Jubilee Trail (55 page)

Florinda said she was positively suffering for want of hot tamales, and she’d be delighted to accept the invitation if Mr. Collins would put aside this pair of slippers for her. She and Mr. Bugs McLane went out arm in arm.

Mr. Abbott chatted a few minutes longer, but finally he got around to asking Garnet what was the business she wanted to see him about. Garnet said that since Mr. Abbott had acted as Oliver’s banker, she had come to learn what Oliver had left on deposit.

Yes, yes, of course, said Mr. Abbott, and he told Mr. Collins to hand him down a ledger. As his pudgy fingers rustled the pages Mr. Abbott was pleasant and fatherly, and at the same time respectful, as became a merchant dealing with a rich woman.

Twenty minutes later Garnet thanked him and stood up. Mr. Abbott nodded to Mr. Collins, who sprang forward to take her arm and walk with her to the porch. A little distance away, Garnet saw Florinda and Mr. Bugs McLane and a group of natives, blissfully consuming hot tamales. “Will you tell Miss Grove I am ready to go now, Mr. Collins?” Garnet asked.

Being hatless, Mr. Collins touched his forehead and went off. Standing on the porch, Garnet held tight with one hand to a post that supported the roof. She could feel her baby moving. It gave her a sense of panic. Mr. Abbott had bowed her out with deference, and Mr. Collins was obeying her because he thought she was rich. They did not know what she had just found out, that she had almost nothing to live on.

The facts were clear. Mr. Abbott had told them to her affably, not knowing what he was telling her. Oliver had brought a lot of merchandise from Santa Fe last summer; John had placed it to Oliver’s credit at the store; Mr. Abbott had sold it, and after deducting his own fee he had recorded the proceeds in Oliver’s credit book. Everything was in order. But then, when she herself had insisted that Oliver leave California for good, he had withdrawn his credit. He had left only a few dollars for last-minute trifles.

What he had done with his credit, of course Mr. Abbott did not know. Probably he had contracted with rancheros for mules, with sea-captains for silk and coffee and spices to sell in Santa Fe. “No doubt,” said Mr. Abbott, “you’ve already found these records at the rancho. I guess Mr. Charles Hale took charge of them, to keep them for you.”

Garnet remembered Oliver’s trips here and there in the weeks before he died. She had told him to leave nothing in California, because they were never coming back. Typically, Oliver had obeyed.

To be sure, Mr. Abbott continued, all the goods Oliver had bought could be put back on credit here. Mr. Charles Hale would know where they were. Any time she or Charles brought in the receipts, Mr. Abbott would be glad to put them to her account. And of course, the rancho itself had been granted to the Hale brothers jointly. Mr. Charles Hale would have her share of this year’s hide sales, if he had not given it to her already. Any time she brought in the hide receipts, Mr. Abbott would put this sum too on the books.

The rancho, the rancho, Charles. As she stood on the porch, the words clanged in Garnet’s mind. Mr. Abbott did not know that Oliver had deeded his share of the rancho to Charles. She had said, “Yes, yes, give it to him!”—not dreaming that land in California would ever have any value for her.

The credit Oliver had left at Mr. Abbott’s, less what Florinda had spent for the baby’s clothes, amounted to thirty-eight dollars. Mr. Abbott said he had transferred this to Mrs. Hale’s name when Florinda told him she had come to live in town. It had hardly seemed necessary to ask her to come in and sign for so trifling a sum. Now that she was here, she would be good enough to sign the page. He was glad to have the account and it would be an honor to serve Mrs. Hale at any time. And if all this business about hides and credits confused her, well, she could leave everything to him. Ask any Yankee or any Angeleno, and they’d tell her that his reputation for square dealing was lily-white.

Garnet braced herself against the post because she felt as if she might fall down. Now she knew what Charles had meant when he told her, with sneering assurance, that she would come back to him. She had no way to make him give up Oliver’s property. There were no lawyers in California, and she had been here long enough to know how few laws there were that anybody respected.

