“Time doesn’t matter when you fall in love,” Sally said, and her cheeks coloured slightly.
“What about Drene?”
“I can’t guess about her.”
“No one can,” Mrs. Peel agreed. “Would that be one of her attractions for Dewey?”
“Could be. And she’s a study in contrasts. She looks the most helpless piece of decoration, and yet she arrived here, complete with horse and dog, all the way from Arizona. That takes sense and courage.”
“I’ve always admired her secretly for that,” Mrs. Peel admitted. “Not one of us women here could have done it.” She shook her head in defeat. “I’ve tried to imagine myself travelling from Arizona to Wyoming with Golden Boy in a trailer.”
“With sacks full of carrots?”
Mrs. Peel laughed. “Well, they do get results. He comes now when I call his name. He doesn’t need to be lassoed.”
“Roped, darling. Don’t use lasso in Wyoming any more than you’d tuck your trousers inside the legs of your boots or wear a diamond clip on your bathing-suit. Well, I’ll have to rush... Dewey and Drene have made me later than ever.”
“Couldn’t you telephone to Sweetwater and get the obliging Milton Jerks to deliver?”
“I would. Except there are colours to be matched, and stripes just so broad and no broader. Not to mention rodeo ties—these little sawed-off things that look like rabbits’ ears when they are knotted.”
“What gave our guests that idea?”
“I assure you I didn’t. Goodbye, darling. See you at dinner. In a bad temper, no doubt.”
“I wish Jackson could go with you.”
“He’s too busy nowadays. Don’t worry. I’ll manage.”
Sally left Mrs. Peel, watching the neat figure in its trim jeans and shirt, remembering the clear eyes and the bright skin and the lithe movements, shook her head in amazement. Three months ago Sally couldn’t have driven down that appalling road to Sweetwater. And now... Well, we all changed. But as for Dewey Schmetterling—that was something Mrs. Peel couldn’t believe. Yet Drene...my gracious silence.
Mrs. Peel rose suddenly, and went into the living-room.
Drene was there, as Mrs. Peel had hoped.
She was dressed now in a plain shirt and blue jeans. She wore red bows on her braids and sneakers on her neat little feet. She was holding a duster as if, to quote Mrs. Gunn, it would bite her. She gave each piece of furniture a gentle flick and a non-seeing look. There was grace in every movement.
She half turned as Mrs. Peel entered the room, and she smiled, tilting her head slightly to the side, holding it there as her large blue eyes (violet-blue, gentian-blue, deep, deep blue) widened for a moment and the long eyelashes flickered in recognition.
“I left a magazine here by mistake,” Mrs. Peel said, quite unnecessarily.
Drene nodded graciously. Mrs. Peel bent her head over the table.
When Mrs. Peel looked up again Drene was standing by the window. She seemed quite unaware that, as she turned her profile to the garden, Mrs. Peel was watching her in admiration. It was the way she held her head that fascinated Mrs. Peel—the perfect line of cheek and jaw and throat. Does she do this often, Mrs. Peel wondered.
“It’s pretty,” Drene said, turning round unexpectedly. “You’ve made it real pretty, Mrs. Peel.”
“Jackson did that. He is very good with flowers.”
Drene smiled and nodded. So I’ve heard, her glorious eyes said. Mrs. Peel could almost hear the word “lupines.”
“He’s very good with horses too, isn’t he?” Mrs. Peel said quickly.
Drene’s perfect eyebrows contracted. “Well...” she said at last, and gave a warm smile which took the edge off her unspoken criticism.
“At least, Jackson likes horses and understands them, doesn’t he? Of course, few people can ride as well as Ned, for instance. He is superb.”
Drene’s face was once more in repose and gave no answer.
“Ned’s appearance helps, I think,” Mrs. Peel went on. “He is just the type we all like to see on horseback, isn’t he? Tall and dark and so very handsome. He is very good at calf-roping, isn’t he? He is going to enter for the Sweetwater rodeo.” Mrs. Peel cut short another “isn’t he?” just in time. But it seemed the only way of forcing an answer. “And I heard you were going to do some—some riding at the rodeo too. We shall all come and see you. I hope you both win.”
