Young Mr. Keefe (7 page)

Dizzily, though, he continued to look down. With the nerve, with the right persuasion, he thought, he would go down himself. He would tumble his troubled frame down, and the rocks would spring up to catch him, to cradle him …

As though she sensed his thoughts, Claire said amicably, “Death wish?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Will you jump with me?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.”

“All right.”

She laughed at him, and reached for his hand. In the effort, suddenly she slipped and fell face forward across the rocks. She screamed and clutched at a stone. It came loose and she slipped farther. He went to his hands and knees, tried to reach her, and lost his own footing. Then they were both motionless. A clatter of stones loosened, fell, and echoed below them. “Don't move,” he said. “For Christ's sake, don't move!”

“I can't!” she sobbed.

“If I move, I'll slip on top of you, and we'll both go down. Don't move until I think of something.”

“Oh, God!” said Claire.

He tried to steady himself, and when he thought he had, he tried to reach down to her again. Blazer was far ahead, out of sight.

With his fingers, he groped for her hand. “Don't touch me!” she screamed sharply. “Don't touch me!”

“Let me try to get your pack off.”

“Don't touch me!” And suddenly she said, “I'll get out of this myself, without your help. You only want to make me grateful!”

Stung, he drew back his hand. “All right,” he said. Slowly, he inched himself forward, placed his knee against a rock, and stood up. He stood, looking down at her, watching her as she crawled painfully up. Tears streamed down her face. She had cut her chin, and the tears mingled with blood. He watched as she slid upward across the shale until her toe found a firm place. Then she stood up.

“I'm sorry,” Jimmy said quietly.

Her face was still white. She laughed shakily. “Blazer would never forgive me,” she said, “if I couldn't make it up this little mountain by myself.” She reached in her pocket and removed a handkerchief. She dabbed at her chin. “Just a scratch,” she said.

They went on in silence, and after a while, the worst of it was over, and they reached a high level stretch where Blazer was sitting cross-legged, waiting for them. The westward side of the mountain sloped off gently. They started down, and suddenly there was a low clump of trees, and, in a hollow, a spring that bubbled out of nowhere into a pool. They walked to the edge of the pool, turning the rocks over carefully with their toes.

“This is a large arrowhead,” Blazer said, kicking over a stone.

“A particularly large arrowhead,” Jimmy said.

“Probably a deadly weapon.”

“A blunt instrument, anyway,” Claire said.

“And look at this curious fossilized dingbat,” Blazer said. “Centuries ago, it lived and walked among us.”

“Well, not
us
,” Claire said.

“And here is a relic of the Pleistocene Age …”

Tadpoles darted from the edges of the pool where they stepped.

“How do they
get
here?” Claire asked. “Such nice big fat ones, too!”

“They're disgusting,” Blazer said.

“Yes,” Claire said, “but don't forget they turn into butterflies.”

“No, they turn into swans,” said Blazer.

“No,” Jimmy said, “they turn into frogs that turn into princes. I read it somewhere.”

There was another short rise to climb before the whole panorama of the western slope came into view. The lake, and Nevada, had passed behind the ridge. They were looking across a greener, softer expanse into California. There was a small lake below them, rimmed with small firs. “Look,” Blazer said, “that's where we'll camp!”

“We can swim with no clothes on,” Claire said. “We can skinny-dip!”

“Let's go.” Blazer looked at her. “How'd you cut your chin?” he asked.

“A branch snapped in my face,” Claire said casually.

Going down from there was mostly running and leaping from stone to stone, and half falling, slipping, and sliding. At times, they lost sight of the lake, and then again they would see it, correct their course, and head for it again. Although it was past noon, the sun was still on the morning side of the mountain, and they were in the mountain's dark brown shadow. Soon they were among sequoias and pines and thick patches of sweet fern, stepping and climbing over fallen trees that resembled giant graves. They came unexpectedly to a clearing in the trees where the grass was thick and tall and green and spattered with buttercups. Claire flopped on her stomach in the grass. “I've wanted to do this all day,” she said.

