They all woke at once, perhaps because a bird screamed as it flew over them. Teddy sat up so swiftly that he almost toppled off the edge. He stared wildly about him, trying to remember. The other three propped themselves up on their arms, with tousled hair, and faces marked by the rock. It was as if they had been carried to another place while they slept; this was a green country with another sun shining down on it, a second cousin to their sun; small and high and cheerful. He had a confused feeling that he must have been drunk. No one spoke: they were all waiting. Then, as if she could not control herself any longer, Gin giggled.
“Gee, we look funny,” she said, and broke the spell. “What time is it?”
No one had a watch. They stood up, groaning and helping each other. One by one, with grim sensible expressions, they disappeared behind a rocky crag. They all used Harvey’s little black comb, and slowly worked up enough concerted impulse to climb down the hill. It was not so easy as it had been to climb up.
His shoes scuffed, his toes jammed into the ends of them, Teddy walked blindly over the sand, leading the straggling procession. A luminous exaltation possessed them all, shining from their faces, defying hunger and sleepiness. He tried to put it into words in his mind, in a hysterical stream of phrases.... “Companions of the night ... black wind and the freedom of motion.... Away from the earth, here in fresh-born sunlight, we are new again and shining. The true artist, the true man lies down where he happens to be, like an animal, and sleeps as he wishes....” He stumbled on a sandy hummock and felt a little dizzy.
They climbed stiffly into the car. Gin was obsessed with chatter: she talked of her hunger, her disordered clothes, her lame shoulder, in a gay high voice that had nothing to do with what she was saying. Harvey watched her sombrely and silently. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders: she tried once to twist it up but it fell again: in the wind it streamed out sideways when they started to move, and whipped back, catching Harvey on the cheek. She was beautiful, Teddy thought. He said,
“If you wouldn’t turn out to be such a ‘Saturday Evening Post’ girl, I’d paint you.”
“I will anyway,” cried Blake. “I’ll paint all of us. It will be a frontispiece to ‘Treasure Island’ and we’ll all be disgraced.”
“We are disgraced,” she cried joyfully. “Paint us, paint us.” She leaned over the side as limply as she could, imitating a corpse. “Dead, dead, dead,” she murmured. A roadster full of staring tourists passed in the other direction, and swerved as the driver turned for a last look.
“Wheeee, it’s late,” said Teddy. “When do we eat? How far are we? Where are we?”
Suddenly Gin screamed and then sat still with her fist to her open mouth.
“What’s the matter?” they all asked.
“My job! I forgot. How could I?”
“Ooo,” said Blake. “And it’s late.”
“How could I?”
“I think it’s charming,” Madden answered. “It’s darling of you. I love to have people forget important things. It’s good for your soul.”
She shook her head impatiently, her eyes wet. They were all subdued.
“Take me to a phone,” she said suddenly. “As soon as we get to town I’ll call the office.”
“Don’t worry,” said Harvey, “Flo probably had a brainstorm and called them already. Is she in town today?”
“I don’t know. Well, never mind. Breakfast!”
They came into town with a wild swoop. At the little cafe Gin rushed for the telephone and found that Flo had committed the necessary perjury. She returned radiant to her coffee and fried eggs.
“I’ve been trying to do a poem all night, I think,” Blake was telling Teddy. “I dreamed the beginning of it and added a lot and it was very good. Now I’ve forgotten most of it.” He laughed. “There are just two lines.”
Teddy ordered, “Let’s have them.”
“They’re silly. They don’t mean anything.”
“Well, let’s see.”
“Just this.
“Your narrow eyes roaming desirelessSkim cruelly the arid desert sands.
“Your narrow eyes roaming desirelessSkim cruelly the arid desert sands.
“Your narrow eyes roaming desireless
Skim cruelly the arid desert sands.
“There was a picture that went with it of a figure on a mountain top.”
“I’ll draw it,” said Madden.
Harvey snuffled in scorn and looked side-wise at Blake.
“I don’t feel at all like going home,” said Blake. “We ought to do something else now.”
“Let’s go to Taos,” said Teddy.
Gin cried out in alarm. “You do what you like, but take me home first. I’m down for Lamy this afternoon. Are you trying to ruin me?”
“I’m going to work,” Harvey said decidedly. “Let’s get going.”
They put Gin down first, while she tried feebly to tuck her hair up before she ran into her house. From the depths of the house they heard Flo, shrill and abusive, as they turned the car in the narrow street and headed for the Lennards’. Blake fell silent and thoughtful as they drew near home.
“On second thought,” he told Harvey, “it might be wise for me to walk the last few steps. Mother may be excited. I hope she went to sleep.” He stepped lightly over the door and advanced bravely to the house: the car turned discreetly and went toward town again.
Harvey was grumpy on the way back. He dumped Teddy at the door of their house and drove away again silently. Already the day seemed tired. Languid and a little depressed, Madden unlocked the door, carried in the warm bottle of milk, and lay down on his bed.
His telephone rang late in the afternoon and woke him. Confused and feeling guilty, he stumbled over to it and answered the call in a cracked, sleepy voice.
“Hello, Hello? Teddy Madden? Dear boy, where have you been? This is Bob.”
“Oh, I was asleep. Just a minute——?” he lit a cigarette. “I say, am I due up there tonight? I’ve lost track of time.”
He was, Bob assured him a little indignantly. Moreover, he was late for tea.
“I’ll be right up,” he said. He hung up the receiver and before doing anything else, sat quietly in the half-dark, his head in his hands.
“Gosh....” Waves of gloom had overtaken him at last; after being outrun for a week they had caught him. Reasonless, they were; or at any rate he had too many reasons to worry; none at all for this persistent depression. Bills, conscience, perpetual hangover—he ran them over in his mind, but there was no answering twinge as he called them out. It was something else; something that followed every jag of happiness. It was as much a part of this play town as the other, pleasant, excitement: a gnawing whimpering nameless anxiety that was waiting for him whenever he sat alone in the dark. It took gigantic effort to call the cab-stand.
