourth of July. Town people, the Mexicans who lived in Magdalena and Datil and Socorro and San Antonio, were mixed up with the ranchers’ families who cheered their own punchers or watched excitedly silent when they had bet on the length of time some man would stay on the back of his horse, watched eagerly while he was tossed and bounced and jerked by his bronco.
There was a race of wild mules; the animals were saddled for the first time in their lives and the riders had to run them in a straight course for the goal. One of the mules got there: the other three rid themselves of their riders and then dashed round and round, kicking up wildly and almost splitting themselves in fright at the dangling stirrups and straps. They were caught and set free in a corral.
The air was dusty and hot. After two hours of it, Gin had had enough. She retired to the car and sat down there, waiting until the boys should want to go home. She sat with her back to the field and tried not to think at all. The only way to get anywhere, she knew, was to be an absolute imbecile, never reflecting on the past or the future. For instance, if she should start to worry about the trouble she had caused at the couriers’ headquarters, or if she had any qualms about leaving Flo and Harvey, she would weaken. Instead, she stretched out in the sun and began to recite the multiplication table.
The boys came back in a great hurry, having looked at the time and remembered their duties at the hotel. For the next three hours Gin forgot everything but her legs and arms: the dining-room was jammed. There was to be a big party at the dance hall and the boys wanted to go. When she tried to stay behind to rest, Blake begged her to come for only an hour, and she gave in. It wasn’t that she was so tired really, she confessed.
“I look like a mess,” she said to herself. But she borrowed a knife from the kitchen and trimmed the fringe of her shawl, and they all polished each others’ shoes as well as they could. They were an hour late for the beginning of the dance.
The orchestra was pretty bad, of course, and the floor was rough. Gin danced once with each of the boys and then suggested that they mix with the others. They ran off thankfully and left her alone, but it was not long before a tall cow-hand requested the honor of the next number, and after that she was so busy that she had no time to be tired.
The music seemed to get better. She danced often with a stocky man who had a scar on his chin and was a better dancer than he looked. He was foreman at a ranch, in for the celebration, and every now and then he disappeared and came back smelling of whisky. She would have liked a drink, but civilization had not yet reached Magdalena and no one offered her anything.
Another man told her that he was home-steading. She said, “But aren’t all the good lands used up? I thought——”
“Yes, ma’am. My land ain’t so good. I’m thinking of starting a sort of store when it’s settled, and making out that way. The only thing is, a fellow gets lonesome and there aren’t enough girls. I’ve known boys to ride eight miles both ways, just to call on a girl.” He surveyed her morosely. “If you was thinking of locating out here, you wouldn’t have much trouble getting yourself a husband. Take me, why, I’ve been looking for a wife for a couple of years. Can you cook? I seen you stepping pretty lively with the plates, up at the hotel.”
It was at that point that she called Teddy and reminded him that they had not danced lately. She apologized afterwards, but he said it was just as well she had done it while he was still winner at the crap-game.
It was late and cold when they went back to camp, but they were in good spirits and hummed all the way. After Gin had cuddled down in her blanket she could not go to sleep. She listened to the blood pounding through her lips, and thought of Teddy and Blake so near her, and wondered if anyone had ever been happier.
It was six o’clock in the evening. Blake stopped with his arms full of all the wood he had picked up, rabbit-brush roots and twigs and a few bigger branches hacked unscientifically from half-dead trees. He wanted to stay out here a minute, on the other side of the hill from the fire. Gin was busy cutting up onions, probably, and if he got back there before Teddy did she would make him help. Anyway, there was no hurry for the wood: the car was full of bits that they had picked up all day. There was wood and a water can and a saucepan and there were two loaves of bread and an assortment of knives and forks from the Magdalena hotel. In a few minutes it would be his job to pull it all out, but not yet.
He could see smoke from the fire hovering in the air. Probably she was mixing the stew now. He thought pleasurably of that stew, potatoes and onions and corned beef, most likely. Still, he would stand here until they called him. He loved them both, but it was good to be alone. How alone he was, even with that smoke so near him! He sighed with content and looked in the opposite direction, at the place where the sun had just sunk out of sight. The land was perfectly flat. A few bushes and cholla plants stood out like giants on the plain. It was hours’ since they had passed a fence; just land and land and land, with here and there a side road.
Two days now until they reached Mexico; two days at the most. He could hardly believe it. He looked up at the sky and wondered what would happen to them. Where would they be in ten years? Still in Mexico, still together? He hoped so. The rule of the expedition was that no one should think of anything but the present. Teddy had made it; he had said, “Let’s not remember anything or plan for anything. Let’s just go along.” Now Blake broke the rule; he wondered how they were acting at that moment in Santa Fé, without him. Mary would be dining with Bob, perhaps, and talking about him. Probably she was being very offhand and modern. He could hear her saying, “He’ll be back before the week is out. I know Blake. He’ll do his sulking and then come back perfectly cheerful.” Oh, he said defiantly to himself, will I?
