And Condors Danced (17 page)

“News?” Lila said. “News from the ranch? I can’t imagine what you think there’ll be to tell. How many eggs the hens laid yesterday, and how many pints of tomatoes Nellie put up?”

“Yes,” Carly said enthusiastically before she realized that Lila was being sarcastic. Then she said, “Yes,” again—defensively. “Why not? I like to hear that kind of news. And how Arthur’s doing at the store, and how Mama is.”

Lila shrugged, and then relented. “Well, all right. But be sure you’re ready when I come by. Particularly after school. I hate sitting out there in front of everybody in this disgraceful old rig.”

“I know,” Carly said, grinning and petting Venus’s nose just above her evilly lifted lip. “In this disgraceful old cart pulled by this disgraceful old lop-eared Venus. Don’t worry. I promise I’ll be ready.”

So Monday through Friday it was Greenwood and Aunt M. and Woo Ying and school, with only a few minutes twice a day with Lila and Venus to remind Carly that she was still a Hartwick. But the reminding seemed important. Without it, it was as if Greenwood mornings at the kitchen table with so much talking—most of it by Carly, since both Aunt M. and Woo Ying were always asking questions—and evenings in the parlor with Tiger stretched out on the Chinese rug while Carly read or did homework and Aunt M. read or crocheted—and the little bedtime treats that Woo Ying always had ready in the kitchen—and trips with Aunt M. to the shops and library while Woo Ying went off to visit his Chinese friends on Second Street—and all the constant talking and arguing and shouting and laughing—with all of those things filling up Carly’s time and thoughts, it was easy to forget to think about the ranch house and the people who lived there and who were, after all, her real family.

But on Saturdays everything changed. Every Saturday morning Carly and Tiger got up at six o’clock and walked out to the ranch. They usually arrived in time for Carly to help Nellie fix Mama’s breakfast and carry it upstairs. Ever since her bad spell in August, Mama hadn’t been coming down for meals or even to spend part of the day on the parlor sofa as she had always done before.

“I rest better here,” she told Carly one Saturday as she ate a tiny bit of the toast and poached egg Nellie had fixed for her. “And Doctor Dodge says I shouldn’t climb stairs until I’ve gotten over these dizzy spells.”

Carly had read about dizzy spells. In Aunt M.’s subscription magazines and Sears, Roebuck novels such afflictions were usually symptoms of mysterious illness. Although they seemed quite common in stories and novels, she had never experienced one herself except for the kind brought on by twirling in circles, which probably didn’t count.

Curled up in the big rocking chair by the window, Carly thought about dizzy spells and other interesting symptoms and watched Mama reclining in the big old sleigh bed. Cradled in a great nest of pillows, with her long dark hair loose around her shoulders, she looked exactly like one of those beautiful but tragic heroines. In the novels the women in question were usually suffering from broken hearts or other tragedies, just as Mama suffered over Petey's death and the loss of her family and friends in Maine. But in the novels no one ever suggested that such illnesses were “only in her head.”

A lump came up in Carly’s throat and her eyes flooded with tears, hot tears that were more angry than sad. If those Hawkinses could only see Mama now, so pale and weak in her nest of pillows, they would surely take back their insulting comments. Well, never mind that bunch of cackling geese. Swallowing tears and anger, she began to ask questions of the sort that usually started Mama talking and helped to cheer her up. But this time the questions went unanswered, at least for quite a while.

Carly began by asking about the old days in Maine. After each question she watched carefully for Mama’s eyes and voice to brighten as they always did when she talked about her childhood. But today she only nodded weakly, leaned back among her pillows, and let her eyes fall shut. But then Carly remembered to ask about the Mayday party.

“How many children do you have to have to weave a Maypole?” she asked, and at last Mama opened her eyes and began to tell about the Mayday party her parents had given for her on the huge lawn that stretched from their grand brick house all the way down to the river. And how all the children had danced around the Maypole weaving lovely pastel ribbons in and out to form an elaborate pattern of pinks and blues and pale yellows. Mama was looking much less weak and sad by the time Nellie came in to take away the tray with the half-eaten breakfast. But Nellie didn’t mention the improvement. Instead she only insisted that Carly should come downstairs and let Mama rest.

