The crone soon returned with the red pelt, now scraped and set on a kind of display to stretch it taut, something like a large drum lain on edge. She pulled this cumbersome apparatus across the threshold; I stood to assist her and Mayfield ordered me, a little too curtly I felt, to sit. ‘Let her do it,’ he said. She dragged the display to a far corner where we all might study the strange coloring of the she-bear. The crone wiped her brow and walked heavily from the room.
I said, ‘The woman is too old for such tasks.’
Mayfield shook his head. ‘She is a dynamo. I have tried to assign her simpler, lighter work, but she won’t hear of it. She enjoys industry, is the long and short of it.’
‘I could not see the joy. But perhaps it is the inward kind that strangers can never read.’
‘My advice is to not bother yourself about it any longer.’
‘I would not say I am bothered, exactly.’
‘You are bothering me.’
Charlie said, ‘About our payment for this pelt.’
Mayfield watched me a moment, then turned to Charlie. He tossed five double eagles across the table and Charlie dragged them into his palm. He handed me two coins and I took them. I decided I would spend the money even more carelessly than usual. What would the world be, I thought, without money hung around our necks, hung around our very souls?
Mayfield hefted and rang the third, largest bell. Presently we heard hurried footsteps in the hall and I was half prepared for the trappers to barge through and set upon us. Instead of this, the room filled with painted whores, seven in number, each of them in frills and lace, each of them already drunk. They fell to putting on their playful shows for us, re-creating themselves as curious, doting, loving, lusty. One of them thought it prudent to speak like a baby. I found their presence depressing but Charlie was in highest spirits, and I could see his interest in Mayfield growing before my eyes. I realized that by looking at this boss man I was witnessing the earthly personification of Charlie’s future, or proposed future, for ours was so often in jeopardy; and it was true, just as the dead prospector had said, that Charlie and Mayfield bore a resemblance to each other, though the latter was older and heavier and doubly pickled from alcohol. But yes, just as I longed for the organized solitude of the shopkeeper, so did Charlie wish for the days of continued excitement and violence, except he would no longer engage personally but dictate from behind a wall of well-armed soldiers, while he remained in perfumed rooms where fleshy women poured his drinks and crawled on the ground like hysterical infants, their backsides in the air, shivering with laughter and brandy and deviousness. Mayfield must have thought I was acting without sufficient enthusiasm, for he asked me, in put-upon tone, ‘You don’t like the women?’
‘The women are fine, thank you.’
‘Maybe it is the brandy that makes you curl your lips when you speak?’
‘The brandy is also fine.’
‘It is too smoky in here, is that it? Shall I open a window? Would you like a fan?’
‘Everything is fine.’
‘Perhaps it is the custom where you come from, to squint and glare at your host.’ Turning to Charlie, he said, ‘I must admit I did not care for Oregon City, the one time I visited there.’
‘What was your business in Oregon City?’ Charlie asked.
‘You know, I cannot exactly remember. In those younger days, I followed one mad idea after the other, and my purpose was often blurred. But Oregon City was a dead loss. I was robbed by a man with a limp. Neither of you has a limp, do you?’
‘You saw us come in yourself,’ I said.
‘I was not paying attention then.’ Half seriously he asked, ‘Would you two object to standing and clicking your heels for me?’
‘I would object to that strongly,’ I told him.
‘We are both healthy in our legs,’ Charlie said assuredly.
‘But you would not do it?’ he asked me.
‘I would sooner die than click my heels for you.’
‘He is the unfriendly one,’ Mayfield said to Charlie.
‘We take turns,’ Charlie said.
‘Anyway, I prefer you to him.’
‘What did this limping man get away with?’ Charlie asked.
‘He took a purseful of gold worth twenty-five dollars, and an ivory-handled Paterson Colt revolver that I could not put a price on. The name of the saloon was the Pig-King. Are you boys familiar with it? I would not be surprised if it wasn’t there anymore, the way these towns jump up and down.’
