CHAPTER SEVEN
ESTRELLA
The honeymoon developed and the necessary adjustments took place. Thelatter Senor Johnson had not foreseen; and yet, when the necessity forthem arose, he acknowledged them right and proper.
"Course she don't want to ride over to Circle I with us," he informedhis confidant, Jed Parker. "It's a long ride, and she ain't used toriding yet. Trouble is I've been thinking of doing things with herjust as if she was a man. Women are different. They likes differentthings."
This second idea gradually overlaid the first in Senor Johnson's mind.Estrella showed little aptitude or interest in the rougher side oflife. Her husband's statement as to her being still unused to ridingwas distinctly a euphemism. Estrella never arrived at the point offeeling safe on a horse. In time she gave up trying, and the sorreldrifted back to cow-punching. The range work she never understood.
As a spectacle it imposed itself on her interest for a week; but sinceshe could discover no real and vital concern in the welfare of cows,soon the mere outward show became an old story. Estrella's sleeknature avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodilywell-being. When she was cool and well-fed and not thirsty, andsurrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she wasready to amuse herself. But she could not understand the desirabilityof those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must bepaid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly afraid of them.That was the point at which her intimacy with them stopped.
The natural level to which these waters fell is easily seen. Quitesimply, the Senor found that a wife does not enter fully into herhusband's workaday life. The dreams he had dreamed did not come true.
This was at first a disappointment to him, of course, but thedisappointment did not last. Senor Johnson was a man of sense, and heeasily modified his first scheme of married life.
"She'd get sick of it, and I'd get sick of it," he formulated his newphilosophy. "Now I got something to come back to, somebody to lookforward to. And it's a WOMAN; it ain't one of these darn gangle-legcowgirls. The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and thatsomeone nice and cool and fresh and purty is waitin' for you when youcome in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as agun barrel."
So, during this, the busy season of the range riding, immediatelybefore the great fall round-ups, Senor Johnson rode abroad all day, andreturned to his own hearth as many evenings of the week as he could.Estrella always saw him coming and stood in the doorway to greet him.He kicked off his spurs, washed and dusted himself, and spent theevening with his wife. He liked the sound of exactly that phrase, andwas fond of repeating it to himself in a variety of connections.
"When I get in I'll spend the evening with my wife." "If I don't rideover to Circle I, I'll spend the evening with my wife," and so on. Hehad a good deal to tell her of the day's discoveries, the state of therange, and the condition of the cattle. To all of this she listened atleast with patience. Senor Johnson, like most men who have longdelayed marriage, was self-centred without knowing it. His interest inhis mate had to do with her personality rather than with her doings.
"What you do with yourself all day to-day?" he occasionally inquired.
"Oh, there's lots to do," she would answer, a trifle listlessly; andthis reply always seemed quite to satisfy his interest in the subject.
Senor Johnson, with a curiously instant transformation often to beobserved among the adventurous, settled luxuriously into the state ofbeing a married man. Its smallest details gave him distinct andseparate sensations of pleasure.
"I plumb likes it all," he said. "I likes havin' interest in some foolgeranium plant, and I likes worryin' about the screen doors and all therest of the plumb foolishness. It does me good. It feels likestretchin' your legs in front of a good warm fire."
The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of affairs, wasundoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is equally to be doubted whether shestood for more than the suggestion. Senor Johnson conducted his entirelife with reference to his wife. His waking hours were concerned onlywith the thought of her, his every act revolved in its orbit controlledby her influence. Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, hadlittle to do with it. Senor Johnson referred his life to a state ofaffairs he had himself invented and which he called the married state,and to a woman whose attitude he had himself determined upon and whomhe designated as his wife. The actual state of affairs--whatever itmight be--he did not see; and the actual woman supplied merely thematerial medium necessary to the reality of his idea. WhetherEstrella's eyes were interested or bored, bright or dull, alert orabstracted, contented or afraid, Senor Johnson could not have told you.He might have replied promptly enough--that they were happy and loving.That is the way Senor Johnson conceived a wife's eyes.