Drene lowered the long eyelashes. “Maybe,” she said. Then she lifted her eyes to the green garden once more. She was a thousand miles away. Perhaps she was thinking of Arizona, where the bright cactus flowers grew on the desert and the mountains rose in sunset colours to steal the glory of the evening sky.
“One thing worries me,” Mrs. Peel said gently. “You haven’t been practising enough, Drene. You can’t win unless you practise, can you?”
There was the suspicion of a frown, the slightest shrug of the neat small shoulders. She was still watching the garden.
Mrs. Peel said, “I hear Ned is going to practise tonight just after supper. In the south field. We are all going to cheer him on.” That had been Sally’s idea. Ned needed encouragement. He’d practise hard if people were watching him. Just like any other art, Sally had said: your public kept you encouraged. And so, at breakfast this morning, everyone had agreed to be Ned’s public—everyone except Prender and Dewey, of course. Dewey never came down to breakfast, anyway.
Mrs. Peel hurried on. “You’ll be there too? You’ll have a very appreciative audience. But, of course, you mustn’t take all the limelight away from Ned.” She laughed at her little joke, and Drene smiled. The eyelashes flickered, the head turned towards the garden, and the perfect line was once more achieved.
When Mrs. Peel left the room with an unwanted magazine tucked under her arm Drene had gone back to dusting. She was once more a thousand miles away. Mrs. Peel was tempted for a moment to stop, to say something, to bring her back. But she went through the kitchen on her way to the corral. She was beginning to see what could have led Dewey farther and farther into the quicksands.
“I’ve paid a little visit to the living-room,” she said to Mrs. Gunn. “And we had a little talk.”
“Hope it helps her dusting,” Mrs. Gunn said, and went on kneading an enormous bowl of dough.
“It is very preoccupied,” Mrs. Peel admitted. “Bread-making day? Well, I shan’t spoil it. I’ll go up to the corral to rescue Jackson from Miss Park.”
Mrs. Gunn, left to herself, memorised a new phrase. Preoccupied dusting. Didn’t make too much sense, but it had a fine sound to it. A lick and a promise would have been a better way to describe Drene’s work. And all these things right under her nose that she never even noticed—the full trash-basket, the cluttered ashtray. Why, if they had been a snake they would have bit her! Perhaps all this Mr. Schmetterling business was a mixed blessing for Ned, after all. He was better off without Drene, if only he knew it. If Ned married her he’d be eating store bread and canned vegetables for the rest of his life. But you couldn’t tell a man that when he was in love. When he was in love his brains weren’t in his head.
13
SNAPSHOTS
Mimi Bassinbrook waited until Sally had left for Sweetwater. Then with her straw hat in its well-shaped bullrider’s crush (Robb and Bert had shaped it for her with the help of the horse-trough), she stepped lightly towards the corral. Her red hair was brushed smoothly, with only a casual curl allowed to fall over her brow, and she wore one large bow at the nape of her neck. Carla Brightjoy, Esther Park, and Mrs. Gunn’s niece Norah had all imitated Drene’s two braids, two bows. But Mimi preferred to adapt rather than adopt. She did it most effectively: if there was one thing on which the cow-punchers and the writers, masculine, could agree it was on Mimi. She was, as old Chuck said, a right neat little number. At this moment, with her green bow to match the stripes on her shirt and the colour of her eyes, she was a very neat little number indeed.
In front of the large red barn,
which was strictly Flying Tail territory, unlike the smaller saddle-barn, where Jackson was in charge, there were two trucks. Into each a mare and her colt were being led.
Mimi paused and seemed to consider. Then she crossed over towards them. Bert was there. And her luck was in at last, for there was Jim Brent too. For once she had guessed right.
“Hello, how are you?” he asked.
She suddenly felt as nervous as a girl of sixteen. She smiled. “Fine,” she said. “How are you?” She looked towards the trucks and the colts. “Not so good?” She looked worriedly into his eyes. They were grey. Suited him.
“We’ve had a little bit of trouble,” he admitted.
“So I heard. Are you taking them in to Sweetwater?” This, she decided, was the way a man should look. Not fat, folded, rubber-skinned, sallow. He was carved down to the essentials, physically and mentally. I’m tired of boohaha boys and middle-aged men with a paunch and two ideas to support, she told herself.
