Jubilee Trail (60 page)

Hurriedly drinking the last of the wine in his bottle, the Brute scrambled to his feet. “I will help. What do you want us to do with him, Florinda?”

“Feed him to the pigs for all I care. And you’d better hurry, because Gillespie has clamped down a ten o’clock curfew and it must be nearly ten by now.”

As soon as John took over, disposal of Charles became simple. John said when Charles came to Los Angeles he was usually the guest of a rich family named Escobar. Between them, John and the Brute got Charles on his feet and out of the house. The girls heard him mumbling as the fresh air began to revive him.

They gave supper to Pablo and Vicente, and told them they could unroll their blankets in the gambling room. But like most Californios, Pablo and Vicente had little use for houses except when it was raining. They went outdoors, and were asleep with their heads on their saddles when John and the Brute returned.

John said they had had no trouble with Charles. On reaching Señor Escobar’s home they told the señor they had found Don Carlos Hale sitting on the ground with his back against a wall and his head in his hands, made ill, no doubt, by sour cornmeal or stale meat. Señor Escobar was not stupid enough to believe this, but he was gentlemanly enough to pretend he did. He told his servants to give every care to the unfortunate Don Carlos, and after an exchange of courteous remarks John and the Brute bowed themselves out and came back to the saloon.

While Garnet set out the beef and beans, John signed a credit paper and Florinda brought him a bottle of whiskey. John asked if they could be ready to leave Los Angeles the day after tomorrow.

“Why yes,” said Garnet. “Of course.”

The Brute, who was eating meat from a big bone he held in his fists, smiled at her across the bone. “I will help you take care of the baby. I like babies.”

“Be careful not to smash him,” Florinda warned. “He’s not much bigger than your hand.” She set another bottle of red wine by the Brute’s elbow, and sat on the edge of the table, across from the wall-bench. “Say, John.”

“Yes?”

“I gather I’m invited to this party.”

“Certainly. We came to get both of you.”

“Don’t tell me you rode all the way down from your rancho just for our sakes.”

“No, we didn’t. We thought everything was quiet in Los Angeles. But since nobody knows what’s happening east of the mountains, nobody knows how much merchandise the traders will bring from Santa Fe this year. So I rode over to Nikolai’s place one day and suggested that we come to town now and put in our orders at the trading posts, in case there’s not enough to go around. On the way here we heard about the situation, and we decided we’d better get you away.”

“A very sweet thought, I’m sure,” said Florinda. But she spoke doubtfully. “Look, Johnny. I’ve got quite an investment in this business. Are you advising me to leave it?”

“Yes I am,” said John, “and I think Silky will have to leave it too.” He went on to explain. “Stockton left only about fifty men in Los Angeles, and Gillespie has sent several of those to San Diego. Besides the garrison, there aren’t twenty Americans in town. In spite of Gillespie’s orders there are still hundreds of Californios in this district who have guns, and Gillespie seems to be doing his best to make them want to shoot.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Florinda said reluctantly. “Well, I guess it’s better to lose money than to get murdered.”

Garnet heard a little cry from Stephen, and stood up. “I’ll be down to help you clear the dishes,” she said to Florinda.

The Brute, who was now eating a bowl of beans and chili, halted his spoon in mid-air and smiled at her. Like John, the Brute needed a shave, but instead of being dark with stubble his chin flashed with little gold sparkles. “I will wash the dishes,” said the Brute.

“But you’re our guest,” she objected.

“I am a nice guest,” said the Brute.

“Go on up to your baby,” said John. “We didn’t come to make work for you. See you in the morning.”

“All right then, and thanks,” said Garnet. She picked up a candle. “Good night.”

“Good night,” said John, and the Brute kissed his hand to her. As she reached the staircase she heard Florinda ask,

“Where are you planning to take us, John?”

“Kerridge’s.”

“Back to Doña Manuela! Why John, you darling! She won’t mind?”

“She’ll be delighted, if I know her,” said John. Garnet, climbing the stairs, did not hear what else he said. She was feeling a twinge of surprise that it had not occurred to her to ask John where he was going to take them. Her confidence in him went very deep, she realized now, deeper than she had known.

