E. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

“You makin’ another grave?” he said.

Well I felt I was. But I said, “Hitch up that pony and find us some lumber you can’t break. I’m making a place to live.”

By mid-afternoon there was a dead hot sun in the sky. I took my shirt off and put a cloth around my neck and as I worked I lifted my hat every few minutes to let the air in. There was no wind and the water in the tank went down and I had to climb the scaffold to turn those stubby mill blades. The digging and the climbing wore on me, I had worked all my life but the year I had lived in the town I had grown soft as I thought I had a right to do in my old age. I felt that year now. Luckily for me, Bear came out of his shack to take a nap in its shade side, and afterwards he walked over and without a word gave me a spell on the shovel. I guess he didn’t want me in his place any more than I wanted to be there. The digging was done by sundown.

We found a fairly good shake in the rubble and dragged it over for a ridgepole. When it was in place I laid the odd bits of lumber Jimmy had collected across from the shake to the sod walls. Then I laid other wood over the cracks. Then we went up to the rocks and brought back armfuls of scrub and covered the boards and threw some dirt on and there was a dugout, roof and all. Of course it lacked a door for the hole on one side, but that was a refinement which could wait. What I wanted now was to set up the stove inside and eat some of the apples and maybe open one tin of the milk.

I said to Jimmy: “Get in there and jump a little, tamp that floor down.” I had learned early in the morning that he was alright as long as you ordered him about. All day I had been telling him what to do and he had done it. This time he just stood with a far-off look on his face. I thought the dusk was recalling his father to him, but he pointed out to the flats and said: “There’s someone comin’.”

The clouds were red over the flats and darkness was moving in. About a mile to the south something was making dust, and as we looked it showed itself to be a canvas-top wagon.

“Jimmy get over by the Indian’s next to those things we gathered.” This time he moved. “And put that box of shells inside your shirt!” I called after him.

John Bear went inside his hut and closed the door. I put on my shirt and stood in front of the dugout, and I loosened the Colt in my belt.

We waited without moving for the wagon to arrive. It came on with a bump over the graves. When it reached the town’s edge the team slowed to a walk, a six-horse team, and I wondered what kind of covered wagon needed six horses. They were well used. Slowly down the burnt-out street they came as if the driver was taking in the sight. Then they turned and pulled the creaking rig on toward me.

“Hollo!” the driver called. He reined in just as I thought he was going to ride on past. He sat up there behind his steaming horses, a stout man, smiling widely under a bushy mustache, he might have been a smith except that he wore a striped shirt with sleeve garters. Turning in his seat he said to someone inside the wagon: “See, was no prairie fire, where is grass for prairie fire?”

“Well you’re a damn genius, Zar,” a woman’s voice came from inside, “but I don’t see no Culver City neither.” I saw her come up behind his shoulder and the thing that struck me was she had no bonnet on her head.

They both looked down at me.

“Frand,” the man said, “there is mine camp in these hills, am I right?”

“I’ve heard of one,” I said.

“Ah hah! I am right. And what has happened here?”

I said, “Well a man come by preaching hellfire.”

He laughed and I could see the glint of a gold tooth: “Frand, listen. Two days past I learn is a mining camp westward, a place of business. But westward is big, and yesterday I am lost. Is rain, is dark, and only one strange light is in bottom of sky. You see what I’m telling you? There is good in everything, what for you was a town burning was for me a lamp in the window.” The man shook as he laughed. His jowls shook, his stomach shook.

The woman said: “Don’t mind Zar, he’s a Russky.”

“I am,” the man agreed. He jumped down from the seat and I was surprised how short he was. “We make the night here, Adah, and tomorrow to the gold.”

The woman disappeared in the wagon. The man said to me: “Now frand I have thirsty horses. Is that well yours?”

“That’s right.”

“I pay of course. You are a survivor, you will need provisions.”

“Maybe.”

He looked at me then as if he was hiding some joke.

“You like beef? I carry beef.”

As he spoke something fell off the back of the wagon and then someone jumped off and although my view was obstructed I thought it was a boy. I heard some high voices. At the same time the woman appeared at the front of the wagon and climbed down easily despite a mess of skirts.

“Adah, horses to water,” the Russian said. “Others make tent in back of dugout. Like in homeland — two houses make willage.”

Without unhitching the team, the woman Adah pulled them away to the water barrel. When the wagon moved off I saw three figures standing around a square bundle of canvas. This was dusk and it took me a moment to understand that they were all women. One, in pants, whom I had taken for a boy, I saw now to be a Chinese.

“You see my prize herd, frand?” the Russky poked me in the ribs and chuckled. “Water for beef, is fair?”

“Hey Zar,” one woman called, “can’t you wait till we’ve been in a place five minutes? I swear you’d trade with a cactus if you met up with one.”

“Hey Zar,” another called, “that little old boy yonder looks more able than the feller you talkin’ to.”

The Chinawoman giggled and Zar raised his fist and shouted: “Shod up!”

But I almost laughed myself. Here I was with nothing between me and the Fates but the clothes on my back, I was hard put just to stay alive, and this fellow had come in off the flats to offer me luxuries. I shook my head. I told him I would rather take vittles and maybe some of his alcohol when his camp was made.

“As you weesh,” he shrugged. He was disappointed, the ladies were his stock in trade. He walked over to them, did some shouting, cuffed the Chinese girl on the ear, and before long the women were putting up their tent nearby.

Well I went about my business. Together with Jimmy I toted our property inside the dugout. I got one lamp going, I put up the stove and built a fire. We tamped the floor and spread the two blankets which belonged to the Major. All the while I was thinking of the provender to be had from this Russian. I hadn’t figured past the few peas and dried apples and tins of milk we’d salvaged; and I didn’t relish the idea of hunting prairie dogs. These traveling people — the more I thought about them the better I liked them.

There was a commotion just as we had things about settled. Jimmy stuck his head out of the door: “It’s over by the Indian’s!” he called.

I looked out. It was already dark. There were lights in front of Bear’s shack, and a lot of yelling. “Stay here Jimmy,” I said and I ran over. The Russian’s women were standing in the door waving their lamps and jabbering away. Inside, John Bear was lying face down on the ground. This Zar was trying to lift Molly under the arms and she was screaming and tearing at his face with her fingers.

“Here, let her be, mister!” I said. I pulled my gun out and trained it on him. He put Molly down readily enough and turned to me, but he didn’t seem to notice I was covering him.

“Ah frand,” he said, “you tell me what this is? My girls come to say hollo and what do they find but this savage?”

“That’s right,” the woman Adah said. “Sittin’ on his haunches starin’ at her behind. I never seen the likes!”