Guestward Ho! (21 page)

Another thing Indians hate is the person who is in
terested in Indians. "Anthropologist" is a dirty word in
most tribes. These men of learning may be solely interested
in giving the world at large as much information as possi
ble about the poor redskin, but they certainly go about their work in preemptory, not to say cavalier, manner.

Bill and I have always promised Joe Vigil that as soon
as we can afford it, we're going to buy him a gray flannel
suit and a shirt with a button-down collar. Then we're going to send him to New York, taxi him up to the Columbia University area, and turn him loose to spend the
the whole summer bursting in the apartments of anthropolo
gists, unannounced and uninvited, and deluging them with
questions such as "How many people sleep in this bed?" “Are you on relief?" "Do you own a toothbrush?" "What are your most vivid racial memories?" "Are you faithful
to your spouse?" "What contraceptive devices, if any, do you employ?" It's going to be the Tesuques' revenge.

I could go on indefinitely with my inventory of Indian gripes, but I think you can probably understand why they
are a little miffed at us and why we felt so honored to be
invited to their feast. So much so, in fact, that the Putnams delayed their departure in order to attend.

The Feast Day of the Tesuque Indians amounts to the tribe's Saint's Day and it is the big occasion of the year. Their houses, which are spotless all year round, are given
a thorough cleaning just for good measure and are re
painted in honor of the event. For weeks ahead all you
can smell at the pueblo is scouring powder, whitewash, and
Dutch Boy. We were invited specifically by Joe Vigil and his beautiful wife Veronica—or Ronnie, as she is almost exclusively known—and honorarily by Joe's parents. The
difference in the two generations w,as a marked one. Joe
and Ronnie were about our age and they were very modern. They spoke fluent English and Spanish as well
as Tewa, their tribal language. They dressed just like anybody else in America, only better. Joe was six feet tall and
wore his hair trimmed in regular barber-shop fashion.
Ronnie looked like an unusually smart Mexico City woman in her clothes and wore her long straight black
hair in about ten different styles—the bun, the coronet,
the pony tail, the upsweep—each more becoming than the
other. (I could have slapped her when she followed fash
ion's folly and had it all lopped off. After that, whenever she moaned about the bondage of curlers and bobby pins,
I said nastily, "Serves you right for cutting it off. But
never mind, it'll grow back.") The senior Vigils, however, were less influenced by the white man. The father made certain concessions to Occidental clothing, but not many,
and his gray hair was worn in a short, Dutch bob and
bound with a fillet of colorful yarn. He spoke Tewa, Span
ish, and English, but in that order of proficiency. The mother barely spoke at all.

The Feast Day traditionally begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. One of the special treats of this one was the
Buffalo Dance, which hadn't been performed at the pueblo
for thirty years. As the day went on, more and more
dancers joined in until nearly a hundred men, women and
children were dancing. The costumes were lovely to see,
the drum music and the chanting haunting and authentic,
and the smell of burning piñon wood delicious.

We were especially interested in what the meal would
consist of. Carleton had been particularly apprehensive.
"I know it'll be highly seasoned, Lucy," he had said, "and you know I can't eat things like that. I’ll begin to perspire
and have to get up and leave and that will embarrass us
all."

"It won't be hot at all," I said comfortingly, not know
ing one thing about Tesuque cooking. "You're just going
to love it."

The menu consisted of homemade Indian bread, a kind
of stew, which, while it did contain a little chili, wasn't at
all over-seasoned, a traditional kind of bread pudding,
and, of all unexpected things, Jello! Everything was deli
cious, and we had second helpings of it all.

Since then we have learned that the Feast Day is also a day of open house, and we have been back to drop in
on all of our Tesuque friends and to feast in each of their
houses.

Lots of people who had lived in the Southwest far longer then we had said to us, "But what do you have to
do
to get so friendly with the Indians?"

"
Nothing," was the answer. And it was the only answer.
We treated our Indian friends just like any other friends and they accepted us. They were so accustomed to special
treatment—either like dogs or else like utterly fascinating
and unique case histories—that they naturally didn't
choose to make fast friends with the outsiders and became
rather "special" and aloof. But treated like nothing out of the ordinary they became nothing out of the ordinary, and I'm glad we made the effort not to make any effort. As we left the first Tesuque feast—four among the very few white people who had been invited—I felt very warm and proud and awfully glad that Bill and Carleton hadn't bagged the mountain lion, or anything else, and that I had been included in on the consolation prize.

But to get back to that elusive beast of prey, the moun
tain lion. . . . He achieved a certain notoriety, because he started showing up everywhere just as soon as the Putnams flew back to Washington.

