THE DESERT HOTEL
HE left the dusty car with relief when the twin towns were called.
The sun, plunging toward the horizon, was sending out long straight
shafts of yellow light, staining the railroad buildings a deeper hue
and playing queer tricks with faces and features. The yellow calcium
isolated two stalwart Indians whose painted faces and streaming black
hair, chains of tawdry beads and floating ribbons made the vacuity of
their brown masks a grotesque contrast. Their survey of the train and
the jostling passengers, was as dispassionate and incurious as though
this brisk invasion carried no meaning nor menace to them.
Rickard had expected to see a Mexican town, or at least a Mexican
influence, as the towns hugged the border, but it was as vividly
American as was Imperial or Brawley. There was the yellow-painted
station of the Overland Pacific lines, the water-tank, the eager
American crowd. Railroad sheds announced the terminal of the road.
Backed toward the station was the inevitable hotel bus of the country
town, a painted board hanging over its side advertising the Desert
Hotel. Before he reached the step, the vehicle was crowded.
“Wait, gen’lemen, I’m coming back for a second load,” called the darky
who was holding the reins.
“If you wait for the second trip, you won’t get a room,” suggested a
friendly voice from the seat above.
Rickard threw his bag to the grinning negro, and swung on to the
crowded steps.
Leaving the railroad sheds, he observed a building which he assumed was
the hotel. It looked promising, attractive with its wide encircling
veranda and the patch of green which distance gave the dignity of
a lawn. But the darky whipped up his stolid horses. Rickard’s eyes
followed the patch of green.
The friendly voice from above told him that that was the office of
the Desert Reclamation Company. His next survey was more personal. He
saw himself entering the play as the representative of a company that
was distrusted, if not indeed actively hated by the valley folk. It
amused him that his entrance was so quiet as to be surreptitious. It
would have been quieter had Marshall had his way. But he himself had
stipulated that Hardin should be told of his coming. He had seen the
telegram before it left the Tucson office. He might be assuming an
unfamiliar rôle in this complicated drama of river and desert, but it
was not to be as an eavesdropper.
“Going in to settle?” The friendly voice belonged, he could see through
the press of arms and limbs, to a pair of alert eyes and a faded
buttonless shirt that had once been blue.
“I did that before I left!” He was tired of the question.
There was a laugh from the seats above.
“Going to try Calexico?”
“I think Calexico is going to try me! If this dust is a sample!”
“Wonder if they are so eager to welcome settlers because they are all
real-estate agents, or if the valley movement is a failure?” reflected
the newcomer.
The heavy bus was plowing slowly through the dust of the street.
Rickard was given ample time to note the limitations of the new town.
They passed two brick stores of general merchandise; lemons and
woolen goods, stockings and crackers disporting fraternally in their
windows. A board sign swinging from the overhanging porch of the most
pretentious building announced the post-office. From a small adobe
hung a brass plate advising the stranger of the Bank of Calexico. The
’dobe pressed close to another two-storied structure of the desert
type. The upper floor, supported by posts, extended over the sidewalk.
Netted wire screened away the desert mosquito, and gave the overhanging
gallery the grotesque appearance of a huge fencing mask. From the
street could be seen rows of beds; as in hospital wards. Calexico, it
was seen, slept out-of-doors.
“Desert Hotel,” bawled the darky, reining in his placid team.
“Yes, sah, I’ll look out for your bag. Got your room? The hotel’s
mighty sure to be full. Not many women yit down this a-way.... All the
men mostly lives right heah at the hotel.”
Rickard made a dive from a swirl of dust into the hotel. The long
line he anticipated at the desk was not there. He stopped to take in
a valley innovation. One end of the long counter had been converted
into a soda-water bar. The high swivel stools in front of the white
marbled stand, with its towering silver fixtures, were crowded with
dust-parched occupants of the bus. A white-coated youth was pouring
colored sirups into tall glasses; there was a clinking of ice; a
sizzling of siphons.
