Jubilee Trail (81 page)

Garnet had hoped for a quiet winter in which she could catch her breath. She felt mentally and emotionally spent and she yearned for the time when she and John could finally go up to his rancho. At Torosa there were the great billowing hills of wild oats, and the miles of poppies, and the mountains against the sky. There were the distances and the great solitudes. After these crowded years, Garnet felt there was nothing her tired spirit needed so much as being at Torosa, with John.

But if she was destined to have peace at Torosa, she was not destined to have it in Los Angeles. Fate seemed to have determined that Los Angeles should not be a quiet town. Not long after Garnet came back there was an accidental explosion at the soldiers’ guardhouse. Several men were killed, and the townspeople were thrown into a panic. After this there were the usual December storms; there was Christmas, when business was so brisk that Garnet and Florinda nearly dropped of exhaustion; there were a few days of calm, and then the same kind of celebration for New Year’s; and then there was an earthquake.

The earthquake came one night in January. Garnet and Florinda were both at the bar with José. The bar was full of men. Florinda was listening to four or five of them at once. Ticktock was showing her the large noisy watch that had given him his name, telling her how old it was and how accurate and how valuable, and how many battles it had been through, and how it had been his good luck charm and as long as he had it he felt safe and sound. Ticktock’s friend Devilbug was telling her about a Digger fight they had had on the way. Several of the New York boys were telling her about a storm they had run into on their way around the Horn. Florinda, as usual, was flirting with them all and at the same time pouring their drinks and keeping up with what they paid her. The light from the hanging lamps, so garish on most people, was tossing lovely shadows over her and making a nimbus about her head.

José was taking care of a group of very young New Yorkers who were awed by the sophistication of the traders, too awed to elbow their way into the group around Florinda. Garnet, at the other end of the bar, was pouring drinks for two New York officers. Other men sat at the tables, their drinks before them. In front of the bar, drinking red wine and enjoying himself, was the Handsome Brute.

The Brute grinned at Garnet. “It is nice and warm in here,” he said. “It is cold outside.”

The two officers glanced at him and smiled tolerantly. Like most other people, they regarded the Brute as a cheerful barbarian. They thought a man of his size looked so absurd in his embroidered satins that they could never take him seriously. One of the officers picked up his glass, found it empty, and said, “Will you fill this for me, Garnet? Whiskey.”

Garnet turned to get the bottle from the shelf. As she put out her hand the bottle came forward to meet her. The floor jerked, the bar itself rose up and hit her in the ribs, her feet went out from under her and she sat down on the floor with a bump so hard that it made her teeth hit. Three bottles crashed at her side, splashing her with wine and aguardiente. The bottle of whiskey fell into her lap and then fell off and went rolling around. Behind her she heard the cash-box fall and the coins go jingling about the floor. At the same time she heard what sounded like a hundred other bumps and crashes as the men at the bar were knocked down, and what sounded like a hundred male voices yelling in a shock of frightened profanity. She heard the Brute shouting to them, “You need not be so scared, it happens often like this,” and she heard Florinda exclaim, “If the earth wiggles one more time I’m going to live in a tree!”

Garnet put her hands to her head. Everything seemed to be falling down and she was so scared she was dizzy. Later she thought if she lived through ten thousand of these temblors she would still be scared out of her wits by every one. Right now she was thinking that her bottom was probably a large purple patch and she would not be able to sit down again for a week. She painfully struggled up and held to the bar, which now seemed to be miraculously firm in the tumbling world.

Cups and glasses rolled among splashes of liquor on the floor. The men were picking themselves up, many of them sucking fingers cut by broken glass. The Brute had evidently made his speech while he was down flat, for he was just now getting up too. There was a tear down the front of his blue coat. Devilbug and Ticktock were holding a New Yorker who did not look more than sixteen and who was so terrified he could not stand on his own legs. They were shaking him and telling him he’d better get used to these things. José was rescuing some bottles that had fallen but not broken. On the floor behind the bar Florinda was raking up the spilt money. Most of the New Yorkers, as soon as they could get to their feet, were rushing outdoors. They were voicing their fright in outlandish phrases, which they would repeat with elaborations when they told their grandchildren about their youth, until the temblor of 1848 would come to sound like the rain of fire that fell on the town of Pompeii.

The house was standing still again. The jolt had come and gone like a blow from a fist. The Brute leaned over the bar and caught Garnet’s hands.

“You are all right? You are not hurt?”

“No, no,” she said breathlessly. “I’m not hurt.”

“And you, Florinda?”

Florinda was getting up, the cash-box hugged to her bosom. “I don’t know whether I’m hurt or not. No time yet to find out.” She put the cash-box carefully on the shelf where it belonged.

Outdoors there was a vast lot of yelling and running about. Garnet was not the only person in Los Angeles who would never get used to these shakes. The door behind the bar opened and Silky put his head in.

“You’d better lock up,” he called. “Every hoodlum in town is going to be on the loose.”

Behind him Garnet heard Stephen, bawling his little throat to pieces. She ran past Silky and into the kitchen. Stephen had been knocked down, like everybody else, and Isabel was just now getting to him, for the supper had spilt into the fire and she had been helping Mickey sweep back the hot ashes that had fallen from the fireplace. Garnet rushed past her and took Stephen into her arms. He was bumped but not otherwise hurt. Carrying him, she went back toward the bar to see what else was happening there.

Silky was on his way to clear up the gambling room. As Garnet came to the door behind the bar with Stephen, Florinda asked, “He’s all right?”

“Yes, he’s all right,” said Garnet. “Just scared like the rest of us.”

She leaned against the side of the doorway, petting and quieting him. The Brute was still standing in front of the bar, but the other customers were gone. José was closing the front door as Silky had ordered. Florinda had pulled off her liquor-soaked mitts and was drying her hands on her skirt. A bottle of wine, which had been jolted to the edge of the shelf, fell off and smashed to pieces at her feet. “Damn,” she said. “We’ll be all day tomorrow cleaning up this place.”

Then something else happened. Garnet was always amazed to see how very slowly things seemed to happen in a moment of stress. They had all forgotten the two lamps that hung from the beams over the bar. The lamps had always been there; Silky had bought them when he first opened the saloon, so the barroom would not have to be lit by candles that any drunken man might turn over. The lamps hung to the beams by metal brackets, and in the past few minutes’ confusion nobody had looked up to see that one of the brackets had broken loose. Nobody thought of them till this very instant, when the lamp slid off the bracket and came down, in what seemed to Garnet to be a journey so long and slow that it might have been a mile from the ceiling to the floor behind the bar. The lamp fell close to where Florinda stood and crashed with a silvery shiver at her feet. The flame ran like a dancer over the top of the oil and touched the hem of her skirt and caught the cloth. The fire began to climb up the side of her dress.

Florinda did not move. She stared at the flame in a paralysis of horror. Her eyes were as blank as two blue china eggs. Florinda who had never in the sight of any of them lost her gallant self-command, lost it now. Her mouth opened, the lips pulling up and down from her teeth. Her scarred hands fluttered like two spiders in the air. Out of her mouth came a scream that ripped through the house and brought Silky running from the gambling room and made Mickey drop an earthenware pot and shatter it to pieces on the kitchen floor.

It had all happened in an instant. It was so sudden that José, locking the door, heard the crash of the lamp and Florinda’s scream at the same time. He wheeled about, but not seeing the flame behind the bar, he could not tell what had happened. He rushed across the room. But before he could get there, before Silky could reach the door and before Garnet, with Stephen in her arms, could move at all, the Brute had leaped over the bar. His great strength carried him over as lightly as a child leaping over a fence. He caught Florinda’s skirt in both hands and ripped it off her, bringing her petticoats with it and leaving her standing in her white drawers and the top half of her dress. He stamped on the flame, and by the time Silky appeared to ask what all the noise was about, the fire was gone.

Florinda was holding herself up with both hands on the bar behind her, staring down at her scorched petticoats on the floor. She was trembling all over. Her face was a dead sort of white. The top of her dress, in shreds where the Brute had torn her skirt and bodice apart, dangled around her waist. The ruffles of her drawers stood out stiffly below her knees, and the light glanced on her silk stockings and her frivolous black kid slippers with silk lacings. She was fighting for self-control. In a faint breathless voice she said,

“Thank you—God I’m a fool to yell like that about nothing—somebody get me something to put on.”

Garnet had already made a movement toward her, but the Brute put out his hand.

“Let her alone. I will take care of her.”

He picked her up like a baby. Florinda made no resistance. The Brute said,

“Get out of the door, Silky. Garnet, put that child down. He is not hurt and if Isabel will stop weeping she can hold him until you go upstairs and bring Florinda a blanket.”

They stood aside and let him carry Florinda into the kitchen and put her on the wall-bench. Isabel was weeping, as the Brute had said, though nobody else had noticed it. Garnet thrust Stephen into her arms and ran upstairs.

When she came down with the blanket Florinda was sitting on the bench, laughing at herself.

“I’m so sorry, dear people. It gave me such a turn in the head, that lamp falling practically on me just when I thought everything was over. Oh Garnet, thanks for the blanket. Cover me up, do. A girl can’t be too careful.”

Her laughter was tinny and unreal. The Brute knew it. He took the blanket from Garnet and tucked it around Florinda gently. But Silky did not know it. Silky thought Florinda’s scream was merely hysterical fear, and he was surprised that anybody as calm as she usually was should have gone to pieces like that. He was bringing her the first remedy that occurred to him, a stiff drink of brandy. Florinda took the cup from him, saying, “Why thanks, Silky,” then as she brought it to her lips and her nose got a whiff of alcohol she exclaimed, “Oh my God, no,” and pushed the cup into the Brute’s hand. But she caught herself, and smiled, saying, “Silky, how often do I have to tell you I can’t handle that stuff?”

Garnet started out to the back porch to see if the water-barrel was still standing, so she could bring Florinda a harmless drink. But Mickey had managed to rescue a kettle half full of water that had been keeping hot on the hearth-stove. Now he was quietly making a cup of tea. The water was not quite boiling, but it did give off a cheerful steam as he poured it out. He came over to Florinda and held out the cup. She took it, saying, “Bless you, Mickey,” and Mickey nodded serenely.

Stephen, on Isabel’s kindly lap, was no longer frightened and had gone to sleep. Garnet went over and sat on the bench by Florinda. As she sat down she winced. She had been right about the purple patch on her bottom.

With Garnet on one side of her and the Brute on the other, Florinda smiled at them both in turn. She drank the tea, and gave the cup back to Mickey with the remark that she didn’t believe she’d wait for him to cook up another supper. The chance for a real night’s sleep was too good to be missed. If they weren’t going to open the bar again she thought she’d go to bed now, so she could come down early tomorrow and help clean up the mess. Garnet took Florinda’s hand in hers, and Florinda pressed her hand affectionately.

And then, as she pressed Florinda’s rough scarred hand in return, Garnet had a flash of insight. She did not know how it came or why. She remembered the day at the Archillette when Texas had put the red-hot iron into her arm. She remembered looking up, dazed with pain, and seeing Florinda’s face above hers, green-tinged and dripping with sweat as though the pain had been Florinda’s and not her own.

She had made up her mind long ago that she was never going to try to find out what had put those scars on Florinda’s hands. But now it seemed to her that the reason for them was lying just over the edge of her mind. She was about to see it, as though she were riding down a road and was about to see something that lay just beyond her present vision. She could not help seeing it, because it was there.

T
HE BRUTE
CAME BACK
to the saloon through the dark spaces among the houses. He had gone out to see what the earthquake had done, but he had found very little damage. These squat little adobe structures were admirably built to stand the jerks of the earth.

But the people were not as firm as the houses they lived in. Some of them had gone to church to pray for peace and quiet. Some of them were looking for their children, who had run out of doors and were now lost among the tall dark weeds. There was the regular crop of rowdies on the lookout, and as always in times of shock, there were some people who were rambling around and who could not to save their lives have told why.

The army was doing its best to restore order. Sentinels had been posted, to prevent looting and help frightened people get back home. The Brute had been stopped several times to answer questions. But his appearance was so striking that most of the men recognized him. They knew he was a harmless blockhead, so when he said mildly that he had been out to look for news and was now going back to Silky’s Place to protect the ladies there, they grinned and let him pass.