Calico Palace (76 page)

The city was growing and changing so fast that men who went away for only a few weeks were confused when they came back, and had to ask their way around. The streets were always full of people, and everybody seemed to be always in a hurry. It had become almost a proverb that in San Francisco even lazy people had to move quickly, because if they did not the rushing crowds would push them down and walk over them. As he watched and listened, Hiram drew a long proud breath.

“Say what you please,” he murmured, almost as if talking to himself, “it’s a magnificent town.”

“Yes it is,” said Kendra. “I like being part of it.” She looked down at the surging vitality of the streets, and back at him. “Remember how it was when we left to ride up to Shiny Gulch?—these streets just tracks half grown over with weeds, and here and there a lone human being plodding along?”

Plodding—as she spoke the word, she thought what a strange word it was to use about San Francisco. Hiram was saying,

“Do I remember! And only three years ago. You know that, Kendra, but don’t you still find it hard to believe?”

They talked about the transformation. That shantytown of nine hundred people, and now this brilliant city. Three years.

“You said it right,” Kendra told Hiram. “I know it’s true, but I find it hard to believe. San Francisco is so different now!”

There was a pause. Hiram had turned his eyes away from the plaza and was looking down at her. Over his face came a slow, thoughtful smile. He said, “No more different than you are.”

“Than I am?” she echoed. “Hiram, I know I’ve changed, but—” she made a gesture toward the town—“have I changed this much?”

“Yes,” said Hiram.

“Tell me what you mean.”

He considered, and spoke. “Three years ago, you were a mighty attractive girl. But you were—how shall I say it?—
unfinished.
You were like San Francisco, just the beginning of what you were going to become. I don’t mean you’re complete now. Any more than San Francisco is complete. But the difference between what you were then and what you are now, is the same sort of difference. You are both showing what you really are. And you’re both more exciting than you used to be. Oh damn, now I’m getting sentimental. I’d better go to Marny’s parlor and take one of those free drinks.”

Down came the veil between them, again. Before he had finished his last sentence Hiram was holding the door open for her to go through ahead of him.

They both turned indoors.

In the hall the sounds of the plaza gave way to the clinks and clicks and music of indoors. From one of the private card rooms came a burst of laughter. Kendra heard the voices of two persons, male and female. She guessed that they were not playing cards.

The door to the next room stood open, and the room was empty. Hiram glanced in. “Whoever played here last,” he remarked, “lost some cards.”

Kendra saw several cards on the floor. “Marny has plenty of fresh packs,” she answered.

She glanced at Hiram as she spoke. He was looking down at her. They had both paused by the door. For a moment they stood there, looking at each other. Then all of a sudden Hiram said, “You beautiful darling,” and Kendra found herself in his arms.

They had a moment. But it was only a moment. There was a sound of footsteps. Somebody was approaching.

Kendra pushed herself out of his arms and slipped into the empty card room. The door swung behind her; she did not look to see if it had closed or not. She crossed the room and stood by the window, aware of nothing but her new certainty.

—He does love me. And I love him. This is
it.
This is love. I never felt like this about any other man. It’s different because I’m different. What Hiram said is true.

She heard the door bang. Of course, the door would bang. Hiram could not come into any room without banging the door. Pocket could, and usually did, move so quietly that you had to see him before you knew he was there. But not Hiram. He made noise like an army.

She turned from the window. Hiram stood by the closed door, facing her. He spoke.

“There now, I’ve done it. Now you know I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since—I don’t know since when.”

Kendra remembered Loren. She exclaimed, “Don’t tell me since we were on the
Cynthia
!”

“Of course not. You were a pretty girl then, no more. That’s what I’ve just been telling you. And not since we rode up to Shiny Gulch, either. I don’t know when it began. All I know is, I’m in love with you now. Am I a fool?”

“No!” she returned quickly. “You are not a fool. I love you too.”

“Then—” he began, and stopped, tongue-tied with that same strange, baffling shyness. He stood, literally, with his back to the wall, and he looked as if he felt that way too.

