Jubilee Trail (53 page)

John and the Brute were riding ahead as guides. There were only about two hundred buildings in Los Angeles, but most of them were little brown cubes that looked just alike, and they were set so crazily that Garnet thought anybody who went twenty steps from home must get lost. The houses were roofed with tar, and though the tar looked solid enough now, evidently in hot weather it melted and ran down, for the sides of the houses were streaked with long black trickles. The spaces between the houses were overgrown with wild oats, brightened here and there with poppies, or blooms of datura trailing over the ground. Garnet saw a church, and several larger adobe houses which Florinda told her were the homes of well-to-do families, and a few big buildings which Florinda said were trading posts. Then after several more zigzags, they came to Silky’s Place. John dismounted and helped Garnet off her horse.

The door of the saloon stood open, and she saw several men at the bar. Silky himself came hurrying out. He had on a red coat, and his mustache was curled and his hair glistened with pomade. He shouted joyfully to Florinda, and kissed Garnet’s hand, saying it was an honor indeed to have her in his humble abode.

Garnet tried to answer politely. But she was aching all over, and the smells of liquor were pouring out of the saloon to mingle with the smells outside. Florinda put an arm around her.

“Leave her alone, Silky, she’s not feeling any too good. John, Brute, go on up to the bar and get a drink. I’ll take care of Garnet.”

She helped Garnet up the stairs to the bedroom. Garnet sat down on the wall-bench, looking around with surprise at the neat furniture and fresh blue curtains. A moment later Florinda brought in a young native woman. This, Florinda said, was Isabel, who kept the room clean and did Florinda’s sewing and laundry. She didn’t speak English but she was very, very nice. Now if Garnet would just wait here a few minutes, Isabel would bring the packs so they could get out some clean clothes, and Florinda would go down to the kitchen and get a pail of hot water.

Left alone, Garnet went to the window and opened the shutters. The air and smells blew in together. She looked down, fairly shivering at the noise. Outside were the barking of dogs, shouts of ox-drivers, yells of children, calls of Diggers selling water; from inside the saloon she heard the voices, the clinks, the strumming of guitars and the tipsy songs. So this was Los Angeles. Garnet gave a little crooked smile. How different her life was from everything she had expected.

And yet, she told herself grimly, this is what I’ve got, because without knowing it, this is what I wanted.

Now that she saw it, she wondered why she had not seen it before. She had wanted freedom, and now she had freedom unlimited. Here in this mud village, far from every restraint that had ever been laid on her, she could do exactly as she pleased.

What a little girl she had been when she married Oliver! She had been so full of zest and curiosity, so eager to follow all those shining promises that did not exist anywhere except in her own head. She had thought freedom meant simply the chance to have her own way, with no need to take the consequences of having had it. Well, she knew better now. Life was not a lot of golden adventures that cost you nothing.

Resting her elbow on the sill of the window she looked back at Florinda’s neat, defiant little room. She thought of the first time she had talked to Florinda, when she had been amazed at the cheerful confidence with which Florinda had faced her future. Now she understood it. You developed that kind of courage because you had to. It was not a matter of noble ideals. It was a matter of self-defense. It was like getting over the desert—either you did or you didn’t, and nobody cared very much but yourself.

The baby gave her a kick. Garnet clenched her fist on the window-sill. Out here in this half-savage land, there would be a lot that she could not give her child. But she could teach it what she had learned, and what Oliver had never learned: that no kindly providence was going to save you from the results of what you did, and that you had better be sure of your own strength because you could never be sure of anybody else’s.

Among the oats growing against the wall of a house near by, Garnet saw a cluster of yellow poppies. She remembered that John had named his rancho for the poppies. La flor torosa, the sturdy flower. The poppies looked so delicate. You’d think they were frail hothouse flowers that couldn’t stand a whiff of wind. But actually they were weeds that could stand anything. Garnet smiled at the bright golden cluster. “Torosa,” she said aloud, and repeated it, “Torosa.” She liked the word.

John and the Brute returned to their ranchos, and Garnet set about getting used to Los Angeles.