“Harv? Madden calling. Listen, Harv, send a car round right away, will you? Here, of course. No, home. Oh, charge it.”
Harvey expostulated in a mechanical, hopeless manner. “I got to tighten up on you, Madden. Listen to reason. Do you know what you owe here?... All right, but if you wait ten minutes, I’ll be home and run you up myself. Oh, all right. I’ll send Ben: he’s turning into the yard now.”
“Thanks. Look, I’ll pay right now.”
“You and who else?” asked his room-mate wearily.
Turning into the Stuart driveway, however, he solved the problem. Bob was standing on the porch superintending the parking of another car, and strolled down to meet the taxi.
“Got any change, Bob?” asked Madden: and the two bits were forthcoming. He walked into the house with a virtuous feeling, into a small crowd of people. Mrs. Saville-Sanders was perched on a window-seat, holding forth to Mrs. Lyons and a strange woman in a hat. Mrs. Lennard was talking to Phil Ray and stopped to smile at Teddy as he entered. Nothing wrong in that quarter, then: Blake was all right. There were other people just coming in; not very good friends of Bob, to judge by his attitude. Teddy poured himself a drink and sat down by Mrs. Lyons, who patted his arm in greeting.
She was a nice old thing, he told himself again. She was one of the few stands he took against public opinion. Most of the people in Santa Fé, that is, the people he ran with, made fun of her. She was not quite bright, they argued. It was always just a few minutes before they said anything really serious that Teddy would protest,
“Well, I like old Ruth.”
He really did. She was kindly, credulous and restful. She was generous. She was maternal. If she was a little smug, the only difference between her attitude and Mrs. Saville-Sanders’, he said to himself, was that she had less money to be smug about. The other thing was that she was a native daughter and had a tangible husband. He was a popular artist who took himself quite seriously and made a cottage-and-garden living by executing big colourful murals of Indians wearing the wrong kind of moccasins and shooting arrows at conventionalized mesas with all of the shadows on the same side.
Teddy would say, “Of course, Tommy’swork—but I like old Ruth.”
Gwendolyn Saville-Sanders was busy getting people to do something about Santa Fé. Gwendolyn, unlike old Ruth, had been coming out here for only three years. Before the war did so many horrible things to it, she had spent her leisure and a lot more in Fiesole: before she was told about Fiesole it had been Switzerland. But Gwendolyn had begun to take up America in a serious manner. She was a little behind other people in doing it: many others had brought back treasures of Indian handicraft to their Eastern homes before she had seen the writing on the wall and hastened out to Art’s new headquarters. Now that she had found it, though, she was making the most of it. Gwendolyn was slow on the uptake, but thorough. Her three years of discovery had been swift and ferocious: already her collection of Navajo silver was the largest in America (not counting the museums) and her Chimayo blankets were famous. As for the tin candle-sconces, it was no less than wonderful, the number she had salvaged in the short time she had had.
No necessity here for Teddy to say, “Well, I don’t care, I like old Gwen.” One liked Gwen as a matter of course. As soon as she left a room, becomingly cheerful in farewell, one murmured, “Isn’t she marvelous?” or, “Isn’t she perfectly grand?” The thing that counted in this matter was that Gwendolyn should say after you yourself had left the room,
“I like that Teddy. He’s a nice boy.”
As yet she had not said it, at least Bob had not reported it. So Teddy sat down next to Ruth Lyons and listened.
She was steamed up about Fiesta.
“I think that we need something for the last night, to raise the curtain on the Ball,” she was saying. “I think that a bazaar might be the thing, or a play. Why don’t you write a play, Teddy?” Her voice, terrifyingly loud, rang out through the room and everyone turned to listen. That was what she wanted. “Write a play,” she insisted. “You bright young people! You can do it. Write a play and I’ll put it on in my garden.”
“Your wish is my command, old thing,” he said. Bob walked over and swung an arm around his shoulders, saying,
“That’s the right spirit, Teddy. We’ll all help.”
Gwen smiled and changed her mind. “Or a vaudeville. A vaudeville would be easier and we’d please more people. Ruth, you must tell Tommy to do the sets—we’ll getallthe artists to do the sets. And the Native Element will be able to help. They’re so histrionic. The Indians and the Spaniards and all that. Is that settled? Good: I must go. Bob darling, pick out a committee. I must go. Where did I put my bag? It’s all settled then; a play. No, a vaudeville. Imustgo. Teddy, come to lunch tomorrow. Good-night, Ruth. Goodbye, everybody, I must simply fly.”
They all flew except Teddy and Philip and the stranger with the hat. They were going to dine, Bob said, and then play bridge. The stranger was a puzzled frightened woman from Austria who had come over to paint Indians. She was going on to Japan to paint cherry-blossoms. The Indians were an interlude between cherry-blossoms in Japan and chestnut blossoms in Paris. Teddy remembered seeing some of her work in the Modern Wing of the Museum; he had thought then for a few stormy moments that they had no business being there, and now, looking at her, he was sure of it. She was open-mouthed and passive under an onslaught of information. Bob loved to give information about his country.
In the dining-room they chatted thus: Bob shining with happiness. His dour Mexican maid served the soup.
“You have mountains too, of course,” he said, and Miss Kolbenhayer nodded. “But I always think that it is not the mere rocks and stones and trees that make the mountains. Here we have something else to contend with: the smouldering forces of the American Indian.”
Miss Kolbenhayer’s soup-spoon stopped at the edge of her plate. “But here they are quite tame, is it not so?”
