by Gwen Bristow
“Well, we camp for a week or two at Don Antonio Costilla’s rancho. That’s the first rancho on the other side of Cajon Pass.”
“Is it nice? The rancho, I mean, not the pass.”
Texas pulled his beard and grinned. “It sure is, Miss Florinda. Good food, good rest, nothing to do all day.”
Florinda let a weary little sigh escape her. Texas raised his soft brown eyes and looked at her with sympathy. “Say, Miss Florinda, you don’t look any too well. Think you can hold out two weeks more?”
Florinda smiled. “You mean you think I’m going to flop and die in the desert? Don’t worry, Texas. I’m not. Nobody’s going to put up my skull for a target and shoot bullets through my eyes.”
Texas chuckled without embarrassment. “You’re a sassy creature, Miss Florinda.”
“So I’ve been told,” Florinda said. She yawned. “I’m a sleepy creature too. Those Diggers woke me up too early this morning. Why don’t you run along so I can get a nap?”
She stretched out on the blanket by Garnet. Instead of going away, Texas stayed there, looking down at her wistfully. Shading her eyes with her hand, Florinda spoke to him.
“Haven’t you got anything better to do than stare at me, mister?”
“I was just thinking,” he said slowly, “if I had your nerve, I’d be a better man than I am.”
She smiled at him. “You’re all right, Texas.”
“I’m a drunken bum,” Texas said bitterly. “I always was.”
“No you’re not. You’re a very nice man who gets drunk sometimes.”
“You don’t ever touch it, do you?”
“Not any more.”
“Why did you quit?”
“Dear me,” said Florinda. “What vulgar curiosity.”
“Right. Sorry.” Texas pulled up a handful of dry grass. She said nothing. “Well, go on,” he said after a moment. “Preach me a sermon.”
Florinda laughed a little. “You know, Texas, I don’t give a hoot about reforming people. Either I like them the way they are, or I don’t like them. And I like you fine.”
Texas looked down, pulling blades of grass to pieces. “You’re a pretty good sort, Miss Florinda.”
“Oh, be quiet. Let me go to sleep. You talk too much.”
She put her arm over her eyes to shut out the light. A moment later she heard Texas walk away. Off at the picket-ground, she could hear the men chanting as they worked.
’Tain’t no place for the law-abidin’,
’Tain’t no place for the peaky and pale,
You gotta keep tough if you gonta keep ridin’,
Ridin’ down the Jubilee Trail.
Florinda bit her heat-cracked lip. A hundred and twenty in the desert ahead. John had told her she couldn’t stand it. But she had to stand it. Only two weeks more. The men in the picket-ground sang with a cheerful brutal energy.
Strap that pack so it won’t start slidin’,
Drag that mule by his god-damned tail,
You gotta keep busy if you gonta keep ridin’,
Ridin’ down the Jubilee Trail.
TWENTY-TWO
FROM THE ARCHILLETTE THEY rode down to the Mojave Desert.
It was a harsh and terrible land. When she got out of it, Garnet remembered cliffs of rock, and miles of white sand, and clouds of dust so thick that the mules stumbled blindly. She remembered thirst like a red-hot poker in her throat; and her arm blazing with pain, though Texas bandaged it gently and told her it was healing well. She remembered Florinda, thin as a toothpick, riding night after night in an exhausted silence. She remembered how the dust rose and covered them till men and mules were white, with red eyes, like a line of savage ghosts.
This was the last lap of the journey, and the worst. Oliver told her they were nearly done. They would get through. They always did. And ahead, there was Cajón Pass, and a creek among the rocks, and then the rancho of Don Antonio Costilla.
They got through, and rode up the mountains into the pass. The mules smelt water. Tired as they were, they began to run, and ran till they came to the creek Oliver had promised. When they reached the creek, mules and men alike fell down and sprawled in the water, gasping at the miracle of wetness. Oliver put his arm around Garnet and told her the desert was over. She would not be thirsty again.
