Lost Ecstasy/Chapter 32
LIFE was easier after that, for a time.
One day he took her into Judson. She had never seen Judson before. She had thought that it would resemble Ursula, more or less. In the back of her mind had been the thought that if the loneliness became unbearable there would always be Judson!
But Judson was not like Ursula. It consisted of one unpaved street fronting on the railroad track, a small red grain elevator, a water tank, and a quarter of a mile past the tank along a sidetrack, some shipping pens in a bare and empty field. The general store was on the street, the blacksmith shop and beside it, quaintly enough, a gasoline filling station. Beyond that was a three-story building faced with ornamental sheet iron, with a sign, Dry Goods and Hotel.
Before the general store was a few square feet of cement pavement, and on it a hen or two. Down the track two ancient freight cars had been turned into houses for Mexican section hands, and a forlorn goat nearby was investigating papers thrown from the railroad trains. She sat stupefied in the shabby car.
"And this is Judson!"
"Sure is. What did you expect, girl? Chicago?"
She climbed down, a little stiffly, and went into the store. There was a little man in spectacles behind the counter. A brisk little man, and a friendly one. She was touched by his friendliness; he was even, in a way, excited. He went to a staircase behind the grocery shelves and called up:
"Hey, Sally! Come down and meet Tom McNair's wife."
And Sally was big and buxom and kindly.
"I was just saying to George the other day, we've got to go up and see that wife of Tom's. She'll think we're right unfriendly. And I'll bet it's lonely out there. Don't talk to me about that place you've got. It's a good ranch, but it's too shut off for a woman."
She felt warmed and cheered. They helped her with her ordering.
"Now say, here's a good coffee. Not so dear as that Tom's been buying. He always gets the best, Tom does."
"I'll say he does!" said Mrs. George, smiling at her.
Kay expanded under their friendliness. She even bought, while Tom was filling up with gasoline, a dreadful little necktie for him. It was a bow, already tied, and it had an elastic which went around the collar and hooked in the back. She had it carefully wrapped, and when they were on their way back she handed it to him.
"I bought you a little present," she said, her eyes demure.
"A present!"
He was as eager as a boy while she steadied the wheel and he unwrapped it.
"Well, look what's here!" he said. "Say, now, I sure call that pretty."
He never knew that it was a joke! Long afterwards she was to find the absurd thing among some odds and ends where she had hidden it for fear he would wear it, and to shed tears over it.
But, although she was no longer a prisoner, she was still very nervous. The drought was continuing, and the prospects for winter browse on the Reservation increasingly bad. Even the well was very low; she had to be saving with her wash water. Her skin was dry and cracking, her hands so rough that mending Tom's socks was a torture. She began to feel as though she had a tight band around her head. She was even fretful, and any little thing, in that surcharged atmosphere, sufficed to bring on a storm between them.
"Are you going to eat without your coat, Tom?"
"That's what I aim to do. I'm just a plain man, and I've never said howdy to the Queen of England."
The aggression was generally hers, but as time went on, and Tom found that the Indians intended to sell him no hay, his own nerves suffered.
"What's the use of clean table napkins every meal?"
"Because I like to think that I live like a lady."
"Well, the sooner we can this lady-business and get down to brass tacks, the better. It takes water to wash these things."
"It takes work, too, Tom."
"That's what I'm telling you."
He was sorry for that, however. He went into Judson, bought a great package of paper napkins, and brought them out. And because it was to save her, although she hated them, she used them thereafter.
The tragedy was that because they still cared passionately, each could hurt the other so easily. And their quarreling came only at the end of the day, when they were tired. But as the hot weather kept on, without a cloud in the sky, they found the making-up a harder matter. There were times when they went to their common bed, each to lie as far from the other as possible, in silence, until the one who felt most guilty put out a tentative hand, possibly long hours afterwards, and there was a reconciliation, abject and loving.
Such a quarrel came one day when Kay found that he was carrying the revolver about with him.
"I thought you'd promised to let Little Dog alone, Tom?"
"Who said anything about Little Dog?"
How could he tell her that the Indians were nursing their injury to their breasts? That there had been threats against him, and that on the roads the old full-bloods of the Reservation passed him without speaking to him, sitting the seats of their wagons like ancient kings, their Oriental faces impassive, and sold their hay hither and yon, but not to him.
"If you made that promise you ought to keep it, Tom."
"If I get killed you could go back East, eh? Well, maybe that's the best thing that could happen to me. And you too."
It was childish. He knew it and so did she. When she tried to argue with him he enlarged on it, nursing his sense of injury, like the Indians. She could go back home and live like a lady again. "Clean napkins every meal and extra on Sundays." He knew she was getting tired of him. What was he, anyhow? He was a cripple; a child could knock him down and tramp on him. And she would starve anyhow, if she stayed; if he didn't get hay somewhere he was through. Done. Wiped out.
