by Téa Obreht
He could stand to talk a little less. And I’d say he’s sat astride a horse and looked downvalley at more than one Sioux camp in his day. But he’s far pleasanter than any of the other Stock Association bigmen.
Excepting his name is the only one comes up whispered when somebody sells for next to nothing, or takes off in the middle of the night.
Precisely.
But didn’t he give account of himself? Didn’t he come to Josie’s séance and ask her to call up Mister Fint Colson to see if he was dead? And didn’t he sit there just as patient as a cloud while Josie fussed and fussed and couldn’t find no trace of Mister Fint Colson at all in the firmament—which surely proved he wasn’t dead?
Evelyn, you can be so dispiritingly gullible. His only purpose there was to let everybody know he hears what’s said about him in town. That’s plain enough to anyone with an ounce of sense. And anyone who thinks otherwise probably hasn’t read a thing but the Ash River Clarion in a long time.
Mama. For someone who’s so down on the papers, you sure have a lot to say in them. I hope you’re ready to explain yourself to Desma about it.
JOSIE, FOR ALL HER INTERMEDIARY powers, had turned out to be devoid of the only gift that might have been of use: divination. The girl could call down your aunt who’d succumbed to typhoid eighteen years ago, but she could not, by either occult power nor observation, deduce that last year’s poor snowfall might beget this year’s poor snowfall; that no arroyos would flow come spring; that every thunderstorm that looked to be massing nearby would veer suddenly or dissipate. She had failed to predict this drought just as she had failed to predict the grasshoppers that ate the paint off Lenore’s house in Wyoming. Most damningly, perhaps, she had been as surprised as anyone when the notice came out in the Ash River Clarion the previous summer.
The territorial legislature has introduced a vote on whether to move the Carter County seat of governance from Amargo to Ash River. The Ash River Clarion cannot endorse any position on this point. But it is our solemn duty to invite our valued readers to debate the matter in the coming weeks.
Emmett had spread the newspaper over the kitchen table for the benefit of Nora and Josie. As they all read it together, he had proceeded to roar with some strange combination of mirth and fury until the boys abandoned their various chores and came to see what all the noise was about. Each in turn edged ahead of Nora to scowl at Bertrand Stills’s tiny indecipherable print: Dolan, freshly reeking from some expensive ablution; Toby forever underfoot for fear of being left out; Rob, touchy as a cat and in bad need of a haircut.
“Well,” Emmett said at last. “That’s the county seat gone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Nora. “We’ve had it in Amargo damn near twenty years.”
“And it’s been a valiant run. But just you wait and see where their valued readers come down in the debate.”
The first letter firmly behind the move to Ash River came roaring off the Clarion’s front page one week later. Its author was a woman whose name Nora did not recognize. “Says here she lives on the south fork of Inés Creek,” Nora muttered. “Where the hell is that?” The boys stood reading over her shoulder. Every so often, Emmett’s finger would alight on a phrase outlining some topic he had wagered would arise: the tide of newcomers lately drawn to Ash River; the well-stocked Mercantile; the new telephone generously provided, and new road generously paved, by Mister Merrion Crace of the Crace Cattle Company.
These merits were echoed some days later by a geologist writing to support the move for reasons particular to his expertise. Emmett was so animated by the write-up that he didn’t even bother to come all the way inside before he started reading. “One must consider,” he shouted from the door, “the degree to which Ash River’s terrain—being flat and navigable—would improve freighting and transport.”
“That’s not a bad point,” Dolan put in. He had developed a habit of pausing midway through some unnecessary labor and standing around until Josie noticed and remarked upon whatever he was doing. This time, however, scrubbing spuds at the basin, she seemed immune to the charms of the ax gamely cocked on his shoulder. Dolan cleared his throat. She did not look up. “That is to say: the Amargo Canyon Road is a terrible mail route.”
