Midnight Harvest

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “I’ll watch for it,” said Rogerio, ignoring the two boats as they hurtled back across the water.

  “Very good,” said Saint-Germain. His black linen jacket was only slightly wilted, and he had loosened his dark red silk tie, but other than those two considerations, he was as neatly groomed as when he had got into the Packard shortly after dawn that morning in the small, dusty Nevada town of Elko. The sun was beginning to bother him, but not enough to cause him to climb into the trunk. “It will be easier once we’re over the summit. The road should be fully paved all the way to the ferry pier.”

  “Do you think we’ll be there by tomorrow?” Rogerio asked.

  “I surmise that will depend on how many delays we encounter. And we may decide to stay at the lodge for a day or two, if it is a promising place. We have been driving for six days without interruption, except for those stops where the road-builders were working—we’ve done far more rigorous journeys in the past, and may do so again, but this time we have the luxury of setting our own pace in a mode of transportation that is truly pleasant, and I can see the advantage of taking a short break. Once we cross the pass, there might well be more road-crews out working, it may be that we’ll have to stop short of our goal in Sacramento or Vacaville. But if the way is clear and we depart in the morning, then I have no doubt that we’ll reach San Francisco tomorrow night. It should be a seven- or eight-hour drive, all things being equal.” Saint-Germain swerved to avoid a rut in the road.

  “Where do you plan to stay? Have you made up your mind yet?” Rogerio was curious. “You telephoned a San Francisco hotel from Elko, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Saint-Germain. “I decided upon the Saint Francis, on Union Square. The name appeals to me.” The first time he had used Sanct-Francisus as his principal name, Heliogabalus had been Caesar; most of his memories from that time caused him acute chagrin even now: Rogerio knew Saint-Germain well enough to realize that this choice had been ironic. “I told them we would arrive in the next four days and I will pay for those days whether we occupy the suite or not; I have booked the suite for at least a month, and referred them to Oscar King and the Bank of America for surety.” If he considered this an extravagance, he did not say so. “Ponderosa Road.” He took a left turn away from the lake down a single-lane graveled road flanked by ponderosa, sugar, and lodgepole pines. “I think the road we’ll want is ahead on the right.”

  “I’ll look for the sign—the postman said there is a sign, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. A wooden one, about four feet high and six feet wide, just before the entrance to the resort’s grounds,” Saint-Germain recited from what they had been told.

  Rogerio nodded. “Very good.”

  Saint-Germain held the steering wheel as the road curved, keeping the big car from fishtailing; a plume of dust rose behind the car, rolling like boiling water. The Packard slithered as Saint-Germain double-clutched down into second gear; the transmission whined as the big car slowed down.

  “There!” Rogerio said, pointing to the Art Nouveau sign about thirty yards ahead. “And there’s the arch over their road.”

  “Fine,” said Saint-Germain, and slowed down still more to make the turn onto the dirt road leading up to the Ponderosa Lodge. The Packard held the road and slowed down to ten miles an hour as it went up the long, sweeping drive through the pines, dust swirling behind them, hanging on the still mountain air.

  Ponderosa Lodge sat in a broad clearing, a handsome building in the Arts-and-Crafts style that had been in vogue twenty-five years ago but now seemed a little passé. The front of the building opened onto a wide, flagstone patio framed by Japanese arbors around which tea roses grew; just down the slope from the lodge, a swimming pool glinted, three deck chairs close to it, one of them occupied by a woman in a fashionable bathing-suit. On the far side of the parking area, a half-dozen small paddocks fronted a handsome stable that was in need of a new roof; four horses stood in the paddocks, tails swishing. Paths went in many directions, to cabins located out among the trees, and an access road looped around the back of the cabins. There were half-a-dozen autos pulled up at the side of the lodge, and Saint-Germain took the next space along, then shut off the engine.

  “It looks satisfactory,” said Rogerio. “If a trifle out-of-fashion.”

