Departure (3 page)

She heard her husband's voice from behind the saloon door. She unclasped her hands, and they were clammy with sweat. She climbed down from the wagon, instructing the boy, “Sit there—don't you stir.” Walking around the wagon, she saw the boy and girl on the tailboard, leaning back and halfasleep. The girl smiled at her, drowsily.

Then she made up her mind and went into the saloon.

A big place, almost empty, tables and a high, raftered roof, a long bar. She stood just inside the door, her heart throbbing, her hands wet, afraid for herself, afraid for her husband, remembering how he had grinned and told her that their hard luck was broken. She recalled the stretch of their hard luck, the child dying, her husband breaking his leg, the farm taken away from them, their long, painful journey westward.

Her husband stood at the bar. There were about a dozen men at the bar now, men in jeans, booted, armed, their hats tilted back, men somehow different from her husband. At first, she couldn't understand the difference, why it made her afraid; then she realized that they were not men who had ever worked with their hands for a living, not farmers, not cowpunchers.

Her husband was saying: “I came for a cup of water, an' I aim to get it.”

The bartender was polishing glasses, ignoring him.

“Jim,” she said, “come along.”

One of the men said: “Come in, sister. Have a drink.”

She saw her husband turn, walk to the man. “That's my wife,” he said.

“Sure. I aim to buy her a drink.”

“That's my wife you're speaking about.”

“Jim!”

She saw his long brown form unlash, saw the booted, armed man sprawl across the room, crash into a table and chairs. She screamed. Her husband didn't move as the fallen man fired. Then, slowly, he bent over, held the bar for support. It had all happened too quickly; it was over, and it was like a dream, like something that had never been. Her husband was bent painfully, holding onto the bar. The others, the booted men, the bartender, were watching. They hadn't moved; they were watching, calmly, curiously. The fallen man picked himself up.

She ran to her husband, and he twisted his head to look down at her. She put her arm around him. “You're not hurt,” she said. “Jim, you're not hurt—”

“Maybe—a little.”

The others hadn't moved. They were still watching, calmly. She looked at them, started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut. Her hand was wet with blood.

“I'll help you outside,” she told her husband.

“All right, Martha.”

He leaned on her heavily, and they went through the door. None of the men moved. She shouldered the door open, helped her husband through.

“Looks like our luck kinda run out again, Martha,” the man said.

There were people in the street now, a little crowd in front of the saloon around the wagon. The children were standing by the wagon, wide-eyed, excited. When she saw her mother and father come out, the girl began to cry.

She paused on the steps, her husband heavier now, as if all his weight was leaning on her. She felt his blood on her hands. She stood there, feeling his weight, feeling weak, sick, looking at the people around the wagon.

“Some of you—help me,” she cried.

They watched her, but nobody moved. She heard the door of the saloon open, and realized that the men inside were coming out.

One man detached himself from the crowd and came up to her. She recognized the stout man she had seen on the street before. He nodded to her, and without speaking put an arm around Jim's waist. They went down the steps, and the three children edged up, shyly, the girl still crying. The people made way for them.

“You can't put him in the wagon, missus,” the stout man said. “Take him to my place.”

She looked at him, gained confidence from his fat, mustached face, and nodded. They went toward the shop. The children followed. The team walked slowly after them.

From the saloon to the door of the Clover City Express, a trail of blood was left. The children walked in it; the team walked in it, and the old wagon rattled after. The six-year-old was crying now, but through his tears his wide, curious eyes continued to gather everything in. They came to the door of the shop, and when the children stopped, the team stopped too, more satisfied not to move in the hot sun. Some of the bystanders had followed, and now they stood on the side of the wagon where there was some shade, peering into the shop. Two of the men from the saloon stood across the street.

Inside the shop, the woman and the fat man had stretched Jim on a bench. The woman unbuttoned his shirt, bared his breast, and wiped away the blood. His eyes were open, and he tried to smile at her.

“I guess I should a kept the pledge an' not gone near the saloon,” he whispered.