‘It is still there,’ Charlie said.
‘The man who robbed me had a knife with a hooked blade, like a small scythe.’
‘Oh, you are talking about Robinson,’ said Charlie.
Mayfield sat up. ‘What? You know the man? Are you sure?’
‘James Robinson.’ He nodded.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. Charlie reached over and pinched my thigh. Mayfield, fumbling with his ink pot, was scribbling the name down.
‘Does he still live in Oregon City?’ he asked breathlessly.
‘Yes, he does. And he still carries the same curved blade he used to rob you. His limp was only a temporary injury that has since healed over, but you will find him sitting at the King, just as before, making jokes that no one enjoys and that in fact almost never make sense.’
‘I’ve thought of the man many times, these last years,’ Mayfield said. Returning his pen to its holder, he told us, ‘I will have him gutted with that scythe. I will hang him by his own intestines.’ At this piece of dramatic exposition, I could not help but roll my eyes. A length of intestines would not carry the weight of a child, much less a full grown man. Mayfield excused himself to make water; in the thirty seconds he was away my brother and I had this quickly spoken, whispered discussion:
‘What do you mean, giving Robinson away like that?’
‘Robinson died of typhus half a year ago.’
‘What? You sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure. I visited his widow last time we were in town. Did you know she had false teeth? I nearly gagged when she plopped them in her water glass.’ A whore passed him by, tickling his chin; he smiled at her and asked me distractedly, ‘What do you think about staying the night?’
‘I’m for moving on. You’ll just be sick in the morning and we’ll miss another day of travel. Plus, there’ll be trouble with Mayfield.’
‘If there’s trouble, it’ll be trouble for him, not us.’
‘Trouble’s trouble. I’m for moving on.’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, brother, but the pipsqueak’s going to war tonight.’
Mayfield emerged from the water closet, buttoning up his pants. ‘What’s this? I would never have pegged the famous Sisters brothers as secret tellers.’
With the whores like cats, circling the room behind us.
Chapter 29
Charlie had drunk three glasses of brandy and his face was turning the familiar scarlet color that indicated the onset of sloven drunkenness. He began asking Mayfield questions about his business and successes, these put to the man in a deferential tone in which I did not like to hear my brother speak. Mayfield responded to the queries vaguely but I deduced he had hit a lucky strike and was now spending his golden winnings as fast as he was able. I grew tired of their strained banter and became quietly drunk. The women continued to visit and tease me, sitting on my lap until my organ became engorged, then laughing at me or it and moving on to my brother or Mayfield. I recall standing to correct and retuck the bloated appendage and noticing that both my brother and Mayfield were likewise engorged. Just your everyday grouping of civilized gentlemen, sitting in a round robin to discuss the events of the day with quivering erections. As the brandy took hold of my mind, I could not seem to place one particular girl; their cackles and perfumes blurred together in a garish bouquet that I found at once enticing and stomach turning. Mayfield and Charlie were ostensibly involved in a conversation, but really they were speaking to themselves and wished o
nly to hear their own words and voices: Charlie made fun of my toothbrush; Mayfield debunked the myth of the divining rod. On and on like this until I despised them both. I thought, When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is in a room by himself—there is a physical, impenetrable separation between him and his fellows.
Another brandy, then another, when I noticed a new woman in the far corner of the parlor standing by herself at a window. She was paler and not so meaty as the others, her eyes ringed with worry or lack of sleep. Despite her sickliness, she was a true beauty, with jade-colored eyes and golden hair running to the small of her back. Emboldened with brandy and its attendant stupidity, I watched her alone until she could not help but return my attentions, when she offered me a pitying smile. I winked at her and her pity doubled. Now she crossed the parlor to leave, but with every step her eyes remained fixed upon me. She exited the room and I stared awhile at the door, which she had left ajar.
‘Who was that?’ I asked Mayfield.
