Cory Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

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WELCOME TO HARD TIMES

E.L. DOCTOROW

FIRST LEDGER

The Man from Bodie drank down a half bottle of

the Silver Sun's best; that cleared the dust from his

throat and then when Florence, who was a red-

head, moved along the bar to him, he turned and

grinned down at her. I guess Florence had never

seen, a man so big. Before she could say a word,

he reached out and stuck his hand in the collar of

her dress and ripped it down to her waist so that

her breasts bounded out bare under the yellow

light. We all scraped our chairs and stood up—

none of us had looked at Florence that way be-

fore, for all she was. The saloon was full because

we watched the man coming for a long time before

he pulled in, but there was no sound now.

This town was in the Dakota Territory, and on

three sides—east, south, west—there is nothing but

miles of flats. That's how we could see him com-

ing. Most times the dust on the horizon moved

east to west—wagon trains nicking the edge of

the flats with their wheels and leaving a long dust

turd lying on the rim of the earth. If a man rode

toward us he made a fan in the air that got wider

4 E. L. Doctorow

and wider. To the north were hills of rock and

that was where the lodes were which gave an ex-

cuse for the town, although not a good one. Really

there was no excuse for it except that people

naturally come together.

So by the time he walked into the Silver Sun a

bunch of us were waiting to see who he was. It

was foolish because in this country a man's pride

is not to pay attention, and after he did that to

the girl he turned around to grin at us and we

looked away or coughed or sat down. Flo mean-

while couldn't believe what happened, she stood

with her eyes wide and her mouth open. He took

his hand off the bar and suddenly grabbed her

wrist and twisted her arm around so that she

turned and doubled over with the pain. Then, as

if she was a pet bear, he walked her in front of

him over to the stairs and up to a room on the

second floor. After the door slammed we stood

looking up and finally we heard Florence scream-

ing and we wondered what kind of man it was who

could make her scream. .

Jimmy Fee was the only child in town and

when Flo was stumbling over her dress up the

stairs, he ducked under the swinging doors and

ran down the porch past the man's horse and

across the street. Fee, his father, was a carpenter,

he had built up both sides of the street almost

without help. Fee was on a ladder fixing the eaves

over the town stable.

"Pa," Jimmy called up to him! "the man's got

your Flo!"

Jack Millay, the limping man with one arm, told

me later he followed the boy across the street to

fill Fee in on the details—little Jimmy might not

Welcome to Hard Times

have made it clear that the customer was a Bad

Man from Bodie. Fee came down the ladder, went

around in back of his place down the street, and

came out with a stout board. He was a short man,

bald, thick in the neck and in the shoulders, and

he was one of the few men I ever met who knew

what life was about. I was standing by the window

of the Silver Sun and when I saw Fee coming I got

out of those doors fast. So did everyone there,

even though the screaming had not stopped. By the

time Fee walked in with his plank at the ready,

the place was empty.

We all stood scattered in the street waiting for

something to happen. Avery, the fat barkeep, had

brought a bottle with him and he tilted his head

back and drank, standing out in the dirt with his

white apron on and one hand on his hip. I had

never seen Avery in sunlight before. The sun was

on the western flats to about four o'clock. There

was no sound now from the saloon. The only horse

tied up in front was the stranger's: a big ugly roan

that didn't look like he expected water or a tub.

Behind him in the dirt was a pile of new manure.

We waited and then there was a noise from in-

side—a clatter—and that was all. After a while

Fee came out of the Silver Sun with his cudgel

and stood on the porch. He walked forward and

missed the steps. The Bad Man's horse skittered

aside and Fee tumbled down and landed on his

knees in the manure. He got up with dung clinging

to his britches and lurched on toward Ezra Maple,

the Express Man, who said: "He can't see." Ezra

stepped aside as Fee staggered by him. The back of

Fee's bald head was bashed and webbed with

blood and he was holding his ears. Little Jimmy

6 E. L. Doctorow

stood next to me watching his father go up the

street. He ran after a few yards, then stopped,

then ran after again. When he caught up to Fee

he took his belt and together they walked into

Fee's door.

Nobody went back into the saloon, we were all

reminded of business we had to do. When I got to

my office door I glanced back and the only one

still standing in the street was Avery, in his apron.

I knew he'd be the first over to see me and he was.

"Blue, that gentleman's in my place, you got to

get him out of there."

"I saw him pay you money Avery."

"I got stock behind that bar, I got window glass

in my windows, I got my grain and still in back.

There's no telling what he'll do."

"Maybe he'll leave soon enough."

"He cracked Fee's skull!"

"A fight's a fight, there's nothing I can do."

"Goddamnit!"

"Well now Avery I'm forty-nine years old."

"Goddamnit!"

I took my gun out of my drawer and shoved it

over the desk toward fat Avery but he didn't

take it. Instead he sat down on my cot and we

waited together. About dusk Jimmy Fee came in

and told me his father was bleeding at the mouth.

I went out and found John Bear; the deaf-and-dumb

Pawnee who served for our doctor, and we went

over to Fee's place but Fee was already dead. The

Indian shrugged and walked out and I was left

to comfort the boy all night.

Once, around midnight, when it got too cold for

me, I walked back to my office to get a blanket.

And on the way I sneaked across the street—

Welcome to Hard Times

running where there was moonlight—to peek into

the window of the Silver Sun. The lights were still

burning. Behind the bar, Florence, with her red

hair unpinned to her shoulders, was crying and

pouring herself a stiff one. I tapped on the win-

dow, but she knew Fee was dead and she

wouldn't come out. I ran around back. The upstairs

was dark and I could hear the, Man from Bodie

snoring.

