E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

He looked at me, his anger forgotten: “Blue, I think you are losing your mind …”

“I have lived around this country a long time, Zar. Take a look at the faces along your bar; if you can’t read the meanings you don’t stand to last very long.”

“They say you are giving away money—”

“I’ve invested some.”

“Blue, frand, I’m sorry I have screamed. You are a sick man.”

“You’d better give some thought to what I’m saying—”

He stomped over to the door shaking his head. “Alright,” I said to him, “I hope you’re hiding your gold in a good safe place.”

But when he was gone I had to ask myself: Could I be wrong? Was I running scared? If things were really tight neither the Russian nor any of the others would have to be told what to do. The situation was not all that bad. Isaac Maple, for instance, I knew for a fact he credited anyone who said he knew Ezra, his brother. Every poke came into town, it didn’t take him one day to find out how to get by Isaac, all he had to say is he’d seen Ezra, and was it at Bannock or Virginia City, it was all the same, he got down on Isaac’s books …

Was this not a way of hoping; or was I just being typical of myself, unable to do something in the morning without regretting it at night?

If Jimmy understood what I had done he gave no sign. Nor did I hear from Molly. I slept well at night, there were no sounds to waken me. In the morning Jimmy dragged in that bathtub from the well and pushed it into their room. He went back and forth with a bucket, I suppose Molly had decided to cleanse herself of what filth she could. When he had filled the tub he sat outside her door, his neck flushed red to his ears and that cursed shotgun across his knees.

Outside the front door there was a crowd gathered — for what? What more did I have to do? And then Archie D. Brogan showed up. He must have pushed aside a few of them, there was a lot of grumbling and a few shouts behind him when the door opened.

“Are you that Blue feller? Mcellhenny tells me you’ve a letter in my name. Brogan.”

I stood up. “That’s right. It’s been here more than a week.”

“Say what?”

“It’s been here in my desk a long while—”

“Why that son of a bitch sot, I’ll fix his hide, he just now told me last night. Well give it here.”

It was clear he was a mine boss. His hat was off but just to fan his face, he was a beefy man in his corduroys and he suffered the heat. I got the letter and handed it to him.

“Too bad you had to make a special trip,” I said, “you mostly get your mail up at the camp, don’t you?”

“What the hell business is it of your?” he said ripping open the envelope. And then, as he stood there puzzling out the words his florid face went pale. He stuffed the paper in his pocket and stomped out, leaving the door open wide.

Outside they made a path for him and he walked up the street to Zar’s Palace. Bert was standing by the door and I motioned him inside.

“Bert, what’s troubling you, what are you doing here?”

“Well Mr. Blue the girl is getting big as a melon and we don’t have a bed yet for the chile to be born in. I want us to have a real furniture bed, you know how I mean, but I’m already two weeks ahead on my pay—”

“Won’t Isaac Maple order on your word?”

“No sir, he knows me. Also, he’s been paying my honey wages and I can’t—”

“Alright, Bert, listen, I’ll loan you for that bed whatever it costs—”

He stammered, he looked sorry he had joined the crowd at my door. He was a fine gawky young fellow and I remember thinking, unwillingly, how just a few years older than Jimmy he was.

“Alright, Bert, you pay me when you can, now listen. That man just walked out of here, Archie Brogan?”

“Sure, don’t have to tell me that’s Mr. Brogan—”

“Go on back to your place and keep your eye on him. He has a letter I’d give my arm to know what it says. Man has a drink he sometimes talks out loud, you know what I mean?”

“Sure, Mr. Blue—”

“I wanted to say something to him about the road, he could put all these people out here to work if he had insructions, go on now.”

I showed him out and closed the door. I had been waiting for the mine boss to come down for his letter; and now that he had my heart pulsations ran so fast I could hardly keep myself sitting down. I bit off some plug and chewed and listened to the noise outside one door and the silence inside the other. The boy was gazing at me. I thought Well let me write Jenks’s request to the capital, let me compose my letter to the banking companies. But nothing I could do would matter if the mine didn’t lay its road. Why had that note been addressed to Brogan care of the town? Why had Angus said nothing to him for over a week?

I stepped outside and walked quickly up the street to the saloon. Some of those people walked along with me. “I’ve no news, I’ve nothing to say,” I told them as I walked. “I’m going in for a drink, anyone who’d care to stand me one is welcome to come along.” That put them off and I went into Zar’s and stood by the bar until I caught Bert’s eye.

He put a glass in front of me and poured: “Upstairs, Mr. Blue, he bought a whole bottle and went upstairs with Jessie.”

“Well this is a working day,” I said softly, “he must have something grand to celebrate.”

“He said not a word. He didn’t even act he knew who I was. Just took a bottle and marched up there with Miss Jess.”

Mae came over, pushing her hair back on her temples: “I wish that bastard would hurry up and die. How are you Blue?”

“Mae.”

“That goddamn dealer. Two days he’s been lying up there bleeding all over my bed. I don’ understand ol’ Adah, she sits up theah you’d thank ’twas her own man dyin’.”

“Well,” I said, “she has a feeling for such things.”

“Hell, he’s jest a-festerin’ away. And Lord if it don’t serve him right. First day he was here he wanted me to go upstairs just for the love of it. You hear me Blue? ‘Why you cheap bastard,’ I tell him, ‘I’ll go with you and you pay me like anyone else!’ And you know he wouldn’t? How do you like that for a dealer! One on the house Bertie, if’n you please.”

“Where’s Zar?” I said.

“Who cares!”

I sipped my whiskey and waited there at the bar, watching the stairs and trying not to look concerned. There were men sitting at the tables, talking, playing small-change poker, but the noise wasn’t such you couldn’t hear things. From one room above I heard the low moans of that dealer; and from another the sound of Archie D. Brogan singing up a song. After a while Jessie came down. Long Jessie went over to Mae and whispered something and they both giggled.

How many verses of that song I must have listened to, making out no words, but the Irish of the tune again and again. It would stop and I’d think well now we’ll hear no more, but he would start up again, having only paused to wet his throat.

Then, finally, a door opened, and down the stairs came the mine boss, lurching and holding the rail tight. He slipped and sat down on the bottom step; and he began to laugh. His face was red and his cheeks shot with thin blue veins. I was over there in an instant offering to help him up and that made him stop laughing. He waved my hand away, muttered something and went out the door. I followed and watched as he threw up in the street. When he was done he wiped his face with a red handkerchief and stalked into Isaac’s store, walking sober as a judge.

How clear I call up these moments — even the song he sang, a wild dirge, sings in my ears. A man I never knew! He came out of Isaac’s place with a bundle and brand-new saddlebags, stuffed full. He threw it on the back of his mule, mounted, and as I stood transfixed, rode down the street and into the flats.