It occurred to him then that he had really heard her saying it. Had some part of him been back there, waiting in the air and listening to Mary? When he said “Will I?” perhaps she had jumped a little, thinking of him saying it just at the time that he did. He followed the idea. Perhaps even though he was standing here on the desert, there was a part or shell of him in that room where he had been, telegraphing.
He felt very clear about it, and willing to go on with the speculation. His mind worked better these days. Every mile he went away from school seemed to help. He was almost ready to form a theory that one learned better if one was happy; perhaps in Mexico he might even become interested in algebra.
“Yoo-hoo!” Gin was calling him. “Stew-hoo!” He picked up one last twig and went back to the fire, smiling. Teddy was measuring out coffee-grounds to put in the boiling water, and Gin told Blake to cut the bread. They started to eat as fast as they could, though the food was still almost too hot.
All of them were wind-burned and peeling, with dry lips from the dust and the sun. They looked bigger, somehow, than they had been when they started out. And yet it had been only four—no, five days, Blake said aloud, since they rode out of Albuquerque. No one answered him, and for a while there was no noise but tin spoons on tin plates.
“Ho-ho,” said Teddy, sighing, and stretching out his legs. “I ate too much.” They settled back comfortably, their heads pillowed on rolled blankets. It was getting dark enough to show up a few pale stars.
Gin said, “You’re all wrong about not mentioning Santa Fé. It’s the best part of being out here, thinking about town and how nice it is that we’re not back there. I keep wondering how Flo is getting along with the dudes, and then I look around and feel great.”
“That’s the way it is with me,” said Blake. “I want to think about it all the time. The old plaza and all that. How do you think it turned out with Phil and the Pearsons?”
“Oh, I bet nothing happened at all. Nothing ever happens there. You always think it will, but it doesn’t. Something else will turn up pretty soon that they’ll be talking about instead of Phil.”
“They’re talking aboutusnow,” said Teddy, in a tone of deep satisfaction.
There was silence again. Then Blake hit the ground with his fist. “I feel sogreat,” he said.
“We all do,” said Teddy quietly. To Blake, still in that queer state where everything was crystal clear, it came suddenly that he would never forget any of this moment; the orange-glowing fire or the two pastel-shadowed figures sitting beside it. Teddy’s profile, with turned-up nose and ruffled hair, was lowered to the branch he held in his hand, poking the ashes at his feet. He would always remember that, and the smell of burning cedar.
Gin sighed. “If it starts raining again tonight I’ll go to sleep sitting right up in the car. I felt lousy last night.”
“Oh, it won’t rain tonight,” Blake promised easily. “The sky is clear.” It was his trip and he felt responsible for nature. The fire burned down to a useful small smouldering size while the night crept up around them.
“It’s queer how easy it is not to worry out here,” Gin said. “I used to worry all the time about everything, and now nothing seems to be very important.”
“I know,” said Teddy.
“You? You never bothered your head about anything,” she said resentfully. “Money or anything. I used to be so jealous that I could have choked you sometimes.”
“What do you know about it? I did too worry. I didn’t say anything about it, that’s all.”
Blake listened carefully to this strange talk, and now he felt impelled to break in.
“I don’t understand either of you. Why should you have worried about anything? You’re grown up. If I ever get to be twenty-one, there won’t be another thing in my life that I can’t manage. Just to think that no one will be able to tell me what to do, after that! You don’t know when you’re well off.”
“Oh, yeah?” Gin pushed a charred log farther into the fire. “Well, wait until you get there and you’ll see how easy it is.”
“People waste too much time. Always talking about little things that don’t make any difference anyway, and fussing around with people they don’t like very much. They ought to stop doing what they don’t want to do, if it doesn’t make any difference to anyone. They ought to go and do what they really want.”
“What doyouwant to do?” asked Gin. “What things really do matter? You act as if there were something else todo.”
“I don’t know. It depends on who you are. Teddy really wants to paint; it really matters to him. What do you really want to do?”
“I don’t know. I want to have a good time in Mexico, that’s all, and it looks as if I’ll get it.” She patted Blake’s hand and smiled at him.
“Well, if you’re satisfied now it’s just because there isn’t anyone else around to give you ideas,” said Teddy suddenly. “We’re in an artificial state just now, the way people always are when they travel. When we get some place in Mexico and start getting acquainted with people, things will be complicated again for all of us.”
“I can’t understand you,” Blake repeated sincerely. “I used to think that everyone knew all about things, everyone but me. I always felt like saying to older people, ‘Here, what about life? What is it like?’ I honestly thought they’d be able to tell me. Now I’m getting there myself, and I know that I have as much sense as anybody, but it isn’t much.”
He put his hands behind his head and looked at the sky and was happy, in spite of the ignorance of humanity.