After Nellie went out, Carly stopped at the side of the bed to kiss Mama good-bye. As always Mama turned her cheek and closed her eyes for Carly’s kiss, and afterward she kept them closed. She looked very fragile and beautiful with her thick lashes dark against the feverish flush on her thin cheeks. Carly felt a hollow kind of ache and then a strange rush of anger.

“Mama!” she said sharply. “Look at me.”

Mama’s eyes opened. “Yes?” she said. “What is it, child?”

Carly wanted to say it again.
Look at me
.
At
me,
Mama
. But instead she only sighed and bit her lip. After a moment she said, “I liked hearing about the Maypole.”

Mama nodded. “That’s nice. Now you run along, dear, with Nellie. I’m feeling very tired.”

Nellie was not in a good mood that day. She continued to be distant and preoccupied as Carly helped her pick string beans and tomatoes in the garden and a few late peaches from the kitchen orchard. Whenever Carly asked a question, her answer was brief and impatient, as if she had more important things on her mind. Sometimes, when she didn’t know Carly was looking, a sudden grimace twisted her face, making it look pained and sad. If it had been Lila, Carly would have thought instantly of doomed romance and star-crossed lovers. But with Nellie it didn’t seem likely that tragic love was involved. As far as Carly knew, there was only Clarence, and while he did have those unfortunate teeth, there wasn’t anything really tragic about him.

After dinner, during which Father discussed women’s suffrage and what a mistake Finland was making in allowing women to vote, and Arthur disagreed and started an argument, Carly went to bed in her old room. It was always a strange feeling to be there again after a whole week at Greenwood, and she woke up often with odd bits and pieces of uneasy dreams floating rapidly away into oblivion. That particular night it was even harder than usual to get to sleep, and at last she got up and tiptoed downstairs to get Tiger.

Now that his doghouse was at Greenwood, Tiger had to sleep in the barn on Saturday nights. But that didn’t prevent him from hearing the back door open, just as he always had, and in just a moment he was in her arms and being tiptoed upstairs. With his warm little body a comforting weight on her feet, she finally fell sound asleep and barely woke up in time to sneak him down and out the back door before Nellie arrived in the kitchen.

T
HE HOT, DRY
month of September ended and midway through October the first of the winter rains fell, a steady downpour that turned the brown hills to fresh, new green, and filled the deeper canyons and barrancas with lush growths of fern. In between the sudden drenching rains the weather was warm and the air a clean, sharp blue. It was soon after the rains began that Carly started to ride Chloe, Aunt M.’s bay mare, to the ranch on Saturday mornings.

Chloe was saddle-broken and gentle but eager and frisky and a lot more fun to ride than old Prince. Especially since Aunt M., who thought sidesaddles were dangerous and silly, let Carly use her Princess saddle, which was made for ladies who, like Aunt M., rode astride. Carly had ridden Chloe before when she was visiting at Greenwood but she was really surprised when Aunt M. suggested she could use the mare for her Saturday trips to the ranch.

“Won’t you need her here?” she asked.

“Not a bit,” Aunt M. said. “I’m not much of a Saturday-night gadabout anymore. And Woo Ying never uses the rig when he goes in to visit his friends at the laundry. I worry about you going all that way alone every Saturday morning. That road’s a quagmire this time of year, and besides, I hear there’s been some more trouble with hydrophobia out Fillmore way. Little girl on her way to school was bitten by a rabid skunk. I’ll feel better with you on horseback. You just be sure to get back here in time for church on Sunday mornings.”

The first day that Carly rode to the ranch was very exciting. Wearing a divided skirt, cut down from an old one of Aunt M.’s, she set out up the valley road, riding tall in the saddle. Riding astride made it very easy to maintain a firm seat, and before she reached the ranch she tried a trot, a canter, and even, for a brief stretch on the straight road near the cemetery, an exhilarating all-out run. She had quieted the mare to a sharp high-stepping trot, and Tiger had caught up and was running alongside yipping with excitement, when she arrived at the ranch house and came face-to-face with Father.

When she rounded the curve in the drive, there he was only a few yards away, talking to Charles. Carly pulled Chloe to a quick stop. “Uh-oh!” she whispered under her breath. “Here it comes.” She had known it was going to sooner or later, but she’d been hoping to put it off for a while by arriving at the house when Father was somewhere else. She waved and smiled, and reined Chloe toward the barn, trying to look unconcerned, as if everybody rode astride and wore divided skirts. Which many fashionable ladies did, as matter of fact, but which would not be a good argument to use with Father. But at a sharp “Come here, Carly,” she sighed and turned back.

