By Al Lowe
George Hearst starts the morning with his ass in jail, and how I do love it. Charlie comes in complaining about the post, acting like Hearst is just another drunk drying out in his cell, which pisses Mr. Important right off. That's right, Hearsty -- ain't no V.I.P. section in Deadwood. "Is he only a goddamn fool or so stupid he thinks he's accomplished something?" Hearst drones to Charlie, who continues bringing in the mail. Charlie asks, all casual, who he's talking about, and Hearst says Charlie knows damn well. "I know from the sheriff locking you up between sundown when I left and my coming back now, you must have fucked up at the interval," Charlie shrugs. "Where you drunk?" Hearst doesn't like being on the punchline end of this joke, and suddenly he realizes this is not the first time he's seen the mailman. Charlie, continuing with his tongue firmly in his cheek says, yeah, they've seen each other in the hotel restaurant but weren't introduced. "I'm George Hearst," the big man says, frustrated. Charlie starts over, this time making it far more obvious that he knows exactly who this fool is. "Were you drunk, George Hearst?" he asks, staring him down and walking over to the adjacent cell. "This fellow didn't keep you up here, did he?" he asks, indicating the Cornishman there. "He didn't like, fart or snore too much for you, did he, Mr. Hearst?" He whips the sheet off the man in mock surprise: "Holy Shit! Jesus! The cocksucker's dead, George!" He is, indeed -- the dead Cornishman from last week. "Look, he's got a fuckin' knife in his chest. That ain't your fuckin' knife, is it, George Hearst?" Hearst looks at the body like it's some heap of garbage and gives Charlie his patented kill-ya-later stare.
The NG is back at the livery, hammering away on a trough trying to modify it into a big-enough casket for dear ol' Hostetler. "Goddamn fool," the NG says with tears in his voice. Jane, sober for now and there to help, says Hostetler won't be the first fool the worms work on. "I'll see to the burying with you," Jane says. "I owe a visit up there anyways." The NG says that helping him won't raise her popularity with her fellow white people. Jane rolls her eyes. "Question I wake to in the morning and pass out with at night: What's my popularity with my fellow white people?" The NG sighs, saying he supposes they ought to get Hostetler in his box. "He ain't pretty to look, though," he says, and after a pause, Jane tells him he isn't, either. Damn, Jane. A little less of the tough love when the man's got to bury his pal.
By Al Lowe
Bullock and Martha are having breakfast. The sheriff has apparently been telling her about Hostetler's untimely demise and how it drove him to go ahead and arrest Hearst. Martha points out the tragically obvious: "Hearst had no particular connection to Mr. Hostetler." Bullock tries to make a weak joke but can't pull it off. "It's gonna get bad here, Martha," he tells her. They are interrupted by a knock at the door. "It's Albert Swearengen," Al calls from without. May I say again how great it is that, when required, Al can be so polite? It must pain him terribly. He says he regrets the early hour, but that he must intrude to talk to Bullock. He is exceedingly polite to Martha, who offers him breakfast, which he declines. "I'd be grateful for coffee," he says, adding that their home is "swell, stem to stern." Martha excuses herself upstairs where she can eavesdrop on the men, who get right to it. "Last night from my balcony vantage, I watched you drag Hearst by the ear to Utter's Freight Office," Al says. "I was waitin' on you comin' out of Utter's, thinking that you might make a call on me, tell me what the fuck was going forward, but you did not appear. I finally asked myself, 'Could our Sheriff have took another route home, maybe through Chinaman's Alley? And what would that bespeak of his frame of mind?'" Now, Al is being pretty nice, so I don't know why Bullock has to get snitty, but he unleashes the morning's first mild clench. "It bespoke," he says, "I didn't fuckin' feel like talking to you."
Al suggests that he could have come by, said the night was busy and that they'd talk another time. Yyyeah, I'm sure that would have gone over very easy with the guy who occasionally stabs people just for fun. In any case, instead of stabbing Bullock now, he takes the empathetic route. "I too, Bullock, when suspecting I've fucked the dog, keenly seek some solitude," Al says. "Our hour is wrong. Having lost his man Turner, being embarrassed by you, Hearst will be on the muscle, and we who will be his wrath's object ought to stay close and confide. Our alternative is flight. Does that appeal?" Seth says no, it doesn't, and Al is in agreement." We ain't that sort," he says, "which is maybe more the pity." Upstairs, Martha steels herself and comes down asking Bullock to walk her to school. Al thanks her for the coffee. "You're very welcome, Mr. Swearengen," she says, and Al leaves the Bullocks to stare wistfully and worriedly at each other.
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By Al Lowe
At the Ellsworth home, a time-honored, nightmarish tradition of womanhood is being enacted: Alma is brushing and fixing Sophia's hair. Let us briefly travel forward in our time machine to 1980, to a cul-de-sac on Ashland Drive in Birmingham, Alabama to where a very cute eight-year-old Al Lowe stood trembling with frustration and rage every single morning of her life while her mother wrangled the dreaded green brush through her hair before school. I literally had to grip the counter, white-knuckled, trying to clamp my flight instinct, and I am quite sure my mother, the incomparable JoLowe, fantasized many times about stuffing me in the linen closet forever -- and she wasn't even addicted to laudanum. Or...WAS she? Oh my God, that would explain so much. Anyway, such is the irritation shown in this small scene. "Owie!" Sophia says, accompanied by a total sourpuss face while Mrs. E attempts to tame down a big tangle. Sophia pouts that Ellsworth did not come in and kiss her goodnight last night. The writers do a lot of work to get around Sophia ever calling Ellsworth "daddy" or "pa" or anything like that, and I have to wonder why. Alma kind of chokes up in frustration when she lies that Mr. Ellsworth went to the diggings extra early, and, telling Sophia to wait there for a moment before they go to school, she rushes from the room, ostensibly to do more smack or maybe to keep Sophia from seeing her cry.
Dan has emerged from his rooms at the Gem, looking for all the world like a bear waking up from a very long, very cramped hibernation. He can barely walk or turn his head, he is so janked up from the fight, and the hide blanket over his shoulders makes him look even more like a wounded animal. Johnny nervously asks how he's feeling -- you can tell he doesn't want to say the wrong thing to Dan, but, you know, this is Johnny, so automatically he's going to say the wrong thing. He's had, he says, three cups of coffee already and thus is nutty from the caffeine. Dan stares at him like he's from Mars as he jangles around behind the bar -- the two of them are painfully reminiscent of Spike and Chester right now, and it's kind of killing me. Johnny realizes he's acting a fool and finally tells Dan that Al's out. He doesn't know where, he says, but he figures it has to have something to do with "Bullock takin' Hearst by the ear from Tolliver's to Utter's Depot."
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By Al Lowe
Meanwhile, in front of Nuttall's, Steve deals with his guilt and shame over Hostetler's death by making a public (drunken) statement that not a single member of the public is interested in hearing. As much as I hate Steve, the actor can sometimes make him genuinely empathetic -- like, he represents the most insecure, most ignorant, most intolerant, but at the same time most vulnerable parts of us all. It's easy to hate the dude, because he is all of those things and more, but it's also very easy to identify with and kind of laugh at him, because hell, we're all stupid, and if you've ever spent any time with a chip on your shoulder, you know how much one weighs.
"We had been at odds, but settled, Hostetler and me," he blathers to no one outside the No. 10. "He'd sold me his livery, and fixing to move to Oregon, pickin' up his fuckin' shotgun, the negro stumbled and..." -- here he pauses, still in shock --"blew his black head off!" He goes on to remark that he fears no godly retribution. "My hands are fuckin' clean, and my heart is quiet," he says, with great boozy melodrama as Harry, now the sole member of his audience, looks on in disgust and irritation. Steve seems satisfied with his speech and is about to stagger on with his day when a very stately looking black man rides right past him on a horse. Suddenly the dumbass's heart is not so quiet. "Oh, Christ," he says, stumbling back toward the bar, in fear and confusion and calling for Harry.
Back at Charlie's mailhouse, Bullock releases Hearst from his cell. The three men make a big show of giving each other significant looks. Hearst wins the silent dick-measuring contest by jerking the knife from the chest of the dead Cornishman, stopping to wipe the blade on a banister and walking out the door. Ooooh, tough guy. Bullock's mustache bristles with hate.
Down the road, E.B. watches the thoroughfare closely. Seeing the new black man in town ride toward the hotel, he freaks out and calls to Richardson and tells him to "thwart that Abyssinian!" Richardson is, as usual, confused. "Any thought he has of registering..." E.B. explains, cutting his eyes towards Aunt Lou in the kitchen, "bad enough we have one in help." Richardson still doesn't get it, but he hobbles out to do his duty, exchanging friendly hellos with the man before telling him "we cain't take yeeewww." We see a flicker of "huh?" pass across the new man's face, but before he can process the words and various smells coming out of Richardson, he is assaulted by a joyous Aunt Lou who comes running out to embrace him. "My baby!" she says, throwing her arms around him. "Your baby's growed, mama," the man says. "Oh, come on, come on," Aunt Lou cries, pulling him around back toward her room. "You're so beautiful!" E.B. watches all this, revolted. "Did you hear that Richardson?" he sneers when mother and son are gone. "'Beautiful.'" Richardson who, remember, loved his mother, beams and excitedly says "yes!" much to E.B.'s consternation.
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By Al Lowe
Al is meeting with the scrumptious Adams in his office, explaining what he thinks the move should be with their whole Get One Past Cy campaign. Apparently, he's gone over it enough so that Adams is no longer surprised by any of it, because Al gets annoyed by his rather blasé reaction. "Guy like Tolliver always believes he can see what you want not to show him," Al explains with great irritation. Adams says again that he gets it. He has to make Cy think that he's trying not to show him Al's "hole card." Al confirms that that's his act and that he is further supposed to fool Cy into thinking he knows something about why Bullock arrested Hearst, but that Al has sworn him to secrecy and thus he cannot reveal what he knows to Cy. "What'll Tolliver think of that?" Adams wonders. Al takes a shot at knowing Cy's mind: "'This kid don't know what the fuck Bullock's doin', and Swearengen don't either, but I, Cy Tolliver, wormed that the fuck out of him, even though he tried not to let me. I can handle this fuckin' piss pot.'" Holy shit, it's the triple cross! Al's specialty. Adams gives him the thumbs up, which kills me, and goes out to do his duty.
door at the telegraph office, Hearst comes to find Blazanov reading the paper. When you're done wool-gathering, I'd like this sent," he rudely says, handing off a message. Does Hearst think he's everybody in the whole world's boss? I hate him so much. Why be rude to the noble Blazy? Merrick is on his side of the office getting the day's news ready. "What do you say of me in your paper?" Hearst asks him. Ugh. I wish Merrick would ask who he is, but he takes the polite road, graciously saying that he has nothing to report. These days, if Hearst got arrested, there'd be a photo of him on the front page to a pull-quote that said "Colin Farrell Sez: 'I Understand What Georgie's Going Through!'"
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By Al Lowe
Adams is over at Cy's putting the finishing touches on his little act. "Far as him grabbin' Hearst by the ear, how that affects yours and Mr. Swearengen's arrangements with Hearst..." Adams starts until Cy interrupts: "Fuckin' Bullock," he grumbles. Adams continues: "Al's got specific ideas on that," he says, pointedly, "and as soon as he's sure he wouldn't be unintentionally misleadin' you, he'll want me to confide 'em in detail." Under his makeup, Cy goes pale. Or, you know, we have to assume he does, because he's bought Adams's performance like a cheap ticket to the theater. "Why don't you cap your visit with some complimentary higher-end pussy?" Cy suggests, trying to cover his anger, but Adams politely declines. Cy tries also to get him to gamble at Leon's craps table, but the wise Adams shrugs that off, too, claiming nature's call. As soon as he's gone, Cy loses his cool. "He'd have me a cur to paw through the scraps his fuckin' flunky tosses," he grumbles to Leon, who is doped to the gills. "That Swearengen..." Leon says, trying to commiserate. That reminds Cy of the good turn Leon did him the last time they spoke. "Telling me about the hobby you and Mrs. Ellsworth share," Cy smarms, showing a rare expanse of teeth, "you walk me in Mr. Hearst's front door and sit me the fuck down across from him at his fuckin' table. God bless you, boy." Leon tries not to vomit as Cy gives him a fatherly slap on the shoulder, and says "thanks." I love how Cy remains so unaware of his reduced position in the camp. Maybe if he didn't spend so much time in the mornings applying his Max Factor and Grecian Formula, he'd be a little more clued in.