  “I agree,” said Saint-Germain, and got out of the car. He had not been wearing his hat and he did not bother to put it on now. Giving a tug to his black linen jacket and straightening his tie, he started toward the door marked Office. The lobby was not large but it had eight big windows, all open, and the quality of light in the wood-paneled room gave it an impression of size that spoke well of its design. Saint-Germain went up to the registration desk and rang the service bell set out where it could easily be seen.

  “Good afternoon,” a middle-aged woman of medium height, her short-cropped, dark hair just turning to grey, said as she came out of the inner office behind the registration desk, donning a welcoming smile with the ease of long practice. “What may I do for you?” She was dressed in what Saint-Germain had learned from travel magazines was California equestrienne style: loose, coffee-brown slacks tucked into tooled-leather boots, a long-sleeved ivory cotton shirt—just now with sleeves rolled up to the elbows—under a short, open bolero jacket in dull red canvas with elbow-length sleeves. She looked over the new arrival appraisingly.

  “My name is Ferenc Ragoczy,” said Saint-Germain. “My associate and I would like to arrange for accommodations here for tonight, and possibly tomorrow night as well.” His demeanor was cordial but not familiar.

  The woman looked flustered. “Oh. Well, I have three doubles here in the lodge; I could let you have one for seventeen dollars a night—”

  “What about your cabins?” Saint-Germain asked when she stopped.

  “They’re … more expensive,” she said. “A single-room—studio—cabin goes for thirty a night, a one-bedroom for forty-five, and a two-bedroom—our largest—for sixty-five.” She stared down at the countertop as if she knew the prices were outrageous. As she brought her head up, she added emphatically, “The cabins are all Maybecks, just like the lodge.”

  Saint-Germain was unfamiliar with the name, but he nodded. “Which is your best two-bedroom cabin?”

  She coughed. “That would be the Tuolumne. It has a full fireplace, a good view of the lake, and a balcony.”

  “Is it occupied?” Saint-Germain inquired politely.

  “N-no.” she faltered. “Not just at present.”

  “And it’s sixty-five dollars a night?” Saint-Germain pursued.

  She flicked a glance in his direction, and then away. “Yes.”

  Saint-Germain reached into his jacket for his wallet. “Shall we say two nights, then? In your Tuolumne cabin?” he asked as he peeled out seven twenties and held them out to her. “Paid in advance, of course.”

  The woman stared at the bills in disbelief, unable to move for a full thirty seconds. Then she snatched the money and shoved it into her cash drawer, handing him back a ten. “It isn’t ready yet. You’ll have to give my staff an hour to make it up. We don’t like to keep the cabins fully … They get musty so quickly when they aren’t in constant use.” This admission caused her some perturbation; she was talking too quickly, moving her hands as if unsure of what to do with them. Finally she took the guest register and turned it around to him. “Your name, place of residence here, please. Also your car’s make and license number. I’ll fill in the rest.” She read as he wrote, having no difficulty with the upside-down letters. “You have a Packard Twelve?” she marveled.

  “Yes. Do you need my associate’s name as well? And his identification?” Saint-Germain asked as he wrote Ferenc Ragoczy in his small, meticulous hand. He noticed from the other entries on the page that since the end of August, occupancy had dropped off sharply; surely the beginning of the fall semester could not account for all of it. He also noticed that among the length of stays indicated in the register, none was longer than a week.


  “Oh. Yes, please. And I need to see your passports, if you’re foreign.” She had become aware of his accent, and belatedly remembered that she needed to make note of it. “The government requires it. Not that we have to submit the information, or anything like that—not yet. But I have to have it in case there is an inquiry later. Bureaucracies! There’s more of them every day. You know how these things are.” She shrugged as if to apologize for this intrusion.

  “Yes; I know.” Saint-Germain pulled out his Hungarian passport and showed it to her, holding it open so that she could copy the necessary information. “It is much the same everywhere these days.” He did not add that his recollection of travel stretched back four thousand years, and, from his experience, passports and bureaucratic hassle were minor inconveniences compared to some of the trials he had encountered.