Garnet sighed and let go her tense muscles. Just then she saw Florinda. Nobody had an arm around Florinda. She was sitting with her shoes on her knees and her bare feet in the water, leaning back against a rock where the spray came up and wet her face. She was alone.
Garnet got up and went over to sit by her. Florinda glanced around and smiled in astonishment. “Why Garnet, I thought you were over there with Oliver.”
“I was. But the men are all talking at once, and there are so many of them, I thought you and I could be together. You were alone.”
“I don’t mind being alone, dear. I’m used to it.”
She was so brave that Garnet could not leave her. They stayed together for the rest of the day. After supper when they said good night Florinda brushed her cheek with a kiss, soft and gentle like the brush of a flower-petal.
After this the traders took their time. The way was rocky and hard, and the creek was thin, so that they still had to be careful about water. But at least they had enough. And then at last, on Monday, the third of November, they saw the rancho of Don Antonio Costilla.
They came around a mountain, and far ahead, in the midst of a vast brown landscape, stood a group of brown adobe houses. Garnet blinked when she saw them, with a vague feeling of surprise. It had been so long since she had seen a house that the group looked unreal behind the dusty haze. She heard one of the men give a shout. All the men took it up, shouting hoarsely in voices thickened with dust. They began to hurry their tired mules. Garnet turned her head to look at Florinda. They both smiled wonderingly, hurting their cracked lips, and Florinda said in a faint voice,
“Garnet—are we there? Is it over?”
“I do believe it is,” said Garnet. She drew a long breath.
They rode on, faster. Garnet felt release all through her aching body. The dust blew up at her and she tried not to cough, and just then she heard more shouting voices. From the huddle of brown houses she saw a group of men riding toward the train. They were gay in coats of red or blue, or striped serapes blowing as they rode. Against the long brown land the bright colors looked very strange.
“People!” Garnet gasped. “Florinda—not Diggers! Civilized people!”
The shouting was all in Spanish and they were too tired to try to understand it. But they saw the men from the rancho greeting the men of the caravan, and passing bottles of wine and water. Oliver leaped off his mule and came running over to Garnet, his dusty bearded face aglow.
“Take this, Garnet,” he said, and thrust a bottle of white wine into her hand.
The wine was cool and tangy in her throat. Garnet gave a little sob as she drank. Oliver was sore and tired, but he grinned at her in triumph.
“We’re here,” he said, saying it as though it was almost too much to be believed. “We did it again!”
All around her she heard the same words. “We did it again!” Oliver helped her dismount. Beside her, Garnet saw Florinda holding a leather water-bottle in both hands. Florinda was drinking so fast that the water was spilling and making streaks in the dust on her chin. But it did not matter. They were in sight of a California rancho; they had plenty of water, water enough to spill. Garnet hugged the wine-bottle to her bosom, and looked around at the shaggy, tired, savage-looking men who had come with her over the trail. Standing there, she put her head down on the saddle of her gaunt little mare and began to laugh and to cry all at once, and she thought of Columbus when he saw the first green branch floating in the sea. She thought she knew now what heroes were like. They were not calm brave generals on white steeds. They were rude filthy sweating men who kept going till they got where they wanted to go.
“Wait for me,” said Oliver. “I
’ll be right back.”
Garnet nodded and he went off. Everybody around her was shouting and bustling and talking at once. Some of the men were dragging the packs from the stumbling mules. Others were sitting down on the ground, happily starting to get drunk. Garnet put her hand to her aching head and sighed with rapture. She looked around at the new world.
And then, slowly, her forehead crinkled in a frown. She looked through the dancing haze of heat and dust. She blinked, and rubbed her eyes to get the dust out of them, and looked again.
This was the end of the trail. This was California. But California was not a land of grass and flowers. It was a land of gaunt mountains staring down upon a scorched and dismal plain.
