The Wayward Bus (30 page)

He stopped and looked back at the road. His footprints were clear enough, but the rain would probably wash them out, and he could cover his tracks if he wanted to. He turned in off the road toward the Hawkins place.

The old house had gone to pieces very quickly once it was abandoned. A few wandering boys broke out the windows and stole the lead pipe and the plumbing, and the doors soon banged themselves silly and fell off their hinges. The old dark wallpaper, pulled down under wind-driven rain, revealed under-sheets made from old newspapers with old cartoons—“Foxy Grandpa” and “Little Nemo” and “Happy Hooligan” and “Buster Brown.”
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Tramps had been there and had left their litter and burned the door casings in the old black fireplace. The smell of desertion and damp and sourness was in the house. Juan looked in the doorway, walked through and smelled the odor of the vacant house, and went out the back door toward the barn.

The corral fence was down and the big door off, but inside the barn smelled fresh. The stalls were polished where the horses had rubbed against the wood. The corners were cobwebbed. Between the manure windows were still the candleboxes with the worn brushes and rusty currycombs. And an old collar and hames and a set of tugs hung on a rack beside the door. The leather of the collar was split and the padding stuck out.

The barn had no loft. The whole central part had been used to store hay. Juan walked around the end of the last stall. It was dusky inside and the light of the sky lanced through broken shakes in the roof. The floor was covered with short straw, dark with age, and with a slightly musty smell. Standing still in the entrance, Juan could hear the squeaking of mice and he could smell the colonies of mice too. From a rafter two cream-colored barn owls looked down at him and then closed their yellow eyes again.

The rain had diminished so that there was only a faint put tering on the roof. Juan went to a corner and with his foot kicked aside a layer of the dusty top straw. He sat down and then lay back and thrust his hands behind his head. The barn was alive with secret little sounds, but Juan was very tired. His nerves itched and he felt mean. He thought perhaps if he slept he would feel better.

Back in the bus he had felt, in anticipation, a bursting, or gasmic delight of freedom. But it was not so. He felt miserable. His shoulders ached, and now that he was relaxed and stretched out he wasn't sleepy. He wondered, “Won't I ever be happy? Isn't there anything to do?” He tried to remember old times when it seemed to him that he was happy, when he had felt pure joy, and little pictures came into his mind. There was a very early morning with chill air and the sun was coming up behind the mountains and in a muddy road little gray birds were hopping. There wasn't any reason for joy, but it had been there.

And another. It was evening and a shining horse was rubbing his lovely neck on a fence and the quail were calling and there was a sound of dropping water somewhere. His breath came short with excitement just remembering it.

And another. He rode in an old cart with a girl cousin. She was older than he—he couldn't remember what she looked like. The horse shied at a piece of paper and she fell against him, and to right herself she put out her hand and touched his leg, and delight bloomed in his stomach and his brain ached with delight.

And another. Standing at midnight in a great, dim cathedral with a sharp, barbaric smell of copal smarting his nose. He held a skinny little candle with a white silk bow tied about it halfway up. And like a dream, the sweet murmur of the mass came from far away at the high altar and the drowsy loveliness drew down over him.

Juan's muscles relaxed and he slept in the straw of the deserted barn. And the timid mice sensed his sleep and came out from under the straw and played busily and the rain whispered quietly on the barn roof.

CHAPTER 15

The passengers watched Juan walk away and disappear over the brow of the hill. They didn't speak, not even when Pimples climbed back into the bus and took his place in the driver's seat. The seats were tilted and each passenger tried to get comfortable.

At last Mr. Pritchard asked, generally, “How long do you suppose it'll take him to get a car out here?”

Van Brunt rubbed his left hand nervously. “Can't possibly expect it under three hours. He's got a four-mile walk. Even if he can get a car to come out, it'll take them an hour to get started and an hour to get here. That is, if they'll come out at all. I'm not sure anybody will come over this road. We should have walked in with him and caught a ride at the county road.”

