‘Where are you going?’ she asked him, in a ghostly voice. Always the right voice for the right moment. Anger one second, pleading the next.
‘I’m going out, that’s all. I think it’s time we gave the rest of the guests a chance to get some sleep.’
‘You won’t leave me here, will you?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Augusta.’
He fumbled his way down the corridor, and creaked down the stairs, and then out through the unlocked hotel doors into the windy, moonlit night. He was startled for a moment by a huge ball of tumbleweed which came bounding silently across the yard, and caught in the fence; but then he walked across the stretch of dusty real-estate that separated the Pottawattamie Hotel from its nearest neighbour, the Council Bluffs Tack Store; and made his way down to the banks of the wide Missouri.
The riverbanks here were flat and muddy, and army engineers had been laying down retainers of intertwined saplings to prevent the soil from washing away, and clogging up a river which was already brown with silt. There was an old story about a woman in Sioux City, a few score miles further upstream, who had tried to commit suicide by jumping into the river, only to find herself buried up to her knees in ooze.
Henry climbed on to the woven saplings, and sat tiredly staring at the sliding Missouri, and at the winking lights of Omaha, Nebraska Territory, on the opposite side. There were seven or eight paddle-steamers moored up at Omaha’s dock, a smart new side-wheeler and half a dozen old stern-wheelers. One of them was already getting up steam for the morning, and black smoke was rising from its twin smokestacks, and smudging the moon as it drifted eastwards.
He felt desperately guilty about Augusta. It had been wrong of him to shout at her; and even worse to tell her that he detested her. After all, he had invited her to come along with him, and he had used her money; and however perverse her sexual appetites may have been, she hadn’t committed the act alone.
He wasn’t used to feeling guilty, and he couldn’t understand why Augusta had that effect on him. All right, he accepted the responsibility of bringing her here. But wasn’t it better to end it now, before she grew even more dependent on him? It would hurt her, certainly; but when she went back east, that hurt would give her a greater incentive to look for somebody else, somebody who really suited her.
He walked back to the hotel. He felt exhausted and gritty. Ever since he had taken up with Augusta, he seemed to spend half his nights wandering around the streets, sitting by lake-sides and riverbanks, chilled and disappointed. The sky was growing light now, even though the moon was still out, and a grey-haired Negro came out on to the hotel steps and started sweeping.
‘You up early, sir,’ the Negro remarked.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ said Henry.
‘Well, me neither, sir. Somebody making all kinds of commotion last night, shouting and hollering, and babies screeching and whatnot? Never knewed a night like it.’
‘Anywhere I can get some breakfast?’ Henry asked him.
‘Grits and bacon, if that’s suitable.’
‘That sounds more than suitable.’
The Negro propped his broom up against the side of the hotel, and beckoned Henry to follow him around the side. There was a small lean-to building there, next to the kitchen entrance, in which there was a table and an oil-lamp and a small pot-bellied stove. On the stove was a blackened old fry-pan.
‘This is my mansion, sir,’ grinned the Negro. ‘And by the way, my names Dat Apple.’
Henry ducked his head to step inside the lean-to, and looked around. At the very back of it, there was a bed, heaped with brown and white Indian blankets, and a rickety shelf, on which Dat Apple’s treasures were all arrayed. A Bible with a cracked back; a pewter jug engraved with the initials of the Hannibal & St Joe Railroad Company; a set of augers; and a small clock with the sun and the moon painted on its face. Dat Apple opened up a small meat-safe, and produced a pound of good bacon and a bowlful of grits; and then sliced a lump of lard into his fry-pan. ‘Sit down,’ he told Henry. This was his home; in here, he didn’t have to knuckle his forehead to anyone. ‘A good breakfast is a serious business.’
‘How long have you lived here?’ Henry asked him, sitting down on the bed.
Dat Apple watched the lard melt, and slide around the pan. ‘Coming on seven years now. I was a slave once, down in Savannah. My family all died and I runned off; but Mrs Newell took me in. She still don’t pay me no wages, but she feeds me and keeps me, and this is my mansion here, safe from all.’
‘Who called you Dat Apple?’ asked Henry.
‘Mrs Newell, sir. Previous to that, my name was William Marcus Truscott, sir.’