Father’s eyes ranged over Carly and Chloe for a long time, his eyebrows tangling over his nose, before he asked if Aunt Mehitabel had purchased another carriage horse, or if she was planning to do without one on weekends to make it possible for Carly to ride a distance that she was perfectly capable of walking.

“Aunt M. says she hardly ever needs the surrey on Saturday, and I’ll be back in time for church. I told her that I could walk, but she said the roads are too muddy.”

“I should think a pair of storm rubbers would be a better and simpler, and more ladylike, solution,” Father said, glaring at the divided skirt.

“And besides,” Carly said, “she’s worried about hydrophobia.”

Father’s eyebrows parted and rose halfway up his forehead. “Ahh!” he said, in the sarcastically patient tone of voice that he always used when someone was being particularly ridiculous. “And now, according to our authoritative aunt, one can acquire hydrophobia by getting one’s feet muddy?”

“No. That’s not it. It’s that Mr. Purdy says that there’s been some more cases of hydrophobia up the valley. Sheriff Simms had to shoot a mad dog and two skunks. Aunt M. says I’d be safer on Chloe if I met a mad dog on the way here.”

So Father said he hadn’t heard anything about mad dogs in the valley, but he supposed there was no arguing with hysterical old ladies and that Carly was to put Chloe in the stall next to Prince’s and get out of that unladylike costume immediately. After that he didn’t say anything more about it, so Carly went on riding to the ranch on Saturdays, but she was always careful to get Chloe into the barn and herself out of the divided skirt as quickly as possible.

October was almost over and the rains had stopped for a while and the sun had gone soft and gentle with Indian summer when Matt suggested another exploring trip. Carly had stopped him as he came out of the schoolyard leading Rosemary, to ask for a report on the Henry Babcock case. There was, it seemed, nothing to report. Henry was still bragging, but not about throwing firecrackers at floats, and Matt was getting bored with trying to be a spy. Exploring, he said, was a lot more fun than detecting.

Carly was in the mood to agree. Thinking about Carlton Valley and the Condor Spring, with everything awake and stretching after the fall rains, she was seized with a sudden yearning for a long ride into the hills. “All right,” she told Matt. “We’ll go up to the spring. We’ll get an early start and go right to the spring without stopping, and maybe this time we’ll get to see the condors dancing.”

Matt grinned. He gathered up the reins of Rosemary’s hackamore and jumped up to hang on his stomach across the donkey’s back. Swinging a leg over, he sat up, still grinning. “When?” he asked.

“When?” Carly repeated. “Well, how about…”

A minute or two passed before Matt asked again, “Well—when?”

“Hush,” Carly said. “I’m thinking.” What she was thinking was that Father had said that he was going to Ventura on Friday to see the lawyers and he wouldn’t be back until Saturday night.

“Saturday,” she said, nodding. “Yes. I think next Saturday will be the perfect day. I’ll get out to the ranch real early, and after I visit with Mama I’ll ask Nellie, and I bet she’ll let me go. She doesn’t seem to care much what I do lately. You be there behind the tool shed with the donkeys by ten o’clock. Will that be all right?”

Matt said yes, it would, and so it was decided.

T
HE WEATHER WAS
perfect on that Saturday morning. It was calm and cool with a mild, hazy sun when Carly left Greenwood for the ranch and then, if everything went well, to go on to Condor Spring with Matt. She waved good-bye to Woo Ying, who had helped with the saddle, and set off down the drive with Tiger bouncing around almost under the mare’s hooves in his excitement. As if she, too, were excited by the beautiful day, Chloe tugged hopefully at the bit and danced sideways, asking to start their run early. But Carly held her in, patting her neck and explaining that it would be best to wait until they passed Arnold Street, where someone might happen to see them, and then might happen to mention to Father that his youngest daughter had been behaving like a wild thing again.

After the mare had settled into her quick, swinging walk and Tiger into his usual quest for exciting smells, first on one side of the road and then the other, Carly had time to think about the day ahead. It was such a perfect day. She felt certain that if she were ever to be a witness to the dance of the condors, it would be on a day like this. Looking westward toward the crests of the Sespe Mountains, she searched the clear blue sky for dark, soaring wings.