Rest and Be Thankful (46 page)

The cheers, the offered advice, the friendly laughter over the inevitable predicaments, drew the spectators and riders together until they became one. Everyone was in the parade, Sally thought. The watchers laughed and suffered with those who rode, as floats stopped floating and had to be pushed. Or there was the horse that started bucking with one of the local policemen, who just managed to keep his seat, but lost his hat, while the crowd roared with delight and cheered the horse on. Or the pioneer woman, driving a jurky, who started to travel in circles until two substantial townsmen on suitably substantial horses got her headed in the right direction. Yes, everyone was in the parade: those who stood on the sidewalks and cheered, or watched with critical silence, or admired with quick comments, were all riding down the centre of Main Street too.

After the highly decorated floats, with their tableaux of frontier days, had reminded everyone that life was not always a matter of a steady job, a cinema on Main Street, or Main Street itself, there came the newest tractors and reaping-machines with waving arms and reaching teeth, lowered as if by magic to pass under the street’s banners. They were applauded too; and then, as if to apologise for this sudden interest in the machine, the horses that followed were given double cheers. Here were the bright sorrels, the creamy buckskins with their dark manes and tails, the golden palominos, and the Appaloosas. “What on earth is that?” Mrs. Peel said aloud, staring at an Appaloosa. But everyone around her, although more accustomed to the idea of a horse that reminded you of silver leopards and zebras and still didn’t let you solve the problem, agreed with her bewilderment. “It’s just,” Miss Snodgrass said, shaking her head, “an Appaloosie.”

“They love it. They know they’re beautiful,” Mrs. Peel said, referring mostly to her favourite palominos, although she included buckskins and sorrels too. “They’re like Ziegfeld Girls coming down a runway. Or am I a little mixed?”

“A little,” Sally said. “But they’ve certainly been glorified. Everyone within miles of Sweetwater must have stayed up all night polishing his horses. If you ask me, the horse’s best friend is man.”

Just then a deep silence fell on the crowd. The Indians were coming, riding in the full array of their tribe. Then the cheers burst out, as rich and full as they had been for anything else that day.

“They love it too,” Sally said quietly. “And so would I, if I were one of them. It is something to have been an enemy and to have become a friend.” And she watched the rest of the parade in thoughtful silence.

At its end Mrs. Peel shook her violently by the arm and pointed. “Do you see what I see?” she asked. It was the last group, cowhands and wranglers and ranchers, bringing the parade—symbolically enough—to a workaday close. And there, riding between Jim Brent and Chuck, his face beaming with pleasure, his borrowed horse well under control, his black hat pulled over his black eyebrows, his silver belt gleaming round his staunch waistline, was Jackson.

Mimi was rather subdued by the time the rodeo had ended. It could very well be hunger, Mrs. Peel thought; or it could be five hours of sitting on a hard wooden bench; or it could be five hours of watching quick movement in bright sunlight, of your blood-pressure rising when a triumph was won, of your heart sinking when a man lay on the ground unable to rise and the ambulance drove slowly into the rodeo field. For Mrs. Peel was suffering from all these things. She was as emotionally purged as if she had been attending a Greek tragedy.

“Home for me,” she said to Sally. “But you stay for the dance.”

Sally shook her head. She was watching the judges’ stand. Jim Brent was leaving it now. “No,” she said, “of course I shan’t.” She tried to sound as if she weren’t disappointed. She even smiled. But there was disappointment in her eyes.

“I’ll take Mrs. Peel home,” Robert O’Farlan said. “I’m a rotten dancer, anyway.”

“But Sweetwater is something to see tonight,” Sally said. “It will be wide open. It’s said to be the next wildest Western town to Jackson Hole, once the night begins.”

“What fun!” Carla said. “Why, Jackson Hole is the wildest place after Butte, isn’t it? And Butte’s the wildest town in all the West. So that gives Sweetwater third place!” That made her think of Ned. “Too bad,” she said, becoming serious again, “about Ned, I mean. And he missed it by so little, only a quarter of a second.”

“Well, he got second place,” Mimi said. “That’s always something, I suppose.”

“But he has made better time before. Why, I’ve seen him rope a calf in fourteen seconds. Today he took fifteen and a half.”

