“And over there is Camel Rock,” Gin shouted, trying to reach the far
corners of the bus with her voice. Just then the driver went into low
and made it more difficult. She sat as near the edge of her seat as she
could without falling off when the bus turned a corner and rocked a bit.
Eleven heads turned obediently towards Camel Rock.
“See it?” she screamed. “See the hump, and the head in front?” Her voice
almost cracked.
They all saw it at last. Those who couldn’t at first were helped by the
others, standing up to look back at it while the bus went on. Gin sat
back in the seat again and relaxed, swallowing hard. There would be
nothing more to show them until Santa Clara; perhaps she could be quiet
until then. She looked around to see if anyone was nursing a grievance.
Would they expect her to keep talking in between the points of interest?
Sometimes people wanted her to, other times they preferred to sleep.
There was a fat man in the third seat who showed signs of being
difficult; the kind of tourist who wrote letters to the company after
the trip, commending and criticizing. Every courier lived in terror of
such a letter.
“While I have nothing but praise for the courtesy and attention of your
driver, I am sorry to say that none of us were satisfied with Miss
Arnold’s behaviour. She seemed distracted; she did not attend to her
duties. She seemed to lose no opportunity for disappearing from us;
whenever the occasion offered itself for her to wander off, she was
nowhere to be found. I am unwilling to complain about anything connected
with your excellent tours, but I must say that when I have paid an extra
fare of forty-seven dollars and fifty cents....”
Gin took a deep breath and leaned forward to the fat man.
“Do you like this road, Mr. Butts?” she asked tenderly. “It’s quite
famous. The guests always like it. I do think that this is one of the
nicest trips we have, even if it _is_ included in the regular Detour.
The first and third days may be more educational, but today I think
you’ll have a lovely time besides.”
Mr. Butts merely grunted, but there was a satisfactory reaction from the
old lady who sat in front of him. She turned and smiled nervously.
“Isn’t this road dangerous for the speed we’re going?” she quavered. “Of
course it’s perfectly beautiful. Mr. Butts, do look at that, right
behind you!”
Mr. Butts turned his head resignedly and looked. The bus had come to a
place that gave a short glimpse of Santa Fé behind them, tiny and white
and scattered. It was immediately hidden by the dark turbulent waves of
hill around it as they drove on.
“Pretty,” said Mr. Butts in his brief way.
Gin gave it up for the moment and settled back, fanning herself with her
hat. The bus was hot and stuffy, although all the glass windows were
open. She yawned and drifted off, thankful that she wasn’t feeling
particularly nauseated today by the constant motion. Some of the girls
could never get used to it, but she seemed to be adjusted. She looked
around apathetically at the dudes and wondered if they were all as
stupid as they appeared or if it was because she needed sleep. Some
days, it was true, everyone was perfectly charming. Those were the days
that followed good healthy nights of sleep. There weren’t many of them,
she thought ruefully. She often thought ruefully of her habits, but
never to the extent of changing them. No one did in Santa Fé when they
had lived there as long as she had.
One of the crowd today wasn’t so bad, she thought. She had noticed him
at the hotel office when he signed on at the last minute for the trip.
As skilful as the clerk in sizing up the tourists, she had put him
immediately in the pigeon-hole reserved for summer visitors who stayed
the season. He was no train-tripper. He probably lived in one of the big
houses outside of town, with a swimming-pool and a stable. A
nice-looking kid, just a baby, probably sixteen. Since she had not seen
him before, he must be new. Since he was wearing summer clothes of an
extreme carelessness—blue shirt and white trousers and no hat—he was
not a resident; residents of Santa Fé never admitted that it was a
summer resort; they tried to dress as if Santa Fé were New York. Well,
he’d be around now, riding around the Plaza, playing tennis with Teddy
Madden, looking scornfully at the newcomers after he had been there a
week, and talking learnedly of Indian customs. He was new, though: she
could tell it by the fact that he was taking a trip with her and looking
at everything with an ingenuous pleasure. She liked the way he looked
out of the window. He was taking it hard.
It made her pensive and reminiscent: his youthful rapt gaze. She thought
of the first time she had driven out here, with the couriers’ training
school. It had been raining; up on Baldy there was a light snow and
there was mist around Jemez. She had felt terribly excited. All the
other girls told her it was the altitude. Whatever it was, she liked it.