“You'll be all right, Jim. You're not hurt bad.”

“Where're the kids?”

“Outside.”

“That's good. It ain't nice they should see this. What kind a place is this?”

“A newspaper shop, I guess.” She glanced around, at the racks of type, at the presses, at the wet proof sheets hanging from a line.

“My shop,” the fat man said. “You'll be all right, mister. I'm going for Doc.” He nodded at the woman, and went out. She glanced after him, saw the wagon, the children crouched close to it, the bystanders, and across the street, the two armed men from the saloon, standing close to the wall, rolling cigarettes.

When she turned to her husband again, his eyes were closed. He breathed through slightly parted lips, slowly, with effort. She made a pack of cloth over his wound, smoothed back his hair. She looked at him out of her strangely mild blue eyes, and there was no sign of sorrow on her face except the little etched lines of pain about her lips.

She shook her head and went to the door. The bystanders watched her as she came out of the shop. The six-year-old ran to her and buried his face in her skirt. The other two children stood by the wagon, their frightened faces lifted to hers.

“Now, now,” she said, “it's all right—you understand? Your pa's just a little hurt, but he's all right.” With surprising strength for so small a woman, she lifted the six-year-old onto the wagon seat. “Now you stay there, out of the sun.” She turned and saw that the bystanders had drifted away. The two men from the saloon had crossed the street and were standing near the wagon.

“What do you want?” she demanded of them.

“Nothin', missus—only that's a pretty boy you got a settin' up there, a hell of a pretty boy.”

Slowly, softly, she said: “I'm not a person to hate. I'm not a person to hold bitterness. What you done, you done. Now get away from here.”

“Sure, missus, that's what we like to hear, an' maybe we won't hold no grievance either. Only we were thinking maybe you didn't see nobody shoot your man. Maybe there didn't anybody shoot him, an' it was just an accident. Maybe you could make up your mind that it was an accident because that's one hell of a pretty little boy you got up there.”

She turned to glance at the child, and then back to the two men, who were puffing on their cigarettes, their hats tilted back on their heads.

“Get out of here,” she whispered.

“Sure, missus. That's a right pretty kid.”

“Get out of here!”

They strolled away. The girl and boy pressed close to her, but she seemed hardly to notice them, staring straight ahead of her at nothing.

“You get into the wagon, both of you,” she said. “A body's got trouble enough. You get into the wagon an' mind your brother.”

She went back into the store, and sat down by her husband. She made a fan of some old newspaper, and waved it over him to cool him. He still lay with his eyes closed. She was sitting like that when the fat man returned with the doctor. The doctor was an elderly man; thin, unshaven, he had a white mustache and a small white beard.

“This is the doctor, ma'am,” the fat man said. “I don't know your name; mine's Jed Logan. This is Doc Hartly. He'll see to your husband.”

The doctor nodded, took off his jacket, and started to roll up his sleeves. He had small gray eyes that darted from her to her husband.

She rose and turned to the doctor. “My name's Martha Wesley. That's my husband, Jim. I guess he's hurt bad.”

“Maybe he is an' maybe he ain't,” the doctor said. “There ain't no use thinkin' he is—yet.”

“Thank you. We don't have much money, but I guess I can pay what you ask.”

“I ain't askin' yet.” He opened his bag and bent over the wounded man. Logan took her arm and led her to the back of the shop, through to a little room that held a cot bed, a table and a few chairs.

“Sit down,” he told her. “you sit down and rest. I guess you need some rest. I'll fix you a cup of coffee.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Sure. Sometimes, there's nothing I like much as a cup of coffee, hot as the weather is.”

There was a coffeepot warming on the stove. He poured a cup of coffee and set it in front of her.

“Thank you. You've been good to me.”

“I'm sort of making up for the way our town treated you, I suppose. Clover City's an up-and-coming place, but a little strange, a little strange.”

She drank the coffee. It was good, warm; in spite of the heat, she was cold inside. She liked the fat man who sat across from her. She wanted to like someone, not to feel completely in terror of the place.