“Unfortunately they are, for the most part,” he admitted. “It is the mixed breed that is prone to strange outbursts. Things go on here ... religious frenzies ... crimes of innocence.... I suppose no one had told you of the Red River crime?”
No one had.
“Now, there’s an instance.” Bob gave up the soup proposition for the evening. “A girl from the East with her newly married husband and a guide went on a hunting north of here. They met a sheep-herder, a Mexican. A mere boy; sixteen, I think. He came up to their camp-fire one night. It is the law of the mountains: they gave him food. The next morning he went on with them and they gave him a gun to carry. Now, he had noticed the girl, and he wanted her.” Bob bit ferociously into the cracker and repeated, “Wanted her. So he shot the husband.” He stared at Miss Kolbenhayer.
Flo twisted around and looked, “Hmmm. Shot the husband and the guide. They died immediately.”
“Oh!”
“Immediately. The girl ran seven miles to Red River, where she sobbed out her story and fainted.” Bob’s round little face beamed with pride. “The strangest thing is what the sheep-herder said at the trial. When they asked him if he had anything to offer in defence he said that the devil had entered his soul. In a way he was right, poor chap.”
Miss Kolbenhayer shuddered. “It’s like your Chicago.”
“Oh, Chicago,” said Bob in scorn. “That is a commercial city. The crimes are commercial and stupid. Here we are faced with a mysterious people.”
He hesitated as Revelita changed the plates, and Teddy fell into a revery that had to do with the mysterious people. In the old foolish days when he had first come and had been overwhelmed by the place, he had tried to plunge headlong into the native life of the town. There had been dances in the little halls at the edge of the city: colourful but stiff affairs with little skinny girls wearing pink ribbons in their hair, dancing with swarthy little boys. He had eaten by preference in the Mexican restaurants—not that there were many; the native townspeople liked to eat at home—where he had tried to burn out his guts, as he expressed it, with chile in various forms. Here and there he met and danced with Revelita.
Then came the new phase, when he began to go uptown to the big houses. He had almost forgotten the queer triumphant feeling he had when Revelita first appeared at his elbow at Bob’s, wearing a white apron and offering him a cocktail from a tray, eyes downcast, and lips composed. Then the climax, a few nights later, when he was alone in Bob’s house, drawing upon his new pleasant intimacy by reading in the library while Bob was out at Sanford’s. The hurried step outside, the Spanish recriminations, and Revelita’s startled face when she found him in a supposedly empty house; her face still twisted in anger and fear of her father, who had beaten her after a quarrel, and driven her up to Bob’s strap in hand. Of course, something had to be done to quiet her. Together, amused by the piquancy of it, they raided the liquor-chest. Revelita was reckless, drunk, excited out of her usual reserve. Followed the usual row of asterisks, he told himself. And then the next day she appeared once more at his elbow in the white apron, eyes downcast, lips composed. He still remembered the thrill of power that little incident had given him. It was a wonderful town.
“A mysterious people.” Bob repeated as Revelita’s stocky figure passed out through the door. “Who knows what they are thinking?”
They had coffee in the living-room before beginning to play. Teddy looked around at the calm well-fed faces, the heavy blankets that curtained the windows, the polished floor and all the big permanent things that Stuart lived with, among which he had his leisurely thoughts of people and poetry and music.
Quietly, he stretched out his legs and settled back to sip the coffee. For the first time that day, he was really happy. Safe.
“I think I’m going crazy,” Flo remarked in a pleased tone. “I’ve thought so several times lately and there’s no possible doubt.”
“Huh?” said Gin. She turned a page of the new “Photoplay” and cried suddenly, “Lookat this! I’ll never speak to him again!”
“Who?”
“Clive Brook. Oh, dear, he’s wearing the most godawful waistcoat. Look.”
“Tasty, I think. Pour me some tea, that’s a good girl.”
“Why do you think you are going crazy? I want some more chocolate cake. Where is that girl?”
“She’ll be here in a minute.... Because I keep forgetting things: today I forgot to say anything to my people all the way back to Puye. I didn’t go to sleep exactly: I just forgot. I didn’t tell them to turn their tickets in to the office and Margaret was furious because she had to call up all the rooms, and some of them weren’t in their rooms and she had to write dozens of notes.”
“Lazy old thing. It’ll do her good. I get those vague streaks sometimes myself.”
“Oh,you, it’s always a hangover with you.... Who’s that across the street?”
Gin stood up to see over the drapes. “It’s that new fiancee of Bill Trewarth’s. She comes from Carolina or somewhere.”
“She looks cute. I wonder what it would be like to go visiting for a whole summer just because you are somebody’s fiancee.”
“I think it would feel very musty. You would be going to teas with his mother most of the time and on Sunday if you were very good he’d take you out to watch the polo.”
Flo powdered her nose and considered. “I think it would be nice,” she said. “No responsibility.”
“My God! You don’t mean it.... Hey, you, I want another piece of cake. You can’t mean it. Did you ever hear them talking?”
“Sure I have. Well, whatelseis there to do?”
“This, or something like this in some other place. Why not?”
“But then what about men?”
“Haven’t you enough men, for heavens’ sake?Thosedumb brutes.”
“No, I haven’t, and neither have you. You know perfectly well I haven’t: there aren’t enough to go round in this town.”
Gin admitted that there were not enough men. “But,” she added, “it’s a law of nature in resort places. You can always go somewhere else if that’s all that’s worrying you. The question is, what do you really want?”
“Oh,” said Flo, passionately, “I want a lot. I want to be rich and stupid like that little beast over there, and I want to be intelligent and interesting and comfortable like lots of the people around, and I’d very much like to be wicked and always wear black. The question is, what am I going to get? I’m tired of this sort of thing. At this rate I’ll start looking for Life, and then I’ll be a dirty little pushover like Rita.”
