And Condors Danced (8 page)

Lila was next to Father. Her face was the hardest to read, as if her beauty formed so smooth a film that even fear or anger found little foothold there. Only the quickness with which her eyes turned away from Carly’s told that she was still angry. If she saw Carly’s humble don’t-be-mad-at-me smile, she gave no sign.

Arthur’s lopsided, almost invisible grin, as usual, seemed to be making fun of something, and when Carly caught his glance he lifted an eyebrow and gave his head the tiniest beginning of a shake. The shake perhaps meant,
Look out, you’re in trouble,
or
We’re all in trouble,
or maybe even
Good for you, Carly. You’re the only one in this whole family with an ounce of spunk
, which was something he’d said to her more than once.

If anyone was acting strangely, it was Charles. His chair was next to Carly’s, and as she looked up at him, his tense, nervous glance flickered around her without acknowledging her presence. It was like Charles to look without really seeing, but it was not like him to see and pretend not to. It seemed that Charles was angry too.

And back to Mama, pale and distant, her shoulders hunched as if in pain, her eyes already lowered for the blessing. She showed no sign of knowing that her youngest daughter was in trouble again. Nellie wouldn’t have told her—not unless she had asked, and it wasn’t likely that she had.

Then Nellie came in from the kitchen with the milk pitcher, and when she had taken her place they all bowed their heads. Silence. Silent waiting, waiting to hear who would give the blessing. Carly didn’t really think she’d be the one. Father didn’t call on her very often. But just in case, she got ready, rehearsing in her mind the words to a new one she’d recently learned in Sunday School, because Father didn’t approve of always saying the same one.

“Thank you for this food we share,” she murmured silently. “Thank you for your daily care. Thank you—”

“Charles.”

Father often picked Charles. Perhaps because he was oldest, or perhaps because he never seemed to be prepared. As always, he stumbled and stuttered through the Lord’s Prayer and then the “Bless this food to our use.”

“Amen,” Father said. The rest of the family echoed, “Amen,” chairs scraped, and everyone sat down.

C
ARLY SIGHED WITH
relief and inhaled a wonderful medley of smells: roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, and carrots and peas. She was, she realized suddenly, absolutely famished. The potatoes were next to her plate and she picked them up and sniffed appreciatively. She loved potatoes.

“Ha-rumm.” The familiar rasping sound that meant that Father was about to speak froze the food-passing process all around the table. Swallowing the hungry juices that were filling her mouth, Carly, like the others, turned to the head of the table. Father was carving the roast beef. “Ha-rumm,” he said again, and then, “Charles. One always rejoices in the familiar beauty of the Lord’s Prayer. But it does seem that piety could be less monotonous. Would it be too much to ask that you favor us with a bit more variety in the future?”

Without turning her head Carly rolled her eyes toward her oldest brother. Charles’s secrets were never well hidden—a sudden start followed by nervous embarrassment. “Yes, s-s-sir,” he said. “I mean, no, sir. W-w-what prayer do you want me to s-s-say?”

Father’s smile was dangerously jovial. “That’s one decision I should think you would like to make for yourself, my boy. I should think that would be between you and the Almighty.” The smile disappeared and Father turned to hand the platter of neatly carved beef to Lila. “Here you are, my girl. A fine roast. My compliments to our two lovely cooks.”

Lila helped herself to the meat, and all around the table the passing process began again. Carly, almost dizzy from hunger, swallowed again and reluctantly passed the potatoes on to Charles, obeying the rule that when you started a dish you did not help yourself first unless it was offered back to you. She was afraid that poor Charles was in no condition to remember such polite niceties. Sure enough, still red-faced and blank-eyed, he simply spooned out a large helping and passed it on. Carly watched wistfully as the bowl started its long journey around the table. The best part, the middle of the white mound enriched by the deep well of yellow butter, would be gone by the time it came back to her.

“Nellie,” Father said, “how did the shopping go? Were you able to get everything?”

Nellie’s face was still flushed, either from the heat of the kitchen or from anger. “Yes, Father,” she said quickly. “Everything but the axle grease. Mr. Stone was all out, but he says he’ll be getting some more next month.”

