‘Maybe because you weren’t entirely honest with him.’
She studied her fingers. ‘I suppose not. But I was afraid and ashamed.’
‘There was nothing for you to be ashamed of. It wasn’t your fault.’
She gave him a long look. ‘Some of it was. You were my fault, weren’t you? And that’s why you left Willow Bend. That’s why there was only Clem to meet them when they came looking for you.’ She looked away again. ‘But if you mean — the rest of it; if you think the matter of whose fault it is has anything to do with who gets the blame—’ She shook her head. ‘Haven’t you ever read stories of Indians capturing white women? The women who survive or who are rescued will tell of being beaten and insulted and starved, but never anything else. Never. Haven’t you noticed that? I have, and I know why.
‘It’s because they know they’ll be treated as objects of curiosity and pity. And blame. People say they’re “ruined,” because if they don’t have the delicacy to die as a result of their experience it must be because they’re really depraved at heart anyway.
‘I tried to die. I wanted to at first. But then I thought I had to live, for Clem. And if I had to live I never wanted to see him or anyone else look at me with the pity and curiosity I’d seen on their faces when they talked about someone like me.’
‘Now that you’ve told him, you see it didn’t matter that much, though.’
‘Told him? I haven’t told him. I never will!’ She stopped in disbelief at herself, staring at him. ‘But I told you. Why is that? I’d still just want to die if Clem knew.’
Jake smiled faintly. ‘I guess it’s easier to talk to another depraved soul than to a strong-minded, virtuous type like your brother.’ He sighed a little. ‘It’s a pity neither of us had his resources.’
She examined his face carefully, but could find nothing to substantiate a charge of mockery. He seemed to be concerned only with checking a drowsy Paco beside him.
‘Well,’ she said after a moment, ‘I won’t have to be Clem’s keeper much longer, I’m sure. He looks so absent minded now every time Mary O’Neal speaks to him, I’m certain to be supplanted in a very short while. She’s had an offer of marriage from every remaining bachelor around here and she’s turned them all away. I hope he doesn’t wait too long to speak to her. She’s a wonderful girl, and he isn’t getting any younger. None of us are. I’ll be taking new quarters soon, perhaps in a hotel.’
‘I don’t think they’d throw you out, Carrie, even if they did get together.’
‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to stay and be a fifth wheel and an intruder in my own kitchen! I like Mary fine. I believe I could love her. But one woman in a kitchen is the rule that every woman knows the first day she takes a skillet in her hand.’ She stood up preparing to go. ‘I won’t be a beggar, though. I’ll take your advice. There are plenty of things I can do. Maybe I’ll start a school here. Heaven knows we need one. Perhaps if Clem becomes the mayor he’ll have one built for me. After all, a rise in the literacy rate would be beneficial to the newspaper. Paco, you’re half asleep. It’s time you were in your own bed. Don’t break your uncle’s bones again, climbing over him.’
She leaned across Jake and took Paco under the arms to lift him. While she was close he breathed in the clove and soap smell she always had about her. In spite of her present self-possession, he wished for a moment that Paco was locked in the back cell, and he had his arms free. He could think of no words to convey this wish to her that wouldn’t go beyond what he wanted to say.
Paco yawned and looked sleepily at Jake. ‘Good night, Chake.’ He scrubbed at his head and lingered.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Mary said I ought to kiss you good night, but I don’t think you’d like it.’ He and Jake frowned at each other in mutual suspense, then Paco leaned forward quickly and made a peck at Jake’s jaw, wrinkled his nose at the sensation, and escaped from the room. Carrie stood a moment longer, without expression; then she said good night and closed the door, leaving him alone, planked to his boards like a banquet fish, to congeal slowly in his own gloom.
*
He also mended slowly. When he was allowed on his feet he made a venture in the direction of the cantina and was stopped a dozen times before he got there by people who wanted to congratulate him for killing two dangerous criminals without help, and to modestly indicate their part in saving his own life afterward. It seemed that the whole town had turned out to look for Paco and him. The inaccuracies in the rest of the tale going around made him groan, but Paco’s version of what had happened in the mine was firmly planted in the town’s mind. To Jake’s disgust he was the walking wonder of Arredondo, who had overwhelmed two outlaws unhampered by a pair of broken arms. His disclaimers were approved as decent, manly modesty, because everyone knew how closemouthed he had been about earlier exploits in Kansas.
He discovered from occasional winks and painful nudges that there were a few cynics who thought he had the stolen money stashed away himself.
Paco was his shadow and personal attendant, getting out his cigars and lighting them, and handling the drinks until his one arm was freed from the sling. Paco, learning to count better all the time, played poker with him during the uneventful days of his convalescence, shuffling the cards, dealing, and putting them in Jake’s right hand, then pulling a long, shrewd face over his own.
Augie’s brother, Rance, stayed on as a deputy, though Jake still patrolled the streets at night, with Paco trying the door handles for him.
Another stage went through town on the way to El Paso. He watched it load and go, morosely. Arredondo was beginning to smother him like an overprotective parent, but El Paso seemed remote and flat; an idea whose time had passed.
He had to go someplace and soon. The urge to migrate had never been so strong.
