E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

We reached Fountain Creek at noon. It stood in some tall yellow grass by the banks of a dried-out arroyo, a deserted street of shackly buildings, corrals rotted by the weather, porches grown over with weeds. Before we got to work we took some pulls on the Russian’s water bottle and ate some tack he had brought. Rusted tin cans were lying all over, half buried in sand, the hot pebbly wind was swinging the door of a roofless hut at the far end of the street. I spotted a mangy slant-eyed wolf crouched under a porch not fifty feet from where we were. He was watching us close.

“He’s a hungry one,” I said to Zar, “he’ll go for these horses if we let him.”

“So, we won’t let him.” Still chewing a mouthful, Zar reached for his shotgun and slowly brought it around and shot off both barrels at the wolf. The animal was out of there fairly, along with his mate that we hadn’t seen, and the two of them bounded away along the arroyo.

“Their courage’ll be back by and by,” I said, “let’s get to work.”

We went for the corrals first, untying what rawhide lashes we could, cutting the rest, laying the poles down lengthwise on the wagon bed. Then we began collecting lumber from the frame houses and barns, staying away from places where the white ants were too thick, prying off boards, knocking away doors, pulling up porch planks, shakes, beams, shingles. There was so much rot in everything it was a wonder the buildings were upright at all. We worked all through the afternoon hardly stopping for a drink, coughing with the dust that rose, the sand blown by the wind. Our friends the wolves had cut down the mice and burrowing owls to be found but bugs and spiders scuttled away from our axe and pick. We worked till we judged the wagon could hold no more, the wood was stacked a tall man’s height above the driver’s box. Then we went around picking up every nail in sight. And we came on a set of bright white human bones sitting in the arroyo. We stood looking at that skeleton. It was clean. I had to think what an indecency it is that leaves only the bones to tell what a man has been.

“Fountain Creek,” Zar said. He was mopping his neck with his handkerchief. “Frand, you see the peril. Always the ghost city is one with name full of promise. Is that not so? We must have care in our naming not to make this mistake …”

It was dark when we were ready to leave. I took the reins and the Russian sat atop the lumber to weight it. The horses strained to get the wheels turning and we moved off at a walk. I’ll tell you I was weary on that trip: the night was black with stars and the wagon creaked and swayed and I slipped in and out of dreaming. I couldn’t believe the horses had a destination, I kept thinking I was traveling to no purpose. What good was this to that woman and that boy? What could I hope to do for them? Only a fool would call anywhere in this land a place and everywhere else a journey to it.

I must have fallen asleep and the horses must have stopped — because I awoke to the boom of the Russian’s shotgun and the wagon lurched forward and the reins went taut in my hands. There was a light in the sky ahead of us.

“Those damn wolves have been following,” Zar called down, “but they are running now!”

Later we rode up to the town and Jimmy came running out to meet us. “A man’s here with that same wagon,” he said, “the one they put my Pa in—”

He was about to cry. I got down, stiff, and took his hand: “Say what Jimmy? What, boy?”

“Over there.” Standing by the well was Hausenfield’s hearse. I didn’t trust my eyes, I went over for a close look. There was the mule and the grey; the pick was still wedged across the black door. And a skinny, chinless fellow with a leather vest was leaning against a wheel, looking at me sly.

“Howdo.”

“Where did you find this wagon?” I said.

“Hit waer jes setting out thaer. I tuk it up.”

“And you’ve not looked in the door?”

“Didn’t think to—”

“Well that’s alright,” I said, “this is a burying wagon, you ever do any burying?”

“Never have.”

“Well you’ll find your first customer inside.”

Then I turned and saw Molly holding herself up at the side of the dugout. She had on that white dress and she was smiling at me, a queer, bitter smile. I rubbed my hand across my eyes and I thought why I have a safe name for this town, we’ll call it Hard Times. Same as we always called it.

That was the way it ended and began again. From the day I returned Molly wore the wedding dress like she was born to it, she walked stiffly with her shoulders thrown back and her mouth grim against the pain. And when the pain was gone the set of it remained, the healed burns pulled her up tight, her chin was always in the air and the chain and cross was always plain to see around her neck. So that whenever I looked at her I was looking at rebuke.

The day Zar and I started to put up our buildings Molly took John Bear’s buffalo robe out of the dugout and went to return it to the Indian. Over to his shack she marched, stirred him out of the dumps and gave him back the lice-ridden fur with what must have been proud apology. I could see by her manner when she came back, it was as if the Indian’s property had been stolen by some no-account thief and she had squared the scales by returning it.

Molly was plentiful in her moods, unspeaking for days at a time, smiling with plans maybe or weeping for no clear reason but her memories. But when she had a mind to she could make anything in the world seem a taint on me. One morning Jimmy was helping me mix up some sod for chinking. Mae, the dumpity girl, came by with nothing much on her mind and started to talk to the boy and tease him a bit. Jimmy always watched Zar’s women with great attention and that gave them pleasure.

“Y’all sweet on me, li’l ol’ Jimmy?” the girl asked.

He blushed.

“Y’all take a fancy to Mae, don’t yuh?”

“No ma’am.”

“Here put yo’ hand here, now ain’t that soft as soft?”

She was holding Jimmy’s hand on her bosom and that’s when Molly showed up to give her a cuff on the ear. Mae was so shocked she had no anger but just bit her lip and ran off; Jimmy was suddenly back to the sod; and Molly stood regarding me as she would a lizard.

It was no pain I felt but a steady ache, like some hand was gently squeezing my heart. It never left me. I would look out to the graves in the flats or look up to the rocks or over at the scar of the old street and always I saw the face of the Man from Bodie. That was the trouble, I know now, that was my failing, that I couldn’t see past my own feelings, I had no thoughts beyond myself. The day came when I had a sturdy clapboard cabin affixed to the dugout so that altogether we had two rooms to live in. I knocked together a table using pieces of the balustrade from the old Silver Sun, and some boards, and Jimmy and I fell into the habit of saving whatever food we had for that table each evening. Molly would serve it up and then take her portion and step down into the dugout to eat alone, leaving the boy and me to taste what sweetness we could while not looking into each other’s eyes.

There was the business with Jenks. It was Jenks who brought Hausenfield’s wagon in off the plains, so pleased with his booty that he hadn’t smelled Hausenfield inside. His head was not much thicker than a broom handle and he had no chin to speak of; the way his sly yellowed eyes looked at you made you think of a wolf’s cunning, but really he was a stupid man. Before he managed to bury the German I had to show him where to do it and to point out how he could turn up the ground with the pickaxe lying across the door, and I had to tell him how deep he’d best dig and finally I ended up doing as much as he did. Then, with Hausenfield laid away this Jenks didn’t do another thing for a week but just sat around in the shade of his new wagon, eyeing the ladies or oiling his gun and his gunbelt.