E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

“Congratulations.”

“But not to sell water to others, I promise you that.”

Mae laughed. He turned and glared at her.

“Zar,” I said, “do what you want. But the minute you put up a well Isaac Maple will too. You know that don’t you?”

He shrugged. “What do I care?”

“Well then why should you think I care what you do? Do what you want and good luck to you.” A couple of men walked in the doors and then a few more after them. The day was beginning. I put money on the bar and I walked out.

On the porch a man stepped in front of me: “Mornin’ Mayor,” he mumbled, “jest wonderin’ is there any news—”

“You’ll know when I know,” I said shortly.

“I know Mayor but I can’t—”

“Come over to my place when I’m there,” I said. “I got other business just now.”

Isaac was on his porch, putting out some wares, I went inside with him and spoke to him for a few minutes. When I was through I went down the street to the cabin. Molly was in the room behind the door and she was asleep, but the dugout was empty.

It was toward the middle of the morning but hot and still enough for afternoon. A few men were walking out of Swede’s tent and they were picking their teeth. I went up there and Swede was just coming out carrying a pair of kettles.

“I’m looking for my boy,” I said.

“Ya,” he smiled, “inside.”

Jimmy was not at any of the long tables. A dozen heads glanced up as I looked around. I found him out in back, cross-legged on the ground, rolling pancakes and stuffing them in his mouth. He wouldn’t look at me. Swede’s wife was standing by him, her hands in her apron, smiling as she watched him eat.

“Jimmy you’ll come with me,” I said.

I dug in my pockets to pay for his breakfast but Helga shook her head and waved my hand down. When he was finished I walked away without looking back. I went down the street past Bear’s shack, getting on the trail and climbing up. I was feeling short of breath but I kept up my pace and turned off well along the trail, when I saw a flat rock. I picked my way to it and sat down and waited for him. And a minute later he came along and stood a few feet away looking at me.

“Sit down here,” I said, “I’ve got something to say to you.” He didn’t move. “I won’t hurt you, come on.”

We sat side by side watching the town below us, a street of houses at the foot of that vast flatland, a small stir of life in all that stillness. A cool breeze blew on the face but down there it wasn’t enough to turn the windmill. Horses and mules were tied up along the railings, people were walking this way and that, every now and then a fragment of someone’s voice would rise up to our ears, or something would catch the sun and flash in our eyes.

“I brought you up here because I wanted to be sure no one would bother us,” I said. “What I have to say is private between you and me. You understand that?”

“Sure.”

“How old do you reckon you are? Fourteen? Fifteen years?”

“I don’ know.”

“You’re a sight bigger than the day I carried you down from these rocks. You remember that? You took my gun, you were going after that Bad Man killed your Daddy.”

My gaze went out beyond the town to the graves in the flats, and I suppose he looked there too. I didn’t dare look at him, I didn’t trust myself to say just what I wanted to say.

“You remember that?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I could carry you now. I don’t suppose if you didn’t want it I could make you do anything. But I’ll tell you: when I got you down to the Indian’s shack I put you down too fast. I let you go too quick. I should have made plans for you then and there. But I never had practice being a father before and I didn’t know any better.”

I felt him looking at me but I kept my own eyes on the town. “Now look at down there. It’s not as neat as the town Fee put up, it don’t show one man’s mark. Just a patch job, spit and old lumber, but if he could see it he’d like it. He’d say it was alright.”

“How do you know what my Pa would say!”

“I used to talk to him. I know what he valued. He died two years short, it would have pleasured him to see this.”

He picked up a stone and tossed it away, watching it bounce down among the rocks.

“Now when he died I said to myself, ‘Well he has left a son and I’m going to look after his son and pass on the lesson I learned from Fee.’ It’s not something a person could learn in one day or one week. It’s something you have to learn into , like carpentry. You understand?”

He said nothing.

“And I knew that, so I never said a word to you. I figured if I did as your father did why that would be the way; if I did everything as Fee would have done it, well you’d learn alright. And you mightn’t suffer the loss so bad.”

Down below a woman was filling her buckets at the water tank. A man, it looked like Jenks, was walking into Zar’s Palace.

“Course I was wrong, I should have taken you in hand right away and talked to you as I am now. Molly has got to you, it’s natural I suppose, but if you grow to the life the way she has, I’m saying it clear as I can Jimmy, you won’t have the idea, you won’t be Fee’s son any more.”

“What do you know—”

“You’ve got to allow for Molly. She can’t give up her suffering.”

“My Pa had sand. He weren’t no coward.”

“Does she call me that? Well now I’ve got to tell you”—looking at him, feeling the desperation of what I was doing—“probably your Pa did only one shameful thing in his life and that was to rush in after Turner.”

“What?”

“That was the one time he was no example to you. He went in there to get himself killed.”

“What?”

“It’s what you do when a Bad Man comes, Jimmy. I tried to do it too but I am a bumbler by nature.”

“You better not talk that way about my Pa—” Lord, it made me faint-hearted, it was Fee’s face with no lines, a young hairless face with a frown of anger and no understanding at all. “You better not talk that way,” it said pursing its lips, “you better not!”

And what did I expect, you can’t tell something like that, who will know it? “Jim you can squeeze the trigger and knock down a Bad Man and as sure as you’ve been shootin’, another will come up in his place. They take to this land, they don’t need much to grow, just a few folks together will breed ’em, a little noise and they’ll spring up out of the empty shells. Jimmy!”

He had jumped up. Molly was stepping out of the cabin, a small figure in the street below.

“I have spoken to Isaac Maple,” I said trying to control my voice. “Isaac will need someone to help him out before long. The Chinagirl is getting too heavy to move around, her time is coming. What do you say to working in Isaac’s store? It will be good for you. You’re going to work regular hours. You’re going to learn reading and writing. You’re going to grow up proper with this town and the day will come—”

“She’s calling me! Here!” He waved his arms. “I’m here!”

I pulled him down. I took hold of his shoulders and held him down on the rocks. “What kind of a mama’s boy are you! How far do I have to take you to get you out of that woman’s spell! Listen to me I said the day is coming when no Man from Bodie will ride in but he’ll wither and dry up to dust. You hear me? I’m going to see you grow up with your own mind, I’m going to see you settled just like this town, you’re going to be a proper man and not some saddle fool wandering around with his grudge. Jimmy listen to me—”

He was struggling under me, a strong boy, not hearing, his face screwed up in hate. And I felt his breath clean as grass on my face and I talked on and on as if words could do something. “Listen listen,” I kept saying but the strength was draining out of me, like hope, and my mind was doing another talking: It’s too late, and I’ve done it wrong, I am too late.