The Hard Road Up

A pair of dirty hands placed an item on the pawn shop’s counter. From the other side, clean hands reached forth with smartly pressed cuffs and unfolded the rags. The item within was an old and well-used revolver. The clean hands turned the gun this way and that.

“Got a belt for this?”

“No sir, I ain’t even got a holster.”

The clean hands opened the chamber and gave it a spin. Satisfied, they clapped the chamber shut and put the revolver back on the counter. “Give you seventeen dollars.”

“It’s worth fifty, at least.”

“If you took care of it maybe.”

“Come on now, that’s all I got left in the world.”

“Seventeen dollars.”

A pause. “All right.”

The clean hands took the gun off the counter and came back moments later with a small wad of bills. The hands counted off the money onto the table. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.” The dirty hands took the money and began to flip through the bills. The pointer finger of one of the clean hands tapped lightly on the counter. “I just counted it.”

The dirty hands stopped counting and shuffled the money away. Their owner turned from the counter and walked from the pawn shop as its owner stared balefully after him. The dirty man blinked in the bright sunlight and turned off to the left. He stooped as he walked, his shoulders hunched beneath a tattered brown jacket. He was too fat and clothes didn’t fit him well. Everything he wore hung off him at strange angles. His cheeks were dusted with sparse whiskers.

The respectably dressed people of Dunntree turned in his wake and looked at him. Now and then they’d whisper to one another. He had a guess as to what they were whispering. He bent further into his slouch, as if it would help him fade away from their gaze.

He adjusted his bowler hat to better keep the sun out of his eyes and, squinting, saw the Second Turn Saloon ahead.

“Miss Sarah?”

The woman didn’t hear him and kept pretending to giggle as the bar patron dandled her on his lap.

The dirty man cleared his throat. “Miss Sarah?”

The seated couple looked up to see the dirty man standing before them, clutching his hat to his chest. The woman’s face glassed over. She had clearly been girlish and pretty once, but now had begun showing signs of hard wear. “Yeah?”

“Could I talk with you a spell?”

“What about?”

“Alone?”

The man whose lap she sat on sneered. “Shit no she can’t talk, I got here first. I got first dibs for the evening, partner.”

The woman turned to him. “I ain’t seen any of your money yet so unless you’re payin’, I can talk to whoever the hell I want,” she snapped.

“Fuck this.” The man stood abruptly, dumping her into an adjacent chair.

Sarah glared at him as he stormed off. She sighed, then turned back to the dirty man. She smiled smarmily. “There, now we can talk alone. What.”

The dirty man took a shuddering breath and began to speak. He’d practiced this speech a few times on the way into town, but now his courage failed him. “Well Miss Sarah, don’t you look pretty. I was... was wondering, if it wouldn’t be an imposition, would you like to go on a ride in the country with me this evening. Ma’am.”

Her eyebrows screwed together. “A ride?”

“Yes ma’am. In the country.”

“You paying?”

“Uh...” He had begun turning his hat against his chest. “I don’t want nothing untoward, mind you. I am just asking the pleasure of your company.”

“Like a polite society couple, am I right?” She took out a cigarette and lit it. She breathed a cloud. “My company costs twenty dollars for a half hour.”

He stammered and reached into his pocket. He removed the bundle of bills he’d gotten from the pawn shop. “I... I got seventeen. I get paid at the end of the month though, I’m good for it.”

Sarah stared at the bills and didn’t take them. “Where you work?”

“Over at the Stansford Ranch.”

“A ranch hand, huh? Sorry, seventeen’s not going to cut it. I don’t give credit.”

“But I don’t want to do nothing out of order, I just want-”

“What do you want? A date? At a discount? That don’t happen.” The woman saw his chest cave in, somewhat, and his gaze droop to the floorboards. Her face softened and she ticked her cigarette free of ash. “I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“Ned, ma’am. Ned Cutty.”

“Look, Ned, I don’t mean to drag you down but you’re trying to be something you ain’t. You’re a ranch hand can’t afford to buy a razor, and I’m not a lady. I’m a whore. You and me? We’re pieces of shit.”

Ned raised his eyes again. “We can be better, though.”

The woman shook her head with a sad smile. “Ned, honey, you come back with twenty dollars and we can be whatever you like for a half hour.”

He stepped out onto the street again. The sun had begun to set, as he’d planned, during the time he and Miss Sarah would be taking their ride. He reached the wagon and untied the horses, stepped to the side and stopped.

Someone had carved THEIF SCUM into one of the wagon’s planks. He turned and looked down the street to see that a good number of people were looking back at him. He turned back, sighed and climbed into the wagon.

Ned rode out of Dunntree.

It was early evening when he rode under the arched sign above the road leading into Stansford Ranch. A large white house glowed warmly out at a dusty yard ringed with a barn, a cow pen, a flagpole and a number of careless chickens toddled around it all.

He pulled the wagon in behind the barn, then got out and grabbed a hammer from the wagonbed. He peered around the side of the barn. When he was satisfied that no one was coming, he wrenched the vandalized plank from the side of the wagon and tossed it on a pile of cast-off wood scraps. He stared at THEIF SCUM for a moment more, then turned the plank over and positioned other pieces of trash on top of it.

He walked into the house. “That you, Mister Cutty?”