“That’s right,” Jim Brent said. “All set, Bert? Let’s get going.”
“Mr. Brent...would you give me a lift into Sweetwater? I’ve some shopping to do, and Sally has already left.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it too easy, riding in the truck.”
She smiled, her teeth white against the well-shaped red lips and tanned skin. She tucked a straying curl behind her ear. “I don’t mind that. Besides, I’d like to talk to you.”
Her frankness brought a smile to his eyes.
“You haven’t talked very much to me, you know,” she said. “Not even when I ask you to go out riding with me in the evenings. You aren’t angry, are you, when I join you then? You know so many interesting trails.”
“I’m not angry,” he said. He was more angry with Sally, who never seemed to have much time for riding nowadays.
Mimi said laughingly, “I’m beginning to think you dislike red hair.”
He held the door of the truck open for her. “If you’re set on coming, climb in.”
“Are you sure I am not being a nuisance?” She was already inside the truck.
Jim Brent looked at Bert, and they exchanged a grin.
“We’ll bear up,” Bert said. He walked over to the truck he was going to drive. He gave old Chuck, who was standing at the barn door, a broad wink as he hoisted himself up. Then he started the engine, and the truck moved evenly and carefully down towards the road.
“It will be a slow ride,” Jim said, watching Bert’s truck intently. “We have to take it fairly easy.”
“Mr. Brent, I do believe you don’t want to give me a lift.” She had a very charming laugh.
“Sure; I’ll be glad to give you a lift,” he said hastily, and he climbed up into the driver’s seat beside her. He looked at her for a moment. She was watching him with a mischievous smile; he found he was smiling too.
“Was that Miss Bassinbrook in the truck?” Esther Park asked, arriving too late.
“Think so...” Chuck answered, and turned to go into the barn. Yep, he was saying to himself, and that’s how it’s done. He shook his head admiringly.
“Chuck—”
“Sorry, Miss Park, I’ve got a sick horse on my hands. Got to go and take his temperature.”
“May I come too? I’ve never seen a sick horse.”
All open-eyed and pretending to be a little girl, and not even with red hair or a good figure to excuse it. That’s how it’s done, he thought again, but not to me. He rolled a cigarette.
“He’s got distemper,” Chuck explained. “You don’t want to go catching distemper, do you, now?” He concentrated on licking the cigarette paper.
“Well, what about you?”
“Had it three times. Can’t catch it no more.” He struck a match on his thumbnail and lit the cigarette. He broke the match in two and threw it into the shallow puddle of water beside the trough.
“Well...” she hesitated, and then, as he turned to go into the barn, she started back to the corral. “See you later,” she called.
Chuck nodded. No doubt. No doubt about that at all. Then he thought of the pretty redhead who had gone driving into Sweetwater with Jim. Had she picked up any wrong ideas about Jim? When she asked so many goddamned questions about him it came only natural to tell her he was the biggest and best rancher in three states. It didn’t hurt no one, Chuck reflected. Or did it? Girls had funny ideas, no sense of humour at all. And their funniest ideas were about ranchers. Got them from books, must be.
Chuck waited for a few moments, just inside the barn doorway, to make sure the black-haired woman had gone. Esther Park. Queer name to give a woman. A queer woman. He went over to the horse-box. “I feel kind of sorry for her,” he told his patient, who looked at him dolefully. “She’s like a stray hound dog. Pat her on the head just once, and you’ve got her on your doorstep each morning for the rest of your life. Yes, I sure feel kind of sorry for her. But not so sorry as I am for you, you sonofabitchn old pony. What did you want to go and get distemper for?”
* * *
“Jackson.”
Jackson’s brows lowered. She was back again.
“Jackson, did you ever have distemper?” Esther Park asked.
Jackson stared at her. He turned away abruptly, and went to open the gate into the corral for the returning riders. I may be dumb, he thought, but not as dumb as that.
* * *
“Mrs. Peel,” Esther Park said, “Jackson has just been inexcusably rude.”
Mrs. Peel glanced across the corral. Jackson looked as if he had decided to leave tomorrow. “Oh dear!” Mrs. Peel said. She wondered if anyone had ever told Esther Park she was the last straw. “Have you seen Dewey Schmetterling?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“He worries me, that’s all. He always seems to be so very much alone these days.” Heaven help me, Mrs. Peel thought. Or is this really me speaking?
