Jubilee Trail (79 page)

They talked and talked. She would have him, then, John asked. Yes, said Garnet, she would have him, whenever he wanted her, and he need make no promises. Nobody could manage the future, she knew this now. “We’ll be married,” she said, “because I’m not going to have any affair like one of Florinda’s—”

“My dearest girl,” John said laughing, “when did I ever suggest any such thing? I know you wouldn’t.”

“—but what I was going to say,” she went on, “is that if we can’t make it last forever, then all right, we can’t. I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to think about what you told me, the here and now. I tried to stop wanting you, John. It was no use.”

“I tried too,” John returned. He was speaking soberly. “I called you every kind of a fool I could think of. But I couldn’t get rid of you. There was nothing to do but come down to Los Angeles and try again to get you. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry I’d have paid more attention to that damned jump.” He smiled at her wryly. “But of course I had to be in a hurry, so here you are and here I am and I can touch you, and we might as well be a thousand miles apart.”

“How long before you’ll be well? Does the man have any idea?”

“Oh yes. I’ll be walking in another month. The arm will take longer than that. But I’ll get over it all in time. I’ve got the constitution of an ox.”

He grinned at her. John persisted in making light of his injuries. Señora Lorca told her he had suffered a good deal, and even allowing for her lavish Latin sympathy Garnet was sure he had. He probably still did. Every now and then when he made a careless movement she saw a flash of pain on his face, but he hated to admit it. John was ashamed of helplessness.

She found that he was not even willing to stay in this hospitable house until he got well. He was still planning to go to San Francisco. He had arranged for the trip with the captain of the brig she had seen in the bay. The brig had come to California for hides, and could not start back until she had forty thousand of them on board. When she had loaded all she could get at Santa Barbara she was going to sail up to San Francisco to get more from the northern ranchos. To Garnet’s protests that he was not strong enough to travel, John retorted that he could get well on a ship as fast as he could on land. His serving-boys would carry him aboard and take care of him on the voyage, and no doubt he would be able to walk ashore. As soon as he had attended to his business he would come south again and they would be married. He might as well use these weeks of lameness to go to San Francisco, he said. He was certainly not going to marry her until he could stand upright.

Garnet guessed that he was going to make the trip not only because he wanted to see his new property. He also wanted to go because if he had to be crippled, it was easier for him to take help from servants who were paid to wait on him than from his friends. John could give so readily, but he could not bear to receive.

When she had been in Santa Barbara two weeks, she said it was time she went home. John agreed reluctantly. It was now early November, and while the rains did not often begin as soon as this, still you never could be sure. A storm could keep her here for weeks.

Garnet laughed when he said this. “Like that storm that kept you at Kerridge’s last spring, when I did so want you to go away.”

“I didn’t mind that one,” John said humorously. “I didn’t want to go.”

“Well, I wanted you to. I was so angry with you!”

“I was angry too, before I left. I thought at first I could make you see reason. But when I couldn’t, I decided to clear out.” John covered her hand with his. “You must know, Garnet,” he said slowly, “that all last summer I disliked you heartily.”

“Why?”

“Because I missed you so. I didn’t want to miss anybody the way I missed you.”

“I missed you the same way,” she said. “Didn’t I prove that by coming here the minute the Brute came for me?”

“I didn’t want him to go for you,” John said. He looked a little bit embarrassed. “I wanted to wait till I was on my feet again and could go myself. But—” He laughed at himself. “I might as well confess it. I was lying here worrying myself into a fever for fear some other man would get you. With American men swarming all over Los Angeles, you must have had hundreds of proposals.”

“Why yes. But most of them I didn’t pay any attention to.”

“Most?” His hand tightened on her wrist.

Garnet felt a wild delight at his eagerness and the fear in his voice. She dropped her head on the pillow beside him as she said,

“Oh John, did you think I could go on like that forever? When the Brute came to Silky’s I had practically made up my mind to marry a man of the New York Regiment.”

Maybe she should have told him this before. She had told him everything else—about going to Estelle’s, and about Charles, and Texas’ saying he had fired the shots that killed Charles. But she had not told him about Captain Brown. Now he gave a start that jerked his bad hip and sent a shiver of pain across his face. She raised her head. John said, “What about him?”