“All of a sudden, it's hot,” Jimmy said. He unbuttoned his shirt and let his shirt-tails hang loose.

“But, oh, God, what a lovely day!” Claire said. “Does anybody feel like gambolling? Let's gambol on the greensward.”

For a while, they gambolled. They played hide-and-seek for a minute or two, but there were no good places to hide. They played run, sheep, run. They chased each other until Claire said, “Oh, dear, I'm getting a headache. Let's stop now.” They took off their shoes and sat in the grass and dug their bare toes into the moist earth. They sang songs and tried to remember good rhymes. “On the top of the mountain,” Claire said, “I remembered Edna St. Vincent Millay—‘The world stands out on either side, no wider than the heart is wide.' Isn't that the loveliest thought? She was nineteen when she wrote that.” Claire produced some sandwiches from her knapsack. Later, Claire said, “Let's climb trees,” and they did. When Claire reached the outermost branch of her tree, she hung on, swaying fantastically, and called, “I'm never coming down! No, no, never-nonnie-nay!”

Then, since it was getting late, they picked up their packs again, and went on through the last remaining stretch of woods. Presently they reached the lake.

“This makes it worth all the trouble,” Claire said. “It's not real—it's a Maxfield Parrish painting.”

And it was. Even though it had formed itself in a hollow of the mountains, there was a long strip of sand along its shore, and another section where the shore was cragged with rocks and boulders that stretched like huge stepping-stones into the water.

They took off their packs and sat down, looking at it. Fish plopped quietly out of the water for flies, and, except for this noise, it was remarkably silent. The slanting sunlight came through the trees and struck every ripple. The branches of the spruces and hemlocks swayed, and a few birds called. Nothing else. Blazer started working on the camp-fire.

“Collect small sticks,” he said.

They did this, and when they returned with them and heaped them on the fire, it burned well, throwing a deep, pungent, piny smoke into the air. Jimmy took the axe and began cutting pine boughs for their beds. “Don't take too many branches off a single tree,” Claire said. “We mustn't spoil the beauty of it here.”

“How shall we arrange the beds?” Blazer asked. “It would be easier to make one big bed than three little ones.”

They considered this for a moment. “Well,” Claire said, “I think it would be better to make a big one for you and me, and a smaller one for Jimmy.”

“All right.”

Claire started unpacking the knapsacks. “What's this?” she said, holding up the large Thermos bottle. “This isn't ours.”

“I told you last night,” Jimmy said. “That's my contribution to the larder.”

Claire opened it and sniffed the contents. “You were serious!” she said. “You
did
bring martinis! I thought you were only joking. How degenerate! Imagine bringing martinis on a camping trip!”

“Why, I think they might go well,” Jimmy said.

“Well, I'll have one,” Claire said, lifting the bottle to her lips. “Just to show you I'm a good sport.” She passed the Thermos to Blazer. “Cocktail hour, darling,” she said.

“I've never felt less like a martini,” Blazer said. “But what the hell.”

Later, Claire said, “It's only six o'clock, but it's beginning to get dark.” She lay on her back on the bed of pine needles with her drink, in a paper cup, resting on her stomach. “I guess if you live between two mountains, you only have about a seven-hour day. We'd better do something about eating.”

She stood up and began opening cans. Blazer and Jimmy stretched the sleeping-bags across the pine beds. “Now, one thing about selling,” Blazer was saying, “is that you've got to be so God-damned nice to so many God-damned bastards, all day long. You know, whether you like them or not. That was what used to gripe me when I first took this job. You know why I really took it? Because of the travel. There's a hell of a lot of travelling connected with it. Not just up and down the state of California—but, hell, I may go to Honolulu in a month or two. And I may go to Manila. Well, everything has its compensations, I guess. I used to think I'd like to be a lawyer. But a lawyer stays pretty much in the same place.”

