Cimarron · Chapter 19 (1/2)

XIX

Cim was nineteen, Donna fifteen. And now Sabra lived quite alone in the new house on Kihekah Street, except for a colored woman servant sent from Kansas. She ran the paper alone, as she wished it run. She ordered the house as she wished it. She very nearly ran the town of Osage. She was a power in the Territory. And Yancey was gone, Cim was gone, Donna was gone. Sabra had refused to compromise with life, and life had take matters out of her hands.

Donna was away at an Eastern finishing school⁠—Miss Dignum’s on the Hudson. Yancey had opposed that, of course. It had been Sabra’s idea to send Donna east to school.

“East?” Yancey had said. “Kansas City?”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh⁠—Chicago.”

“I mean New York.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I didn’t expect you to approve. I suppose you’d like her to go to an Indian school. Donna’s an unusual girl. She’s not a beauty and never will be, but she’s brilliant, that’s what she is. Brilliant. I don’t mean intellectual. You needn’t smile. I mean that she’s got the ambition and the insight and the foresight, too, of a woman of twice her age.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not. She’s like Mamma in many ways, only she’s got intelligence and drive. She doesn’t get along with the girls here⁠—Maurine Turket and Gazelle Slaughter and Jewel Riggs and Czarina McKee, and those. She’s different. They go switching up and down Pawhuska Avenue. They’ll marry one of these tobacco-chewing loafers and settle down like vegetables. Well, she won’t. I’ll see to that.”

“Going to marry her off to an Eastern potentate⁠—at fifteen?”

“You wait. You’ll see. She knows what she wants. She’ll get it, too.”

“Sure it isn’t you who know what you want her to want?”

But Sabra had sent her off to Miss Dignum’s on a diet of prunes and prisms that even her high-and-mighty old grandmother Felice Venable approved.

Cim, walking the prairies beyond Osage with that peculiar light step of his, his eyes cast down; prowling the draws and sprawling upon the clay banks of the rivers that ran so red through the Red Man’s Territory, said that he wanted to be a geologist. He spoke of the Colorado School of Mines. He worked in the Wigwam office and hated it. He could pi a case of type more quickly and completely than a drunken tramp printer. The familiar “shrdlu etaoin” was likely to appear in any column in which he had a hand. Even Jesse Rickey, his mournful mustaches more drooping than ever, protested to Yancey.

“She can’t make a newspaper man out of that kid,” he said. “Not in a million years. Newspaper men are born, not made. Cim, he just naturally hates news, let alone a newspaper office. He was born without a nose for news, like a fellow that’s born without an arm, or something. You can’t grow it if you haven’t got it.”

“I know it,” said Yancey, wearily. “He’ll find a way out.”

For the first time a rival newspaper flourished in the town of Osage. The town was scarcely large enough to support two daily papers, but Yancey’s political attitude so often was at variance with the feeling of the Territory politicians that the new daily, slipshod and dishonest though it was, and owned body and soul by Territorial interests, achieved a degree of popularity.

Sabra, unable to dictate the policy of the Wigwam with Yancey at its head, had to content herself with the management of its mechanical workings and with its increasingly important social and club columns. Osage swarmed with meetings, committees, lodges, Knights of This and Sisters of That. The Philomathean and the Twentieth Century clubs began to go in for Civic Betterment, and no Osage merchant or professional man was safe from cajoling and unattractive females in shirtwaists and skirts and eyeglasses demanding his name signed to this or that petition (with a contribution. Whatever you feel that you can give, Mr. Hefner. Of course, as a leading business man⁠ ⁠…).

They planted shrubs about the cinder-strewn environs of the Santa Fe and the Katy depots. They agitated for the immediate paving of Pawhuska Avenue (it wasn’t done). The Ladies of the Eastern Star. The Venus Lodge. Sisters of Rebekah. Daughters of the Southwest. They came into the Wigwam office with notices to be printed about lodge suppers and church sociables. Strangely enough, they were likely to stay longer and to chat more freely if Yancey and not Sabra were there to receive them. Sabra was polite but businesslike to her own sex encountered in office hours. But Yancey made himself utterly charming. He could no more help it than he could help breathing. It was almost functional with him. He made the stout, commonplace, middle-aged women feel that they were royal⁠—and seductive. He flattered them with his fine eyes; he bowed them to the door; their eyeglasses quivered. He was likely, on their departure, to crumple their carefully worded notice and throw it on the floor. Sabra, though she made short work of the visiting Venuses and Rebekahs, ran their notice and, if necessary, carefully rewrote it.

“God A’mighty!” he would groan at noonday dinner. “The office was full of Wenuses this morning. Like a swarm of overstuffed locusts.”