“He’s good, John,” she said, and now that she had started the words poured out. “He’s as solid as those rocks on the coast. He loves me. He was going to take me home and give me everything you wouldn’t promise me and never will—love and peace and security and the feeling that I belonged somewhere. And I’m a fool not to take him. But the minute I saw that note from you I forgot him completely. I didn’t think of him until Florinda told me it wouldn’t be common decency to rush off to Santa Barbara without at least leaving him a letter saying why I had gone.”

John’s face had a puzzling expression—wisdom and gladness and a touch of guilt. He asked, “Did you write the letter?”

“Yes. It was the hardest letter I ever had to write. I started it a dozen times over. I was still trying to write it when they closed the saloon and Florinda came in and sat by me. She said, ‘Stop trying to make pretty sentences. Just tell him the truth. Tell him there’s a man you’ve been a fool about since long before the New York Regiment came to town, but you’d quarreled, and now you’ve made it up and he’s been hurt by a fall from a horse—’”

“I never fell off a horse in my life,” John snapped at her.

“Well, it amounts to that! A good rider would have had enough judgment to know how much of a jump his horse could take.”

“If I hadn’t been so addled from thinking about your foolishness I would have had more judgment.”

He spoke as though it had been all her fault. Garnet trembled with pleasure that he could be so jealous of even an unsuccessful rival. “Well, go on,” he said. “You wrote the letter?”

“Yes, finally. I told Captain Brown I liked him and admired him and I’d be grateful the rest of my life for what he had done for me—”

“Oh, gratitude again!” John said witheringly. “I suppose he’s the sort who’d appreciate it. Then any time you didn’t do exactly what he wanted he could wail, ‘After all I’ve done for you,
this
is my reward!’”

“Oh, be still,” she retorted. “If he hadn’t pretended to believe Texas, I could have been hanged for murder. You don’t think I should have felt any gratitude for that?”

“Certainly not. If he was hoping to take you home as his dearest conquest, why in hell should he want to see you hanged instead?”

“John Ives,” she said, “there are times when I hate you.”

“I know it, and I’d rather have a healthy hate than a lot of sickly meekness.”

“I was not meek and he never expected any such thing. He loved me, John! He saved me then because he loved me.”

John smiled at her with an affectionate amusement. “My dear girl, I’m not denying that he loved you. But I can’t see that an attractive woman owes a man any debt of gratitude because he falls in love with her.” Garnet burst out laughing in spite of herself, and John went on, “Now tell me the rest. You gave Florinda your letter?”

“Yes. It was very plain and simple. I told him I couldn’t marry him, but I hoped with all my heart he would find a woman as good as he deserved. Florinda sat there with me till I’d finished, and she read it. She said, ‘That’s right. I’ll give it to him, and if he feels like talking I’ll listen, and I’ll do my best to make it right with him.’ And oh John, how I loved her for it. You can’t know.”

“Yes I can.” John said quietly. There was a simple respect in the way he spoke. “Florinda has a quality I admire very much. A gentle courtesy, a warm genuine consideration for other people. I haven’t got it, but I know it when I see it.”

There was a short silence. At length Garnet said,

“John, Florinda gave me a pair of emerald earrings. You won’t mind my wearing them, will you?”

“Real emeralds?”

“Oh yes. Why?”

“I hate fake jewelry. But if they’re real, why did you think I’d mind your wearing them?”

“Because you know how Florinda got her jewelry.”

“Why yes. But I also know how she values it, and if she gave you a pair of earrings it must have been because she loved you very much.”

Garnet smiled at him with admiration. “Now I want to ask you something else. Did you mind my working at the bar?”

“I admired your guts. Why did you think I’d mind?”

“My other friends thought it was dreadful.”

“I don’t imagine it was very pleasant. But how else could you have lived?”

“With Charles. Or I could have let Florinda support me. She was willing to.”

