He found a ramshackle old hotel a block square, the Hotel Noctámbulo, where insomnia prevailed. In each room, somebody was staying up working at some impossible midnight project—a mad inventor, a gambler with a system, a preacher with an only partly-communicable vision. Doors were left unlocked, strangers acted for the most part like neighbors, everybody free to roam each others’ units. No matter how deep in the morning darkness, Frank found he could always walk in in search of a smoke and conversation. Down in the courtyard, a festive crowd came and went all night. Everybody chiseled smokes.
Strange motorcycles, many of them homemade, went roaring raggedly into and out of town. Cowboy poets might allege how the noise “echoed off the steep mountainside” and on down the valley, but right on the spot, why it was too exotic a sound to carry much of any message, at least for no more than a few, though certain taverns on the way in, and even some going out, of town had already offered hospitality to the bands of riders.
Frank found he couldn’t sleep, and headed down to the nearest saloon. Out in front, where once only horses had been tied, now stood Silent Gray Fellows and Indian V-twins, modified expressly for these mountains, with heavy-duty clutches, belts, chains, or gear-boxes. All up and down Main Street in these motor saloons mingled trick-riding artists up from the prairie carnival circuits for a little change of ventilation, and peach-fuzz desperados singing the harmony to Joe Hill’s “Pie in the Sky” for ancient flat-out labor nihilists on whose palms the love lines, life lines, girdles of Venus and such had been years overmapped, into jagged white inscriptions no carnival Gypsy would dare to read, by wood fires, rock walls, barbwire unspooling too fast, bayonets in the bullpens of the Coeur d’Alene. . . . Motorized elements of the notorious Four Corners Gang, based up in Cortez, bought double shots of Taos Lightning for earnest hobbyists from as far away as Kansas, detached not all against their wills from some club tour or other, out and up through the night talking clutches and crankcases till the sun was in the window.
A pale individual in a black cape entered silently and sat down at the far end of the bar. As the barkeep set bottle and glass before him, crossing wrists in the usual way so as to put the bottle to the customer’s right, this gent suddenly gave out with a blood-freezing scream, shielded his eyes with his cape, and rared back so violently he fell off of the barstool and lay on the floor, kicking up the sawdust.
“What ‘n the world?”
“Oh, that’s ‘at there Zoltan, drives a Werner, climbed every hill over in his native Hungary and now he’s off on a world tour lookin for fresh challenges. He’s won trophies ain’t been named yet, fears no mountain whatever its size, but show him anything looks like a letter X, why he goes all like he is there.”
“Don’t care much for saloon mirrors neither, ‘s why he sits all the way down to the end like that. . . .”
“Does this happen every time he comes in?” Frank wondered. “Why not just . . . put the bottle down first, then bring the glass, then—”
“Heard that suggestion a number of times, and real obliged, but it ain’t exactly Denver here, not much the boys can depend upon for entertainment, and ol’ Zolly’s turned out to be a real addition. One night to the next, we make do.”
Around the middle of the third shift, Frank went for some breakfast at the flapjack emporium up the street, where it didn’t take him long to understand that Stray had been right upstairs all along, with some motor outlaw whose widely-recognized blue Excelsior was parked outside, and, well, the contentment in her face when she did step back down again into this pocket-size eating house, her bearing, her hair, for Lord sakes, was enough to divide a fellow into two, one saying, calmly, would you just look at her, how can any man begrudge and so forth, and the other wounded enough to soak a whole restaurant tablecloth with the snot and tears of it, never mind who was watching. As she glided on down, the attractively costumed waiter girls (more of them, really, than the size of the room and the time of night could quite account for) kept throwing her certain glances. . . .
Oh and look now here come lover boy himself, the regionally famous Vang Feeley, looking almost too legendary, it seemed to Frank, to have much of a carnal side left to him—his motoring outfit black, spare, undamageable. He walked without a word right past Frank, whose attitude was not much improved when he realized he’d been gazing, it seemed, for what must already be a long time, at the crotch of Vang’s pants, well that general direction. . . . Whoa-oh. Such behavior might lie beneath the notice of Vang himself, but not of these pitiless, amused waitergals crowding the area, their remarks directed more and more, Frank couldn’t help imagining, at himself, which by the time this eased off, why Vang had actually been outside for a while, consulting with Zoltan, who had recovered from his fit hours ago, over bike-hardware questions such as the silencer bypass situation, as, given the complexities in Vang’s life right then, when the multiple outcomes of the night were apt to narrow to one in only clock-seconds, engine performance could mean everything.
Stray had lingered to finish half a cup of coffee, smiling around lazily at everybody, including Frank, whom she didn’t recognize if she saw him at all, and when she was done, she reached to set her cup in with the dishes waiting to be got to, and with one hand loosely in a pocket of her duster, strolled admirably out the door to swing aboard behind and around damned old Vang, in the same motion bringing along and distributing duster and skirts in a routine as elaborate as any curtsey of Grandmother’s day, lifting them, in fact, and to the delight of onlookers, high enough so as not to catch fire from the vehicle’s exhaust. And joining the line of other well-wishers attentive as any string of train-watching cowboys down to the depot, Frank was out there too, to wave her adios.
When he got back to Denver, it was still Ed Chase’s town, and Frank began to fall back into the old habits of squandering time and money, until one night, making his way along Arapahoe somewhere between Tortoni’s and Bill Jones’s, where he heard he’d been declared an honorary Negro, though this turned out to be somebody’s idea of a practical joke, Frank ran into the Reverend Moss Gatlin driving a strange-looking horseless trolley car, with a miniature steeple and working church bells on the back end, and over the front window, where the destination sign usually was, the lighted-up words ANARCHIST HEAVEN. Moss was busy picking up every vagrant, ankle-biter, opium fiend, down-and-outer, brakebeam stiff, in fact any citizen looking even a little helpless—and loading them on board his A.H. Express. Frank must have qualified, because the Rev caught sight of him right away and tipped his hat. “Evenin, Frank,” as if they’d only seen each other yesterday. He pulled on a lever and the conveyance slowed enough for Frank to swing aboard.
“Any faces you ever forgot?” Frank marveled.
“Couple wives maybe,” said Moss Gatlin. “Now Frank, I never got to tell you how terrible that was about your Pa. You seen much of the subhuman pustules that done it?”
“Workin on it,” said Frank, who since the half-second of otherworldliness down in Coahuila had found nobody really to talk to about it.
“Heard a story or two, though I wouldn’t say word was around.”
“Now you mention it, one or two of the newspaper gang lately have been flashing these funny looks, like they were about to say somethin?”
“Hope you ain’t having too many of those second thoughts that stop a fellow just as dead as if it was him down in the sawdust.”
“No thoughts,” Frank shrugged, “second, third, whatever. It’s done, ain’t it.”
“How’d your Ma take the news?”
“Well.”
“Oh come on, you’ve got to tell Mrs. Webb Traverse. She’s the one person on Earth has to hear that, and from you.”
“I’m shamed to confess it Rev, but I don’t even know where she is these days.”
“She’s been movin around some, but the latest I heard, she’s living in Cripple. And as the Lord would have it, Frank, I’m headed up that direction, so if you want company . . .”
/> “You’re not goin up there in this rig?”
“This? just borrowed it for the evening. Matter of fact—”
A white-haired individual in a buggy, hollering in some agitation, had been chasing them down the street for a while it seemed. “Hammers o’ Hell,” muttered the Rev, “I knew he’d take it the wrong way.”
“That word ‘Anarchist’ up on the front,” Frank now recalled, “did look like somebody’d hand-lettered it in, kind of crudely, hate to say.”
“Jephthah runs this Christer road-ranch out on Cherry Creek, and this is how he gathers his flock. I thought he was off tonight, so I—It’s all right Jeff!” Slowing down. “Don’t shoot!”
“Those souls are mine, Moss.”
“Who done all the work? I’ll take fifty cents per head.”
“De-frocked if I’ll let you have any more’n twenty-five.”