Everyone else had business and interests to keep them going from dawn to dark. Only he seemed to be an idler. Yet the townsmen were always ready to pause from their labor and speak to him as he roamed aimlessly. He would have been welcome at any supper table in exchange for a retelling of the killing of Frank Becker.
He refused to oblige them, even returned to the habit of taking his meals in the jail rather than in the cheerful company of Sánchez’s cantina.
Sánchez had become one of the busy ones. He started wearing a full suit every day and spent his time running from the bar to the New Arredondo Carriage House Hotel.
His sternly handsome wife, Soledad, had become the hotel manager and made an impressive sight behind the new desk in the hall, even without her gun belts. But Sánchez pretended to think she was unable to make a decision without him, and traveled back and forth all day.
Clem and Mary O’Neal were undoubtedly coming to a rapid understanding, and Mary continued to look younger and prettier every time she came to inspect Jake’s splints, which was less often every week. The week before the June stage to El Paso was clue, she took them off and let him free, to flex his weakened arms and dress himself properly at last. He felt strangely light and unbalanced without them, like a swimmer coming to land again after hours in the water.
Clem declared a celebration in honor of his recovery. The five of them crowded into the closet-sized kitchen for dinner while Clem talked about the future of the town, and between times exchanged such private looks with Mary as made them both smile and the others feel like intruders.
‘Well, what about you, Dutch?’ Clem asked. ‘You didn’t think much of the place at first, but do you like us any better now, or do you still want to get back to the city lights and the fancy hotels?’ It was not a question phrased to invite Jake’s reply. Carrie got up from the table suddenly and left them with a murmur of excuse.
‘We’re going to El Paso and buy a big saloon,’ said Paco with his mouth full.
Clem looked from him to Jake. ‘Oh? Well, that’s fine, I guess. Though you look a little small to tend bar, young fellow. Is that what you plan, then, Dutch? Because if you wa
nt to stay you know your job’s good here as long as you want it.’
‘Maybe nobody’s really asked him to stay,’ said Mary, who had been watching him since Carrie left the table.
‘Of course they have. Everybody wants him to! Why, he’s the reason Arredondo’s going to be put on the map now. This town is proud of him!’
That was enough for Jake. He got up, pushing back his chair.
‘I’ll keep it in mind. But the stage comes in Wednesday, and I guess I better be on it. The man I was going down there to see expected me in March. He’ll give me up for dead if I don’t.’
He’d give himself up for dead if he didn’t. He’d have to use Paco’s carving for a mirror if he didn’t, because he’d never be able to look himself in the face again.
He left, muttering his good night. Carrie wasn’t in evidence outside. He and Paco walked their rounds and returned to the jail. Everyone who saw them together smiled on them.
Jake felt like an honored thief. Wednesday he would take that stage, and the whole town would turn out lo see his perfidy, and chew on it for the rest of the year. Because he had no intention of taking Paco with him.
24
He didn’t sleep as well that night as he thought he would. His bed, which he felt would be a couch of luxury once the confining splints were off, was the same old nest of coiled vipers. He got up sometime after midnight and went outside to wander listlessly until he found himself behind the jail where he had once sat holding Paco.
He wasn’t rehearsing his explanation to Paco or his goodbye speech to Carrie. That was the sort of thing he never let himself in for. He’d just pack and go as he always did. Paco would find himself another hero, and Carrie would be better off than anyone.
He once thought he would ask her to come with him at the end, but he saw the terms wouldn’t suit her and he could make no others. He also thought that getting away without good-bye speeches and explanations was going to be damned difficult in Arredondo.
Standing there he suddenly felt he wasn’t the only night watcher. Somebody down the way was sitting outside. He knew who it was, but he didn’t acknowledge her.
It made him uncomfortable just to stand there pretending not to see her, and know she was watching him. What was more uncomfortable was the slow realization that he was actually lingering there waiting for her to come over to him. He was ashamed enough of that discovery to go back inside again.
She didn’t move.
*
The last four days were hell. Everyone heard the news, and everyone did his part to try to make Jake change his mind and stay, except Paco, who was charged with excitement at the prospect of becoming a saloonkeeper, and Carrie, who didn’t come near the jail all that week.
On Wednesday he lay back down on his cot after a late breakfast while Paco went out to say good-bye to everybody. He had reached a point in guilt that was almost catatonic. He despised himself for not telling Paco he wasn’t going to get on that stage with him, but he couldn’t say a word.
When noon approached he got up and took his valise out from under the bed. The front door opened and closed too softly to admit Paco, and he heard the brush of skirts in the outer room.
Carrie came quietly in and sat down on the chair to watch him pack. He moved deliberately, because there wasn’t much to put into the valise and he didn’t want to finish and have nothing to do while she was there. Her absence had annoyed him for several days, but now that she was here he wished she’d go away.
He thought prolonged speech with her would be the worst thing that could happen, but it wasn’t. In his silence she began to cry. She made no sound, but a side glance at her discovered tears in her eyes. Jake began to marshal all his old resentments against other people’s intrusive emotions. He remembered how he had fled the possibility of another, woman’s tears in San Francisco only three months ago, and now he could scarcely recall her face. But to keep himself clear of those tears and reproaches he had run from her without a word, straight into this place and this woman, who never did anything by halves. There would be such a flood here in a moment they’d both be washed out into the street.
