Rest and Be Thankful (30 page)

“Better get Norah to leave then,” Karl suggested. “In this last week you drop everything the minute you see her.” His voice was bitter.

“Sure,” Grubbock said ironically. “Let’s blame it on everyone except ourselves. And what’s making you so goddamned bad-tempered today? I saw O’Farlan’s manuscript lying on Sally’s table, too.”

There was a short silence. Then they both smiled. The quarrel which had been edging nearer for days wasn’t going to come off.

“At least, you’ve started writing,” Karl said.

“What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know,” Karl said worriedly. “I’ve got stuck with my damned characters.”

“Well, if they bore you throw them out. Get yourself some new ones.”

Karl’s annoyance returned. “I’m not bored by them. I’m writing what I am writing, and no woman is going to change my ideas.”

“I haven’t changed mine,” Earl said, equally sharply. “I haven’t changed a damned bit. Except—”

“Except?” Karl asked derisively.

“All right then. Except to concentrate more on human beings and less on type-casting. Perhaps that’s all you need, too. Then you’d be so damned interested that nothing would stop you from writing.”

“Nothing’s going to stop me once I leave this place. Once I’m back in New York—”

“There will be speeches to make and political meetings to attend. That will keep you tied up until November. Then after that—well, there’s the next election to work for, isn’t there?”

The novel should have been finished this month, Karl thought. That had been the idea—to come here and finish it. Then back to New York, with a clear mind and all his energy now turned to the last six weeks of the election campaign. That had been the idea. Instead this place had defeated him. Defeated? Not that. Then what had it done?

“I can’t work here,” he said. “It’s narcotic. It’s—” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“Frankly, I’d say you were getting into a state of mind where you can’t work anywhere.”

“And what’s my state of mind?” Karl was suddenly angrier than Earl had ever seen him.

“You’re too damned sure about everything. Anyone outside your group is either a menace or a moron.”

“Sounds as if you were trying to say I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.”

That’s right, Grubbock thought bitterly, joke about it, twist the point of the argument and make me feel a fool. “Look,” he said, and his voice was angry now, “do you want the truth or don’t you? Scared of it?”

Koffing sat quite still, saying nothing, forcing himself under control. His face became expressionless, he relaxed the muscles in his hands. He had a feeling of triumph, and then he controlled that sudden emotion too. He looked at Grubbock blankly. “Go ahead,” he said. “This will be good for a laugh, anyway.”

“Yeah. And it may be on you. You keep talking about ‘the people,’ but you’ve forgotten what the word means. You used to think about people in terms of human beings—that’s how you started worrying about politics to begin with. That’s how most of us start worrying about politics and shifting left. And that’s all right, as long as you keep thinking about people as human beings. But you didn’t. Somewhere along that road you’ve been travelling you lost sight of human beings.”

Grubbock paused and waited, but Koffing only outstared him.

“You don’t believe me?” Grubbock’s anger increased. “I’m telling you that you only think of people as stereotypes. So how the hell are you going to be a novelist? Better stick to writing political speeches, all black and white. Or finish this novel and use it as a political tract. But, for God’s sake, don’t keep bellyaching that you can’t write a real novel. You could have; but you killed it. And if you want anything or anyone blame yourself. It’s all your own choice.”

Karl had everything under control. He could even produce a smile on his lips. It was, he thought, good training. “Interesting,” he said.

Grubbock stared at him. “Okay, okay,” he said at last. “I give up.” He turned on his heel and left the cabin.

Karl Koffing drew a deep breath. Then he slowly lit a cigarette. He glanced over his shoulder at the door, but it was still closed. Let Grubbock sulk this one out, he thought. When Grubbock cools off he will begin to feel a fool. That’s the time to argue with him.

Koffing rose from his chair and walked over to the window. He stared at the mass of trees encircling the cabin’s glade.

It’s this damned place, he told himself. I’ll leave. As soon as this trip into the mountains is over I can pack up and get out. Grubbock will be normal once he is back in New York again. And I’ll get my novel finished. It’s this damned place.

