E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

Bear was helping the old man unload the back of the wagon. Jimmy was on top of the stage untying the lashings. Jenks was fingering the rifle sticking out of the boot by the driver’s seat. But what made me really stand up was the sight of Ezra Maple. I hadn’t stopped to look for passengers, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was standing there in an Eastern suit, a carpetbag was on the ground beside him. Lord if it wasn’t him!

“Ezra!” I called.

But Molly was talking to him and as I walked up she said: “Mister I told you he ain’t here, he couldn’t take the climate. Blue,” Molly said to me, “this is Ezra Maple’s brother Isaac. He’s a doubtin’ man, he’s looking all around for the General Store.”

Of course, looking closer I saw it couldn’t have been Ezra: this fellow wasn’t as tall, nor did he have as much of a stoop in his shoulders. He was younger, fairer-skinned. But he had that same sad-eyed long beagle’s face. “Well you sure fooled me,” I said. Molly went off with a short laugh and I took the man for a walk over to the spot where Ezra’s store had been. I told him what had happened.

He shook his head and looked at the ground: “He shouldn’t a run off knowin’ I was comin’—it ain’t like Ezra. Wrote a letter to him six months ago. Wrote it down plain as day!”

“Well now, Mr. Maple once a letter is west of the States it might light down anywhere. I never saw Ezra get a letter, likely it never even reached him.”

He took a big curved pipe from his pocket, filled it and lighted it with a box match. He puffed and frowned and stared at the dusty rubble and shook his head: “It don’t seem right at all.”

I could understand his feelings. A man doesn’t go West for nothing. He’d been traveling four or five weeks, by train, by steamer, by stage, thinking all the while to find his brother when he got here. And probably to make a life.

“‘Come along when ye can.’ Those were his words to me when he left.”

“That so?”

“‘Come along when ye can, there’s room out there fer two.’”

“That’s true enough.”

“I wrote out a letter when Ma died sayin’ I had only to sell the store and then I’d come. Jes the pair of us, seemed like we ought to try our fortune together. And now here I be”—he took a good look around—“and Ezra ain’t, and it’s a bad bargain I made.”

“Well now, Mr. Maple I don’t know. The water don’t flow from the rocks and the game don’t nibble at your back door. But the place has what they call possibilities.”

He gave me a sharp, trader’s look. “Well I haven’t seen a tree in seven days.”

“That’s what they mean: look at all the possible trees could grow if they’d a mind to.”

He didn’t laugh but I had his attention away from Ezra for the moment. I walked him back to the well.

“I’d like you to taste this water,” I said. “It’s as good as any and better than most. Dip into that pail and refresh yourself. Help you to think clear on what to do.”

At that moment I had no plan in my mind. But when I walked over to the stage and looked at the freight standing on the ground I had some forward-thinking thoughts. These were the store supplies Ezra Maple had ordered. There was a barrel of flour, a barrel of beef in brine, sacks of coffee, cartons of tinned sardines, crackers — a whole lot of stuff.

Molly came up at my back: “Mayor,” she said softly, “I know what you’re fixing to do, but I’ll tell you we don’t need another Ezra Maple here. Let this man go look for his brother and may he find him in Hell.”

I said nothing but went back to Zar’s. Alfs hat was on the table, Mae was sitting on his lap and Jessie was standing in back of him holding his ears, and they all three were laughing.

“Blue!” Alf called throwing his head back. “I begin to see your way of thinking’, there sure is a spirit of life hereabouts, yes sir, a spirit of life!”

“Alright then Alf supposing we talk business.”

Zar brought over a lamp and put it on the table. Alf excused himself to the ladies and while they stood watching he took some bills out of his pouch and spread them on the table. They were bills of transit for the goods outside and they were all marked paid.

“It adds to forty dollars Blue.”

“Bot the stamp is there,” Zar said examining the bills, “these goods are already paid. He wants us to pay again!”

“Tha’s right,” said Alf. “This provender was for Ezra Maple and Ezra ain’t here. Course if you like I’ll load it back on and be on my way.”

“Zar,” I said, “it’s a fair price for the goods received. Alf here drives the best stage this side of the Platte, he’s thought of highly by the Territory Express. They listen to what he says.” In my own mind I had expected Alf to ask for more than forty dollars; and that he put his demands in the form he did I found to be a mark of manners. He could always have charged separate for the supplies.

“I’ll give you my hand on it, Alf,” I said, and we shook across the table.

Then we exchanged letters: I gave him two — the pimply boy’s and another I had taken since — along with four dollars. Alf gave me one letter. “It’s meant for Ezra,” he said, “nail it up somewhere if he ever comes back.”

Then Alf had the idea that I would like to handle the Express business for the town. I allowed I would. He gave me a printed pad for writing all orders and tickets and the terms were three percentages on all monies I garnered excepting mail. We shook on that, too, and then I left Alf to enjoy the women while I went back outside to find forty dollars.

Zar followed me: “What kind of business is this? Women we give him and whiskey and we must pay for goods already paid!”

I said: “You want him to come back don’t you? We got to stay on the Company’s route or all the miners on the mountain won’t do us any good.”

“Forty dollars!”

In the daylight I was looking at the letter Alf had given me for Ezra Maple — and it was the one Isaac himself had written from Vermont.

“Maybe it won’t be your forty dollars,” I said to Zar.

I walked over to the well and held out the letter to Maple, saying: “It was right along with you on the stage.”

I remember he stared at that letter for a long time. He bit down on his pipe and his face got redder and redder. He was angry but there was a confusion of feeling in his face, I could tell he was glad because his brother had not run off knowing he was coming.

“What are you going to do now?” I said to him.

“Don’t know. Look for Ezra. I s’pose. Hunt him up.”

I did some powerful talking then. I told Isaac Maple he could go looking for his brother on a thousand different trails and he still might miss him. I told him there were mountains one way and deserts another, high enough and wide enough for armies to lose themselves in. I told him a man could use up all his money and most of his life looking for something in the West. But, I said, if he were to stake out in one place, make his name in the country, the word would travel surer than any letter that Isaac Maple was keeping a store in Hard Times. And one day the word would reach Ezra and he’d know where to come.

“Mr. Maple,” I said taking him by the arm, “those goods standing on the ground over there were meant for Ezra’s store. You can buy them from Alf Moffet for forty dollars. And you can sell them to the rest of us for twice that amount in water and shelter and cash together. We’ve a need for a store and no doubt the need will grow as more people settle here.”

I talked to the man for the best part of an hour; and at the end of that time, with all of us in a circle around him, he reached in his money belt and counted out forty dollars in greenbacks, licking his thumb and feeling the texture of each bill before he gave it into my hand.