“Forty,” said Moss Gatlin. The passengers gazed on with interest.
“Rev?” said Frank, “about my religious faith here—”
“Can we talk about it later?”
They rode the train up to Divide and changed to the narrow-gauge, and the Rev told stories about Webb, some of which Frank knew, some he’d guessed, a couple that were news to him.
“Sometimes,” Frank admitted, “I feel funny about Sloat. It should’ve been the other one, ‘cause Pa was nothin Sloat would’ve gone out and done on his own.”
“Sloat was a traitor to his class, Frank, the worst kind of stoogin for the plutes, and you done us all a favor, maybe Sloat himself more than any. Case you’re worryin about him. He won’t get into Anarchist Heaven, but wherever he goes it’ll be good for his soul.”
“Plute Hell?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Hauling into Cripple Creek, Frank could see how forlorn and beaten down that recent battleground had become. The owners had sure won. The Union had gone invisible if it was there at all, though to Moss Gatlin it looked like they’d moved on and left a whole population of honorable fighters out of work and free to make what crawling arrangements they had to to get hired again, even for mucker work, or likely just leave for someplace else. Scabs were everyplace, wearing these peculiar South Slavic knitted caps. Camp guards stomping the streets they now owned, picking out foreigners they knew didn’t speak English and rousting them, testing the general docility level in town.
“My ministry.” He nodded to include somehow the whole off-shift population. “These Austrian boys that look so easy and obligin right now will come back as vengeful ghosts to haunt Colorado someday, because it is a law universal as the law of Gravity and as unforgiving that today’s scab is tomorrow’s striker. Nothin mystical. Just what happens. You watch and see.”
“Where’ll you be stayin, Rev?”
“Noplace that won’t be different tomorrow night. Simplifies things. For you, now—that house there across the street is said to be pretty good. ‘Less you want the National Hotel or something.”
“Will I be seeing you?”
“When you need to. Rest of the time I’m invisible. Step careful now, Frank. Remember me to your Ma.”
Frank got a room, wandered down to the Old Yellowstone Saloon, started drinking, brought a bottle back to the room, soon became drunk and miserable and fell into a stupor, from which he was roused sometime in the middle of the night by loud screams from the room adjoining.
“Everybody O.K. in here?”
A boy about fifteen years old crouched wide-eyed against the wall. “Sure—just fighting off some bedbugs.” He worked his eyebrows energetically and pretended to brandish a horsewhip. “Back! Back, I say!”
Frank took out a tobacco pouch and rolling papers. “You smoke?”
“Havanas, mostly—but I guess I wouldn’t mind one of those things you’re making there.”
They smoked awhile. Julius, which turned out to be the kid’s name, was here from New York, part of a song, dance, and comedy act touring the country. When they’d got to Denver, the lead artiste had taken everybody’s pay and skipped in the middle of the night. “Landlady down there is friends with Mr. Archer, and so here I am driving his grocery wagon.”
“And I guess that team is giving you trouble, huh?”
“Only when I try to sleep.” The boy pretended to look around wildly, eyes rolling a mile a minute. “It’s the old show-business curse, see. You want work, whatever they ask you, you tell them yes. I was crazy enough to tell Mr. Archer I knew how to drive a wagon. I still don’t know how to, and now I’m really crazy.”
“Horses up here learn the trails pretty good. I bet yours could go over to Victor and back even with nobody driving.”
“Swell, that’ll save me a lot of work next run.”
“Why not see if he’ll let you do something else?”
“I need the money. Enough to get back to dear old East Ninety-third anyway.”
“Long way from home.”
“Far enough. You?”
“Lookin to find my Ma, latest I heard, she’s here in Cripple, figured I’d have a look around tomorrow. Or do I mean today.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Traverse.”
“Mayva? heck she’s just a couple blocks from here, runs that ice-cream parlor, Cone Amor, over back of Myers.”
“You foolin me? lady about yay high, real nice eyes, smokes a pipe sometimes?”
“Yeah! She comes in the store for rock salt, cooking chocolate, things like that. Best ice-cream sodas this side of the Rockies. Gee. That’s your mom, huh? You must’ve had a great childhood.”
“Well. She was always in the kitchen, known for cookin anything, don’t surprise me she learned to make ice cream too. All long after my time, o’ course.”
“Then you got a treat coming, mister.”
BEFORE HE EVEN KISSED her hello, she had him cranking the machine. “Cherry apricot, special of the day, sounds peculiar, but the truck shows up from Fruita every other day, and it’s pretty much what comes along.”
They stepped out a side door into an alleyway, and Mayva took out her corncob pipe and stuffed it with Prince Albert. “Still sayin your prayers, Frankie?”
“Not every night. Not always on my knees.”
“Better’n I thought. Course I’m prayin for all of you, all the time.”
Kit was over in Germany writing back regular letters. Reef was never much of a writer, but she thought he was over there in Europe too, someplace. Before Lake’s name could come up, there was a jingle at the street door and in came a well-to-do matron with a couple of daughters around eight and ten. Mayva put the pipe someplace safe and went to tend to them.
“The children will have their cones, Mrs. Traverse.”
“Comin right up, ma’am. Lois, that’s a real pretty gingham dress, is that new?”
The girl took the ice-cream cone and devoted her gaze to it.
“And, Poutine, here’s yours, special of the day, turns out to be my favorite, too.”
The younger sister flashed a quick smile of apology and began to whisper, “We’re not supposed to—”
“Poutine.” Coins rang on the marble counter. The woman gathered her daughters and swept out, leaving a cloud of crabapple-blossom scent behind.
“‘Fraid I’ll say some’n un-Republican, I guess.”
“You seein a lot of that, Ma?”
“Enough. Don’t get bent, I don’t.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothin ‘t’ll do you any good to know.”
Groping after the worst it could be, “The owners are paying you off. Widow’s compensation, a monthly check which will make everythin perfectly jake.”
“Been gettin one of those for a while, Frankie.”
“You’re letting those—”
“No lap o’ luxury here, case you missed that.” When she laughed, he saw how a couple of teeth were gone. “Hard times for everbody, you know, even them people too.”
He had a rough idea of the dimensions
of insult she must have had to swallow from respectables like the one just out the door, of how many passed-by towns and back ends of mine booms moved indifferently elsewhere she might’ve had to get through, and how many embittered wives there must have been in them so without recourse that they’d had only Mayva to take it out on—
She was looking at him steadily, the old gaze, pure as smoke. “Heard you settled up with that Sloat Fresno.”
“Might’ve known you’d hear somethin. Durndest thing, Ma, the minute I wasn’t lookin for him, there he was.”
“Somethin steerin you, son. Them prayers you don’t always get around to.”
She might’ve been about to ask, “How ‘bout the other one?” But disconnected her gaze, went darkly bustling after the cat who was about to fall into the eight-quart freezer again, and Frank guessed she was just as happy not talking about Lake. Any attempt, however gingerly, to bring up the topic would get him queer looks and a grief in Mayva’s face he couldn’t bear to see laid out all in detail.
The one time she did mention Lake was his last night in Cripple Creek. They’d been out at the National Hotel for supper, Mayva was wearing a flower and a hat newer than any Frank had seen on her, and they’d been talking about Webb. “Oh we both thought I was going to save him. I believed that for so long . . .that he wanted me to save him, for don’t women just love that eyewash. Chore-runnin angels, ‘at’s us—never get tired of it. So the men end up convinced they can get away with anything, is why they ‘s always pushin, just to see what it’ll finally take to get us to break. . . .”
“Maybe he really wanted to spare you that chore,” said Frank. “Savin him.”
“He was so damn angry,” Mayva said. “Always somethin.”
“So was everybody else up there,” it seemed to Frank.
“You just saw the little stuff. He kept the other away from you kids and pretty much even from me, though we did have our war dances round and round the cookstove every now and then. Tryin to protect us, forgot to protect himself. I thought about it since, some days didn’t do much else. He might’ve wanted to use that anger somehow, aim it where it’d do some good, but sometimes . . .”
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