And then the bus had come near Española and the valley.... They were
almost there now; she watched the boy like a cat, to see what would
happen to him when he saw it.
Yes, he got it. She knew it by the way his thin little shoulders jerked
and his head leaned back, closer to the window. She could just see the
back of his head, but she knew. When _she_ had first seen it, she had
cried. Probably the effect of the altitude, but why not? There was
nothing like it anywhere else. The valley was absolutely naked; bare
rock shaped in lumps on the bare sand, drowning in mists of vague
lavender and dark blue and thin brown and yellow, transparent colors.
The rock was shaped in pillars and blocks and squat cylinders, cut off
flat at the tops. It was all dead and ghostly. Nothing lived here. The
few scraggy clumps of juniper were not alive, for they were as ancient
and dusty as the rocks, and as motionless.
It was only for a few miles. Beyond, the land lived again, flushed to
foliage by the lazy sandy river. Back of all of it were the real
mountains, with pine forests and trout streams, but now while Gin and
the boy looked at them they were too far off to be green; they were dead
dark blue.
“My, that’s gloomy,” said the cheerful lady from Chicago. “Miss Arnold,
is that land good for anything? Does the government own it, or what?”
They crossed the wide white bridge to Española and followed the road
through a rocky country, bearing down on the ugly round buildings that
housed the Government schools. Approaching Santa Clara, the driver
honked his horn loudly to warn the pottery-venders. By the time he came
to a stop before the church, in the dry yellow plaza surrounded by
square adobe huts, the women were filing out to the clear space in the
centre, carrying their pottery on their heads and swinging baskets of
smaller stuff—modelled animals, black-painted, and bead belts and
necklaces. They walked serene and fat, surrounded by children and yellow
dogs. They sat down in a neat half-circle before the bus and spread
their wares out, impassive or smiling in their cotton shawls and long
smocks. Eleven potential customers climbed out of the leather chairs and
looked curiously at the big black bowls and the brown faces.
The men of the party were already saying, “That would be fine for Cousin
Sally,” and the women were saying, “Now, John, be careful. We’ve just
packed the trunk as it is; we can’t buy everything we see,” when Gin
slipped away. She hurried around the corner of a house and walked down
one of the many back paths, trying to get away before someone asked her
to argue with an Indian about the price of the bowls. She stopped at one
of the screen doors and peeped in. Her friend was at home, making a bowl
in the middle of the whitewashed clay floor.
“Oh, come in, Ginny,” said Rufina, pushing a chair with her feet. “I
heard you coming. How are you? I haven’t seen you here for a week. Been
sick?”
“No, they sent me to the Canyon all of a sudden, and I just got back
yesterday. How’s all the family?” A sticky little girl, pursued by
flies, climbed up in her lap.
“Not so good. My mother is still sick, but she is getting better. Did
you bring many people today?”
“One full load, that’s all.”
“We have been busy. Yesterday there were so many. Two buses and other
people coming by themselves, all day.”
Outside the door a bulky shadow fell. It was the lady from Chicago,
reconnoitering on her own. Gin wondered if she had been walking into any
of the houses without knocking; it sometimes had an oddly infuriating
effect on the Indians.
“Oh, there’s Miss Arnold right at home in the middle of them. Come here,
Eddie, here’s the cutest thing. I want you to take a picture of it.
Look, here’s an Indian making a pot right in her own house. Isn’t that
darling? Would you think that you were in the States?”
“Come in,” said Rufina. They stepped over the threshold and she sat back
on her heels, smiling blankly.
“Oh, look,” said the lady loudly. “A baby too, right in Miss Arnold’s
lap. Perfectly adorable. Miss Arnold,” she asked, whispering in a small
shout, “aren’t you afraid of catching things? Her hair....”
Gin said that it was time to go back to the bus. She held open the door,
waved good-bye to Rufina hastily, and went back to the marketplace.
Eight of the dudes were back in the car, and Blake was waiting for her
with a new purchase to show her, a turquoise ring.
“Let’s see it,” she said, and he took it off and handed it over.
“Why, it’s quite nice,” she said. “Did you buy it here?”