“Why, Flo. Such language. You couldn’t be anyway, you’re not the type; you’re older than Rita. Anyway, she’s not a dirty little pushover. She just doesn’t worry about things. She has a good time.”
“Really. I suppose you’d say I’d be better off if Iwerethe type?”
“Good heavens,” said Gin impatiently. “I’m not advising you. I feel like a mess myself, lots of times. I hate Rita as much as you do, and you know it. Even if I could act that way I wouldn’t: I’m not sure I even want to. But what can you do about it? The trouble with you is——”
“Your cigarette went out,” said Flo. “Yes, darling, whatisthe trouble with me?”
“You’re feeling your oats,” said Gin. “It makes you expect too much of the world, feeling your oats. You can’t help thinking there must be something to do about it. There isn’t; because whatever you do about it, it’s not settled.”
“Where did you find all this out, Grandma?”
“Well,” said Gin. “I tried a lot of things and what I didn’t try, somebody else did. This town is full of people who try to do something about it. Only the dumb ones have a good time at all. People who believe they are being noble, like Rex and Ada living together. Just the idea that they are being bad keeps them going: they won’t have to do another thing all their lives. They’re living up to a principle.”
“But nobody cares.”
“Well, how do they know that? They’re happy and they give us something to tell the dudes about. I’ve got to go home. Where do you go tomorrow? Have you looked at the chart?”
“They haven’t decided yet about Mesa Verde. If I do go, I won’t have enough clean shirts. How many could you lend me in an emergency?”
“Only one. Don’t let me catch you taking more. I may be sent somewhere myself.”
They paid the bill, scrupulously dividing it, and walked home in silence. As they turned in the gate Flo said,
“Well, I’m going to do something. I’m going to get engaged.”
“Yes? Who to?”
“I don’t know. I probably haven’t met him yet, but I’m going to get engaged pretty soon. What’s more, I’m going to get married.” She threw her hat into the closet. “To the next man I meet, if I can. There must be something in it because so many people do it.”
“Well,” Gin said, “it’s a big risk, I think. But I guess it’s your own business.” She thought about it for a long time while she rubbed cold cream on her face, in the bathroom. “Are you going to get a man with a mother, so you can visit her next summer?” she called through the open door.
“If I can,” was the candid retort. Gin frowned into the mirror and began to apply a waver to her hair. After a tense moment of arranging the lock over the left temple she shouted,
“Try to get a dude.”
“I’ve never yet had an unmarried man on the Detour,” said Flo solemnly.
“Well, then, a driver. Keep it in the family. There’s always at least one who has just had a divorce.” There was no answer to this. She tried again: “Write to the papers.”
“Oh, shut up. I’m serious, I tell you.”
“Well, you should be. It’s no laughing matter. Can I borrow a brassiere?”
“No.”
“Oh, go on and get married. I think it’s a swell idea. Name the first one after me and I’ll send it a rattle. Can I borrow a brassiere?”
“There’s one in the bottom drawer.”
“You’d better start buying a lot of brassieres,” Gin called, after inspecting the supply in the lower drawer. “Most of yours aren’t the right kind.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’d better buy a lot because girls who get engaged always wear very tight ones. Haven’t you noticed? They never flop. They don’t have to.”
“You’re vulgar,” said Flo.
“No, really. It ought to be one of the first things into the hope chest.”
There was a disgusted silence. She finished dressing, though one of her stockings had a run and it took a long time to find another pair. She felt jumpy, and it wasn’t nearly seven, when Harvey was to call for her. Swishing into the living room, she picked up a “Photoplay” and tried to settle down, but she kept thinking of Flo. Flo was smoking and reading and looking very determined.
“You’re all dressed up too,” Gin said at last, trying to ignore the chill in the room. She thought that she sounded much too bright and conciliatory, but something had to be done. “What’s on?”
“Beetie wants me to come up and play bridge,” Flo said. “I don’t know who else is going to be there—one is Russell somebody, the new real estate man—but I didn’t want to take chances on looking tacky.”
There now: things were more comfortable. Gin turned back to her magazine in peace. Harvey was five minutes early, and in a jovial mood. The door was open, but he rang the shrill bell and called,
“Hello, hello!”
When he saw Flo he calmed down a little; he never seemed to like her. Gin was always nervous when they had to talk to each other; they both acted too polite. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told Flo so much about him. Flo was a prude. Now she put on her coat and hurried him out as fast as she could.
“What’s new?” asked Harvey. He turned off on the Vegas road and speeded up.
“Oh, nothing, I think they’ll send me to Albuquerque tomorrow: that means I’ll stay down overnight to meet the morning trains. I hope it won’t be too hot to sleep.”
“Overnight? I hope you don’t go. The Summerses are throwing a party tomorrow night and told me to bring you.”
“Oh, I don’t mind missing it. I get bored at those parties. The same old jokes and the same old people getting tight. Now where are we going?”
“Pecos,” he said. “I feel like having a steak. Do you mind?”
“Nope. Go ahead.”
Absorbed in speeding, he grew taciturn, but Gin didn’t care. She sat back and stared at the road, trying to stop watching for bumps. That was the trouble with learning to drive; it ruined you as a passenger. With an effort she looked away from the spot of light that the car was pursuing, and stared at the side of the road. They were running by the railroad track. In the daytime, riding in the big passenger buses, the road was so familiar that she hated it, but now it was too dark to be anything but a dangerous path that might at any minute lurch towards the train tracks and carry them straight into the way of destruction. Once a bus had driven out too far on a soft shoulder, and had toppled over. The courier’s leg was hurt and a passenger broke a rib. If a train had come by.... She could hear a train chugging up the mountain. She half turned and saw a far-off glow. The road curved and looped and swept towards the track, and then away from it. The train was coming close ... closer ... closer ... perhaps now, just before it reached them, they would drive into its path. Harvey didn’t care. He went on just as fast as before.