  She took a second record-book out from under the counter and began to write down the data it contained. Half-way through she put her finger on the line under his name. “What is this? It isn’t part of an address, is it?”

  “No,” said Saint-Germain diffidently. “It is my title.”

  “Title?” She blinked.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  “Oh,” she whispered, and then said, more loudly, “Oh!” as her cheeks reddened. “Then you’re a—”

  “Count, not that it has any bearing in this country,” he said, and held out his hand. “I am pleased to meet you … Though you have the advantage of me.”

  She took his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Everyone calls me Mrs. Curt. It’s Curtis, actually, and I’m a widow, but you know how things stick.” Then she let go of his hand. “My first name’s Enid. Good to meet you, Count.”

  “I am delighted to know you, Mrs. Curt,” said Saint-Germain. “Shall I call my associate in? His name is Mr. Rogers, originally from Cádiz, but currently an English citizen.”

  “Okay. I’ll need to get his passport number, too,” she said, now in greater possession of herself. “I’ll send Beryl and Grace up to the cabin. They’ll have it ready in an hour.”

  “Take as much time as you need,” said Saint-Germain as he went to the door to signal Rogerio to come in. “Bring your passport.”

  Rogerio got out of the Packard, the road atlas still in one hand, his wallet in the other. As he passed Saint-Germain, he asked in an under-voice, “Spanish or English?”

  “English, Mr. Rogers,” said Saint-Germain, raising his voice just enough to be heard, “The manager is Mrs. Curtis, called Mrs. Curt.”

  “Owner,” she corrected as she pointed out the line where Rogerio was to sign. “My late husband left it to me, free and clear. His life insurance is what keeps us going. The lodge was the whole legacy, and I’m lucky to have it There’s many another with less.” There was both pride and anxiety in her tone. “Now that gambling’s legal in Nevada, we hope business’ll pick up here, as part of it. Not that California’s going to allow gambling any time soon, but this place has been a resort area for eighty years.”

  Rogerio finished signing his name, using Saint-Germain’s London address, and handed over his English passport.

  “It can’t be easy, the country being in the state that it is,” said Saint-Germain gently, remembering the economic devastation of Germany just over a decade ago, when a pound of butter could cost a wheelbarrowful of banknotes, and inflation was so precipitous that the value of money would half in a day.

  “You can’t imagine,” she said, trying to laugh to make light of it, but botching it “I’m going to send the girls up to Tuolumne right now. If you’d like to wait in the bar, or take a stroll around the place? If you’d prefer to rest up from your travels, the bar is open and I can send my nephew in to tend bar. If you’d like to take the sun, there are chairs on the patio, and Paschal, our cook, can make you up some sandwiches, if you’re hungry. On the house.”

  “No need to go to such trouble, Mrs. Curt,” said Saint-Germain. “I’m sure we can find something to occupy us until the cabin is ready.” He gave her a genial nod as he reclaimed his passport and gestured to the outer door. “I think I’d like to have a look around your lodge, if you don’t mind.”

  “Look away,” she said, and turned back to her inner office, tapping a button on her desk there; a buzzer sounded in a distant part of the lodge.

  Saint-Germain and Rogerio stepped outside into the dusty sunlight. Shading his eyes with his hand, Saint-Germain said, “I paid for two nights.”

  “I assumed you would,” said Rogerio, and started in the direction of the stable. “I also assume you want to have a look at the place as a possible investment.”

  “You know me too well, old friend,” said Saint-Germain, and went with him toward the stables. The interior was pleasantly dark, smelling of horses, hay, and pine. The box-stalls fronting the long, wide aisle were no more than half-full.

  “They could have taken some of the horses to winter pasture,” Rogerio suggested doubtfully.