She had to soothe him like a child that night.
Perhaps their occasional quarrels might have been forgotten, but there was something else, more fundamental. There was a complete difference in their point of view. One night, her nerves on edge, she asked him to roll a cigarette for her.
"Not on your life," he told her grimly.
"But why not? I used to smoke cigarettes. You know that."
"My wife doesn't."
She was surprised and indignant.
"That's ridiculous," she told him. "It's—medieval."
"Sounds bad!" he drawled imperturbably. "Maybe I'm kinda old-fashioned, girl, but the women out here don't smoke, and you don't want to get talked about."
"You may ask me not to smoke. You can't forbid it."
"Since when?"
She made a curious little gesture of helplessness.
She lay awake a long time that night, thinking. She had been bred in the new school; even, in their own way, her father and mother subscribed to it. This school taught that the wife was no longer subordinate to the husband; that marriage was a mutual contract, in which each bore his part. Obedience was even being left out of the marriage service. The old medieval idea of the wife being a chattel, a
How strange that such an idea should still persist out here! Not in the towns perhaps, but in the back country. Mrs. Mallory, for instance. She would have held it, or at least never disputed it. But she had been happy with Jake, apparently. Perhaps the issue never came up; she had never wanted to do anything of which he disapproved.
But Tom stirred in his sleep and put his arm around her. She lay still, What did it matter after all? . . .
And still the country dried and dried. The pond had disappeared; the dam had held, and all day the cattle stood or lay there, afraid to go far from the muddy pool which was all they had. At night coyotes came slinking to drink, and then retreating sat dog-like fashion on hilltop or butte and raising their muzzles, barked at the relentless sky. Outside of his cows and calves, which he was holding close in, Tom's cattle ranged far, hunting for browse. He worked them as little as possible; when they showed poor condition he brought them in, slowly, to such water and hay as he could provide. And to his other anxieties was now added fear for his calf crop; cattle were never prolific under poor feeding. He had to distribute his bulls.
Along with the other outfits he tried to scatter the stock over the range, and by salting in certain places to hold them there. And one day in desperation he went into Judson and bought all the cottonseed cake he could find. It left him practically without money.
Even before the Fair other men had begun to ship to the feeders the cattle they could not carry. And Tom, going to the Fair—he had been appointed one of the judges—stopped in and had a frank talk with Mr. Tulloss.
"I want to do the right thing," he said, standing in front of the banker's desk. "There is still time for you to get out from under if you feel like it. There would be a loss, but not so much as it may be later."
"Then you're going to quit on me, Tom?"
"Quit! I'm ready to hold on till hell freezes over! It's you I'm thinking about."
Tulloss looked at him. The boy was certainly thin, standing there in his gala attire, the brilliant shirt, the neckerchief, the leather chaps. And he had a strained look about the eyes.
"Show clothes, Tom?"
"Some I had left, yes."
"Your wife coming in?"
"She's bringing the Ford. I rode over. Have to have my own horse, you know. I can't mount the way I used to."
"No," said Mr. Tulloss. "No. How's Kay standing it?"
"It's mighty lonely for her, but she's" He flushed darkly. "She's a pretty fine little girl."
"No trouble then?"
"No trouble," said Tom valiantly.
When he left he knew the banker was still behind him, and he felt happier than for weeks. He strode out, made that awkward mount of his, and rode to the Fair grounds. After all, life was still good to him; he was not down and out, he had a herd of cattle and a ranch. And he had Kay. His heart swelled a little as he thought of her, dauntlessly driving the ramshackle Ford along the dusty roads, and there was a bit of swagger in the way he rode onto the field.
The grand-stand was full, and in front of it the local band was playing. Earlier in the day the crowds had thronged the buildings, and had viewed the exhibits proudly, and with reason. They themselves had made them possible, had fought their hard fight and were slowly winning out. The school display, the vegetables and fruits, the very pedigreed cattle and the great stallions with crimped manes and shining hoofs, they had made them possible. They had taken this forgotten corner of the world and made it bloom. It was theirs; God had given them the land, and they had nourished it and made it bloom.
And now they were ready to play.
"Look! There's Tom McNair. Surely to goodness he can't be going to ride!"
"Roping, maybe."
And a deep masculine voice:
"Bull-dogging, most likely. He's throwin' enough bull now to make him champion!"
But if they laughed there was affection in the laughter. His lameness, his marriage, his refusal to accept his handicap, even his attack on Little Dog, had added to his popularity.
"What pains me is, why he didn't kill that Indian when he had the chance."
"Well, he got ten days' free board for it."