“Confound the man.” Father’s voice rang with anger, a sound that tightened lips and tensed muscles all around the table. “Shorting himself of grease in the middle of summer. A man as shortsighted as Abner Stone has no business trying to run a merchandising establishment.”

A possible solution to the axle-grease problem occurred to Carly and she bounced excitedly. “Father,” she said, “Father, I think—”

“Don’t interrupt, Carly,” Nellie said quickly.

Father seemed to have heard neither Carly nor Nellie. But his frown seemed even more threatening as he continued, “If I’d thought for a minute that Stone’s would be out of grease, I could have gotten some in Ventura. I wish to God—”

Lowering her voice Carly stubbornly tried again: “Father.”

His eyes turned to Carly and all the Abner Stone-axle-grease anger seemed about to break on her head. “What is it?” he asked slowly and distinctly.

“Woo Ying has lots of grease in the carriage house. For Aunt M.’s surrey. You could borrow some from Woo Ying.”

Still frowning, Father returned his eyes to the piece of bread he was buttering. After a moment he nodded and said, “Aunt Mehitabel’s carriage house. Yes, indeed. I’d be very much surprised if there wasn’t a bit of axle grease among all those boxes and barrels. Saint Luke must have had Aunt Mehitabel in mind when he spoke of the ‘soul that hath much goods laid up for many years.’ Charles, you can stop at Greenwood tomorrow and see what Woo Ying can spare.”

Father’s pale bushy eyebrows had leveled and his voice dropped to its normal range. He nodded again, and from the corners of her eyes Carly could see Nellie and Charles nodding, too, relieved that Father was no longer angry, even if his anger hadn’t been directed at them.

Then Father asked Mama how she was feeling and she sighed and said, “A little better,” which was what she almost always said, and Father said that was good and began to talk about the apricot crop.

There was going to be a good crop this summer, and with the unusually hot weather the pitting would be under way very soon. The workers’ campground was already beginning to fill up, and Father and Arthur had spent most of the morning dealing with the usual problems. The Hooper clan and the Garcías were squabbling already. José and his new wife had set up their tent in a shady spot by the creek that Luther Hooper’s brood had staked a claim to, and Luther was threatening to take all his womenfolk up to work at the Hamiltons’ pitting shed. Arthur, Father said, had gotten a quick education, this morning, in the problems involved in being shed boss.

“Isn’t that right, Arthur?” Father said.

“Yes, sir,” Arthur said. “Grammar school, high school, and college, all in one morning.” Then in a low voice, under cover of Mama’s request for a pillow for her back, he added, “Failed in every subject, I’m afraid.”

On her way to the parlor for Mama’s back pillow, Carly couldn’t help grinning. Arthur was undoubtedly right about being a failure as boss of the pitting shed. She couldn’t imagine Arthur successfully keeping track of the boxes pitted by dozens of workers, settling their squabbles, and handling their problems, while Father was busy overseeing the crews in the orchards. But Father had already tried Charles and it had been a disaster. According to Father, every kind of mischief went on under Charles’s very nose without his even noticing. Arthur, Carly thought, would notice every bit of mischief—and be right in the middle of it. Carly could just imagine Arthur flirting with one of the pretty Mexican girls like Estrellita García, while the rest of the pitting crew quarreled and loafed and packed up dried apricots to sell to their relatives when they got back home. So there was probably going to be another disaster—and it would be one more thing to blame on Alfred Bennington Quigley.

It was Quigley’s fault because he was the one who had made the Hartwicks lose Carmen. For several years, ever since she was fifteen, Nellie, who was a natural-born shed boss, had worked in the pitting shed. But that was when Carmen worked for the Hartwicks, cooking and cleaning and taking care of Mama. Now, however, with money so scarce, Father had let Carmen go, and so Nellie could no longer be spared from her housekeeping duties. So the Hartwicks lacked a shed boss, just as they lacked a telephone and an indoor toilet, and all of it was because of the Quigleys.

The discussion of the pitting-shed problems and the feud between the Hoopers and the Garcías had held Carly’s attention, but when she returned to the table with Mama’s pillow, Father had begun to talk about politics and what President Roosevelt had said about Cuba. So she stopped listening and began to think about condors, and for a while she almost forgot about being in trouble with Nellie. But when dinner was over and she was helping with the dishes, she found that she was not yet forgiven.