Emmett went on reading. “Further to my last is the question of water. Amargo’s meager resources sufficed the founders of this community—the Widow Ruiz, her late husband and the handful of stalwarts who first proved up here. But as our ranks swell, and we face another year of scant precipitation, and consider annexation to the United States besides, we must inquire: Will every new emigrant live permanently at risk of drought? Will the advent of the twentieth century see the United States move on, while we of Carter County continue to rely on the dubious sorcery of well-witches? And, most vitally of all: is Amargo more likely than Ash River to obtain a connection to the new railroad now being extended from Prescott to Phoenix; and, if not, will we go on governing our county from a seat that remains forever inland?”
Even Rob couldn’t help hooting at this. “It’s some damn nonsense, suggesting Ash River’s a surer play for the railroad than we are. Mama—ain’t they been promising one since before I was born?”
“They certainly have.”
“That’s what people do.” Dolan, still with the ax, sauntered back in. “They wager you’ll forget someone else has already failed on the promise they’re making. And people do forget, you know. They surely do.”
“Do you intend some use for that thing?” Nora said. “Or is it just grafted to your hand?”
A red tinge blotched Dolan’s face. She tried to think of something to lighten the silence, but Emmett was still musing on. “I’m not certain a railroad is so far-fetched for Ash River. Merrion Crace pastures—what? Two thousand head in the valley? Once he manages to wrest the last of the creekfront from Desma, he can add two thousand more. He’ll need a ready way to ship them back east. The Stock Association’s organized and already persuaded. They could handily fund a little shoestring to the Prescott-Phoenix line.”
“I’d like to see him wrest anything from Desma,” Nora said.
“You will.” She wished he would stop smiling. Nothing was more galling to her than that wistful condescension. “When Ash River wins the seat, Amargo will go bust and Desma along with it. He won’t have to send one more clerk to harry her, nor fire a single shot. He’ll end up paying pennies on what he offered her three years ago—if he pays her anything at all. It’s inspired, really.”
“I’m in wonderment that you can endure it so coolly. This isn’t chess, you know. We live here, too. If Desma folds, so do we all.”
He spoke without looking up from the Clarion. “One doesn’t fold in chess.”
In the intervening months, she had often regretted her inability to summon a smarting enough reply. “Surely not everyone can be in favor of moving the seat.”
“You’re damn right, Mama,” said Rob.
Emmett shrugged. “Of course not. But I told you, they’ll only ever print the ones who are.”
“Why aren’t we printing the rest?”
“What rest?”
“The rebuttals.”
“If there’s rebuttals, they’re not coming in to the Sentinel.”
This was beyond endurance. Since when had he ever relied on others’ words to fill his pages? Certainly not when he was decrying the miner’s plight, or enumerating the sins of the latest Indian agent, or scurrying off to the mountains to ask the old-timers exactly how much snowfall they’d had, and just how much more they could earnestly prophesy. “Then write you something, Mister Lark.”
“I suppose I may.”
To calm herself, she aimed all the false exuberance she could muster in Rob’s direction. “On the bright side, should Ash River become a proper cattle-town, you might consider staying here after all, and not go grumbling off to Montana.”
Rob looked darkly from her to Josie, and back down at the boot he was patching.
For a little while, Emmett seemed to undertake the task of drafting some response. He stayed up nights writing, and it heartened her to see his forehead so often in his hand by lamplight. But time went on, and this supposed answer went unprinted. When he’d fared off in spring—hurrying to Flagstaff when the ink delivery failed—she brooded the secret hope that he had left because the article was finally meant to run, and he could not bear to linger and be praised for it. But not a word appeared. Nothing.
The next reader to favor moving the county seat was some Ash River schoolmarm. She feared Amargo’s reputation was still too proximate to its lawless early days to make it reliably representative of the county. “We need only consider,” Emmett, loudly mirthful, read, “the significant fact that the Amargo Canyon Road seems to remain a haven of villains and badmen, while the Ash River Road is spared these blights.”
“We ought to go over there,” Rob had said. “We ought to go over there, and give the Ash River Road a taste of what blights really are.”