Henry watched Dat Apple lay the rashers of bacon in the pan; and with all the fascination of hunger and tiredness scrutinized closely the way they curled up and spat.
‘I do all of my cooking in this one pan, sir,’ remarked Dat Apple. ‘This is my Trusty Pan. Well, that’s what I call it.’ The aroma of home-smoked bacon was so appetizing that Henry had to swallow his mouth-water; and then blow his nose loudly with his handkerchief.
‘Mrs Newell call me Dat Apple because I was never sad, sir, in spite of seeing my good wife Julia die, and losing my boys, both of them, to different plantations. I would give anything at all, sir, if I could see those boys for just one minute, and take their hand, and let them know that their father’s happy. But it won’t be possible, and I have to swallow that, sir, and never despair. That’s why Mrs Newell called me Dat Apple, she said Dat Apple was the opposite of Dis Pear.’
Dat Apple turned the bacon in the pan; and spooned the grits in next to it. ‘I only have the one plate, sir,’ he said, ‘but you can have that. Me, I’m used to eating my breakfast straight from the pan.’
Henry said, ‘I’m looking for a party of emigrants; any party, so long as their guide’s good.’
‘You’re heading for California, sir? Well, you missed the best party, they left two weeks ago, with Mr Nathan Reed leading them. You don’t want to leave it too much longer, sir, otherwise it’s going to be dead of winter by the time you have to cross the Sierras and that can be fatal, sir. You remember the Donner party, what happened to them.’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘Is there anyone else?’
Dat Apple produced a single dinner-plate, decorated with the Bavarian rose-garland pattern, and shovelled on to it five rashers of crispy bacon and a big spoonful of grits. ‘There, sir,’ he said. ‘Now that’s a serious breakfast; and here’s a serious drink to go with it.’ He reached behind him, and produced an earthenware jug, which he unstoppered with his teeth. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, offering Henry the neck. Henry hesitated for a moment, and then hefted up the jug on his forearm, and drank. It was corn liquor, strong and clear, and he coughed a cough like a dog barking, but it went right down inside him like white fire, and warmed him and woke him up at the same time.
‘Dangerous stuff,’ he remarked, handing the jug back.
‘You bet,’ grinned Dat Apple. ‘A couple of quarts of that, and they’d be calling you Dat Apple, too. No room for Dis Pear, not with this mixture.’
Henry picked up a rasher of bacon in his fingers, and began to eat. Dat Apple sat with the fry-pan perched on his knees, and scooped his grits with a spoon. ‘Only got the one spoon, sir, if you don’t object to sharing.’
Henry said nothing: but held out his hand for the spoon, and dug into his grits. They were hot and soft and cumbly, and soaked with bacon-greese. ‘No chance that either of us is going to get to Heaven through the eye of a needle,’ he remarked, and Dat Apple chuckled, and stamped his foot, and said, ‘You should stay here; you and me could get on pretty good; getting fat; drinking corn.’
It could have been the liquor, but Henry found himself grinning all over his face. ‘What else?’ he said. ‘Sweeping the steps?’
Dat Apple collapsed into cackles of laughter; and had to lay his fry-pan breakfast back on the stove, so that he could wipe his eyes. ‘That’s right,’ he wept
. ‘Getting fat, drinking corn, sweeping the steps, dodging the tumbleweed; who needs anything more?’
Henry started to laugh out loud, and almost choked on his bacon. Dat Apple got up and slapped him on the shoulders, and then both of them sat side by side and laughed and laughed until Henry felt that he was going to suffocate. ‘By God,’ he said, after two or three minutes, ‘you’re the funniest person I ever met.’
‘Me?’ exclaimed Dat Apple; and they both burst out laughing again.
Eventually, they recovered enough to finish their breakfast, wiping up the last of the bacon-grease with grits; and rinsing everything down with corn liquor. Dat Apple’s decorated clock said that it was seven o’clock.
‘You know something,’ said Dat Apple, more seriously. ‘A man don’t ever get much of a chance to make himself a friend; not out here; being black and all, and a runaway slave. But real friends come quick, didn’t you ever notice that? When you like a body, you likes them straight away, no fussing. And I hope you don’t take it as anything else but a compliment, sir, when I say that I like you.’
