Jubilee Trail (71 page)

With a quick jerky movement of her head Florinda tossed her hair behind her shoulders. She began folding the dress and petticoats she had taken off.

Garnet watched her thoughtfully. “Why are you so bitter about it?” she asked after a pause.

Florinda went on folding her clothes. “Well, I’d better say it. The fact is, Garnet, I’ve tried marriage. I don’t like it.”

Garnet gave a gasp. “You’ve been married?” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Florinda. She smiled a little. “Surprised?”

“Yes, but maybe I shouldn’t be. You told me you’d had a child.”

“My God,” Florinda exclaimed with a start of honor, “he wasn’t her father!” She shuddered. “If I’d had a child by that fungus,” she said through her teeth, “I’d have thrown it down the well.”

Garnet heard her in amazement. She was amazed not so much by the fact that Florinda had been married as by the look of her when she spoke of it. Florinda took the world as she found it, with an uncomplaining gallantry that Garnet had envied a thousand times. But now her beautiful eyes were narrowed to two slits and her mouth had an ugly curve as though it had been turned upside down. She had put her dress and petticoats on the wall-bench, and she was sitting by them, running her fingers along the edge of the bench as though the feel of adobe were new to her. In a thin, startled voice, Garnet exclaimed,

“How you hate him!”

Florinda’s whole body looked stiff. She drew a deep breath as though trying to relax. “I think,” she said slowly, “he’s the only person I ever really hated in my life.” Turning her head so as to look at Garnet more directly, she asked, “Did you ever hate anybody, Garnet?”

“Not like that,” Garnet answered with conviction.

“Don’t try it,” said Florinda. “Don’t find out what it does to you. Garnet, I like people. Some of them I don’t like overmuch, but I don’t hate them. I don’t lie awake all night shaking with hate of them. Did you ever do that?”

“No,” said Garnet, “I never did.” She felt young and inexperienced. This dreadfulness Florinda was remembering now was not like anything she had ever known.

“When you hate somebody,” said Florinda, “it’s like a torture inside of you. You think about him and you feel like your skin is rising up off your body. You feel like your hair is turning to hot wires on your head. And if you’re married to him you’re helpless. All you did was go down to City Hall and speak a dozen words and sign your name in a book, and you’ve put yourself in chains. You can’t get away.” Florinda stopped. After a moment she shook her head as though to clear it of what she was remembering. Some damp silvery tendrils of hair fell over her face. As she pushed them back she gave Garnet a small one-sided smile. “Well, I told you,” she said.

Garnet wished she could somehow help to lessen the pain of what Florinda was remembering. “Florinda,” she said gently, “he can’t hurt you any more. Not away out here.”

Florinda said nothing. She looked down, pulling out the ruffle on the sleeve of her nightgown.

“Where is he now?” Garnet asked.

“Dead,” said Florinda. She did not look up.

“Oh,” Garnet said softly.

“Quite safely dead,” said Florinda.

Garnet started and put her hand to her lips. “I think—I understand,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes, dear,” Florinda replied quietly, “I think you do.” Raising her eyes to meet Garnet’s, she went on in a steady voice. “His name was William Cadwallader Mallory. I shot him on the night of the sixteenth of August, 1844, in the Alhambra Gambling Palace on Park Row.”

She laced her fingers on her knee. The ruffles on her sleeve fell back, and her hands looked rough and crusty as the candlelight flickered over the scars.

“I didn’t lie to you that day in New Orleans,” she went on. “I told you I hadn’t killed Selkirk. I hadn’t. Everything I told you was true. But there were some things I didn’t tell you.” After a moment of silence she looked up again, half smiling as though she felt relieved to have said all this. “Like me any less than you did?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Garnet exclaimed. “I don’t like you any less. Did you think I would?”

Florinda regarded her thoughtfully. “Well, dear, I didn’t know. Some people think murder is a rather serious crime.”

Garnet spoke without hesitation. “Florinda, you are the kindest, most considerate, least resentful person I’ve ever known. If you killed a man it must have been because he deserved it. That’s all.”

Florinda shook her head slowly, with a look of wonder. “Garnet, I guess that’s about the nicest thing anybody ever said to me in my whole life. Do you mean it?”

“Yes, I mean it. I usually mean what I say.”