Sabra was at the head of many of these Betterment movements. Also if there could be said to be anything so formal as society in Osage, Sabra Cravat was the leader of it. She was the first to electrify the ladies of the Twentieth Century Culture Club by serving them Waldorf salad⁠—that abominable mixture of apple cubes, chopped nuts, whipped cream, and mayonnaise. The club fell upon it with little cries and murmurs. Thereafter it was served at club meetings until Osage husbands, returning home to supper after a day’s work, and being offered this salvage from the feast, would push it aside with masculine contempt for its contents and roar, “I can’t eat this stuff. Fix me some bacon and eggs.”

From this culinary and social triumph Sabra proceeded to pineapple and marshmallow salad, the recipe for which had been sent her by Donna in the East. Its indirect effects were fatal.

When it again became her turn to act as hostess to the members of the club she made her preparations for the afternoon meeting, held at the grisly hour of half-past two. Refreshments were invariably served at four. With all arrangements made, she was confronted by Ruby Big Elk with the astounding statement that this was a great Indian Festival day (September, and the corn dances were on) and that she must go to the Reservation in time for the Mescal Ceremony.

“You can’t go,” said Sabra, flatly. Midday dinner was over. Yancey had returned to the office. Cim was lounging in the hammock on the porch. For answer Ruby turned and walked with her stately, irritating step into her own room just off the kitchen and closed the door.

“Well,” shouted Sabra in the tones of Felice Venable herself, “if you do go you needn’t come back.” She marched out to the front porch, where the sight of the lounging Cim only aggravated her annoyance.

“This ends it. That girl has got to leave.”

“What girl?”

“Ruby. Twenty women this afternoon, and she says she’s going to the Reservation. They’ll be here at half-past two.” It was rather incoherent, but Cim, surprisingly enough, seemed to understand.

“But she told you a month ago.”

“Told me what? How do you know?”

“Because she told me she told you, ever so long ago.”

“Maybe she did. She never mentioned it again. I can’t be expected to remember every time the Indians have one of their powwows. I told her she couldn’t go. She’s in there getting ready. Well, this ends it. She needn’t come back.”

She flounced into the kitchen. There stood a mild-mannered young Indian girl unknown to her.

“What do you want?”

“I am here,” the girl answered, composedly, “to take Ruby Big Elk’s place this afternoon. I am Cherokee. She told me to come.” She plucked Ruby’s blue and white checked gingham apron off the hook behind the door and tied it around her waist.

“Well!” gasped Sabra, relieved, but still angry. Through the kitchen window she saw Cim hitching up the two pintos to the racy little yellow phaeton that Yancey had bought. She must run out and tell him before he left. He had seemed disturbed. She was glad he was clearing out. She liked having the men folks out of the way when afternoon company was due.

Ruby’s door opened. The girl came out. Her appearance was amazing. She wore a dress of white doeskin hanging straight from shoulders to ankles, and as soft and pliable as velvet. The hem was fringed. Front, sleeves, collar were finely beaded in an intricate pattern that was more like embroidery than beading. On her feet were moccasins in ivory white and as exquisitely beaded as the dress. It was the robe of a princess. Her dark Indian eyes were alive. Her skin seemed to glow in contrast with the garment. The girl was, for the moment, almost beautiful.

“Hello, Theresa Jump.⁠ ⁠… This is Theresa Jump. She will do my work this day. I have told her. She knows about the pineapple and marshmallow salad.” For a moment it seemed to Sabra that just the faintest shadow of amusement flitted over Ruby’s face as she said this. But then, Sabra never had pretended to understand these Indians. “I will be back tomorrow morning.”

She walked slowly out of the house by way of the kitchen door, across the yard with her slow insolent dragging step. A stab of suspicion cut Sabra. She flew to the back porch, stood there a moment. Ruby Big Elk walked slowly toward the barn. Cim drove out with the phaeton and pintos. He saw the Indian woman in her white doeskin dress. His eyes shone enormous. He lifted his head as though to breathe deeply. At that look in his face Sabra ran across the yard. One hand was at her breast, as though an Indian arrow had pierced her. Ruby had set one foot in its cream white moccasin on the buggy step. Cim held out his free hand.

Sabra reached them, panting. “Where are you going?”

“I’m driving Ruby out to the Reservation.”

“No, you’re not. No, you’re not.” She put one hand in a futile gesture on the buggy wheel, as though to stop them by main force. She knew she must not lose her dignity before this Indian woman⁠—before her son. Yet this thing was, to her way of thinking, monstrous.

Cim gathered up the reins, his eyes on the restive ponies. “I may stay to see some of the dancing and the Mescal Ceremony. Father says it’s very interesting. Big Elk has invited me.”

“Your father knows you’re going? Like this?”