“We couldn't,” said Mr. Pritchard. “We've got all our baggage.”

Mrs. Pritchard said, “I didn't want to say anything when you got this crazy idea, Elliott. After all, it is your vacation.”

She had been wanting to explain to the other passengers how people of the obvious position of the Pritchards should come to find themselves on a bus—should put themselves in the way of this kind of thing. They must have been wondering, she thought. Now she turned and addressed them. “We came out on a train, a nice train—the City of San Francisco,
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a very comfortable extra-fare train. And then my funny husband had this crazy idea of coming down on a bus. He thought he would see the country better that way.”

“Well, we're seeing it, little girl,” he said bitterly.

She went on, “My husband said he had been out of touch. He wanted to see what the people, the real people, were talking about.” A delicate malice was creeping into her voice. “I thought it was silly but it's his vacation. He's the one who's worked so hard for the war effort. The wives didn't have much to do, just trying to make out with rationing and all, and no food in the stores. Why, once for two months we didn't taste beef. Nothing but chicken.”

Mr. Pritchard looked at his wife in some surprise. It was not a common thing for this edge to come into her voice and it had a strange effect on him. Suddenly he found himself getting angry, getting wildly, unreasonably angry. It was her tone that did it. “I wish we'd never come,” he said. “I didn't want to come anyway. I'd have had a real rest playing a little golf and sleeping in my own bed. I never wanted to come.”

The other passengers watched with curiosity and interest. They were bored. This might be good. The anger of these two was beginning to fill the bus.

Mildred said, “Mother, Dad, cut it out.”

“You stay out of this,” Mr. Pritchard said. “I didn't want to come. I didn't want to at all. I hate foreign countries, particularly dirty ones.”

Mrs. Pritchard's mouth pinched white and her eyes were cold. “This is a fine time to tell me about it,” she said. “Who made all the plans for it and bought all the tickets? Who got us on this bus, stalled in the middle of nowhere? Who did all that? Did I?”

“Mother!” Mildred cried. She had never heard this tone in her mother's voice before.

“And it seems a strange thing”—Mrs. Pritchard's voice broke a little—“I try so hard. This trip, when you get it all paid for, is going to cost three or four thousand dollars. If you didn't want to come I could have built the little orchid house I've wanted so long, just a little, tiny orchid house. You said it wouldn't be a good example, getting it during war, but the war is over now and we take a trip you didn't want to take. Well, you spoiled it for me now too. I won't enjoy it. You spoil everything. Everything!” She covered her eyes with her hand.

Mildred stood up. “Mother, stop it. Mother, stop this right now!”

Mrs. Pritchard moaned a little.

“If you don't stop it I'm going to walk away,” Mildred said.

“Go away,” said Mrs. Pritchard. “Oh, go away. You don't understand anything.”

Mildred's face set. She picked up her gabardine topcoat and put it on. “I'm going to walk to the county road,” she said.

“That's four miles,” Van Brunt said. “You'll spoil your shoes.”

“I'm a good walker,” said Mildred. She had to get out, her hatred for her mother was rising in her and making her sick.

Mrs. Pritchard's handkerchief was out and the scent of lavender filled the bus.

“Pull yourself together,” Mildred said harshly. “I know what you're going to do. You're going to get a headache and punish us. I know you. One of your fake headaches,” she said viciously. “I'm not going to sit around and see you get away with it.”

Pimples watched, fascinated. He was breathing through his mouth.

Mrs. Pritchard looked up at her daughter with horror. “Dear! You don't believe that!”

“I'm beginning to,” said Mildred. “Those headaches come too opportunely.”

Mr. Pritchard said, “Mildred, stop it.”

“I'm going on.”

“Mildred, I forbid it!”

His daughter whirled on him. “Forbid and be damned!” She buttoned her coat over her chest.

Mr. Pritchard put out his hand. “Mildred, please, dear.”

“I've had enough,” she said. “I need the exercise.” She stepped out of the bus and walked rapidly away.