When we see him, Cy's at Hearst's to gleefully report his findings. Hearst complains that Al is not there also, according to the rules he previously laid out that they both be present at all meetings. Cy practically falls over himself saying he thinks this one time, Hearst will be okay with meeting with him alone. "I come into a certain piece of knowledge, sir, that could make this more or less a fuckin' company town," he says, fawning. "And my thinking was if communicatin' this privately to Mr. Hearst risks putting me and Al Swearengen the fuck out of action as middlemen, so the fuck be it." Hearst is impatient until Cy plays his hole card. "[Mrs. Ellsworth] has reinvolved herself with a habit that turns a person's life upside down. One of my own fuckin' employees supplies her, God help me, and that's a habit, sir," he drones, "makes a person subject to accident and mischance of every fuckin' sort, having to do especially with the ups and downs of the fucking quality of the fucking shit she's being given." Hearst nearly grinds his teeth to nubs. "I wish I'd heard this yesterday," he says. "In the interval, I have suffered certain losses." Cy must have taken sycophant lessons from E.B. during hiatus, because instead of shutting up right now, he steps right in it. "Oh, rest fuckin' Captain Turner's soul," he says, but it only further ticks Hearst off. "I'd be quiet now, Mr. Tolliver, if I were you," he says. "Losses and indignities which, despite the strong impulse of my nature towards simplicity, prompt me to a different approach." He grabs Cy by the ear and reenacts the events of the evening before, bitching about Bullock all the way and acting generally like a loon. For once I'd like to see Cy come out on top of a fight. Hearst finally lets him go, in any case, telling him not to kill Alma just yet. (It's a nice scene for Powers Boothe -- he's great in it -- but the shit just goes on forever.)
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By Al Lowe
Outside, we come upon Leon giving Steve a run for his money in the Thoroughfare Soliloquy Contest. He's high as the devil, ranting to his reflection in a mud puddle. This talking-to-myself thing is starting to get on my nerves. What are we watching, here, Days of Our Lives? I love also how it's so common an occurrence for some resident of the camp to just stand in the street raving to himself that no one ever even blinks an eye. Can't these idiots take a page out of Al's book and get themselves a severed head in a box with which to consult over troubling matters? Anyway, Leon's all crazy and paranoid and now believes that when he holds up his end of the bargain for Cy and helps Mrs. E to an overdose, Cy will want to dispose of him. Leon's pretty awesome, I have to admit, especially when a hoople rides through his puddle and he goes full on Pee Wee Herman, flailing and yelling that he hopes the guy's happy with the whopping eighty-three cents he probably made today in the streams. To himself, again, he declares that he's not without cards up his sleeves, and with that, he navigates his way through the muck to the bank...
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By Al Lowe
Cy is coming down from his meeting with Hearst, bitching about what an asshole his new boss is. "I don't need any more friends than what I got," he chuckles evilly, since he totally doesn't have any friends, "and I give up clocking that cocksucker upstairs." E.B., at his desk, cautiously agrees that Hearst is an inscrutable figure. Cy ain't here to chat. He lays two hundred dollars down on the desk and communicates with E.B. the only way he'll understand: with money and threats. "[Hearst's] first activities impinging on me I don't hear about beforehand from you," he says, full of menace, "I'm gonna cut your fucking throat." EB gets the shakes. "You see that 200 I've given you?" Cy asks, pointing to the cash. E.B.: "I do, yes, at the margin of vision." Cy: "That argues there's a better way." Cy's barely out the door before E.B. orders Richardson to take the desk and scurries straight out the door.