  “In September? While the weather is still pleasant and the roads are open? If so, why keep so many behind?” Saint-Germain asked. “No, I think Mrs. Curt has been selling her stock in order to keep this place open. She has accommodations for thirty horses in these stalls, and there are only sixteen. With another four in the paddocks outside, she must have cut back her herd pretty drastically.”

  “Perhaps some of her guests bring their own horses,” Rogerio said, unpersuaded.

  “Some may, but I doubt they could fill the stable,” Saint-Germain said.

  “I wouldn’t have thought it was a good time to sell horses,” Rogerio said.

  “No, nor I,” Saint-Germain agreed.

  Rogerio looked toward the far end of the stable. “Tack room and feed storage, there on the left,” he surmised.

  “Two of these horses are Percherons,” Saint-Germain observed. “Why would she keep draft horses?”

  “She must use them. Perhaps in winter, if the roads become too muddy, or too snowy for autos,” Rogerio said. “You might want to ask Mrs. Curt about them.”

  “I will,” said Saint-Germain, and continued on to the tack room. He looked in the door, screwing the light switch to turn the overhead bulb on. “All in good condition, but none of them new,” he said as he made a circuit of the room. “Mostly Western saddles, but three English, on that end rack. Bridles enough to match the saddles.”

  “And racks for several more of each,” Rogerio said.

  There was a small coach-house just beyond the stable, a little in need of upkeep but well-built. Inside were three vehicles: a large buckboard wagon, an elaborate sleigh, and a small, Western-style coach, all recently polished, as were the three sets of harness hanging on racks in front of them. “Well,” said Saint-Germain. “Now we know what the Percherons are for.”

  “It makes sense,” said Rogerio.

  They left the coach-house and ambled along the nearest path toward a cluster of cabins, all of them of a type, but each different from the other. Each had a plaque over the door with the names of the cabins on them: Nevada, Amador, Placer, El Dorado, Alpine. The proportions of the cabins were satisfying, and the steeply slanted roofs reminded the two men that winters here were snowy. Passing the five cabins, Saint-Germain noticed that only two were occupied, and wondered how much longer, at this rate, Mrs. Curt could hang on. The next group of cabins was in a grove of large rhododendrons: Angel’s Camp, Auburn, Sonora, and Placerville. They, too, were small but individual, Sonora having a little patio that gave out onto the extensive lawn behind the dining room of the main lodge, Placerville having a well-kept walkway that led toward what seemed to be tennis courts below the lodge terrace.

  “How many cabins, do you think?” Saint-Germain asked, looking along the trail toward the next group.

  “Over thirty,” Rogerio said, pointing to the slope opposite where they stood.” There are at least five more groups of them: you can see them through the trees. Even if not all of them are guest cottages—I would guess that som
e are for staff—they must have a minimum of thirty for guests.”

  “So it seems to me,” Saint-Germain agreed. “A good deal to keep up, even in prosperous times, with an adequate staff. But now—” He stopped as he looked around again. “What do you think? Perhaps four or five in the kitchen, and six waiters. They might also do room maintenance, so that would mean another seven or eight for housekeeping tasks, but I would imagine they are currently getting by with three, possibly four. A waiter in the bar, as well, I would think. A carpenter and two gardeners for the upkeep of the buildings and the grounds. Someone to run errands. Someone to take the guests up and down the hill to the lake. A—what do they call it in this part of the country?—a wrangler for the horses, and a groom or stable-boy, and a farrier. Then someone to maintain the pool and similar facilities.” They began walking again and came upon a flume, water running along it from a source somewhere farther up the hill. Another six cabins were strung out along the flume like over-sized beads, all with names of writers who set stories in California. One of the cabins, Jack London, had a damaged roof, but otherwise they seemed to be in fairly good repair, although by their appearance, none of them was occupied at present.

  Rogerio pointed to the roof. “That happened recently.”

  “So I think,” Saint-Germain said, and pointed to the sugar pine standing next to it, where the scar of a broken limb was apparent. “Probably early in the spring, at the thaw. That’s when the branches break.”