Calico Palace (26 page)

She paused a moment and went on.

“Well, you’ll have time to get used to the idea, because here’s what I wanted to tell you. You can’t ride to San Francisco alone. You can go when we go, but we’re not leaving yet. Business is too good. In the meantime, you can’t sleep alone up there in the grove. It’s not safe, ‘Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold,’ said Shakespeare, and he was right as usual. Let’s have the Blackbeards move your wagon down here, close to mine.”

“How thoughtful you are,” said Kendra. “I’ll pay them for their work,” she added hastily. “I’m not asking any favors.”

Marny began to laugh. “Don’t be so quick on the draw, Kendra! I’m not offering you a favor. I was about to ask for one.”

“I’m sorry, Marny.” Kendra tried to steady herself. “What did you want?”

Marny rested an elbow on the bar. “Well dear, I have some problems. Lolo is pregnant. Poor kid, I’ve told her everything I know but maybe she didn’t listen and anyway nothing works all the time. Her Blackbeard—Troy—is quite fond of her, says he’s going to marry her. But cooking in this weather is hard work and I’d like to make things easier for her. I wondered if you’d let me share your meals.”

“Why yes!” Kendra exclaimed gladly. “I haven’t had time to think about meals.”

“Well, I have,” said Marny. “I spoke to Ning about it this morning. We made a plan and we hope you’ll approve. You’re to cook for Ning and Pocket and Hiram as before, and now for me too. That’s four. We’ll pay you a salary.”

“A salary? From my best friends?”

“You don’t owe us anything. We’re making it a straight business proposition. Two ounces of gold a week from each of us, that’s eight ounces together. Agreed?”

Again Kendra felt tears spring into her eyes. Eight ounces of gold a week was a better salary than most men earned in New York or Baltimore, but this was not the reason for her tears. In a low voice she said, “That will be wonderful. I’ll be independent—no burden on anybody.”

“You’ll never be a burden on anybody, Kendra,” Marny said quietly. “Well, that’s settled. Lulu and Lolo will have only the Blackbeards to cook for.”

Kendra had a sudden thought. “But what about Delbert?”

Marny moved away from the bar. She sat on one of the upside down pork tubs that served for chairs at the Calico Palace.

“Kendra, you are not the only one who has had—shall we say—a change of fortune.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying, dear, I too am about to be deserted. Left high and dry on the beach. Thrown away like an old shoe.”

Kendra made a gasping sound of comprehension.

The night she had come here with Pocket, had sat on a bottom-up pork tub, had heard Ellet talking at the bar. The look of Delbert as he listened—ugly, sensual, like the look of those men who had stared at her that first day on the beach in San Francisco.

She said, “The Big Lump?”

“Right,” said Marny.

“When did he tell you this?”

“Last night.”

Kendra was amazed at Marny’s composure. She seemed to be accepting this as she would have accepted a change in the weather. “Is he going alone?” Kendra asked.

“Oh no. It seems he has been dreaming of the Big Lump ever since he heard of it, but he wasn’t convinced it was real. Then at Sutter’s Fort he met three men buying an outfit for an exploring trip. Smart fellows, he says. They’re sure it’s there, somebody is going to find it, why not themselves? Delbert was well supplied with dust, could pay his share and more, so they were glad to have him join the party.”

“Did those men ride in with the others yesterday?”

“Yes. And now they’re ready to set out.”

“But what are you going to do about—” Kendra swept her arm up and around—“all this?”

“We’ll split what we’ve made already, and I’ll carry on here.”

“Do the Blackbeards want to go with him?”

“No, thank heaven. They’re a pair of canny Yankees, they don’t believe in any Big Lump.”

Kendra struck the bar with an angry fist. “How can you be so calm? After all the time you and Delbert have been together—don’t you
care
?”

“Of course I care, Kendra. We worked together in Honolulu, we came together to California. We’ve been partners. I’ve never cheated him out of a penny. Now he’s leaving me in this wild country with this enterprise on my hands, and no warning. I think he’s an absolute rotter.”

“Wouldn’t you like to break his neck?”

“Why yes, but why worry about it?” Still sitting on the pork tub, Marny rested her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin in her slim strong hands. “I suppose he can’t help being the way he is.”