There was a rattle of applause as he rode out into the field. He ignored it, but he heard it; he sat a little straighter, put his gloved hand more jauntily on his thigh, and hoped that Kay had arrived to hear it. He was more nearly his old reckless self than he had been for months.
But Kay had not heard it. She came in rather late, to find the crowd assembled, the band blaring, and the races filling in the time until the bucking began.
The dust was intense. Her feet sank into it as into a cushion. Just as she passed before the grand-stand she was suddenly self-conscious and uncomfortable. It seemed to her that all the eyes had left the track and were focussed on her. She even heard a voice:
"There she is now. I knew she hadn't come yet."
And once seated she was aware still of intent concentrated inspection. The chatter around her had practically ceased. Not for a long time did she dare to take her eyes from the dusty track before her and to glance around; when she did, the gazes around her became instantly absorbed in the racing. She saw only immobile faces.
After a time she relaxed. The judges in the stand across became individuals in straw hats and an occasional Stetson, with Mr. Tulloss among them. The bandsmen below them had taken off their coats and were playing in their shirt-sleeves. Boys selling near-beer and pop were moving about. Tom, with a dozen or so of other mounted men, was waiting by the corral inside the track.
She felt happier when she had located him, and less alone. She watched him, apparently so unself-conscious of his audience, and after a time she decided that he was less so than he seemed. She even thought he was quietly touching his horse with his spurs. The horse would rear and show excitement, but Tom sat him straight and somehow splendid, but certainly posed. Oh, certainly posed. She was vaguely annoyed. She looked around the grand-stand, and she thought she saw there an understanding as quick as her own. Quicker.
"Tom's some rider still."
"Well, don't tell him. He knows it."
It grated on her horribly. She began to look any way but at Tom. Even the knowledge that he had earned the right to pose if he wanted, that there was admiration mixed with their scorn, did not help her. Nor that in the world she had left, while there was little posing, there were a thousand hypocrisies instead. She took to watching the crowd before her, and it was then that she saw Clare again.
She was wandering, apparently aimlessly, back and forward; a queer figure in a very short scant black-and-white checked skirt, and above it a sleeveless blouse. On her head she wore a curious contraption of black satin straps, from which in front protruded a visor like a beak, and at the rear of her skirt was a pocket in which, carefully arranged to show, was a green handkerchief. All in all, perched on her high heels, she looked like some queer and rather sullen bird.
Each time she passed she gave Kay a long look, half scornful and half challenging, and Kay became acutely self-conscious once more. Clare would move along, her eyes down, until she came to Kay, and then the performance would be repeated. She was not alone; there was a girl with her, and this girl was obviously arguing with her and not too comfortable.
"For goodness sake, let me alone, Sarah Cain."
"But everybody's looking."
"Let them look. Do you suppose I care?"
Kay was uncomfortable and uneasy. She even, after a while, decided that the girl was dramatizing herself, not only for her benefit, but for that of the crowd. Like Tom! She felt a little shudder of distaste. If only she could get out, get away
The races went on and on. The audience, hot and perspiring, waited through them stoically for the things that were to come later, the calf-roping, the bucking. When Clare at last ceased her tragic parading Kay got up and left the stand. She had no thought but to get out and away. She had not even missed Tom from the crowd around the corral. And thus it was that, hidden among the parked deserted cars outside, she came across them with a shock that made her feel faint and ill.
Tom was standing still, his expression one of distress and discomfort. And leaning against him, crying hysterically into the green handkerchief, was Clare. She was utterly abandoned to her grief; her body in her absurd clothes shook with her sobs. And as she stared Tom put his arms around her. It was only a flash. Neither of them had seen her, and Kay turned and fled on trembling knees.
After a while she found herself in the Ford again, and sitting there she tried to reason the matter out. Tom still cared for her; it was only that the girl was still crazy about him, and had trapped him there. What if he had put his arms around her? He might be sorry for her. Suppose she had belonged in his past? What was his past to her, Kay? All men had pasts, probably; perhaps even Herbert, only Herbert's past would be neat and discreet. It would never come in a jockey cap and hip-pocket skirt, and hang around his neck.
But jealousy cannot be reasoned with.
How had she got word to him? She must have written a note and sent it by some grinning messenger. And Tom had come, had left the field and come. She had sat there in the grand-stand, and people—many people perhaps—had known why he had left. It was dreadful; it was cheap, and she was involved in all this sordid scheming and cheapness; this shopgirl intrigue.
After awhile she forced herself to go back to the gate again. Tom had returned, and the riders were drawing their horses, the names written on slips of paper in a hat. All at once she knew she could not face that curious crowd again. Nor Tom himself. She needed to think things out, to be alone. She could not even face Ed at the Martin House, where they had intended to stay for the three days of the Fair. She found some paper in her handbag, and wrote a brief note:
"I am not feeling very well. Please don't worry, but I am going home. I'll be all right after a day or two of rest. Kay."