When she had put Stephen to sleep again she tucked him back into his basket, and setting the candle in a corner out of the draft she opened the shutters. The air was cool after the hot day, and tangy with the scent of sage. Garnet sat on the wall-bench, her arms on the sill, and looked out at the mountains looming against the stars. She was glad to have a few minutes alone. She was desperately tired. She had not said so; she had made up her mind to do whatever she had to do and be gallant about it, but she was tired in body and spirit. Tonight, after that scene with Charles, she felt battered. But she could not rest. The day after tomorrow she would have to set out on another journey.

It seemed to her that she spent most of her life going from one place to another on a long trail that had no end. How good it would be to get somewhere. How good to say, “Now I can stop moving. Here is where I belong. Here I will have quietness, and safety, and peace.”

She put her forehead down on her hands. Quietness and safety and peace—she wondered if there really were any such things. Certainly not here. Her life in California was like the land of California itself. California was a place where you could ride for days and not seem to be going anywhere, a place where the mountains had nothing beyond them but deserts and more mountains. In such a land as this, and in such a life as this, you could only set your jaw and keep going, trying to pretend you were going somewhere. You laughed bravely and poured drinks at the bar, you were gay even with your best friends like Florinda and Texas. You kept on and on, trying to hide from them and from yourself the dull gray truth that you did not know what was going to become of you, and that you were lonely and terribly scared.

From below her Garnet heard the buoyant voices of Florinda and the Brute, and the clatter of dishes as they put the kitchen in order. There was a thud of hoofs in the corral behind the house. She heard John in the corral, speaking to a restless horse. Over past the other side of the plaza, a dog bayed faintly.

There were footsteps on the ground under her window. John came out of the corral and around the side of the house, where she could see him in a shimmer of moonlight. The dry undergrowth cracked as he walked on it. The cactus made a lacework of shadows, and for a moment John paused among them, looking out toward the great black mountains. He had on the shirt and trousers in which he had been riding all day, but as her eyes followed his figure she thought she had never seen a man who had such a look of strong patrician grace. John had muscles like steel, and there was not a man on the trail who could work harder than he. But he moved with such rhythmic ease that wherever he was, indoors or out, he made every other man there look clumsy.

Garnet remembered the first time she had seen him, in Santa Fe. She thought of how he had stood back while Silky and Texas and Penrose made their tipsy compliments, and then with what quiet authority he had got them out when he thought they had been there long enough. He was always like that, among them but not one of them. The other men found him hard and stern and more than a trifle awesome. They respected him, they worked with him, and they let him alone. None of them, except possibly the Brute, had discovered the tenderness that lay under John’s rocky shell. She might not have found it either, if she had not needed it so. But whenever she had needed it John had been there, as he was here now; and this was not the first time she had thought he was like shade and a well in the desert.

All of a sudden, Garnet had a feeling that time had stopped. There was no clock ticking, the earth had ceased to turn, the stars had paused on their way across the sky. Nothing was happening anywhere. The universe stood in a moment of silence.

Then the whole creation spoke. She did not know, she never did know, whether she said it aloud or whether every star and mountain and cactus-thorn said it for her. But the world within and without her said, “John,” and she knew what it was she had been looking for since those far-off girlish days in New York.

This was where the trail had been leading her. From New York to New Orleans, from New Orleans to Santa Fe, across the desert and over the mountains to California, all the way she had been coming to find John. She loved him and she wanted him. There was nothing surprising about it. It was like opening a door and seeing for the first time something that had always been there.

It had always been there, but until now she had not known it. She had needed all those miles and all the events of them to make her know it. If she had met John two years ago in New York she would have thought him a strange sort of man, sinister and even frightening. This was what she had thought when she did meet him in Santa Fe. In those days she had wanted fun and freedom and a lover who would lead her into romantic adventures. Now she did not want any of that. She simply wanted John.