A straining moment, then they were out of danger and the monster was neck and neck with them, puffing, shrieking, grinding, giving her a horrible close glimpse of its insides and an idea of what might have happened. Harvey stepped on the gas and for a moment they stayed together, then the train pulled ahead slowly, seemed to gather speed, marched by dragging a long tail spotted with square windows, and swung around a curve ahead to vanish forever. Only the smoke hung in the air and mixed with the smell of gasoline and burning cedar.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Harvey. “You’re pinching my arm.”
“Just playing,” she said, and moved over to her own side of the car again.
They reached Pecos hungry and a little chilled. There was a roadhouse nearby where people would stop for gas and, if they knew anything about the country, for food. They ate a leisurely dinner, chatting with the waitress and playing the two records that were not warped or cracked—“The Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “Two Black Crows, Part III.” Driving home afterwards, Harvey went slower, surfeited with beefsteak. He slowed up outside of Beetie’s house, at Gin’s suggestion, and they peered through the windows to see if there was any possibility of joining in. Beetie and Flo had their noses in their cards, and their partners were two young men that Gin had never seen before.
“Do you want to crash it?” asked Harvey. “It looks dead. I can’t get very thrilled about it myself. Let’s go home and see what Madden’s up to.”
“Oh, he’ll be up at Stuart’s.”
“Maybe not. We’ll look.”
There was no one in the little house, but a log was still burning in the fireplace and Teddy had left dirty dishes on the table. A new unframed picture was hanging on the wall. Gin examined it. There were two mountains, one leaning over the other, and three adobe houses with red chile hanging from the roofs, making bands of red.
“Oh, did you hear about that?” said Harvey. “Mrs. Lennard is buying it for a hundred dollars. At least I think that’s the one. There are so many like it, around here.”
“How marvelous for Teddy!”
“Yeah, Madden owes about three times that much. I don’t see why he doesn’t get a little sense and go to work. This new vaudeville business will keep him going for another month if they pay him anything.”
“Well, they ought to,” said Gin. “He’ll probably work his head off fixing it up.” She kicked a coal farther into the fire and stood on the hearth, musing. How did people keep going when they owed money that way? It worried her to owe money. Once when she forgot the bill for kindling they wouldn’t send the next order and she had to find another coal company until it was fixed up. It had been awfully embarrassing. Madden just went on charging things and charging things. If she could go on like that without worrying, she might enjoy things a lot more. It was partly Flo’s fault that she was that way: Flo was scared of getting into debt: she actually kept money in the bank.
“I couldn’t ever be an artist,” she said. “I’d be too worried all the time.”
“Oh, he gets along.” Harvey sat down on the camp cot nearest the fire; the one with the Yeibichai design on the blanket. “Sit down and be sociable.”
She sat next to him and he put one arm around her while he held on to his pipe with the other hand, puffing steadily.
“Slow place, isn’t it?” he said.
“I guess so. I don’t mind much. I like the country.”
“Yeah, I do too. But you ought to see Colorado; it’s got this skinned a mile.”
“You come from Colorado, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Dad’s there now. I’ve got an old horse that I broke in myself; he’s still up there.” He took his arm away to light his pipe again, then put it back and squeezed her under the arm with his hand. As if he didn’t notice.... “When I go back he always knows me. I taught him to dance: I used to have ideas about taking him on the stage. He sure was a pretty pony. Getting old now.”
She was drowsy from looking so long at the fire. There was nothing to say anyway. Harvey had told all the stories that you tell people you’ve just met; they knew each other too well to have any conversation. Unless they talked about philosophy, and he didn’t like to do that. He always said she thought too much, probably because he didn’t want to bother about thinking. She yawned; he went on smoking. The room was getting warm and pleasantly stuffy.
When his pipe was finished he knocked it out on the edge of the fireplace and put both arms around her. They kissed, and he hugged her tighter and tighter and then, just as their lips separated, he tried to make her lie down.
“No,” she said uneasily, and pushed him away. He stopped and she felt ridiculously stiff and upright. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.
“What’s the matter with you tonight?” he asked, not unreasonably. She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to explain this sensation of wariness. Two or three times before she had spent the whole evening lying with him on the couch, fondling more or less innocuously. She felt now—she didn’t say it even to herself, but she felt that it was time for something more to happen. She had been brought up in the belief that it was up to her, as the control element in the game, to keep a watchful eye on developments and to manage when it came to necking. They started it and did their best to let it run its own course. They deliberately forgot what they were doing. And then if anything definite happened, everybody knew they always felt sorry and wished it hadn’t happened. So it was up to her to remember.
“Well?” said Harvey.
“I don’t feel like it,” she said.
“Sure you do. Come on.” He pulled her down and she lay next to him rigid and watchful. He kissed her again.
“God, you’re cold tonight.”
“Well, I told you.”
“Want a drink?”
“No.”
He tried to make her open her lips. She was stubborn and in the struggle they both laughed and she relented a little. In a stupid, urgent way he made love to her while she waited passively and grew more and more irritated. He was so easy to see through. Trying to make her forget, trying to deny all her intelligence, trying to sneak. It was worse than when he just sort of went to sleep and breathed hard and forgot anything except that she was a body next to him to clutch and hold tight. She suddenly jerked away from him and sat up, patting her hair. Her cheeks burned because his whiskers had scratched them.
“Aw, Gin!” He lay watching her for a minute, and then he too sat up, with his necktie all crooked. She was angry and a little disgusted.
“Damn you,” he said.
“Well, I told you. I told you.”