Emmett looked at him. “You leave off that kind of talk.”
“But there’ve been no holdups on the Amargo Canyon Road, Papa. None at all.”
“There will be,” Emmett said. “Closer to the vote.”
Sure enough, in July, a holdup was reported. In what was probably the longest tract of text Nora had ever seen committed to a Clarion column, a traveler from Prescott detailed his encounter with two hatted men on “stole-looking” horses who delayed him for three hours near the Cortez aguaje before relieving him of his purse and boots. His trials were considerably worsened by the long, barefoot trek into Amargo to notify Sheriff Harlan Bell of this depredation. “Imagine my anguish,” Dolan read, in a profoundly nasal mimicry of the writer’s voice, “to learn that my reward would be a further three hours’ detour to a parched little pueblo, where Sheriff Harlan Bell, a rough man of unsympathetic disposition, directed me to an establishment he referred to as a ‘hotel’—which turned out to be a drafty ruin as old as the frontier itself, where the apex of hospitality was being assigned a room whose windows had not been shot out.”
“Moss Riley will take exception to that,” Nora said. “He’s let the Paloma House go a little, sure—but it’s still a very fine place.”
Emmett’s head, fixed in a sour smile, floated around the parlor door. “Ah, poor wretched pilgrim. If only Ash River were the county seat—then the Sheriff’s office would be there, mere steps from all the new hotels, and not here in this backwater.”
Dolan rustled the paper in his father’s direction. “I believe their point is: it’s a no-water.”
This glibness was got from Emmett’s side of the family, and it did not suit Dolan at all. Nora found herself unbearably provoked. What were they doing, sitting here in the kitchen, chuckling at the inevitable dissolution of the town—as though that smug pedant, Bertrand Stills, were the sole owner of a printhouse in the entire valley? As though they were powerless to do anything but shrug and be swept away?
“How’s that rebuttal coming along?” she said.
“It is, by and by.”
“A year ago you wouldn’t have slept for writing.”
Emmett was a smiling man. Years of sunburn tinged his good-natured creases. In the rare instances his face hardened, the effect was sudden and repudiating. “We’ll see.”
“We ought to go and show our force,” Rob interrupted from his corner, “before the stages reroute to avoid all these so-called depredations.”
But it was too late, even for that. Next came a lament penned by Ferdy Kostic, that sniveling, bowlegged little Slav who carried the mail. His duties had been adversely impacted, for the Overland stages were beginning to deliver all freight to Ash River. He supposed this sudden turn rested equally on their fear of depredation and the conviction that Ash River was sure to win the seat. It pained him personally to reflect on this, as he himself called Amargo home. But he could only concern himself with practical matters: if Amargo retained the county seat, he would be obliged to travel all the way to Ash River for the mail, and then all the way back, thereby delaying its delivery.
“He should move there, then,” Nora said. “And see how the women of Ash River like it when he starts peering through their windows.”
“We’ll all be moving soon enough,” Emmett said.
What galled her most was that Emmett lacked the decency to sound grim about this prospect. Something thrilled in his voice, the anticipation of new possibilities. Well, of course. Here was a chance to get away from all his mistakes and shortfalls. You couldn’t blame a man for losing his lifework to a town going bust.
“If you’d be good enough to finish that rebuttal we might yet stand some chance of slowing the course of this madness,” she said.
“I am taking my time with what to say.”
“Why not ask someone for whom the matter is more urgent? Desma, perhaps?”
“Desma? She’s in mourning. She’s got her hands full now with two claims, and all those Land Office bilks coming by to harry her, miles of paperwork. Don’t be bothering Desma.”
“What about your other readers? Don’t you have any?”
“I tell you, nobody has written in about this.”
“Because they’ve learned you won’t print it. They’re dumbfounded by your silence. They’ve read nothing these last months but weather predictions and amusing little ditties about who’s visiting whom from out of town.”
