They walked over in silence to Cowpoke’s Corner. Just three of us who wanted to go, Mimi thought. “Is it so beautiful up there?” she asked.
Chuck poured, out the thick black coffee into three thick mugs, then carefully chose the one without any cracks or chips to give to her.
She thought, at first, that he hadn’t heard her question. Then at last he said, “Sure is.”
There was another silence. “Sure is,” Chuck repeated. “Prettier than the prettiest woman I ever saw.”
“Was that why you never got married, Chuck? No woman ever came up to the standards the mountains set?” She was half joking, but a new idea had taken hold of her mind. She looked through the open door at the mountains. A new kind of competitor, she thought. Well, I’ll take you on.
“Was married twice. Buried both of them,” Chuck said, and rolled a cigarette. “Got two sons and five grand-children,” he added proudly.
“Why—” Mimi looked at him in amazement. “I never thought you had been married, somehow.”
“Guess most men try it once. Bert had a wife over in Laramie, mighty nice woman. He buried her last spring. Ned’s been often as near married as don’t matter. Jim’s wife—well...” He was too busy licking the cigarette paper to finish that sentence.
“Jim?” Then, to save her confusion, she turned to Jackson. “And how many wives have you had, Jackson?” she asked quickly. He had been listening intently to Chuck, smiling when Chuck smiled, as if there were a sense of humour which men alone shared. Now Jackson’s broad face grew broader as his grin widened.
“No wives,” he said triumphantly.
“Guess he travelled around too fast,” Chuck suggested, and struck a match on his thigh. “Got away before they catched him every time.” This sent Jackson into a roar of laughter. “But,” Chuck went on, a smile coming into his eyes suddenly, “he’ll have to step kind of lively when he’s over to Sweetwater for a visit. Wouldn’t surprise me none if Wyoming don’t get her brand on him.”
“You seem to know how to keep him amused,” Mimi said to Chuck, smiling as she listened to Jackson’s deep laugh. Then she remembered the look on Jackson’s face as he had stood beside her at the corral and watched the others ride away. “Jackson,” she asked gently, “why didn’t you go with the boys today?”
Jackson’s dark eyes, under the heavy black eyebrows, said nothing at all.
“Was it because of us—the guests?”
Chuck said tactfully, “He has his reasons.” And that, his voice said, is enough. Don’t go bothering a man with questions and then complain of a truthful answer.
“Do you like it here, then?” Mimi persisted.
“Sure,” Jackson answered.
“Why?” That was a question which she had been asking herself, too, during these last three weeks. Her answer wasn’t altogether Jim Brent: there was something about this place... Perhaps if you loved New York’s skyscrapers you loved mountains. Prender Atherton Jones didn’t like mountains, but he didn’t like skyscrapers either.
But Jackson’s answer was something she had never expected. He looked at her as if deciding whether to speak frankly. Afterwards she was flattered that he had decided to tell her. He said, “In Paris, Rome, London, New York, I am servant. I open door for you. I pour coffee for you, give you cup on tray. Here I sit and drink coffee with you.”
She looked at Chuck. “I see,” she said. “And I agree with you. It makes life easier, somehow.” She tried to imagine a ranch where the cowboys were treated as servants, where men didn’t know their own value or recognise the dignity of others. It was impossible to imagine. It just couldn’t be. “It’s more pleasant for everyone,” she said. She wondered how she could now bring the conversation safely back to Jim Brent, but she had chopped it off and there was no joining it together again. And as she looked at Chuck she knew he wouldn’t talk about Jim and Jim’s wife. That too was what Jackson liked—the way these people measured their distance between people: they knew how far to come, how far not to go, and they expected the same from you. There was, behind their frankness, a line of respect drawn between friendliness and privacy.
She rose. “Thanks for the coffee, Chuck. Hope I wasn’t a nuisance coming up to the corral so early.” She tried to sound diffident, but she had already begun to worry about it. She should never have come to the corral this morning. She knew that now.
“Mighty nice thing to see a smiling face when you set out for the hills,” Chuck said.