A pale golden light spread slowly over the fields and hills, bringing the land to life again. Half an hour ago it had been a smooth surface of dimmed shapes and black shadows: a picture painted in muted shades on a flat, smooth canvas. But now its furrows and sinews gradually stood out in bold relief. The mountains were no longer a wall of stone, but separate peaks, advancing, receding, rising, falling, each with its own subtle colouring of rock that changed from grey-blue to blue-grey, from white-yellow to white-red, from black crag to red canyon. They were veined and traced by the jagged spines and sharp precipices which slashed through the forests that ringed their lower slopes. Even the trees were different at this hour. The firs were each silhouetted clearly by the early sun’s slanting rays; their dark mass had become an army of fretted shapes— the front rows exact in outline, the others showing their clear-cut crests—advancing down into the valley in close formation. There the round cottonwood-trees and the thin birches seemed to have been shaped out of bright green and silvered cardboard, given invisible feet so that they could be placed and arranged around the neat silhouettes of houses and barns. Above, the scattered white clouds, edged with gold and pink, trailed out from the horizon.

That, Earl Grubbock thought, is the final master-stroke, carelessly beautiful. I might make a habit of getting up with the dawn and become a painter or a poet. I might. Or I might just see it once in a while, when I have to, and gape and be speechless until I think of some clever remark to show what an opinion man has of himself.

He turned away from the view, back to the problem of fastening his rolled blankets on to the cantle of his saddle. The sharp air made his fingers clumsy. “Cold,” he said to Karl Koffing, who was working on a slip knot.

“Damn’ cold.” Koffing looked up at the mountains again, looked at the clouds. “I’ve a theory,” he said, tugging at the leather string which had slipped its knot entirely, so that his blanket-roll sagged sideways. “Once most people lived in the country or near enough the country. Once people went to bed early, because they hadn’t electric light to keep them sitting up. So once people got up early and called it normal. And this is what they saw.” He nodded to the sky and the sun rising in all its glory. “Hence Tiepolo. All you need up there at this moment is a couple of Cupids and a few saints and you’d have a Tiepolo picture, full of curves and lights and blue and gold.”

Grubbock looked with some surprise at Koffing. But he contented himself with a nod. He didn’t feel like talking, somehow. None of the others were. They were working quietly, as if the deep peace of the sky had slipped down from the mountains and the hills, had flowed over and round them.

Koffing stood back to survey the effect of his retied saddle string. “Not too bad,” he said, as he surveyed his workmanship. “A bit to one side, but it’ll look worse before it’s unpacked.” He lit a cigarette and watched Chuck and Jackson helping Bert and Robb with the pack-horse. Ned and Jim Brent were saddling up.

Grubbock, watching them too, noticed, that if their movements seemed leisurely, they were efficient enough. They worked precisely, neatly, as men who knew their jobs. It was an expert bit of packing that Bert and Robb were doing, making sure of careful balance in bulk and weight.

“We’re late,” Karl said, glancing at his watch. But he spoke easily, stating a simple fact, without any touch of criticism except the amused shake of his head. Grubbock thought, Karl’s in a good mood: yesterday is forgotten. That was all right with Grubbock. This trip was going to work out well, after all.

Jim Brent came over to them. “All set?” He seemed scarcely to glance at the rolls tied on to their saddles. “Might be a good idea to take a slicker along.”

“Just another thing to carry,” Koffing said. “The weather looks good to me.”

“At the moment,” Jim agreed.

Grubbock looked at him. One thing he had discovered out West: you had to listen to what wasn’t said, just as much as you listened to words that were spoken. “I’ll run down to the cabin and get our raincoats,” Grubbock said. He was annoyed with himself; he thought he had remembered everything.

“That’ll hold things up,” Koffing told him, glancing at his watch again. He was thinking, six o’clock, they said, and six o’clock it is; they can’t say that we kept them late. “I don’t need a raincoat,” he added, and studied the sky.

“A slicker comes in mighty useful,” Jim Brent suggested. “It makes a good ground-sheet, you’ll find. We’re late in any case. That damned pack-horse. They’re just naturally mean, it seems.” He looked again at the ill-tied bundle on the back of Koffing’s saddle. He said nothing about that; but his keen eyes narrowed for a moment, and he tilted his head just slightly to one side, as if he were avoiding the smoke that came drifting up from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

“Okay,” Grubbock said, and moved off down the path towards the cabin. He knew when to take a hint. That was the way advice was given out here. When you were among the Romans you might as well listen to them, for they knew what to do. Karl would have to repack that roll; and adding a slicker to it was one way of getting it properly packed this time. Brent would see to that. What Karl needed was some basic training. Then Grubbock thought, that’s a hell of an idea for a pacifist to have! But before he could argue that one out he saw Mimi. He was surprised enough to stop dead in his tracks.

