In a bar that night a Union recruiting sergeant went up to a big, good-looking man at the bar and began to talk about signing him up. The man listened awhile and then he turned around and said: “How many times have you give me this spiel?”
“Three or four times, I guess.”
“And how many times have I told you no?”
“Jack, there’s a war going on.”
“Then here’s something that maybe you don’t know: I’m paying for your goddam war, or at least a big part of it, with this silver mine I’ve got, and if you haven’t been told about it, suppose you stop by my office tomorrow and I’ll show you a letter from your own Secretary of the Treasury begging me to keep my output up and assuring me that I’m doing more to help win this war right where I am than I would be in command of five regiments.”
“All right, Governor, now I know.”
“That was when I volunteered.”
“No need to get sore.”
“Have a drink, and from now on let me alone.”
I pricked up my ears at that, and next day when I inquired around I found it was all true and everybody in town seemed to know about it. The silver from the Comstock Lode went down in a steady stream to the mint in San Francisco, and gold and paper came back. It wasn’t just thousands, it was millions and hundreds of millions. I knew I had found out something then, something that would make this trip all right, even to Annapolis. I packed and caught the night stage for Carson, so I’d lose no time getting back to my post and reporting about it.
Going out of Virginia, we passed the big omnibus that ran between Virginia and Gold Hill, a place about a mile south, and out of the back door I saw the flutter of a skirt, black silk with white dots. I didn’t ask my money back, or even wait. I had the driver stop, get out my carpetbag, and let me down. Then I ran after the omnibus, carrying my bag. At C and Union it stopped and she got out. I called, but she didn’t hear me and turned the corner. When I got there I was just in time to see her turning into D, down the hill. I ran down, and saw her going into a house. I ran up to it, and had my hand on the bell to pull it before I noticed the light over the door. But then I knew why her eyes made me feel so funny. It was red.
4
“You been to Biloxi’s lately?”
“To hell with Biloxi. Her place stinks, her beer stinks, and she stinks. She’s got no girls is her trouble. I’m sticking with the Twins. They take your money, but you get something for it. They’ve got the girls and they’ve got the sports, specially the big ones. What Biloxi’s got is nothing.”
“Maybe she’s put in improvements.”
“What kind of improvements?”
“That niece that got in this week.”
“Any good?”
“You couldn’t prove it by me. Biloxi’s not dating her for anything I can afford. But there she is, just the same. And there’s the stuff she brought with her, from San Francisco, Sacramento, and everywhere.
I’m telling you, Biloxi’s getting ready to give the Twins some competition.”
“What do you mean, stuff?”
“Mirrors, for one thing. Over every bed.”
“What?”
“These women know something. They’re from New Orleans.”
It was a Saturday, in the International Bar, and I don’t know how long I’d been sitting around there, but it must have been two or three days. I wanted to hit them both, but I was too sick to my stomach. I’d been hearing stuff like that everywhere, and I’d found out something I hadn’t known before: a new girl in a house, it’s all over town like a prairie fire, the biggest news of the week. But I couldn’t have hit anybody for spreading it, because I’d have been ashamed to have them find out I even cared.
That night came the news of Chancellorsville, and from the glum way everybody took it I knew it was even better than it said in the paper. I tramped around, taking drinks, trying to feel good about it, but the liquor didn’t take any effect, and after a while I knew where I was going. But when I turned into D Street I ran into something I’d never even heard of, all my life. It was what they call the Parade, about five thousand miners, cowmen, mule-skinners, mine-owners, sports, army officers, gamblers, bushwhackers, and just plain hombres with nothing to do, all shoving up one side of the street and down the other, beating on doors of houses, trying to get in. Most places had a little window, shaped like a diamond, in the front door, with a lace curtain over it, and now and then the curtain would be pulled to one side, and one, two, three, four, or five fingers would be held up, but mostly one finger, and then the riot would start. First, whoever was going had to be got out, and that took a minute of pushing and yelling and cussing. Then whoever was coming had to be got in, and that was worse, because everybody voted for theirself, so there was quite some difference of opinion. Then, finally, the door had to be shut, and that was worst of all, because arms and elbows and knees and feet were in the way, and then generally there were whiskers in the crack even after they got the key turned.
The number I wanted was 17, and when I got to it I beat on the door, but nothing happened. Then a little fellow in a Panama hat stepped up beside me and rapped with his stick, like it was a signal, but there was a terrific row going on inside, or an argument or something, and he didn’t get any action either. So he turned to me and said: “You want in?”
“No, I’m just onry.”
“Has to be this house? No other won’t do?”
“I got a reason.”
“There’s eight or ten reasons in there, some of them pretty nice. I got one too, and if she knew I was outside I’d be inside pretty quick, but I’m just back from out of town and she’s not any mind reader and there’s too much noise going on in there for her to hear me knock. But there’s one way. That is, if you’re tall enough and you don’t mind a ride.”
“I’m six feet three.”
“Then let’s go.”
We went to Union and turned uphill, and when we came to a hoisting works he unlocked the door and rolled it back. “Hold on, my young friend. Are you sure you know what you’re doing, getting into that house by way of this mine?”
“Yes, I know.”
“And the owner, he knows?”
“I’m the owner. I’m Jack Reiner.”
“...How about that ride?”
“You’ll see.”
We went inside and he lit a lantern, and it was a great big room, two or three stories high, with a rectangular opening in the middle of the floor big enough to drop a ship in. It was the mine shaft, in four parts, with lifting cages at the top of three of them, and nothing at the top of the fourth except an iron rail to keep you from falling into the meanest hole I’d ever seen in my life. So of course that was our hole. And after we’d put on a couple of suits of overalls he took out of a closet, and put on miners hats with candles in them, and lit up, we started down a ladder that ran down beside a lot of pipes and stuff that he said were connections to the pumps. It was a rocky trip down, specially for one that had had as much to drink as I’d had, but after a while we reached a level place he called a station, and stepped off the ladder, and went in a tunnel that led off from the shaft. Then we stooped and squeezed until we got past a string of little mine cars that were standing there, and he told me to get in the front one — that is, the one furtherest from the shaft. Then he lifted the coupling pin, kicked out the chock, and hopped in himself. First we rolled slow, but then we got up so much speed our candles went out. Then we went roaring through heat and steam and hot water dripping in our eyes and all of it pitch dark until I was scared so bad I didn’t think I’d live till we hit, if we ever did, We did soon enough, when we fetched up against a bumper with a bang that almost knocked my teeth out. We did some more climbing, and then I saw where we were. The argument was still going on in 17, but we were behind it now, on the downhill side, and it was above us. On D Street, on the downhill side, the houses were all built on stilts, and hung out over the mines thirty or forty feet in the air. The lowest cross brace of 17 was three or four feet above my head, and I sat him on my shoulders and he caught it and went on up. I jumped and caught it with my finger tips, and skinned the cat some kind of way and got my knees over, and then after a little pushing and pulling we were both on the back porch, peeling off the overalls, which we hung on the rail. He laughed and said: “Hell of a lot of work for just a little fun, isn’t it? Like the one they were telling at Donelson. The general and the major and the captain were arguing how much of it was work and how much fun, so they put it up to the private that was striking for them. He says: ‘It’s all fun. If there was any work attached to it, you’d have me doing it.’”