The more heated Emmett grew in a quarrel, the stiller he stood. Even his jaw barely moved. “Nora, that seat was lost the instant Merrion Crace sank his greasy, limey bribes into the legislature’s pockets,” he said. “It would be useless to stir up something about it now.”
“Let me do it,” she said. “Let me write something.”
“You will not.”
“Let her, Pa,” Rob said.
“I needn’t write it under my own name.”
The boys were watching closely now. Emmett removed his spectacles. “Mark this carefully: we will not be standing toe-to-toe with Merrion Crace’s newspaper three months ahead of a vote he means to win.”
“Perhaps if we had enough mettle to, we wouldn’t have found ourselves so debt-drowned that it will relieve you to abandon our home and printing press when the town goes bust.”
He stared patiently at her. “If you’re so damn hot over it, maybe it would do you some good to get it all down on paper.”
* * *
—
She took on this recommendation with vigor. Having written nothing save letters in years, she looked forward to ordering her thoughts toward some greater purpose—but they were scattershot by anger. After reading Ferdy Kostic’s letter one final time in the drafty gloom of four in the morning, before the pages disappeared forever down the privy, she managed to write a meandering defense of life in Amargo. She wrote of the town’s early days, back when it was just a silver camp on the shores of Big Fork Creek; of Desma and Rey Ruiz, weathering drought and depredation; of the small band of firstcomers all sleeping under canvas together; of Harlan Bell, post-riding before he ever dreamed of becoming Sheriff; of Doc Almenara, who’d given up a vainglorious life in San Francisco to work good deeds on this little scald of earth.
Nora wondered, given her feelings upon first moving here, how she’d managed to churn up so much goodwill writing about it now. Perhaps the old folks had been right—getting mawkish about one’s life, no matter its substance, took nothing but time.
Or perhaps she was a passable writer, after all.
The more she revisited her points, however, the more their underlying truths seemed to defeat her purpose. You could not speak of life in Amargo without mentioning solitude. Or snakes. Or the unavoidable fact that this valley, once green enough to fool farmers, laid it
s hopes year after year on the promise of winter snowfall a hundred miles distant, which these two seasons past had failed to revive so much as a thread of clear water in any of the creeks its people had staked their claims around.
And then there was the heat, of course.
Don’t bring up the heat, Mama, Evelyn said over her shoulder. Then you will have to talk about me, and no good will come of that.
If the truth of their little town was less than Edenic, perhaps the right way to rally her neighbors’ hearts was to address what losing the county seat would cost them. Already, they’d lost two stage lines. Their Mercantile, their post office, their freight contracts would follow. Maintown, inevitably, would fall to ruin. People would find themselves forced to travel three, perhaps four days, for mail and flour, for the mere sight of another soul. This would lead to the eventual abandonment of all the remaining homesteads—a decampment far greater than even the drought had induced. And then what? Their claims, which Merrion Crace had been slowly buying off one plot at a time from the defeated and the willing, would be overrun by his cattle without his having to pay so much as a cent to the people who had broken those acres. And the only task left to Merrion Crace would be to wait for the waters to return, and the whole place to green up again—this time without a soul to object, or a fence to get around. Well. Wouldn’t he like that?
Her writings descended into profanity.
I doubt this is the way to proceed, Mama, Evelyn said.
I confess I’m beginning to understand why your father gave up.
Perhaps you should consider telling a meaningful interlude about your own life in Amargo?
There was sense in that, of course. But where to begin? Should she detail the great odds she and Emmett had beaten to stake up here? Or start even further back? Was there merit in calling down the spirit of her father? After all, nothing bestirred frontier spirit more than the enterprising adaptability of others—and Gustav Volk, for all his faults, had boasted life enough for twenty people. Following an inauspicious start in dentistry back in Laibach, he’d come over and tried on the mantles of hostler, assayer, and postmaster in just a few short years. His ultimate iteration was as a lumber-mill foreman of Morton Hole, a sturdy little burg in the new free state of Iowa, where Nora’s mother joined him two years later with those of her children still living.