T
HAT NIGHT, AS
Carly helped with the after-dinner cleanup, neither Lila nor Nellie spoke to her or even looked in her direction. Ignoring her when she tried to explain or apologize, and even when she tried to tell them about the dead condor by the spring, they hurried through the clearing and washing. Lila finished her chores first and left, pointedly saying good night only to Nellie. Carly was mournfully drying the last of the china, when Nellie hung her apron in the pantry and came back into the kitchen. Pouring herself the last few drops of coffee, she sat down at the kitchen table.

“I don’t understand how you can be so thoughtless,” she began. “I was really frightened for you, Carly.”

“For me? Why were you frightened for me?”

“I was so sure you wouldn’t be late tonight, when you knew Father would be here and how angry he’d be.”

“I don’t know,” Carly said. “I guess I just wasn’t thinking for a while, about Father being angry, I mean.”

Nellie’s frown softened to a puzzled look. “You weren’t thinking about Father being angry?” she repeated, making it into a question. “How can you not think about…?” She stopped for a moment and her frown returned. “I was frightened because I was so sure you wouldn’t be late unless there’d been an accident, or something had happened to you. Charles said you’d gone up into the hills on the Kellys’ donkeys, and I just felt sure the donkey had slipped on one of those narrow trails, or something else awful had happened.”

“No,” Carly said. “Nothing bad happened. I just forgot. It was so exciting—seeing the condor and the other dead one by the spring. I just forgot how late it was.”

“And then when I saw that you were all right, and that it was just carelessness again…” Nellie paused and then went on, sounding more angry than ever. “Carly, if you don’t mind upsetting Father, you should remember that I do. And Charles most of all. Didn’t you stop to think that if Father had known what happened he would have blamed Charles because he’d given you permission to go?”

Of course. That explained Charles’s anger. “I guess I just didn’t think,” Carly admitted.

“No.” Nellie’s voice was bitter. “You don’t think. You just don’t think about how other people feel. I was so angry when you came in and I saw that nothing had happened and that you had simply disobeyed again. I would have gone straight to Father and told him, if it hadn’t been for Charles. Charles was sure that Father would be furious at him for letting you go. Poor Charles was so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Carly said. “I’m sorry Charles was so worried.” She slowly put away the dishpans and hung up her towel in the pantry. When she came back into the kitchen, Nellie was still sitting at the table holding her coffee cup between her hands. She was looking at Carly, but she didn’t look quite as angry. Carly smiled hopefully and sat down across the table.

“Nellie,” she said, “what would Father have done to Charles if he’d found out?”

Nellie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if Rosemary really did fall down the cliff with me and I broke my neck—and Charles had told me that I could go. What would Father do to Charles? Would he make him stay in his room for a week, like I had to when I went swimming in the water tank? Or would he disinherit him and make him go out in the world to seek his fortune like in—”

“Oh, Carly!" Nellie thumped the coffee cup down on the table and jumped to her feet. “You are just incorrigible. Making up nonsense like that instead of thinking about how thoughtless you’ve been and how much trouble you’ve caused everybody. Of course Father wouldn’t have disinherited Charles. And it’s not that Charles is afraid of what Father would do to him. It’s just that Father does get very upset when people don’t do what they should, and Charles hates to upset him.”

Carly shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure about what?”

“That Charles isn’t afraid of Father. It seems to me—”

Nellie’s eyes were flashing again and the angry red was spreading on her cheeks. “Now you listen to me, Mehitabel Carlton Hartwick. It’s you who should be more afraid. Everyone used to think it was so cute the way you were such a fearless baby, going up to strangers and big dogs, and climbing on everything, and standing up to Father and other grown-ups. But it’s not so cute anymore when it causes other people so much grief. You should be afraid to be such a wicked, thoughtless child—afraid that not only your father but God, too, will be angry at you for causing so much trouble. Now you just march right up to your room and say your prayers and ask God to forgive you.”

“Nellie, I…” Carly began, and then gave up. Sometimes it just seemed impossible to know what would make Nellie angry. “All right,” she said. “I’m going.”