“Yes ma’am,” Ned called back. He walked into the dining room. Here, another ranch hand named Jake sat at a long wooden table finishing a plate of food. He was similarly ragged, in clothes that he’d been wearing all week. He gripped his tin spoon in his fist and shoveled, taking a moment to nod to Ned in greeting.

A clattering of pots came from the adjoining kitchen. A head poked from the lighted doorway, there. Mrs. Stansford said “You missed supper but I fixed a plate for you.” She brought it out and set it on the table.

“Oh, thank you ma’am.” He sat down.

“Evenin’, Ned!” Mr. Stansford boomed as he walked into the room. “You’re back sooner than I’d expected. How’d it go?” He clapped Ned on the shoulder and sat at the head of the table. He wore clothes that told that he hadn’t worked today. He hadn’t worked much at all in the past few years, in fact. The farm had done well and success had made him soft and jocular.

“Very good, Mister Stansford, thank you for letting me use the wagon.”

“Not at all. So?”

Ned gripped his spoon and blinked back at his boss uncomfortably. “So?”

“How’d it go, the big date with your girl? What’s her name?”

“Oh, that. Uh... Sarah.”

“Sarah. Pretty name. Tell me about her, what’s she do?”

He put the spoon down and placed his hands in his lap. “She’s a schoolteacher.”

Jake, nearby, raised his eyebrows and nearly choked on his last mouthful. He got up and cleared his plate.

“We rode around in the wagon for a bit, and stopped by a stream. It was very nice.”

“That’s great, are you going to see her again?”

“Sure am.” Ned coughed into his fist and continued. “Oh, Mister Stansford, some kids vandalized the wagon. Tore one of the planks clean off.”

His boss’s face clouded over. “Ahh, shit, Ned! I told you to keep a watch on that wagon or you wouldn’t be allowed to use it again.”

“Yes sir. I sure am sorry. I’ll fix it in the morning.”

“You’re damn right you will.” Mr. Stansford ground his teeth for a moment, then shrugged and stood. “Get a good night’s rest, you n’ Jake’ve got ten acres of fence to start patching tomorrow.” He left the dining room.

Ned Cutty stared at his plate. His face took on the cast of a defiant child. He spoke to himself, under his breath. “Fuckin’ talk to me like that.” He imagined standing and overturning the table, sending the plate flying. “I’ll get my gun.” In his mind he pistol-whipped Mr. Stansford across the face. “Shoot you dead. Shoot you both dead, take everything you got and burn this shithole to the ground,” he whispered fiercely. He would leave the Stansford house in flames as he rode away on the wagon with everything he would need to start a new life. He’d laugh as he passed beneath the sign. Maybe he’d light that on fire too. Maybe he’d just light everything on fire.

His petulant expression passed, leaving a meek resignation in its place. He picked up his spoon again and began eating his cold dinner.

He walked out of the house and across the yard to the servants’ quarters. It was a clapboard shanty built alongside the barn. A single oil lamp hung on a peg above the beds. There were three stained cots with thin blankets. The wall opposite the cots had a wooden crucifix nailed in place. It shimmered with the flickering of the lamp.

Jake was here, lazily throwing a pocketknife into the wall. He managed to make it stick with every other shot or so. He looked up at Ned as he walked to his cot and lay down.

“Sarah the schoolteacher, eh?” Ned didn’t reply. Jake shrugged and threw the knife again. Thuck. “I don’t blame you for fibbing on that one, Missus Stansford’d lecture you good for seeing a whore. I been to see her myself, never thought to say I was on a date, though.” He laughed and plucked the knife from the wood, then looked to Ned. “What’s eatin’ you?”

Ned shrugged. “I just don’t feel like talking.”

“You been here for a month now and I can tell when you ‘just don’t feel like talking’ and when you’re in a foul mood. Somethin’ happened in town, yeah?”

“Yeah, something happened in town.”

“Well, what?” He threw the knife: thuck.

“She wanted money.”

Jake snorted. “Of course she wanted money.”

“It wasn’t like that. I went in there treating her like a lady.”

“That’s just like you, to treat a whore like an actual woman. I don’t understand you most times. You had the best life before you came here and now you’re askin’ whores out on dates and sayin’ please and thank you.”

“It wasn’t no kind of life. It was a shit life.”

“Sure. Having more money than you can spend, taking whatever and whoever whenever you want, riding with a gang, living free. Sounds awful.” Thuck.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Jake shrugged and threw his knife for a minute more in silence. Thuck, thuck, thuck. “You know,” he began again, “I bet if you tell Stansford what you used to do he’d not ride you so hard about the chores. He’d be too afraid.”

“I’m not telling him nothing and you ain’t neither. You just keep this quiet, I’m serious.”

“A few people in town know already.”

“Yeah, they do,” Ned said quietly.

“So I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“There’s no fuss. I’m just tryin’ to live normal.”

Thuck. Jake shook his head as he walked over to retrieve his knife. “Why anyone would want to live like this is beyond me.”

Ned turned over on his side and tried to sleep. He thought about Miss Sarah and how pretty she was. He’d try to see her after payday if Mr. Stansford let him take the wagon out ever again. He’d pay his twenty dollars to take her on a ride and have a little leftover to buy some nice flowers. He’d remember to buy a razor first. They’d ride by the creek and maybe see a heron, and she’d tell him what a lovely time she was having. The sunset sky would be a laughing pink and everything would be grand.

After a while he began to drift, and the sounds of the knife hitting the wall turned into distant gunfire and hooting voices, and they drifted with him as he went.