Below the window, John turned and went back into the house. Garnet watched him, smiling to herself. John had never said a word to suggest that he was in love with her. But he had certainly let her know that he took a lot of interest in her. She felt a warm rush of happiness.

From the foot of the staircase she heard Florinda’s voice.

“Well, good night, fellows. See you tomorrow.”

Garnet began to close the shutters. The country had a weird beauty in the moonlight. As she reached out she saw the moon, all lopsided, like a fat man with a toothache. She was so happy that she was laughing at the moon when Florinda came in.

Garnet thought Silky might object to their leaving the bar. But Florinda assured her that Silky would urge them to start at once, and this proved to be true. As Florinda had observed long ago, Silky did not want to be responsible for anybody but himself. While business was normal the girls had great value to him and the baby was not too much of a nuisance. But if there was going to be shooting, Silky was glad to have them all out of his way.

Silky himself did not intend to leave town unless he had to. Like the other Yankees who had trading posts in Los Angeles, he wanted to stay by his stock. Before they parted, he and Florinda split their cash and made a list of the liquor on hand. They entrusted the list to Mr. Abbott. As long as they could both go over the books at any time, Silky and Florinda maintained a friendly partnership, but neither of them cared to tempt the other too far. John came over to watch as Florinda checked the last entries in the books.

“Are you always as careful as this?” he asked.

Florinda glanced at him over her shoulder, giving him a wise smile. “Johnny my boy, you can trust Silky with your life and you could trust him with your wife if you had one, but you cannot trust him with thirty cents.”

John chuckled. “I should not like to try to cheat you,” he said.

“He doesn’t mean to, John. Silky likes me and he’s slightly afraid of me. But he simply cannot do a straight job of arithmetic, and by a strange coincidence all his mistakes are in his own favor.” She closed the book and stood up. “Well, this is the best I can do. Now I’ll run up and pack my clothes.”

The next day they left early and rode northeast, toward the rancho of Mr. Kerridge. John rode ahead to look out for the way, for there was always a chance that the tension might have broken somewhere. Pablo and Vicente led the pack-horses. The boys had worked for John and the Brute a long time, and as they had not lived in Los Angeles to feel Gillespie’s tyranny, they had no resentment against the foreigners.

As they started out the Brute offered to carry Stephen. He put one hand under Stephen’s head and picked him up expertly, put him into his basket and carried the basket on his saddle. John had provided a piece of black cloth to protect the baby’s eyes from the sun, but except for this he had hardly noticed him. All babies that age looked just alike to John and it did not occur to him to pretend otherwise. Florinda said he had a heart of stone, but Garnet rather admired his honesty. She thought John would have sounded absurd trying to coo over a baby.

Three days after Garnet and Florinda left Los Angeles, Gillespie’s troubles began. A group of unruly young fellows, led by a man named Varela, attacked the house where the American garrison made their headquarters. The Americans drove them off and arrested several men for taking part in the attack, but this was not the end.

Varela and his gang had been making trouble since long before Gillespie came to town. Ordinarily the better people would have had nothing to do with them. But Gillespie had made himself so unpopular that this time many of the leading citizens grabbed their guns in Varela’s defense. By the next day, three hundred armed Californios had surrounded the headquarters, demanding that the Americans get out of town.

While Gillespie was under siege, the revolt spread to the nearby villages. The garrison of Santa Barbara was driven out and had to flee to the mountains, and the garrison of San Diego took refuge on a Yankee whaling ship. East of Los Angeles a hundred Californios made prisoners of twenty Yankees, most of them men of substance who had been living in California for years. These men were brought to Los Angeles, and their captors joined the force besieging Gillespie.

Though he had been inept as a civil governor, as a military man Gillespie was no fool. His men were outnumbered eight to one, their supplies were running low, and he knew they could not hold out long. But he managed to get a messenger out of the house, with orders to ride north to Yerba Buena and report the revolt to Commodore Stockton. Then he said he would quit Los Angeles if they would let him lead his men unharmed to San Pedro. The Californios agreed. Gillespie’s forces marched to San Pedro, where they boarded a Yankee merchant ship they found in the harbor. There they waited for help from the north.