Claire returned with a dipperful of water from the lake. “Are you. talking about
business
?” she said. “How can you—out here in the wilderness?” She put the pan of water on the fire. “I hope this water is pure,” she said. “It has a funny smell. It might be safer to cook with martinis.” She filled her paper cup from the Thermos.

“Of course it's pure,” Blazer said.

“It tastes like pine needles.”

“That's a good taste.”

“The martinis are beginning to taste like pine needles,” Jimmy said.

When it was dark, they sat in a circle around the fire and ate corned beef hash. When they finished, they tossed their paper plates into the fire and watched them burn. The moon was coming up, filtering through the trees, shining on the lake. “Let the still moon sleep on the lake,” Jimmy said. “Does anyone know who said that?”

“I do,” Claire said. “William Blake.”

“Yes.”

“Let's find a tree and lean against it,” Claire said. “I'm deliciously, marvellously drunk.” She looked up at the sky. “I three see moons,” she said, and laughed. “Let's tell ghost stories.” They found a tree and sat around it, but it was soon uncomfortable. They went back to the edge of the fire and sat on the ground, back to back, and leaned against each other.

“No ghost stories? Then I'll begin the story of my life,” Claire said.

The fish jumped still, and there were a few night birds here and there, but all sounds were either very close or far away. “I like college week-ends,” Claire began. “And I like week-ends like this, deliriously. I like doing nothing at all. I like boys who wear dirty old scuffed-up white buck shoes in college towns, and polo coats. I used to like fraternity parties hopelessly, but now I'm jaded. They bore me. I like people—nice, silly people, who do silly things in silly places. You have to know all this before you understand the story of my life,” she said parenthetically. Her voice trailed off. “But I realize,” she said sadly, “that I am one of the silliest people who does the silliest things in some of the most ridiculous places, like the Biltmore.”

“Well, you're also one of the nicest,” Jimmy said.

“Ah—do you think so?”

“Sentimental,” Blazer said. “You and Claire are just alike. You think everybody should be nice and warm and wonderful and funny and amusing. And when you find out they're not, you can't take it. You act all hurt and bewildered.”

“I have my serious side,” Claire said. “Do you know something that worries me? Look at us! We're not people who have fought the wars. When the First World War was fought, we weren't even born. When the Second World War was fought, we were children. When the Korean War was fought, we were going to football week-ends at Yale and both of you were marching around campus in the R.O.T.C. It's all kind of an illusion with us, isn't it? Anzio Beachhead, Heartbreak Ridge … they're just quaint romantic names. They have no real, personal meaning to us. We weren't there—we weren't even
aware
! We've contributed nothing. We're a generation that feels the world owes us a living, just because we're attractive.”

“Now, that
is
a serious thought!” Blazer said.

“Of course. We've never been tested. If we were given a challenge, how do we know we'd stand up! The biggest challenge we've ever had is—well, it's climbing a mountain.”

“But don't worry.” Blazer said, “we'll have wars to fight before we're through.”

“I think we hope so, don't we? We really hope so, so that we'll have a chance to prove ourselves.”

They were silent, thinking about this.

“And then,” Claire said, “of course we're idlers. We work, but only because we feel we should. It's expected of us. We like to think of ourselves as staunch New Englanders, with lots of Puritan spirit. But we're just living on money that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers made. Blazer and I—we don't live on Blazer's salary. The little dividend cheques come in every three months … we're just spending money somebody else had to work to make. We won't make any fortunes of our own. Our children, or our grandchildren, will have to start all over again. There won't be any left for them.”

“Claire feels guilty because her old man's got millions,” Blazer said.

“I do. Why should I feel proud? I didn't do anything to make them.”

“Well, neither did he. All he did was vote the Republican ticket.”

“Still, we're living, on the fruits of somebody else's work, someone we don't even understand. Jimmy, am I making any sense?”

“I know what Claire means,” he said.

“In California, the fortunes are being made now. Here. To-day.”

“But who wants California?” Blazer asked.

“I know …”