“We ought really to have some ready-made answer to questions about life and all that,” said Teddy. “We all fool around and fool around trying to figure out an answer, and at the end we just take what we have.”
“We take what we have and then we quit,” Gin said gloomily.
“Whatever we have. It isn’t any better than what other people have, that’s the tragedy of it. It’s no nearer the real truth.”
“What truth?” asked Blake. “Is there one?”
“Oh, yes.” Gin sounded shocked. “There’s got to be truth. Why, here we are, all alive. What’s it all about, if there’s not some truth?”
“It’s just an accident that we’re here. Look at us and then look at all this space. Why should we have been picked out, especially?”
“I don’t say that we are, especially. I don’t mean just us, just the three of us or even the whole race. I mean the world and the universe and so forth. Why does it keep on going?”
“It doesn’t have to have a personal manager,” Blake insisted. “It all runs by system. Science.”
“Sure. All right. But what’s the system? Truth, of course.”
“Call it God while you’re at it,” drawled Teddy, who was almost asleep. “That’s what you’re working around to, anyway. ‘Some call it Evolution’....”
“I don’t mean Evolution,” said Gin scornfully. “Now you’ve got me all mixed up. I’m talking about the truth, that’s all. Thingsaretrue. If I didn’t think so, I’d commit suicide. I wouldn’t even take the trouble to commit suicide, I’d just stop living.”
“Well then, by all means go on believing in truth,” said Teddy placidly.
“It isn’t believing,” she insisted. “Itisso.”
“I never feel like committing suicide,” said Blake thoughtfully. “It might hurt.”
“Well, that proves it,” Gin said triumphantly. “You have a standard.”
“No, I haven’t. That doesn’t follow.” He stood up and stretched,
Teddy said, “Of course you have. You believe in painting, don’t you? Some of it is better than the rest, isn’t it? Well then, you have standards.”
“Oh, no. Those are personal preferences. What I am, not what I think. My likes and dislikes aren’t my thoughts.”
“How can you decide which is you, and which is what you think?”
Blake was silent. It was too much like that old thing that used to puzzle him so at breakfast; the picture of the girl on the box of cornflakes. She held another box of cornflakes on her lap, with a picture on it of a girl holding a box of cornflakes, with a picture of a girl.... Once upon a time he had studied that picture until he was nearly crazy, trying to imagine what happened after the boxes had become so small that he couldn’t see them. He grunted and rolled over with his nose burrowed into the blanket.
“That’s why we bother our heads about little things,” said Gin. “When we try to figure out big ones, we go crazy.”
“Some people do,” Teddy said. “They stop thinking about everything but that one question, What is Truth? Scientists....”
“I know,” she said impatiently. “Arrowsmith stuff. What difference does it all make?” She unrolled her blanket and started to take off her shoes.
“We’re like a legend,” Blake said after a moment. “Three brave people going out into the world. It makes me feel brave to sleep next to a fire. I don’t know why.”
“It is like that,” Gin said eagerly. “Like the Three Musketeers, but there were four Musketeers really, weren’t there? I always forget. Perhaps we’ll pick up a fourth somewhere.”
“I hope not,” said Teddy. “Four would be too many and we’d have trouble.”
“I don’t see why.”
“If we pick up another man, he’ll start making love to you; and if we pick up another girl one of us will start making love to her.”
“I don’t think so.” Blake sat up. “We don’t make love now, so why should anyone else start us off? We’re different.”
“Oh, you think so?” Teddy laughed in a nasty patronizing manner that disturbed Blake. “Wait a while. We know each other too well, this crowd. Take it from me, someone else will spoil it.”
Blake was uneasy. He hated to carry the conversation farther, but he was too worried to let it drop. “Why should we change?” he persisted. “We get along.”
“How do you know? How do you know Gin gets along, for instance? Or that I do?”
Gin interrupted, saying, “Oh, shut up, Teddy. Never mind,” she added to Blake, “he’s talking through his hat. Go to sleep.”
Wonderingly, Blake looked from one to the other of his companions. They were glaring at each other.
“Leave him alone,” said Gin.
“Why should I? What are you trying to do; mother him? This is no nursery.” Teddy lay down with his back to the others.
“Well then, try to act your age,” she retorted, but there was no answer.
In the next few minutes the quiet of the prairie was disturbed by Teddy’s soft snores. The atmosphere had cleared and everything was peaceful. Blake sighed and flopped over in his cocoon.
“Gin,” he whispered experimentally.
She lifted her head. “I can’t sleep.” They peered at Teddy, and she added, “I think I’ll take a walk. It’s awfully early. Do you want to come along?”
Softly he untangled his feet and put his shoes on again; she did the same. They tiptoed away to the road and set out at a good stride. The starlight was blue.
“I kept thinking of poetry,” he explained, “and I couldn’t get to sleep. It kept going round and round in my head.”
“What poetry?”
“Just little pieces that I’ve read. I thought this one over and over: