E.L. Doctorow (2 page)

When I ran out the roan was twitching on his side and the street was empty.

“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 everything 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.”

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 riding 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 man pulled up half a dozen plants before he found an onion that suited him. He wrung it free of its green and wiped it and peeled it and then bit in.

“Breakfast,” I said to Jack Millay.

The man ignored John Bear as if he wasn’t there. He stepped over to the Indian’s fire and lifted up the skillet and walked away with it to sit down with his back against the shack. The Indian didn’t move but just looked into his fire.

Avery and Molly Riordan were standing behind me, watching.

“Here’s your chance to get back to your place, Avery.”

“I don’t know, Blue.”

“Why don’t you just walk across and go on in?”

“He’ll see me.”

Jack said: “Shit, Avery.”

“Don’t run and you’ll be alright. Molly you get inside somewhere. I think you better not be seen.”

Avery walked across stiff-legged, trying not to run, and I saw the Bad Man glance up for a moment from his eating. When Avery got inside the Silver Sun he closed the full doors in back of the swinging ones and pulled shades down over the windows.

“Now what’s that man gonna do when he finds Avery’s bolted the door?” Jack said.

I took a deep breath and walked out into the sun myself. I headed across the street, stepping around the man’s dead roan, and when I got to the porch I coughed and went into Ezra Maple’s store.

Ezra was standing by his window looking at the spilled sack of beans.

“He still sitting there?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll take some plug, Ezra.”

“Help y’self.”

I went behind the counter: “Ezra I want to ask you when the stage is due.”

“A week. Maybe two.”

“Well now what day is this? We get a fair crowd from the mines Saturday night.”

“That’s true …”

“Well what day is this?”

“Thursday.”

I walked over to the window and looked with Ezra at the spillings on his porch: the beans could have been flocks of birds flying high, southerly.

“Not much country, Blue.”

“I took some cartridges with the plug.”

In a while we saw Hausenfield driving his hearse hard into town, pulling on the grey’s traces and whipping his mule. He stopped in front of the store and came in, tripping and cursing.

“Are you here, Blue? You have to do something!”

“Tell me what, Hausenfield.”

“Dat is my horse he has.”

“I saw.”

“Are you not the mayor!”

“Only to those who voted for me.” Ezra smiled when I said that: I had not been elected mayor, I had taken it upon myself to keep records in case the town ever got large enough to be listed, or in case statehood ever came about. I kept the books and they called me mayor.

Hausenfield looked at Ezra and smiled back: “Dat is alright,” he said, “I have my veapon.”

He stalked out and got his gun from his wagon. To this day I don’t know whether Hausenfield meant to shoot the Bad Man or not. Probably, he didn’t know himself. His horse was standing in John Bear’s patch eating off the tops of the plants. Hausenfield marched down there and grabbed a fistful of mane and began leading the horse back to his stable. When he’d gone a few yards, he turned almost as an afterthought and shot twice at the Bad Man who sat watching him—once into the dirt in front of the man, once into the wood above him. The horse reared then and pulled away. Hausenfield fell down in the dust and I thought he would fire again from the ground; but I saw him crawling and trying to get up at the same time, waving his pistol at the horse and shouting in German. This put his back to the stranger who was up and running low, squeezing off rounds into his legs.

Faster than a cat the man was on top of Hausenfield, straddling him with his gun holstered now and swinging at his face with the flat of the skillet.

“He never let go of that pan,” Ezra whispered.

Hausenfield had begun to scream when the bullets hit him but the man swung at his face until he could only moan. After a while the man threw the skillet away and looked up: the bay horse had cantered over to his stablemates in front of the black wagon and that must have given the man his idea. Laughing, he dragged Hausenfield by the collar over to the wagon and threw him in. This happened right in front of Ezra’s window so we had to step back in the shadows. The man closed the door, found Hausenfield’s pickaxe, still caked with
the dirt of Fee’s grave, and used it to bolt the door tight. Inside the hearse, Hausenfield was screaming again, pounding on the floorboard. The man jumped up on the driver’s box, brought the grey and the mule around, and began to rein-whip them down the street. Hooting loud, he rode them close to the porch on the other side, and at the last porch beam at the end of the street, he hooked his arm around and stood easily on the rail while the wagon kept on going into the flats. To make sure that the team kept its pace he fired a few shots after it and even the mule ran with his ears back.

Walking to the bay in front of Ezra’s store, the man was laughing to himself and smacking his hands together. Every few steps he would turn around to look at the wagon rumbling away south and each time he looked he laughed harder. He took the bay over to the Silver Sun and saddled it with the gear from his dead roan. Then he tied his new horse to the rail, mopped his forehead with a red handkerchief and stepped up to the saloon doors, which he found locked. He kicked them open and from where I was I heard Avery’s voice say heartily: “Come in, come in!”