“Elliott,” Mrs. Pritchard cried. “Elliott, stop her. Don't let her go.”

He patted her arm. “Now, little girl, she'll be all right. We're just irritable. All of us.”

“Oh, Elliott,” she groaned, “if only I could lie down. If only I could get some rest. She thinks my headaches aren't true. Elliott, I'll kill myself if she believes that. Oh, if I only could stretch out.”

Pimples said, “Ma'am, we got some tarpaulins in the back end. We use 'em to cover the baggage when we carry it on top. If your husband would take one of them up in that cave, why, you could lay down there.”

“Why, that's a wonderful idea,” said Mr. Pritchard.

“Lie on the old damp ground?” she demanded. “No.”

“No, on a canvas. I could fix you a sweet little bed for a sweet little girl.”

“Well, I don't know,” she said.

“Look, dear,” he insisted. “Look, I'm going to roll up my topcoat. Now you just put your head down there, like that. Now, in a little while I'll come and get you and take you to your own little bed.”

She whimpered.

“And rest your head on the pillow and close your eyes.”

Pimples said, “Mr. Chicoy told me to bring out the pies if anybody got hungry. There's four flavors and they're pretty good too. I could eat a piece right now.”

“Let's get that tarpaulin first,” Mr. Pritchard said. “My wife is exhausted. She's about at the end of her strength. You help me fix her a bed, will you?”

“O.K.,” said Pimples. He felt that he was doing all right in Juan's absence. He felt fine and jaunty. His posture showed his mood for his shoulders were back and his pale wolf eyes were bright and confident. There was only one worry in Pimples. He wished he had had sense enough to throw an old pair of shoes into the bus. His two-toned oxfords were likely to take a beating from the mud, and that would mean a long job with a toothbrush to clean them up again. And he couldn't appear to protect his shoes for that would indicate to Camille that he was not a devil-may-care fellow. She wouldn't be impressed by a man who was careful of his shoes even if they were new white and brown oxfords.

Ernest said, “I'm going to have a look at those caves,” and he got up and climbed to the door of the bus. Van Brunt grumbled and followed.

Mrs. Pritchard nestled her cheek in Mr. Pritchard's coat and closed her eyes. She was filled with dismay. How could she have fought with him in public—with her own husband? It had never happened before. When it was necessary to quarrel she always managed that they should be alone. Not even Mildred was permitted to hear a quarrel. She felt it was vulgar to fight when people could hear, and, besides, it broke a pattern she had been years building, the story that because of her sweetness her marriage was ideal. Everyone she knew believed that. She believed it herself. Through her own efforts she had built a beautiful marriage and now she had slipped. She had quarreled. She had let it get out about the little orchid house.

For a number of years she had wanted such a house. Ever since, in fact, she had seen an article in
Harper's Bazaar
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about a Mrs. William O. MacKenzie who had one. The pictures had been lovely. People would say of Mrs. Pritchard that she had the darlingest little orchid house. It was precious and valuable. It was better than jewelry or furs. People she didn't even know would hear about her little orchid house. Secretly she had learned a great deal about such projects. She had studied plans. She knew costs of heating systems and humidifiers. She knew where the original stock was bought and how much it cost. She had studied books on propagation. And all of this very secretly because she knew that if and when the time came that she could have it Mr. Pritchard would want to find out these things and tell her. It was the only way. She didn't even resent it. That was simply a way of life, the way she had made her marriage successful. She would be impressed with his knowledge and she would ask his advice about everything.

But she was worried because she had let the thing slip in anger. Such a mistake might set her back six months or more. She had planned to have him suggest it, and by careful reluctance cause him to overcome her opposition. But now the subject had been mentioned in anger and he would have a block against it. Unless she was very careful in the future he might never come around. It had been stupid of her and vulgar of her.

She could hear Norma and Camille talking softly behind her. Her eyes were closed and she looked so little and so ill that they couldn't imagine she was listening.