And that was typical too, she thought, as she walked slowly towards Rest and be Thankful. There were a lot of answers Chuck could have given, and he had chosen the kindest. He knew why she was depressed, and he wasn’t going to add to her unhappiness.
He knew. Did everyone know? And she thought she had kept it secret. So that she wouldn’t look a fool if she didn’t win.
She halted, standing in the bright sunshine, frowning away her unexpected tears as she looked at the silent house sheltering behind the tall cottonwood-trees. What had happened to her, anyway? Something begun in fun, in a desire for conquest— something that had turned savagely earnest, bitterly real. Yes, people said, you know when it’s love, you know: there’s no mistaking the real thing. She had thought they lied. She had thought she had been in love, often. There were some men she had wanted to see; she had been happy when they admired her, sought her out, made love to her. For two months, or three— and once for almost five—she would persuade herself that this was what people must mean when they talked about love. This was all there was to it... And men, after a while, were all very much the same. They were the same, of a sameness that only was made different by the difference in their looks, by the colour of eyes and hair or the set of a chin or a tone of voice. And then...barely three weeks ago... Jim Brent hadn’t sought her out, he hadn’t made love to her, he hadn’t given her attention or presents or even an admiring look. Well, perhaps he had given her an admiring look, but only as he’d give any pretty girl an admiring look. Yet, when he walked towards her, or stood watching her as she talked, or looked at her with that half-smile in his eyes; when he rode beside her, or rode away from her as he had done this morning—well, she knew now. She couldn’t explain it. She just knew. And she couldn’t do anything about it. People had been right, and she had been wrong: there’s no mistaking the real thing.
She began to walk slowly towards Crazy Creek, avoiding the path through the yard where Mrs. Gunn would see her and welcome her in for a cup of coffee. Mrs. Gunn was too quick to notice...
Mimi reached the creek, by way of the field at the side of the garden, and followed its twisting bank. Her feet were soaked with the heavy dew clinging to each blade of thick green grass. It was cold in the hard black shadows of the trees. She was so unhappy that she was afraid. I’m in love, she thought, and I didn’t want it this way. I wanted it the simple, easy, happy way. Instead I don’t know even if he likes me. Yes, I do... He does like me. A little? Much? More than I think? He doesn’t dislike me... Then why doesn’t he fall in love with me? Why did this happen to me? This way? I’m in love for the first time in my life and I’ve never been so unhappy. Never, never. I’ve never been so confused and bewildered and afraid. I hate love. I hate it, hate it, hate it. “I hate it!” she said aloud.
“That sounds a bad way to begin a morning.” It was Robert O’Farlan’s voice. She looked round angrily. Her eyes searched the garden, the trees. Then she saw him. He was standing on the rough stones in the creek’s bed, where its waters had gradually receded with summer. The chokecherry bushes had hidden him, but he must have been there ever since she had left the field and reached the garden.
“Better come down here,” he said. “These stones are drier than the grass. You might as well have waded up the creek as through that dew.”
She glanced down at her sodden boots. “Oh,” she said, “it doesn’t matter.” But she scrambled down the short bank, through the chokecherry bushes laden with their rich clusters of bright red berries, and h
e gave her a hand and steadied her.
“Well, what do you see down here?” she asked, in control of herself once more. She looked round, smiled up at him, and shrugged her shoulders. “Do you make a habit of this?”
“It’s one way to spend the hour before breakfast,” he said. “I seem to waken at six whether I want to or not.” The sunlight broke through the leaves overhead, dappling the water and the stones. The wily trout was hiding in the shadows of a pool. He had meant to point out these things to Mimi, but now he didn’t want to. The robins had flown, anyway, as she came down the bank. There was only a bold magpie left, staring at them curiously, angrily.
“You shouldn’t be looking worried,” Mimi said. “Now that you’ve got your book finished you’ve got what you wanted.”
He looked startled, tried to smile and failed. “Have I?” he asked. “Mimi, you look cold and peaked. We’ll go up to Ma Gunn’s kitchen and get a cup of coffee.”
