Rest and Be Thankful (18 page)

“He means well,” Mrs. Peel said gently.

“Maybe. But he don’t
know
much. That’s what the boys say. He’s plain ignorant, or he wouldn’t talk that way. Chuck says, imagine us working a forty-hour week when the stock don’t know anything about union rules. When they need you they need you. And Bert tried to explain that the steers cost us twenty-six cents a pound, and that after a summer’s work of moving them from pasture to pasture and giving them feed when the grass isn’t good enough we’ll be lucky to get twenty-eight or -nine cents a pound for them. If it was a drought year half of them’d be dying off, and the other half would be skin and bone and no weight on them at all. But it was the sixty-acre idea that raised the biggest laugh. As Chuck said, they’d be able to have one steer and a fifth apiece.”

“But didn’t they tell him all this?”

“He’s not the kind of man who listens to what you say. Mr. Grubbock did, and he asked a lot more questions. But Mr. Koffing just began talking about the way the ranchers were going to steal the National Parks.”

“But Mr. Brent wants to leave the National Parks as they are!”

“And so do most of the ranchers. Their fathers had to fight the big ranchers once, when this country was being opened up. We don’t forget that battle. Why, the big ranchers even got Texas to invade Johnson County, and that’s right near us. It was only fifty-six years ago.”

Mrs. Peel was at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry about all this,” she said at last. “Oh, the idiot!”

“That’s what the boys say.”

“What can I do?”

“I’d leave it to Jim and the boys.”

Mrs. Peel was alarmed. “Oh, no!”

“Don’t worry now. It will all be settled in a nice way.
You
don’t think we are savages, do you?”

It was a justified rebuke. Mrs. Peel flushed. “No,” she said, and put all thoughts of a fight out of her mind. “I suppose that people who talk too much underestimate those who don’t.” The sound of a car returning from Sweetwater drew nearer. It was approaching the bridge.

“Now we can relax, Mrs. Peel.” Mrs. Gunn listened to the car. “Running better, too.”

Mrs. Peel nodded.

“Don’t worry so much,” Mrs. Gunn went on, in her quiet kindly voice. “The ranch is doing well, and your guests are having a fine time. Some of them may not know it until they get back to New York, but they are having a fine time. We’ve been lucky too. No accidents so far. Bert tells me that Fennimore’s Dude Ranch has had two broken arms, one broken leg, one smashed jaw, a collarbone, and three broken toes this summer.”

Mrs. Peel could only say, “And that could happen here
too?”

* * *

The moving cloud of dust travelled slowly down the trail towards the south pasture. The herd of a hundred and fifty steers was coming safely in. Flanking it, Bert and Robb were riding confidently. Jim was following up the bunch, keeping a watchful eye on the stragglers. The noise of the slowly moving herd—the never-ending lowing and bellowing, the heavy, plodding hoofs—was broken with the shouts and oaths of the men, the cracking of Bert’s bull-whip, the changing gaits of the quick horses. The body of sound moved along the peaceful valley, splitting the silence of the mountains as sharply as lightning struck at their peaks. Then the Babel of noise receded into a diminishing chord, and the quiet of the hills returned.

The new wire fence was ready around the south pasture. Chuck and Ned had ridden up to open the gate, and then had taken a wide sweep over a rough hillside to meet the herd without turning it. Robb gave them a whoop of welcome: all hands were needed now for the last stage of the long journey. The riders, in careful formation, headed the leading steers towards the gate. The strays at the edge of the mass of brown-coated, white-faced steers crowded back towards the others. The leaders had sensed water ahead of them. The herd’s lumbering pace increased. There were few stragglers now. Those that had stopped to graze, all along the way, pushed forward as greedily as the others. There were no set fights now, either, except for a bad-tempered lunge at a competitor who was forging too heavily ahead.

“Steady,” Jim yelled at them, “you dumb bastards! Steady!” They would be ripping themselves up on the barbed wire, pushed into it by those that followed, blinded by their mass excitement. First they wouldn’t go, and then they’d go with a rush, shoving madly, pushing headlong because they were scared, not knowing what they were scared of, not needing to be scared. It was only with cursing and yelling and a cracking bull-whip that they’d calm down. The damned silliest bull-headed bastards. Jim Brent yelled again and spurred his horse on. So did the other cowpunchers, as they tried to brake the pace of the herd and yet keep it bunched together.

