I will never forget her words. Even after the boy’s eyes were closed she sat holding him around, whispering these remembrances. It was the most she ever said about herself, it was the most I ever learned about her. She was speaking the brogue. I had never heard her use it before, and I wouldn’t again.
“All the lovely ladies, all the fine gentlemen …”
Then her eyes opened and she saw me looking and “Turn away!” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Don’t you dare look at me, turn away!” Even without her telling me I would have had to, such terrible pride was blinding.
Later Molly slipped away from the boy and laid him down in his sleep which was so long in coming. And we each stretched out to get some sleep too. But all the blankets were on Jimmy and after the fire went down it was cold lying there, there was a chill in my bones that made them ache. I couldn’t sleep and neither could Molly. I heard her shivering. I moved near her and touched her shoulder and with a cry she rolled over and bundled up to me. “Damn you Mayor,” she whispered in my ear, “I swear I can’t bear the sight of you!” And I held her as tight as I could, feeling her breast on mine, feeling her breathing, and then the warmth came and I didn’t move until she was asleep. I think I had wanted to hold her ever since the fire. My hands were on her back and I could feel the scars under her dress. She was small, so much smaller than she looked. I held her around, pressing her to me and I thought well we’re both suffering our lives, only how we do it is different. If it replenishes her to hate me then let her hate me. At the worst her hate is something between herself and herself. And knowing it I was ashamed I had ever felt poorly of her.
7
Jimmy was slow to get better, his cough lingered for weeks. Molly tended to him each minute of the time and didn’t ask any help from me. She cooked him soups, she kept him well wrapped; and on his walking day she held him under the elbows while he slowly stepped around the cabin. On occasion she went to consult with John Bear, bringing the Indian her portion of food. And if she returned with some more treatment Jimmy might have wanted to squawk but he submitted to it without a word. There was something about Molly that commanded him: she went about her ministering shortly, with never a smile, as if in one moment of a too tried patience she would just give him up and leave him to himself.
She had already left me to myself. Our bundling had warmed her only to the point where she hardly acknowledged that I was there in the cabin. She kept busy with the boy and with the steady cold now I was fairly locked in; so that there was not much I could do but take away the slops, or worry would we have fire to last the winter. When Jimmy was on his feet I thought he might want to take up our reading lessons once more. But he didn’t seem keen on it, his eyes always wandered to the woman, and what use there was to the almanac; even that I had to myself.
I spent a lot of time studying the almanac. It kept me from brooding or wondering where the Bad Man might be enjoying his winter. It had census figures for the different states and their counties, and the dates they were brought into the Union. I have always been one for that kind of reading. Before I got the fever to go West I was bound out to a lawyer for some months, and it pleasured me to feel the legal cap or read the briefs all salted down with Latin. In all my traveling, whenever I came across a Warrant or a Notice of any kind I never failed to read it through. Some people have a weakness for cards, or whittling, my weakness has always been for documents and deeds and such like.
When I first came to Hard Times it was nothing posted that stopped me, I had a small stake in my money belt and I was riding up to the lodes to earn some more. But there was Fee putting the finishing boards on Avery’s two-story saloon, and the sight of him building this place right up off the flat ground struck me somehow. I could think of better places for a carpenter to make his living; not the poorest townsite I’d seen it still didn’t look worth his labor, yet Fee was working with an assurance that made me feel ashamed even to question him. In my forty-eighth year, tired out with looking, looking, moving always and wanting I don’t know what, I was ready to grant it wasn’t the site but the settling of it that mattered. I bought a room off the porch from Hausenfield and I stayed. Later, without much thinking about it, I got a ledger from a traveling notions man; and after I acquired that lawyer’s desk and belongings who was going up to work in the lodes, I put the ledger on the desk and in my spare time I began to put down everyone’s name and the land they claimed and what properties they owned. I never enjoyed anything more. The town hadn’t a promoter, you see, and there were no records for anything. If it ever got big enough to be listed or if the Territory ever needed names for a statehood petition, why I had these documents. A few people like Avery laughed when it went about what I was doing; later, Avery was one of the first to call me Mayor—
But just thinking about it just made the days longer.
One cold afternoon there was a banging on our door and it was Isaac Maple. He came in begging our pardon, he said he’d tried to see Jenks and Zar both, but Jenks was asleep in the stable and Zar was in a mood and wouldn’t speak to him.
“See them about what, Isaac?” I said.
He took something from his pocket which I saw to be a small printed calendar. Standing there, with water hanging from his nose, he said: “I mark off the days with this, and s’far as I know it’s December the twenty-fifth, Christmas.”
Molly and I looked at him. He was waiting for something by way of reply, but all I could think to say was: “Well if that’s so Isaac take off your coat and drink some coffee with us.” At the same time Molly looked from him to me and walked away without a word.
It was clear in his eyes we were as bad as Jenks or the Russian. His sad hound’s face felclass="underline" “Thank ye, no,” he said and turned and went out.
That put him in my mind for the rest of the day. Isaac Maple stayed alone in his tent most of the time, thinking I suppose of his brother Ezra. He was a shy man and he was new to the West and it must have been a powerful need for comfort which brought him to our door. I don’t often honor holidays but I wanted to understand Isaac’s feelings. In the evening I went over to Zar’s place and demanded a drink on the house.
Zar was leaning with his elbows on his sawhorse bar: “For what,” he scowled at me.
“It’s Christmas, Zar,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”
“Wal wal, I tell you — only the spring shall I celebrate.”
But Miss Adah was properly moved. She ran to wake up the girls sleeping in the back rooms. I thought she had just the spirit Isaac wanted and when she came back I said, “Isaac Maple’s the one who told me.”
“I’ll go get him,” she said putting a shawl over her. “Poor man’s all alone.”
“Save yourself, Adah,” Zar said, but she was gone.
Zar had no use for the man and couldn’t see going to any trouble over him; when Adah returned, leading Isaac Maple, she had to set up the drinks herself — the Russian had sat down, grumbling, on one of his camp chairs.
Then Jenks wandered in, he was wearing a hat he’d made out of prairie dog fur, it came down to his eyes and went around his head to a point in back. You could just about make out his wolfy smile under that cap.
“The customer,” Zar said folding his arms.
Well I saw it was going to be a true enough gathering so I took myself back to the cabin to get Molly and the boy. Molly wanted no part of it. She said it wouldn’t do for Jimmy to go out at night with the wind so cold and snow blowing along the ground. I said we could wrap a blanket around him and I’d carry him over. That didn’t please either of them too much, but then we heard, coming across the wind, the sounds of Miss Adah’s voice singing a hymn with her melodeon, and I did as I wanted — wrapping the boy up — and we all went over.