The Killer was sighted late one night skulking around
the Pueblo Drive-In. A truck driver claimed to have seen him
loping along the state highway near our ranch. A demented old woman up in one of the more decadent
Spanish villages where everybody married first cousins, sw
ore that she saw him slinking out of the church dragging
something in his mouth—a child, possibly, although
no kids were missing. Women, children, and anybody un
armed were warned not to stray too far from home for fear of encountering The Killer. There was talk about getting up a gigantic posse to beat the mountain lion out
of his lair and finish him off before he finished off every
man, woman, and child in the valley.

After a few weeks of increasing publicity, I was getting
a little bored with The Killer. Not so Bill. He was just
itching to get out his little night cap and hunting costumes
and go off—alone, if necessary—on the track of the cat.

Then The Killer struck again.

Bill and I were alone at the ranch when late one night
our dog, Sandy—a big, ferocious-looking collie who is the
image of Michael Wilding—commenced howling and bay
ing in the frosty moonlight.

"Thieves," I whispered to Bill.

"The mountain lion," Bill said with great conviction. He snapped on the lights and dressed rapidly, then he got down his gun.

"Bill," I said, "you're not going out there to shoot him
alone. You
can't!
What if you should miss or only wound
him? He could claw you to death. He could . . ." My
frontiersman didn't wait to hear any more woman talk.
He marched out through the kitchen, with me pattering
behind him, and threw open the back door.

That brave collie—watchdog extraordinary and pro
tector of the ranch—shot into the kitchen, dashed through
the house, and hid under our bed. There he stayed, whimpering the whole night through.

I waited tensely for what seemed hours, expecting momentarily the crack of a rifle, the outraged roar of a
wounded beast, and then a ghastly silence. But there was
no sound until Bill came back.

"W-what happened?" I asked, relieved to the point of tears that Bill hadn't been torn to shreds.

"He got away again," Bill said.

As we got back to bed, Sandy still remained beneath it, whimpering pitifully. "The Killer
can't
be too far
away," Bill kept muttering. "Just listen to Sandy. Dogs
always know when danger is near. They can smell it—
sense it."

"You just stay put," I said, turning out the light "Promise me you won't go back out at this hour of night." Hearing a dulcet snore, I didn't have to worry.

The next morning Joe Vigil found him. The mountain lion was stretched out as dead as a doornail on our front terrace.

"I'll be damned," said Bill, examining the poor beast for bullet wounds. There weren't any.

"Looks like that poor old cat died of a heart attack," Joe chuckled.

"Looks like he died of old age to
me,"
I said.

As he lay lifeless on the flagstones, the poor dead thing
looked less like The Killer and more like a mangy, old,
altered tomcat that had finally succumbed to a can of tainted salmon.

Gray around the muzzle and practically toothless, the
pathetic old beast had undoubtedly been on a strict diet of table scraps and very small dead animals for years. As for turning the pelt into a stole, mountain lion fur
just isn't very attractive—his least of all. The Killer re
sembled nothing quite so much as a moth-eaten hearth rug about to be offered to the Salvation Army, and I was grateful he had chosen our terrace as an attractive place to live out his last moments.

"So that's The Killer," Bill said sheepishly and went back to the house to drag Sandy out from under our bed.

"He's a pretty old cat," Joe said with a grin,. "Twenty,
thirty, maybe even forty years old."

"Joe," I said, "that decrepit mountain lion has been l
iving on his social security since before we were born—
and you know it!
But don't tell anyone. That would spoil
all the fun the neighborhood has been having. We'll simply give him a decent Christian burial in a rather
deepish grave and then announce to the whole valley that
the Killer has been vanquished."

By late fall the ranch was empty of everyone but Bill and
me. The cook, his wife, his kids, his dogs, his cat had
moved on to sunnier climes, which suited us fine since it
meant two fewer checks to write every week and seven
fewer mouths to feed, counting the menagerie. Every
day I apprehensively made little jottings in the deficit book,
but I wasn't really worried much about money. We'd
had a good summer and we were expecting a good winter of skiers just as soon as the snows hit the mountains. The
lull between seasons gave us a welcome chance to rest, to
spend some time with each other, to catch up on reading
and letters and minor repairs and on a modest but brisk social life with our newly found New Mexican friends.

It was on a cold, clear November afternoon that James
B. Smith again entered our kitchen and our lives. Bill
had, made a rare trip into Albuquerque for heavy supplies
and I was postponing lunch until his return. As soon as I heard the station wagon coming up the drive I went to
the kitchen, lit the gas under the soup, fixed my face, and stood in the doorway with a radiant smile. But the smile
soon faded when I saw luggage being unloaded. "Guests!"
I said, "and nothing but soup and sandwiches for lunch."
Then it changed into a fearful frown when I recognized our former cook, James B. Smith, accompanied by a strange woman.