“I feel more like a walk,” she said. “Will you come with me? I need someone to talk to.”
“What’s wrong?”
She looked at him quickly. He was studying her face. It was a habit he had when he thought she wasn’t looking. It had amused her secretly. But now it didn’t. Here was another man who could fall in love with her if she planned it that way. Now it only reminded her of a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t...
“Me,” she said bitterly. “I’m all wrong. Have you ever felt all wrong?”
“Constantly. Haven’t you?”
She was surprised, both by his answer and by his question. She had never felt all wrong before—never.
“You should be happy,” she said. “You’ve written a book. And you’ve a job. Which is more than Earl Grubbock has.”
“That’s his own choice. He doesn’t want a steady job. He says he likes to be free to change,” O’Farlan reminded her.
“Well, you’ve a job that you like. Karl hasn’t.”
“No one is forcing him to write advertising copy. And his boss can’t be as bad as Koffing says he is, not if Koffing got a month’s vacation in order to finish his book.”
“I suppose so.” Mimi had been grateful enough to the publishing firm she worked for, when they agreed to an extra week’s vacation without pay so that she might come down here. Carla was lucky in having her funny little bookstore, down in the Village, closed for the hot weeks of August. And Bob O’Farlan, being a schoolteacher, had the summer to himself entirely. He didn’t know how lucky he was. “Well, if that doesn’t cheer you up you’ve got a wife and children. That’s what most men want, isn’t it? A steady job, a wife, and children.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice flat and non-committal.
Mimi looked at him. He liked teaching, she knew.
They climbed along the dry edge of the creek until they came to the bridge. There they scrambled up the bank to the road. They walked in the direction of Snaggletooth.
“Bob,” she said unexpectedly, “why didn’t your wife come out here?” She had never thought that important before; this morning, somehow, it was.
“Jenny?” He was startled for a moment. “Oh, she couldn’t. She’s got the children.”
But they were quite old: fifteen or something. Mimi said, “That may have been an excuse. Perhaps she thought she’d be too alone; after all, when you work you don’t think of very much else. Do you always write this way?”
“When I get the time to write.” He was half angry now.
“I know it’s difficult. I’ve a job too, you know, to eat up my days.”
“And very few free evenings, I’d imagine,” he said coldly.
“You think I’ll never write anything?” She looked at him in surprise. She had a way of asking questions, her eyes wide, her lips ready to smile, as if she hoped the answer would be a kind one. It was hard to disappoint her, he found. His anger left him.
He smiled. “No one is going to write the book for you, Mimi. Why worry about it, anyway? You may as well enjoy your life and keep happy. That may be more important than writing a book.”
“But I want to write.”
He didn’t answer.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said. “I’ve no self-discipline. Well, I can have it if I want to. How do you think I keep my figure like this, anyway? And I have experienced life, and I have imagination, and I have—why, what are you thinking? I wasn’t trying to boast. Is there anything wrong in listing your assets to cheer yourself up a bit?”
He shook his head. Experienced life, she had said. She had always got what she wanted. That wasn’t the kind of experience she needed, not if she wanted to write. But he couldn’t tell her that.
“This is one of my favourite views,” he said, as they climbed the hilly road. He stopped to look at the mountains, rising in uneven rows beyond the green valley. “I think I see the boys,” he said suddenly, and pointed. “Up there! On the shoulder of that second hill above Branch Creek.”
Mimi didn’t look. “Let’s go back,” she said. “I’m cold.”
They said nothing as they walked quickly down the road, but at the bridge she spoke again. “What do you mean by self-discipline? Worries and troubles? Well, I’ve had them. Or disappointments? I’ve had them too.”
“But never very real ones, never very deep ones. You’ve been luckier than most, Mimi.”
“You sound as if you envied me,” she said, in surprise. “I thought you—well, I just thought, that’s all.”
“That I was middle-aged, and thoroughly satisfied, and set in my ways? That I never wanted to turn the clock back twenty years and begin again?”