The cow ponies moved quickly, carefully, obeying the least command. They were as alert as the men, as quick to feel sudden trouble. They were good cow ponies, well trained, and they enjoyed knowing that. They patrolled the flanks of the moving column watchfully, proudly. And at last the steers, controlled into a reasonable pace with swinging ropes and shouts, began to move into their new pasture. The horses stood still now, surveying a job well done.

Down at the corral Mimi and Carla stood with Grubbock and Koffing, and they watched the horsemen on the sloping hillside. They said nothing, just watched.

The last steer was through the gate. The riders waited until Ned closed it securely. Then, grouped together, talking a little, laughing, they rode at an easy pace down to the ranch. If they saw the watchers by the corral they gave no sign.

Koffing moved away, back to the house. Grubbock, with a last look at the hillside, followed him. Mimi and Carla were still watching.

* * *

The hum of the car filled the yard. “Yes,” Mrs. Peel agreed, as she listened, “it sounds
much
better.” She went to the door to welcome Sally and Jackson with their armfuls of parcels and bundles.

“How was it in Sweetwater?” she asked.

“Hot as hell,” Sally answered. And Mrs. Peel asked no more questions.

Jackson counted the parcels, nodded, went back to the car for one they had overlooked.

“If it hadn’t been for Jackson,” Sally said, accepting some tactfully iced coffee, “I’d have had a nervous breakdown right in the middle of Main Street. It was all these first- and second-choice colours in shirts, and six-buttoned cuffs, and blue jeans guaranteed to shrink just two inches, that nearly set me off.” She glanced at the long shopping-list and shook her head. “Zero hour was three o’clock, with the sun at its hottest. I was tempted to buy an egg and fry it on the sidewalk in front of the Bank. Only we hadn’t our camera along to take the picture of the year. Camera... Oh, Jackson, we forgot Mr. Atherton Jones’s films.
Oh
, blast!”

“Well, I’m glad to see your language has been cooled by the iced coffee,” Mrs. Peel said. She eyed all the packages on the table. “Didn’t Mr. Grubbock order some liquor, though?”

“Not today. Perhaps his waistline has something to do with it.”

“One does become conscious of one’s waistline on a horse,” Mrs. Peel agreed and looked virtuously at the cake which Jackson wasn’t refusing.

“You’d wonder why they don’t get all the things they needed once a week,” Mrs. Gunn suggested, as she set aside the batch of rolls to rise and began splitting the pea-pods into an enormous bowl. She looked at Sally pointedly.

“They still have the New York corner-drugstore complex... open twenty-four hours a day just around the corner. But that’s an idea, Mrs. Gunn. Worth trying, perhaps. Now I’ll clear all these packages into the library and set up shop there. And I’ll give you a hand with the dining-room table. I bet Drene has forgotten it is Norah’s day off. Margaret, there’s a party tonight. Jackson is going to teach us the czardas.”

Jackson grinned, and interrupted his conversation with Mrs. Gunn about the merits of their horses to say he had forgotten most of the steps.

“Then you invent them. No one will be any the wiser.”

“Bert dances a nice Varsoviana,” Mrs. Gunn said.

“It will be fun,” Sally said, and wondered if Jim Brent would be there. “I suppose
everyone
is coming?”

Mrs. Gunn nodded, and watched Miss Bly’s happy face with interested speculation.

“I’ll be late,” Mrs. Peel said gloomily. “After all, one of us must turn up for the lecture.”

Sally said, “I had forgotten all about it!” She looked at Mrs. Peel in dismay.

“I’ll handle the situation,” Mrs. Peel said. “It’s my turn to struggle through a temperature of ninety in the shade.”

“Ninety-six,” Jackson said proudly, and helped Sally to gather the parcels together.

“The nicest thing about going to Sweetwater is coming back here, high up into the mountains and the fir-trees and the rushing streams. You know, Margaret, the name of Rest and be Thankful really means something.”

Jackson was no longer smiling. He stared at the parcels in his arms thoughtfully, and a dark gloom settled over his face.

Mrs. Peel watched him anxiously. “Jackson,” she began timidly, and then she decided that her question would be better asked when she and Jackson had no audience. Did he really dislike being here so much? Every time anyone praised Rest and be Thankful, he looked sad and thoughtful. Were Atlantic City’s attractions so powerful, even at the distance of two thousand miles?

