Silver

by Graham Masterton

  Henry felt as if someone had hit him, uncompromisingly hard, on the side of the head. When he had married Augusta, he had believed that they could very well be contented with each other; but he had never realized that Augusta had regarded their business at the post office and general store not just as a way of making a living, but as a mantrap of sorts, in which she could keep Henry constricted for the rest of his life. It was just as much his fault as it was hers, he supposed. In the past eighteen years, he had grown lazier and lazier, and spent more and more of his time playing poker with miners and drifters and assorted gamblers, winning a little, losing a little, and smoking cigars, and serving his customers with camp-kettles and pepper and gun caps; writing less and less frequently to Fenchurch, and allowing Augusta to run things the way she wanted, more or less, because of his belief that he was always in charge. He was still in charge, in a manner of speaking, because he still felt less for Augusta than she did for him; but he saw now that she would do anything to prevent him from interfering with the life that she had arranged for them both; and, as always, she had the advantage of caring for their marriage far more than he did.

  He felt like an innocent, compared to her. She had been working desperately hard at keeping him for all of these eighteen years; while he had been sitting back and thinking of nothing at all, but how the years rolled by, and how they had never managed to have any children, and what was the price of flour.

  She shocked him. He felt as if he had been sleeping for the past eighteen years. Where had he been, the day that California Gulch had received the news that Lincoln was dead? What had he been doing, when Plumb-Bobbs had come into the store, and announced with smelly grandiloquence that the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads had at last met, and joined the continent, east to west, in Utah? And when Will Stevens came into town, that wet Saturday afternoon, three years ago, and leaned on the counter, and smiled, with rainspots on the shoulders of his buffalo-skin coat, and displayed in the palm of his hand the crumbly black sand which had proved to be the making of Leadville? He could see Will Stevens now, smiling, with bright brown eyes. ‘Carbonate of lead, Mr Roberts, and I’ve had it assayed; two and a half pounds of silver to the ton.’

  He was 43; and eighteen years had passed him by since Doris had died at the Bennington Fair. Eighteen years, all gone, like a dream. But now Augusta had suddenly woken him up: like someone who grasps a sleep-walker’s arm to prevent him from falling.

  He said, ‘I very much doubt if they’ll find anything, my dear. But I don’t see the harm in them trying. Do you really think that a little extra money would affect us that much? You could have a refrigerator; and a six-hole stove; and we could have the rig revarnished. Now, what would be so disturbing about that?’

  Augusta took an unsteady breath. ‘Nothing, I suppose,’ she replied. ‘You must think that I’m being ridiculous.’

  Henry came over and held her arms. ‘Come on, my dear; you’re not being ridiculous at all. You’re overworked, that’s the truth of it. Giving yourself too much to do.’

  ‘Well, somebody has to do it,’ she retorted, in a fraught voice. ‘Somebody has to bake and sweep and stock the shelves.’

  Henry was beginning to feel exasperated with her. But he knew what would happen if he raised his voice to her; and told her to stop being so self-pitying and contradictory. One minute she was saying that she didn’t want their life at the store to be altered in any way: the next she was complaining because she had too much to do. But if he tried to point that out to her, she would burst into tears, which always made her look uglier than ever, and then she would sulk for days in silence, until he had given her some special little present, and sworn to her again and again that he loved her, and that he would never leave her, and that she was the finest-looking woman in Leadville.

  ‘Maybe, if we had a little extra money, we could afford to hire some help,’ said Henry.

  Augusta looked away. ‘I’d better finish the palm cookies,’ she said.

  ‘And then you’ll pack up some supplies for Mr Rische?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Henry kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’re a good woman, Augusta.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she asked him, turning back. ‘A good woman? You make me sound like your mother.’

  Henry tried to smile, without much success, but couldn’t think what to say. From the back parlour, Jim Roelofs called out, ‘Are you coming there, Henry, old fellow; or do we fold the game and take it down to Brannigan’s?’ Henry nodded towards the beaded curtain to indicate to Augusta that he ought to go and join them, and Augusta said, ‘Very well, then,’ and went off to the kitchen, where her pastry was rolled up, ready for cutting.

