Jubilee Trail (52 page)

For a moment Charles could not hide his astonishment. It was plain that he was not used to having anybody in his house who defied him. But he quickly recovered his usual contemptuous calm. “Very well,” he said to her, “go to Los Angeles with that woman if you want to. I don’t care what becomes of you.”

“I’m glad of that,” she retorted.

Charles did not seem to hear her. “I don’t care what becomes of you,” he repeated through his crooked teeth. “But I warn you, I am going to take a great deal of interest in what becomes of my brother’s child.”

“Oh let me alone, Charles!” Garnet said with exasperation as she stood up. She was no longer ill, but she felt heavy and uncomfortable and she was heartily tired of him.

“You are welcome to return here at any time,” said Charles. He laughed disagreeably. “I think,” he added, “that you will come back.”

“No I won’t,” said Garnet. She went to her own room and banged the door.

The next morning the boys loaded the pack-horses, and by eight o’clock Garnet was on her way to Los Angeles.

As they turned through the pass, and the hills shut out the sight of the buildings behind them, Garnet drew a sigh of relief. She looked up at John, who was riding beside her.

“Oh dear, I feel better!” she exclaimed.

“I’m sure you do,” John said with a dry chuckle. He added, “Silky’s Place is no mansion. But at least there you’ll be independent.”

“I’ll like it, whatever it is,” she said. “And John,” she went on. She spoke earnestly. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me. I don’t know any words that are strong enough to say it.”

John brushed a shred of mesquite from his horse’s mane. “Frankly, Garnet,” he returned, “I’d rather you didn’t say it at all.”

As he spoke, he seemed to have the sternness that had chilled her the first time she saw him, as though he had become a stranger again. She said in surprise,

“But John, I want to thank you! You and Florinda probably saved my life. Why shouldn’t I express my gratitude?”

“I just don’t like the word, that’s all,” said John. He spoke tersely, stroking the mane of his horse, but then he raised his eyes with a smile of apology. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to be as discourteous as I sound. But if I helped you get well, it was to please myself, because I liked you and wanted you to get well. You don’t owe me anything.”

Garnet heard him with a puzzled frown. “Does it embarrass you to be thanked?” she asked wonderingly.

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “It makes me feel as if I had demanded it. And I hate people who demand it.”

“People who demand it?” she repeated. “Who—I don’t understand.”

John’s lips tightened and she saw the muscles knot in his lean jaws. For a moment he looked straight ahead at the fog veiling the russet hills ahead of them. Then he turned, and his green eyes met hers as he asked, “Have you ever been an object of charity, Garnet?”

Garnet felt her eyes stretch and her lips part, with astonishment and the beginning of a new comprehension of him. She shook her head. John said crisply,

“Well, I have.”

Without giving her a chance to answer he hurried his horse and caught up with the Brute, who was riding a little way ahead.

“Turn south around the spur here,” said John. “It’s a little longer, but the fog on the north side is too thick.”

After that he was busy with the train. When they stopped for the nooning he spread a blanket for Garnet, saying, “Here, get some rest while the boys are cooking the beans.” Garnet started to say “Thank you,” but caught herself and said “Very well.” As she lay down she heard the fire crackling under the pots, and John’s voice giving curt, competent orders. She wondered what he had meant when he said he had once been an object of charity. He looked like the last man on earth who would ever be willing to receive anything from anybody.

She felt her baby moving, and shook her head sadly. “You poor child,” she said to the baby. “You’re coming into such a complicated world. You’ve got such a lot to learn.”

She did not try again to thank John, and he did not refer to this conversation. But he rode by her often, and showed her the strange beauty of the hills among which they were traveling. It was the end of May, the time of the high fog, and the days went by in a ghostly radiance. John told her May and June were the grayest months of the year, a period when there was no sun and no shadow, and almost no change of light between dawn and dark. The sky looked like a slate roof, so low that you felt as if you could almost reach up and touch it. There was very little fog on the ground. Sometimes you saw bits of it blowing around, like shreds of wet white muslin, but usually the earth was clear, and though the sky was so dark the earth was brilliant. The wild flowers loved the fog. The flowers glittered everywhere, blue lupin and yellow mustard and hazy purple sage, green plumes of anise curling through the oats, poppies in every shade from ivory to deep ruddy orange. The air was heavy with damp and the fragrance of sage. The damp stroked your skin, and got into your hair, and gathered on the flowers like a faint silver frost.