He didn’t answer. Feeling miserable and guilty, she walked over to her coat and rummaged in the pocket for a comb. She primped and patted herself with defiant jerky movements, and wished that he would speak. He didn’t. It swept over her that she didn’t really know him at all. She didn’t really know anyone. She was alone in Santa Fé, in the universe. Everybody else was hostile and stupid and silent.
“I’m going home,” she said at last.
“I think I’d better not see you any more,” he answered, as if that were an answer.
“All right, if you think so,” she said coldly. “It’s up to you.” It would be dull, not having him around to take her to parties.
“No, it’s up to you.”
“Well, then, why shouldn’t we see each other? I’m not mad.”
“That isn’t it,” he said. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
“About what?”
“Don’t be dumb.” He seemed to feel more cheerful now. He was filling his pipe again, but was still sulky.
“Well, we aren’t ever going to do anything about it, then,” she said decidedly.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Good-bye, then, I guess you can get home all right.”
“Good-bye,” she said. In a rush of remorse, she paused at the door. “Honestly, is that the way you feel about it?” she asked. “Didn’t you ever just like me?”
“Well, Jesus Christ, Gin,” he cried. “You’re a girl. How did you expect me to feel?”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I thought maybe it wasn’t bad, just playing around. Can’t I ever have any friends unless I sleep with them? You pretended to like me.”
“I can’t see it that way. You see,” he said carefully, “I’ve got plenty offriends. Fellows. I wanted a girl. It’s too much trouble, having a girl for a friend. That isn’t what a girl is for. I mean, why take the trouble?”
“Oh,” she said. She hesitated, looking out the open door at the road. “Well, then....” she paused. He said nothing. “Well, then. I didn’t know that was how you felt.”
“Everybody feels that way, I should think,” he said.
“Oh! I’m sorry. Well, then ... goodbye.”
“Good-bye,” he said. He didn’t even stand up. “Take care of yourself,” he added suddenly, and then he looked away for as long as the door was still open.
She walked as fast as she could, trying to start thinking about something. She couldn’t think. She was feeling numb and stupid. If she started to think there would be too much in her mind. But something must be done. Something would have to happen in a minute. She almost ran down the street, away from the house. Her own fault for going out with him at all. She should never have gone out with him or with anybody unless she was going to sleep with them ultimately. Letting them take her to dinner, fooling them and riding around in their cars just on the strength of a false promise. That was the way they all felt.... Wasn’t there anyone who just liked her? Was there anyone who felt the way she did, just going along without making plans about getting things from other people? Just talking and letting things happen? She stumbled on a rock in the road, and kicked it furiously aside. Crossing a bridge at the aqueduct, she stopped for breath, and felt tears on her cheeks. She must have been making a noise all the way along the road. How horrible. Everything. How shameful. As soon as he saw it was no use he didn’t even take her home. Well, if that was nature.... But what a lonely world.Everybody.... Perhaps even old Mr. Dunstan. After this it wouldn’t be right for Mr. Dunstan to buy her Coca Colas when she met him in the plaza.
A car ran across the bridge and almost grazed her; its driver did not see her in the dark. It was very late. She blew her nose at last and it was as if she blew all her thoughts, too, into the handkerchief. She tiptoed into the house, but Flo was awake, propped up in her bed, with a book and a Hershey bar.
“What’s the matter?” said Flo. “You’ve been crying. Or shouldn’t I notice?”
“I’m sore at everybody,” said Gin. She walked over to her bed and began to take off her shoes. “No,” she said suddenly. “I’m damned if I’ll just go to bed. Let’s go out for a walk.”
“What? You’re crazy. Tell me what’s happened.”
“Oh, Harvey makes me so sick. Everybody makes me sick. He said I was just good to sleep with.”
“Um. How does he know?”
“Don’t be an idiot. He says I’m not good for anything else.”
“Oh, never mind. I always did think he was pretty low.”
“But he’s right, Flo. He’s right.” Her voice rose to a tragic squeak. “That’s what’s so terrible. That’s the way things are.”
Flo put down her book and looked benign. “How many times must I tell you about these people? You overrate everybody. You haven’t any discrimination at all. The idea of letting a taxi-driver with the brains of a peanut get you so excited. You’re shaking all over. Why, he’s just one of those people. Good Lord, Gin.... I’ve half a mind to go with you and walk it off.”
“Well, come on. Put something on over your pajamas. Nobody’s going to see you.”
Flo, surprisingly, acted on the suggestion. She pulled on a skirt and a pair of sandals, then shrouded herself in a coat. “All right, kid,” she said. “Let’s go. You look like Lady Macbeth.”
This was better. Flo was decent all right. It was thrilling, walking through the empty streets. If anyone should stop them and see those pajama-legs dragging! She giggled. They turned to the edge of town and walked up to the top of a hill, making a dust that was invisible in the dark but tickled their noses. At the top they stopped to puff and to look back at the city. There were still some lights; the square of lights that marked the penitentiary and the dimmed lamp posts on the plaza. As they watched, even these went out and left only the moon and a few sparks from the windows of the houses. Now that Gin’s heart had stopped beating so fast, she could smell the night smells.
“Oh, well,” she said, “to hell with Harvey.”
“Sure,” said Flo.
Walking goes in two-four time, but riding either on horse or in an automobile makes a rhythm like a waltz. For half an hour Blake had been thinking up waltzes and trying to hum them against the waltz that his mind seemed to prefer. Whenever he relaxed for the shortest space of time he would hear again, like a stubborn gramophone far back between his ears,
It’s three o’clock in the morning:We’ve danced—th’ whole night through....
It’s three o’clock in the morning:We’ve danced—th’ whole night through....
It’s three o’clock in the morning:
We’ve danced—th’ whole night through....
and the tick of the left rear wheel of the car kept it up.
