Andrews breakfasted at the hotel. In a narrow room at the rear of the first floor was a single long table, around which was scattered a number of the straight chairs that appeared to be the hotel’s principal furniture. Three men were at one end of the table, hunched together in conversation; Andrews sat alone at the other end. The clerk who had brought his water up the day before came into the dining room and asked Andrews if he wanted breakfast; when Andrews nodded, he turned and went toward the small kitchen behind the three men at the far end of the table. He walked with a small limp that was visible only from the rear. He returned with a tray that held a large plate of beans and hominy grits, and a mug of steaming coffee. He put the food before Andrews, and reached to the center of the table for an open dish of salt.
“Where could I find McDonald this time of the morning?” Andrews asked him.
“In his office,” the clerk said. “He’s there most of the time, day and night. Go straight down the road, toward the creek, and turn off to your left just before you get to the patch of cottonwoods. It’s the little shack just this side of the brining pits.”
“The brining pits?”
“For the hides,” the clerk said. “You can’t miss it.”
Andrews nodded. The clerk turned again and left the room. Andrews ate slowly; the beans were lukewarm and tasteless even with salt, and the hominy grits were mushy and barely warmed through. But the coffee was hot and bitter; it numbed his tongue and made him pull his lips tight along his even white teeth. He drank it all, as swiftly as the heat would allow him.
By the time he finished breakfast and went into the street, the sun had risen high above the few buildings of the town and was bearing down upon the street with an intensity that seemed almost material. There were more people about than there had been the afternoon before, when he first had come into the town; a few men in dark suits with bowler hats mingled with a larger number more carelessly dressed in faded blue levis, soiled canvas, or broadcloth. They walked with some purpose, yet without particular hurry, upon the sidewalk and in the street; amid the drab shades of the men’s clothing there was occasionally visible the colorful glimpse—red, lavender, pure white—of a woman’s skirt or blouse. Andrews pulled the brim of his slouch hat down to shade his eyes, and walked along the street toward the clump of trees beyond the town.
He passed the leather goods shop, the livery stable, and a small open-sided blacksmith shop. The town ended at that point, and he stepped off the sidewalk onto the road. About two hundred yards from the town was the turnoff that the clerk had described; it was little more than twin ribbons of earth worn bare by passing wheels. At the end of this path, a hundred yards or so from the road, was a small flat-roofed shack, and beyond that a series of pole fences, arranged in a pattern he could not make out at this distance. Near the fences, at odd angles, were several empty wagons, their tongues on the earth in directions away from the fences. A vague stench that Andrews could not identify grew stronger as he came nearer the office and the fences.
The shack door was open. Andrews paused, his clenched hand raised to knock; inside the single room was a great clutter of books, papers, and ledgers scattered upon the bare wood floor and piled unevenly in the corners and spilling out of crates set against the walls. In the center of this, apparently crowded there, a man in his shirt sleeves sat hunched over a rough table, thumbing with intense haste the heavy pages of a ledger; he was cursing softly, monotonously.
“Mr. McDonald?” Andrews said.
The man looked up, his small mouth open and his brows raised over protuberant blue eyes whose whites were of the same shaded whiteness as his shirt. “Come in, come in,” he said, thrusting his hand violently up through the thin hair that dangled over his forehead. He pushed his chair back from the table, started to get up, and then sat back wearily, his shoulders slumping.
“Come on in, don’t just stand around out there.”
Andrews entered and stood just inside the doorway. McDonald waved in the direction of a corner behind Andrews, and said:
“Get a chair, boy, sit down.”
Andrews drew a chair from behind a stack of papers and placed it in front of McDonald’s desk.
“What do you want—what can I do for you?” McDonald asked.
“I’m Will Andrews. I reckon you don’t remember me.”
“Andrews?” McDonald frowned, regarding the younger man with some hostility. “Andrews....” His lips tightened; the corners of his mouth went down into the lines that came up from his chin. “Don’t waste my time, goddammit; if I’d remembered you I’d have said something when you first came in. Now—”
“I have a letter,” Andrews said, reaching into his breast pocket, “from my father. Benjamin Andrews. You knew him in Boston.”
