“You certainly do know what I mean. If you weren’t my own daughter I’d say your conduct with Tracy Wyatt was that of a—a—”
“Harlot,” put in Donna, sweetly.
“Donna! How can you talk like that? You are breaking my heart. Haven’t I had enough? I’ve never complained, have I? But now—you—”
Donna came over to her and put her arms about her, as though she were the older woman protecting the younger. “It’s all right, Mamma darling. You just don’t understand. Life isn’t as simple as it was when you were a frontier gal. I know what I want and I’m going to get it.”
Sabra shrugged away from her; faced her with scorn. “I’ve seen you. I’m ashamed for you. You press against him like a—like a—” Again she could not say it. Another generation. “And that horse you ride. You say he loans it to you. He gave it to you. It’s yours. What for?”
She was weeping.
“I tell you it’s all right, Mamma. He did give it to me. He wants to give me lots of things, but I won’t take them, yet. Tracy’s in love with me. He thinks I’m young and beautiful and stimulating and wonderful. He’s married to a dried-up, vinegary, bitter old hag who was just that when he married her, years ago. He’s never known what love is. She has never given him children. He’s insanely rich, and not too old, and rather sweet. We’re going to be married. Tracy will get his divorce. Money does anything. It has taken me a year and a half to do it. I’ve never worked so hard in all my life. But it’s going to be worth it. Don’t worry, darling. Tracy’s making an honest woman of your wayward daughter.”
Sabra drew herself up, every inch the daughter of her mother, Felice Venable, née Marcy. “You are disgusting.”
“Not really, if you just look at it without a lot of sentiment. I shall be happy, and Tracy, too. His wife will be unhappy, I suppose, for a while. But she isn’t happy anyway, as it is. Better one than three. It’ll work out. You’ll see. Don’t bother about me. It’s Cim that needs looking after. He’s got a streak of—of—” She looked at her mother. Did not finish the sentence. “When he comes home Saturday I wish you’d speak to him.”
XXII
But Cim did not come home on Saturday. On Saturday, at noon, when Sabra and Yancey drove from the office in their little utility car to the house on Kihekah Street for their noonday dinner they saw a great limousine drawn up at the curb. A chauffeur, vaguely familiar, lounged in front. The car was thick with the red dust of the country road.
A vague pang of premonition stabbed at Sabra’s vitals. She clutched Yancey’s arm. “Whose car is that?”
Yancey glanced at it indifferently. “Somebody drove Cim home, I suppose. Got enough dinner for company?”
Donna had gone to Oklahoma City to spend the weekend. It must be Cim.
“Cim!” Sabra called, as she entered the front door. “Cim!” But there was no answer. She went straight to the sitting room. Empty. But in the stiff little parlor, so seldom used, sat two massive, silent figures. With the Indian sense of ceremony and formality old Big Elk and his squaw had known the proper room to use for an occasion such as this.
“Why—Big Elk!”
“How!” replied Big Elk, and held up his palm in the gesture of greeting.
“Yancey!” cried Sabra suddenly, in a terrible voice. The two pairs of black Indian eyes stared at her. Sabra saw that their dress was elaborate; the formal dress reserved for great occasions. The woman wore a dark skirt and a bright cerise satin blouse, ample and shaped like a dressing sacque. Over her shoulders was the fine bright-hued blanket. Her hair was neatly braided and wound about her hatless head. She wore no ornaments. That was the prerogative of the male. Old Big Elk was a structure of splendor. His enormous bulk filled the chair. His great knees were wide apart. His blue trousers were slashed and beaded elaborately at the sides and on his feet were moccasins heavy with intricate beadwork. His huge upper body was covered with a shirt of brilliant green brocade worn outside the trousers, and his striped blanket hung regally from his shoulders. About his neck and on his broad breast hung chains, beads, necklaces. In the bright silk neckerchief knotted about his throat you saw the silver emblem of his former glory as chief of the tribe. There were other insignia of distinction made of beaten silver—the star, the crescent, the sun. On his head was a round high cap of brown beaver like a Cossack’s. Up the back of this was stuck an eagle feather. His long locks, hanging about his shoulders, straight and stiff, were dyed a brilliant orange, like an old burlesque queen’s, a startling, a fantastic background for the parchment face, lined and creased and crisscrossed with a thousand wrinkles. One hand rested on his knee. The other wielded languidly, back and forth, back and forth, an enormous semicircular fan made of eagle feathers. Side by side the two massive figures sat like things of bronze. Only their eyes moved, and that nightmarish eagle feather fan, back and forth, back and forth, regally.
Those dull black unsmiling eyes, that weaving fan, moved Sabra to nameless terror. “Yancey!” she cried again, through stiff lips. “Yancey!”
At the note of terror in her voice he was down the stairs and in the room with his quick light step. But at sight of old Big Elk and his wife his look of concern changed to one of relief. He smiled his utterly charming smile.
“How!”
“How!” croaked Big Elk.
Mrs. Big Elk nodded her greeting. She was a woman younger, perhaps, by thirty years than her aged husband; his third wife. She spoke English; had even attended an Indian Mission school in