‘Who was who?’ he said.
‘Who-be-do?’ said Charlie, and the whores all laughed.
I left the parlor and found the woman smoking a cigarette in the hall. She was not surprised I had followed her out, which is not to say she was happy about it. It was likely that each time she left a room, some man or another followed after her, and over time she had become accustomed to it. I reached up to remove my hat but it was not on my head. I told her, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of that room.’ She said nothing. ‘My brother and I sold Mayfield a pelt. Now we are obliged to sit and listen to his boasts and lies.’ She continued only to stare, smoke draining from her mouth, a smile lingering on her lips, and I could not decipher her thoughts. ‘What is your business here?’ I asked.
‘I live here. I’m Mr. Mayfield’s bookkeeper.’
‘Are your quarters a hotel room, or somehow different?’ I thought, Here is precisely the wrong kind of question to ask, and I am asking it because of the brandy. I thought, Stop drinking brandy! Happily, the woman was not small about it. ‘My room’s a regular hotel room. But sometimes I’ll sleep in a vacant room, just for the fun of it.’
‘How is it fun?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t they all the same?’
‘They are the same on the surface. But the differences in actuality are significant.’
I did not know what to say in response but the brandy implored me to blather on, and I was opening my jaws to do just this when some deeper reasoning took hold and I closed my mouth, maintaining my silence. I was congratulating myself inwardly when the woman began casting around for somewhere to put her cigarette. I volunteered to dispose of it and she dropped the smoldering lump into my outstretched palm. I pinched its light shut between my fingers while staring coolly at the woman, hoping, I suppose, to display my threshold for pain, which has always been abnormally high: Stop drinking brandy! I put the ash and charred paper into my pocket. The woman’s attentions remained foreign, separate. I said, ‘I can’t tell about you, ma’am.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad or mad or what you are.’
‘I am sick.’
‘How are you sick?’
She produced from her dress pocket a handkerchief with dried bloodstains on it, flaunting this with a ghoulish amusement. But I did not take it lightly, and in fact was outraged by the sight of the stains. Mindlessly then, I asked if she was dying. Her expression was downcast and I sputtered my apologies: ‘Don’t answer that. I have had too much to drink. Will you forgive me? Please, say you will.’
She did not, but neither did she appear to be holding a grudge, and I decided to carry on just as if I had not made the blunder. As casually as I could manage, I said, ‘Where are you going now, can I ask?’
‘I have no place in mind. There is no other place than this hotel, at night.’
‘Well,’ I said, clucking my tongue, ‘it seems that you were waiting for me out here.’
‘I was not.’
‘You left the door open, that I might follow after you.’
‘I did not.’
‘I think you probably did.’
I heard a creaking down the hall; the woman and I turned to find one of the trappers standing at the top of the stairway. He had been eavesdropping, and his face was unsmiling. ‘You should get to your room now,’ he said to her.
‘How is that your concern?’ she asked.
‘Don’t I work for the man?’
‘Don’t I? I am speaking to a guest of his.’
‘There will be problems if you keep it up.’
‘Problems with whom?’
‘You know. Him.’
‘You,’ I said to the trapper.
‘What?’
‘Go right away from here.’
The man paused, then plunged a hand in his blue-black beard, itching at his cheek and jaw. He turned and walked back down the stairs and the woman told me, ‘He follows me around the hotel. I have to keep my door locked at night.’
‘Mayfield is your man, is that it?’
She pointed to the whore-filled parlor. ‘He has no one woman.’ At my sunken expression, for this answer was suspiciously incomplete, she added, ‘But no, we are not connected. Once, perhaps, in a way.’
From behind the doors I could hear my brother’s high-volume laughter. Charlie has an unintelligent-sounding laugh. It is braying, is what it is. ‘This town is leaving a poor impression on me,’ I said.