In the back of the hotel, Aunt Lou is celebrating her reunion with her son, Odell. She can't believe he's come to see her all the way from Liberia. Odell is more concerned that Hearst will be mad he's in his mother's room, though I can't even fathom the egomania that would allow that to be the case, and neither can Lou. "How is he gonna mind you come see your mother?" she asks. "He give me this room." She does her excellent Hearst impression, recounting his righteous gesture in giving her the crappy room in the first place: "'You stay here, Aunt Lou. Who says what, no goddamn nevermind to me.'" They laugh at Hearst, the cracker-assiest cracker ever. But, oops, they've laughed too soon. In walks Hearst, getting uppity about the very thing they were just laughing at. "Well, well, well," he says, full-ON passive-aggressive, "you've company in your room, Aunt Lou." She nervously introduces Odell to Hearst, who has somehow never met him, or seemingly even heard of him. Aunt Lou scrambles around offering her boss some breakfast, but Hearst won't be distracted. "You made yourself at home, Odell," he says, "here in the room I set aside for your mother." Aunt Lou, even more nervous now, says that she asked Odell in, herself. Why in the world Hearst would begrudge her that, I don't know, except that I suppose it goes to further show his unbelievable control freakiness, which is so pronounced, he makes Al practically look like Gandhi in comparison. "Well, now that your mama has invited you in, I suppose we might say on the spur of the moment," he says, because he's a dick, "I hope that you'll accept my invitation, as well, as the hotel's owner and your mother's employer." He fixes the almost-trembling Odell with his Manson lamps, saying "Please, Odell, won't you stay?" Odell, as much as he can, blanches, thanking Hearst several times for his kindness. He and his mother cannot conceal their relief when Hearst leaves.
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By Al Lowe
E.B. has arrived at Al's with his fresh bribe from Cy, and throws it down on Al's desk. "Here, Al, is your answer," he says, triumphant. You can't blame him for thinking Al's using Cy to double-triple-cross test him with the money, but this one, single time, he's wrong. Al tells E.B. that he was not the money's source. E.B. looks nauseated. "I see," he says, sidling back towards the money. "In that case you may view my behavior as a random display of loyalty." E.B. explains that the money came from Cy, who wants him to keep tabs and report on Hearst's comings and goings. "How could I not believe it was you orchestrating the approach as some form of test?" he asks, confused. "The alternative would have Tolliver, knowing my history with you, believing nonetheless that he could approach me, swaying my loyalty as if I had no morals more than a street whore." I love how offended E.B. is at the notion that someone thinks he can be bought, when he's been nothing else since this show premiered. Al ponders the money. "Ain't to Tolliver's standard," he says, "the baldness of it." E.B. agrees. "It's Hearst!" he says. "Hearst...is he Caesar, to have fights to the death for diversion? Murder his workers at whim? Smash passages in the fucking wall? A man of less wealth would be in fucking restraints." Haven't I been asking the very same things? Al explains it to all of us in one scary phrase: "We're in the presence of the new." And E.B. practically says the lines right out of my head. "Fuck the fucking new!" he yells, before again getting jumpy. "Jesus Christ, Al. Is it over for us here?" Oh, E.B., I so desperately feel you -- how could Hearst (HBO) threaten the sanctity of this town (show) you've (we've) worked so hard to understand, Deadwood (Deadwood)? Al tells him to go back to the hotel, but E.B. implores him, Princess Leia-style, to "save us. Think of something!" Al: "Have I ever not?"