  ‘You took your sweet time,’ said Billy Coren. ‘I’ve got 75 dollars riding on this hand.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Henry, and sat down, and picked up his cards.

  Jim Roelofs frowned at him. ‘You look like you just saw a ghost.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Henry told him. ‘I was thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘Thinking? That’s a damned painful pastime.’

  Henry slowly fanned out his cards. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It can be.’

  They played for the rest of the afternoon, but Henry’s mind wasn’t on the game, and he lost 26 dollars. Augusta would be upset about that: she only tolerated his poker-playing as long as he didn’t lose too much money. Otherwise, she said, what was the point of her breaking her neck to make pennies out of pies? Usually, he came out ahead. He was a good player, with a natural instinct for cards. But today the Colossal Whirler kept turning in his head, and Doris kept saying, ‘It’s perfect. The day, the fair, you,’ and he could picture that cream and burgundy dress so clearly as the day she had worn it; and even see the sunlight on those stray curls at the side of her neck. And then he thought of Augusta, and all these years of married life; and how often he turned over at night and pretended to be sleeping so that he could ignore her hand on his hip and her whispered question, ‘Henry?’

  The sadness of his life almost overwhelmed him; and yet it was all his fault. Was this all it was ever going to be? Playing cards, and serving customers, and watching the sun come up and go down again, faster and faster with each successive year, like a flickering zoetrope? What had Nina said to him, that night in Denver? ‘You are a man who carves epitaphs, and always will be.’

  He had just poured out a fresh pitcher of beer when there was a knock on the corridor wall, and Nat Starkey came in, all dapper and smiling in a bright green suit. Nat ran Starkey’s Tasteful Saloon & Billiard Heaven on Second Street, and had long been a friend of Henry’s, ever since the first days of the silver rush in ’75. ‘Afternoon, gents,’ he said. ‘How’s life in hell?’

  ‘Take a seat, Nat,’ said Henry. ‘There’s beer in the jug, and a glass on the dresser.’

  ‘Well, don’t mind if I do,’ replied Nat, and dragged up a chair and straddled it.

  ‘Having a quiet afternoon?’ Henry asked him.

  ‘Not exactly. In fact, exactly the opposite. That’s what I come to see you about.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘It’s them billiard balls you sold me, them newly-devised ones.’

  ‘The Celluloid ones. What about them?’

  ‘Well, darn it, every time one of my customers drops one on the floor, which is pretty darn often, if they’re drinking steady, the darn thing explodes like a bomb. Bang! Just like that! The first time I heard it I nigh on shat myself.’

  Henry laid down his cards, and told Jim Roelofs, ‘I’m not,’ then to Nat Starkey, ‘Listen, you tell me how many explode, and I’ll send back to J.W. Hyatt’s for more.’

  ‘Henry, it isn’t the balls I’m worried about, it’s the saloon. Every time one of them things goes off, every manjack in the whole darn place whips out his gun and hits the floor. Two shots fired already; and one of them broke a mirror.’

  Later, as evening settled over the Colorado Rockies, Henry took a walk with Nat S
tarkey back along Chestnut Street to the Tasteful Saloon, on the pretext of inspecting his Celluloid billiard balls. In fact, he simply wanted to get away from the store and stretch his legs and think. As they walked along the boarded sidewalk in the grainy rose-coloured half-light, with waggons creaking and bouncing over the roadway beside them, Nat said good-naturedly, ‘You seem glum, Henry. Never seen you so morbid.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Henry. The mountain air was growing slightly chillier, and he pushed his hands into his pockets. There was a smell of pines in the air, and dust, and frying chicken. ‘Did you ever wake up one day and look around you and think, what the hell am I doing here?’

  ‘Every single day, Henry,’ Nat declared. ‘Every single day. Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Just a mood I guess.’

  ‘You’re not having trouble with Augusta?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s not what you’d call trouble.’

  ‘She’s a good woman, Henry. You won’t find better.’