He groped for something to say that would stop her; make her mad, make her leave him. That had always been easy enough in the past, but now he couldn’t think of a thing except the bare truth about his plans, which didn’t include Paco. He felt too numb and gray mouthed to start with that. Damn the woman.
‘You’re not taking Paco with you,’ she said quietly.
He stopped in the act of wadding up his recently unwashed laundry to cram into the bag. At least she let him have the option of answering briefly.
‘No.’
‘I thought not. But I felt I’d better come around to make sure. Shouldn’t you have told him by now?’ She seemed calm and unaccusing.
‘It depends on which you think is better: to whittle off somebody’s leg a couple of inches a day, or make a clean job of it all at once.’
‘Who’s suffering this amputation, Jacob, you or Paco?’
‘You know he’s got no business going with me, Carrie. You’ve said it yourself, so why try to make it seem like I’m double-crossing him instead of doing him a favor?’
‘That wasn’t my intention. I only thought you might have prepared him for the favor somehow, before the stage comes. But I’ll do it if you can’t. I think he likes me a little, and I love him, so I’ll be glad to have him stay. Every woman needs a child, I suppose; even we determined spinsters. Clem will have Mary to look after him soon, and a houseful of babies, I hope. So I’ll need Paco as much as he needs — someone, too. Perhaps, when he’s past the shock of being left behind, he’ll come to understand why it was best, and even feel a little sorry for you, as I do.’
He stared at her. Sorry for him? Malarkey. This was the way she had decided to slip the knife in, or else it was the build-up to a plea for him to stay. She saw his rigid look.
‘You don’t think I feel sorry for you? I do. God knows I’ve tried to work up a lasting anger against you, this last month. I’ve made myself take a hard look at your sublime selfishness, your self-deceits, your callous way of treating other people as if they were just figures in your landscape — all your endearing traits that have made me so mad at you at one time or another. But I can’t seem to get mad enough. I want to. But I’ve seen too much now and it only makes me sad for you.
‘The way you feel you must live is so — unrewarding to you. I mean, several people here have benefited in some small way from your stay in Arredondo, but not you. Clem and I have come out of our separate cells and can live a bit more honestly. Mary had the leisure to find a man who loves her, while she was nursing you. The town got its little reward from the world. Paco will have a home here, at least, and someone who really cares about him.
‘Only you get nothing. Today you’ll board a stage alone, and make a solitary journey to a lonely town, with a bad meal and an empty bed at the end of the trip. No one here wants you to go and no one there cares if you come. The worst thing about it is that you aren’t doing it easily. It’s hurting you. It’s hurting you to do this to Paco and to yourself, but you won’t help yourself. I even understand, from things you’ve said, that you call this peculiar form of purgatory “freedom.”’
‘That’s right,’ he said shortly, then cleared his throat and jammed his clean shirt down on top of the dirty ones. He saw there was nothing left to pack.
She got up, wiping her tears away with her fingertips, quickly. Now, he thought, she’d be the clinging vine; hang around his neck and sob on his shoulder. He tensed himself for that, and there was even a sort of satisfaction in his certainty.
But she only smiled at him with the sort of fleeting pity she’d have turned on a beggar at a street corner, and put her hand out to be taken. The great emancipatrix.
He took the hand involuntarily; heard her say, ‘Goodbye, Jacob. I don’t believe I want to see you off. I’d better find Paco instead and tell him he can’t go with you t
his time. I don’t mean to imply that I think there’ll be a next time, but it’s the only lie I can think of at the moment that will let him down without breaking his heart.
‘Take care of yourself wherever you go. I hope you find something you want in El Paso.’ She slipped free of his hand and turned away.
Amazement sat on Jake like a startled owl, until pure outrage rushed to rout it. His hand shot out without his volition and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. He heard himself whisper, ‘You’re not going to get away with that!’ and saw her startled face — truly startled and not smug — as he took her roughly by the jaw and kissed her.
They stood blindly locked together until they began to sway, then sat on the edge of the cot without noticing what they did. Her mouth had the taste of every sweet thing he had ever known. The sudden release of his pent-up resentment left him weak.
Presently he pushed her down gently on the cot, burying his face against her soft body, fumbling with her buttoned shirtwaist until she put her hand up and took his away.
‘I want you,’ he said indistinctly from the haven of her breast. She touched his head lightly, then slid her fingers between his lips and her breast. He took them away and kissed her there again. ‘I want you,’ he said again, feeling her stir under him.
‘Tough luck,’ she said in a clear calm voice.
He raised his head, disbelieving, and saw her eyes held a trace of amusement as well as tears.
‘Those aren’t the magic words, dear Jake. Try again.’
He kissed her mouth again, harshly, to squelch that impudence, it seemed to him that for somebody who was saying no, she was making a very warm response. When he let her go, he said as much. She smiled, and the tears spilled over the planes of her cheeks.
Dutch Uncle Page 26
