Rest and Be Thankful (7 page)

There were other rebels in Sweetwater too, particularly among the old-timers who liked their cow-towns straight. They didn’t care whether that new movie, which startled them ten years ago, even opened its doors in the evening. They took a very poor view of Milt Jerks (who ran the log-cabin gas-station on the outskirts of town) when he rented a front room on Main Street next his movie-house, filled it with fishing tackle and leather goods, and brought an old plug—fully saddled and bridled—to stand patiently by the hitching-rail at the edge of the board sidewalk. And when Jerks (he was a newcomer from St Louis who had settled in Sweetwater just over fifteen years ago) suggested everyone should dress Western this summer and bought himself a shiny blue tie and an embroidered shirt, feeling ran high in the Purple Rim Bar.

“Hell,” old Cheesit Bridger said, “we was here before he were, and all them damned dudes either. An’ what kind of way does he think we dress now? It sure ain’t Eastern.” His friends around the Purple Rim spat their agreement. Their fathers had fought off Indians, had killed bears and wolves and bad men, had built a little thin line of wooden houses and a schoolroom and the first church, with no help or encouragement from anyone except their wives, who could shoot and saw and nail as good as any man. Then, after the Indian troubles, there had been the war between the big ranchers and the settlers, which had spread from Johnson County into this part of the country. And there was a time when the outlaws from Jackson Hole had tried to run Sweetwater as well. But ever since 1914, when the fighting was taken over by Europe, there had been peace in these parts. The railroad had been kept a good ten miles to the east of Sweetwater, and the State Highway was only reached by a second-class road from Main Street South. As only a few rough roads branched out from Main Street North to ranches and farms hidden in the surrounding hills and valleys, Sweetwater had been spared invasion by busloads of “towrists.” The old-timers considered the building of the airport (a wooden hut on a grass field) as only the Thin End of the Wedge. For dude ranches were increasing each year since the airport had been organised. Although Cheesit and his friends had to grant Milt Jerks that dudes had money in their pockets to match the jingle of their new spurs, all
they
got out of it was that they’d be wrangling dudes instead of horses. Horses were easier on the nerves. And here was the news that Jim Brent had sold his house to more dudes. Not that they blamed Jim. Everyone knew he had been having a bad time. They blamed the Easterners.

“They ain’t regular dudes,” old Chuck said, suddenly overcome by loyalty to Rest and be Thankful. He had ridden over to Sweetwater to discuss the news with Cheesit Bridger at the Purple Rim. “Seems they’re kind of writer fellers.”

“Dudes with brains,” snorted Cheesit, in disgust. “Maybe long hair too.” He shook his head slowly. “That’s worst of all.”

And the Purple Rim fell into deep gloom, with only the slap of a bottle of Sheridan Export on the long, dark counter to break the silence.

Back on Flying Tail Ranch there was also gloom; but here it was tempered with stoicism. The boys did not like the idea of a lot of strangers wandering around the corral. (Jim might say that the ranch was now separate in every way from the house, but seeing was believing.) Yet they liked the idea of finding themselves without a job even less. Flying Tail was all right. So was Jim Brent.

* * *

Bert said he only hoped them writing fellows didn’t come into his saddle-barn with note-books in their hands and pencils all sharp as their noses.

Chuck, remembering Cheesit Bridger’s predictions, sustained himself with an anecdote about the Texas Invasion. (That had been repulsed eventually leaving Wyoming triumphant.)

Ned thought that Ma Gunn would be needing extra help. He knew a nice girl in Phoenix who would like to summer in Wyoming.

Robb, suddenly brightening, said there was a nice girl in Butte too.

Ma Gunn said she would also get her niece, Norah, from Three Springs. Norah thought a lot of writers. And her nephew, Joe, from Laramie was a handy man to have around with a paint-brush, hammer, lawn-mower, or axe. And if the ladies seemed in a bit of a hurry, well, that was the way Easterners were. And why not? The house was there, and the summer was before them. She was to keep her kitchen as her own place, and the boys would always find a cup of coffee and a slice of pie to help out Chuck’s cooking. By September the Easterners would all be back in their rightful place. The summer wasn’t so long.

Bert remembered there was always next summer, and the summer after that, and after that. Besides, it worried him, when he was over to Sweetwater, to hear Mrs. Dan Givings and Milt Jerks saying this was all a trend: wouldn’t be long before Upshot County was as full of dude ranches and tourists as its neighbours were.

