E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

“The road Blue, whan shall they make the road!” the Russian kept saying.

“You know these flats out here, the way nothing is growing? Well when it’s an orchard of big, leafy trees with each leaf a five-dollar gold piece — that’s when you’ll get your road.”

“It ain’t fair,” Isaac said, “it’s not right. What do I do now, tell me what I’m s’posed to do now!”

“I don’t know Isaac.”

“I said it would come to this, I knew it would. I’m ruined! Ye sure sold me, ye surely traded me!”

“Maybe so.”

“Why I’d have found Ezra by now, I’d be with my brother today but for you!”

“I haven’t heard you complaining the past year Isaac. You’ve done alright.”

“Is that right, is that so? Curse your wretched soul I’ve put every penny I made into this street!”

“You must stop this Blue,” the Russian shook his fist, “you must do something!”

“Shall I put the gold back in the ground?”

“My hotel! My beautiful hotel! From where shall come the customers—”

“Goddamn you both, why don’t you let me be! What is it you want of me! Why am I the one always, people come running to me — get out of here, go on get out, I’m as hung up as you, can’t you see that?”

“Frand—”

“Why you think you’re bad off? You don’t even know! You’ve made enough money from this town, you’ve made enough I’ll tell you and if you don’t have tidy little bundles cached away you’re bigger fools than I take you for.”

“Blue, please”—the Russian held out his arms and he had this begging smile on his face, I could see that gold tooth of his—“please, we are losing everything.”

I had to sit down. I put my hands on my face and I felt my breath on my icy fingers. Those white-faced, black-derbied Eastern sons of Hell! How long had they known — maybe since the afternoon they waited for Alf, fanning themselves and keeping their mouths shut? Someone said they had made tests when they were up there, they had made markings on their charts — a year past! But they’d had their intentions, else why had the Territory Office sent Hayden Gillis? How long had we been waiting for something that was never to be? Even as the street was filling up the ore wagons were carting worthless rock westerly to the mills. Even as I scanned the flats each morning that letter to Brogan was lying on my desk. There is no fool like a fool in the West, why you can fool him so bad he won’t even know his possibilities are dead, his hopes only ghosts.

I said: “Get out while you can. Load your wagons and travel, because sure as you’re breathing it won’t be long and all these people stuck here like pigs on a pitchfork — they’re going to set up a holler.”

“What’s this!”

“A pair of dumb cowboys, that’s all you are. Fretting about your property when it’s your hides you should be thinking of—”

“What ye mean?”

“God help you what do you think I mean, you got eyes don’t you? This town is a bust. Every man in it has been sold!”

Now what I wonder is why they didn’t leave. I saw by the looks on their faces they knew I was telling them right. They had the chance to get out and I can’t account that they stayed, that they ran out of my door and went back, each to his selling counter, putting on a face and coddling the customer right past the time it became too late to leave. Will we not believe our disasters? Or was there nowhere they could go? It was the same with Swede too, there was time to pack and move on before the moon rose but he didn’t, not even in those last free moments after the man came.

Molly had opened her door to see the fuss, she stood there barefooted with her hair hanging down, she looked like Wrath. By the time Zar and Isaac had run out there was a dawn in her eyes. Color came into her cheeks and she broke out in a smile and she said to the boy, who was standing by her: “Lord, did you ever hope to see such a sight? Mayor, is that you I hear telling people to get on their horse?”

She began to giggle, she was really joyful, it might have been some farm girl laughing at her suitor. “Jimmy I swear, listen to Mayor Blue here, all these people he’s been a-wishin’ and a-wantin’, well here they are and look at him, he’s sick, the shit is scared out of him—”

When Alf came along in the afternoon he had from a distance the sight of a town filled with people and he didn’t need to be told what was going on. He reined his team a good way out, near the graves, and turned them around the other way before he and his helper started to toss off the freight. Even so they weren’t fast enough, miners were running out there, lugging their gear, there was a rush for the stage. I ran out too to say something to Alf but he was in no mood for talk. He grabbed the money pouch I gave him without even counting and climbed up on the box and flung out his whip and off the coach went, groaning, men were all over it like ants. I watched it going and then one man who hadn’t gotten a good hold fell off and he ran after for a bit, ending up standing out there waving his fist as the dust covered him.

Here was all this freight, boxes and barrels, standing in the open like wreckage. In my hands was the order list for Alf, and I looked back at the street and tore the paper into pieces. Swede came out, half running, pulling a handcart behind him, and began to load it up. He grunted and sweat ran down from his yellow hair and he picked up those barrels in a hug, those crates, even scooping up crackers where they had spilled out of a box broken open in its fall.

“Damnit,” I said to him, “it’s not some lady’s rug you have to leave clean!”

He began pulling the cart in, it was Isaac’s goods more than his own, he leaned forward on the bar like some ass, some dumb ox. I couldn’t help being furious at him, I wanted to hit him.

I walked beside Swede, my eyes on the town. It had no earthly reason for being there, it made no sense to exist. People naturally come together but is that enough? Just as naturally we think of ourselves alone. “Listen to me Swede: Gather up your belongings, take the locks off your spokes and you and your woman get out of here. With those bulls you got you’ll need a good start. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Aaah, ya—”

“Find yourself some other Swedes …”

I had the same advice for Bert Albany. When I got back to the street I suddenly thought of Bert and I sought him out. He was in the crib where they lived, comforting his wife, but nobody was comforting him. At first he didn’t want to leave—“Where to?” he said, he felt a loyalty to Zar, but more he was afraid any trip would put his Chinagirl in labor. I said, “Bert don’t argue with an old man. Wrap up what you can carry and come with me. No child has ever been born in this town, and that’s the saddest thing I will ever know, but it’s true and it always will be.”

Roebuck, the smithy, had a wagon, I found him ready to leave and I gave him all the greenbacks in my pocket to take on the couple. But when I put Bert and his wife up behind him I said only: “This man has consented to let you ride.” And I walked with the wagon through the milling people, stopping at the edge of the flats and watching it go on. “We was doing alright, Mr. Blue,” the boy called back, “what happened to us? Where do we go now?” And I saw that little girl turn back to look, a puffy, tear-stained face taking in with her eyes what her mind didn’t understand.

Soon there was a string of travelers spread out on the flats. And then, not ten feet in front of me, Angus Mcellhenny was standing, pulling tight the ropes on his mule’s load; and though I had known what to tell Zar and Isaac and Swede and Bert my brain was muddled now, and I couldn’t believe what was happening any more than they could. I went over to Angus but no words would leave my mouth, I didn’t even know what I wanted from him. His pipe was tight in his teeth, he wouldn’t look at me.