  ‘I know. I think that’s probably what’s wrong. I sometimes feel like I need a bad woman. One with a bit of fire in her.’

  They reached the entrance to the Tasteful Saloon, engraved-glass doors and fluted red-oak pillars. Through the window, Henry could see miners and gamblers laughing and smoking; and as Nat opened the door, cigar smoke whipped around it like an escaping ghost, mingled with piano music, and the high clear voice of a girl singing ‘Over The River’.

  ‘Last night I slept, last night I dreamed,

  That life was running like a stream,

  And that my love spanned o’er this tide,

  Just like a bridge, from side to side…’

  Nat said, ‘She’s a nice girl, Sylvia. You’d like her. Plenty of fire, if it’s fire you’re after.’

  Henry replied, ‘Thanks, Nat, but no. I don’t think that’s going to solve anything. I think in fact I’ve left it eighteen years too late.’

  Nat took hold of his shoulder, and squeezed it, and said, ‘Listen, every man gets to feel offish, after he’s been married for a while. Take a walk; have a few drinks. Get yourself into a card game. Go home late and roll into bed drunk and have an argument. Make an argument: tell Augusta she don’t know shit from sarsaparilla. That’s what I always do, when I’m feeling down. Because when the argument’s forgotten about; and you’ve gotten over your hangover; the making-up is marvellous.’

  ‘Supposing you don’t want to make up?’ asked Henry. ‘Supposing you’re looking for an excuse to walk out of the house and never come back?’

  Nat paused, half in and half out of the saloon door. ‘Is that the way you feel?’ he asked. ‘Naw, come on, Henry; not about Augusta. You and Augusta, the perfect couple, that’s what Binnie always calls you. A marriage made in heaven. Maybe you’re just bored.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ said Henry.

  He left Nat standing by the door of the saloon, and walked southwest along Chestnut Street, passing the Congregational Church, and then crossing over towards the Grand Hotel. Since Will Stevens had discovered that the soil beneath the gulch was so rich in silver, Leadville had prospered and expanded, and now there were four churches, 60 saloons, over 80 gambling-houses, and more whores than anybody could count. In between, there were ramshackle huts, stone-built villas, stables, silver-mines, stores, and restaurants. The Leadville Chronicle proudly reported that ‘we live in a community in which “Anything Goes”.’

  He carried on walking through the gathering evening to the small crowded street in the 300 Block that the locals called ‘Paradise Alley’. It was here, on warm evenings like this, that the good-time girls clustered; dressed in their bustles and their lace and their bodices so low that one observer had said, ‘one felt that they might put their leg through and step out of them.’

  He chose the left-hand boardwalk; and was whistled and cooed at by girls from every window and doorway. Some of them recognized him, because they were customers at the bank; but none of them called out his name. It was all, ‘come here, darling,’ or ‘kiss me, my dove.’

  He stopped by a doorway where three girls were sitting on dining-chairs which they had taken out on to the boardwalk so that they could share a drink of whiskey and some evening air. They were all dressed in silks, of blues and bronzes and pale greens, with ruffles and ribbons and tassels; and each one of them had her hair fashionably tonged into tight circular curls. Their shoulders were bare; and their bosoms were cupped in lace, although one of them, the prettiest, had allowed her bodice to slip so low that her small pink nipples were exposed. Henry stood beside the girls, and touched his hat, and said, ‘Evening, ladies. How’s business?’

  The pretty one sat up straight, and looked back at him with a slanting, defiant smile. She was bright blonde, with brown eyes, and a heart-shaped face. She couldn’t have been very much older than sixteen or seventeen; and it was quite possible that she was younger. One of the brothels in Leadville boasted that not a single one of its fifteen girls was older than twelve. On the street corners, Henry had seen children who looked as young as nine; but there were rarely any takers. At that age, they were usually bait to lure a drink-fuddled miner into a back alley; where an outraged ‘mother’ would suddenly appear, and threaten to have the man arrested if he didn’t instantly pay $20 consideration, and swear on the Book of Deuteronomy that he would never molest young girls again.

