CHAPTER VIII
MONTEREY;Monterey.... Dean Wolcott liked the look and the sound of the word. Directly the train deposited him there he liked the place itself. His one impression of California was of dust and glare, of dry and dazzling heat: this was a land of gray and gentle summer—June-veiled. Some one sent him down to the old wharf for his luncheon and he ate zestfully of “Pop Ernst’s” piping hot chowder and meltingly tender abalone and then set out for his afternoon of exploring. He liked the old customhouse; he liked the “Sherman Rose,” and the fishing boats in the bay; he liked the flavor of tradition in everything; he hadn’t supposed there was as much background as this in all of California. He drove out to the Mission at Carmel and had his tea at a little house close by, and went back to Monterey and did the seventeen-mile drive, and he kept stopping the car and getting out to go close to the gnarled, embattledtrees on the cliffs. He thought they looked as if Arthur Rackham had drawn them; they satisfied him deeply. He stayed the night at Del Monte and liked the old hotel and the precise and formal gardens; he was amazed to find how heartily he was liking everything he saw, for he had not undertaken his western pilgrimage in the spirit of a joy ride. He had undertaken it grimly, purposefully, resentfully, but it began to look as if he should actually enjoy it. He felt his spirits mounting as he climbed into the front seat of the Big Sur stage next morning and found himself the only passenger. The driver told him that he didn’t carry much beside the mail until around the Fourth of July; then people began to swarm down to Pfeiffer’s Resort, and the deer hunters came in with the open season, the first of August.
“Won’t be many folks whereyou’llbe, though,” he said, grinning. “If you’re the lonesome kind, you’re out of luck.”
Dean Wolcott said he did not believe he was the lonesome kind. He was enjoying the five-hour drive enormously. The scenery was oddly satisfying to him—now along a rocky and precipitous coast, now on a bleakly barren hillside, andthe sea shone with the colors of an abalone shell; it made him think a little of Italy. And—just as he had adjusted his mind to rigor and stern plainness—the road turned inland to lush and lavish beauty—redwood trees mounting nobly, deep carpeting of ferns, streams, wild flowers, enchanting sudden vistas of the distant sea. They toiled gaspingly up the Serra grade and rushed down the other side with hurtling speed; they stopped at every ranch gate with mail and papers and parcel post and held leisurely converse with unhurried men and women; they left the Little Sur country behind and forged on through changing loveliness, now in the muted sunshine, now in green shadow.
The stage driver looked at his watch. “Going to make it by five, like I told you we would,” he said with satisfaction. “Look—there’s Pfeiffer’s!” They made a last sharp turn and swung into the yard. “And there’s the doc’, come to meet you!”
Dr. Gurney Mayfield was clambering out of an ancient surrey and he secured a weary-looking, putty-colored horse to the fence before he hurried over to meet the newcomer. “Well,well,my dear boy, but it’s good to see you—here!” he twinkled at him. “Pardon my not coming right over but I had to tie Sam; he may look as if he had the sleeping sickness but he’d be off for camp the minute my back was turned. Now, let’s have a look at you, Dean!” His keen eyes went competently over him. “Feel as fit as you look?”
“Absolutely.”
“Ready for the rough stuff?”
“Quite.”
“Good!— You’re going to have plenty of it. Well, did you enjoy the work, the training?”
“Enormously, Doctor! It’s made me as hard as nails; exactly what I needed.” He was crisp and brisk and confident; his color was wholesome, emphasized just now by a flush of sunburn after his long day’s ride, and his eyes were steady. “You have been no end kind, Doctor; I was amazed at your being able to fix it up for me here.”
They had walked back to the surrey. “Get in,” said Dr. Mayfield. “Now, I call it a rare treat, in an age of mad motors to ride behind old Sam in this surrey.” He backed the venerablesteed away from the fence and started him down the road. “My camp is a mile and a half further; no machines allowed—riders and hikers only. As to being able to arrange things for you here, it wasn’t difficult; the regular Ranger is a very good friend of mine, and he has had a real vacation coming to him for a long time. He’ll stay with you for a while, of course, and put you on to the ropes. Steady, Sam, old boy!” He applied a shrieking brake as they jolted down a bank and into a shallow, hurrying stream. “The Sur goes through the camp in three places,” he said. “This is great country, my boy. Wildest county in California, and I hope it always will be.” They splashed noisily across the little river and climbed steeply out again.
“Well, I fancy you haven’t any difficulty in keeping machines out,” commented Dean, looking back.
“They don’t often try it twice—not thesamemachine,” his friend exulted. They were jogging along on a curving road, now, through the narrow valley. “The ocean’s over there, three miles,” he gestured to the right. “Near enough to get the tang of it, but far enough to missthe fog; the mountains on this side are the Santa Lucia range—Ventanas off to the left. Just wait till I get you on a horse and give you the first real glimpse of it! Oh, by the way—I got Snort for you!”
