Guestward Ho!

by Patrick Dennis

  But another thing we learned from the Binders was that the more important and influential people were in their own home towns, the more easygoing they were away. Of course, Mother had always told me this when I was a girl, but who ever pays any attention to what mothers have to say? Yet it was perfectly true, and Bill and I noticed almost immediately that the guests who were really Somebody simply adored living like a pack of cowhands when they stayed with us, while those few who used the broad "A" fifty per cent of the time and the broad hint two hundred percent of the time were the very ones whose checks were the least likely to succeed. We were cursed with mighty few prize phonies, but it got so that we could spot them even before they stepped out of their brand new chromium cars. They always talked the most, dropped the biggest names, made the most gigantic faux pas, and, when they checked out—which was almost immediately after they checked in, since our place wasn't nearly pretentious enough for them—they haggled the most about the bill. But of course Rancho del Monte just wasn't for them, not when Bess had it and not when we had it.

  The Binders, inadvertently, practically established the way of life at Rancho del Monte under Hooton managership. Well, I won't say quite that, but on their first night, When Bill and I rushed them to the table without giving them so much as a chance to wash their hands, we did establish one hard and fast rule without even realizing it. That rule was: Treat the customers just as though they are guests in our own house.

  And it was a pretty good rule at that. If they had wanted a hotel with express elevators and bellboys and sixty dishes on the menu, they could have gone to a hotel with express elevators and bellboys and sixty dishes on the menu in any large city. Ranch life just wasn't like that and it wasn't supposed to be.

  But don't get the idea that everything at the ranch skimmed along during the Binders' visit. It didn't. Fireplaces decided to take up smoking. Roasts got overdone or underdone. Instead of being the relaxed, casual, gracious hostess I had set out to be, I found myself chattering like a magpie or so tongue-tied that perfect hours would go by, or so it seemed, without my saying a word. I still wake up in the middle of the night shuddering at the dozens of mistakes we knew we were making at the time and trembling at the hundreds of mistakes we didn't know we were making.

  The Binders were with us only a few days and every minute of the time I imagined how those blistering editorials in the Minneapolis Tribune would begin and end and I watched Bill turn white every time Mr. Binder would look at him quizzically and say, "How long did you say you'd been out here?"

  Bill's standard reply was an evasive, "Oh, not so long." Then he always managed to change the subject.

  But somehow we got through it, although I must say that if it hadn't been for the fact that the Binders were witty, generous, and very, very kind, we never would have. When they left, we were ashamed to give them a bill. I was certain that they'd had a perfectly hideous time and were just too polite to say so to our faces. But I've been watching the Minneapolis papers ever since and Carroll Binder, gentleman that he is, has never written a word.

  5. Business before pleasure

  Easter was upon us and so were an equally gratifying and terrifying number of reservations when it occurred to Bill and me that there were quite a lot of nagging little details we had overlooked. You know, things like New Mexican license plates for the station wagon, permits to be in business at all, and employees.

  The necessary permits were one for purveying food, another for the sale of tobacco, one for sales tax, and still another to run a hotel. The next question at hand was a liquor license.

  In the state of New Mexico, liquor licenses—there are three different kinds—are both difficult and expensive to come by. Well, actually, paying your dues or maintenance or whatever the annual upkeep on a license is called is very inexpensive—less than a hundred dollars a year—but getting the initial license can cost anything from one thousand to fifty thousand dollars, depending on what the traffic will bear. You can't just go in and buy a liquor license as though it were a pair of nylons. The licenses are zoned, so to speak, according to square mileage and the number of people residing in each area. If the area in which you happen to live his its full quota of licenses, that's just too bad. All you can do is buy a license from somebody else in the area who's willing to sell out his business—not his stock, either, just his franchise to operate. So there is naturally quite a brisk trade in secondhand liquor licenses and the amounts of money that change hands over the same well-thumbed, but easily transferable, scrap of paper are simply staggering. We were offered a liquor license for our area for a sum that nearly floored me, but which was said to be quite reasonable, all things considered. The amount was ten thousand—count 'em, ten thousand—dollars!

  There's an old maxim in the hotel and restaurant business that says all the profits are made not in the kitchen but in the bar. This is particularly true of big hotels which are forced to run a dining room, a supper club, a coffee shop, and twenty-four-hour room service. In those places the kitchen's annual deficit would look like a retirement fund to me, and it's only demon rum that keeps them showing any profit at all.

  While Rancho del Monte was by no means that elaborate, both Bill and I were smart enough to understand that a brisk little gin mill off the main lounge might have made all the difference between rags and riches. Even at ten thousand dollars, which we could have dug up, a bar would have paid for itself within five years without any effort at all. If we had actually tried to push the bar—advertise it, publicize it, put up signs, welcome all comers at all hours—we could have paid off the ransom in half that time. But then we wouldn't have been in the dude ranching business, we would have been in the saloon business.