In a wondering voice Kendra asked, “Marny, have you ever been in love?”

“Oh yes, often,” Marny said. “But never really.”

Kendra did not answer. She had nothing to say to this.

Delbert and his new partners rode on to look for the Big Lump. Kendra cooked as before, with Marny sharing the meals. Mrs. Posey talked.

Ted had been gone a week when Hester Larch and Sue Gibson came up to Kendra as she was putting jerked beef into water to soak before being cooked. Hester and Sue had been washing, and carried baskets of damp clothes ready to be hung out to dry. As Kendra looked up Hester spoke.

“We just wanted you to know,” she said, “how sorry we are.”

“Edith Posey told us,” said Sue. “Now dearie, if we can help at all, you say so.”

Kendra tried to speak evenly. “Thank you. But I—I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Naturally,” said Hester. She smiled, pushing some stray locks of hair under her sunbonnet. “And don’t you pay any attention to what anybody says,” she added kindly. “We know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

They meant well. But as she watched them hang their clothes Kendra shivered with rage at Mrs. Posey.

The following Sunday, while Hiram and Pocket were scrubbing their own clothes in the pool and Kendra sat in the shade watching the camp, a young man paused before her to give her a bashful bow and say, “Good morning, ma’am.”

He had a brand new shave and haircut, and his red neck showed a white streak where the hair had been. His shirt was clean and his water-cracked shoes had been brushed, and he stood holding his hat with both hands. Kendra vaguely remembered having seen him around, and as he looked harmless she answered, “Good morning.”

Turning his hat between his hands the stranger began, “Well ma’am, I heard about your—husband, only it seems he wasn’t really your husband, and I thought—my name is Frank Turner and I thought—”

“You thought what?” Kendra almost gasped.

“I thought maybe you and me—don’t get me wrong, ma’am, I mean everything to be all honest and legal—there’s an alcalde down at Sutter’s Fort, he could hitch us up—”

Kendra’s mouth fell open and stayed open. To receive a proposal of marriage from a man she had never spoken to was so astounding that for a moment she thought Frank Turner must have come straight from Marny’s bar. But as she stared up at him he took her silence for leave to go on talking, and he was not drunk. He was merely lonesome, and she was that rarest of treasures in California, an American woman not attached to a man. He said again, he wanted to marry her, all legal and right. Kendra began to shake her head.

“Please ma’am,” Frank Turner begged as she did so, “I’m no loafer nor convict nor anything bad. I worked my way to California on the brig
Rainbow
out of Salem, two years ago. I’ve been living in Monterey, always had an honest job, ask anybody—”

Kendra managed to speak. “No, no—I don’t want to get married!”

“—and I’ve been right lucky at the diggings, ma’am, nearly four hundred ounces already—”

Kendra was standing now. It was all a shock, and yet she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to laugh. If that hat in his hands had been a bouquet he would have looked like a stage yokel calling on his lady-love. She tried to be considerate. “You are very kind, sir—it’s an honor, I’m sure—but I don’t even know you.”

“We could get acquainted easy, ma’am.”

“Thank you, no,” said Kendra.

She had to say it several times before he would accept it. At last she got rid of him, but as he went shambling in disappointment down the strip she looked after him with apprehension. It was not hard to foresee that this was only the first of many such offers she was bound to receive as her story went around. Mrs. Posey, she thought. Damn Mrs. Posey.

M
ARNY WAS RECEIVING OFFERS
too, from men eager to take Delbert’s place in the wagon if not at the faro table, but she too was declining. The Calico Palace was doing well, and for the present Marny was content to sleep alone.

Meanwhile, Kendra found that she was not the only person at Shiny Gulch who had reason to dislike Mrs. Posey. Because of her, Gene Spencer was suffering vast annoyance.

Innocent though he was, Gene’s conscience gnawed at him for the trouble he had caused. And now Mrs. Posey was making it worse. As Marny had refused to discuss Kendra’s affairs, Mrs. Posey was pestering Gene. Mopping the back of his neck, Gene said, “I’ve already talked too much,” and would say no more. But while this disappointed Mrs. Posey it did not quiet her tongue. Up and down the camp she told all she knew and a great deal that she did not know. Now men were applying to Gene for details.