Garnet did not know just what she had expected. But all through the desert she had dreamed of flowers and tall proud trees and rushing water. She saw nothing of the sort. All around her was a land of gray and brown, scrubby and shabby and covered with dust. She saw low hills thick with dry wild oats. The oats blew in the wind like the waves of a dull brown sea. Here and there on the hills she saw cattle grazing, knee-deep in the brown grass. Farther off, the high slopes were thick with the mountain brush called chaparral. The chaparral was a dull gloomy green, grayed with dust. In the distance it looked like a growth of rough fur on the hills. In places it was thick, elsewhere she saw great bare patches, as though the hills were moth-eaten. Still farther away were more peaks, blue with distance. They looked like pieces of cardboard standing up against the sky.
The rancho buildings stood in an open place among the hills. There was a long low brown adobe house, and around it a village of smaller houses, set helter-skelter without any particular plan. Among the houses were some low dusty trees, and fields cut with ditches leading from a stringy little creek. But even the trees and fields were not a bright happy green. They were merely greenish. Everything—trees, houses, fields, hills, chaparral—looked sad and tired under the dust.
Maybe, Garnet thought, she was a bit dazed from that wine she had drunk so greedily. But she could see perfectly well. And she thought California was just plain ugly.
She saw Florinda turn her head. Their eyes met again.
“Florinda,” Garnet said in a low voice, “what do you think of it?”
Florinda smiled. She shrugged her thin shoulder. “The whole damn landscape,” she said, “looks like it ought to be sent to the laundry.”
They did not say anything else.
Garnet saw Oliver returning. He put his arm around her shoulders and told her to come with him. Glancing back, she saw Florinda walking away with Mr. Penrose.
Oliver led Garnet to the big adobe house. As they walked, he told her this was the home of Don Antonio himself, and the hospitable señor had given them a room here for their own use. Garnet looked around with curiosity.
There were a great many horses grazing about the place, saddled and ready for use. She asked in alarm if they were going to ride somewhere else today. Oliver laughed and said no, but nobody on a California rancho ever walked anywhere. The horses were kept ready all day long. A lot of people were going about, men and women and children, all in the brightest sort of clothes. These were the serving-people, Oliver said.
“But there are so many of them!” she exclaimed in wonder. “What do they do?”
“I’ve never found out,” Oliver answered, laughing again. “Except at the spring rodeos, when the cattle are branded and slaughtered. Here we are. Now you can rest.”
Garnet sighed hopefully at the words. She hurt all over. They were following a Mexican woman, gay in a white blouse and red skirt, her two black pigtails tied with red ribbon. She opened a door and stood aside, curtsying as they went in. Garnet found herself in a little room with bright-figured calico curtains around the walls. It had a wall-bench and a table, and at one side was a window with wooden shutters. Near the window was a bed, a real bed with pillows and blankets. On the wall-bench was a blue pottery basin and a blue jug full of water.
Garnet smiled. It seemed so strange and wonderful to be inside a house again. Sinking down on the bed, she sighed happily at the feel of softness.
Oliver was dragging in a mule-pack holding her clothes. With a proud grin at her, he took an orange out of his pocket, cut a hole in the end of it and gave it to her.
Garnet caught her breath. “Can I have it all?” she asked.
“Of course. The trees are full of them.”
She sucked the orange dry. It was the first fruit she had tasted in so long that the juice had a strange tang in her mouth. Forgetting how dusty she was, she sank back into the pillow. California was an ugly place, but she did not care. California was a place where you could get all the sleep you wanted, all the water you wanted, fresh food, clean clothes, a bed. For a few minutes she was conscious that Oliver was taking off her shoes and drawing a blanket over her. That was all she knew before she went to sleep.
When she woke up, the afternoon sun was slanting on the wall-curtains and the air was rich with the odor of roasting beef. Before she was well awake Garnet remembered the long monotony of mush on the desert. She felt her stomach giving little jumps of ecstasy. Oliver told her they would not have supper for about an hour yet. The girls could not know just when to expect the caravan, so they did not start cooking till they saw the men ride in. But meanwhile, there was plenty of soap and water.