When they stopped for the noonings the Brute picked handfuls of blooms and brought them to Florinda and Garnet. Florinda had no special interest in flowers, as such; but she appreciated anything offered her by a masculine hand, and when he dropped the poppies and lupin into her lap she exclaimed at their beauty. Her admiration was brief, but quite sincere while it lasted. Garnet liked the flowers, and she liked the strange chilly light. But though she found the journey interesting she also found it very tiring. Riding a horse was harder now than it had been last year when she had had a straight figure. The others were very considerate. They took long noonings and rode slowly for her sake. But she was glad John was there to tell her about the countryside, for it kept her from thinking about how tired she was.

Here and there on the hillsides she saw a strange ugly growth, a vine that sprawled in dirty-yellow patches, greedily covering the bushes as far as it could reach. As they rode, she asked John about it.

“What is that yellowish vine that grows like cobwebs over the other plants?”

John looked up at the hills. “Wretched stuff, isn’t it? They call it the love-vine.”

“Love-vine,” Garnet repeated. “That’s an odd name for such an ugly thing. Or does it ever look better than it does now?”

“No, it’s never pretty. It’s a pest and a parasite. It climbs over the healthy bushes, clinging to them and smothering them. That’s why it’s called the love-vine.”

“But who gave it such a name?” asked Garnet.

“I don’t know,” John said dryly.

She turned her head and looked him over. “John,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I believe you think that’s a very good name for it.”

“I wasn’t going to shock you by saying so,” he returned smiling. “But don’t try to make me be sentimental, Garnet.”

“That’s what you think of love?” she demanded.

“You don’t?” he asked with a touch of amusement.

“No, I do not.”

“I suppose I ought to admire your idealism. But I don’t share it.”

Garnet felt astonishment and a strange sort of sympathy. “I don’t believe—anybody ever loved you,” she said slowly.

He shrugged a lean shoulder. “Some people have said they did. Whatever it was they felt for me, it was something I was better off without.”

He lapsed into silence. A moment later he rode away from her to help one of the boys manage a stubborn pack-horse.

Florinda was laughing at some story the Brute was telling her. Garnet rode behind them, thinking. John was right about some kinds of love. Charles had said he loved Oliver. Oliver had said he loved her. But all Charles had wanted to do for Oliver was cling to him until he had crushed the life out of him, like the love-vine; and Oliver—she still could not think very clearly about Oliver. It hurt her too much. But what Oliver had felt for her had not been what she meant when she thought of love.

But there was such a thing as
love,
she told herself defiantly. There was the love she had seen between her parents, strong and utterly dependable. And that was what she wanted. If I were sure somebody felt like that about me, thought Garnet, I could stand anything.

Later on they paused for the nooning. While they were resting on the grass after dinner Garnet pointed out the love-vine to Florinda and told her what John had said about it. “Do you believe he’s right?” Garnet asked.

Glancing up at the tangled yellow patches, Florinda laughed a little. “I’m a strange one to ask, dearie. I’ve never been in love.”

“Not at all?”

“Well, I liked them,” Florinda said good-naturedly. “In fact, I’ve been quite fond of several gents in my time. But never so fond that I couldn’t wave goodby quite cheerfully when it was over.” She leaned back, supporting herself on her hands. “And if you’re asking me,” she added coolly, “that’s enough.”

“No it is not,” Garnet said decidedly.

Florinda gave her a calm blue survey, up and down. “Yes it is enough, my sweet, and if you care to listen, I can tell you something about love.”

“How can you? You’ve just told me you didn’t know anything about it.”

“Hell for breakfast,” said Florinda, “I’ve never had smallpox either, but I know enough to know I don’t want any.” Her voice was clear and quiet as she went on. “Garnet, I’ve heard people babbling about love. And I’ve seen what it does to them. And it’s a lot of twaddle, dearest, and the sooner you stop looking for it the sooner you’ll stop being disappointed because you can’t find it.”