Talking was useless; it was impossible to talk except at certain times of the day. Just after breakfast, when they started out, everyone was talkative for an hour. Then they fell silent until lunch, wherever that might happen to be. Afterwards the four people were dead quiet until they had stopped for the night, except for little interludes when Gwendolyn Saville-Sanders would say,
“Do look at that hill over there. Marvelous.”
Or Mary would call, “Blake, dear. Not quite so fast. You can never tell who’s coming around the curve.” When Teddy was driving she didn’t worry. Only relatives are unsafe as chauffeurs.
The left rear wheel ticked and Blake hummed waltzes and all the time the road was leading them farther and farther from any place that he had ever been. He felt great. He paid no attention to gas and oil and air. Teddy took care of all that, with the jealous love of a childless woman who has borrowed a nephew for the week. For Blake, stopping for gas and oil was a rude interruption. He would be far off somewhere and suddenly the car would stop in front of a dusty little red pump sitting in the middle of the landscape, with a man in overalls shambling out of the dusty little house behind it. Then Gwendolyn would order soda pop all around, and mop her face. Or she would ask for the ladies’ room in a husky whisper that made Blake ashamed to go to his side of the little house.
In between the road was a broad highway, not good enough to let you forget the driving. One pass through the mountains kept Mrs. Saville-Sanders twittering for a long time, but most of the way was on flat ground with the mountains on either side and a long way ahead. He liked it better that way. They were not like California mountains. They were flat on top, and not so blue. Some of them were red and the other colour was a dull yellow. Once they met a man on horseback who was dressed like a Mexican but looked darker. A Navajo? Probably. Later they saw a flock of sheep, and Gwendolyn’s ecstatic cry called their eyes to the distant figure, herding them. Yes, it was a Navajo woman in full skirt. They passed a collection of brown buildings with huts like bee-hives scattered around them, and flaunting signs announcing that this was a Navajo trading-post where one could buy real genuine Navajo blankets and silver rings made right there on the premises. At this place they all sniffed, and Teddy stepped on the gas.
Towards Shiprock, the road turned bad. An hour of bumping and floating in the air above the back seat brought from Mary a flat decision that they would stay at Shiprock, if they ever got there.
“The Navajo may be very picturesque,” she said, “but we’ll do something dreadful to the car if we treat it like this. Don’t the springs give way sometimes? Oh, Teddy, didn’t you see that bump? No, Blake, we’ll stay at Shiprock. Goodness knows what we’d find beyond it, anyway.” She broke off and clutched at her hat, bouncing miserably.
Blake was in despair. He knew that it was no use to remonstrate: especially as even Teddy seemed to agree. Teddy was never any good in a free-for-all; he always took Mary’s side. Blake didn’t think of criticizing him for it. Teddy was simply sometimes a baffling adult and sometimes a companion. It was all in the way you caught him. He himself, still dependent on adult decisions, accepted his bad luck without question.
They found Shiprock at evening, and left Mary and Gwendolyn in their rooms while they strolled around the town, staring. It was thus they came across the truck-driver who was willing to take passengers into the country with him. He was chatting with the owner of one of the trading-posts, and he asked them about the roads.
“They were fine until we got here,” Blake said, aggrieved. “Now the trip’s over. He”—with a nod at Teddy—“backed out.”
The truck-driver pushed his hat back. “He’s got sense,” he said. “You don’t want to go driving these roads if you don’t know ’em. Where were you aiming to go?”
“Oh, around,” said Teddy. “To see the country. We’ve got a couple of women who want to stop, that’s the trouble. They think it’s just as good right here.”
“They think they’ve had their trip,” said Blake. “They want to rest here a few days.”
“Well, say,” said the driver. “Come on with me. I’ll drop you off at Clearwater, if you like, and you can catch the mail truck back on Wednesday. There’s plenty room in the car.”
“Where’s Clearwater?” Blake asked eagerly.
“Oh, it’s fifty mile out. You’ll get a sight of the country going up there. I start at ten tomorrow morning soon as I get loaded. Take it or leave it.”
They took it immediately, and hurried home to argue with the ladies.
It was raining when they started, and McLean swore in a cheerful mechanical manner. “We won’t make any time worth bragging about,” he said.
For a long time they drove down a mere path across flat country, but when the road started to climb they entered a pine wood. It was lovely in the rain; clear spaces were bright green and under the trees the ground was brown and clean-looking. McLean said it was bear country. They saw no bear, but sometimes a rabbit ran ahead of them, scurrying from side to side of the road and just missing death when he achieved the idea of diving into the underbrush. Now and then they slowed up to let the tail end of a flock of sheep and goats go by, scrambling and crowding and making silly noises and poisoning the air with their stench. Sometimes a Navajo cantered past on horseback, raising his hand in salute and for a moment skipping the steady beat of his whip on the horses’ flanks.
The truck panted louder, hesitated, ploughed ahead on a momentary level and groaned in a humming falsetto above the grind of the engine.
“She’s a bitch of a hill,” said McLean.
There was a view. Hills rolled out from the cliff below them, and dropped away to a streaked valley that showed far off where it was not raining; where a dry butte sat placidly in the golden light. The roof of the truck dripped dismally. Down again with dragging brakes and slow turns; Blake caught his breath at every blind corner, forgetting that they would not meet any other cars. The other side of the mountains sent them spinning off into a red country lined with severe rocky hills, and for a long time they rode through the valley, following roads with what seemed to him an utter disregard of direction. All the roads looked alike: two parallel strips of bare soil through the rabbit-brush. But Mac said that any wrong turning would take them, after painful windings, to the door of an Indian house (hogan, he called it) and then they would have to find the way back and start over. Crossing a narrow bit of clay land that bordered a stream, the heavy truck slipped and slid down and churned away helplessly. Mac swore and climbed out, pulling a shovel after him. He beckoned to the boys and they all worked furiously, carrying stones to pack down under the wheels. After an hour they backed out and started on.
