Chapter 9

            Driving the wagon with his father’s decrepit farm horse tied to the tailgate, Dove Ed knew they had entered the Malad River valley when he heard the mountains moan.  The sound, a low, mournful rumbling, shuddered the air all around them though there was no wind, and the only clouds were high and light.  Tom and Cash looked about in consternation.  “What in the hell was that?” Cash said.

            Dove Ed grinned.  “That’s springtime in the Samaria Mountains,” he said, pointing north to west.  “Elkhorn Peak, Malad Summit, and Samaria Mountain right there.  Sometimes in the spring the mountains groan like that.  No one knows why.”  As mountains went, they were not especially imposing, hummocks of brown and grey stone still dusted with snow; they would stay snow-capped deep into June, some years.  At this distance, the gentle-seeming slopes reminded Dove Ed of a sleeping man hunkered into his quilt for just a few more minutes sleep.  Dove Ed smiled again, this time at his own imagination: maybe the rumbling and moaning was the snoring of a giant starting to awaken.

            Caught up in his own thoughts, Dove Ed almost failed to recognize Malad City as he crested the last hill before the town, and stopped only because Tom and Cash had drawn up short.  He had seen the town from this viewpoint many times before, though when he rode out two years earlier, he hadn’t looked back.  Two main roads joined at the center of town to form an enormous “Y” shape running parallel to the Malad River on the east, but the buildings around them were just tiny white and gray squares on the broad flat valley floor.  Nothing looked familiar at first; it seemed some changes had been made since he left.  Then Dove Ed spied the cluster of buildings that made up the Cariboo Salt Works and Freight Company on the southern end of Main Street at the base of the Y, and the massive stone pile that was the Co-op at the fork, on the corner of Bannock and Main.  The Co-op reminded Dove Ed of a stern, disapproving preacher, scowling at the saloons and dance halls around it.  Other structures, less sure of themselves, huddled along the sides of both streets, and beyond them the town quickly lost all confidence and petered off into brush and rock and rangeland.

            “That it?” Cash asked.

            “That’s it,” said Dove Ed.

            If Tom and Cash were disappointed with Malad, neither one said so.  Rather, Cash turned to Dove Ed and said, “What’s the best saloon in town?”

            “Now hold on,” Tom said, and the other two looked at him.  “We’d be fools to ride in with the door right in the wagon bed for all the world to see.”

            “It’s covered,” Cash said.

            “Prying eyes got a way of seeing through tarpaulin,” said Tom.  “Best if we stash it someplace and come back for it.”

            “I know a place,” Dove Ed said.

            He led them west toward the mountains along a well-travelled road, then turned north again.  Tom and Cash could barely make out an overgrown wagon track, and they asked the boy where he was taking them. 

            “That way is Samaria Township,” Dove Ed said, pointing west along the road, “But nobody comes down this way.”

            “I can see why,” Tom said.  The path they followed wound down through a rocky, inhospitable series of hills, gullies, and washes, and narrowed to single file in places where it had eroded away.  In such places Dove Ed drove the wagon gingerly, keeping the wheels away from the crumbling embankment and the team at a slow walk lest the wagon tip too far. Unlike the valley floor near the river, the soil here looked rocky and parched despite the spring meltwater filling the streams. 

At last they came to the trail’s end, a collection of tumbledown hovels long disused: a small cabin, barn, and outhouse built of cottonwood logs chinked with earth, and roofed with sod.  The barn looked as though it were folding into itself, walls tilting crazily around a roof collapsing between them.  The cabin seemed in better condition, though the sod gaped wide in places, promising ruin within.  Only the outhouse appeared sound, if weatherbeaten.  Traces of the old fence lines and vegetable patches gone to weeds were evident as well.

Cash jumped down from the saddle, leaving his mount to forage as it would, and peered inside the cabin.  “Might be more comfortable to sleep in the privy,” he called back to the others, then stepped through the door.

Tom stopped next to the wagon and glanced up at Dove Ed.  “This your place?” he said.

“My father’s.  I left after he passed.”

“Why didn’t you sell?”

“Nobody wanted to buy it.”

Tom laughed and nodded before following Cash into the cabin.  Dove Ed waited on the seat of the wagon.  It surprised him how much the run down farm felt like home; in truth, it wasn’t in much worse shape than when he had left.  He remembered dropping a wooden water pail by the door of the cabin that day, and when he looked he spotted it in more or less the same place, now half-rotted but otherwise undisturbed.  To his eye, no one had been here since his departure.

Cash and Tom, emerging from the gloom of the abandoned house, agreed with his assessment when he voiced it aloud.  “Nobody’s been in there but critters,” Cash said, “But they been making the most of it.”

“Let’s get the door in there,” Tom said.