“Really! Great work, Doctor. Iampleased!—But I don’t know how I can ever thank you for taking so much trouble.”
But Dr. Mayfield had been taking trouble for people all his life and now that he was retired from practice he considered that he had nothing else to do. “’Rome Ojeda didn’t want to let him go, not a little bit, but I said I simply had to have him for a friend of mine, a Ranger up here, and Ginger brought him round. I guess Ginger can make him do just about anything she wants,” he chuckled, “hard-boiled cow-puncher that he is.” He was rather elaborately casual about it, and he thought he saw the young man’s sunburn reinforced by a deeper color.
“Is she—I hope Ginger is well?” said Dean Wolcott civilly.
“Oh, good Lord, yes,” said the doctor, comfortably. “Never knew the child to be anything else. I remember offering her a dollar a day forevery day she’d stay in bed while she had the measles but she took it standing! I was in great luck to keep her off her pony. Come on, Sam—can’t you spruce up a little? We’ve got company on board! Yes, Ginger’s well; I should say she is—blooming! Busier than a whole hive of bees, of course, running the ranch. Remarkable girl, Virginia McVeagh; combines her fatherandher mother to an astonishing degree. They were an odd pair to come together, different as chalk and cheese—buttheymade a success of it.” There was the faintest possible emphasis on the pronoun. “Heard a good deal of talk, the time I went down there after Snort, about her being engaged to ’Rome Ojeda.”
“Yes?” said Dean, courteously attentive.
“Yes. In fact, ’Rome himself rather gave me to understand—but I don’t know. I won’t believe it till I hear it from Ginger. I hope she won’t be in too much of a hurry. Still, he’s a fine, upstanding boy, ’Rome Ojeda, and he’s known her all her life and he understands her. Well, Snort’s waiting for you in the corral! A good horse, but he hasn’t been handled right—not what I call right. ’Rome’s pretty hard—andpretty harsh, I consider, with his stock. I’m afraid you won’t find him a very comfortable mount.”
“I don’t expect to,” said Dean Wolcott, grimly, a look of reminiscence in his eyes. “But I expect to ride him. I—doubtless it seems rather absurd to you, Doctor, my desire for that particular horse, but I think I’ve come to consider him as a sort of symbol; he showed me—and incidentally the rest of the world”—he was able to grin, ruefully, at the memory—“my utter unfitness; it will be a satisfaction, now that I can ride, to prove it on Snort. It will rather—redeem me in my own eyes.”
“I can understand your feelings perfectly,” said the doctor cordially. As a matter of fact, the young man had no idea as to how thoroughly the doctor understood all of his feelings. “But I’m going to caution you about overdoing; it’s hard work, and rough at times, as I said a little while ago, but you can take it reasonably.”
“I’m hard as nails, Doctor;quitefit.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I believe you are. But there may be slumps, you know; I don’t want to alarm you, but—arm you for them.”
“You’re very kind; I will bear it in mind.” It was quite clear, however, that he considered the warning wholly superfluous; there was a triumphant strength and verve about him.
“That’s our gate,” said the doctor, presently, and his pleasant voice warmed suddenly with pride. “Here we are at the camp!” He spoke of it as if it might be the New Jerusalem. “Of course, we’ve kept things very plain and crude but”—the doctor always tried to be modest about his camp, to take the attitude that there were other camps in the state, in the country, some of which, many of which, perhaps, might equal his, but his voice and his eyes betrayed him. This was his promised land, where, thanks to the everlasting mercy of things, he was to sojourn for his life’s rich afternoon after long years of ardent service. It was his creation and his recreation; his child. “You see, we have the little individual cabins with a shower bath in every one, and the central dining room, and we bring down a cook and a maid and a chore boy, and there’s the little bathhouse where you can have a hot tub—oh, we figure we’ve got camping down to a pretty fine art—all the glory and none of the grime! Mildnights we sit round the camp fire, and when it’s nippy we have the Lodge, and the phonograph to dance by, and tables for bridge. You must join us whenever your duties will let you, Dean.”
“Thank you,” said Dean Wolcott. “I fancy, however, that I shall be busy by day and sleepy by night, sha’n’t I?” The fact was that he was hungrily eager for the vigorous, muscle and nerve testing job he had undertaken, and rather fed up on bridge and dancing, Boston—his own very particular corner of it—having welcomed him home with a warmth which was soothing and healing after Dos Pozos. “And—who are your guests at camp, Doctor?”
“They’re not my guests, really; it’s a coöperative affair, this lodge of ours in the wilderness—old friends, relatives, San José people, in the main; some from San Francisco; jolly, folksy folks who like to get their feet off the pavement.”