Panting, his hands and knees covered with drying mud, his stomach growling in hunger, Blake nevertheless felt glad of the accident. He had met with disaster and overcome the elements. It was his country, as it was the country of the dark men and the garrulous cheerful truck-driver. This was the place he had come out West for. In these quiet wild valleys he forgot even the search. Now, riding at dusk in a muddy truck, he forgot the boy in Santa Fé ceaselessly looking for something.
Clearwater was three buildings square and neat in the middle of a clearing; built partly of trimmed stone and partly of logs. The storehouse looked like a barracks; the trader’s house was the same except that there were lights in the windows and a big dog tied to the door and a red-haired boy standing by him. He ran towards the truck, crying,
“Mac, Mac! Dad killed a rattlesnake in the henhouse. It almost bit Ma. Who’s with you?” When he saw strangers he grew quiet and stood motionless. Mac threw him a bag.
“Catch, Buddy. Where’s your Dad?”
They pushed open the screen door, passed the growling dog, and entered a bare ugly room with sacks piled in the corners. Beyond this was a living-room with stiff blue plush furniture, and a woman hurrying through the other door to meet them.
“Evening, Mac.” She rubbed her hands down her flat hips and looked shyly at the boys.
“Evening, Mrs. Bush. Can you put the boys up for a couple of days? I figured Warren would stop by Wednesday, so I brought ’em along.”
“That’s right. Come in and eat; Jim’ll be here in a minute. He’s looking up the store. Come on in; I was just dishing supper.”
They followed her to the next room, where an oil lamp burned on a spread table. The rest of the room was shadowy, but Blake saw a radio against one wall. Mac sat down and they joined him. The boy lurked in the corner, studying them. When his father came in he darted behind him. Bush was a tall blond man with a brown face, inflexible and expressionless. He shook hands mutely with each of the boys when they were introduced by Mac, and they each stood up. Mrs. Bush came in with a tray of beef stew and canned peaches and mashed potatoes and they all started to cat, silently.
With the food and warmth, Blake began to overcome his first feeling of strangeness. The little-boy fear of sleeping away from home was ebbing and he thought that perhaps he was growing up at last. He even managed to ask for a second helping of stew, but to join in the slowly increasing conversation was an effort too much for him. Bush asked Mac about the trip and was regaled with detailed saga of the accident in the mud. Buddy ate fast and kept his round green eyes fixed on the strangers. When the meal was over they stood up without ceremony and went their various ways. Mrs. Bush began to clear the table, scolding Buddy steadily in a low tone. The two men went outside to the other building, and Teddy and Blake followed at a distance, trying to think of something to do that would take them out of the way. It was almost dark by this time: the shadows, that in the daytime looked like pools of ink under the brush, had been diluted and spread and run together over the sand, melting all the brush and the rocks in one dark blanket. They turned together down the valley, walking swiftly on the rough road.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, with a little skipping noise when one of them kicked a pebble. The air was cool and dry and sweet. It grew darker. They passed a tiny fire where two Indians sat on their heels and watched a coffee pot. A long, happy, swinging cry sounded over across the valley, down the mountain. It was dark.
Out of the swelling joy in his breast, Blake cried, “We’re out of the States! We’re in another world.”
Teddy answered with silence. Tramp, tramp, tramp. He loved Teddy and the Navajos and the stars, the heavy yellow stars. For one pure moment things stood still, just like that, and then he knew that it would be one of those moments that would come back some day when there would be least reason to remember. Some instant of time that was waiting for him to catch him some day, perhaps in the middle of a city street in the summer when the asphalt oozed and rose around his heels; out of nowhere, a reasonless ecstasy that wrapped a valley at night, with the Navajos singing, and Teddy.
It hurt. If he could only cry, and spoil it.
Then Teddy caught his breath and said, “Let’s not go back to Santa Fé.” He felt it too, then. Of course; he had to feel it too. He repeated, “Let’s not go back. You mustn’t go back to school and I mustn’t go on shaking cocktails for hostesses. We’ll go to Mexico and get away from everything. How about it?”
Walking swiftly, Blake said, “All right. Yes.” It was a perfect thought. He felt no impulse to make plans. Leave it at that; then going will be simple.
“We can drive it easily,” Teddy said. “We’ll get a car that we can depend on and it’ll be simple. I don’t care if we never come back, either.” He slowed up in his walk, wheeled, and started back to the trading post as though their errand had been finished. Skipping to catch up, Blake followed in step. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
Mexico City, with broad white streets and narrow little slums. There would be fights. He and Teddy would frequent the little cafes ... knives flashing ... the room full of glowering peons allied against them.... He leaped at the swarthy man with the knife who was striking Teddy in the back. The knife felt sharp but not very painful as it reached his heart. Madden was shaking his shoulder and saying, “Blake! My God, he’s dying.” He stirred, smiled.... Blinking the wetness from his eyes, he blushed in the darkness and shoved his hands into his pockets. Tramp, tramp.
Another flash; sitting in the cheapest seats in the Mexican theatre, surrounded by grimy sweaty people, mustachioed men and mustachioed women. They shouted as the dancer whirled out on the stage, stamping her little red heals. But she looked straight at Teddy, and her eyes were like Gin’s, fixed on Teddy in the same mocking, hurt way. And Teddy folded his arms and looked at her with his high little smile, the smile that always made Blake hate him and love him too. The music played; her little heels tapped the stage imperiously. She took the rose from her bosom and tossed it....
But someone was singing; someone really was singing out there in the dark, miles off across the rabbit-brush. Chanting, rising to a hysterical falsetto and swooping down again to a minor note under the one that began the song.... From the shadows back of the store-room another man answered him, for all the world like a coyote.