But James B. Smith hadn't seen me as yet and I was
planning to do everything within my power to postpone
that meeting for as long as possible. James B. was too
busy dancing attendance on his lady friend to notice me.
"Right in here, honey," he called. "This is the cook's private residence and you an' me'll have it for our own
honeymoon cottage!" With that, he skittered off in the
direction of one of the outbuildings, a very large woman
lurching along behind him.

"William Hooton," I said as Bill came into the house, "I would like a word with you."

"Yes, dear?" Bill said with that guilty look.

"What,
if you please, is that wretched, lazy old drunk
ard, James B. Smith, doing here? And
who
is the female
with him?"

"Oh. That's
Mrs.
Smith," Bill said casually.

"That isn't the same Mrs. Smith I saw last summer," I said accusingly.

"True, my dear, James B. has divorced and since re
married," Bill said glibly.

"And?"

"And
what,
Barbara?"

"And just what in the hell are they doing put here?" I
snapped.

"Oh, that. Well, I was in Albuquerque and walking
along that street—you know, the one near the bus station—
and whom do you suppose I saw?"

"Mabel Dodge Luhan," I said.

"No, stupid," Bill said, avoiding my gaze. "James B. and Lee."

"Who's Lee?" I asked.

"That's the present incumbent.
Mrs.
Smith, that is to
say."

"And?"

"Well, Barbara, you know I've always felt kind of bad,
firing poor old James B. in a fit of temper and all that. He
was a fine cook and quite a decent guy, really, and he didn't do anything so
terrible . .
."

"Oh, no, darling. He just smashed a few vases, got the whole household up in the middle of the night for a piano recital, terrorized Nan and Sue, had a crying jag over how
much he adored the last Mrs. Smith, and . . ."

"Well, anyhow, Barbara, James B. fell all over me and
told me how happy he'd been out here and how much he
liked
you
—he said you were the nicest, most attractive
woman he'd ever worked for . . ." .

"Can it, Bill. Get on with the story."

"Well, there isn't much more to tell. You know we'll
have all that skiing crowd piling in here right after Christ
mas and good cooks—especially good
couples
—are hard
to come by and James B. swore he'd reformed completely
and that Lee was a wonder around the house and, well, to make a long story short . . ."

"And to make my short life shorter, you hired them?"

"In a word, yes. But I made it
crystal
clear to him that
if either one of them made a
single
slip they'd be out."

Dubious as I was about James B. Smith's complete rehabilitation, I accepted their presence in the house and
settled down to enjoy life while awaiting the snow and the skiers—
and did we live!

Bill and I took to arising around ten in the mornings. In our robes we'd saunter out to a spotless living room to find
a huge fire roaring. As we languidly sank into matching rose-colored chairs, James B. and Lee would come cheer
fully and quietly in, bearing our breakfast trays, which were all gussied up with real linen and bud vases. Lee,
too, loved lovely things. Our breakfasts were so leisurely
that it was generally lunchtime when we were finished.
We had become avid riders during the crisp, clear autumn
and we often lunched in the saddle. And what lunches!
They were exquisitely prepared by James B. and artisti
cally packed by Lee.

Evenings found us again at the warm fireside with cold
martinis and elegant little suppers borne in on even more
gorgeous trays of Lee's contrivance. Good books of Lee's
choosing were at hand and there was usually Bach on the
record player. Lee liked Bach. She also liked Mozart and
Scarlatti. Lee thought that Beethoven was "common," that all of Brahms and most of Handel were "fun," and
that most of the moderns were "fugitive, transient, and unproven." Of course, I knew James B. was an old music
lover from way back, but I was rather stunned by Lee's
intellectual depths and by some of her pronouncements.

She adored the
New Yorker,
liked
Punch
—but found
it "special"—and didn't mind
Harper's
or the
Atlantic
Monthly.
Lee felt that
Life
was vulgar and the women's
magazines were "hopelessly unsophisticated." She sneered
at two thirds of our library but deigned to read some of our deeper volumes.

I found her quite a stimulating conversationalist and
talked to her by the hour as she did the pressing. (Yes,
can you believe it? Lee thought that commercial laundries were just too rough and tumble, so she washed my every
blouse and slip and pressed them as they have never been
done before or since.) I wondered how an intelligent and
educated woman like Lee could have ever wound up in the servants' house at a dump like ours with a jerk like James B. Our idyl lasted just three weeks, until I began to find out why.

One afternoon Lee came to me and said, "Miz Hooton, James B. and I thought
boeuf Bourguignon
would be nice to give your friends for dinner tonight. Could I have two
cups of red wine for it? Burgundy if you have it, but no
special year."