“Yes, that man over there was wearing it and I asked him if he wanted to
sell. Is it really good? I liked the colour of the stone.”
“The green stones always look nice, I think,” she said. “Nice and old.
They’re not the best, of course,” she added in low tones. “You probably
paid more than he expected, but it’s good-looking, I think.”
It was not ethical to tell any dude that he had paid too much, but he
didn’t seem to care. He liked the ring, that was all. Summer people
always collected jewelry in a serious way—they liked to have heavy
bracelets sitting around on the tables or shelves in a careless, opulent
manner. The old timers scorned it.
Now the other ten were sitting in the bus, and on Mr. Butts’ face was a
look that meant, “Must we wait all day while that hussy flirts?”
She took her own seat, thinking that she would get Mr. Butts yet.
They were growing a little impatient about lunch, she thought. The long
drive up to Puye, around a hairpin turn that made the Chicago lady
squeal for three minutes, distracted them a little from the idea of
food. But not much. On top of the plateau while they were exclaiming
over the view she thought of something that might get the wedge into Mr.
Butts.
“In November,” she said as they entered the forest, “there are wild
turkeys here. Lots of the boys in town shoot a couple during the
season.” He grunted, but turned to look again at the neat wooded lawns.
“He’s slipping,” she thought hopefully.
The cliffs of Puye were nearer: pale yellow in the pale brightness of
the air. Higher and higher they went, round big curves that pulled them
closer to the caves with every sweep. She showed them the caves——
“See those dark spots? Those are the cliff-dwellings we came out to see.
Yes, we’ll see them much closer than this, Mrs. Jennings. We’re going to
climb right up; right up there.” Mrs. Jennings squealed a little. She
had them already, Gin reflected; she had all of them but Mr. Butts. How
long would he take?
They swarmed over the rest-house when the bus came to a halt.
“Lunch!” she cried gaily. Mr. Butts seemed unimpressed. The hostess
called her into the kitchen and whispered, “I’m at my wits’ ends. Will
you please put it into your report again tonight? I simply cannot manage
without another maid. I’m sorry, Gin, but I don’t think you’ll have much
time for your own lunch today. Would you mind eating it afterwards?”
Gin carried plates and glasses back and forth from the kitchen to the
living-room. Mrs. Jennings offered to help in a very sportsmanslike
Western manner, but she was refused. Gin was horrified at the idea of a
dude stepping into the kitchen. The hostess worked furiously unpacking
the lunch that had come on the back of the bus; jellied soup and salad
and apricot pie.
“Gosh, I get sick of this soup,” said Gin disconsolately in the kitchen,
talking to the cook. “It’s worse when I have three trips to the same
place in succession. Some day I’ll start bringing my own lunch.” She
walked over to the window and watched the dudes disporting on the porch,
fully fed and happy, teasing the rest-house puppy. Mr. Butts looked
dour, however. He hadn’t been able to eat the apricot pie or the
sandwiches because he was on a diet. “That fat one,” she told the cook,
“is pretty bad.”
The cook looked over her shoulder and agreed heartily. “They all travel,
that kind. Nobody will keep them at home. Have some more coffee?”
“No thanks. We’ll have to be starting. Well....” With a gesture of
tightening her belt, she walked out to the porch. “Well, people, are we
ready to go?”
“Where to?” asked Mr. Butts.
“Right up there.” She pointed to the stone-stepped hill behind the
house, with the caves at the top of a long climb. Mr. Butts seemed to
hesitate. “Curly’s going,” Gin added, nodding to the driver. “Aren’t
you, Curly?”
“Sure thing. I’ll take care of you.”
Mrs. Jennings was the first to step forward. “All right; if Curly can
make it, I can.”
Mr. Butts’ masculinity conquered, and he set out without further
discussion. Blake had evidently gone on ahead; they could see him at the
top with his hands in his pockets, looking around in a very pleased
fashion all by himself.
There is a steep ladder at the top of the hill which leads from the
slope to the flat summit. It sometimes causes a lot of trouble to people
who have not caught their breath while they study the caves. Two of the
ladies in Gin’s party looked at it fearfully and refused to climb it at
all. They proposed to go down again to the rest-house, and said that
they were satisfied with what they had seen. This feminine timidity
spurred Mr. Butts to a genial teasing attitude. He laughed at the
ladies; he taunted them; he essayed the ladder and found it easily
conquered. From the top he persuaded them to be brave and come along.