Garnet shook her head. Florinda took both Garnet’s hands in hers. She had not put on her gloves since eating dinner, and her handclasp was rough.

“Please believe me, dear,” she said.

Garnet shook her head again. “It’s not true, Florinda. There are people who love each other all their lives, who stand by each other like two stone walls together! Don’t you believe there were ever two people like that?”

“Oh, possibly. A pair of red-headed Indians in Peru.”

“No,” Garnet said vehemently. “I’m talking about my mother and father.”

There was a pause. “All right,” said Florinda. “I’m not going to say it can’t happen. I never saw your mother. But if you’ll excuse me for mentioning it, dearie, you never saw mine.”

As though done with the subject, she stood up and said it was time for siesta and she’d get the blankets. She came back with the blankets in her arms.

“You don’t need to move,” she said to Garnet. “I’ll fix yours and mine both.”

Garnet smiled up at her. “Nobody who judged you by your talk would guess how thoughtful you are.”

“This is different,” said Florinda. “You’re my friend and I like you. It’s quite different.”

She arranged the blankets to make two beds. Yawning, she took off her shoes, loosened her clothes at the waistline, and slipped into one of the beds. Garnet knew she needed her own nap too, but she did not feel sleepy. She sat watching John as he helped the boys picket the horses in a spot where the grass was thick. The Brute came over with a steaming cup of chocolate.

“This will make you warm inside and sleepy,” he said.

She thanked him and took the cup. The Brute sat on the grass by her. After a moment he glanced over at Florinda, sound asleep, then looking back at Garnet he gave her his sweet innocent smile.

“They are very foolish people, Garnet,” he said. “John and Florinda.”

“You heard what they said to me?” she asked.

“Some of it. Don’t blame them. They don’t know any better.”

“Then you do think they are wrong, don’t you?” Garnet asked.

“Of course they are wrong. But you see, I think—” he hesitated.

“Tell me, Brute.”

“Garnet, I don’t know a great deal that you know. But I will tell you what I think about those two. I think they got hurt when they were so little they could not fight back.”

For a little while Garnet was silent. She finished the chocolate and he took the cup. “You are a very wise man, Brute,” she said.

“I don’t know,” said the Brute. “So many of the Yankees say I am a big fool, and I think they are big fools, and I don’t know which of us is right. But I know you are a brave woman. When you have your baby you will not punish it for what it did not do.”

“Oh no, Brute!”

He smiled. “Florinda’s mother did that to her. I think somebody punished John too, but John has never told me. Now you must get your siesta.”

She lay down obediently. The Brute pulled the blankets over her and tucked them in gently, like a woman soothing a child to sleep.

Since they rode so slowly, it took them ten days to make the trip to Los Angeles. But Garnet was worn out when they got there.

As she rode into the village she shivered with disgust. Los Angeles was the dirtiest town she had ever seen. It looked as if everybody threw the slops outdoors and nobody ever cleaned up anything. The wild dogs rooted in the garbage, the flies swarmed over it, the horses trod it into the earth. The air reeked with nasty odors. Here and there came an ox-cart loaded with hides, and they had a stench all their own. “Why do they smell like that?” she exclaimed to Florinda.”

“Well, when the Diggers skin the animals, they don’t bother to scrape all the flesh off the hides, and it rots.” Florinda wrinkled her nose as she talked. “But they tell me this is nothing to San Diego. That’s where they load the hides. The sailors say you can smell San Diego for miles out to sea.”

Garnet put up one hand to scratch the back of her neck. Florinda gave her a smile.

“We’re cleaner at Silky’s,” she said encouragingly. “You’ll hardly ever feel them there.”

Garnet felt goose-bumps running up her thighs, and her stomach felt queasy and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up. She put her fist to her mouth and bit on her leather glove, remembering the airy cleanliness of Union Square. She remembered Charles’ rancho too. It had been a cheerless spot and she had not had a single pleasant day there, but it had been clean. She almost wished she had never left it. She swallowed hard, realizing bitterly that now her only home was a saloon in a dirty little village off at the end of the world; and wondering what sort of life she could make for her child in a place like this; and she thought she would give anything or do anything if only she could get out of here and go home. Half dizzy from the smells and the fleas and the yelping dogs, she looked around.