After the man had been a while in the Silver Sun, everyone began to come out of doors, standing in ones and twos on the porch or in the street, watching that wagon going away smaller and smaller ahead of its dust cone. Jack Millay saw me and limped over swinging his one arm: “Did you ever see such work, Blue?” Jack’s face was pinked with excitement, he took his joys how he could. In the alleys some of the people were bringing
their buckboards to their side doors and at the rock end of the street John Bear had his travois lying in front of his shack.

I watched the Indian now. When Hausenfield had taken his pot shots Bear had jumped for cover fast enough although his back was turned to the noise. If he was deaf he had another sense to make up for it, if he was dumb he wasn’t too dumb. He came out of his shack and lashed his things to the travois. Then he picked up the poles and pulled. When he reached his skillet lying in the middle of the street he walked right over it and he went right down the street and past the last house. Later I saw him standing half a mile in the flats. He laid his travois down and stood still facing the town.

Behind him and east, tiny Jimmy Fee who had never come back in was sitting by his father’s grave. Clouds were over half the sky now, the sun was covered and a little breeze was blowing.

I went to my office and found Molly Riordan looking in my desk.

“Haven’t you any whiskey, Blue?”

“Whiskey’s across the street,” I said and just then we heard Avery yelling with a laugh in his voice: “Molly! Molly-y!”

Molly ducked behind the desk, and through a hole in my oilpaper window I saw Avery holding his swinging doors open, bellowing with good nature: “Molly where are you, gentleman here wants to see you!” Even across the street I could hear the bottle crashing somewhere behind him. He laughed as if he was enjoying it, called Molly again and went back in.

“Christ!” said Molly. “Isn’t anybody going to do anything?”

“Why don’t you go on over?”

“What?” She stood up then, watching me fill the cylinders of my gun.

I said: “That knife Avery gave you. Do as he said, hold it tight against your wrist and if your moment comes slip it out and use it. But I don’t think you’ll have to.”

“Oh sure, sure! Christ that Bad Man’s the only man in town! I can’t believe it, you’re no better than that son of a bitch Avery, using a lady, for Godsake, marching brave behind a lady’s skirts. You’re some comfort Mayor, go to hell!”

I tucked the gun in my belt and opened the door. People were waiting in the street.

“Oh God,” Molly said, “so this is what it’s come to, how did I ever end up in this forsaken town, oh Christ this is the end. I’ll tell you something you didn’t know, Blue, I left New York ten years ago because I couldn’t bear bein’ a maid, I was too proud to say ‘Yes Mum.’ Doesn’t that tickle you?”

“We do what we can, Molly.”

Her face was twisted up and tears were streaming down her cheeks as she walked by me saying: “I hope he gets you Mayor, I swear I do, you and the rest of the crawling bastards in this miserable town.”

I followed behind her as we walked across—everyone stepping out of our way—and went up on the steps to the Silver Sun. She turned to look at me once more.

“You’re alright, Molly,” I said.

But when she walked up to the doors the stiletto
slipped out of her sleeve and clattered on the porch. I kicked it aside before the Bad Man might see it and I pushed Molly through the doors and stepped in behind. Then I saw what made her drop the knife, Florence bent over the upstairs railing, bare, with her arms dangling and her red hair falling down between them.

Now Avery must have seen the woman dead that way when he came back to close his doors and pull his shades down. But he wasn’t too concerned when we came in, he greeted us laughing and jovial.

“Here’s Molly, hello Blue! Come on, come in, drinks on the gentleman!”

Behind the bar the Bad Man from Bodie was grinning and setting up two more glasses. Avery went to the doors and opened them, calling into the street: “Everybody! Drinks for the whole town on the gentleman here!” The Bad Man laughed but outside everyone began to run, I could see under the doors the feet running in the dirt. The only one Avery got was Jack Millay, who had followed us onto the porch and was peeking over the doors when Avery shouted out his invitation. Avery pulled Jack in and I know that in a few minutes the town was empty but for those of us in the saloon.

It was a celebration. Avery, Jack Millay and I stood at the bar while the man poured for us. Molly sat at one of the tables staring up at Flo with her knuckles in her mouth. The man came around the bar and served her a drink from a tray, making a mock bow like a fancy Eastern waiter. She sat looking away from him and didn’t even stir when he took the bottom of her skirt between two fingers and threw it back over her knees.
Avery laughed at that and Jack laughed too and the man backed away from Molly, looking at her and chuckling. He went behind the bar again and lifted his glass to her.

The Bad Man drank Avery’s liquor like water and every time he poured for himself, he poured for us too. The other two kept up with him but I emptied my glass by throwing the stuff over my shoulder. The man finally saw me do that and then he broke the neck off a fresh bottle and filled my glass slowly and then raised his and looked me in the eyes. He was a younger man than I expected but his skin was shot red under the stubble, there was a blaze on one cheek and he had the eyes of a crazy horse. Right then my hand began to move and I meant for it to go for my gun. But it went instead for the glass on the bar; I felt at that moment that I wanted to please him, I was almost glad to drink.