They stood looking at each other across the card table. “Hiram,” she pled, “
what
is it you’ve been trying to tell me?”

Hiram pulled out a chair and slumped into it. He crossed his arms on the table and dropped his head upon them. His thick rust-colored hair tumbled all about.

A hard silence lay in the room. Neither of them ever knew how long a silence it was. But at last, Hiram raised his head and looked at her. He spoke, almost timidly.

“Kendra—you said you loved me back.”

She went around the table to him. Standing beside him, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Yes, Hiram, I do.”

He looked up, into her eyes. “Does that mean—” he smiled, like a little boy “—for always? Marriage?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

But he was still timid. “Even—even if I don’t belong to the club?”

“What club, Hiram?”

“The one I told you about. The most exclusive club in the world. The people who can take the wind as God sends it. You belong. I don’t.”

Her hand tightened on his shoulder. “Hiram, Hiram my dear,
what
are you trying to say?”

“I suppose,” he answered harshly, “I’m trying to say I’m the biggest coward this side of the Rocky Mountains.”

She waited. This was a time for her to say nothing.

Again there was a silence, and again it seemed a long silence. Kendra stood with her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her, and she wondered what he had to tell her. He looked so strong, he had seemed so sure of himself, but now he was not. Now he was frightened of something, something that he knew and she did not. At last he said,

“Sit down over there. I’ve got to tell you. I’ll tell you.”

She obeyed him. She went around to the other side of the table and sat down. Looking straight at her over his crossed arms, Hiram asked,

“Kendra, what do you know about me?”

She thought before she answered. “I don’t know much about what you left behind you,” she said at length. “I mean, what you did before you shipped on the
Cynthia.
You said you were a minister’s son and you grew up in New York State.”

“That’s not much, is it?” said Hiram. “Haven’t you ever wished you knew more?”

She had, but she spoke of what she did know. “Hiram, it’s been said a thousand times that all of us who came to California before the gold rush had some mighty good reason for leaving home. I don’t know what yours was. But I do know this. You’re the finest man I ever met. Whatever your reason was, I know it wasn’t anything low or mean or dishonorable.”

He was listening with eager intentness. Kendra smiled at him.

“I’m a lot wiser now, Hiram, than I was when I made a romantic hero out of Ted Parks. You’re another sort of man. You’re not a man who acts without thinking and then runs away. You’re not a halfway person.”

Almost breathlessly he said, “Thank you, Kendra. Thank you, my darling.”

“Now,” she asked, “whatever it is you’ve got to say, can’t you say it?”

Hiram drew a deep breath. On the table before him his big hard hands doubled into fists. “Kendra,” he blurted, “I don’t know who I am.”

Startled and perplexed, she did not answer at once. When she did answer, all she could say was, “What are you talking about?”

“Just that,” he retorted. His voice was rough, almost angry. Now that he was saying it, his words poured out in a torrent. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what my name is, where I came from, what I inherited, what sort of children I’d give you. Don’t you understand, for God’s sake? I don’t know who I am.”

“No,” she exclaimed, “I don’t understand.”

Hiram’s chin dropped to his chest. He rested his forehead on one hand and the fingers pushed up through his shaggy hair. “All right,” he said in a muffled voice. “I knew if I ever managed to tell you this I’d do it badly. I’ll say it as plainly as I can.”

She murmured, foolishly, “You said you were a minister’s son—”

Hiram jerked up his head and interrupted her. “I’m nobody’s son. They found me in a garbage can.”

He drew another deep hard breath. Kendra waited. After a while he went on.

“The church stood under some trees, a little way back from the highway that led up from New York City. At intervals the women of the congregation used to come in and give the place a house-cleaning. They would sweep and dust and polish and wash the windows, all that sort of thing. Afterward their husbands would join them and they would have supper in the social hall. The rubbish from the cleaning, and the leftover scraps of food, went into a garbage can that stood outside. The next morning the janitor would carry it to the town dump. Well, one morning after a cleaning party, on top of the trash in the garbage can the janitor found a newborn child.”