“Does Ginger come?” He was very direct about it.
“Oh, Ginger came once, long ago—twice, I believe, come to think of it—but I’ll tell youwhat it is, we’re not wild enough for Miss Ginger! We take some pretty hard trips—as you’ll find out—and do some pretty stiff stunts, but we haven’t her hell-for-leather, ride-’em-cowboy ideal!”
Dean Wolcott nodded. “I shall want to see her, once, before I go east again,” he said, levelly.
“Oh, certainly,” said Dr. Mayfield, hastily. “Certainly! And here’s Snort! Be careful how you go up to him, Dean; he has a very bad habit of pulling back, and he’s due to hurt himself or somebody else. I rather imagine he was tied up and beaten over the head when he was first broken to saddle, and ’Rome Ojeda hasn’t exactly—soothed him!” He paused in the unhitching of old Sam and watched the meeting between the quiet young man and the quivering wild-eyed horse. The moment was heavy with memory and challenge and promise.
“Hello, old son!” said Dean Wolcott, cordially. Snort trumpeted and flung up his head at the touch, but the easterner’s voice was smooth. “Steady, boy.... Those fireworks don’t register with me at all, now. I’ve had almost a year of that sort of thing, you see. If you’re feeding your fancy on what you’re going to do to thetenderfoot who rode you that historic day, you’re foiled. You and I will never dazzle the Big Week crowd, but I think you’ll find me remaining in or near the saddle during all our excursions together.” The red roan cocked his sensitive ears and rolled his eyes whitely.
Dr. Mayfield nodded approval. “That’s the idea, Dean. No quick movements.... Steady does it, with Snort. You know, I consider that there are very few essentially vicious horses; one now and then, of course, but in the main it’s only terror, terror and suspicion and the vivid memory of abuses.”
“Doctor,” the young man wanted to know, “is it too late for a ride?”
The doctor’s lips twitched. He liked the impetuous youngness of it ... the lad couldn’t wait to show him, and to show himself.... “No, of course not, Dean! I’ll saddle Ted—”
He noted with satisfaction the authority with which Dean Wolcott swung himself into the saddle and set off, ahead of him, up the precipitous Government Trail, and he kept his keen eyes on the slim figure—the easy seat, the vigilant relaxing, the sure coördination of body and brain.Beyond question, he told himself, deeply content, the boy had learned to ride. When they finished the twisting climb and came out on a level shoulder of the mountain he saw Dean Wolcott lean suddenly forward in the saddle, and Snort shot ahead in a plunging lope; horse and rider, a splendid, pulsing unit, flashed over the open space in the warm glow of the sunset, wheeled sharply at the foot of the next rise, and came back, Snort curveting, prancing, flinging up his handsome head, his flanks lathered with excitement rather than heat.
“Well?” said the young man, nakedly bidding for praise. “Well, Doctor?”
The doctor had not seen the serio-comic exhibition at Dos Pozos but he had had it fully and faithfully described to him, so he was able to balance that day’s performance with this, and he was moved to warm commendation. “Upon my word, Dean, it’s astonishing! In less than a year’s time—and you’ve been physically fit for only a few months— Well, this has removed my last lingering doubt of your ability to swing the Ranger work. You’ve a good hand, a good seat; authority. I consider you”—he went on, speakingwith relish, bestowing his accolade, and the words sounded richer to the young man than the ones which had accompanied the pinning on of his medals—“I consider you a horseman.”
Dean Wolcott swung himself smoothly to the ground; there was a silkiness of movement, now, a sure competence about him. “Then”—he colored hotly but his gaze was steady—“then you think I should not cut a ludicrous figure now, before—’Rome Ojeda—Ginger?”
“I should saynot!” said Dr. Gurney Mayfield with immense heartiness.
The easterner slipped a hand under Snort’s mane and the roan, trembling a little, let him rub his neck slowly and steadily. The young man took time, at last, to look about him. They were on the shoulder of a brown and rugged mountain, looking forward to range on range of other mountains, brown, gray, blue, purple in distance, piling up against the warm sky, looking back to the shining sea three thousand feet below them, with a crimson sun sinking swiftly on the edge of the world. With his hand on Snort’s arched neck it was a moment of highly colored happiness such as he had not known for elevenmonths—since he had taken his eye away from the kaleidoscope at Dos Pozos.
“This is—tremendous, Doctor!” He gave a long sigh of utter satisfaction. “There aren’t any words for it.” Then he turned his attention to the doctor’s mount. “I’ve been so engrossed in my horse I haven’t noticed yours, Doctor. Splendid, isn’t he?”