McDonald took the letter that Andrews held in front of him. “Andrews? Boston?” His voice was querulous, distracted. His eyes were on Andrews as he opened the letter. “Why, sure. Why didn’t you say you were—Sure, that preacher fellow.” He read the letter intently, moving it about before his eyes as if that might hasten his perusal. When he had finished, he refolded the letter and let it drop onto a stack of papers on the table. He drummed his fingers on the table. “My God! Boston. It must have been twelve, fourteen years ago. Before the war. I used to drink tea in your front parlor.” He shook his head wonderingly. “I must have seen you at one time or another. I don’t even remember.”
“My father has spoken of you often,” Andrews said.
“Me?” McDonald’s mouth hung open again; he shook his head slowly; his round eyes seemed to swivel in their sockets. “Why? I only saw him maybe half a dozen times.” His gaze went beyond Andrews, and he said without expression: “I wasn’t anybody for him to speak of. I was a clerk for some dry goods company. I can’t even remember its name.”
“I think my father admired you, Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said.
“Me?” He laughed shortly, then glowered suspiciously at Andrews. “Listen, boy. I went to your father’s church because I thought I might meet somebody that would give me a better job, and I started going to those little meetings your father had for the same reason. I never even knew what they were talking about, half the time.” He said bitterly, “I would just nod at anything anybody said. Not that it did a damn bit of good.”
“I think he admired you because you were the only man he ever knew who came out here—who came west, and made a life for himself.”
McDonald shook his head. “Boston,” he half whispered. “My God!”
For another moment he stared beyond Andrews. Then he lifted his shoulders and took a breath. “How did old Mr. Andrews know where I was?”
“A man from Bates and Durfee was passing through Boston. He mentioned you worked for the Company in Kansas City. In Kansas City, they told me you had quit them and come here.”
McDonald grinned tightly. “I have my own company now. I left Bates and Durfee four, five years ago.” He scowled, and one hand went to the ledger he had closed when Andrews entered the shack. “Do it all myself, now....Well.” He straightened again. “The letter says I should help you any way I can. What made you come out here, anyway?”
Andrews got up from the chair and walked aimlessly about the room, looking at the piles of papers.
McDonald grinned; his voice lowered. “Trouble? Did you get in some kind of trouble back home?”
“No,” Andrews said quickly. “Nothing like that.”
“Lots of boys do,” McDonald said. “That’s why they come out here. Even a preacher’s son.”
“My father is a lay minister in the Unitarian Church,” Andrews said.
“It’s the same thing.” McDonald waved his hand impatiently. “Well, you want a job? Hell, you can have a job with me. God knows I can’t keep up. Look at all this stuff.” He pointed to the stacked papers; his finger was trembling. “I’m two months behind now and getting further behind all the time. Can’t find anybody around here to sit still long enough to—”
“Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said. “I know nothing about your business.”
“What? You don’t what? Why, it’s hides, boy. Buffalo hides. I buy and sell. I send out parties, they bring in the hides. I sell them in St. Louis. Do my own curing and tanning right here. Handled almost a hundred thousand hides last year. This year—twice, three times that much. Great opportunity, boy. Think you could handle some of this paper work?”
“Mr. McDonald—”
“This paper work is what gets me down.” He ran his fingers through the thin black strands of hair that fell about his ears.