Hiram stopped. While he talked he had not been looking at her. He had been looking down at his big strong hands. It was a way he had, looking at his hands when he was confronted with a situation before which his own strength was no good. It was as if he was reproaching his hands for being useless. Now as he stopped talking he still did not raise his eyes.

Kendra kept quiet. She felt sure he had more to tell her and did not want to be interrupted till he was ready for an answer. She was right; after a moment or two he went on.

“That child was me. I was whimpering, so the janitor knew I was alive. If he had come by a little later I suppose I would have been dead. Poor fellow, he was shocked half out of his wits. He ran to the minister’s home and gasped out news of what he had found. The minister and his wife—Mr. and Mrs. Boyd—came and saw me. They carried me home and took care of me.”

Hiram gave his head a slow shake.

“They tried to find out who had put me there, but they couldn’t. In a small town where everybody knew everybody else, nobody knew anything about this. I had been brought there from somewhere else. In the night somebody had passed along the highway, with a child nobody wanted. Whoever that somebody was, he caught sight of the garbage can beside the church. Of course the church would be empty that time of night. A good chance to throw away the child and go on without being seen.”

Hiram stopped again, and drew another hard breath before he spoke again.

“The Boyds were kindly people. They kept me and gave me their name and let me grow up with their own children. I’m grateful for all they did for me. As long as I’m alive they won’t want for anything.”

There was another break. Hiram sat as if gathering strength to go on talking about the hurt that for so long had been festering within him.

“They were kind. But—children aren’t kind. Children are hideously cruel. They don’t know it. They don’t know they’re being cruel when they catch bugs and pull off the wings. I had been found in a garbage can. Everybody in town knew this. When I went to school the other boys taunted me with it. ‘Hiram’s a piece of trash! They found Hiram in a garbage can!’”

He smiled bitterly.

“Pretty soon, I learned. As I grew bigger, I grew bigger than most of them. I beat them up. That kept them quiet, but they never forgot it and neither did I. In little towns like that, nobody forgets anything. I made up my mind that when I grew up I would go out to the end of the world where nobody knew I came out of a garbage can. I’m here. But that doesn’t change the fact. I still don’t know who I am. Behind me, there’s still the garbage can.”

At last he looked up at her. He gave her another of those hard, bitter smiles.

“Kendra, telling you this is about the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But now I’ve told it. Now you know. Do you still want me?”

Kendra gave him a smile in return. Unlike his, her smile was not bitter, but tender and gentle. She reached across the table and put her hands on his. She said softly,

“Hiram, is that all?”

“All?”
He jerked his hands away and again he doubled them into fists. “All? Don’t you understand? For all I know my mother may have been a streetwalker and my father a murderer. Maybe I was born of imbeciles or lunatics. I don’t
know.
And you don’t know either, Kendra.”

“But I know
you
!” she retorted. “You’re not an imbecile nor a lunatic nor a murderer—Hiram, does anybody ever really know all about the ancestors behind him?”

As she spoke, his eyes had widened. His lips had parted with astonishment that was almost unbelief. In a voice low and strange for him, he asked, “You’ll risk it?”

“Yes, Hiram,” she said quietly.

A smile broke over his face like a light. For a little time neither of them said anything else. They simply sat there and looked at each other across the card table, and were happy. Then Kendra asked,

“Hiram, why was it so hard for you to tell me this?”

Hiram reached out and took both her hands in his. It cost him an effort to answer. But he answered. He said,

“Because—I was afraid—when you found out—you would say no. I could stand anything but that. I couldn’t stand being thrown away again. Or maybe I could—I mean, maybe I could stand being thrown away by somebody else. But not by you.”

His hands tightened on hers.

“Now you know everything,” he said, “and I’m glad you do. You know what a shivering coward I am and you love me anyway. Kendra, you genuinely don’t think it’s important?”

“No, Hiram,” she returned steadily. “I think you’ve been making it a great deal more important than it is.”