“But if you wanted that you could.”
“Only if others wanted it too—all the others who are part of my life as I am a part of theirs. But I am not a free agent. No man is.”
“You mean that to keep these others happy you’d be willing to be unhappy?”
“Not willing,” he admitted. “But it’s got to be done. That’s all.”
Mimi thought suddenly, we are talking about his family, about his wife. She tried to choose her next words carefully, to keep everything as impersonal as possible. “Won’t they feel your unwillingness? Won’t that make them as unhappy as you will be? So what good is your sacrifice?”
He said sharply, “I’ve been thinking that out for months.” But not exactly in that way, he reminded himself.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to get you to cheer me up. And all I’ve done is stir up your troubles.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got accustomed to them in the last ten years.” He disliked himself for that remark the moment it was made. And perhaps I helped to earn my disappointments, he thought. It was a new idea. He didn’t like it. But it stuck with him.
“I think we both need coffee,” Mimi said, leading the way into the house. They went through the hall towards the kitchen. Carla was already there, for they could hear her voice as they approached its door. “...haunted by her. A man can easily get rid of a woman.” Mrs. Gunn said, “Can he?” in that dry way of hers, and Carla said, “At least, you’d...”
But Mimi had moved away from the kitchen door. She looked down at her boots. “I suppose I’d better change them first,” she said.
“A good idea,” O’Farlan said quickly.
She looked back, when she was nearly at the top of the staircase. He was still standing in the hall, watching her.
She went into her room and sat down on the edge of her unmade bed. Everyone knew. O’Farlan and Mrs. Gunn and Carla, Chuck and Koffing and Grubbock. Once she would have been scornful. Let them talk, she would have said, and she’d have laughed. But now she covered her face with her hands and pressed her cold fingers against the cheeks that were suddenly on fire. Some men might be flattered or amused to have a pretty girl so much interested in them that others could notice. But he wouldn’t be either flattered or amused. He’d be as mad as hell. If I don’t win him, she thought suddenly, it won’t be anything or anyone else that beats me—it won’t be t
he mountains or any other woman. It will be just Mimi Bassinbrook, as I’ve made her.
* * *
Carla Brightjoy had tidied her room, made her bed, and found she was still half an hour early for breakfast. So she went downstairs into the kitchen, as she often did in the mornings, to get an early cup of coffee and help with the orange-juice. Now that Drene had gone Mrs. Gunn needed some extra help.
She needed it especially this morning. Norah, who looked as if she had been crying, was avoiding the kitchen. And Mrs. Gunn, as she mixed the dough for sweet rolls, looked as if she had been making someone cry.
“Come in, come in,” she said, when she turned round to see Carla hesitating at the door. “Help yourself to coffee. I won’t bite your head off.”
Carla drank the cup of coffee without saying anything.
“You’re very silent this morning,” Mrs. Gunn said, looking up suddenly from her work. She smiled. “I’m not angry with anyone. I’m just worried.”
Carla abandoned her silence gladly. “Norah?” she asked.
“Earl Grubbock,” Mrs. Gunn corrected her. “Caught him standing out in the yard this morning, with slickers over his arm, throwing pebbles up at Norah’s window to get her out of bed. She was out of it, too, standing at the window, waving to him.”
“That seems harmless enough.”
“But where’s it going to lead to? He will be leaving in little over a week. She’ll never see him again.”
“Yes, we’ll all be leaving,” Carla said gloomily. She looked round the friendly kitchen and thought of her bare little room in Greenwich Village. Once she had thought it romantic. “I suppose it was my own fault that I was lonely in New York,” she said. “I used to see plenty of people each day; but if I talked to a customer at all it was always about some book. That’s why I chose the job, of course: I thought books would be the right kind of work for me to do. And I thought if I stayed at home each night and read and wrote, then I’d be a writer. Then I wondered why I got rejection slips. Saying ‘Promising. Regrets.’ And some just said ‘Regrets.’ That as far as I got.”