E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

Whatever his feelings Isaac didn’t stand to lose much. You figure anyone who keeps a mad wife will pay his debts and do his share of work. Long before Alf delivered the axle it was clear that the man was worthy, gentle for all his size, he would ask no favors and do any asked of him. His woman seemed calmer with people around; and after one Saturday he didn’t again speak of looking for Swedes. What happened was one of the miners found Helga with her washtub and gave her fifty cents to wash his corduroys. The diggers were feeling the spring and they had a great wish to spiff up. It got to be a usual sight, a bunch of men standing around in back of Swede’s wagon in only their high lacers and union suits, smoking Isaac Maple’s imported Regalias or Cheroots and talking like members of a Society. Swede enjoyed their business and their talk. He would build a fire and hang a line of rope over it to dry the things his wife washed, and he’d stand trading words with the men, telling his story, nodding his big head as he listened to theirs …

I can’t deny how I felt seeing this farmer settle in the town. Molly was right, I would welcome an outlaw if he rode in. I felt anyone new helped bury the past. Swede’s coming even put in my mind a thought I wouldn’t have tolerated before — to keep a record again, to write things down. Alf had left me three ledgers and a steel-point pen to keep the Express accounts. But there was enough paper in the ledgers to write the Bible. It was an idea that I had to put away, I looked toward Molly as if I expected her to read my thoughts, and I almost set myself against the words of scorn that would come.

Actually, once Swede and his wife were here to stay Molly didn’t say a word against them. Something about Helga had scared her into gentleness, and it was like you find a drunkard who’s sworn off, having been cowed by the vision of Hell. Molly was never inclined to welcome a new face but for a long while she would not say so, her judgment was softened. When Bert Albany came down and I found out why, I told Molly and she even smiled.

Bert came walking down the trail in the middle of one week, his shoulders were hunched and he sighed like he was carrying the world with him. He was the same pimply boy who always posted his letters with me. He stood in front of Zar’s place, smoothing the ground with his boot and finally he made up his mind to go in. “Don’t you know this is working day?” Zar said to him.

The young fellow didn’t answer and he looked ashamed. He sat around in the saloon all day, sighing and nursing whiskeys, and he didn’t speak to anyone. Zar struggled to understand what the boy’s trouble was and he finally decided Bert had lost his job. “Poor boysik, he will not say bot I know he must have lost favor with the mine boss.”

Now how was that so? Bert was not more than twenty. As well as I could remember he always got drunk when he came to town — not because he seemed to enjoy it but because it put him in company with the rest of the diggers. That’s the way a young fellow does, doing twice as much of anything to make sure he keeps up with the rest. The mine boss wouldn’t let go someone like Bert. But Zar said, “Ah, I can afford him a few dollars, I will take him on as helper,” so I kept my views to myself.

When the Russian offered him the job Bert’s mouth dropped open. Then his face lit up and he laughed. Course he’d take it! A couple of days after this I spoke to him: “Well,” I said, “now you don’t have to travel but a few steps to post your letters.”

“Hell, Mr. Blue,” he said, “I given up writin’ letters. Never got no letters back.” He was cheerful saying this, he didn’t seem to mind. And each morning there was a new sound to hear, Bert whistling as he went about his chores.

On a Thursday evening I stepped into Zar’s place for a drink. Jenks was there, sitting at a table with Mae and Jessie. I could hear where Zar was — his snores were coming out of the side room like running cattle. Miss Adah served me from behind the bar. “Where’s the new man?” I said to her.

She looked over at the two girls and they looked back. Mae got up and went to the door to the side room and closed it carefully.

“Now listen Blue, please,” Adah said to me in a low tone, “you got to promise to keep this under your hat.”

Jessie and Mae came up on either side of me and I found myself hard put to raise the cup.

“What’s going on ladies?”

“That Bert is sparkin’ our little girl,” Adah said.

“Whut’s thet?” Jenks had followed. “The Chink?”

“Jenks I sweah,” Mae turned on him with a harsh whisper, “an you say one word I’ll have yo’ scalp!”

“Gwan back to your stable, deadhead,” said Jessie, “this don’t concern you.”

Jenks leaned back with his elbows on the bar and he grinned that sly grin of his: “Shit … Y’mean he’s cooin’ wif thet li’l yaller flopgal?”

“Hush damn you,” Adah said. She looked at me: “It’s no joke, Zar finds out and he’ll kill him.”

“He’s really stuck on her?” I said.

“Lord!” said Jessie. “You’ve never seen the like. You’d think she was white. You’d think she had a papa owned a railroad!”

“Saturday he didn’t give nobody else a chance to touch her,” Adah said. “Paid her the money and took her out by the well and held her hand.”

“I saw it,” Mae said nodding.

“Godamighty!” Jenks said.

“Then after a while she figures it’s time to come back in, and so in he follows and gives her the money again and out they go again.”

“Well what do you know!” I had to laugh. “Zar thought he was fired from his job.”

“No sir, he just up an’ quit it! That boy’s crazy, he’s wild! There’s no tellin’ what he’ll do why I never saw a person afflicted so.”

Jenks said: “Knew a feller oncet were bedded to a Piute. She sure did have a scent.”

“It don’t seem right,” Mae said biting on her fingernail.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Now Blue,” said Adah, “that little thing is besides herself. She was so scairt Saturday she couldn’t keep from shakin’ all over.”

“It scares her?”

“Why she’s been cryin’ ever since. He has her out there somewhere right now moonin’ like a sick calf over her, poor thing she don’t know what to do.”

“Well if he’s taken a fancy for her,” I said, “there are worse things.”

“Blue,” said Adah, “there are fancies and fancies. She’s just a child, she don’t understand that kind of business, he got no sense treating her like that.”

“When Zar finds out he’ll kill ’em both,” Mae said.

“Well Zar don’t own the girl. Any of you could take a beau if you really wanted,” I said.

“Maybe we could, maybe we couldn’t,” Jessie said. “But he bought her. Paid her Pa a hundred dollars.”

“That Chink weren’t even her Pa,” Mae said to Jessie. “He said he was but he didn’t look as he could sire a flea.”

“You won’t let on will you Blue?”

“I’m dumb ladies.”

“Poor child,” said Adah, “there’s no telling what’ll happen. What is it possesses that boy I don’t hope to guess.”

I downed the drink and there were these three glum faces around me — weary Miss Adah with her fine mustache, long-jawed Jessie, plump Mae, her cheeks going to fat … What Zar would do worried them, but I think they were more frightened by Bert himself. They were uneasy at such a feeling in someone, it was beyond them. For me it was a revelation that such a thing was happening here. It was like someone had come along to put up a flag. I made up my mind if Zar raised a ruckus like the ladies feared I would do what I could for the boy. I wanted to nurture something like that, keep it going.