My head was still filled with sleep. “Trail up through those rocks plain as day,” I said.
“You call that trail? It is for ants. How can I get my wagon on that trail?”
He was right there, I hadn’t understood he wanted to wagon straight up to the lodes — I should have, there was nothing else he would want to do.
“Well mister, that’s just a back trail. The town you wanted is on the trade roads another two days travel from here. I guess you followed the wrong light after all.”
He was mad. The veins in his neck stood out. He let go in Russian and in English and the words flew. When I bent down to pour some water over my neck he bent down too, and when I threw my head back to drink he addressed my Adam’s apple. When he ran out of names to call me, he pointed to the scratches on his face and went on to Molly — a “cat woman” he called her — and when he finished with that subject he turned and stalked back to his girls.
Well I thought for sure I had lost the trade on the well water. This Russian wouldn’t hand me a bean now. And if he had ridden up two days before he did or two days after, that would have been the end of it.
But my head cleared and I remembered something.
I ran after him: “Look here,” I said, “if you can’t get to the gold maybe the gold will come to you.”
“What’s this?”
“Come on Zar,” the dumpity girl said, “we’re wastin’ time, this place gives me the chills.”
“What gold?” he said, ignoring her.
I talked for all I was worth. I told him — exaggerating a little — what a thriving town this had been until two days ago. I told him how the miners came every Saturday night, a regular crowd of them, to spend money and blow off steam. I told him there was no reason they wouldn’t show up just like they always did — for as I’d remembered, this was Saturday.
For a few seconds I had him. He pulled on his mustache and frowned and worried the idea some. But then he made up his mind: “No. We go.” What saved me was that he and the ladies weren’t in agreement which way to go. He was for striking west to the big roads, they wanted to turn back. The bunch of them bickered and sulked, shouted and threatened each other while I kept glancing up to the rocks and hoping the time would be with me. Whenever it seemed as if an accord was about to be made, I put in a word that would start the arguing up all over again. Only the Chinagirl had nothing to say, she stared from one to the other, wondering how things would turn out. She was the one who first spotted the three figures on muleback looking on from high in the rocks.
“Wave, girls, wave!” Zar shouted.
And they did, jumping and waving their kerchiefs, calling “Hey! Hey!” until the miners began to ride down.
The sun was just setting. Zar snapped out orders to the girls and while they got busy preparing he took me over to his wagon and gave me a bag of flour, some strips of dried beef and a can of lard. He was smiling, I was his frand again.
But I wasted no time tucking that barter in the dugout.
4
A few hours later there were a good dozen mules and horses roped out by the tent. Singing was coming from inside and it was a strange sound in the night air. Those miners hadn’t taken but a few minutes to get over the wonder of the town ruins; one or two had put off their interest in the new whores for a few moments while they rode out to the graves to take off their hats.
But I talked with one man I knew, Angus Mcellhenny, a short old digger who kept a pipe in his teeth and had likely shot a hundred grubstakes before he gave in to work company lodes. Angus couldn’t believe what had happened.
“Just one of them Blue?” he kept saying.
“Just one Angus.”
“They roam in packs mostly, they like to put on fer each other.”
“Well he was alone.”
“My God. The doorty bastard. Say him once more.”
“Well he was a big man, a head taller than me, and he had this blaze over one side of his face. But what you’d remember are his eyes. He had eyes like a spooked horse.”
“Sure. I know the mon. It would be Clay Turner.”
“He was headed your way.”
“My God, likely he rode right by the camp.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him. Why he should be dead, he went bad years ago.” Angus took his pipe out of his mouth and spit: “I wish him in Hell, he’s been ridin’ too long.”
There was a big laugh from the tent and the tall girl came out leading a man by his ear. He was guffawing, he was well along. Angus and I stepped out of the way as she led him around to the side of the tent and pushed him up in the covered wagon and climbed in after him.
“Blue,” said Angus, “come have one with me and we’ll drink to old Flo, God keep her.”
It was hot enough for midnight in that tent. Kerosene lanterns were hooked to the tentpoles and they threw a yellow cast over all the smiling faces. Over on one side the Russian had a bar set up, a plank laid across two sawhorses. His sleeves were rolled and a big apron was tied around his stomach and he was drawing whiskey from a cask to fill the orders of the girls. Zar was in a sweat, his face was red, his eyes bright. On the plank right by his hand was a shotgun. And on the ground by his feet was a sack into which he dropped the silver the girls brought him, or the pouches of dust.
“On house frand,” he shouted, and poured two drinks in tin cups. Angus Mcellhenny and I drank to the memory of redheaded Florence.
Some of the customers were sprawled on camp meeting chairs, some on the ground; there were those who made a point of pinching the dumpity girl or the Chinese as they went by, there were a few gathered around Adah, who was leading the singing and playing on an old melodeon.
All I need in this lifetime
Pretty girl and a silver mine …
is what they sang but the song broke up when one man in back of Adah leaned over, put his hands in her dress and gave her a good shake. Adah shrieked, stood up and slapped him smart, and that made everyone laugh including her.
Adah called to the dumpity girclass="underline" “Do your dance Mae!”
And then all attention was fixed on Mae as she lifted her arms above her head and began turning around and around. The miners started to clap time and she spun faster and faster until her skirts rose and showed her legs above the shoes. At the height of the dance she stopped suddenly and yanked a man to his feet and led him right out of the tent while everyone laughed and yelled after him. The tall girl — Jessie, they greeted her — brushed back in a minute later and she went directly to sit on the lap of a glaze-eyed boy who still had his pimples. I saw the Chinagirl, dressed in a red satin shirt and bloomers with a yellow sash around her waist, she was on her knees offering a drink to one grey old fellow who stared at her while he pulled on his beard. He reached for her instead of the whiskey but she held up her hand and smiled, I suppose she had to wait her turn for the wagon.
These girls knew how to work, they didn’t pick but the drunkest of the lot, or the least able. It looked to me like Zar the Russian had an establishment that put old Avery’s to shame.
Angus Mcellhenny still wanted to buy me a drink and I let him. But when he turned away and got caught up in the revelry I took the cup and left. The song began again and I could hear it as I walked through the cold air to the dugout:
All I want before I’m old