Around the store, the dogs barked and the children ran up and down. Men swapped stories and women cooked at the outdoor ovens. A two-wheeled cart full of hides creaked up to the store, the driver walking by the head of the ox, and his Digger servants began to stack the hides on Mr. Abbott’s porch. Garnet could smell the hides. She could smell the Diggers too, and the dogs and the garbage in the street, and the hot tamales from the stand over there, and the beef and chili cooking at the outdoor fires. The smells made her sick, and her flesh crawled, or maybe that sensation meant fleas. For a moment the whole scene trembled as though she saw it from under water. Biting her lip savagely, she closed her eyes tight and opened them, several times, until her head cleared. She saw Florinda coming toward her with Mr. Collins and Mr. Bugs McLane.

Florinda was wiping her fingers on her handkerchief and slipping on her gloves over her half-mitts. As they reached the porch step, Mr. McLane and Mr. Collins bowed to Garnet, and Florinda thanked Mr. McLane for the hot tamales. “Now just wait a minute till I pick up my new shoes,” she said to Garnet as the men went into the store. “Why Garnet, what’s the trouble?” she exclaimed, as she noticed Garnet’s face. “You look kind of green. Sick?”

“A little bit. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

“Maybe you should sit down for a while indoors.”

“No, I’d rather go home,” said Garnet. The word “home” sounded mocking as she said it. She had no home. She could live in the loft over the saloon, dependent on Florinda’s kindness, or she could live with Charles, which meant Charles would take charge of her child so completely that the baby would grow up with no more sense of responsible self-reliance than Oliver had had.

“All right, dear,” said Florinda, “we’ll go right home and you can lie down.” She stepped to the doorway of the store. “Oh, Mr. Collins! Mrs. Hale is feeling a bit faint. Could you leave the store long enough to help her get home?”

Mr. Collins came out at once and said certainly. He was an ambitious young Yankee with dreams of saving enough to go into the Santa Fe trade. Glad to be of service to one of his employer’s rich customers, he took Garnet’s arm respectfully while Florinda hurried inside. Garnet could hear her talking.

“Mr. Abbott, have you got some smelling salts or lavender water? Why yes, this will do. Put it on Mrs. Hale’s account.” She came out, carrying her shoes in one hand and a little blue jar in the other. “Here, Garnet, this is some nice fragrant stuff the ladies use here. It’ll make you feel better. Sometimes this town makes me wish I didn’t have any nose.”

Garnet thanked her, trying not to sound ironic. Nice fragrant stuff, put it on Mrs. Hale’s account. Florinda too thought she was rich.

Walking between Florinda and Mr. Collins, she got back to Silky’s Place. Mr. Collins bowed and told her it had been a pleasure to assist her. Garnet wondered how deferential he would have been if he had known she owned less than a hundred dollars. She and Florinda went into the saloon by the side door. Silky saw them and called to Florinda, “Couple of customers been asking for you.

“Be right there,” she called back, slipping her hand under Garnet’s elbow to help her up the stairs. At the bedroom door Garnet said,

“You can go down now. I feel better. I’m sorry I got dizzy just then.”

“Oh rats, don’t apologize. You can’t help it. These last few weeks, the baby feels like it weighs ninety pounds.”

She helped Garnet take off her dress and put on a robe, and told her to lie down. Garnet obeyed, and Florinda ran downstairs. A moment later Garnet heard the men at the bar asking where she had been. Garnet shrugged. When your business was to entertain people, as Florinda’s was, you were never supposed to be tired or to have anything else to do. But Florinda had never had much consideration from other people, so she did not expect it.

That’s my trouble, Garnet said to herself. All my life other people have taken care of me. Now that’s over. I’ve got to take care of myself. And I’ve got to take care of my baby.

But what in the world, she wondered, was she going to do? It was all right to say you were willing to take care of yourself, but how did you go about it? When you found yourself in a mess like this, what did you
do
?

She could, of course, stay here and let Florinda support her. But even as she thought of it, she felt as though she were seeing the bitterness in John’s green eyes and the knot of muscle at his jaw as he said, “Have you ever been an object of charity, Garnet?”

She was not going back to Charles. That was final.

She thought of her father. But he had not even received her letter saying Oliver was dead; he was still expecting her and Oliver to reach New York this fall. When he did get the letter, if he wanted to send her anything he would have to find a sea-captain about to sail for California and trust him to bring it to her. It might be two or three years before she could hear from home.

