Predictably, the Tabors responded with a gushing rivulet of drivel about the incomparable splendors of a Colorado spring. And, as always at such moments, the actor’s craft served me well, for I managed to project rapt interest, though I heard not a word after the first few bleatings about streams of fresh-melted snow sparkling in the sunshine of a golden-bright May morn, etc., etc.
Sasanoff’s performance, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly so convincing. He nodded and grunted out impatient Hmms and I sees more or less at random, all the while shooting dark scowls at the Whelp. At first opportunity, he found some pretext to extricate us from our hosts and drag me away to a quiet corner of the “ballroom” (which, in the interest of accuracy, I should report was hardly big enough for a pas de deux, let alone a proper ball).
“I’ve endured that amateur’s slights for the last time.” Sasanoff nodded over at the Whelp, who’d not only struck up a conversation with a rough-looking fellow chipmunk-cheeked with half-masticated hors d’oeuvres-some sort of local constable, we’d been told-but actually seemed to be enjoying it. “It’s high time I taught him a lesson, wouldn’t you say?”
“I not only would say, I’ve been saying it for weeks. So you’re going to cashier the overweening rogue at last?”
Sasanoff’s expression turned sneeringly sly, and he fed me one of my own lines from Twelfth Night.
“Wouldst thou not be glad to have the rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame?”
I replied as per the Bard.
“I would exult, man.”
“Then this is what we shall do… ”
And Sasanoff proceeded to lay out a plan of such diabolical ingenuity I hardly could believe he’d hatched it in a mere ten minutes. Yet I knew he’d done just that, for it had as its inspiration an anecdote Horace Tabor shared with us shortly before the Whelp arrived.
I myself had but one concern, every actor’s first and foremost: the size of my role.
“What part do I play in all this?”
“Why, the most important of all,” Sasanoff said. “You will be the audience. For what good is a great performance-or a great humiliation-if no one is on hand to witness it?”
I offered Sasanoff as deep a bow as my magnitude would allow.
“It shall be my honor to serve, thou most excellent devil of wit.”
“It’s settled, then. We must prove once and for all who the master actors are here.” Sasanoff grinned as he again quoted Twelfth Night. “We will fool him black and blue, shall we not?”
The next midmorning, we attempted our first full dress rehearsal in the still-unfinished opera house, but it was a hopeless effort all around. [A lengthy account of the rehearsal-including critiques of various company members’ performances and personal foibles, complaints about the “drafty cow barn about to be passed off as a theatre,” and a condemnation of the “loutish workmen” who made concentration impossible by “hammering away at Art more successfully than their nails”-has been removed here.-S.B.H.]
Eventually, Sasanoff saw the futility of it all and released us for the day. He’d seemed remote and distracted anyhow-and only I knew why.
The Whelp disappeared almost immediately, and I braved another outing into the town to seek him out. I found him in a little den of iniquity that was, difficult as this was to believe, even more iniquitous than the one I’d seen him in the day before. Instead of rotten boards for a floor, this one had only dirt liberally garnished with sawdust, and puddles I made it a point not to study at length. The clientele were of a sort to inspire the same policy, and between avoiding their surly, suspicious gazes and ignoring the repellent plashes at my feet, I practically had to navigate the place staring at the ceiling. That I made it to the Whelp’s side without bumping into some thug’s beer and sparking a “shootout” I count as a miracle.
“May I join you?” I said.
The Whelp was at a table in the corner, alone, his back to the rickety, warped-wooded wall. There were empty seats to either side of him, but given relations between us in the past, there was no guarantee he’d allow me to make use of one.
“If you wish,” he said with more curiosity than cordiality. “But first, I would advise you to see Mr. Lonnegan there about a drink.” He nodded at a grimacing old villain behind the bar, then down at an untasted beer on the table before him. “The price of admission, as it were.”
I did as the Whelp suggested, purchasing a glass of frothy beer (I didn’t think it wise to inquire about port) before returning to his table and taking a seat. My chair-constructed, it appeared, from pasteboard and old kindling-squealed alarmingly beneath me, but after a moment’s protest, it seemed to accept my ampleness.
I celebrated with a sip of beer… the celebration grinding to a halt the second the taste of it reached my brain. It took immense effort not only to swallow the stuff but to keep it swallowed.
“‘Steam beer,’ it’s called,” the Whelp said. “Vile, isn’t it?”
I put the glass on the table and pushed it away to the edge furthest from my nose, for I’d noticed too late the swill’s sour-milk aroma.
“You could have warned me,” I said.
“And deny them their fun?”
I looked up to find the dive’s other denizens chuckling gleefully at my distress. Seeing a gentleman’s dignity assaulted obviously was, to them, the very apex of entertainment.
“Why do you keep coming to these filthy places?” I asked the Whelp in a whisper.
“The same reason I took up acting-a simple desire to better understand my fellow man. And I daresay I usually learn more in one saloon than any dozen theatres.”
“Really? I wouldn’t think such people as these would be so eager to advance your education. In fact, I’m surprised some ruffian hasn’t thrashed you by now.”
The Whelp picked up his beer and peered down into it, squinting at the stagnant yellow brine as if it were some laboratory experiment gone awry.
“Oh, several have tried,” he said blandly. “I did go to a real college, you know. And the most valuable thing I learned there was boxing.”
Several of the brutes around the saloon were still staring, and the Whelp raised his beer, saluted them with it, then took a long, glugging pull. When he’d managed to gulp it all down without retching, our grubby audience guffawed and turned back to their own, no-doubt sinister, business.
“So,” the Whelp said, setting his now-empty glass beside mine, “you wished to speak with me?”
“More than that,” I said. “I wanted to warn you. About Sasanoff, and the way you keep antagonizing him. I don’t think you realize how close he is to dismissing you.”
The Whelp shrugged, face impassive.
“I don’t think you realize how close I am to giving notice.”
“You don’t fear being stranded in this godforsaken wilderness?”
“Do I look fearful?” The Whelp answered his own question with a carefree smile. “Leaving England, exploring a new land, a new people-and yes, new dangers. It’s forced me to look at everything differently. I’m like an actor who steps down from the stage so as to finally see the play from the other side of the proscenium. Before, all I knew were my own little entrances and exits, my own marks. But now I see so much more. The whole stage, the whole theatre. The whole world.”
I nodded as the Whelp babbled, all the while thinking him a fool. All the world’s a stage, it goes without saying, but the opposite should be true for any real thespian: the stage is all the world. And upstage center-that’s the only place to be in it.
“Yes, yes… I see your point,” I lied. “But don’t you understand that-?”
“You’re Englishmen?” a croaky voice cut in.