“I’m grateful, sir,” Andrews said. “But I’m not sure—”
“Hell, it’s only a start. Look.” With a thin hand like a claw he grasped Andrews’s arm above the elbow and pushed him toward the doorway. “Look out there.” They went into the hot sunlight; Andrews squinted and winced against the brightness. McDonald, still clutching at his arm, pointed toward the town. “A year ago when I came here there were three tents and a dugout over there—a saloon, a whorehouse, a dry goods store, and a blacksmith. Look at it now.” He pushed his face up to Andrews and said in a hoarse whisper, his breath sweet-sour from tobacco: “Keep this to yourself—but this town’s going to be something two, three years from now. I’ve got a half dozen lots staked out already, and the next time I get to Kansas City, I’m going to stake out that many more. It’s wide open!” He shook Andrews’s arm as if it were a stick; he lowered his voice, which had grown strident. “Look, boy. It’s the railroad. Don’t go talking this around; but when the railroad comes through here, this is going to be a town. You come in with me; I’ll steer you right. Anybody can stake out a claim for the land around here; all you have to do is sign your name to a piece of paper at the State Land Office. Then you sit back and wait. That’s all.”
“Thank you, sir,” Andrews said. “I’ll consider it.”
“Consider it!” McDonald released his arm and stepped back from him in astonishment. He threw up his hands and they fluttered as he walked around once in a tight, angry little circle. “Consider it? Why, boy, it’s an opportunity. Listen. What were you doing back in Boston before you came out here?”
“I was in my third year at Harvard College.”
“You see?” McDonald said triumphantly. “And what would you have done after your fourth year? You’d have gone to work for somebody, or you’d have been a schoolteacher, like old Mr. Andrews, or—Listen. There ain’t many like us out here. Men with vision. Men who can think to tomorrow.” He pointed a shaking hand toward the town. “Did you see those people back there? Did you talk to any of them?”
“No, sir,” Andrews said. “I only got in from Ellsworth yesterday afternoon.”
“Hunters,” McDonald said. His dry thin lips went loose and open as if he had tasted something rotten. “All hunters and hard cases. That’s what this country would be if it wasn’t for men like us. People just living off the land, not knowing what to do with it.”
“Are they mostly hunters in town?”
“Hunters, hard cases, a few eastern loafers. This is a hide town, boy. It’ll change. Wait till the railroad comes through.”
“I think I’d like to talk to some of them,” Andrews said.
“Who?” McDonald shouted. “Hunters? Oh, my God! Don’t tell me you’re like the other younguns that come in here. Three years at Harvard College, and you want to use it that way. I ought to have known it. I ought to have known it when you first came.”
“I just want to talk to some of them,” Andrews said.
“Sure,” McDonald said bitterly. “And the first thing you know, you’ll be wanting to go out.” His voice became earnest. “Listen, boy. Listen to me. You start going out with those men, it’ll ruin you. Oh, I’ve seen it. It gets in you like buffalo lice. You won’t care any more. Those men—” Andrews clawed in the air, as if for a word.
“Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said quietly, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. But I want to try to explain something to you. I came out here—” He paused and let his gaze go past McDonald, away from the town, beyond the ridge of earth that he imagined was the river bank, to the flat yellowish green land that faded into the horizon westward. He tried to shape in his mind what he had to say to McDonald. It was a feeling; it was an urge that he had to speak. But whatever he spoke he knew would be but another name for the wildness that he sought. It was a freedom and a goodness, a hope and a vigor that he perceived to underlie all the familiar things of his life, which were not free or good or hopeful or vigorous. What he sought was the source and preserver of his world, a world which seemed to turn ever in fear away from its source, rather than search it out, as the prairie grass around him sent down its fibered roots into the rich dark dampness, the Wildness, and thereby renewed itself, year after year. Suddenly, in the midst of the great flat prairie, unpeopled and mysterious, there came into his mind the image of a Boston street, crowded with carriages and walking men who toiled sluggishly beneath the arches of evenly spaced elms that had been made to grow, it seemed, out of the flat stone of sidewalk and roadway; there came into his mind the image of tall buildings, packed side by side, the ornately cut stone of which was grimed by smoke and city filth; there came into his mind the image of the river Charles winding among plotted fields and villages and towns, carrying the refuse of man and city out to the great bay.
He became aware that his hands were tightly clenched; the tips of his fingers slipped in the moisture of his palms. He loosened his fists and wiped his palms on his trousers.
“I came out here to see as much of the country as I can,” he said quietly. “I want to get to know it. It’s something that I have to do.”