Jackson had looked up at her as she spoke, but fortunately Earl Grubbock and Karl Koffing appeared at the kitchen door.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Grubbock said. “We had an idea we’d go riding before dinner, but our horses weren’t so easy to catch. What about a lesson in lasso work, Jackson?”

“Roping takes a few lessons,” Mrs. Gunn suggested.

“Then the sooner we start the better. What about now?”

“Go ahead,” Sally said. “And I got that thirty feet of rope you wanted. There it is on the table, under the straw hat for Mimi. Tell her that it’s waiting here to be dipped in the trough and shaped into a bulldogger’s crush.”

Jackson picked up the rope. “It will have to be stretched,” he said, with a most professional air. And the three men left.

The women watched them go. Perhaps they
are
enjoying themselves, Mrs. Peel thought hopefully of her two guests. But Jackson? The truth is I’m afraid to ask him if he wants to leave: what isn’t asked isn’t answered.

“I noticed some of them were looking at the fishing-rods in the hall,” Mrs. Gunn said. “That was real smart of you, Miss Bly.”

“What was?”

“To leave the fishing-rods in the rack in the hall and never suggest fishing. I kept wondering at the waste of all that tackle, until I saw the men having a look at it this morning. They’ll be taking pack trips into the mountains, and they’ll all quieten down and stop arguing except about the fish they didn’t catch. Real smart of you.”

Sally laughed. “I begin to think you see right through me, Mrs. Gunn.” Then she flushed, wondering just how much Mrs. Gunn did see.

Mrs. Gunn smiled. It might have been with pleasure as she looked round her kitchen at the well-ordered preparations for dinner. She opened the door of the oven and basted the roast methodically. “Everything is going to be all right,” she said, as Mrs. Peel and Miss Bly left her.

Prender Atherton Jones brushed his hair, admired its effect against the deep tan of his skin, looked approvingly at a diminishing waistline, and walked away from the mirror in a sudden attack of good temper. It didn’t last long. From his bedroom window he looked down upon the garden. Esther Park was sitting there, and none of the others. She looked up suddenly as if she had felt his glance, and he drew back behind the green curtain.

They had been here over a week now, he thought bitterly; and she still haunted him. If he slipped out through the kitchen he might reach the corral unseen. But what then? In his depression he had to admit that riding on Sunday mornings in Central Park might be enjoyable, but riding on a Western saddle, up and down mountains, edging along canyon trails, was quite another thing. It wasn’t riding. He had shown both Grubbock and Koffing, neither of whom had ever ridden before, the correct way to sit a horse and to post. They hadn’t listened. Instead they were out-cowboying the cowboys—slouching on the saddle, sitting the trot, breaking into a canter to pass him on the trail, urging their horses into a gallop (which they insisted on calling a lope) to leave him far behind. The women were just as bad: they watched him tolerantly as he mounted, and they didn’t seem to object to the barbarous lack of either mounting-block or hand-up. And yesterday, when they had been approaching one of these interminable gates, Mimi had said in front of O’Farlan (who had only begun to ride and admitted he just hung on and hoped for the best), “Let me open this one, Prender. I can do it easily.” That was enough.

He looked cautiously round the curtain. Esther Park was still there, sitting beside his comfortable chair. He frowned and picked up the latest copies of
Vista
and
New Dimensions,
which had just arrived across the Atlantic. He was cheered by noticing a promising article on Kafka in
Vista,
and a most interesting analysis of the new and almost unknown poet-philosopher Wehmut Schaudichan in
New Dimensions.
(Schaudichan’s doctrine of Atomism was definitely on the way up.)

He might find peace to read in the library. No one used it nowadays. They were always out riding, or fishing, or picnicking, or talking to the cook in the kitchen, or watching the cowboys around the ranch. Of course, if he had been given the guest-cottage, with its bedroom and sitting-room, all would have been well. Instead Grubbock and Koffing shared it. They seemed to use it mostly for parties, which were invariably over before he ever heard of them. It also seemed that no one over thirty was asked to these parties. He compressed his lips and gave a parting look in the mirror.

In the library Mrs. Peel was talking to one of the cowhands, the tall, thin, fair-haired one.

Mrs. Peel looked up to say, “Don’t leave, Prender. I was giving Robb a book he might like.
Martin Fierro
...”