“Well, you get used to anything,” Ma Gunn said. “And we may as well look on the bright side: we’ll get one good laugh a day.” There would be plenty to talk about in the long winter evenings when she was visiting her son and daughter-in-law over at Three Springs.

Jim Brent said very little after announcing his decision. He only interrupted his routine for one day in which he hired a Piper Cub from the Sweetwater airfield to fly to Warrior, the county town, to see his lawyer.

Mrs. Peel talked at great length. Mrs. Gunn listened as she counted sheets and towels and cups and silverware, and observed that it was just like reading a dictionary, which was always something she had meant to do. One of her cousins, over at Greybull, had spent many a pleasant winter with a dictionary by a man called Sam Johnson, and had reached the letter T before he was knocked down by a bus travelling to Yellowstone. “Never knew what hit him,” Mrs. Gunn ended, in a shocked voice. “They were wearing these shorts and brazeers, too.”

Mrs. Peel puzzled over this for a little, so that her flow of eloquence ceased, much to Mrs. Gunn’s disappointment. But as Mrs. Peel was preparing to visit Jackson, with more poison-ivy lotion and apple-pie and a good book, she suddenly turned at the door and said, delightedly, “Tourists!” Mrs. Gunn nodded, and went on counting blankets. For someone as educated as Mrs. Peel must be she had a very peculiar way of pronouncing words. “Toorists,” Mrs. Gunn repeated to herself, and had her good laugh for that day.

Mrs. Peel was able to talk at great length to Jackson too, for the Wranglers’ Roost had miraculously emptied as she was seen timidly approaching the corral. It was fortunate that Jackson never did say very much, for she had so much to reassure him about. He was much better today in every way. He was dressed in his neat blue chauffeur’s uniform, and his black hair was expertly combed into place. He was pleased by the haircut which Chuck had given him, and he was delighted by the tattered copies of Western stories, with plenty of pictures, which Ned had heaped on his cot. Yes, he was definitely much better today; yesterday there had been a gleam of mutiny in his eyes. Perhaps the thought of spending the summer at Rest and be Thankful was beginning to seem less strange. To make quite sure, Mrs. Peel talked about his eventual trip to Atlantic City as a definite promise, and offered three weeks instead of two. As for California—well, that would be a pleasant exploration for the winter months when Rest and be Thankful would be closed. (Mrs. Peel believed in the pioneer spirit up to a point: beyond twelve inches of snow, no.) She left him, feeling slightly more happy about him, and hoping he was more reassured.

He was—much more than she had guessed. The men who shared the large room with him were friendlier than he had first thought. Whenever they paid you an insult it was a compliment. Whenever they kept their faces solemn it was a joke. So all he had to do, when they mentioned flowers, was to smile as if he were enjoying himself. That had had amazing results. Bert had even searched for a bottle of Dr. White’s Poison-ivy Lotion in the bottom of the small wooden chest, where he kept special things like mateless socks and buttons and letters and broken knives and bits of wood to carve into ornaments. He also found some Sure-cure Snakebite and Sore-tail Ointment, and he presented these to Jackson too. Just in case, as he confided in Ned, the Hungarian Cowboy was going to show them all how to ride. Ned agreed that this was the kind of guy that always caught trouble; kind of helpless; made you think of a roped calf just at the moment it stopped kicking and turned its big brown eyes up at you. Robb suggested that—when you got right down to it—they might act just as helpless in a place as peculiar as that Hungary. This remark was followed by a period of silence. Chuck nodded his head: he never had any objections to this foreign fellow—best listener he had found in years.

So Mrs. Peel returned to Mrs. Gunn’s kitchen, where she was given a nice cup of coffee to reassure her still more. “We couldn’t do without Jackson,” she explained, rocking herself gently in Mrs. Gunn’s chair. “Which is funny... At first, you know, he was so dependent on us. He couldn’t even speak much French when we met him. He was earning a pittance in a Paris garage doing odd jobs. He had been a refugee, you see, from Bela Kun.”

Mrs. Gunn didn’t see, but she waited hopefully.

“The Communist,” Mrs. Peel went on. “Jackson’s father was a farmer. Although I don’t quite understand how Communists will go around shooting farmers who disagree with them, and then blame their famines on countries that don’t shoot their farmers.”