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By Al Lowe
At the hardware store, Bullock, Sol and Charlie consider their options in this Hearst v. Everybody in the Universe showdown that they know is on the way. Sol: "There's leaving the camp." Bullock immediately says no. Charlie has other suggestions. "One thing, if he knew it was coming, Bill was not shy of drawing first," he says of their mutual friend Hickok. "Seth locked up Hearst instead of that," Sol says, proud. "Oh, I get it," Charlie retorts, rolling his eyes. "What does that mean?" Sol asks, confused that Charlie would snark at him. "It means, Mr. Star," Charlie says, impatient, "that after leading him by the ear through camp for all to fucking see, Seth installs Hearst in a cell adjoining a man he's had killed [so] that the knife still protrudes out of his chest." Now it's the hardware boys' turn to go pale. "And as much as me and Hearst conversed, I made him address my ass," Charlie continues, perhaps regretting letting his temper get away with him this morning. "So do let's don't pretend Hearst will feel he was treated legal or civilized, or that his bidness with us is finished. Hearst is fuckin' comin'...bringing us back to Bill and doing unto others first." Charlie thinks they should go to Hearst's diggings and smite all his backup muscle before they can rise up against the rest of the camp. "And his muscle you fail to murder before they arouse," he adds, "you bring to chase you to camp. Judas goat the cocksuckers for Swearengen's men and Tolliver's to mow down from fuckin' ambush while we're up seeing to Hearst!" It's a dramatic and moving proposal, but Sol, ever reasonable, finds the flaw. "There'll be nothing left of the camp," he says. Charlie's exhausted. "How much you figure will stand," he asks, "once Hearst had his fuckin' say?"
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By Al Lowe
Speaking of Mrs. E, she's made a run back to the house, no doubt for a hit, when she runs into Ellsworth who has come to get more of his stuff. Awkward. They have a gruff, strained conversation. Both seem to be blinking back tears. She appeals to him to reconsider his moving out, and I do, too. Come on, Ellsworth! For richer, for poorer! In addiction and in health! Forsaking all memories of having to listen to your future-wife shoot out the bedsprings with the town sheriff! Come ON. You're the nice guy! But, no. The drug thing is something even Ellsworth can't suck up. Plus, to my great sadness, he apparently thinks it's all his fault. "An arrangement like ours wouldn't get any more tolerable to you," he says. "And I couldn't bear it, seeing what you'd do to yourself. You'll straighten around if I go."
Back in the telegraph office, Blazanov seems to be in crisis. Something has him reminiscing about his parents, who were murdered on their farm while he was away at school. "I imagine their bodies like the man we found on our walking," he says. Merrick is moved. "We are swept up, are we not, by the large events and forces of our times?" he says, tenderly, but Blazy isn't listening. His mind is elsewhere. "How much they saved..." he says, sighing heavily, "to send me for study."
Odell is sitting outside while his mother does her chores. "I'm gonna go ahead and try this cobbler," he says, slyly. "Don't think I didn't notice you hadn't tried it yet," she laughs back. He's enjoying the cobbler until Lou drops a Mom Bomb on him. She knows she just sent Odell a letter 27 days ago, telling him she would be in Deadwood, so she's aware he couldn't have shown up in Deadwood to see her -- he wouldn't have had time to get her letter in Liberia, book passage and arrive. Odell tries to backtrack, saying he read in the paper that Hearst was coming to Deadwood, and thus assumed Hearst would have sent for Lou to work for him in the camp, but she really doesn't buy it. She suspects he's up to something. They are interrupted by Hearst who comes out looking for Odell, who he had assumed would still be inside. Shit, does Hearst just need to LoJack everybody in town, or what? Why should it matter to him if Odell is inside or outside? "I hope you don't take me for ungrateful," Odell says, kissing ass, which Hearst appreciates even if it's insincere. "I have an inkling you're wise, Odell," he says. Oh, he's wise. "I've gotten used to being outdoors," he says, slyly slipping into Hearst's language, "all that time at the site of the find." Hook! He's got him. "What find do you refer to, son?" Hearst ask, and Odell smiles. "Liberia, sir," he says, cool as dammit. "The gold."