"Certainly, Lee," I said, thrilled at the prospect. "Take
a whole bottle and use as much as you like." I opened
the liquor closet and handed her a bottle. Then I went out for a ride, came back rather late, dressed, and did nothing
more than check on the centerpiece—one that wasn't quite up to Lee's usual high standards and needed a bit of rearranging. James B. and Lee had spoiled me so during the past three weeks that I didn't even bother to
look into the kitchen. Had I done so, I would have been
unpleasantly surprised, but not nearly as surprised as I
was when our dinner guests were seated at the table.

Just after our dinner guests had been seated, Lee came
weaving in from the kitchen, rocking and rolling from left to right, as scalding
boeuf Bourguignon
sloshed over the sides of the casserole. She plunked the serving dish down
in front of me with a thud, almost toppled over into it,
recovered her balance, and then gingerly made her way
back to the kitchen, skidding precariously over some of
the spilled meal. Just as the kitchen door swung closed
behind her there was an ear-splitting crash, the source of
which I didn't dare to investigate. I couldn't smell a whiff
of wine in the
boeuf Bourguignon,
but I certainly could
smell it on Lee as she made her unsteady way in with the
rolls—burned to the color, size, and consistency of bituminous coal.

The dinner, which our friends insincerely and politely
oh-ed and ah-ed over, was perfectly foul. Lee was even farther gone when she reeled in with the salad. A ravaged
dessert was served by James B., who was in little better
condition, "Lee's had a sinking spell, Miz Hooton," he
whispered aromatically into my ear, thus surrounding my
head and shoulders with an almost visible haze of alcohol,
She'd had a sinking spell, all right, and our whole dinner
party was sunk.

Lee was a secret tippler—grape or grain, it made no
nevermind—who sometimes let the secret spill. Mated, as she was, with James B., they made a formidable couple. "You hired them, Bill," I said icily to him that night, "now it's up to you to fire them."

"Now, Barbara," Bill said, "remember, the house is
your
responsibility. The agreement was that I would see to the . . ."

"There was never any agreement of any kind," said I,
"and I wasn't consulted either time you brought that sod
den old James B. Smith out to the ranch. Now either they
go or
I
go. Take your choice."

The next morning I stayed haughtily in bed and was a l
ittle taken aback to find a tray, more resplendent than ever before, brought right to the bedside by Lee, who looked terribly ill but who was bearing up admirably.

Bill was gone for a long time; when he came back he
had that mission-accomplished look that might have fooled others but didn't fool me.

"Well," I said, "when are they going?"

"Tomorrow, of course," Bill said, avoiding my eye.

"Why tomorrow?"

"Why, because that's their day off, Barbara. You know
that."

"Bill. It was my distinct understanding that from this
moment forward, James B. and Lee were to have three hundred and sixty-five days off per year. Now, what did
you tell them?"

"Well, you know James B. is a lovable guy and Lee is
bright and neat and . . ."

"And alcoholic . . ."

"Well, that's what we talked about, Barbara—the drinking."

"And what did you tell them, dear?"

"I told them that as far as I was concerned they could
get falling-down drunk on their days off, but that they
weren't to drink on the job
any more."

I threw a pillow at him and went back to sleep.

The next day was the Smiths' day off and they obeyed
Bill's command to the letter. They got falling-down drunk.
But before or during that process, they also put a down
payment on an ancient used car and were found in the
car, both unconscious, by the police. "Mister Bill," James
B. wailed over the telephone that midnight, "Lee an' me is in
trouble."

Bill had to dress, drive into town, bail them out, and
pay the large fee for towing their car out of the ditch and into the police yards. Still, they remained on our payroll.
Actually, James B. and Lee would have been far better off if we had given them neither salary (every cent of which was squandered on their car payments, repairs, towing fees, police fines, and demon rum), nor time
off (every minute of which was spent getting into fights,
accidents, their cups, and jail). But the state Labor Board would never have understood our thought proc
esses had we tried anything so drastic. It got so that we
expected a major lapse every Thursday, and James B. and Lee rarely disappointed us. Bill had only to put on his pajamas of a Thursday night for the telephone to ring and for James B. to wail, "Mister Bill, Lee an' me is in
trouble!"

Quite selfishly speaking, though, the two of them were
so contrite after each lapse and after each of Bill's noc
turnal interruptions and paternal lectures that they worked more diligently than ever. Lee eventually took
to doing
all
the washing and ironing, out of sheer shame,
while James B. added to the cooking all chores around
the corral, trips to the dump, and any other odd jobs that came up. At least they weren't lapsing on our time and alcohol, and as James B. and Lee grew more and more contrite our work grew more and more nonexistent, our
meals more and more breath-taking, and our figures more
and more rounded.

Christmas was coming our way and so was a large
shipment of guests—not just regular paying guests but,
worse, family.