“Hello there!” Mimi said brightly, as she passed him. She was walking quickly, determinedly.

“Going to kiss the boys goodbye?” Grubbock called over his shoulder. Then he wished he hadn’t. Brent had heard him. Brent was looking down the path towards Mimi. And for a moment Mimi hesitated, and the smile was less confident.

“Well, well,” Grubbock said to himself, and continued his way to the cabin.

Brent and Koffing were silent as they watched Mimi approach the corral. Her hat, crisply shaped, was set jauntily above the smooth red hair. Her flannel blouse fitted her excellently. (But—as Koffing admitted—it had something to fit. Carla’s shirt always seemed too big, Esther Park’s a couple of sizes too small.) It opened low, as if a button had been forgotten, and a silk scarf round her neck was folded into the deep neckline. A heavy leather belt was pulled tight almost at hip-line, and her blue jeans fitted as neatly and smoothly as any cowboy’s. Over one shoulder she had draped a fringed buckskin jacket.

“Dressed for action,” Koffing said. “I have to hand it to Mimi: wherever she is she looks the part. She’s even developed a new walk.”

“These boots aren’t ballet slippers,” Jim Brent said. He was watching Mimi with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

Koffing looked at him curiously. All the men Karl knew in New York were willing to bankrupt themselves for a week in order to take Mimi out for an evening. (That was the rottenness of the capitalist system for you.) And there wasn’t one man at Rest and be Thankful who hadn’t hoped she’d spend a good deal of her time with him. Dewey Schmetterling had known that, of course; that was the reason he had ditched Mimi before she got around to ditching him, just to be different, just to show the other men he could do it and they couldn’t. But here was Brent, eyeing Mimi with no more interest than if she were a new colt. It was the same way Brent and the cowhands looked at these mountains: they looked at them, and all they’d say would be “Fine day,” or “Seems like it’s going to rain.”

Mimi Bassinbrook’s confidence almost failed her completely as she reached Jim Brent. It was a new and frightening feeling. She changed what she was going to say. Her face changed too: her eyes became hesitant, and the smile on her lips was shy. “Hello there!” she said. That was all.

“Hello, Mimi,” Koffing said. “You should make a habit of early rising. Brings the colour to your cheeks.”

She said to Jim Brent, “I always meant to see the sun rise, just once in my life. This seemed as good a morning as any.”

“You’re a couple of hours late for that,” Koffing said sharply. He turned away and walked over to the group around the pack-horse.

“Did you have to do that?” Jim Brent asked her. Mimi’s eyes opened wide. But he was smiling now, and she relaxed.

“I’m always doing something wrong, it seems,” she said, with an answering smile. “Although not many others notice it as much as you do, Jim. What’s wrong this time?”

“Nothing’s wrong. But when a man pays you a compliment you could thank him with a smile. Or do you get too many compliments?”

“Is that why you don’t pay me any? Frankly I didn’t notice Koffing. Oh, just blame it on my bad manners. Or on the sunrise.” She looked at the hills. And suddenly she was serious. She stood motionless, completely natural. She wasn’t even aware that Jim Brent was watching her.

Earl Grubbock, hurrying back with the slicker over his arm, passed them as he ducked under the hitch-rail to reach his horse. He glanced at Brent’s face. Well, he thought, in amazement, what did Mimi do to ring the bell this time?

“We’d better get started,” Jim Brent said, looking round at Grubbock rerolling his pack. Koffing was busy on his too.

“Jim,” Mimi began. Then she knew by the smile on his face that he knew her question.

He shook his head. “The answer is no, Mimi. Sorry.”

“Don’t girls ever go?”

“Sometimes. If they know the rules and can ride well enough. It’s a tougher job than you think.”

“I can ride as well as Karl does.”

He nodded. You can also distract more, he thought.