“That’s a new one on me,” grinned Rickard, turning toward the desk
where a complacent proprietor stood waiting to announce that there was
but one room left.
“With bath?”
“Bath right across the hall. Only room left in the house.” The
proprietor awarded him the valley stare. “Going to be here long?” He
passed the last key on the rack to the darky staggering under a motley
of bags and suit-cases. Rickard recognized his, and followed.
“I may get you another room to-morrow,” called the proprietor after him
as he climbed the dusty stairs.
Rickard decided that the one room was not only hot and stifling,
but dirty. The darky thrust his bag through the door and left the
guest staring at the bed. He pulled back the covers; dust and sand
of apparently a week’s accumulation lined the sheets. The red,
gaily-flowered, Brussels carpet was gritty with sand. Rickard rubbed a
reflective finger over the surface of the golden-oak bureau.
A middle-aged chambermaid with streaming rusty hair, entering without
ceremony, caught his grimace.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. I cleaned it up this morning. It’s the
wind. Ain’t it awful? I’ve known people to come into this place when
the wind has been blowing as it has to-day, and seen them leave as soon
as they seen their bed. They had to come back, as there’s no other
place to go, and they’d be no better if there was. But Mr. Patton,
that’s the boss, has me go around regular now, and explain. It saves
his time. I’ll fix it up for you, so you can be easy as to its being
new dirt. It’ll be just as bad as this when you come to go to bed.”
Rickard washed his hands, and fled, leaving the berserker to the clouds
of fury she had evoked. The soda-counter was deserted. The youth,
divested of his white coat, was relieving Mr. Patton at the register.
Rickard followed the sound of voices.
The signals of a new town were waving in the dining-room. The
majority of the citizens displayed their shirt-sleeves and unblushing
suspenders. One large table was surrounded by men in khaki; the
desert-soldiers, engineers. The full blown waitresses, elaborately
pompadoured, were pushing through the swing-doors, carrying heavy
trays. Their transparent shirt-waists of coarse embroidery or lace were
pinned to rusty, badly hung skirts of black alpaca. An apron, the size
of a postage stamp, was the only badge of servitude. Coquetry appeared
to be their occupation, rather than meal-serving, the diners accepting
both varieties of attention with appreciation. The supremacy of those
superior maidens was menaced only by two other women who sat at a table
near the door. Rickard did not see them at first. The room was as
masculine as a restaurant in a new mining town.
A superior Amazon inquired if the gentleman would like vermicelli soup?
As he did not even glance at her magnificent pompadour, he was punished
by being served last through the entire bill of fare.
He had two men at his table. They were engrossed with their course of
boiled beef and spaghetti. Iced tea, instead of wine, was the only
variation from the conventional, country hotel dinner.
Rickard left his indoor view to look through the French windows opening
on a side street. He noticed a slender but regular procession. All the
men passing fell in the same direction.
“Cocktail route,” explained one of his neighbors, his mouth full of
boiled beef.
“Oyster cocktail?” smiled the newcomer.
“The real thing! Calexico’s dry, like the whole valley, that is, the
county. See that ditch? That is Mexico, on the other side. Those sheds
you can see are in Mexicali, Calexico’s twin sister. That painted adobe
is the custom house. Mexicali’s not dry, even in summer! You can bet
your life on that. You can get all the bad whisky and stale beer you’ve
the money to buy. We work in Calexico, and drink in Mexicali. The
temperance pledge is kept better in this town than any other town in
the valley. But you can see this procession every night.”
The Amazon with a handkerchief apron brought Rickard his soup. He was
raising his first spoonful to his mouth when he saw the face, carefully
averted, of the girl he had met at the Marshalls’ table, Innes Hardin.
His eyes jumped to her companions, the man a stranger, and then, Gerty
Holmes. At least, Mrs. Hardin! Somehow, it surprised him to find her
pretty.
She had achieved a variety of distinction, preserving, moreover, the
clear-cut babyish chin which had made its early appeal to him. There
was the same fluffy hair, its ringlets a bit artificial to his more
sophisticated eyes, the same well-turned nose. He had been wondering
about this meeting; he found that he had been expecting some sort of
shock--who said that the love of to-day is the jest of to-morrow? The
discovery that Gerty was not a jest brought the surprised gratification
which we award a letter or composition written in our youth. Were we
as clever as that, so complete at eighteen or twenty-one? Could we,
now, with all our experience, do any better, or indeed as well? That
particular sentence with wings! Could we make it fly to-day as it
soared yesterday? Rickard was finding that Gerty’s more mature charms
did not accelerate his heart-beats, but they were certainly flattering
to his early judgment. And he had expected her to be a shock!
He was staring into his plate of chilled soup. Calf-love! For he had
loved her, or at least he had loved her chin, her pretty childish way
of lifting it. She was prettier than he had pictured her. Queer that a
man like Hardin could draw such women for sister and wife--the blood
tie was the most amazing. For when women come to marry, they make often
a queer choice. It occurred to him that that might have been Hardin--he
had not wanted to stare at them.
That was not Hardin’s face. It held strength and power. The outline
was sharp and distinct, showing the strong lines, the determined mouth
of the pioneer. There was something else, something which stood for
distinction--no, it couldn’t be Hardin.
And then, because an outthrust lip changed the entire look of the
man, Rickard asked his table companions, who was the man with the two
ladies, near the door.
“That, suh,” his neighbor from Alabama became immediately oratorical,
“that is a big man, suh. If the Imperial Valley ever becomes a reality,
a fixtuah, it will be because of that one man, suh. Reclamation is like
a seed thrown on a rock. Will it stick? Will it take root? Will it
_grow_? That is what we all want to know.”
Rickard thought that he had wanted to know something quite different,
and reminded the gentleman from Alabama that he had not told him the
name.
“The father of this valley, of the reclamation of this desert, Thomas
Hardin, suh.”
Rickard tried to reset, without attracting their attention, the group
of his impressions of the man whose personality had been so obnoxious
to him in the old Lawrence days. The Hardin he had known had also large
features, but of the flaccid irritating order. He summoned a picture of
Hardin as he had shuffled into his own class room, or up to the long
table where Gerty had always queened it among her mother’s boarders.
He could see the rough unpolished boots that had always offended him
as a betrayal of the man’s inner coarseness; the badly fitting coat,
the long awkward arms, and the satisfied, loud-speaking mouth. These
features were more definite. Could time bring these changes? Had _he_
changed, like that? Had they seen him? Would Gerty, would Hardin
remember him? Wasn’t it his place to make himself known; wave the flag
of old friendship over an awkward situation?
He found himself standing in front of their table, encountering first,
the eyes of Hardin’s sister. There was no surprise, no welcome there
for him. He felt at once the hostility of the camp. His face was
uncomfortably warm. Then the childish profile turned on him. A look of
bewilderment, flushing into greeting--the years had been kind to Gerty
Holmes!
“Do you remember me, Rickard?”
If Hardin recognized a difficult situation, he did not betray it. It
was a man Rickard did not know who shook him warmly by the hand, and
said that indeed he had not forgotten him.
“I’ve been expecting you. My wife, Mr. Rickard, and my sister.”
“Why, what are you thinking of, Tom? To introduce Mr. Rickard! I
introduced you to each other, years ago!” Gerty’s cheeks were red.
Her bright eyes were darting from one to the other. “You knew he was
coming, and did not tell me?”
“You were at the Improvement Club when the telegram came,” put in Innes
Hardin, without looking at Rickard. No trace of the Tucson cordiality
in that proud little face! No acknowledgment that they had met at the
Marshalls’!
“Oh, you telegraphed to us?” The blond arch smile had not aged. “That
was friendly and nice.”
Rickard had not been self-conscious for many a year. He did not know
what to say. He turned from her upturned face to the others. Innes
Hardin was staring out of the window, over the heads of several crowded
tables; Hardin was gazing at his plate. Rickard decided that he would
get out of this before Gerty discovered that it was neither “friendly
nor nice.”
“If I had known that you were here, I would have insisted on your
dining with us, in our tent. For it’s terrible, here, isn’t it?”
She flashed at him the look he remembered so vividly, the childish
coquettish appeal. “We dine at home, till it becomes tiresome, and then
we come foraging for variety. But you must come to us, say Thursday. Is
that right for you? We should love it.”
Still those two averted faces. Rickard said Thursday, as he was bidden,
and got back to his table, wondering why in thunder he had let Marshall
persuade him to take this job.
Hardin waited a scant minute to protest: “What possessed you to ask him
to dinner?”
“Why shouldn’t I? He is an old friend.” Gerty caught a glance of
appeal, from sister to brother. “Jealous?” she pouted charmingly at her
lord.
“Jealous, no!” bluffed Hardin.
He thought then that she knew, that Innes had told her. The Lawrence
episode held no sting to him. Once, it had enchanted him that he had
carried off the boarding-house belle, whom even that bookman had found
desirable--bookman! A superior dude! He had always had those grand
airs. As if it were not more to a man’s credit to struggle for his
education, even if he were older than his class, or his teacher, than
to accept it off silver plates, handed by lackeys? Rickard had always
acted as if it had been something to be ashamed of. It made him sick.
“They’ve done it this time. It’s a fool choice.”
Again, that look of pleading from Innes. Gerty had a shiver of
intuition.
“Fool choice?” Her voice was ominously calm.
Hardin shook off Innes’ eyes. Better be done with it! “He’s the new
general manager.”
“He’s the general manager!”
“I’m to take orders from him.”
Gerty’s silence was of the stunned variety. The Hardins watched her
crumbling bread on the table-cloth, thinking, fearfully, that she was
going to cry.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Her voice, repressed, carried the threat of tears.
“Didn’t I tell you how it would be? Didn’t I say that you’d be sorry if
you called the railroad in?”
“Must we go over this again?” asked her husband.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me make a goose of myself?”
She was remembering that there had been no protest, no surprise from
Innes. She knew! A family secret! She shrugged. “I’m glad, on the
whole, that you planned it as a surprise. For I carried it off as if
we’d not been insulted, disgraced.”
“Gerty!” expostulated Hardin.
“Gerty!” implored Innes.
“And we are in for a nice friendly dinner!”
“Are you quite finished?” Hardin got up.
As the three passed out of the dining-room, Rickard caught their
several expressions: Hardin’s stiff, indifferent; Gerty’s brilliant but
hard, as she flashed a finished, brave little smile in his direction.
The sister’s bow was distinctly haughty.
In the hall, Gerty’s laugh rippled out. It was the laugh Rickard
remembered, the light frivolous cadence which recalled the flamboyant
pattern of the Holmes’ parlor carpet, the long, crowded dining-table
where Gerty had reigned. It told him that she was indifferent to his
coming, as she meant it should. And it turned him back to a dark corner
in the honeysuckle draped porch where he had spent so many evenings
with her, where once he had held her hand, where he told her that he
loved her. For he had loved her, or at least he thought he had! And had
run away from her expectant eyes. A cad, was he, because he had brought
that waiting look into her eyes, and had run from it?
Should a man ask a woman to give her life into his keeping until he
is quite sure that he wants it? He was revamping his worn defense.
Should he live up to a minute of surrender, of tenderness, if the next
instant brings sanity, and disillusionment? He could bury now forever
self-reproach. He could laugh at his own vanity. Gerty Hardin, it was
easy to see, had forgotten what he had whispered to Gerty Holmes. They
met as sober old friends. That ghost was laid.