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By Al Lowe
Oooooh, Aunt Lou is mad as hell. At the mention of gold, she knows Odell is about to step right into a rat's nest of major proportions, and later in her laundry area, she violently brushes down a coat as she voices her protest to her son. "Invite you now to sit down with him to eat," she rants, "that before you said 'gold,' [he had] fire in his eyes you was anyplace indoors at all." Odell laughs that the mention of gold seemed to change Hearst's mind entirely, but Lou ain't laughing. "Don't you want to say 'Yes, ma'am' or 'Yes, Mama,' before that or after, Odell, so my heart feels how sweet you are?" she asks. "No, ma'am," he says, all casual, and daaaamn, if I was his mama I'd be upside his head with that brush in a second. "Make me know you sweet, God-fearing and truthful like I wanted my boy to be," Lou demands, but Odell won't play along. "Back from where you send him," he says, full of sarcasm, "raising up to a man, safe amongst his own." Lou says right, in Liberia, where he would be free. "Free?" Odell laughs. "Sheeeit." His mama gets pissed, but Odell goes right on dishing it out. He says, fine, there was no field work there, since they had actual Africans to do that, but it was "hot till you can't breathe. Nothing ever be dry. Hate the air. Hate the breathing in and out." He turns around, bursting that tenuous bubble she must have been carrying for years that she had sent him off to a better life. Lou is almost too scared to ask, but she has to: "Is there gold, Odell?" He smiles. "A rich find, Mama, rich," he says dramatically. "Praise God. He give his son for our sins and Mr. Hearst to help us." Putting his hat on, he says he's off to find a place for a n*gger to have a drink before sitting down with Mr. Hearst. He leaves as tears roll down his mother's cheeks.
Tom's in his joint trying to do some figurin' while Steve rages on yet another of his endless tirades. He's telling them about the specter of Odell that rose up before him during his earlier speech outside, and finally Tom has enough and moves away so he can concentrate. Steve is sober enough to take offense at this. "Am I swine, Harry, that in an otherwise empty joint the owner must make a show of relocating further away from me?" he swills. "Maybe it's you being present keeps away the broader clientele," Tom says, and you know, he's probably right which makes me wonder why Tom didn't have "Throw Steve into thoroughfare" as part of the No. 10 business plan much earlier. Steve, though, has another suggestion for the slow trade. "And maybe, Tom," he snarks, looking around, "it's the chill in here is what does it, when every edifice else in camp's been swanked up and seen to." Well, this is just too much. Tom is indignant, but Steve goes on with his analysis of the Nuttall brand. "Look inward, why don't you? Instead of always blaming the other." He is really warming up to it when Odell appears in the doorway. Steve reels like he's seen a ghost, but Tom delights in this opportunity to put the drunk asshole's ideas into practice. "Welcome to the No. 10," he says, shaking Odell's hand with great warmth. "My name is Tom. Harry'll take your order. His name," he goes on, pointing to his doofus patron, "is Steeeeeve." Odell orders a whiskey, takes a shot, and gives the gape-mouthed Steve a friendly "Afternoon."
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By Al Lowe
Jane and the NG are returning from their thankless task up at the graveyard. Apparently, there's been uh, well, something of a urinary incident. "I've never done that sober in my life," Jane says in disbelief that she's gone and pissed herself, awake and sober. "And if account of the mishap circulates," she threatens the NG, "I will know the fucking source." He shakes his head. "Who could I tell?" he asks. "I'd have never known it had happened if you hadn't started screaming about it." Jane's really upset that it happened at Bill's grave, so the NG attempts to placate her with her favorite solution to all problems. "Bible instructs us," he says, "when two of different races return from a graveyard together, the event should be marked with liquor." I wish that was in the Bible. They are set upon by Aunt Lou who comes running up, praising God and thanking Jesus that she has found the NG. "I come looking for you," she says, "[I] that cooked for you and your friend as was strangers to me." They ask what her trouble is. "Save my boy, sir," she says, grabbing the NG by his coat and crying. "That's past his mother's help."