Henry took Dat Apple’s hand, and wrung it tight. ‘Call me Henry,’ he said. ‘But only if you let me call you William.’
‘No, don’t call me William,’ said Dat Apple, shaking his grey curly head. ‘That was my master’s name, in Savannah. What my own name was, well, I never knew. Dat Apple had dignity enough for me. And I’d be proud to call you Henry.’
‘I’d better get back,’ said Henry. ‘My wife’s going to be wondering where I’ve got myself to.’
‘You married?’ frowned Dat Apple.
‘Not really. She’s a girl who came along with me.’
‘Ah well, the same thing.’
‘Do you know of any guides?’ asked Henry. ‘Somebody you can really recommend?’
‘Well,’ said Dat Apple, ‘there’s one; I was going to mention him before; but if you’ve got a woman with you; ,hmm; he ain’t really the type. He’d get you there fast, though, just on his own, with mules; no bothering with waggon-trains. Those waggon-trains are excruciating slow; just excruciating; the way those oxen plod. Plod, plod, plod. Some of those emigrants get to California half crazy, on account of that plodding, that’s what Nathan Reed says, five months from here to Sutter’s Fort, that’s a long time. Mind you, it’s a long way.’
‘Tell me about this guide,’ said Henry.
‘His name’s Edward McLowery, not an amenable man, but knows his way to California. He’s staying at the Wooding House, as far as I’ve heard, that’s where he usually stays. But he doesn’t take commissions kindly; he needs persuading when it comes to going west again; for each time he goes, he swears that it’s going to be the last. But he’s the best, no doubt about it.’
‘Well, Dat Apple, maybe I’ll go and talk to him,’ said Henry. He stood up, and retrieved his hat.
‘Tell him Dat Apple sent you.’
‘I will. And thanks for the breakfast. That was Heaven.’
‘Not through the eye of a needle it wasn’t.’
Henry walked satisfied round to the front of the Pottawattamie Hotel, and up the steps, and said ‘Good morning,’ to Mrs Newell who was scolding one of her cleaners in the lobby.
‘Well, good morning,’ replied Mrs Newell, staring at him oddly. Henry hesitated for a moment, wondering if she wanted to tell him something; but she turned away, and went on reprimanding her cleaning-girl. He shrugged, and went upstairs.
‘Augusta,’ he said, opening the bedroom door. But the room was empty, and the bed was turned back; and even Augusta’s hair-brushes had disappeared from the top of the chest of drawers. ‘Augusta!’ he called again, and opened the wardrobe. Her dresses were gone, so was her carpet-bag.
‘My God,’ he thought, ‘she’s done it. She’s left me. She’s gone back to Bennington.’
He pulled open the drawers one by one, and all that remained were his own handkerchiefs, his own collars, his own underwear. Five silk neckties, and a shrivelled pair of sock-suspenders.
He sat down on the bed. She’s done it. She’s gone back home, and left me. And the extraordinary part about it was, that he actually missed her; that large plain face, and that endlessly apologetic breathiness. You can be nagged for a week, and grow quite used to it. Augusta, he thought. What a revelation. She probably caught the first train east, the six o’clock local; and now she’s steaming past McClelland, her face against the window, dreaming of what a romantic time she had; and how she can go back to Bennington and say that he had taken her as far as Council Bluffs, just to kiss her goodbye; and that he had promised to come back and get her as soon as he’d made himself a fortune. Well, he didn’t mind that. She could say whatever she liked, as long as she didn’t come along to California. Poor Augusta.
Mrs Newell appeared in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her face as puffed-up and yellow as a Mormon Johnnycake. ‘Well, Mr Roberts; your wife has left you.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Henry, running his hand through his hair.
‘You caused quite an upset here, last night.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? Well, I wouldn’t go down to breakfast in the parlour, if I were you. There are two or three folks there who would pay money to see you thrashed, for keeping them awake last night. All that shouting and screeching and carrying-on. That’s not the sort of house I like to run.’
Henry nodded, as if he were feeling upset. Mrs Newell stood in the doorway for a moment and then came into the room, and stood close behind him.
‘She said she loved you, you know.’
‘Did she?’