Grunting and swearing, they heaved the iron door out of the wagon and carried it inside the cabin.  From the disintegrating roof, sunlight shone down on the wreckage of the rooms where Dove Ed had grown up.  Dirt, dust, and animal droppings covered every surface; the simple furniture had warped and cracked as the weather came in.  Debris cluttered the fireplace hearth and the floor around the one window, from which the shutter had come open at some point.  The odor of decay permeated the entire house; something, perhaps one of the critters, had found this a good place to die.  The three men wrestled the door to the far side of the room, opposite the fireplace.

“Let’s think on this,” Tom said as they manhandled the door, with part of the cage-like framework still attached, across the floor.  “We’re going to need timber and tools to put the door in the cave.”

“That means saws, hammers, spades, picks, maybe a couple of cold chisels,” Cash said.

“And provisions,” said Dove Ed.  “Water butts, bacon, cornmeal, beans…”

“Cartridges,” Tom said, grinning at Dove Ed.

“Pocketwatches, for target practice,” Dove Ed shot back.

“Whiskey,” said Cash.

“Amen,” said Tom.

The iron door clanged into place, resting upright against the wall.  Tom brushed off his hands in a “that’s that” gesture and said, “All right.  Let’s go to town.”

With the sun at their backs, falling towards the Samaria Mountains, their shadows reached into Malad City before them, Dove Ed driving the wagon and the others riding.  As they approached, Dove Ed pointed out to Tom and Cash various buildings that he recognized: the salt works, the Co-op, the Wells Fargo office and corral, Peck’s Hotel. 

“There’s Vanderwood’s store.  We can get provisions there, then head up to the sawmill for the timbers.”

Dove Ed halted the wagon in front of the store and jumped down before he realized that Tom and Cash had not followed.  He walked back to where they stood their horses, in front of the building beside Vanderwood’s, a neat white clapboard structure with wide glass windows and a tall façade.  They were appraising the signs on the storefront which read, “Owens and Price Bank & Saloon”.

“Handy,” Cash said.  “Put your wages in their bank, then spend it all in the saloon.”

            “It’s good defense to boot,” said Tom.  “Any man who comes in to rob the bank will probably get drunk first.”

“Not always,” said Dove Ed.  “One time a fellow stuck up Bryce Owens, then walked back into the saloon and paid for the drinks with his loot.  John Price sold him drinks until he had all the money back, then let the sheriff arrest him.”

Tom and Cash chuckled.  “But is it a decent place to get a drink?” Cash said.

“My pa favored it,” Dove Ed said.  “We could stop here on the way back from the sawmill.”

Already tethering their horses in front of the saloon, Tom and Cash looked at each other before Tom said, “Dove, my boy, the last whiskey we tasted was yours, five days ago in Corinne.  Before that, it’s been a thirsty couple of weeks.”

“I wouldn’t say no to a steak and a game of cards, either,” Cash said.  The two of them went into the saloon without another glance back. 

Dove Ed stood outside for a few moments, undecided.  He looked up and down the street; around him, people went about their business, paying him no mind.  Although Malad City looked much the same, things were not quite as he remembered.  He wondered if he had changed much. Would people here recognize him, and would it be better if they didn’t?  He couldn’t decide.  He turned and followed Tom and Cash across the board sidewalk into the saloon.

Inside, the room looked familiar, even if the people in it weren’t.  It seemed that the dozen or so tables hadn’t changed position even slightly since the night Dove Ed came to fetch his father home and found him apparently passed out at his favorite table in the corner.  The other men had left him to sleep it off, as they had a hundred nights before; they never noticed Hugh Williams had died until his son tried to shake him awake.  No one sat at that table now, and Dove Ed felt relief that Tom and Cash had chosen one closer to the ornate bar along the back wall of the room.  He joined them, taking a chair that faced away from the corner table.

            Cash sat with one foot propped on a chair and his hat off, enjoying the luxury of sitting in a chair after days in a saddle.  Tom stood at the bar with John Price himself, both of them regarding the array of bottles on the shelves as they discussed the finer points of various libations.  Come nightfall the saloon would fill to capacity, Dove Ed knew, but this early in the day, the saloon had few other patrons: a group of men near the front concentrating fiercely on their poker game, a couple of teamsters or muleskinners from the Salt Works.  No one Dove Ed recognized. 

            Tom returned to the table bearing a brown glass bottle and three glasses, which he distributed before pulling the cork from the bottle and pouring whiskey for each of them.  Dove Ed closed his hand around his glass, but left it on the table; Cash snatched his up and drank deep the instant the glass was full, holding it out for more even before Tom finished pouring for himself.

            Tom topped up both their glasses, then held his aloft, gazing at it with the light from the windows shining through it.  “Boys, there’s all sorts of brown in this world,” he said, as though he were a selectman making a speech.  “Chestnut brown like a good horse; brown saddle leather; muddy brown and dirt brown and dead grass brown.”