“Young folks,” said McDonald. He spoke softly. Flat lines of sweat ran through the glinting beads of moisture that stood out on his forehead, and ran into his tangled eyebrows, which were lowered over the eyes that regarded Andrews steadily. “They don’t know what to do with themselves. My God, if you’d start now—if you had the sense to start now, by the time you’re forty, you could be—” He shrugged. “Ahhh. Let’s get back out of the sun.”
They re-entered the dim little shack. Andrews discovered that he was breathing heavily; his shirt was soaked with perspiration, and it clung to his skin and slid unpleasantly over it as he moved. He removed his coat and sank into the chair before McDonald’s table; he felt a curious weakness and lassitude descend from his chest and shoulders to his fingertips. A long silence fell upon the room. McDonald’s hand rested on his ledger; one finger moved aimlessly above the page but did not touch it. At last he sighed deeply and said:
“All right. Go and talk to them. But I’ll warn you: Most of the men around here hunt for me; you’re not going to have an easy time getting into a party without my help. Don’t try to hook up with any of the men I send out. You leave my men alone. I won’t be responsible. I won’t have you on my conscience.”
“I’m not even sure I want to go on a hunt,” Andrews said sleepily. “I just want to talk to the men that do.”
“Trash,” McDonald muttered. “You come out here all the way from Boston, Massachusetts, just to get mixed up with trash.”
“Who should I talk to, Mr. McDonald?” Andrews asked.
“What?”
“Who should I talk to?” Andrews repeated. “I ought to talk to someone who knows his business, and you told me to keep away from your men.”
McDonald shook his head. “You don’t listen to a word a man says, do you? You got it all figured out.”
“No, sir,” Andrews said. “I don’t have anything figured out. I just want to know more about this country.”
“All right,” McDonald said tiredly. He closed the ledger that he had been fingering and tossed it on a pile of papers. “You talk to Miller. He’s a hunter, but he ain’t as bad as the rest of them. He’s been out here most of his life; at least he ain’t as bad as the rebels and the hard Yankees. Maybe he’ll talk to you, maybe he won’t. You’ll have to find out for yourself.”
“Miller?” Andrews asked.
“Miller,” McDonald said. “He lives in a dugout down by the river, but you’ll more likely find him in Jackson’s. That’s where they all hang out, day and night. Ask anybody; everybody knows Miller.”
“Thank you, Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said. “I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t thank me,” McDonald said. “I’m doing nothing for you. I’m giving you a man’s name.”
Andrews rose. The weakness had gone into his legs. It is the heat, he thought, and the strangeness. He stood still for a moment, gathering his strength.
“One thing,” McDonald said. “Just one thing I ask you.” He appeared to Andrews to recede into the dimness.
“Of course, Mr. McDonald. What is it?”
“Let me know before you go out, if you decide to go. Just come back here and let me know.”
“Of course,” Andrews said. “I’ll be seeing you often, I hope. It’s just that I want to have a little more time before I decide anything.”
“Sure,” McDonald said bitterly. “Take all the time you can. You got plenty.”
“Goodbye, Mr. McDonald.”
McDonald waved his hand, angrily, and turned his attention abruptly to the papers on his desk. Andrews walked slowly out of the shack, into the yard, and turned on the wagon trail that led to the main road. At the main road, he paused. Across from him and some yards to his left was the clump of cottonwoods; beyond that, intersecting the road, must be the river; he could not see the water, but he could see the humped banks clustered with low-growing shrub and weed winding off into the distance. He turned and went back toward the town.
It was near noon when he arrived at the hotel; the tiredness that had come upon him in McDonald’s shack remained. In the hotel dining room he ate lightly of tough fried meat and boiled beans, and sipped bitter hot coffee. The hotel clerk, who limped in and out of the dining room, asked him if he had found McDonald; he replied that he had; the clerk nodded and said nothing more. Soon Andrews left the dining room, went up to his room, and lay on his bed. He watched the cloth screen at his window billow softly inward until he was asleep.