  So we did another flagrantly impractical thing. We said to hell with having a bar. We did this for two reasons. First of all, because bars bore both Bill and me. I find that, by and large, bars come in three distinct styles: first there is that seedy, squalid, little saloon type with a tin ceiling, nickering fluorescent lights, hissing neon signs, and a juke box that bubbles; then there is that chi-chi sort of place with arty murals, too much upholstery—usually cowhide in the West—a peculiar young man at the piano, and kept so dark that you need a miner's lamp to find the ladies' room; finally, there is the place that falls somewhere in between the workingman's hangout and the dilettante's delight and that is the artsy-craftsy or tea-shoppe sort of place with either flower prints or hunting prints on the walls and a business that is mainly based on lonely older women who order drinks that are either pink or sweet or both. To me, all three are equally repugnant.

  And in spite of the added revenue connected with a bar, there are also definite drawbacks. First of all, a bar brings in just as many undesirable people as it does desirable dollars. You, and at least one of your staff, have to stay up until the last drop is swallowed and the last car is driven away, and that's no fun when you know that reveille is at six the next morning. Then, alcohol invariably brings trouble, and while you can refuse service to those who have already been served too much, to the bully boys who get quarrelsome, and to the professional party girls who perch like birds of prey on stools at the end of the bar, there is still a tremendous amount of noise from five until closing. It seemed to Bill and me that in a small place like Rancho del Monte, light sleepers and families with children would hardly welcome the blare of music, the outbursts of inane laughter, the slamming of car doors at two in the morning. Besides, if we had wanted to open a grog shop, we could have done it right in New York without all the inconvenience of moving bag and baggage to Santa Fe.

  So Rancho del Monte was run on a strictly Bring Your Own Bottle basis. Those guests who wanted to drink supplied their own potables. The bottles were labeled with their names and with the high water mark at the end of each day. Soda, ginger ale, quinine water, and ice were on the house. If we ever felt flush enough to serve wine with meals, we did, but it was free, and the same policy was extended to those guests who wanted a drink bef
ore dinner but who arrived at Rancho del Monte innocently expecting a plush cocktail lounge and finding only a very quiet bottle party of people drinking like civilized ladies and gentlemen on the terrace. A lot of tavernkeepers have told us time and time again that we were crazy and headed either for the poorhouse or the madhouse, but I'd far rather have our reputation and clientele than their profits, and headaches.

  The next problem was hiring a wrangler, and a wrangler is the one essential person on any ranch, no matter how small. I was a little vague about just what a wrangler does, so Bill and I sat down in the office and drew up a list of requirements.

  "First of all," Bill said, getting all businesslike, "the wrangler takes care of the horses."

  "Natch," I said.

  "He feeds them, waters them, and sees that they're groomed."

  "Yes, dear," I said, writing faster and faster.

  "He sees that their bridles and saddles are soaped and polished and kept in good repair, He has to know the horses . . . almost like a brother. . ."

  I shuddered.

  "He has to have a kind of psychic rapport with them. . ."

  "Psyche Rappaport? Who's she?" (

  "Cut the clowning. He has to know when they're sick and either cure them himself or call the vet right away."

  "Or shoot them," I said under my breath.

  "On top of this," Bill continued, "he has to take care of the guests, too."

  "Well, I'm glad there'll be somebody else to help," I sighed.

  "I didn't mean in the lounge. I meant in the corral and out on rides. He has to size up every guest and match the guest to the right horse. He ought to be able to judge—just by looking and not by asking a lot of embarrassing questions—just how much riding experience each guest has had and which saddle and which horse will be the best. After all, we don't want all of our paying guests killed on the range."

  "I'm not so sure," I murmured. Then I wrote, "clairvoyant, genius, merciful."

  "He also has to give elementary lessons to those guests who don't ride at all, but want to learn . . ."

  "More fools they," I said.

  "And then he has to take the guests out on their rides."

  "Well, he'll be just as busy as a little bee, won't he?" I said.

  "There are more requirements, Barbara," Bill said rather pompously. "He has to be pleasant and genial with everyone. He has to be a pal to the men and a gentleman—always—to the ladies . . ."

  "I should hope so," I said, trying to sound as much like Mother as possible.

  "And when it comes to children, he has to be a kind of affectionate uncle, even though they dog his every step and ask a thousand questions a minute . . ."

  "Oh, it sounds like a lead-pipe cinch! There must be thousands of young men who are just itching to take on such pleasant work—especially with the kiddies in tow."

  "He must also address every woman as Ma'am," Bill said rather sternly, "and every man as Sir."

  "Yes, sir," I said. "Anything more?”

  “He should also be nice looking. Handsome, if possible.”

  "Now you're talking!" I said, laying down the pencil. "I can just see him now—kind of long and rangy with great big shoulders and itty-bitty hips and maybe deep brown eyes. I'm sick of blue. He could be a bit of Gary Cooper and a little of John Wayne and a touch of Rock Hudson with maybe just a hint of Randy Scott. And when he looks into my limpid blue eyes with those big, dark, dumb, dog eyes of his and says, 'Ma'am, whar's mah paycheck, Ma'am?' I'll simply flip!"

  "That isn't all he has to do, either," Bill said.

  "Dream on, fool," I said, taking up the pencil again. "He should be a Rhodes scholar, a tournament bridge player, an international gourmet, a noted authority on archeology, an accomplished pianist, and possessed of a pleasant baritone voice, I suppose."