            “Your eyes is brown,” Cash said, “But only ‘cause you’re so full of shit.”

            Tom ignored him.  “But there is no brown in the world as beautiful as the brown of a glass of good whiskey after two weeks without!”  He upended his glass and drank it down in one swallow, then let his breath out in a long, happy sigh.  The familiar fumes wafted across the table at Dove Ed.

            “I’ll drink to that, by God,” Cash said, suiting action to words, then seizing the bottle and pouring both glasses full again.  He reached across to refill Dove Ed’s tumbler before he noticed it was untouched.  “What the hell, boy?  Drink up!”

            “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have a glass of beer,” Dove Ed said.  He pushed his whiskey into the middle of the table.  “Here, you drink this.”

            Cash and Tom glanced at each other in disbelief, then Tom guffawed and gathered in the stray tumbler.  Cash just shook his head.  Dove Ed rose and turned to the bar.  John Price, a slim old gent with his mustache gone gray to match his hair, was already drawing a beer from the keg under the bartop.  As Dove Ed dug in his pockets for payment, Price looked him up and down, and the boy felt his face get warm.

            “Williams, is it?” Price said.

            Dove Ed held up a half-dollar and looked Price in the eye.  “That’s right,” he said. 

            Price grunted and took the coin, handing back a quarter and the glass of beer.  Dove Ed took it and returned to the table, where Tom and Cash were pouring another round. 

            “John Price recognized me,” Dove Ed said in a low voice, holding the glass of beer up to his mouth to hide it from anyone else who might be watching.

            “Who?” said Cash.

            Dove Ed indicated the saloonkeeper with a cut of his eyes and sipped from the beer, warm and bitter but more welcome than the burn of whiskey.  “I was hoping he wouldn’t know me, but he does.  What do we do now?”

            Tom regarded him levelly, then raised his voice and called out, “Mr. Price, is it?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “My friend Dove Ed Williams here told us you serve an excellent whiskey, and I can see he was being truthful!”

            “Thank you, sir.”

            “I’m Tom Mulvehill, and this is Cash Joyner.  Dove Ed you already know.”  Dove Ed buried his face in his beer and took a long pull, hoping the panic didn’t show on his face.

            “Pleased to meet you both.  Is there anything else I can get for you?”

            “Now that you mention it, could we trouble you for some beefsteaks?  We’re all three of us a bit hungry.”

            “Yes sir, in no time at all.”  John Price hurried to the kitchen door and pushed through, calling, “Alice!  Three beefsteaks and plenty of potatoes!  Hop to it, girl!”

            Smiling, Cash rose from the table and said, “Meantime…”  He took his glass with him to the table full of poker players and soon had a stack of chips and a hand of cards.

            Tom said, “Stop trying to hide in your beer, boy.”

            “But now they know our names.”  Something about the whole thing seemed wrong to Dove Ed.

            “Yeah, but they don’t care, because we’ve done nothing wrong.  If we come slinking into town, talking out of the corner of our mouths, trying not to be noticed, then everyone will be after us to figure out what we’re up to.”  He gestured over at the poker game, then at the saloon at large.  “Instead, Cash is striking up conversations with people, we’re having a quiet drink, and no one is paying the least attention to us.”

            Looking around, Dove Ed had to admit that Tom seemed to know what he was talking about.  He felt a little foolish and it must have shown, because Tom clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Chin up, boy.  Enjoy yourself.”  He got up from his chair, saying, “I’m for the privy.  If Price comes back, ask him for another bottle of the same, and some water as well.”  He strolled off to the back of the building.

            In minutes, John Price returned, bearing plates and followed by a woman carrying utensils and a large serving bowl.  They whisked around the table, setting out the places and the food: huge slabs of pan-seared beef and mountains of spuds.  At Cash’s gesture, Price took his plate over to the poker game, leaving the woman to put out butter, salt, napkins and the like.  Dove Ed at once reached to dish out some potatoes; he breathed in the savory aroma of the steak and the gravy and his stomach rumbled in anticipation.  As he did, he realized that the woman was looking at him curiously.

            When he met her gaze, the woman said, “Here, aren’t you Dove Ed Williams?”  He noticed that she pronounced his name properly, and her words carried the inflections peculiar to the Welshmen of the Malad Valley.  Although he couldn’t place her face, which was younger than he first thought, something about her high forehead, wide green eyes, and the delicate curls of her pale brown hair seemed familiar as well.  The fair skin of her cheeks was flushed from her work in the kitchen, and she wore an apron over her simple yellow dress with the sleeves pushed up.