With pushing, pulling, lifting and pleading, they all managed to get
there, and they gathered in a triumphant panting group about Gin,
talking of mountain climbing in Switzerland and taking pictures of the
ladder. She gathered her flock about her on the wind-swept summit and
lectured on the glory that was Puye, waving to the piles of debris that
once were houses and pointing out the dry water-hole. They walked the
length of the village and peered into the excavations. They looked down
upon the distant top of the rest-house. They stood up straight and
breathed hard and gazed for miles over the tree-tops to the distant
mountains, which did not look so high as they had before. Blake
sauntered away and looked for bits of pottery. And Gin kept a wary eye
on the red face of Mr. Butts.
“Yes, he’s slipping,” she told herself.
Afterwards they started home, a long silent ride that was uninterrupted
except for a short visit to Tesuque. They were too tired to take much
interest in Tesuque, which after all was just another Indian village. Of
course, there was old Teofilo. Teofilo was a great help with his
professional attitude of glad-hander; he greeted all couriers with the
same glad surprise, although he saw at least one a day, and he was more
than willing to show his scarred head, which had once been scalped. He
loved to have his picture taken.
Then, the rest of the way was quiet. The dudes arranged their cameras in
their laps, peered around at the bigger pots stored in the back of the
bus, and settled down to doze. The afternoon waned and the shadows
lengthened across the road and the mountains darkened. In town, Curly
manipulated the bus through the narrow streets and stopped before the
Palace of the Governors, now a museum.
“We stop here to see the Museum,” Gin shouted through the bus. “Indian
relics and paintings and the chair Lew Wallace wrote ‘Ben Hur’ in.
Afterwards we walk back to the hotel.”
“Good-bye,” said Blake suddenly, and climbed out. Off across the Plaza
he sprinted; he could be seen intercepting Teddy Madden just as he was
going into the drug store. Gin looked after them and wondered if Teddy
had made any attempt to call her that morning. Perhaps she had better
call him and remind him that they had a date. He was so forgetful.
Mechanically she ushered the dudes into the Palace, then to the first
room on the right.
“Now, here we have a model of the place we saw yesterday. See, here’s
the ruined church....”
But if she called Teddy, Harvey would answer the phone and might think
that she had called to speak to him. Had she a good enough excuse for
calling Teddy? Was she justified in assuming that they were good enough
friends? Oh, to hell with that. There was no reason why she shouldn’t
call him.
“This is the Frijoles room. Frijoles is one of the places we have for
private tours. It is very lovely and very famous: it’s all excavated. We
take it in one-day trips or two: there’s a hotel with cabins for rooms.
It’s most interesting. It has cave-dwellings similar to what we saw
today, but they’re in the walls of the canyon instead of being on a
cliff. There’s a little model of the kiva; see, like the ceremonial cave
we saw today.”
With a guilty feeling, she came back to the business in hand and
listened to herself talking like a Victrola. That was no way to act. One
must put oneself over. Mr. Butts was looking at the pictures on the
walls with a thoughtful eye, a competitive eye. She smiled at him,
glowing with all the force of her personality.
“I’ll tell you what effect that has on me, Mr. Butts,” she said
confidentially. “When I stand there in that canyon I get the queerest
feeling.” It was true, that was the worst of all, she thought. The idea
of telling him! “When I’m there I can’t help feeling that the people who
used to live in those caves are still there, in a way. They’re being
very quiet, and looking at me.” She paused and stared at him with wide
eyes. “It’s silly of me, isn’t it?”
Yes, she had him. He looked down at her and thought about Frijoles and
the dead cave-dwellers, and he looked at her again and thought of the
lost ages when men were men, and of the ladder he had climbed today, and
of the letter he could write home about it. She knew it. She had him.
“You do?” he asked, and there was actually a kindly glint in that fishy
eye. “So that’s how it makes you feel, does it?”
He rubbed his chin. He looked at her and saw her as a person instead of
a courier, a person who had watched him climb that ladder. There would
be no letter to the company. She had him.
“Well, well, well,” he said jovially. “Well well well.”