  ‘It’s early yet,’ the blonde girl said. ‘Most of the customers is window shopping, just now. It’s later they’ll come a-calling, when they’ve won a few dollars; or downed a quart of Old Sourmash. One fellow tells his wife he’s walking the dog, and leaves the poor mutt tied up to the end of the bed, and it always howls something awful.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Henry asked her.

  ‘Charity, what’s yours?’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘Well, well. Would you care for a drink, Henry?’

  Henry looked at her for a long moment, eye to eye. He had the strongest feeling that she knew what was unsettling him; that she could sense quite clearly the disappointment and frustration that racked him like a toothache. He lowered his eyes then, and looked at her breasts, white as firm blancmanges; the areolas crinkled by the coolness of the breeze. Unhurriedly, provocatively, she lifted her bodice so that she was covered, one breast after the other; but all the time she kept her eyes fixed on him.

  He accepted a drink, a small tot of stingingly harsh whiskey; and then he said, to all of the girls. ‘What would you do, if you were me?’

  The other two girls hooted with amusement, and one of them replied, ‘Cut my moustache off, straight away, and no mistake.’ But the blonde girl said in a quiet and knowing voice, ‘I would keep my peace when at home; and do what I wanted when abroad.’ Then she winked at Henry, slowly and obviously, and helped herself to some more whiskey.

  ‘You don’t even know what my problem is,’ Henry told her.

  She smiled. ‘Every man has the same problem. There’s only one problem in the whole world, and every man has it.’

  ‘So, you’re a philosopher,’ said Henry.

  ‘Not me,’ she told him. ‘All I do is straight sex; or gamming, if you want it, for five dollars more.

  Henry put down his glass. ‘Thanks for the drink,’ he said, gently; and reached into his pocket and gave her a dollar. She took it into the palm of her hand, twirled her fingers, and it had disappeared.

  ‘That’s a good trick,’ said Henry.

  ‘Oh, I can do better than that,’ she smiled. ‘One man whose name you know gives me silver dollars, one by one, as many as I can walk across the room with, without them falling out.’

  Henry amused, said, ‘Goodnight,’ and walked on; past the crowded cribs and the cheap hotels and the $5 bawdy-houses; and now the night was beginning to stir with music and laughter and the sound of miners’ boots drumming along the boardwalks; as well as roulette wheels clattering and dice tumbling. He found himself at last outside The Opportunit
y Saloon, a long low building crowded with prospectors and loafers and gamblers, and went inside.

  There was a long pine bar, behind which were clustered dozens and dozens of elk’s antlers; and enough bottles of whiskey to incapacitate the whole of Colorado for a week. The low room was unbreathable with thick cigar smoke, and crowded with pine tables, on which men were playing faro and poker and rummy. At one table, a pointy-nosed fellow in a tight city hat was rattling away at three-card monte. ‘Here you are, gentlemen; this ace of hearts is the winning card. Watch it closely, follow it with your eyes as I shuffle. If you point it out the first time you win; but if you miss you lose. I take no bets from paupers, cripples, or orphan children. The ace of hearts. It is my regular trade, gentlemen, to move my hands quicker than your eyes. The ace of hearts. Who’s going to go me twenty?’

  Henry went to the bar and the barkeeper brought him a bottle of whiskey without even being asked for it. Henry paid, and filled up his glass, and drank. Everybody in a Western bar filled up his glass to the brim, because it was the accepted practice for the customer to pour his own; and each drink cost the same, no matter how full it was. Henry drank three, straight down, and then took his time over the fourth. A fat man in a striped shirt sat at the piano, and began to play ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me.’

  A lugubrious miner with a beard which he had parted in the middle and tied around the back of his neck leaned on the counter close to Henry, and said, ‘If I don’t strike paydirt tomorrow; tomorrow definite; I’m going to leave this goddamned town and head west. Due west, no stops; not for Mormons nor Indians nor nothing. You know what they’ve got at Calistoga, in California? Gold, in the water. Five dollars’ worth the bucketful. All you have to do is strain it out.’