            “You don’t recognize me, do you?” she said.  When she smiled at him, Dove Ed became intensely aware of his unshaven chin, his unwashed hands, and the worn state of his clothes.  Most of all, he felt his mouth hanging open and he blinked, searching for something to say.

            “I’m Alice,” she said.  “Alice Parry.  Well, I was Alice Parry; now I’m Alice Morgan.”

            He got to his feet, fumbling his hat from his head and his chair back from the table.  “Pleased to meet…I mean, see you again, Miss Alice.  You sure look different.”

            “Is that good or bad?”  Mischief gleamed in her eyes and quirked the corner of her mouth, confusing Dove Ed further.  He twisted his hat in his hands until she took pity on him and said, “Never mind, I didn’t recognize you either.  John Price told me it was you and I wanted to see for myself.  You’ve gotten taller.”

            It was true; the last time he’d seen Alice she had at least a head’s height on him.  Now he had the advantage.  It gave him a curious feeling to see her tilting her face to look up at him, thrilling and frightening and intoxicating all at once.  He searched for something, anything, to say.  “You’ve gotten older,” he said, and when she laughed he knew he hadn’t phrased it properly.  He stared at the tips of his shoes.

            She took him by the elbow and turned him back toward the table.  “Here, sit down and eat before it gets cold,” she said.  She spooned some potatoes onto his plate for him.  “Would you like some more to drink?”

            When he said he would, she went to the bar to refill his mug with beer, giving him time to marshal his thoughts so that when she returned, he had thought of something to say.  “Which Morgan did you marry?  Cattle Morgan or Thin Morgan?”

            Among the Welshmen of the Malad River Valley, shared names were common enough that some specificity was required when referring to an individual.  Both Cattle Morgan and Thin Morgan bore the Christian name of Thomas, but Cattle did ranch work and sported a paunchy belly, in direct contrast to Thin.  Once at a town meeting the clerk called for Brother Evans to step forward and eight men stood up.  “My apologies,” said the clerk.  “I meant John W. Evans.”  Five of the men sat down.

            Now Alice shook her head and said, “Neither one.  I married Bill Morgan, but he passed away from fever more than a year ago now.”

“Oh.  That’s too bad,” said Dove Ed, embarrassed again.  He chewed a bite of steak and essayed a weak smile, but the silence between them stretched.  Alice looked away and smoothed her apron with both hands.  Behind her, Dove Ed saw Tom returning to the table from the back of the saloon.

“Is that my steak?” he said as he approached.  He glanced at Alice as he passed, but before he could sit he turned a more appraising look on her and reached up to touch the brim of his hat.  “Excuse my bad manners, miss.  This surely looks delicious.  Do you think we could have some biscuits as well?”’

“Of course.”  Alice went back to the kitchen, and Tom kept his eyes on her the whole way.  When she disappeared through the door, Tom nudged Dove Ed with his elbow and dug into his food.

“What?” Dove Ed said.

Tom grinned through a mouthful of steak and potatoes.  “I saw the way you was looking at her,” he said.  “You know that girl?”

“That’s Alice.  Her ma used to look after me when I was little, after my Ma passed.”

“I expect you wouldn’t mind if Alice looked after you now, would you?”

Dove Ed didn’t like the way Tom said it, like it was a joke or something.  He applied himself to his supper without answering.  Tom chuckled and followed suit.

Soon Alice returned with a basket of fresh biscuits wrapped in a checked cloth, which she set on the table between them.  Tom thanked her and said, “Dove Ed tells me you two grew up together.  I’m Tom Mulvehill.” 

He extended his hand, and when she took it he pressed her fingers gently to his lips, then looked her up and down.  “You ask me,” he said, “You’ve done a sight more growing up than Dove Ed here.”

Dove Ed felt the color on his cheeks; the angry flush spread from there through his entire body.  To his surprise, though, Alice did not shrink from Tom’s frank stare.  Instead she gave it right back, a knowing smile on her lips.  Her hand still in his she said, “What brings you to town, Mr. Mulvehill?”

“Tom, please.”  When she didn’t respond he said, “We had an idea to do some prospecting.  We thought we might go as far as Montana, but from what I can see we’ll do just fine right here.”

From behind the bar John Price called out to Alice.  More customers had come in and the saloon was filling up.  Alice took her hand back from Tom and said, “Then I’ll hope to see you both in here again soon, Mr. Mulvehill.  Dove Ed.”  As she turned from the table, she gave a small wink in Dove Ed’s direction, then whisked away to the kitchen.

Tom pursed his lips and whistled softly.  “Damn, boy, you can have all of that you want, I’ll wager.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom.”

“I guess you don’t.  In that case, you won’t mind if I try my luck.”

Dove Ed shook his head, but his chest felt tight just thinking about it.  As he picked at the rest of his meal, he realized that he had lied to Tom.  He did mind.