Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

The eight brides had been lined up in a row outside on the street, decked in white clothing, their hair curled, all ready. In front of the brides sat the bridegroom, like a company commander on a fine horse, in tails and stovepipe hat. The congregation had raised a triumphal arch across the street, and back and forth under this arch men rode among the guests and fired salutes with rifles and revolvers until the whole town was enveloped in a cloud of powder smoke. When the ceremony was about to commence the brides walked under the arch to meet the groom. Each bride in turn walked up, the groom pulled her up beside him in the saddle and rode off to the house where the bridal chamber had been prepared. After a time the groom came riding back alone; now his first wife was no longer a maid but a Mormon wife. The marriage had been consummated. Then the groom picked up his next bride, rode away, and turned this maid into wife.

In four hours the groom had finished his ride — eight times back and forth. In four hours he had consummated his marriage with eight wives. And that Mormon was a small, weak-looking man, but he had been gifted with heavenly strength to perform his manly duty. He could almost be compared to Brigham Young himself.

But this wedding turned out to be the undoing of the Mormons. It caused bad blood among other men in town, who had long envied the Mormons their women. There was already a great lack of women in the West before this sect had come with their polygamy. One man could take ten wives while a hundred men couldn’t get a single woman. A small war broke out in Grand City. The Mormons used Colt revolvers and could fire five shots without reloading, but some of the other men had Sam Colts newest invention, which fired six shots. And with Colt’s six-shooters they drove the whole Mormon group out of town.

Now the churches stood empty and Fred had used the opportunity to take over the biggest building in town. He had opened a hotel and bar in the old Mormon temple, and the onetime potato cellar was now really in its glory.

Well, wasn’t that a proud history of this house? In three years it had been potato cellar, jail, church, and hotel! Could Robert name any famous building in the world that had had so glorious a past? And in so short a time! This house was an example to newcomers of progress here in the West. It took brains, of course, and some fighting, but survivors did have a future.

That was how Fred Mattsson had become the owner of the Grand Hotel in Grand City.

“I can thank Sam Colt’s six-shooter, of course,” he added. “Sam is the greatest living American. Do you know that he made his first revolver when he was fourteen! Think what the West would have been without him! It simply wouldn’t have had any future at all if men had had to stop and reload at every shot!”

Robert’s head spun from the whiskey he had drunk; suddenly he felt drowsy and listened only vaguely to Fred.

But then a tornado had hit Grand City last year, Fred went on. Three fourths of the houses in town had blown away — thirty, forty miles out on the prairie. And in many cases the inhabitants had sailed away with their houses. The town had again come to a standstill; indeed, it had gone through difficult times. But Grand Hotel remained and it was one house the West would boast about in the future.

Robert was yawning; the sturdy meal and the strong liquor had practically put him to sleep in his chair. His host urged him to go to bed and rest for a while. After all, he was a guest in the hotel. Fred himself would now open his bar for the evening. His return had been awaited impatiently in the town, and his old steady customers would begin to arrive any moment now. He had been closed for two weeks — tonight there would be a throng at his counter.

— 3—

Robert slept a few hours and awoke with a burning thirst. He was not accustomed to American whiskey; he had a taste of stale herring brine in his throat.

He walked down the black cellar hall, feeling his way along until he found a side door which opened as soon as he touched the door handle. He saw at once he had happened on to the bar. The room had a low counter made of rough lumber. In front of this, on a long bench, sat a dozen or so men with their hats on. In there, too, it smelled musty and sour, like an old cellar with sprouting, half-rotten potatoes; or perhaps it smelled from sour beer. The dirty floor had not been touched by broom or scrubbing brush in many a moon.

“Hi, Bob! Welcome to my saloon!”

The host of the Grand Hotel now wore a large white apron which turned him into a bartender. He stood behind the counter rinsing glasses in a bucket of water. The wall behind the counter had shelves with bottles and mugs, and the top shelf had a red painted sign: Fred’s Tavern.

It was strangely silent in the bar; the men sat motionless and did not offer to make room for the newcomer on the bench. Fred rolled up a chopping block and poured a glass of whiskey for Robert; then he started talking to him in Swedish.

The saloons Robert had seen before, or passed by, had always been noisy with the din of many voices and he wondered why it was so silent in here. He looked at the customers: they sat still and solemn, as if this house still were a church. What was the matter with them? Presently, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he understood: the men were asleep; they were drowsing, or had passed out more or less; a few rested their heads on their arms on the counter and snored contentedly; some slept less heavily and winked and nodded now and then. Some stared glassy-eyed at the bottles on the shelves, as they might stare out across the plains when they had discovered something far away, some game that was entirely beyond their strength to reach.

Silence and drowsiness reigned in this saloon, because the men at the counter were already drunk. From time to time Fred’s annoyed look scanned his dormant guests. No one was drinking; the ablest customers confined their activity to a vague look at the liquor they ought to have been drinking.

“Those devils drowse off in here!”

The host spoke in his homeland dialect.

“Time to stir up my business again!”

Fred stooped under the counter and found a small hand spray which he filled from the wash bucket. Then he walked three times back and forth and sprayed the befogged heads of his customers.

“They need a shower once every hour.”

The row of slumbering, dazed guests came to life again; they wiped their eyes, began to talk and yell; they discovered their glasses were empty, or gone, and shouted to the bartender, shaking their fists and calling for new drinks.

The bartender put away his sprayer, its purpose accomplished, and attended to pouring whiskey instead. Business in Fred’s Tavern had resumed its normal speed.

After a while the owner again had time to speak to his new guest, his young countryman. He leaned on the counter that had been made from the torn-down pulpit.

“You mentioned a fellow who was with you, Arvid, did you say? And he kicked the bucket?”

“Yes. From thirst. He drank poisoned water, we couldn’t find anything else. .”

“I see. Last summer ten thousand people died from thirst on the California Trail.”

Robert said that he had never thought of it before, how impossible it was to get along without so simple a thing as water.

“In my hotel you needn’t go thirsty! With Fred you won’t miss a thing! You can have anything you wish to drink, my dear friend!”

“I like it here.”

“Good! A friend of mine runs a whorehouse across the street — would you like a woman tonight? A good knull would do you good!”

Robert had never been with a woman. He had only imagined how such a thing would take place. He had never had sufficient courage to try. Now he asked, from pure curiosity, how much it would cost at this house across the street.