“Well, now, I was beginning to wonder when you’d get round to old Ted,” said Dr. Mayfield. “He’s used to compliments, Ted is. Wouldn’t sell him for his weight in sapphires!” The horse, a tall and powerful creature, turned his head and listened to his master with delicately twitching ears. “See those ears? Many’s the time Ted’s pointed a deer for me, before I saw it. He’s a gentleman; he’s a man and a brother; you can count on him in a tight place. I’ll have to tell you how he saved my life once. It was—but I guess we’ll have to be jogging along to supper, right now.”
The young man, however, stood still, looking at him with an enhanced color in his keen and eager face. “If you’ve a moment more to spare, Doctor, I—I should like to make myself clearto you on the subject of—Ginger; of my attitude toward Ginger.”
The older man saw that this, too, was immediate. Just as he had had to justify himself in the saddle, so now he must clear his mind of a studied explanation. He wanted his supper but he said comfortably, “Of course, Dean.”
He began with entire composure. “You know the shape I was in last year, body and mind. I was a miserable weakling, a supersensitive, hysterical idiot, and my sense of humor, which I had always considered as much a part of me as an arm or a leg, seemed to have been amputated. We—Ginger and I—were utter strangers; not strangers as a Boston girl and myself would have been, or Ginger and a western man, but—aliens. We had lived in different worlds; we spoke different tongues.”
His friend nodded, understandingly. “That’s a fact, Dean. That’s a fact.” He could see that the young man was not only telling him—he was telling himself; urging himself to be convinced.
“We mistook a romance, a sort of midsummer, moving-picture romance,” Dean went on, “for a solid and lasting affection. And it is, of course,”he was very clear and definite about it but his expression was rather bleak, “extremely fortunate that we became aware of our mistake when we did.”
Again the doctor nodded. “I wonder if Ginger’s father and mother were not assailed by doubts of that sort,” he mused. “Far apart as the poles, they were—race, type, creed, training—and yet that marriage was a success; an ardent success. Of course, Ginger’s mother, Rosalía Valdés—and she was more beautiful than Ginger, I believe—died when the girl was a baby. I’ve often asked myself if a marriage of that sort can stand the slow procession of years, the humdrum cares, the fading—”
“I think not,” Dean Wolcott cut in. “Marriage,” he stated with young sapience, “any marriage, where blood and breeding and background are the same, presentssufficientdifficulties of adjustment. It was undoubtedly a most fortunate termination.” He had pulled off his hat, and now a brisk wind traveled up from the sea and mussed the shining precision of his fine, fair hair, as a sudden confusion marred the precision of his careful speech. “Doctor, I have—Ineedn’t say that I have the highest—that I admire and shall always admire her beauty and charm—and—and courage and ability—and I hope you won’t misunderstand my motives, my feelings—” he got very warmly flushed and young looking and his gaze besought his friend for credence. “I must see Ginger and I must see Ojeda, simply as a matter of decent self-justification. It is intolerable for me to leave any place, any persons, with such a contemptible impression.”
“I can get your angle on it, Dean,” said the doctor, gravely, “but aren’t you overemphasizing—exaggerating—the whole affair? After all, why should you have been able to ride like a ‘buckeroo’—a city man, an easterner? (Though a fellow from San Francisco or Los Angeles would have been in the same boat.) And besides, you were in no shape to stand such exertion; it was mad folly to attempt it. I blame myself bitterly for not having warned you against that sort of thing, but I never imagined——”
Again the young man interrupted him heedlessly. “Yes, of course, the whole thing was absurd! If my sense of humor hadn’t been lefton the other side, if I had made determined comedy of myself for them, or if I’d had sense enough to refuse to ride”—but his flush deepened as he remembered why and how he had capitulated—“it need never have happened. But it did happen, Doctor. I did make a sickening spectacle of myself in the eyes of those people. I failed utterly according to their standards, and—granted that their standards are immature and crude ones—the fact is intolerable to me. That’s why I’ve learned to ride, that’s why I wanted Snort; that’s why I must go once to Dos Pozos for a day, before I—before I put a period to that episode.”
The doctor bent his head close to the Ted horse as he tightened his cinch. “I understand perfectly, Dean. The chapter is closed. You wish merely—and quite naturally—to show that girl and that buckeroo boy—that you can succeed now along lines where you failed before.”
“Exactly,” said the young man, gratefully.
And that night, by candlelight in his cabin, Dr. Mayfield wrote to Ginger’s favorite aunt, and he said, in closing—“And so, my dear Miss Fanny, it is quite clear that the nice lad is stillhead over heels in love with Ginger, and if your diagnosis of her condition is correct, we shall be able to arrange matters very satisfactorily.”
He folded the sheet and slipped it into its envelope and sat smiling to himself in the soft, uneven light. It was going to be a very pleasant undertaking, he thought, to bring these two fine young things together—to be the instrument, in a world where so much went stupidly or viciously wrong, of setting something right.