“Oh...” Esther Park thought over that one. She lowered her eyes to study the ground. She suddenly smiled and looked up at Mrs. Peel. But Mrs. Peel had fled.
* * *
“Tomorrow is Wednesday,” Earl Grubbock said, as he and Koffing, unsaddling their horses, were carefully watched by Jackson. They didn’t need his help now, except for that business of roping their horses in the corral before they could be saddled. But that would come too with practice. If Jackson had learned they could. They were quite sure about that.
“Tomorrow is Thursday,” said Esther Park. She was standing, they suddenly discovered, at their elbow. Grubbock looked startled, then annoyed. She was always slipping up like that, trying to edge in. Why the hell didn’t she go out riding in the mornings as all the others did? Instead she hung round the corral, waiting for them to return, setting a kind of ambush for them.
“Today is Tuesday,” Grubbock said, without another glance in her direction. “Tomorrow is Wednesday, and Sally’s day in Sweetwater. I’ve a list of things for her to get.”
“Today is Wednesday, and Miss Bly left for Sweetwater an hour ago,” Esther Park insisted.
“Today’s—” Grubbock’s angry voice halted. He looked at Koffing. “What’s today?”
“Damned if I know.” Koffing thought for a moment. “Saturday we went into Sweetwater with Robb and Bert. Sunday we recovered. Monday we went that all-day ride over Snaggletooth. Tuesday—hell, today is Wednesday.”
“Well, what the hell happened to Tuesday?”
“Search me.” Koffing unfastened the cinch, and lifted off the saddle and blanket. He unbuckled the bridle and slipped it free. He carried the harness into the saddle-barn. Then he stood at its door, looked at the dusty corral encircled by its high fence and the hills beyond. The grass was turning yellow now, so that the fields had a golden colour to them. The fir-trees were darker by contrast, and at the edge of the highest mountains there was a band of deep purple as if someone had taken a coloured pencil and emphasised the outline of each peak.
Koffing looked with pride at a forest-covered canyon, biting deep i
nto a mountain slope. I was there, he thought. Just an hour ago, I was there. He felt good about that. A difficult ride, and he had made it in quick time. He still felt the pleasure of the speed with which he and Grubbock had ridden down the mountain-side, over the hills, across the rocky creeks back to Rest and be Thankful. It had been a good ride.
Grubbock was still trying to coax his horse to let the bit drop out of his mouth. “Come on, Brighteyes. Spit it out. That’s the way. Good boy.”
“Got a cigarette?” Koffing asked.
“Lost mine too. These damned pockets...we’ll have to get some of those buttoned jobs that the boys wear—one to each pocket and six to the cuff.”
“Have one of mine,” Esther Park said eagerly. She produced a gold cigarette-case with a flourish.
“Not right now, thanks,” Grubbock said, and elbowed Koffing aside to get into the saddle-barn with his pile of harness. “There you are, Jackson. Didn’t need any help today. We’ll soon be graduating. Magna cum laude.”
Jackson nodded, but he had his own thoughts about that as he looked at the sweating horses. He had better let them cool off a bit before he opened the corral gate to let them get at the trough.
“If you didn’t ride so hard you wouldn’t lose your cigarettes,” Esther Park said, offering Karl Koffing a lighter to match the cigarette-case. “You shouldn’t gallop so much.”
“No? Look, Miss Park, you just ride your way and I’ll ride my way. How’s that?” Koffing was smiling, but his voice had tightened as it did when he was angered.
Grubbock, coming out of the saddle-barn, wondered how she would take that. She didn’t go riding very much these days; and when she did it was at a slow walk with both hands clutching the saddle-horn. She blamed a sacroiliac, but the truth was that the other guests had all developed a sixth sense: whenever she showed up at the corral they formed their groups and rode off quickly. Well, Grubbock thought, she is Mrs. Peel’s headache: we didn’t invite Esther Park here. He picked up his coiling rope from a bench, and said, “How about some roping practice?”
“I’m going down to the house to see if that wandering mailman has got round to delivering our letters and papers. What the hell keeps them so late, anyway?”