When I came West with the wagon, I was a

young man with expectations of something, I

don't know what, I tar-painted my name on a big

rock by the Missouri trailside. But in tune my

expectations wore away with the weather, like

my name had from that rock, and I learned it

was enough to stay alive. Bad Men from Bodie

weren't ordinary scoundrels, they came with the

land, and you could no more cope with them than

you could with dust or hailstones.

I found twelve dollars in Fee's bureau when the

sun came up and I gave them to Hausenfield, the

German. Hausenfield owned a bathtub, he had

brought it in his wagon all the way from St. Louis.

At the beginning of each month Hausenfield would

fill that tub with water from his well and sit right

down in back of his house and wash. He also

owned the stable.

After I gave him the money he went into his

stable and pushed out his wagon by the tongue and

hitched up his mule and his grey. The wagon was

an old stage with the windows boarded and the

seats torn out. It was black, the one painted thing

in town. He drove it over to Fee's door.

"Put him in dere please."

8 E. L. Doctorow

Jack Millay, who was standing by with his one

arm, helped me take Fee out and put him in the

wagon.

"Don't you have a casket Hausenfield?"

"He never build me vun. He said he would bufld

ten for me, but he never build even vun."

I closed the door on Fee and the wagon creaked

down the street and into the flats. It was cold and

early but nearly everyone was out watching it go.

A pickaxe clanked on top of the stage, one of the

wheels squeaked each time around, and the clank-

ing and squeaking was Fee's funeral music.

Hausenfield's grey pulled harder than his mule and

so the wagon turned eastward slowly in an arc.

About a mile out in the flats it stopped. Behind

the wagon, from the southeast, rain clouds were

coming up under the sky. I didn't know where

Florence was but Jimmy Fee began .to walk out

after, now, with his hands in his pockets. ^

"Look there Blue!"

Across the street, in front of the saloon, the

Bad Man's roan stood shivering where he'd been

tied since yesterday.

"Cold got that man's horse," Jack Millay said,

"he never did see to it." Even as Jack spoke the

horse went down on its knees. That was all we

needed—I wanted the man to go away with no

difficulty, no trouble to himself. I walked into

my office to think, and a few minutes later some

fool who couldn't bear to see animals suffer but

who didn't care if people did, stood a good safe

way from the Silver Sun, probably behind some

porch, and shot his carbine at the roan.

When I ran out the roan was twitching on his

side and the street was empty.

Welcome to Hard Times

"Who in hell did that!" I shouted.

Then, in a minute the Bad Man from Bodie came

out of the saloon buckling his gun belt. I didn't

move a muscle. He looked down at his horse and

scratched his head and that was when I stepped

slowly back inside my door and closed it. On the

back wall of my office, behind my cot, there was

another door and I went out that way.

I found Avery standing near my outhouse talking

to his other girl, Molly Riordan. Along with the rest

of us Molly scooted out of the Silver Sun when the

man had taken Flo. She sheltered for the night with

Major Munn, the old veteran who liked to call her

his daughter; and now Avery had her back and

they were arguing.

"You're a son of a bitch, Avery," she said to

him. Molly was never to my taste, pale and pocked,

with a thin mouth and a sharp chin, but I liked the

way she stood up to Avery.

"Blue, this son of a bitch wants me to go across

there and get ripped open by that big bastard."

"Not so loud Molly, for God's sake!" Avery said.

"How do you like this fat-assed son of a bitch?

He's some man, isn't he Blue?"

"Molly I got stock behind that bar; I got all my

money under the counter. I'm telling you every-

thing I got is in there." To make his point Avery

slapped Molly hard across the face and when she

put her hand to her cheek and began weeping, he

pulled a stiletto from under his apron and held it

out until she took it.

"You go on over there and when he holds you

around, bring the knife out of your sleeve and put

it in his neck. I can't have that gentleman in my

place, I want him out of there."

10 E. L. Doctorow

Just then a hoot and a holler came from the

street. I looked down the alley in time to see the

Bad Man prancing by sideways on a big bay. He

was on Hausenfield's good horse.

"He's not in your place now, Avery," I said.

The Bad Man was celebrating the new day rid-

ing bareback back and forth from one end of the

street to the other. Jack Millay met me in 'the

alley: "Hausenfield left his barn door open."

"Too bad for Hausenfield."

"That man just walked over and took the bay

for his own."

We watched from the shade: he kicked the horse

this way and that, yelling and whooping through

the street. When the horse got accustomed, he

spurred him up the steps of the Silver Sun and

then rode along the porch, ducking low for the

beams. The horse kicked over the sack of dried

beans in front of Ezra Maple's store and then

jumped back into the street, and the Bad Man

laughed and yelped some more. I was hoping he'd

stop soon, saddle up, and then go riding toward

the lodes. The clouds were moving from the south

and if it rained he couldn't poke a horse up on wet

rocks, even if he had a horse. But when he stopped

it was at the north end of the street where John

Bear had his shack.

John Bear did his cooking on the outside over a

stone fire. Next to his shack he had a small plot

he had worked on so that it gave up a few tubers

and onions. John was squatting by his fire, cooking

up some meal, when the man walked into his

patch, stepping all over the plants. If John was

deaf and dumb what he saw was enough. The

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WELCOMETOHARDTIMESE.L.DOCTOROWFIRSTLEDGER1TheManfromBodiedrankdownahalfbottleoftheSilverSun'sbest;thatclearedthedustfromhisthroatandthenwhenFlorence,whowasared-head,movedalongthebartohim,heturnedandgrinneddownather.IguessFlorencehadneverseen,amansobig.Beforeshecouldsayaword,hereachedoutandstuckhisha...

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Cory Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

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