In reply to this Banner Hope of course said that his aunt in Fresno had an automatic piano too. But Edward fortunately thought otherwise. Edward’s ears thought that Banner Hope said, “He could take her in two moves.”
The saloon in the next town they reached had been optimistically built in the belief that the town was destined to be a Center. Perhaps the town had justified this optimism once. It was one of those towns that homesick New Englanders built in a far fantastic land of opportunity and broken hearts. Its houses, separated from prim sidewalks by hedges that were once prim, were built out of dreams of homes left behind and of domestic ideals relinquished. For one moment one thought oneself in Massachusetts, but in the next moment realised that the West had devoured all but a dream of the dream. The shell of the town was empty, cracked and even ruined. The fierce extravagance of California roses covered the damage. Scrub oak, sage brush, chaparral and prickly pear invaded the gardens of sentimental dead miners. A wild scarlet sunset crushed down all gentle thoughts of Salem.
There had been flourishing vineyards on the slopes of the low brown hills, but these were haunted now by the shadow of a date in the coming summer—the date of Prohibition. Cows were tearing the vines to pieces. Californians had given up commenting on this common and horrible sight. There were no new jokes to hide the despair.
In a row on the covered sidewalk of the town were six saloons. The sidewalks were raised from the street level and roofed against the sun, the roofs being held up by once white hitching posts. One of the saloons was open, the others were moribund.
While Banner Hope sought a nickel with which to feed the automatic piano, the others drank a cocktail each, but Edward drank two. He did not dance. He was too self-conscious and too torpid to dance.
While the other four danced he sat at a little lame table and felt warmth and color coming into his mind. The sound of “He could take her in two moves ...” was still in his ears. His eyes were constructing a wide red sandstone chessboard. He remembered it. Near it he was born and near it he had lived during one-third of his life. “They kept me too long in India,” he thought, interpolating self-pity even with his rapture of imagination. “It accounts for me.” The great chessboard was on a low hill, the only hill in a yellow seamed plain that had no limit. About the hill there was a high red wall; the indentations of the battlements were Gothic in shape. The buildings about the chessboard were like dark flowers. He could see confused flat yellow villages outside the wall from where he stood—a pawn on the great chessboard. Near him jewels caught the sunlight, and orange and blue arrows of light from the jewels pierced his sight. The knights on the chessboard wore full skirts like dancers; they looked away from their objective; when they leaped upon their crooked course their skirts swung outward and so did their long hair. The bishops had very thin, twisted faces and a swift, vindictive tread. The rooks clanked as they trod, and their stiff brocade coats were quilted. The queen’s dress was generously made and starry, and her head was outlined against the sunset. She ran like a boy from end to end of the board; she skipped and jumped as she drove the men she vanquished from their squares; her laughter was as gay as frost. The men whom she dismissed knelt and kissed the jewels on her foot before they went. The upper sky was the color of grapes and near the earth it was the color of wine. Against that sky the pawn that was Edward was content only to see the delicate insolent outline of the queen’s form. He could take her in two moves....
“The superior gentleman,” said Mrs. Melsie Ponting, sitting on his knee so violently that not only Edward but the whole floor shuddered. She was becoming every moment more anxious to appear naughty and this was delighting Banner Hope, who could now feel that he was living a deliciously wild life without effort. It was no effort to sweep Melsie from Edward’s knee on to his own. The impulse for this manœuvre was hers.
Rhoda Romero, though averse to the knees of strangers and suffering from the drawback of an innate dignity, was anxious not to seem behindhand. She demanded a challenge to “get together” with a couple of cowboys who had just entered and were shooting craps at the bar. They wore flaring leather chaps with leather buckles, leather waistcoats over red shirts, high boots stitched in a floral design and hats of dark beaver, very broad, very high and pointed. Rhoda approached them with a rather charming suggestion of swagger and asked them where they got their hats. One cowboy answered in a low self-conscious voice, and Rhoda returned to her table with disappointment in her face.
“From a movie company,” she said a little sheepishly.
Mrs. Melsie Ponting shrieked, not with laughter, but with excitement. She hoped that the cowboys would look at her but they did not. “Such is life ... such is life ...” bellowed Banner Hope. Avery Bird said, “Let’s go,” but Edward, as a defensive movement against Melsie, ordered one more gin-old-fashioned each, including a couple for the cowboys.