“Why did they shoot him?” she asked. “Why?”

“They've shot others, ma'am. They've thieved and murdered.”

“But why?”

“Because they're bad, ma'am. Because they're strong, and here, on the edge of things, strength counts. Because there's no law here yet, except the law of the gun, and they've got the guns.”

“Aren't there decent people here, men with wives and children?”

“Sure,” the fat man nodded. “I'm decent sometimes, so is Doc. There are plenty of small dirt farmers, small cattlemen. But they're afraid. We're all afraid. They were even afraid to help you with your man.”

“You weren't,” she said.

“No—” The fat man leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “I got no wife, I got no kids. I'm a used-up newspaperman and Doc's a used-up medico. I've seen it coming, and I'm beginning to talk back. It's a pity I'm not a fighting man, Mrs. Wesley, but I can set type. If you can tell me who shot your husband …?”

“I don't know his name.” She was thinking of the six-year-old, sitting on the wagon seat.

“You know what he looks like. If you describe him?”

She moved back from the table, folded her hands in her lap. Her wide blue eyes were fixed on the fat man. “They threatened my son,” she said. “I have three children. My man's shot—”

“You're afraid.”

“I'm not afraid. We've had a lot of hard luck, maybe too much. I've learned not to hate. If my man lives, I'll thank God.”

“And if he doesn't live?”

“Then I'll thank God he spared me my children.”

“And you love him?”

Her mild blue eyes fixed on the fat man's face. “Why should you ask me that?” she demanded gently. “Maybe I never told him, maybe he never told me. We're plain folks, an' that kind of talk don't come easy. We been through a lot together. We lost our first boy, fourteen, he'd be now. We lost our farm. It ain't easy, pushing west like this in an old wagon, trying to feed three kids, trying to find a piece of land to light on.”

The fat man said earnestly: “I know that, but this is the kind of West you're pushing into, and this is the kind of thing that has to be stopped. I don't delude myself on the power of my press, still I put out a newspaper, and people read it. If I could print the story with proof of who shot your husband, the governor might read it. It might change things.”

She shook her head. “It might kill my child. I don't want more trouble, mister. I want peace. I want to raise my children in peace.”

The fat man shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, Mrs. Wesley. I hope to God your husband will be all right.”

They went back into the shop. The doctor has evidently finished. He was rolling down his sleeves, buttoning them. The boy and the girl had come into the shop, and were standing in awed silence by the type case. Her husband still lay on the bench, his eyes closed. He seemed to be sleeping.

The fat man and the little woman stood and waited. The doctor crawled into his jacket, closed his bag of tools. He turned to them, then, and said:

“He'll be all right.”

She wavered a bit, nodded, came forward and stood looking down at her husband.

“He's sleeping,” the doctor explained. “I gave him something to make him sleep. That's what he needs most now. The wound's nasty, but it ain't bad. Nothing comes of it, and he'll be up and walking tomorrow. It's nasty, but it looks worse than it is. Through the
pectoralis major,
out and through the
triceps.
No bullet to worry about, no organs. But he can't stay here. Suppose Jed and me, we carry him over to my place.”

She shook her head. “You've done so much already—”

“Done nothing. You sit here and read the papers, and we'll be back.”

After they had gone, carrying her husband, she sat on a chair near a press, smiling a little. The boy and the girl came and pressed close to her. Then she put her arms around them. She seemed lost in the wonder of having her husband's life again, and at least ten minutes went by before she remembered the six-year-old.

“Where's Billy?” she asked them.

“He was settin' on the wagon seat, sleepin', I guess.”

She went outside, and the boy and girl followed. The wagon seat was empty. As in a daze, she walked round and round the wagon, looking inside from the back, lifting the brown canvas cover at the sides. She called: “Billy! Billy!” Her voice sounded strange in the almost empty sunbaked street. Then she stopped walking, leaned against the wagon, limp, tired, staring at the two children who were left.