Part 9 (1/2)
The place was mostly empty, a few people were sleeping at the tables. The night air was still in the room, it was cool but it smelled bad.
”Bert not here yet?” I said.
”Can't expeck him to leave a cozy bed jes' cause he has a job to do,” she said, pouring, ”can't ex- peck him to leave his c.h.i.n.k honey.”
I took my drink.
” 'Smatter, Blue, that wife o' yourn givin' ye a time?”
”What?”
”Man looks like you do in the mornin', either163 it's his wife or his liver. Ain't got no liver trouble so far as I know.”
”You don't look so good yourself,” I said. She had no color in her face, she was not so plump any more. ”You not enjoying the prosperity, Mae?”
”What do you want, Mayor, G.o.dd.a.m.nit.” She was rubbing her forehead. ”Don't know what it's like to breathe any more. Used to be jes' the week's end, these days every night is Sat.u.r.day.”
Zar came clumping down the stairs. He dressed fancy now. ”La la la,” he was singing, he came over and pinched Mae's cheek. ”Maechka,” he said, but she pushed his hand off and went to sit down with her gla.s.s.
”Blue,” the Russian turned smiling to me, ”you are the man I am meaning to see. I have important business to talk.”
”Not now Zar.”
”Of course now. You have just to listen.” He carefully took from his pocket a folded piece of newspaper. ”At Silver City I see there is Company, for three hundred dollars they will go anywhere with steam drill and dig the water.”
”So?”
”So I tell you and you won't be mad. I am think- ing closely of sending for them. That way I have my own well.”
”Congratulations.”
”But not to sell water to others, I promise you that.”
Mae laughed. He turned and glared at her.
”Zar,” I said, ”do what you want. But the minute you put up a well Isaac Maple will too. You know that don't you?”
He shrugged. ”What do I care?”164 ”Well then why should you think I care what you do? Do what you want and good luck to you.” A couple of men walked in the doors and then a few more after them. The day was beginning. I put money on the bar and I walked out.
On the porch a man stepped in front of me: ”Mornin” Mayor,” he mumbled, ”jest wonderin' is there any news-”
”You'll know when I know,” I said shortly.
”I know Mayor but I can't-”
”Come over to my place when I'm there,” I said. ”I got other business just now.”
Isaac was on his porch, putting out some wares, I went inside with him and spoke to him for a few minutes. When I was through I went down the street to the cabin. Molly was in the room behind the door and she was asleep, but the dugout was empty.
It was toward the middle of the morning but hot and still enough for afternoon. A few men were walking out of Swede's tent and they were picking their teeth. I went up there and Swede was just coming out carrying a pair of kettles.
”I'm looking for my boy,” I said.
”Ya,” he smiled, ”inside.”
Jimmy was not at any of the long tables. A dozen heads glanced up as I looked around. I found him out in back, cross-legged on the ground, rolling pancakes and stuffing them in his mouth. He wouldn't look at me. Swede's wife was stand- ing by him, her hands in her aprpn, smiling as she watched him eat.
”Jimmy you'll come with me,” I said.
I dug in my pockets to pay for his breakfast bu Helga shook her head and waved my hand165 down. When he was finished I walked away with- out looking back. I went down the street past Bear's shack, getting on the trail and climbing up. I was feeling short of breath but I kept up my pace and turned off well along the trail, when I saw a flat rock. I picked my way to it and sat down and waited for him. And a minute later he came along and stood a few feet away looking at me.
”Sit down here,” I said, ”I've got something to say to you.” He didn't move. ”I won't hurt you, come on.”
We sat side by side watching the town below us, a street of houses at the foot of that vast flatland, a small stir of life in all that stillness. A cool breeze blew on the face but down there it wasn't enough to turn the windmill. Horses and mules were tied up along the railings, people were walking this way and that, every now and then a fragment of someone's voice would rise up to our ears, or something would catch the sun and flash in our eyes.
”I brought you up here because I wanted to be sure no one would bother us,” I said. ”What I have to say is private between you and me. You under- stand that?”
”Sure.”
”How old do you reckon you are? Fourteen? Ffteen years?”
”I don'know.”
”You're a sight bigger than the day I carried you down from these rocks. You remember that? You took my gun, you were going after that Bad Man killed your Daddy.”
My gaze went out beyond the town to the graves in the flats, and I suppose he looked there too. I166 didn't dare look at him, I didn't trust myself to say just what I wanted to say.
”You remember that?”
”Yes.”
”I don't think I could carry you now. I don't suppose if you didn't want it I could make you do anything. But I'll tell you: when I got you down to the Indian's shack I put you down too fast. I let you go too quick. I should have made plans for you then and there. But I never had practice being a father before and I didn't know any better.”
I felt him looking at me but I kept my own eyes on the town. ”Now look at down there. It's not as neat as the town Fee put up, it don't show one man's mark. Just a patch job, spit and old lumber but if he could see it he'd like it. He'd say it was alright.”
”How do you know what my Pa would say!”
”I used to talk to him. I know what he valued. He died two years short, it would have pleasured him to see this.”
He picked up a stone and tossed it away, watch- ing it bounce down among the rocks.
”Now when he died I said to myself, 'Well he has left a son and I'm going to look after his son and pa.s.s on the lesson I learned from Fee.' It's not something a person could learn in one day or one week. It's something you have to learn into, like carpentry. You understand?”
He said nothing.
”And I knew that, so I never said a word to you. I figured if I did as your father did why that would be the way; if I did everything as Fee would have done it, well you'd learn alright. And you mightn't suffer the loss so bad.”167 Down below a woman was filling her buckets at the water tank. A man, it looked like Jenks, was walking into Zar's Palace.
”Course I was wrong, I should have taken you in hand right away and talked to you as I am now. Molly has got to you, it's natural I suppose, but if you grow to the life the way she has, I'm saying it clear as I can Jimmy, you won't have,the idea, you won't be Fee's son any more.”
”What do you know-”