The routine of life, then, soon settled. After breakfast the Senorinsisted that his wife accompany him on a short tour of inspection. "Alittle pasear," he called it, "just to get set for the day." Then hishorse was brought, and he rode away on whatever business called him.Like a true son of the alkali, he took no lunch with him, nor expectedhis horse to feed until his return. This was an hour before sunset.The evening passed as has been described. It was all very simple.
When the business hung close to the ranch house--as in the broncobusting, the rebranding of bought cattle, and the like--he was able toshare his wife's day. Estrella conducted herself dreamily, with a slowsmile for him when his actual presence insisted on her attention. Sheseemed much given to staring out over the desert. Senor Johnson,appreciatively, thought he could understand this. Again, she gave muchleisure to rocking back and forth on the low, wide veranda, her handsidle, her eyes vacant, her lips dumb. Susie O'Toole had early provedincompatible and had gone.
"A nice, contented, home sort of a woman," said Senor Johnson.
One thing alone besides the deserts on which she never seemed tired oflooking, fascinated her. Whenever a beef was killed for the uses ofthe ranch, she commanded strips of the green skin. Then, like a child,she bound them and sewed them and nailed them to substancesparticularly susceptible to their constricting power. She choked thenecks of green gourds, she indented the tender bark of cottonwoodshoots, she expended an apparently exhaustless ingenuity on thefabrication of mechanical devices whose principle answered to thepulling of the drying rawhide. And always along the adobe fence couldbe seen a long row of potatoes bound in skin, some of them fresh andsmooth and round; some sweating in the agony of squeezing; somewrinkled and dry and little, the last drops of life tortured out ofthem. Senor Johnson laughed good-humouredly at these toys, puzzled toexplain their fascination for his wife.
"They're sure an amusing enough contraption honey," said he, "but whatmakes you stand out there in the hot sun staring at them that way?It's cooler on the porch."
"I don't know," said Estrella, helplessly, turning her slow, vacantgaze on him. Suddenly she shivered in a strong physical revulsion. "Idon't know!" she cried with passion.
After they had been married about a month Senor Johnson found itnecessary to drive into Willets.
"How would you like to go, too, and buy some duds?" he asked Estrella.
"Oh!" she cried strangely. "When?"
"Day after tomorrow."
The trip decided, her entire attitude changed. The vacancy of her gazelifted; her movements quickened; she left off staring at the desert,and her rawhide toys were neglected. Before starting, Senor Johnsongave her a check book. He explained that there were no banks inWillets, but that Goodrich, the storekeeper, would honour her signature.
"Buy what you want to, honey," said he. "Tear her wide open. I'm goodfor it."
"How much can I draw?" she asked, smiling.
"As much as you want to," he replied with emphasis.
"Take care"--she poised before him with the check book extended--"I maydraw--I might draw fifty thousand dollars."
"Not out of Goodrich," he grinned; "you'd bust the gam
e. But hold himup for the limit, anyway."
He chuckled aloud, pleased at the rare, bird-like coquetry of thewoman. They drove to Willets. It took them two days to go and twodays to return. Estrella went through the town in a cyclone burst ofenthusiasm, saw everything, bought everything, exhausted everything intwo hours. Willets was not a large place. On her return to the ranchshe sat down at once in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Her handsfell into her lap. She stared out over the desert.
Senor Johnson stole up behind her, clumsy as a playful bear. His eyesfollowed the direction of hers to where a cloud shadow lay across theslope, heavy, palpable, untransparent, like a blotch of ink.
"Pretty, isn't it, honey?" said he. "Glad to get back?"
She smiled at him her vacant, slow smile.
"Here's my check book," she said; "put it away for me. I'm throughwith it."
"I'll put it in my desk," said he. "It's in the left-hand cubbyhole,"he called from inside.
"Very well," she replied.
He stood in the doorway, looking fondly at her unconscious shouldersand the pose of her blonde head thrown back against the highrocking-chair.
"That's the sort of a woman, after all," said Senor Johnson. "No blamefuss about her."
Arizona Nights Page 27