When she gave it to the gatekeeper to be sent to Tom on the field, he smiled, and she knew instinctively that it was not the first note he had sent to Tom that day.
A mile or two along the road she began to weaken. What was she running from? Because a girl had been crying in Tom's arms. How silly! A thousand things, which had nothing to do with Tom and herself, might lie behind that scene. But she did not turn beck; Tom would have the note by then, and would know she was not ill. She would have to tell him, and she did not know which she dreaded more, his righteous anger or feeble explanations from him which would not explain.
She was quieter when she got home. She made some tea and drank it, and afterwards she sat on the porch and looked at the distant mountains. They gave her their own message, of the passing of time and the smallness of human affairs, and when she crawled into bed she had determined on her future course. She would never refer to Clare or to what she had seen, and Tom was to find no change in her.
But she had not counted on Tom himself. She had been asleep for an hour or so when she was roused by the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs, and a moment later she heard him at the door.
"Kay!"
"Yes. I'm coming."
He was dusty and wild-eyed, and almost reeling with weariness as he came in. Outside she could see his horse standing with heaving sides and drooping head, the reins hanging loose.
"God, Kay, you've scared me almost to death. Are you sick?"
"I'm better now. I felt queer for awhile. I never thought of your coming all this way."
"Of course I came," he said shortly. He surveyed her intently, and his anxiety suddenly gave way to suspicion. He caught her by the shoulders, not too gently. "Is that all? You felt queer, and so you came home? Why didn't you go to the Martin House?"
"I wanted to come home. Sit down. Have you had anything to eat?"
"No. I don't want anything. I want to know what brought you back here, forty miles. You knew darned well I'd follow you."
"I never thought you would, Tom," she said honestly. "When I left"
"Well?"
"Couldn't you have borrowed a car?"
"And let every damn fool around know my wife had run off and left me! No. I'm going back, as soon as I find out what the trouble is." He was working at his boot. "You're not sick. You weren't sick when you left."
"No," she said quietly.
"Then what was it?" he demanded.
"I think you know."
He glanced at her and his eyes fell. He drew off his boot and sat rubbing his swollen ankle. Her heart was beating wildly.
"If you mean Clare Hamel," he said roughly, "you can forget it. She's always crying on somebody's neck."
"It was yours today, as it happens. She sent for you, and you slipped away and went to her."
"And you followed!"
"No," she said patiently. "I didn't follow you. I hadn't an idea— Has this Clare any call on you, Tom?"
"What do you mean, call? I used to know her. That's all. And since you know so darned much about my meeting her, perhaps you saw that I wasn't making any great fuss over her. Not so you could notice it."
"Then she hasn't any claim on you?"
"No," he said sullenly. "I'm married. She knows it. And that's all there is to it. Look here,"—he was suddenly angry—"what about yourself? You were engaged to Percy when we were married. Have I ever thrown that up to you? I have not."
But he saw that he had trapped himself, and he changed color.
"Then you were engaged to her when I?"
"Yes," he said sulkily. "And I treated her like a yellow dog."
In the lamplight they stared at each other. His boot lay on the floor, one of those gay boots which he had donned so happily the day before. Above it was his tall weary figure, his face streaked with dust and sweat. He looked older, unhappy, defiant. Across from him, her red dressing gown held around her, a haunted look in her face, was Kay. Only a few feet separated them, but neither could cross it.
"Then?" she asked, painfully quiet, "when I came to you she was expecting to marry you?"
"The same as your Herbert."
"But it isn't quite the same, is it? I came to you. You had to marry me, or send me back home."
"Oh, for God's sake, Kay! I wanted to marry you."
"I wonder if you did."
She turned and went wearily into the bedroom, and crawled into bed. He sat for a time as she had left him. After awhile she heard him strike a match, and the familiar odor of his cigarette came through the open door. When he moved finally she braced herself for a renewal of the scene between them, but he did not come in. Instead she heard him lighting the kitchen fire and putting the kettle on, and later she knew he was soaking his swollen ankle in hot water. Her thoughts milled about: Clare, Tom, herself. That day when she had gone to him, and they had been married. His easy casual ignoring of his engagement to Clare, his almost equally easy and casual marriage to her. Yet was she being fair to him? He had worked hard. He had been faithful to her, so far as she knew. He had even ridden forty miles that night, for fear she might be ill.
But had he? Might he not have suspected that she had seen him, and have come desperately to make his peace?
She waited and listened in the darkness. Surely the next move was up to him; in her morbid condition his very silence gave corroboration to her fear. But he did not come, and at last she fell into an exhausted sleep. When she awakened it was dawn, and he had gone again.
She did not see him for three days.