‘She said that if you ever changed your mind, well, you’d know where you could find her.’
Henry turned, and gave Mrs Newell a vague, complex smile. ‘Ah,’ he said, as if he understood everything.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Newell, taking hold of his sleeve. ‘I know it isn’t easy, newlyweds like you, thrashing it out on the trail. It’s hard enough for couples who have been wed for five years or more; and got to know each other well.’
Henry tried to look like a newly-deserted husband; and a disappointed emigrant; and a saddened adventurer, all at once. Mrs Newell suddenly and spontaneously hugged him; squeezing him close to her huge flower-printed bosom, and cushions and corsets; and then slapped him on the back so hard that he coughed. ‘Go back and find her,’ she exhorted him. ‘Go on, she’ll take you back; I know it.’
Just as Mrs Newell was squeezing him, however, it occurred to Henry that Augusta had been carrying all of their money; or rather all of her money. She may have blessedly gone, and given him his freedom, but she had taken with her all the funds he needed to set up in business in California. Worse than that, all the funds he needed just to get to California. It had been all very tragic for her to talk of nightmares in which he had abandoned her in the middle of nowhere at all; but now she had done it to him. Here he was, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with an hotel bill to pay, and a stack of trunks, and no return ticket to anywhere, and no money whatsoever, nothing, not even a loose nickel in his britches pocket.
Mrs Newell smiled at him, and touched his nose with the tip of her finger, and said, ‘There, now. She went on the six o’clock train. If you can catch the ten o’clock special, you should catch up with her at Des Moines, or at least at Rock Island.’
‘She, er, didn’t pay the bill? By any chance?’
‘All she did was say goodbye, my dear; and that she loved you; and that you would know where to find her, if you wanted to.’
Henry nodded. ‘I see. Well, I don’t think I’m going to go chasing after her right away. I think I’m going to...well, think for a while. You don’t mind that, do you? If I keep this room for another night? I mean, there won’t be any more arguments, now she’s gone.’
‘That’s all right, my dear,’ said Mrs Newell, maternally. ‘You stay for as long as you wish. And if it’s advice you want; or nothing but comfort; you just come to me.’
; ‘Well,’ said Henry, ‘I shall.’
After Mrs Newell had gone, Henry dressed as quickly as he could, in his smartest linen suit, and his last clean collar, and walked to the Council Bluffs depot. At the baggage counter, a laconic clerk with a drawn-out country accent and a toothpick fidgeting in the corner of his mouth told him that Mrs Roberts had claimed all of her trunks, and taken them with her on the 6:03; but that she had left her husband’s trunks, all three of them, with 75 cents to pay.
‘But I’m the husband,’ said Henry.
‘In that case, 75 cents,’ replied the clerk.
Henry bit his lip. ‘I couldn’t owe it to you?’
The clerk stared at him as if he had to be joking. ‘No 75 cents, no baggage, that’s the rule. There it is, right on the wall. Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, Rules For The Depositing of Passengers’ Baggage. Rule Nine, no money, no baggage. Well, that’s what you might call a pray-see. The real rule’s written in railroad language.’
Henry said, ‘I could give you an IOU.’
‘I’m sorry, friend. It’s 75 cents or nothing. Rule Nine.’ Henry left the depot and walked out into the street. It was growing warmer now, although it was still windy, and he took off his jacket and carried it over his arm. He passed Deacon’s Lunch Rooms, just opening up, green blinds being raised at the windows; and the Old Misery Saloon; and the Council Bluffs Druggery, with a pyramid display of Balm of Childhood and Dr Kilmer’s Female Remedy ‘The Great Blood Purifier and System Regulator’; and then a vacant lot; and then a small unpainted house standing on its own, a typical Iowa house with a flat false front and an outside staircase. At the top of the staircase, a young woman in a white cotton nightdress was pegging up blouses and underwear on to a makeshift line. Henry stopped and watched her, his hand shading his eyes. She reminded him of one of those imported china dolls; she was very petite, no taller than five feet; with a plump rosy-cheeked face and blue eyes that could have been painted. Her dark curly hair had been wound up into rags, although two long plaits hung all the way down her back. She was very big-breasted and chubby-hipped; but there was something about her, some natural graciousness, that caused Henry to pause.
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