“Yep.”
“Hadn’t you better go out there with them, then?”
Gavin had to laugh at this. “Why? That’s not what I’m paid to do and you know it. Nobody wants the truth from me. I’ll give ’em a pretty picture—the gay party, accompanied by a brass band, rode triumphantly east on Douglas Street toward the river, the ladies’ velvet outfits—one bright red, jaunty cap in particular stood out—providing splashes of color against the pure white of the gently banked snow.”
Forsythe laughed, and Gavin even enjoyed the admiration in the man’s eyes; he couldn’t help it, he was proud of his imaginative powers, even though they had no place in real journalism.
“You’ve got it about right,” Forsythe said, still chuckling. “I saw them heading toward the river myself, right down to the jaunty red cap. And the brass band in the last sleigh. It’s a helluva party—the whole town is having a holiday. Must have been a couple of hundred sleighs. The mayor’s even out there.”
“Well, it is big news, that bridge. It’ll be good for everyone.” Omaha was on the west bank of the Missouri River; Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the east. Originally, Council Bluffs was the bigger town; it was assumed that the new Union Pacific Railroad would build its terminus there. But Omaha won out, and there was a bitter rivalry between the two. Still, this new bridge could only help both towns. Previously, horses and wagons had to take a ferry across in summer, or trust the ice in winter; the only bridge had been the train bridge.
“Think I’ll take a stroll,” Forsythe said, scratching the back of his neck. Gavin knew what taking a stroll meant: heading down to one of the taverns, most likely the Lily. He decided to join Forsythe; he could write up that puff piece about the party in ten minutes and hand it over to be typeset. He’d have plenty of time after a snort or two.
The two men retrieved their coats and headed outdoors. The streets of Godforsaken Omaha were the usual mess of mud churned up and frozen into ruts covered with hard-packed snow that was brown with manure. In the business district near Douglas Street, there were wide planks for walking, although these, too, were treacherous no matter the season. The street here had tracks laid and a cable car, electrified by a wire dangling precariously above it, that chugged up and down, ringing its jolly bell at every stop; the city was inordinately proud of it, and it was crowded at all times. In the distance, the Paxton Hotel on Farnam rose a whopping five stories, and the new Bee building, almost complete next to the city hall, was going to top out at seven. There were restaurants and shops and busybody ladies’ societies and churches and an opera house and schools and banks, as well as a decent red-light district for a man with money and particular preferences, but Omaha was still a cow town when you got right down to it. The stockyard stench marinated the town in summer and not even the most bracing winter winds could completely chase it away. Wild packs of dogs sometimes terrorized citizens; fistfights, canings, and the occasional gunfight were not unusual. And the only decent meal a fellow could have was steak. Steak for breakfast, steak for supper, steak for dinner.
Christ, what Gavin wouldn’t give for a fresh oyster.
The two men stood for a moment outside; the sky was low but not threatening, a few soft snowflakes lazily drifted down, so sporadically that they barely registered. It was warm today, warmer than it had been, which was why the sleighing party had set out. It was only one o’clock, lunchtime, so he’d take advantage of the spread at the Lily, the usual boiled eggs and pickled beets and slices of tongue. His hunger roared to life and he patted his doughy stomach in embarrassment; he was going to seed here in Godforsaken Omaha, that was for damn sure. All he did was eat and drink and play cards and churn out ridiculous lies. The slim, taut young fellow he’d been in New York, vibrating with ambition and purpose, was only a memory now. A mocking memory.
Godforsaken Omaha—make that Godforsaken Nebraska, might as well throw in the entire state—had robbed him of his purpose. This damn West, with its damn stupid boosters and backroom deals and rubes falling for every scheme, every trick at the card table, every pamphlet filled with lies about the land and its opportunities—it had simply flattened him.
And still they came, those seekers and dreamers and swallowers of lies. Every day during the warm months, the train disgorged parties of them, families with grannies and babes in arms, wary bachelors. The depot was filled with the cacophony of other languages and the cries of hucksters trying to rob them of whatever meager savings they had brought with them—Wagon for sale! Mules for transport! Claims filed here, no questions asked!—and then they’d take the money and run. Or the wagon wouldn’t have wheels. Or the mules would be tubercular.
But they all, eventually, left Omaha for points west, north, or south, sometimes on foot, sometimes on those sorry mules, sometimes in wagons that creaked and swayed and jolted. They left with paperwork in their hands, a promise that many would never fulfill.
And every day, the trains heading east filled up with those who had given up, had discovered the truth and been defeated by it: that this land of grasshoppers and fires and drought and monstrous blizzards would not be as easily tamed as Gavin and his fellow brothers-in-crime had promised.
Still, more came west than returned east. Land, no matter how hard and unyielding, was never short of those who wanted to own it. It was infantile, this belief, infantile and stupid, Gavin thought. Just like the rubes who believed it.
Just when had Gavin grown so cynical? Just when had he lost his love for his fellow man?
“I think I’ll go for a stroll,” Gavin said. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear being inside a stuffy bar full of cynics like himself. He stopped, turned around, and left Forsythe at the door of the Lily.
“What?” Forsythe looked puzzled, as well he might; Gavin was not one for taking exercise of any kind save for inside the bedroom of the closest bordello.
“It’s nice, the weather.” Gavin shrugged. “Warmer. I just want to walk around a bit, maybe go down to the river and walk across that new bridge myself, check in on the party.”
“Suit yourself.” Forsythe waved at someone at the bar and shut the door behind him.
Gavin turned, but he found himself tugged in the other direction, away from the river and toward the prairie. Something called to him—maybe it was the wind, gently stirring the few flat, lazy flakes; maybe it was the desire to get away from the stuffy indoors where he’d been cooped up the last week or so. Maybe it was the ghost of his conscience.
Whatever it was, he turned. And followed it.
CHAPTER 3
•••••
ANETTE THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING to cry.
Only once had she done so. Only once in the time since her mother sent her away to the Pedersens’. Not when her hands blistered from the lye soap Mother Pedersen made her wash the floor with. Not even last week, when she saw and heard—