Mrs. Gunn said it seemed kind of unreasonable to her, at that.

“He was so lost in Paris, poor Jackson. His name was Tisza Szénchenyi in those days, which complicated life considerably, I’m sure. And he was so proud, he wouldn’t admit he was lost. We engaged him one summer to drive us through Provence— we wanted someone who
didn’t
know the way, so annoying to be
taken
on a tour—and he has been with us ever since. Now it is we who would be lost without Jackson. That’s why I’m so relieved to feel he will probably stay at Rest and be Thankful. I noticed, for instance, just as I was leaving him, that Robb came in before going to Sweetwater to measure him with string for some suitable ranch clothes. So clever the way Robb put knots in it. I was fascinated. But
how
does he remember which knot is which? Or has he a system? Which reminds me, what should I wear out here, Mrs. Gunn? I don’t feel quite right in these clothes somehow.” Besides, it was silly to wear good clothes, even of pre-War Paris vintage, where they were never noticed.

“The ladies over at the dude ranches dress just like cowboys,” Mrs. Gunn said, and smoothed her flowered apron over her neat blue dress.

“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Peel said, thinking of her hip-line. “But I am
not
a cowboy. Wouldn’t it look rather silly to pretend I was? Perhaps I’ll send Miss Bly another telegram, though. Abercrombie and Fitch must know what we ought to wear out West.”

Mrs. Gunn looked puzzled, recovered, and said, “If it’s clothes you need, the stores in Sweetwater have some nice things. This dress cost me only seven forty-nine.”

Mrs. Peel smiled vaguely. “We must drive in sometime and have a look at the shops.” And then she went away to battle with the telephone, so that the telegram could be sent off at once to New York.

* * *

The news about Rest and be Thankful spread very quickly in New York too, even if there were plenty of worrying headlines to read in the newspapers. It only took one morning for all last winter’s visitors to Maggie’s Saloon to get on to the ’phone to each other, as soon as Prender Atherton Jones had called them and read the telegram he had received from Rest and be Thankful, Wyoming.

“Can you imagine?”

“So very rugged, my dear.”

“Sounds fun. Do you know, I’ve never seen the West. Did they say how many bedrooms?”

“Are they setting up a printing-press too, along with free beer and pretzels?”

“They are crazy.”

“I’m
almost
an unknown author. Do you think I’d qualify?”

“She must be weighted down with money. Did you say old man Peel was a millionaire? And she never told us.”

“Do they need any lecturers?”

* * *

Some might laugh, some might sneer, but the idea caught many people’s fancy—especially those who hadn’t yet arranged how to spend the summer. Even Dewey Schmetterling, who had been unable to resist coining “Maggie’s Saloon,” felt the urge to re-establish friendly relations with Margaret Peel. After a minor triumph in securing her full address from Prender he telegraphed his congratulations, beginning, “Oh, Pioneers!” He would have been furious if he had known Sarah Bly was, even at that moment, arriving in town. A luncheon at the Ritz or, as a last resort, a dinner at Twenty-one would have ensured an invitation to spend a week or two on the ranch. He would have mentioned casually that he was about to leave to visit friends on the West Coast (what an amazing coincidence!); and Sarah would have smiled with pleasure and said, “Well,
do
come and see us on your way.” Sarah and Maggie were good-hearted girls, if a trifle odd. Take this Rest and be Thankful. Probably bought the place to have that address on their note-paper, with Telephone Sweetwater Seven Seven on the side. Maggie would be quaint even if it killed her. He had to see her in cowboy clothes... Maggie Oakley... That would be a gem for his collection.

But Prender Atherton Jones hadn’t been too explicit about the telegram. He was planning to give Sarah dinner at Twenty-one himself.

So Sarah’s arrival in New York went unannounced, and she could spend an explanatory morning with Mr. Quick, their lawyer; and another equally wearing morning with Mr. Jobson, their pet banker; and an afternoon with her hairdresser; and in between she scored items off long lists in bookshops, music-shops, garden-shops, and gadget-shops. Thanks to Prender Atherton Jones’s discretion, there were no friendly interruptions.

Her days were complicated enough, anyway, by the quick succession of telegrams from Wyoming.

“Get blue jeans bleached and pre-shrunk as advertised
New Yorker.
Plenty of shirts laundry difficult. No satin definitely no satin.”