“This here’s my wedding dress,” she said to me, “I wore it once only, on my marriage day. Twenty years ago. My husband was a minister. This was his tent, those were his meetin’ chairs, that was his melodeon and I played the hymns for him. I don’t have a ring on m’finger ’cause I’m ashamed to wear it, but you can tell her this dress is clean.”
“Well now Miss Adah—”
“Go on, you take it.” She folded this white dress over my arm. “It’s simple, it will do her fine, poor woman, gettin’ burned that way it’s no wonder she ain’t herself.”
“That’s right,” said Jessie.
“And give him his two dollars Jessie,” Mae said.
“That’s right,” Jessie said and she put the money back into my hand. “Gimme that old dress, it ain’t fit, I ought to bury it.”
“Ladies,” I said, “you are awful kind.” I was doing alright for a liar, but I meant what I said; it should have saddened me how kind they suddenly were except I knew what they might have done to Molly if they’d found she was one of their kind.
When I stepped out of the tent Zar was up on his wagon and his team was in place: “Wal frand,” he called, “I wait.”
“Hold on a minute,” I said. I found Jimmy around at the front of the dugout. He had been up and about for just a few minutes and the sleep was still in his eyes. He was using his fingers to comb the tail of the Major’s pony.
“Jimmy,” I said, “listen to me careful. I’m riding out now to scare up some wood. I want you to give this dress to Molly after I leave. She needs some covering and she’ll take it if you give it to her. While I’m gone I want you to keep the pony hitched to the rig and right by here. If you see any sign of that Bad Man take Molly and light out south to the wagon trails. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have any trouble. Just don’t stray, stay close by. Don’t bother the Indian, he’s in the dumps, he might be mean. Eat up those prairie cakes I made. Probably those ladies’ll give you some hardtack if you ask them. Alright?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be back.” I started off and then I turned back: “If someone asks you how your Ma is feeling, they’ll mean Molly.”
A minute later I was up on the box beside the Russian; he snapped his whip and we skidded off with a clatter. I turned in my seat to look back: no one watched us go but Jimmy; he stood by the dugout staring after us, and as we drew further away and I looked back again he still stood there without moving. I wished I had said something to make him feel better, or maybe tousled his head.
The Russian drove his horses as if he was racing a train, I had to grab the box while the empty wagon swung out one way and then another behind the team. I pointed south and west across the flats and that’s the way we went, rumbling, bumping through the stumped-up dust. It was no situation for any kind of talk but the Russian didn’t know it. He was one of those people proud of himself and his station in life and he shouted out his story as we rolled on under the sun, and he kept up even after the flats gave way to fixed swells of sand, sparsely weeded, that stretched on ahead of the eye like a solid sea. I only half listened, I was thinking of Molly and would she wear that dress. “Frand … I come West to farm … but soon I learn, I see … farmers starve … only people who sell farmers their land, their fence, their seed, their tools … only these people are rich. And is that way with everything … not miners have gold but salesmen of burros and picks and pans … not cowboys have money but saloons who sell to them their drinks, gamblers who play with them faro … not those who look for money but those who supply those to look. These make the money … So I sell my farm … and I think … what need is there I shall fill it … and I think more than picks and pans, more than seed, more even than whiskey or cards is need for Women. And then I meet widow Adah, owner of tent … And I am in business.”
We reached Fountain Creek at noon. It stood in some tall yellow grass by the banks of a dried-out arroyo, a deserted street of shackly buildings, corrals rotted by the weather, porches grown over with weeds. Before we got to work we took some pulls on the Russian’s water bottle and ate some tack he had brought. Rusted tin cans were lying all over, half buried in sand, the hot pebbly wind was swinging the door of a roofless hut at the far end of the street. I spotted a mangy slant-eyed wolf crouched under a porch not fifty feet from where we were. He was watching us close.
“He’s a hungry one,” I said to Zar, “he’ll go for these horses if we let him.”
“So, we won’t let him.” Still chewing a mouthful, Zar reached for his shotgun and slowly brought it around and shot off both barrels at the wolf. The animal was out of there fairly, along with his mate that we hadn’t seen, and the two of them bounded away along the arroyo.
“Their courage’ll be back by and by,” I said, “let’s get to work.”
We went for the corrals first, untying what rawhide lashes we could, cutting the rest, laying the poles down lengthwise on the wagon bed. Then we began collecting lumber from the frame houses and barns, staying away from places where the white ants were too thick, prying off boards, knocking away doors, pulling up porch planks, shakes, beams, shingles. There was so much rot in everything it was a wonder the buildings were upright at all. We worked all through the afternoon hardly stopping for a drink, coughing with the dust that rose, the sand blown by the wind. Our friends the wolves had cut down the mice and burrowing owls to be found but bugs and spiders scuttled away from our axe and pick. We worked till we judged the wagon could hold no more, the wood was stacked a tall man’s height above the driver’s box. Then we went around picking up every nail in sight. And we came on a set of bright white human bones sitting in the arroyo. We stood looking at that skeleton. It was clean. I had to think what an indecency it is that leaves only the bones to tell what a man has been.
“Fountain Creek,” Zar said. He was mopping his neck with his handkerchief. “Frand, you see the peril. Always the ghost city is one with name full of promise. Is that not so? We must have care in our naming not to make this mistake …”
It was dark when we were ready to leave. I took the reins and the Russian sat atop the lumber to weight it. The horses strained to get the wheels turning and we moved off at a walk. I’ll tell you I was weary on that trip: the night was black with stars and the wagon creaked and swayed and I slipped in and out of dreaming. I couldn’t believe the horses had a destination, I kept thinking I was traveling to no purpose. What good was this to that woman and that boy? What could I hope to do for them? Only a fool would call anywhere in this land a place and everywhere else a journey to it.
I must have fallen asleep and the horses must have stopped — because I awoke to the boom of the Russian’s shotgun and the wagon lurched forward and the reins went taut in my hands. There was a light in the sky ahead of us.
“Those damn wolves have been following,” Zar called down, “but they are running now!”
Later we rode up to the town and Jimmy came running out to meet us. “A man’s here with that same wagon,” he said, “the one they put my Pa in—”
He was about to cry. I got down, stiff, and took his hand: “Say what Jimmy? What, boy?”
“Over there.” Standing by the well was Hausenfield’s hearse. I didn’t trust my eyes, I went over for a close look. There was the mule and the grey; the pick was still wedged across the black door. And a skinny, chinless fellow with a leather vest was leaning against a wheel, looking at me sly.