“Thank you, Garnet,” said Florinda. “And thank you for the way you stood by me that day in New Orleans. I’m going to say something I’ve been wanting to say to you ever since then.” She leaned sideways against the wall and began making little pleats in the blue gingham curtain. “Oliver didn’t have your grace of heart, Garnet. I wouldn’t have said so then, and I didn’t know how to thank you without saying so. But—do you remember?—Oliver started probing. He wanted to know a lot that I didn’t want to talk about. I suppose he had a right to ask questions. He didn’t know me from Adam’s grandmother and there I was wanting the two of you to keep me out of jail. But I couldn’t have answered him, I simply could not have lived through it again. And somehow you understood it and you told him to let me alone. And I loved you for that, oh I did love you so much for it, and I’ve wanted to tell you so.”

Garnet stood up. She went over to Florinda and knelt down, putting her own warm healthy hands over the ridgy knots of Florinda’s. “It still hurts you to talk about it, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, I guess it does,” said Florinda. She looked down.

“Then don’t talk about it. Don’t tell me any more.”

There was a silence. After a while Florinda stood up, felt her hair to see how nearly dry it was, and began to turn down her bedclothes. She spoke in her normal voice. “Well, dearie, I suppose you get the idea. I’ve had one husband, and now that I’m rid of him I’ll be a lot of blue words if I want to try another.”

“I understand,” said Garnet, “and I can’t blame you. No wonder you’d rather go on being a widow.”

“A what?” said Florinda. She turned around. “Am I a widow? You mean all those black dresses—” For a moment she stared at Garnet with blank astonishment. Then she burst out laughing. “Oh, my uncle’s carbuncle! Garnet, who on earth would have thought of that but you?”

Garnet had begun to laugh too. She was glad Florinda had such a gift for laughter when the tension got too strong. “You hadn’t thought of that?” she asked.

“Garnet, I do declare to you that in all this time it never once entered my head. Well, well.” Florinda threw back her head and stretched her neck, still chuckling. “That’s the first time William Mallory ever gave me anything to laugh about,” she said, with grimness under her mirth. “Garnet, you’re wonderful. You always were.”

T
HEY DID NOT
SEE
Texas the next day. But that evening Captain Brown came to the bar and told Garnet she could be at ease about Texas’ wish to be nameless in California. Captain Brown said he had spoken to Major Lyndon, and the major had agreed that if Texas did not want his past talked about, no good could be done by talking about it.

Garnet thanked him, and went to serve several men who were waiting. When she had time to look around Captain Brown was still at the bar.

“What is your name?” he asked. “Ruby, Pearl, Opal—?”

“Garnet,” she said.

“That’s it. I knew it was some kind of jewel.” His eyes crinkled in a pleasant sort of apology as he added, “As you can see, I haven’t paid you much attention. That is, not until last night.”

“Thank you for paying attention last night,” she said, smiling back at him.

Captain Brown studied her face, with that same baffled expression he had had last night. At length he said,

“Do you mind if I tell you that you puzzle me considerably?”

“Why no,” she returned, laughing a little. “I don’t mind. But why do I puzzle you?”

“For one thing,” said Captain Brown, “you remind me of somebody, and I can’t think who it is. For another—I’m not asking any questions,” he assured her. “But if I can ever be of service, won’t you let me know?”

She heard him with surprise. “Why thank you,” she said, “but I’m not sure I understand what that means.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” he returned. He spoke with a simple friendly candor. “I don’t want to meddle in what doesn’t concern me. But it’s obvious that you don’t belong in here.”

Garnet looked down at the counter. His manner of saying this was so different from the way men usually asked questions that she did not know how to answer him. He was not reproachful, and he was not starting off with the familiar “How’d a nice girl like you ever get in this God-forsaken hole?” Captain Brown was waiting for an answer. She said, without looking up,

“Why do you think I don’t belong here?”

“Because of the way you talk,” he answered promptly. “The habit of well-bred speech is as hard to break as the other kind.” He paused, and then went on, “Now if I’ve said too much, forgive me. I don’t know anything about you and I’m not going to try to find out anything. But I think you’re in a tight spot, and I’d like to be your friend.”

She raised her eyes. Because he had asked for no explanation and evidently did not expect one, this time she wanted to give it. She said,

“Thank you very much, Captain Brown. I came to California with my husband. But he died, and I can’t go back alone. I’m working here to make a living. That’s all.”

