Steel Beach

"Harrumph," said the Mayor. "I need to drop in at the saloon from time to time to keep up on the needs of my constituents, you see."

"Sure, Mayor Dillon," I said, knowing he spent an average of six hours each day at his usual table, and if what he'd been doing was feeling the pulse of the public then the voters of New Austin were the most thoroughly kept-up-on since the invention of democracy. Perhaps that accounted for the huge majorities he regularly achieved. Or maybe it was the fact that he ran unopposed.

"The consensus is, Hildy," he intoned, "that you'll never make a farmer."

That should have come as news to no one. Aside from the fact that I doubted I had any talent for it and had not, in fact, had any plans to farm in the first place, nobody had ever run a successful farm in the Great Big Bubble known as West Texas. To farm, you need water, lots and lots of it. You could raise a vegetable garden, run cattle-though goats were better-and hogs seemed to thrive, but farming was right out.

"I think you're right," I said, and drank from the mason jar in my hand. As I did, the Parson sat next to me, and drank from his mason jar.

"We don't really know if you plan to stay here," the Mayor went on. "We don't mean to pressure you either way; maybe you have plans for another job on the outside." He raised his eyebrows, then his mason jar.

"Not particularly."

"Well then." He seemed about to go on, then looked puzzled. I'd been that drunk before, and knew the feeling. He hadn't a clue as to what he'd been about to say.

"What the Mayor is trying to say," the Parson chimed in, tactfully, "is that a life of saloon-crawling and gambling may not be the best for you."

"Gambling, hah!" Sourdough put in. "That lady don't gamble."

"Shut up, Sourdough," the Mayor said.

"Well, she don't!" he said, defiantly. "Not three weeks ago, when she turned up that fourth ace with the biggest pot of the night, I knowed she was cheating!"

These would have been fighting words from almost anybody but Sourdough. Had they been uttered in the Alamo they'd have been reason enough to overturn the table and start shooting at each other-to the delight of the manufacturers of blank cartridges and the amusement of the tourists at the adjoining tables. From Sourdough, I decided to let it pass, especially since it was true. The big pot he mentioned, by the way, was about thirty-five cents.

"Calm down," said the Parson. "If you think someone is cheating, you should say so right then and there."

"Couldn't!" Sourdough said. "Didn't know how she done it."

"Then she probably didn't."

"She sure as hell did. I know what I dealt her!" he said, triumphantly.

The Mayor and the Parson looked at each other owlishly, and decided to let it pass.

"What the Mayor is trying to say," the Parson tried again, "is that perhaps you'd like to look for a job here in Texas."

"Fact is," the Mayor said, leaning close and looking me in the eye, "we've got an opening for a new schoolmarm right here in town, and we'd be right pleased if you'd take the job."

When I finally realized they were serious, I almost told them my first reaction, which was that Luna would stop dead in her orbit before I'd consider anything so silly as standing up in front of a bunch of children and trying to teach them anything. But I couldn't say that, so what I told them was that I'd think about it, which seemed to satisfy them.

I remember sitting with Dora, my arm around her, as she sobbed her heart out. I have no memory of what she might have been crying about, but do recall her kissing me with fiery passion and not wanting to take no for an answer until I steered her toward a more willing swain. Thus was my new bed broken in. It saw a lot of use before the night was over, but not from me.

Before that (it must have been before that; there was no one using the bed yet, and in a one-room cabin you'd notice a thing like that) I taught half a dozen people my secret recipe for Hildy's Famous Biscuits. We fired up the stove and assembled the ingredients and baked up several batches before the night was over. I did only the first one. After that, my students were eager to give it a try, and they all got eaten. I was desperate to do something for these people. I had a vague notion that at a house-raising you were supposed to provide food for your guests, but these people had brought their own, so what could I do? I'd have given them anything, anything at all.

One thing that hadn't been provided yet was an outhouse. A rough-and-ready latrine had been dug in a suitable spot and, considering the amount of beer drunk, saw even more use than the bed. My worst moment that night came while squatting there and a voice quite close said "How'd the cabin burn down, Hildy?"

I almost fell in the trench. It was too dark to make out faces; all I could see was a tall shape in the night, swaying slightly, like most of us. I thought I recognized the voice. It was far too late to admit to him what had really happened, so I said I didn't know.

"It happens, it happens," he said. "Just about had to be your cooking fire, that's why I gave you the stove." It was Jake, as I had thought, the owner of the general store and the richest man in town.

"Thanks, Jake, it's sure a beauty." I thought I saw him square his shoulders, then I heard the sound of his zipper. I hadn't known Jake well at all. He'd sat in on a few hands of poker at the saloon, but about all he could talk about was the new merchandise he was getting in or how many pickles he'd sold last week or how the town should extend the wooden sidewalks all the way down Congress Street to the church. He was a businessman and a booster, stolid, unimaginative, not at all the type I'd ever liked to spend much time around. It had flabbergasted me when he pulled up in his wagon with the stove on the back, a miracle of period engineering from the foundries of Pe

"Some of the merchants in town were talking about it while your cabin was going up," he said, losing me at first. "We're of the opinion that New Austin's outgrown the days of the bucket brigade. You weren't here, but three years ago the old schoolhouse burned to the ground. Some say it was children that did it."

I wouldn't have been a bit surprised; I was on their side. I stood up and re-arranged my skirt and wished I was elsewhere, but I owed it to him to at least listen to what he had to say.

"We all pretty much had to stand around and watch it burn," he said. "By the time we got there, no amount of buckets were going to do any good. That's why some of the merchants in town are getting up a subscription for the acquisition of a pumping engine. I'm told they make a fine one in Pe

Just about everything we could use in Texas was made in Pe

He zipped up and we started back toward the party.

"So you think if you'd had the engine, my cabin could have been saved?"

"Well… no, not really. What with the time it would take to get out here once you'd come into town and sounded the alarm, and the fact that you don't have a well yet and we couldn't hope to get enough hose to stretch to the nearest one…"

"I see." But I didn't. I had the feeling something else was expected of me but too many things had happened at once for me to see the obvious.

"It would only be really useful to the town, I'll admit it. But I think it's worth the expense. If one of these fires ever got out of control the whole town could burn down. That used to happen, you know, back on Old Earth. Still, I don't suppose you people in outlying areas can really be expected-"