Garnet tried to figure how much she had. About fifty dollars in her purse; thirty-eight dollars at Mr. Abbott’s, less the price of the jar of fragrant stuff Florinda had bought; the emeralds Florinda had left her in New Orleans, and the garnets for which she had been named. She had no idea what the jewels were worth.

At siesta time Florinda came in, took off her dress, lay down and fell asleep at once. She woke just before sunset. Garnet need not come down to supper, she said. Mickey would bring it up. She hurried back to work before Garnet could say she was not hungry.

A little while later a tap on the door signaled the arrival of Mickey. He carried a tray on which was a bowl of beans cooked with beef and chili, along with a pile of tortillas. When he had gone Garnet set the tray on the wall-bench, spreading a towel over it to keep out the spiders. Later, maybe, she would feel like eating something.

She glanced out of the window. The town basked in late afternoon light, and the air had an autumnal coolness. At the east side of the town she could see the creek overgrown with bushes of wild nicotine, and east of the creek was a mesa, like a hill with its top cut off. Beyond the mesa the ground rolled and tumbled, going higher and higher as it went, until at last, miles away, she could see the line of the great mountains. The westering sun fell on the mountains in a pattern of tawny lights and purple shadows and deep gray folds. Above the squalid little settlement the mountains looked strong and beautiful, like fortresses built for a race of giant kings.

Garnet turned around. As she did so she caught sight of her face in the glass. How healthy she looked, quite healthy enough to make a living if she only knew how. Since her illness her color had come back, and her complexion was as bright as ever. The sight of her black hair and rosy cheeks reminded her of the day she and Florinda had stood before the glass in New Orleans, when Florinda, enchanted by the contrast in their looks, had exclaimed, “I wish we could do a sister act.”

Garnet started and moved nearer the glass. “We could,” she said aloud. “We could work side by side at the bar.”

The thought struck her like a blow. All the ladyism of her lifetime recoiled from it. A shiver ran over her as she heard a burst of drunken laughter from downstairs. “I can’t!” she cried. But even as she said it she knew it wasn’t so, because she could.

Garnet remembered how she had resented the barriers of gentility her parents had set up around her. She thought of how she used to wonder about the Jewel Box, and those gay places around City Hall Park, and those streets she had never been allowed to walk on. She remembered how much she had wanted to see the world as it was. As she remembered, she smiled with a grim understanding. Life let you have what you wanted. But life was like a storekeeper who put up a sign saying “Buy now, pay later,” and tempted you into buying so much that you were in debt for years.

Her baby kicked as though in protest. Garnet put her hands over the place where it was. “I’m sorry,” she said as though speaking to the baby. “But what do you want me to do? I can live on charity, or I can let Charles turn you into a human marshmallow, or I can work at the bar. I’ll work at the bar.”

All of a sudden, she had a sense of lightness. She felt better. She also felt hungry, so she took the towel off the tray and ate her supper.

“Oh Garnet,” exclaimed Florinda, “you don’t have to work at the bar!”

“I want to,” Garnet repeated stubbornly.

“But darling, you won’t like it.”

“I don’t expect to like it.”

“Garnet, please, I don’t need to be paid for having you stay with me. You can stay as long as you want to.”

“I know I can,” said Garnet. She sat on the bed, looking up at Florinda, who stood by the washstand pinching drops of grease that had fallen from the candle. “But I’m not going to have you supporting me.”

There was a silence. Florinda pinched the candle out of shape. At length she turned around. “Garnet,” she said, “you thought this up all by yourself.”

“Why yes, of course.”

“I didn’t suggest it,” said Florinda.

“Certainly not.”

“In fact, I did everything I could to stop you.”

“What are you getting at, Florinda?”

“Look me straight in the eye.”

Garnet looked her straight in the eye.

“Well, glory hallelujah,” said Florinda. “I sure do feel virtuous. I guess that’s the first time in my whole life I honestly tried not to get something I wanted.”

“Do you mean you can use me?”

“Garnet, I can use you like I could use money in the bank. Think of us! Two American girls—they’ll come miles to see us! Every Yankee in California, every sailor who lands at San Diego, why they’ll flock up here if they have to walk.”

She laughed joyously and chattered on.

“You’ll wear red and I’ll wear blue, or you’ll wear pink and I’ll wear green. We’ll get some fancy pins for your hair—”