It was not easy. The noise broke her sleep so often that for the first few days she felt groggy all the time. The smells of hides and garbage were an endless insult to her nose. In spite of Isabel’s cleaning, the fleas did manage to hop in now and then; and besides the fleas there were always the spiders. The spiders were mostly harmless, but they were a constant pest. They made nests of cobwebs on the window-sill, and hung festoons of them in the corners under the ceiling. During her first week in Los Angeles Garnet brushed down more cobwebs than she had ever seen in a year in New York.

But it could have been a great deal worse. At Silky’s Place she had no sense of being unwanted as she had had in Charles’ house. The Chinese boy Mickey smiled at her cordially, and Silky gave her grand bows whenever he saw her. As for Florinda, her affection was warm and solid, the sort of friendship that made no demands, but was simply there, like sunshine.

Texas came by, limping on a cane, for when he fell into the mud-hole his leg had been hurt worse than anybody had realized at the time. Leaning on the bar one morning, Texas repeated to Garnet what he had said to John: he knew all about delivering babies, had done it over and over, and the minute she needed him she was to send for him. Day or night, no trouble at all, no indeed, privilege to be of service. And meantime, he might just mention a few details about taking care of her health.

He knew what he was talking about, Florinda observed after he was gone. Florinda had never again spoken directly about having had a child. But Garnet thought she would have guessed it even if Florinda had never told her. Florinda had such a sympathetic understanding of the whole subject.

The town was so puzzling and so ugly, and Garnet felt so heavy on her legs, that she did not often go out. She spent most of her time in the kitchen or in the bedroom upstairs, making clothes for her baby from cloth Florinda had bought at Mr. Abbott’s store. Isabel helped her cut them. Isabel also made over the black dresses Florinda had worn at Dona Manuela’s, so Garnet could wear them. Florinda protested at Garnet’s going into mourning, saying, “Black is not your color, I warn you.” But Garnet would have felt almost indecent in anything but black, so Florinda yielded and got her last winter’s dresses out of the wardrobe. Florinda never threw away anything that could be used again.

Called in to do the sewing, Isabel agreed with Garnet at once. Of course a widow must wear black, she said. She said it with an emphatic gravity that sent Florinda into spasms of mirth behind her back. Nobody had ever taught Florinda that traditions were sacred whether they meant anything or not. While she and Garnet ate supper that evening, Florinda explained what had made her laugh.

She said Isabel was a widow with three children. Her husband had been a drunken wretch, and one morning after a bout he was found lying face down in the creek. There was some talk about it in the village—some people said Isabel had pushed him in, and others said he fell in but she had not tried to help him out. But as his death was no loss to the community nobody inquired too closely.

This had happened four years ago, and Isabel had refused to get married again. She was young and handsome and she had had several good offers, but she had declined them all, saying firmly that she knew all she wanted to know about husbands. It had not been easy for her to make a living for her children, and when Florinda came to town they were welcome to each other. Isabel and Florinda agreed with each other heartily in the matter of husbands. Garnet heard them discussing the subject with an enthusiasm that made up for their difficulty with language. Men, said Florinda, were fine, but husbands—unable to think of a sufficiently strong Spanish word, she made a face and whistled. Isabel said she was quite right.

But Isabel had worn black for her husband, and she would have been scandalized if Garnet had not worn black for hers. Florinda laughed wonderingly at the idea. “I guess,” she said, “I’ll just never understand nice people.”

She put on a fresh pair of mitts and went back to tend the bar.

Florinda was always busy. Her energy seemed endless. She worked ten or twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and never complained about it. As for the noise, the smells, the spiders, and the other nuisances, she bore them good-naturedly. In years of putting up with things she did not like, Florinda had developed a hard, cool cheerfulness that was like a shell around her.

“I admire you very much,” Garnet said to her one night about two weeks after she came to Los Angeles. “And I envy you.”

“For what?” asked Florinda, scrubbing her shoulders. When she came up from the bar she had brought a pail of warm water, and now she stood before the washstand giving herself a bath. It was an hour past midnight, and the street—if you could call it a street—was quiet. Florinda emptied the basin and filled it with clean water. “Come be an angel and wash my back,” she said to Garnet, and as Garnet took the washcloth Florinda asked, “What did you mean by that remark?”