  "Not quite, but almost," Bill said. "Since this is a small ranch and without any other staff, our wrangler will also have to help with the dishes, wait on table, clean the swimming pool and take the garbage to the dump, drive guests to the movies at night, and be attentive—but nothing more, mind you—to any unattached young female guest."

  "With a program like that, she'll be lucky if he has time to do more than nod in her direction," I said.

  "Well, you know what I mean, Barbara," Bill said. "We don't want the kind of lecher who'll try to snatch all the pretty young girls into his bed."

  "Bed?" I asked. "Why bother giving him a bed? With a schedule like the one you've mapped out he'll never get to use it—not even alone."

  Bill ignored my irreverence rather grandly. "Now, Barbara," he said, "where do you suppose we find such a paragon?"

  "You might try M-G-M," I said.

  However, we did find a wrangler who seemed to fill the bill and whose six or seven major drawbacks became apparent to us only when the ranch was jammed to bursting. Our Greek god, who was to be all things to all men and all women, was named Curly, presumably because of the bewitching tangle of taffy-colored ringlets on his big, beautiful, empty head. He was as stunning as a window dummy and every bit as bright. But he looked good and we were too new at the business to do much more than look at him.

  No sooner had Curly settled into the bunkhouse—silk shirts, git-tar, Collie dog, and all—than the first large influx of guests arrived for Easter Week. There were only fourteen of them, about half the number we were supposed to handle at full capacity, but it seemed like rush hour on the I.R.T. subway to me.

  If I have given the impression that we never fed a single guest before leaving New York, please forgive me. We used to entertain quite a lot. Bill and I would give little dinners for as many as four or six and sometimes a buffet supper for twelve—the extent of our silver and china. But those were parties which we would give three or four times a month and no more. We'd spend a day preparing for them, a day cleaning up after them, and still another day recuperating from them. Fourteen people in the house to feed three times a day, to bed down at night, and to tidy up after in the morning constituted—to me, at least—something of an ordeal.

  Knowing less than nothing about the business of paying guests we worked out an unofficial, and very flexible, schedule for Curly and Bill and me. It went something like this:

  6:30 Get up.

  CURLY: Tend horses, clean swimming pool, go to garbage dump.

  BILL: Start coffee—one full pound of it—and forty-two strips of bacon.

  ME: Fix hair, face, set tables, dust public rooms.

  7:45 Come and get it. (And don't think they came and got it on any set schedule. They straggled down from then until ten, although breakfast officially ended at nine.)

  CURLY: Serve, clear, start washing up.

  BILL: Keep on cooking.

  ME: Sneak up to empty rooms, make beds, replace soiled linen, empty ashtrays, dust, scour bathrooms. (Twelve bathrooms sound awfully good until you have to clean them.)

  10:00 CURLY: Saddle horses for morning ride.

  BILL: Drive to town for the two thousand forgotten items essential to lunch. Pick up mail.Pick up laundry. Pick up three real-hair auburn nets for Mrs. A. Take Mrs. B's navy blue silk to dry cleaner and tell them that she must have it by Saturday. Pick up Mr. C's films. Pick up aspirin, orange sticks, emery boards, watermelon pink nail enamel, wave set, spool of cotton thread to match sample, and light novel—but nothing too sophisticated—for Miss D. Rearrange homebound reservations for the E. Family. (They want to go back to Seattle on Sunday instead of Thursday and they want to go family plan and they do want a two-day stopover in New Orleans, if it isn't too far out of the way, and they hate to fly at night, and Mrs. E wants to avoid all mountain ranges because she's heard they're dangerous, and Junior gets airsick, so maybe Bill had better see if they can't go by train after all, but they're in a terrible hurry.) Go to hardware store for picture wire, masking tape, Duco cement, and new plunger. Go to wholesale vegetable market for anything except Brussels sprouts. Go to La Fonda Hotel newsstand for New York Times, San Francisco Chronicl
e, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Times-Herald for assorted guests and the new Vogue for Miss F. Be back in an hour—no later.

  ME: Finish cleaning kitchen and do whatever possible toward getting lunch.

  12:30 CURLY: Bring guests back from ride, unsaddle horses.

  BILL: Back to town on the double because we've forgotten lemons.

  ME: Set table and keep saying "It'll only be a minute, now," with a hard, false, bright smile that isn't fooling anyone.

  1:00 Lunch, if we're lucky.

  2:00 CURLY: Take out afternoon ride.

  BILL: Repair fencing, plumbing, terrace furniture, anything and everything that needs fixing.

  ME: Clean up lunch dishes, swab down kitchen, start dinner.

  Well, that's enough to give you an idea of a quiet day as it was spent during our first weeks at Rancho del Monte, but there are a couple of other grim details I might as well cover now. First of all was the kitchen itself, which was my office, salon, boudoir, and prison during the Easter season.

  To begin with, it was huge and, while all the appliances were new or fairly recent, they just were not the kind of thing you see advertised in household magazines. The equipment was all professional stuff—regular hotel and restaurant equipment—and of a size and complexity that would terrify an atomic scientist.