E. L. Doctorow - Welcome to Hard Times

A superb novel.

N ORMAN M AILER

Excellent.

The Los Angeles Times

Taut, dramatic, and exciting.

The New York Times Book Review

Terse and powerful.

Newsweek

Big as Life

The Book of Daniel

Ragtime

Drinks

Before Dinner (play)

Loon Lake

Lives of the Poets

Worlds Fair

Billy Bathgate

Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution (essays)

The Waterworks

City of God

Sweet Land Stories

The March

Creationists: Selected Essays, 19932006

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

FOR M ANDY

The Man from Bodie drank down a half bottle of the Silver Suns best; that cleared the dust from his throat and then when Florence, who was a redhead, moved along the bar to him, he turned and grinned down at her. I guess Florence had never seen a man so big. Before she could say a word, he reached out and stuck his hand in the collar of her dress and ripped it down to her waist so that her breasts bounded out bare under the yellow light. We all scraped our chairs and stood upnone of us had looked at Florence that way before, for all she was. The saloon was full because we watched the man coming for a long time before he pulled in, but there was no sound now.

This town was in the Dakota Territory, and on three sideseast, south, westthere is nothing but miles of flats. Thats how we could see him coming. Most times the dust on the horizon moved east to westwagon trains nicking the edge of the flats with their wheels and leaving a long dust turd lying on the rim of the earth. If a man rode toward us he made a fan in the air that got wider and wider. To the north were hills of rock and that was where the lodes were which gave an excuse for the town, although not a good one. Really there was no excuse for it except that people naturally come together.

So by the time he walked into the Silver Sun a bunch of us were waiting to see who he was. It was foolish because in this country a mans pride is not to pay attention, and after he did that to the girl he turned around to grin at us and we looked away or coughed or sat down. Flo meanwhile couldnt believe what happened, she stood with her eyes wide and her mouth open. He took his hand off the bar and suddenly grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm around so that she turned and doubled over with the pain. Then, as if she was a pet bear, he walked her in front of him over to the stairs and up to a room on the second floor. After the door slammed we stood looking up and finally we heard Florence screaming and we wondered what kind of man it was who could make her scream.

Jimmy Fee was the only child in town and when Flo was stumbling over her dress up the stairs, he ducked under the swinging doors and ran down the porch past the mans horse and across the street. Fee, his father, was a carpenter, he had built up both sides of the street almost without help. Fee was on a ladder fixing the eaves over the town stable.

Pa, Jimmy called up to him, the mans got your Flo!

Jack Millay, the limping man with one arm, told me later he followed the boy across the street to fill Fee in on the detailslittle Jimmy might not have made it clear that the customer was a Bad Man from Bodie. Fee came down the ladder, went around in back of his place down the street, and came out with a stout board. He was a short man, bald, thick in the neck and in the shoulders, and he was one of the few men I ever met who knew what life was about. I was standing by the window of the Silver Sun and when I saw Fee coming I got out of those doors fast. So did everyone there, even though the screaming had not stopped. By the time Fee walked in with his plank at the ready, the place was empty.

We all stood scattered in the street waiting for something to happen. Avery, the fat barkeep, had brought a bottle with him and he tilted his head back and drank, standing out in the dirt with his white apron on and one hand on his hip. I had never seen Avery in sunlight before. The sun was on the western flats to about four oclock. There was no sound now from the saloon. The only horse tied up in front was the strangers: a big ugly roan that didnt look like he expected water or a rub. Behind him in the dirt was a pile of new manure.

We waited and then there was a noise from insidea clatterand that was all. After a while Fee came out of the Silver Sun with his cudgel and stood on the porch. He walked forward and missed the steps. The Bad Mans horse skittered aside and Fee tumbled down and landed on his knees in the manure. He got up with dung clinging to his britches and lurched on toward Ezra Maple, the Express Man, who said: He cant see. Ezra stepped aside as Fee staggered by him. The back of Fees bald head was bashed and webbed with blood and he was holding his ears. Little Jimmy stood next to me watching his father go up the street. He ran after a few yards, then stopped, then ran after again. When he caught up to Fee he took his belt and together they walked into Fees door.

Nobody went back into the saloon, we were all reminded of business we had to do. When I got to my office door I glanced back and the only one still standing in the street was Avery, in his apron. I knew hed be the first over to see me and he was.

Blue, that gentlemans in my place, you got to get him out of there.

I saw him pay you money Avery.

I got stock behind that bar, I got window glass in my windows, I got my grain and still in back. Theres no telling what hell do.

Maybe hell leave soon enough.

He cracked Fees skull!

A fights a fight, theres nothing I can do.

Goddamnit!

Well now Avery Im forty-nine years old.

Goddamnit!

I took my gun out of my drawer and shoved it over the desk toward fat Avery but he didnt take it. Instead he sat down on my cot and we waited together. About dusk Jimmy Fee came in and told me his father was bleeding at the mouth. I went out and found John Bear, the deaf-and-dumb Pawnee who served for our doctor, and we went over to Fees place but Fee was already dead. The Indian shrugged and walked out and I was left to comfort the boy all night.

Once, around midnight, when it got too cold for me, I walked back to my office to get a blanket. And on the way I sneaked across the streetrunning where there was moonlightto peek into the window of the Silver Sun. The lights were still burning. Behind the bar, Florence, with her red hair unpinned to her shoulders, was crying and pouring herself a stiff one. I tapped on the window, but she knew Fee was dead and she wouldnt come out. I ran around back. The upstairs was dark and I could hear the Man from Bodie snoring.

When I came West with the wagons, I was a young man with expectations of something, I dont know what, I tar-painted my name on a big rock by the Missouri trailside. But in time my expectations wore away with the weather, like my name had from that rock, and I learned it was enough to stay alive. Bad Men from Bodie werent ordinary scoundrels, they came with the land, and you could no more cope with them than you could with dust or hailstones.