“That’s the unpleasant thing about losing,” Mimi said. “You know you could have done better, somehow—if you had only known what to do.” She was watching Jim Brent riding slowly over the rodeo field towards them. But you haven’t lost yet, she told herself: he’s been nicer to you in these last two days than he’s ever been. She glanced at Sally. Yes, she’s attractive, very attractive: there’s something about the way she looks at you, the way she smiles; her skin is good, and she has that soft blonde colouring that some men seem to like; her figure’s all right too. Wonder if I’ll look as good as that when I’m her age? Or was she joking about her age? But, whatever her age is, I’m younger. And I’m not unattractive either. And one sure way of losing is to tell yourself that you’ve lost. She looked round at the grandstand, now slowly emptying, and chased away the doubts that had been forming all this afternoon in her mind. After all, she thought, Jim Brent doesn’t have to live here always...

Karl stood up and stretched himself. “The crowd’s clearing,” he said. “We could start leaving, ourselves.” He looked at the rows of benches, littered with pop-bottles and spilled peanuts and popcorn. “There is going to be a lot of sick kids in Upshot County tonight. Or are they toughened from the cradle onward? Come on, Mimi, let’s get going.” He looked after Earl Grubbock and Norah, who had slipped away quietly by themselves even as he was talking.

But Mimi waited. “I’m still recovering from the wild-horse race,” she told him. “Karl, you should have entered for that.”

“On which side?” Robert O’Farlan asked, with a grin.

Mrs. Peel thought how extraordinarily sympathetic Mimi had become. After steer-riding, calf-roping, saddle-bronc riding, calf-roping, ladies’ horse race, Indian relay race, bare-back-bronc riding, calf-roping, kids’ pony race, bulldogging, calf-roping, pony express race, sheep-catching contest, calf-roping, half-mile race, cow-cutting contest, the wild-horse race had
her
roped and blindfolded. “I know just how these wild horses felt,” she murmured. “Especially the ones that ran the wrong way when they were saddled and mounted, and the blindfold was removed.”

“Some are still running,” Robert O’Farlan said, trying to see into the far distance. “What do their riders do eventually? Make their way back on foot from the mountains?”

“Yellowstone by Christmas,” Carla said, and laughed. She had adopted Chuck’s catch-phrase, and found it constantly useful. Then, as Jim Brent came riding up at last to them (he had stopped to talk with five different sets of wranglers and their wives, Mimi noticed), Carla said, “Jim, it was wonderful!” Both Mimi and Sally let her do the talking, about Ned, about Bert (who had done well, although he had won nothing), about the Indian cowboys who had ridden Brahma bulls as if they had been buffaloes.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Jim managed to say at last.

Mrs. Peel said, “To be frank, we are sitting here recovering. At least I am; and the others feel guilty about leaving me. But I’m feeling guilty too, because I want to go home and Sally insists she is taking me there.”

“Well,” Mimi said, suddenly quite recovered, “let’s all go into Sweetwater and have dinner. And then those who are staying for the dance, stay. What’s the dance like, Jim?”

“Just a little shindig,” he said, with a grin.

“Jim Brent, you are the most annoying man,” Mimi declared, with a warm smile.

“You’ll see for yourself. I guess you’ll have a good time. Just don’t get lost, that’s all.”

Robert O’Farlan said, “We’ll see the girls safely back to Rest and be Thankful.”

“Aren’t you going to the dance, Jim?” Mimi asked.

“No. I’ll drive Sally and Mrs. Peel back to the ranch, if they don’t mind being in a car with a horse-trailer behind it. The rest of you can borrow Mrs. Peel’s car for the ride home. It will be more comfortable than the truck you arrived in.” Then he looked at Sally. “See you at the car.”

She nodded. “Yes, Jim,” she said, trying to keep the happiness out of her voice. Her eyes smiled too. He touched his hat, shortened the reins, turned his horse round neatly, and rode off.

“He’s so—so definite,” Carla said. “And how beautifully he rides.”

Karl was watching the horseman. “Yes,” he said.

“They all do,” Mimi said, and rose abruptly to her feet. She seemed more interested in three Indian women, surrounded by their children, who were moving with slow, silent footsteps from their seats. Like all squaws, they were short, broad, massive under the bright enveloping shawls that hid their dresses. Their skirts were short, ending just below the knees. And their legs were encased, stiffly, thickly, in tight white buckskin leggings; their feet were neat and small, gloved like a dancer’s. Their straight black hair was braided. Their rich black eyes were slanting. This season’s crop of babies was carried in their arms. They grasped the babies with one arm crooked round the small waists, holding them vertical, keeping them face-out. Their other children, the girls in white buckskin tunics embroidered with beads and dyed porcupine quills, the boys in small cowboy suits, followed them like a straggling convoy, with faces that— laughing or crying—were stickied over with candy, lime-pop, and sniffles.