He started to reply. But Garnet saw a group of privates, waiting with what patience they could muster for that pest of a captain to get through talking to the barmaid so they could get something to drink. “I’ll have to leave you now,” she said, and turned away from him to take their orders. When she had served them she saw that Captain Brown had not moved from his place at the bar.

Garnet brightened, and spoke to him. “Did you mean what you said a minute ago, Captain Brown?”

“Certainly I meant it.”

“There is something you can do for me. I just thought of it. If I’m asking too much, tell me. But the army must be sending letters back to the States. Would it be possible for me to get a message to my people? I’d like to tell them I’m well and safe.”

Captain Brown took a slip of paper and a pencil from his pocket. “I’ll see what I can do. Where do they live?”

“New York. Mr. and Mrs. Horace Cameron.”

“What!” He dropped his pencil on the bar. “Of course,” he said, his words slow with astonishment, “of course. That’s who it is you remind me of. Mr. Cameron.”

Garnet started. “Where did you know my father?” she asked breathlessly.

“In New York. I saw him at the bank about a week before the regiment sailed. He showed me a letter from you. It must have been from you—are you Mrs. Hale?”

She nodded. Captain Brown went on.

“But he didn’t know you had lost your husband. He was expecting to hear any day that you were back in the States. This was a letter you had written just after you reached California. You described the scenery, but—” he gave a little laugh of apology—“but of course you know what was in a letter you wrote yourself.”

Garnet winced. How well she knew. That was the letter she had sent just after she reached Charles’ rancho, when she was so determined not to let her parents know anything was wrong. The letter had reached New York last summer, and her father had done just what she had known he would do, he had taken the letter to the bank so he could show it to his friends. And naturally, since Captain Brown was coming to California, father would show it to him. “Since you’re going out there, you might be interested in this letter from my daughter…”

The New York Regiment had sailed in September. It had not occurred to her father to ask Captain Brown to bring her a message, because he was expecting any day to get a letter from her, mailed in some town on the frontier, saying she was back from the trail and on her way home. But instead, after the regiment had left, he got that letter she had written just before she came to Los Angeles with Florinda and John. That was the letter saying Oliver was dead, and she was going to have a baby, and she could not come home.

“Mrs. Hale,” Captain Brown said in a low voice.

Garnet started and looked up. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I was—” She bit her lip.

“Homesick?” he finished for her, with sympathy.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Every now and then it catches hold of me and gives me a pinch. But please believe me,” she added hastily, “I’m not unhappy here. It’s just knowing I can’t get away, feeling remote and cut off, that’s all. Tell me, did my father look well? Did he say anything about the rest of the family?”

“Your father looked well and cheerful. I’m sure the others were well too, since he said something about having to hurry home because he and Mrs. Cameron were having a dinner-party that evening. They would hardly have been having a party if anything had been wrong.” Captain Brown picked up his pencil from the bar where it had fallen, and put it back into his pocket. “I’ll inquire at once about getting a letter to them, and I’ll let you know.”

Mr. Collins and Mr. McLane came in for their nightcap. Captain Brown said good night, and Garnet went to wait on the others. At the door, Captain Brown caught her eye as he had last night, and lifted his hand in a friendly gesture of goodby. Again, Garnet felt a warmth of comradeship.

The army had put up a fort on a hill overlooking the plaza. Here the men celebrated the Fourth of July.

They began at sunrise, firing a federal salute as the flag was raised on the hill. The crack of the guns banged against the mountains, waking everybody who was not awake already. The Angelenos sighed and asked each other if the Yankees really had to make so much noise about all they did. At Silky’s Place, where nobody ever got to sleep till long after midnight, the guns nearly jolted them out of bed.

Garnet sat up in fright. In the little bed Stephen was bawling. As she rubbed her eyes Garnet remembered that Colonel Stevenson had announced some days ago that the Fourth of July would be observed this way. With a yawn, she put on a wrapper and took Stephen down to the kitchen. There was some cold gruel left from last night. She was scraping this up from the pot for him when Mickey came in, his pigtail bobbing and his felt shoes flapping and his smile as tranquil as ever. Mickey set about making chocolate. He had no idea why the Yankees were firing guns. But Mickey had long since got used to the fact that Yankees did a lot of things he could not understand. He smiled at Garnet, and she smiled back at him. She had not had much sleep, but she was remembering how lonesome she had felt last year when the Fourth of July went by and it was just another day, and she thought it was worth it.