“I meant I admire the way you stand up to the business of living,” said Garnet. “This place, for instance. You must hate it. But you never say so.”

“Well, dear, it’s not exactly what I was looking forward to when I was washing the cuspidors in Max Duren’s saloon on Pearl Street. But I got out of that, and I’ll get out of this, because I’m not the kind of girl who puts up forever with things she doesn’t like.” Florinda darted a bright blue glance over her shoulder. “And you aren’t either, dearie.”

Garnet smiled in agreement as she picked up the towel and dried Florinda’s back. “No, I’m not going to stay in this wretched town without at least making a fight to get out. But meanwhile—Florinda, don’t you ever just want to curl up and whine?”

“Sure, but what good would it do? And you aren’t whining, are you?”

Garnet hung the towel on the rack and stretched out on the bed. Florinda scrubbed her legs.

“Look here, dearie,” she went on. “This place is awful. But we aren’t weeping about it. Not because we’re high-minded, but because we’re too smart to waste all the energy it would take.” Glancing around again, she gave Garnet a wise smile. “And because, bad as Los Angeles is, we can think of two places worse. One of ’em’s the New York state prison, and the other is any house occupied by Charles Hale. Right?”

Garnet laughed curtly. “Right.”

Florinda began to wash her feet. Her way of doing it was to stand on her left leg while she lifted her right knee chest-high and put her right foot into the basin, then to stand on her right leg while she lifted the other. Years of dancing had kept her as supple as a baby. Watching her, Garnet sighed with envy.

“Do you think I’ll ever be limber again?”

“Oh, sure,” said Florinda. She smiled. “I know how you feel now, dearie—you can hardly put on your own shoes and you wonder if you’ll ever be able to lace another corset. But it’s amazing how you’ll get right back into shape. And when you do, all this—” she made a wide gesture including Los Angeles and the country around it—“all this will be a lot easier than it is now.” But Garnet was frowning and biting her lip, and Florinda asked, “Something else on your mind?”

“Yes. Something I’ve been wanting to ask you ever since I’ve been here.”

“Go ahead.” Florinda emptied the soiled water into the slop-jar, tucked her feet into slippers and put on her nightgown, and sat down on the wall-bench to brush her hair. Garnet looked down at the bed, stroking the nap of the blanket with her forefinger.

“Florinda, how much longer are you planning to have me stay in here with you?”

“Why, as long as you like.”

“Couldn’t you put a mattress for me in the storeroom? Silky must know I wouldn’t drink up his liquor.”

“But why do you want to stay in the storeroom?”

“You’ve been wonderful to me,” said Garnet, “but I can’t share your room indefinitely. You understand.”

“I do not. Why shouldn’t you share my room? You’re not in my way.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t pretend to be so stupid! I mean— I mean Silky!”

With a long startled stare, Florinda lowered her hairbrush to her knee. She began to laugh. “Oh, I’m a three-legged Indian,” she said. “I’ve got a lump of dough where my head ought to be. Garnet, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that was worrying you. Darling, there’s nothing like that between Silky and me.”

Garnet sat up. “Oh Florinda, please forgive me!”

Florinda was still laughing. “It’s my fault, I should have told you. I thought I had. Didn’t I say it was strictly business?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand.” Garnet felt an embarrassed warmth in her cheeks. “Am I getting red?”

“Wine-colored, and there’s no reason why you should.” Florinda went back to brushing her hair as she explained. “Most of the gents who come in here think that, but I didn’t know you did too. I don’t tell the gents any different, because all day long I get what you’d call improper suggestions, and it keeps matters simpler to let them think Silky would start shooting if I said yes. I don’t mean I’m growing angel’s wings, or anything like that. But here’s how things really are.” She spoke clearly. “Garnet, I’m not Silky’s lady of the moment, and I don’t work for him. I own half this place.”

Garnet was astonished. “I never thought of that!”

“We rent this building from Mr. Abbott,” said Florinda. “Silky was doing a nice little business here, but he wanted to enlarge. We talked it over when he came up to Mr. Kerridge’s. I went shares with him. Understand?”