Then a voice from the judges’ stand halted everyone as it came over the loudspeaker, blurred at first and then clear. The same voice had announced various pieces of advice at intervals through the long afternoon, whether it was to tell them all to stand up and put their weight on their feet for a change or to encourage a rider—“That boy had bad luck. Give him a hand, folks.” Now the pleasant, deep-voiced drawl stopped the moving crowd. The heads all turned, not to the loudspeaker overhead, but to the invisible man in the distant box. “You’ll be right glad to hear that the boy who’s in hospital is doing all right. Doc Clark has just sent word to us here that Russ Murray is okay. He’ll be up and around in a few weeks. And Jep Jonson, who had a little bit of trouble with his Brahma bull, has got no worse than a couple of ribs and an arm broken. He’s right here with me now. Says he’s a refugee from an ambulance. Well, that’s all. You can go out and enjoy yourselves now. Thought you’d kind of feel better if you heard.”

And the thousand and more who had stopped to listen in silence began talking, began moving out more quickly. The sound of their voices proved they did feel kind of better. And Robert O’Farlan, watching their faces, was sure that they’d enjoy themselves better too.

He looked back at the judges’ box. “You know,” he said quietly, “I liked that. Sort of a climax to the whole show, somehow. Can’t explain it exactly, but...” He shook his head and followed the others, with a very silent Mimi close beside him.

* * *

In Main Street all the shops were open again, and the drugstore and cafeteria and the Elk Café were filled to overflowing. The Purple Rim and the Foot Rail were ablaze with lights and bursting with noise. The Teton Bar had its new neon sign—a cow with green hoofs and a long, dry tongue hanging out—in flashing display. The sidewalks were crowded with discussion groups exchanging news or analysing the rodeo. Horses were tethered to the hitching-rails, and the little coloured lights round the banners and signs had all been turned on. Hundreds of parked cars not only crowded the side-roads, but even edged out the horses on Main Street.

Jim drove carefully, watching out for children and dogs. Sally sat beside him, and Mrs. Peel was comfortably fitted into the back seat between a coil of rope, a new lampshade, chaps, half a sack of flour, half a dozen cartons of cigarettes, a new ledger, beer, three detective stories, a heap of magazines, and a set of records. Bachelor shopping, Mrs. Peel thought. She picked up one of the books and found it interesting enough to start reading.

Jim braked suddenly, and swore under his breath at a daring wrangler who didn’t believe in traffic lights. “Sorry,” he said. “Nearly had him. But this is the only way out of town for us.”

Sally, recovering herself from the jolt, looked round. Mrs. Peel had saved the lampshade, and everything else was so tightly packed that it hadn’t been damaged. Then Sally looked at the trailer behind the car. But the horse was all right too. In fact, Ginger seemed rather to be enjoying his triumphal progress through Main Street, jolts and stops and starts and all. He had even stuck his head out, at the side of the windscreen on the trailer, to get a better view.

“He likes the big city,” Jim said. “He and the children in the cars.”

Then Sally noticed that all the parked cars were filled with people, farm hands, small homesteaders from lonely cabins, all with their wives and children. They sat in silence, just looking, and the children’s eyes were round and wondering. As Jim slowed the car again to avoid a stream of jay-walkers she looked into the back of one of the parked cars. The three little fair-haired boys didn’t notice her at first. When they did she gave them a smile. They drew back tense, ready for flight. Then the oldest boy gave a small shy smile, and bent quickly down to hide his temerity. When she looked back again they had forgotten about her. All they saw was the town.

“A lot of people must have lonely lives,” she said. “Yet they look happy people.” They were healthy, neatly dressed, and their faces, quiet and watchful, were friendly faces.

“I guess they’re thinking it’s a nice place to visit, but they wouldn’t like to live here,” Jim said, with a grin.

Sally looked at him. “Do you know New York?” she asked, in surprise. Then she wished she hadn’t asked. His face had tightened.