John gave a long low contemptuous whistle. Garnet thought, All this time I’ve been trying to tell myself I didn’t know why I loved him so. I love him because I never have to explain anything to him. His head isn’t all befuddled with a lot of make-believe and what-will-people-say. It’s true, what he said to me at Kerridge’s—he’s the only honest man I’ve ever known.

John took her hand in his, smiling. “Garnet, isn’t it great to find out you don’t need anybody?”

She shook her head firmly. “I won’t ever find that out. I don’t want to.”

“You’ve already found it out,” said John.

“I have not. I need you. I don’t need you for the sake of beef and beans—I can earn those for myself as long as there are men to get drunk. But I need you, John.”

“No you don’t,” John said with assurance, and he looked proud to be saying it. “That’s why I’m so happy at the thought of having you. Anything you give me will be absolutely free, because you want to give it, not because you want something back. You’ve got independence of spirit. You won’t have to be told a dozen times a day that you’re wanted and appreciated.”

“I hope not,” she said smiling. “But how do you know I won’t?”

John let go her hand and put his good left arm behind his head, to raise himself a little. He was regarding her with affection and a glint of mischief. He said, “You haven’t even asked me, not once since you’ve been here, if I loved you.”

Garnet set her teeth hard on her lip. Over and over, she had nearly bitten her tongue in half to keep from asking.

“And do you know,” said John, “I believe I do.”

“John!” she cried. She could not say any more. Hearing him speak sent a wave of delight breaking over her and flooding her with ecstasy. John went on,

“I didn’t want to say it. I’m as bashful about saying it as any fool in the moonlight. I hate the word, because as I told you before it’s been so kicked about that it’s worn out, but I suppose there’s no other word to use.”

Garnet slipped to her knees beside the bed. “Don’t stop, John!” she pled breathlessly. “Tell me some more.”

John spoke slowly. “I’ve thought a lot about what it is I feel for you. It’s not just wanting a woman because she’s got an exciting body. I’m used to that. This is different. It’s not merely that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman. It’s
different.
I feel so right when you’re with me and so lost and empty when you’re not.” He shook his head a little, as though the whole thing puzzled him, and asked, “Is that love, Garnet?”

He asked it like a boy asking a question about the big world. She stroked back his crisp dark hair and kissed him where the hair grew into a point on his forehead. “Yes, John,” she said.

“And I can talk to you,” said John. “I never could talk to anybody before. Just talk and talk about anything that comes into my head, with no feeling that you’ll be bored or that you’ll laugh at me.”

“Be bored? Laugh at you? Oh John!”

“Is that love, Garnet?”

“Yes. John, don’t you understand what I’ve tried to tell you?”

“I’m not sure,” said John. “It’s so new and I’m so astonished by it. Maybe it’s everything you said it was. Maybe it’s not. I don’t know. Maybe it will last. Maybe I’ll get over it and wonder what ever possessed me. But right now, right this minute, it’s true. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“That’s enough,” said Garnet. She laid her cheek against his. “That’s all I wanted.”

“It’s not all you wanted. You wanted a lot of stuff about the next forty years.”

“I don’t any more. I told you I’ve decided to live one day at a time.”

“I hope so,” John said, “because that’s the best I can do myself.”

Garnet raised her head so she could look down at his face, the dark skin and green eyes and the harshly cut lines about his mouth. He was watching her with a tender teasing look. “John,” she said, “why have you been so afraid of love? So apart from people?” He looked puzzled, and she asked, “Didn’t anybody ever love you?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t mean the way I love you,” said Garnet. “But there must have been some people who cared about you.”

“Why no,” said John. He shrugged his good shoulder. “I’m afraid that sounds as if I were making a bid for sympathy. I don’t mean to be.”

Garnet had been kneeling by the bed. She moved back a little and sat on the floor, looking at him in a pained astonishment. “Not even your mother and father, John?”

“Oh, I suppose they did. But they died when I was a year old.”

“And then what happened?”

“I told you I was an object of charity,” John returned.

Garnet gave him a long look. She saw the tenseness about his eyes, and the hard set of his mouth; John was remembering, and what he was remembering was not pleasant. “John, my darling,” she exclaimed, “what did they do to you? Did they beat you?”