Like Frank Turner, these men had long been distressed by the scarcity of American women. Like Frank, several of them came right over to Kendra and proposed marriage. But unlike Frank, others among them did not want to marry her. What they wanted to know from Gene was, would she be available without marriage? What had really happened between her and that so-called husband?

Before long Gene packed his outfit and rode out of Shiny Gulch. Not to another gold camp; Gene had found that gold camps were not to his liking. He rode back to Sutter’s Fort and his old job at Smith and Brannan’s. Loudly and sincerely he said he wished he had never left it.

Kendra was not sorry to see him go. She liked Gene, but his presence was embarrassing.

As those hot dry weeks went by, Kendra was in no wise happy. But she did have compensations. Her friends liked her, and she was taking care of herself. She got another poke, a buckskin bag Hiram bought for her at the trading post, and every week as it grew heavier she felt a joy at being beholden to nobody. Right now it was a bleak sort of joy, but nonetheless a prideful sort.

Still, nothing eased the way she felt about Ted.

Day after day she tried to think why the remembrance of Ted should bring her such longing for him. She had told him she was through with him and she had meant it, but she kept remembering how delightful it had been to be with him. She despised him for his cowardice but she kept thinking— Oh dear heaven, how I miss him! She resented his having let her live in that dream world, but she could not forget how happy she had been while she lived in it.

She remembered the first time she had seen Ted, the splendid impudence of his gaze, the sense of intimacy that had come to them before they had known each other ten minutes. Was this love at first sight? It must have been.

She told herself— Love at first sight ought to go as fast as it came. Then why doesn’t it? Why is the going so slow? Why so hard? Why does love hurt this way? Why doesn’t it go?

Day after day she repeated to herself—I hate the thought of him.

But instantly the opposite would come—I’d give all the gold in California to have him back. No, I don’t want him back. But I do.

This conflict Marny could not understand. Marny was friendly with all the warmth of her generous heart. But like other people who have never been in love, Marny had no knowledge of that ecstatic and unreasonable pain. She could not see why Kendra felt as if she were being torn in two.

As they sat together in the scorching afternoon, Marny tried to put some sense into Kendra’s head.

“Kendra, you’re sure you’re not pregnant?”

“I’m sure I’m not.”

“Then,” said Marny, “you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“It’s not worry,” said Kendra. “It’s—a battle.”

“Kendra,” Marny said with patient affection, “the world is the same as it was before you met Ted. Nothing is different except that you’re wiser than you used to be.”

Kendra looked out over the gulch. The time now was August. The weather had grown so hot, and the work so hard as the streams narrowed through the rainless summer, that Ning had ordered the men to take a rest every afternoon. Ning and Hiram lay asleep under a tree, and in another shady spot Pocket was sleeping too. Kendra looked back at Marny, and Marny continued,

“When you leave Shiny Gulch you’ll go right back to where you were. The alcalde in San Francisco will annul the marriage. When Alex is transferred back to the States you’ll go along. Nobody there will know. You won’t tell. From the way you’ve described Alex and Eva, I’m sure
they
won’t tell. You’ll meet other men, you’ll marry one of them.”

Kendra shook her head. “I’ll never have the courage to try again.”

Marny smiled. “Kendra, do you know why gambling is such fascinating fun? It’s because, sometimes you lose. If you won every time, gambling would be no more of a thrill than washing your hands. Darling, make another play. This time you might win.”

Kendra pushed her hand up through her hair. Marny sounded so reasonable. —But just now, thought Kendra, I don’t
feel
reasonable.

Marny went to the tent to put the tables in order for the evening. Kendra stayed where she was.

The once green country around Shiny Gulch had turned brown. The grass was brittle, the flowers had dried up, the wild plants that used to vary her dinners were nearly all gone, and the few she could find were so tough and harsh-flavored as to be almost unfit to eat. As Kendra looked around, she saw Pocket beginning to wake up. He yawned, stretched, got to his feet, and began to stroll around as if to limber his muscles before the other two woke and were ready to work again. Pausing to take a drink from the water pail beside the rocker, he caught sight of Kendra. He came over, asking,

“Mind if I sit down, ma’am?”

Pocket had not been to the barber lately, but though his face was nearly hidden behind a wilderness of whiskers this could not hide his likable smile. Kendra smiled back. “I’m glad to have you,” she said.