“Oh, yes.” He cast a slight, an oblique glance at her hand on the wheel. Her hand dropped heavily to her side. He spoke to the horses. They were off. Ruby Big Elk looked straight ahead. She had uttered no word. Sabra turned and walked back to the house. The hot tears blinded her. She was choking. But her pride spoke, even then. You must not go the kitchen way. That Indian girl will see you. They are all alike. You must go around by the front way. Pretend it is nothing. Oh, God, what shall I do! All those women this afternoon. Perhaps I am making a fuss over nothing. Why shouldn’t he take the Indian girl out to the Reservation and stop an hour or two to see the dances and the rites?⁠ ⁠… His face! His face when he saw her in that dress.

She bathed her eyes, powdered her nose, changed her dress, came into the kitchen, smiling. “… the pineapple cut into chunks about like this. Then you snip the marshmallow into it with the scissors. Mix whipped cream into your mayonnaise⁠ ⁠… a cherry on top⁠ ⁠… little thin sandwiches⁠ ⁠… damp napkin⁠ ⁠…” She went into the sitting room, adjusted a shade, plumped a pillow. The door bell rang. “Howdy-do, Mrs. Nisbett.⁠ ⁠… No, you’re not. You’re just on time. It’s everybody else who’s late.” She thought, “Women are wonderful. No man could do what I am doing. Smiling and chatting when I am almost crazy.” Her fine dark eyes were luminous. Her clear ivory skin was tinged now with a spot of red on either cheek. She looked very handsome.

Theresa Jump proved clumsy and unteachable. Sabra herself mixed and served the pineapple and marshmallow salad, and though this novelty proved a great success, the triumph of serving it was spoiled for Sabra. She bundled the girl off at six, after the dishes were done. Wearily she began to set the house to rights, but Yancey came home to a confusion of chairs and squashed pillows, a mingled odor of perfumery and coffee; a litter of cake crumbs, bits of embroidery silk, and crumpled tea napkins. His huge frame moving about the cluttered sitting room made these feminine remnants seem ridiculous. The disorder of the household irked him. Worst of all, Sabra, relieved now of her guests, was free to pour out upon him all the pent-up wrath, anxiety, and shock of the past few hours. Ruby. Cim. Theresa Jump. Peyote. Osages. If his own father allows such things⁠—what will people say⁠—no use trying to make something of yourself.

Yancey, usually so glib with quotations from this or that sonorous passage of poetry, said little. He did not even try to cajole her into a better humor with his flattery, his charm, his tenderness. His eyes were bloodshot, his hand more unsteady than usual. He had been drinking even more than was his wont, she knew that at once. By no means drunk (she had never seen him really drunk⁠—no one had⁠—he was seemingly incapable of reaching a visible state of drunkenness), he was in one of his fits of moody depression. The great shoulders sagged. The splendid head lolled on his breast. He seemed sunk in gloomy thought. She felt that he hardly heard what she was saying. She herself could eat nothing. She set a place for him at the dining-room table and plumped down before him a dish of the absurd salad, a cup of coffee, some cake, a plate of the leftover sandwiches, their edges curled dismally.

“What’s this?” he said.

“Pineapple and marshmallow salad. With Ruby gone and all, I didn’t get anything for your supper⁠—I was so upset⁠—all those women⁠ ⁠…”

He sat looking down at the slippery mass on his plate. His great arms were spread out on the table before him. The beautiful hands were opening and closing convulsively. So a mastodon might have looked at a worm. “Pineapple and marshmallow salad,” he repeated, thoughtfully, almost wonderingly. Suddenly he threw back the magnificent head and began to laugh. Peal after peal of Herculean laughter. “Pineapple and marsh⁠—” choking, the tears running down his cheeks. Sabra was angry, then frightened. For as suddenly as he had begun to laugh he became serious. He stood up, one hand on the table. Then he seemed to pull his whole body together like a tiger who is about to spring. He stood thus a moment, swaying a little. “ ‘Actum est de republica.’ ”

“What?” said Sabra, sharply.

“Latin, Latin, my love. Pineapple and marshmallow salad! ‘It is all over with the Republic.’ ” She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. Yancey turned, stiffly, like a soldier, walked out of the room, flicked his white sombrero off the hall rack and put it on at the usual jaunty angle, went down the porch stair with his light, graceful step, to the sidewalk and up the street, the great head lowered, the arms swinging despondently at his sides.

Sabra went on with her work of tidying up the house. Her eyes burned, her throat was constricted. Men! Men! Cim off with that squaw. Yancey angry because she had given him this very feminine dish of leftovers. What was the use of working, what was the use of pride, what was the use of ambition for your children, your home, your town if this was all it amounted to? Her work done, she allowed herself the luxury of a deliberate and cleansing storm of tears.