We were all there to meet it, even John Bear. The stage was run by the Territory Express Company and the name was painted in red letters along the side. The letters were well covered with dust and grime, the tails of the horses were caked with mudballs. Our town was a good trip from the last stop.
The driver was Alf Moffet; I knew him. He sat up on his box leaning forward with his arms on his knees and the reins loose in his hand. He was looking for a face he knew and the first one he saw was Molly.
“Why Miss Molly,” he said, “I heard you and Flo was dead.”
Molly frowned but she said nothing. The Russian and his ladies were right there and I feared Alf would say too much. I had not had trouble with any of the miners that way. Molly was hid the first few Saturdays they came and after that they did not think to question her. But I knew Alf for a fun-loving man, he had a voice full of gravel and he liked to talk.
“Well Alf,” I said stepping up and clearing my throat, “we had a fire here as you can see but we’re not all dead. These here are some of our new citizens”—I pointed to Mae and Jessie and Adah—“and if you’ll step down and come into the new saloon I’ll buy you a drink and maybe introduce you to them.”
“I can’t be stopping long, Blue,” Alf said, but he allowed me to take his arm while he jumped down. He grabbed his mail pouch and told the other man on the box, an old man I did not know, to unload. There were two barrels lashed to the back of the stage and a pile of boxes on the roof as well as what was inside. The Express took on freight if there was any room left after passengers. We always got supplies in plenty when it came and I had been counting on that since the day of the fire.
Inside Zar’s place there were lamps burning. It was afternoon but the Russian had not built any windows. I sat Alf down on a camp chair at a wooden table and after our eyes were accustomed to the shadow I motioned to Zar and he smilingly brought over a full bottle of whiskey and two glasses — just the way I had told him to do it. The glassware was Avery’s old stock Jimmy and I had recovered the day after the fire. I wanted to be careful with Alf.
He was a big square-faced man, grey underneath his hat. He tossed off three drinks neat and when the dust was washed from his throat we began talking.
“We got some orders to put in with you Alf,” I said.
“Well Blue I don’t know. Company wants me to tell ’em when I get back if’n Hard Times is worth the trip any more.”
“Miners are showing up more than ever, Alf. The Russian here is doing a good trade. People comin’ every day. This Mr. Jenks — I don’t know whether you saw him put there — he’s all the way from Kentucky.”
Alf tilted his head to one side and smiled at me.
“That was just a little accident, that fire,” I said. “The town will be up like a weed before you know it, Alf.”
“Well now Blue I always liked you, yessir. If you was hanging by your fingers from a cliff you’d call it climbin’ a mountain.”
Alf had heard about the fire from one of the people from the town — he didn’t say who. I couldn’t tell him any lies. “Same thing happened just a few years back to the town of Kingsville. Kingsville, Kansas. Did you know it?”
“Never heard of it.”
Alf poured another drink: “Well sir it was a good town, a railroad head. They had two, three livery stables, couple of stores, lots of nice frame houses, a jail made of brick, some dandy saloons and a two-story hotel. Bunch of these Bad Men come along one spring, stayed three days. Killed twenty people. Broke up the hotel, wrecked the stores. Bricked up the doors and windows of the jailhouse, made of it an oven and roasted the Sheriff alive. Town never came back.”
“What about the railroad?”
“Catcher come along the following summer and they laid track right on through for another thirty miles. Pass by today you can wave at the prairie grass.”
“Them Bad Men are sure a plague, Alf. It’s no use denying. Let’s have another drink.”
When his head went back to receive the liquor I motioned to Zar who had been standing by the door. A moment later Mae and Jessie came in and sat down at the table. After I made the introduction I went out into the light.
Bear was helping the old man unload the back of the wagon. Jimmy was on top of the stage untying the lashings. Jenks was fingering the rifle sticking out of the boot by the driver’s seat. But what made me really stand up was the sight of Ezra Maple. I hadn’t stopped to look for passengers, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was standing there in an Eastern suit, a carpetbag was on the ground beside him. Lord if it wasn’t him!
“Ezra!” I called.
But Molly was talking to him and as I walked up she said: “Mister I told you he ain’t here, he couldn’t take the climate. Blue,” Molly said to me, “this is Ezra Maple’s brother Isaac. He’s a doubtin’ man, he’s looking all around for the General Store.”
Of course, looking closer I saw it couldn’t have been Ezra: this fellow wasn’t as tall, nor did he have as much of a stoop in his shoulders. He was younger, fairer-skinned. But he had that same sad-eyed long beagle’s face. “Well you sure fooled me,” I said. Molly went off with a short laugh and I took the man for a walk over to the spot where Ezra’s store had been. I told him what had happened.
He shook his head and looked at the ground: “He shouldn’t a run off knowin’ I was comin’—it ain’t like Ezra. Wrote a letter to him six months ago. Wrote it down plain as day!”
“Well now, Mr. Maple once a letter is west of the States it might light down anywhere. I never saw Ezra get a letter, likely it never even reached him.”
He took a big curved pipe from his pocket, filled it and lighted it with a box match. He puffed and frowned and stared at the dusty rubble and shook his head: “It don’t seem right at all.”
I could understand his feelings. A man doesn’t go West for nothing. He’d been traveling four or five weeks, by train, by steamer, by stage, thinking all the while to find his brother when he got here. And probably to make a life.
“‘Come along when ye can.’ Those were his words to me when he left.”
“That so?”
“‘Come along when ye can, there’s room out there fer two.’”
“That’s true enough.”
“I wrote out a letter when Ma died sayin’ I had only to sell the store and then I’d come. Jes the pair of us, seemed like we ought to try our fortune together. And now here I be”—he took a good look around—“and Ezra ain’t, and it’s a bad bargain I made.”
“Well now, Mr. Maple I don’t know. The water don’t flow from the rocks and the game don’t nibble at your back door. But the place has what they call possibilities.”
He gave me a sharp, trader’s look. “Well I haven’t seen a tree in seven days.”
“That’s what they mean: look at all the possible trees could grow if they’d a mind to.”
He didn’t laugh but I had his attention away from Ezra for the moment. I walked him back to the well.
“I’d like you to taste this water,” I said. “It’s as good as any and better than most. Dip into that pail and refresh yourself. Help you to think clear on what to do.”
At that moment I had no plan in my mind. But when I walked over to the stage and looked at the freight standing on the ground I had some forward-thinking thoughts. These were the store supplies Ezra Maple had ordered. There was a barrel of flour, a barrel of beef in brine, sacks of coffee, cartons of tinned sardines, crackers — a whole lot of stuff.
Molly came up at my back: “Mayor,” she said softly, “I know what you’re fixing to do, but I’ll tell you we don’t need another Ezra Maple here. Let this man go look for his brother and may he find him in Hell.”