They laughed and scrubbed and combed their hair. Oliver opened the pack he had dragged in, and they put on clothes they had not worn since they left Santa Fe. The folds were yellow with dust, for no matter how tight the packing was, there was no way to keep dust from drifting in. But they brushed the clothes, and Oliver said the girls would wash everything.
Garnet looked at herself in the mirror on the wall. She was brown as an autumn leaf, and her arms and legs felt almost as firm as wood. In spite of the heavy gloves she had worn, months of riding had left her hands rough and hard.
“Oliver,” she said, “the men I used to dance with—I could break them in two!”
Oliver squeezed her strong waistline. “I think you could,” he agreed. “Now wait a minute while I put on my shirt, and we’ll go outside.”
Garnet went to the window and pushed open the shutters. The wall, like the walls of the houses in Santa Fe, was about a yard thick. She rested her elbows on the sill and looked out.
The rancho was full of movement. The older women were cooking at outdoor ovens that looked like big bee-hives, while the girls carried bowls toward tables set up on the grass, around an angle of the house. The men from the trail were idling about, drinking and flirting while they waited for supper. The girls’ bright clothes made splashes of color against the brown background of the hills. Over everything, the scent of supper was like a whiff of glory.
Just then, as she looked out of the window, Garnet caught sight of the handsomest man she had ever seen in her life.
He was nearly seven feet tall and he weighed close to three hundred pounds, and every ounce of him was hard and healthy. His hair was a rich reddish gold, blowing in ripples from his forehead; his eyes were dark blue, almost purple; his skin had the rosy fairness of a baby’s skin, and though he had strong masculine features his expression was as sweet as that of a happy baby. His clothes were gorgeous: a suit of sky-blue satin trimmed with gold braid, boots with bright star-shaped spurs, and leather gloves embroidered in gold. In one hand he carried a black hat with a blue silk cord around the crown.
This magnificent giant was strolling about the rancho with John Ives. John had changed his trail-clothes for a red silk shirt and dark gray Mexican trousers, but his garments looked staid in contrast with such splendor; and though John was six feet two and tough as a mule, beside his friend he seemed almost small.
As they passed her window, about fifteen feet away, the giant turned his head and saw Garnet leaning on the sill. His face broke into a smile. It was a smile of innocent pleasure, so winning and ingenuous that Garnet smiled back, and as she smiled she felt as if she had made a n
ew friend. His violet eyes rested on her an instant, then he turned and said something to John. Glancing at Garnet, John chuckled and touched his hat as they walked on.
“Oliver!” Garnet exclaimed. “Who is that man?”
Oliver, who had seen John and his companion over her shoulder, laughed as he answered, “That’s John’s pet barbarian.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a Russian. Haven’t I mentioned him? He used to live at one of the Russian fur stations up north. Now he has a rancho down here.”
“What’s his name?”
“His last name is Karakozof. Let him tell you the rest himself, I can’t say it.” Oliver pulled her hair mischievously. “You’ll meet him, you can’t help it. He loves women the way a baby loves candy.”
“But why did you call him a barbarian?”
“Because he is one. Likable fellow, but quite uncivilized. John sort of adopted him and taught him a few manners, but John’s never been able to teach him to use a fork. Want to go out?”
Garnet nodded. She felt a thrill of anticipation. California was an ugly place, but it wasn’t going to be dull.
Just beyond the door Oliver stopped to speak to a driver who wanted to know about piling up the packs. Garnet saw Florinda sitting on a bench built against the wall of the house. Florinda had brushed her hair and put on a fresh cotton dress. She was so thin that the dress fitted her loosely, and she looked very tired, but as she saw Garnet she held out her hand, smiling with determined brightness. She had put on black silk house-mitts with half-fingers, which she would not have to take off while she ate supper.
“Come sit down,” Florinda invited.
Garnet sat by her. “How do you feel?”
“Oh, pretty well. Say, Garnet, did you see the handsome brute?”
“The—oh, you mean the Russian?”
“Is he a Russian? That great big beautiful creature in blue?”
“That’s what Oliver said.”
“Well, well, I never saw a Russian before. Do they all look like that?”
