E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

“You don’t tarry, Angus.”

“I’m no fool. Ye’ll be traveling yerself hae you any sense.”

“Angus,” I grabbed his arm, “can there still be gold up there?”

He sighed: “That mountain is picked so hollow, why it’s holey as a honeycomb, there’s nothin’ holdin’ it up save air. Listen to me Blue, there’s maybe a score of men still up at the site who can’t bear to be sold out. They’ll rot up there tryin’ to take it out on the rock.”

“It’s a property isn’t it? The Company will sell it if they can.”

“Aye, there’s enough fer salt. They will make a Chinaman of some poor soul who will buy the stock and come out and dig. And when he sees what he’s got he’ll blow out his brains.”

Another miner standing near Angus gave a laugh.

I tried to say something but the words choked in my throat. I looked ahead at the endless reaches, lit red in the late afternoon, and I felt the blood drying up in me.

“Blue,” Angus Mcellhenny said softly, and he glanced a moment at me, “dinna spook me wi’ yer troubles. Goodbye to ye. I know yer feelings fer yer wee town but I canna bear to think on it.”

Well that was the moment I asked myself what I was going to do. Everything was come to nothing. You try to dispose of your life to some purpose even though it appears to have none. My savings were gone; if I could get Molly and the boy on the buckboard how far could they go? Like Angus marching away out there among the others was the shambles of the town blowing off in every direction. All afternoon I watched to see who was leaving, feeling the pain of slow torture. But I have always been one for the protraction of misery and perhaps I counted each man who left as one less twist to the final pain. What I mean to say is I never made up my mind to leave, my will was exhausted. When the dusk came on there was a stillness over the town although the numbers were still thick. Men stood around, hardly anyone was moving. Anger, like heat, lay on the dust of the air. Jimmy came running by me, his eyes bulging, his mouth open as if he were about to scream. I looked where he’d come from, and I walked closer to see what I was seeing. From inside Zar’s saloon came the sound of one man’s haw haw laugh. Tied up at the railing was a bony used-up nag that I saw was once Hausenfield the German’s handsome bay.

Looking over the doors I could see only his shoulders and his hat. But then he raised his head and there was his dark reflection in Zar’s fancy mirror behind the bar. Two Bad Men, the Man multiplied. I remember feeling: He never left the town, it was waiting only for the proper light to see him where he’s been all the time.

“Hey, who’s the boss here,” he called out.

Someone pointed to Zar who was standing at the end of the counter.

“Say, friend, come have a drink, it’s good pizen ye made, I’ll swar—”

Zar didn’t move, and in the silence of that packed saloon the man leaned down the bar and shoved a full glass along. It went the whole distance, people stepping back not to block the way; and at the end of the counter it tipped gently on its side, a-making a pool of whiskey that spread and began to drip to the floor.

With a frown Zar lifted the bottom of his apron and began to dab at the liquid. The Man thought that was funny and laughed, and everyone looking on in that steaming glowing room began to laugh with him. Then Turner stood up to his full height so I could see now that blaze on the side of his face, the peculiar stare of his eye. He had caught sight of Mae and Mrs. Clement, standing shy behind the Russian.

“Hey honey,” he said softly but there was no other sound now. “Hey honey,” he said crooking his finger. In that moment I could feel my heart tipping, spilling out its shame, its nausea. I had to run from the Trick, I couldn’t tolerate it, what other name is there for the mockery that puts us back in our own steps? Here the earth turns and we turn with it, around it spins and we go mad with it.

Inside Jenks’s stable I found the mule and led him quickly to the cabin, but not by the street but behind the houses. I hitched him to the Major’s rig and then I went around to the front and stepped inside the door.

There was no light and I couldn’t see. I heard a rustle from the dugout and when I lit the lamp and held it up I saw them both cowering back inside there. Molly had the boy in front of her, he was gripping the shotgun; and over his shoulder she was pointing that knife at me.

“The mule’s hitched,” I said, “you want to quick take some things and ride out.”

“I’ll kill you Mayor,” she whispered. She stared at me like I was some animal ready to spring, poised with her legs wide and her hand high holding that stiletto. She looked as if it was I who had summoned him up.

“Don’t come any closer—”

“Molly in the name of God listen to what I’m telling you!”

In the shadows her eyes had the light of fire.

“Don’t you care!” I shouted. “You want it to happen again? You think I can atone more? Take him away from here, you’re mother to him, a bobcat’ll curry its young, won’t you do that, won’t you take him the hell out of here!”

The boy stood between us and now he raised the gun a little. “Look at this,” I said, “it should make you proud the way you’ve hexed this boy. Well I’m finished, I don’t want him, he’s nothing to me, go on the both of you, get out. The rig’s yours, the mule’s yours, everything — but quit my sight, you’ve been only misery to me. I rue the day I saw you Molly, I swear I curse the moment I laid eyes on you. Had I known what you was why I would have stood up to be shot, I would have held out my arms to the Bad Man. Shoot true, brother, or Molly Riordan is waiting who will do it much slower—”

And all the while I raged I could see I had no name in her gaze, this was what she wanted, for the Bad Man to return! she’d been waiting for him, a proper faithful wife. Nothing mattered to her, not me, not Jimmy, just herself and her Man from Bodie. I was ready to kill her.

And the boy standing there like he thought he was her son, it filled me with disgust. “What do you think you’re guarding there sonny, something worth the trouble? You think she cares a damn for you? Why she thinks no more of you than she does of me, right now she wouldn’t know if you put that muzzle in your eye and squeezed the trigger. Tell him Molly, he don’t believe me. Why you’re a simp to stand there, you ain’t got half the sense of your Daddy, you did and you’d be riding away right now!” I said, “Go on Jimmy, get out of here while you can, you don’t need her, you’re not the first she’s fooled, it’s no shame. Go on, boy. Go on—”

But he only raised the barrel a little. Well I’m thankful for that, there was not a flicker of belief in his eyes. What he was to do was not my reckoning, it burst from him with the force of shot, he was a long time in the squeeze. How I failed is how Molly did not fail, and in the miserable waste of our three lives I want to declare only for my own guilt.

Now in all this and what followed only once did it strike me to overcome both of them, hustle them on the wagon and take them away myself. It was at this moment, with no thought as how it could be done. I lunged at Molly over the boy’s outstretched arms almost at the same instant she heard the coach coming down the street. She crouched and came up past me, swiping at my ribs with the stiletto, putting a rent in my side — and she was out of there while I was stumbling over the boy.

That was as close as I came. Afterwards I hadn’t the time.

“Jenks,” screamed Jessie, “in a second I’m driving this thing myself, Jenks—”

“Now,” Molly was cooing, “here you tell me Mr. Jenks will run and just one man he has to take care of?” Her voice was as soft and natural as a sane woman’s. “Why Sheriff, I know you can shoot the balls off a man quick as a blink. You’re not runnin’ Sheriff, no sir, it makes no sense. Look here, even this shit yellow spine of a Mayor ain’t running.”