Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (continued)

Fanny got the seat beside this glorious person. The steamer was a huge vehicle, boasting five rows of seats, and looking very much like a small edition of the sightseeing cars one finds in tourist-infested cities.

"Heyl's place," said Fanny. Suppose it failed to work!

Said the blond god, "Stopping at the Inn overnight, I s'pose."

"Why--I don't know," faltered Fanny. "Can't I go right on to--to--Heyl's place?"

"Can." Mountain steamer men are not loquacious. "Sure. Better not. You won't get to the Inn till dark. Better stay there over night, and go on up to Heyl's place in the morning."

Then he leaned forward, clawed about expertly among what appeared to Fanny's eyes to be a maze of handles, brakes, valves; and the great car glided smoothly off, without a bump, without a jar. Fanny took a long breath.

There is no describing a mountain. One uses words, and they are futile. And the Colorado Rockies, in October, when the aspens are turning! Well, aspens turn gold in October. People who have seen an aspen grove in October believe in fairies. And such people need no clumsy descriptive passages to aid their fancies. You others who have not seen it? There shall be no poor weaving together of words. There shall be no description of orange and mauve and flame-colored sunsets, no juggling with mists and clouds, and sunrises and purple mountains. Mountain dwellers and mountain lovers are a laconic tribe. They know the futility of words.

But the effect of the mountains on Fanny Brandeis. That is within our province. In the first place, they made her hungry. That was the crisp, heady air. The mountain road, to one who has never traveled it, is a thing of delicious thrills and near-terror. A narrow, perilous ribbon of road, cut in the side of the rock itself; a road all horseshoe curves and hairpin twists. Fanny found herself gasping. But that passed after a time. Big Thompson canyon leaves no room for petty terror. And the pongee person was so competent, so quietly sure, so angularly graceful among his brakes and levers. Fanny stole a side glance at him now and then. He looked straight ahead. When you drive a mountain steamer you do look straight ahead. A glance to the right or left is so likely to mean death, or at best a sousing in the Thompson that foams and rushes below.