The woman took a step toward me. Was she leaning in for a kiss? But no, she only had a secret to tell me: ‘I heard that trapper and the others talking about you and your brother. They have some plan against you. I couldn’t understand, exactly, but every other night they are drinking, and tonight they are not. You should be careful.’
‘I have had too much brandy to be careful.’
‘Then you had better return to your party. To stay close to Mayfield would be best, I think.’
‘No, I can’t stay another minute in there. I only want to sleep.’
‘Where has Mayfield put you?’
‘He hasn’t put me anywhere.’
‘I will find you a safe place,’ she said, and led me away to the far end of the hall, where she opened a door with a key from her pocket. She did this with care not to make a sound, and I found myself mimicking her cautious steps. We entered the darkened room and she closed the door behind us. She stood me against a wall and told me to stay still while she searched out a candle. I could not see her but listened to her movements—her footsteps, her hands rooting through drawers and over tabletops; I found this endearing, her nearness to me, her busyness, and my not knowing just what she was doing. I decided I liked her then; I was flattered she was devoting her time and concerns to me and I thought, I do not need much at all, to make me feel contented.
She lit a candle and drew open the curtains to let in the light of the moon. It was a hotel room just like any other, only there was a dust and staleness on the air, and she explained to me, ‘This is always vacant because the key was misplaced, and Mayfield’s too lazy to bring in a locksmith. Except the key wasn’t misplaced, I took it. I come here sometimes, when I want to be alone.’
Nodding politely, I said, ‘Yes, well, it is fairly obvious that you are in love with me!’
‘No,’ she said, coloring. ‘Not that.’
‘I can see it. Hopelessly in love, powerless to guard against it. You shouldn’t feel too badly about it, it has happened before. It seems that every time I walk down the road there comes a woman in my direction, her eyes filled up with passion and longing.’ I flopped onto the small bed, rolling around on the mattress. The woman was amused by me but not so much that she wished to stay any longer, and she returned to the door to leave. I jostled back and forth and the bed issued its plaintive squeaks and she told me, ‘You should stop that rolling on the bed. The trappers’ quarters are just beneath us.’
‘Oh, stop talking about them already. I don’t care about it,
and there isn’t anything they can do to me.’
‘But they are killers,’ she whispered.
‘So am I!’ I whispered back.
‘What do you mean?’
There was something about the look on her face, her paleness and unsureness, it made me wild, and I was seized by a kind of cruelty or animal-mindedness. Standing, I shouted out: ‘Death stalks all of us upon this earth!’ These words came from I knew not where, and they inspired me terribly; I lurched away from the bed, taking up my pistol and firing a shot into the floorboards. The report was terrifically loud; it doubled off the walls and the room filled with smoke and the horrified woman spun on her heels and left me, locking the door with her key. I crossed over and unlocked it, opening it wide and sitting back on the tormented bed, my pistols drawn, cocked, and leveled. My heart was thudding and I was looking forward to an end-of-all-time fight, but after five minutes my eyes began growing heavy. After ten minutes I decided the trappers had not heard the shot. They were not in their room, or I had fired into a room that was not theirs. I gave up my adventure for dead. I brushed my teeth and went to sleep.
Chapter 30
It was sunny in the morning, and the open window carried cool air over my face as I lay in the bed. I was fully clothed and the door was closed and bolted. Had the bookkeeper returned in the night to protect me? I heard a key in the lock and she entered, sitting on the edge of the mattress and smiling. I asked after Charlie and she said he was fine. She invited me to go walking with her, and though she still looked only half living she was a sweet-smelling, powdered beauty, and appeared not unhappy to be visiting. Pulling myself up from the bed, I stepped to the window and propped myself against its frame, looking down over the road beneath the hotel. Men and women passed this way and that, saying their good mornings, bowing and tipping their hats. The woman cleared her throat and said, ‘Last night you said you couldn’t tell about me. Now I find myself thinking the same thing about you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For one, why in the world did you shoot your pistol into the floor?’