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By Al Lowe
Steve is bitching loudly at Nuttall's about the apparently new house policy that just anybody can come in there and drink. He ought to be thankful, since if such a policy exists, it's surely the only reason he's permitted in the building. He's just warming up to his new line of bullshit when the NG walks in, causing him to whip around and turn his back like the coward he is. "Ain't meaning to be here long," the NG assures everyone. "Ain't looking to drink." He says he's only come in to speak to Odell. "Go ahead and do somersaults or peel bananas with each other for all I give a fuck," Steve slurs. "The whole place has gone to shit anyhow." Having never met the NG, Odell is confused. "What could we have to talk about?" he asks, quietly. "Your mama did me a kindness," the NG says, "and she asked me to talk to you. I guess I also got to tell you she give me $742 to give to you if you just get the hell out of camp." Down the bar, Steve's ears perk up at the mention of the cash. They perk up even further when Odell asks the NG's name and he reveals it to be Samuel Fields. Ah ha! Now Steve knows that he and the NG have the same name. Excellent. His eyes go wide as the NG continues discussing Odell's options for the future. "Now my plan," he says, "I got twelve hundred left to me by a tall n*gger who after he sold his fucking livery to Steve there, blew his fucking head off. Past that $742 in my pocket that I'm trying to give you, my plan is get to San Francisco, buy enough white pussy to stretch from the harbor to the closest rooming house that'll have me and then fuck my way to the Pacific Ocean." Good plan, NG. He pauses before going on, saying he knows Aunt Lou sent Odell away. "Mmm hmm, not far," Odell confirms. "Fucking Africa." The NG laughs. "Damn...what'd you say made her mad?" Odell: "Called her 'Mama.'" Aw, Odell. "So now," the NG says, seeing all, "you want to run a little something on her boss, which would be a waste of that high yellow skin, Odell." Too right, NG, but Odell isn't in the mood to listen. He slams his drink back, says they're done talking, and walks out. Y'all... are they trying to make me think Hearst is Odell's daddy? All this sir/son, high yellow, nervous Aunt Lou stuff...Major Dad, indeed.
Hearst is in the hotel dining room, at a loss. "The n*gger I appointed to dine with does not appear," he says to Richardson, who is the only person around. "As well," he goes on, "since his mother's not here to serve us." He pauses before polling Richardson on what he knows of last night. "My stomach hurt," Richardson offers, continuing to stir his stew pot. "I was discomfited otherwise," Hearst says, not exactly commiserating. He finally realizes that making small talk with Richardson is not an easy task. "Stupid, aren't ya?" he asks the poor cook, who answers innocently yes, he is. Hearst sighs. "Better than what some of these others are," he says and, thinking there's no harm to reveal his sincere evil to the dim Richardson, says that Deadwood as a whole displeases him. "I'm taking measures to bring it down." Richardson just goes on stirring. "Alll riiiight," he says, and I just about weep with joy at the brilliance. Abruptly, Hearst turns and leaves, and we see that E.B. has been spying from his room. "Does he speak of the hotel?" he asks aloud with a voice of dread. "Or even more?"
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By Al Lowe
Al's continuing to give Dan instructions on how to hire the muscle he needs, and it's getting on Dan's nerves. "That they're armed and awake don't have to mean they're fucking hired," Al says. "Yeah," Dan says, knowing how to do this damn job, "and when I feel a shit coming on I'll remember to drop my pants." Al insists that "the obvious merits utterance -- character is fucking pertinent." Dan, still stiff and in pain, has had enough of his nitpicking and is about to go when Bullock comes in. "Charlie Utter thinks it has to come to blood," he tells Al, who says that Charlie is likely right. Bullock says that Charlie also thinks they should strike Hearst before he can come to them. Now, Al's been just planning for nothing less, but at this point, something comes over him to reconsider. "Believe me, even now in the forest, the blade would be between my teeth, me and you making our way stealthily forward," he tells Bullock. "And as to us and him, if blood's what it finally comes to, a hundred years from now the forest is what they'll find here." He takes a drink. "Dewy morning's lost its appeal for me," he says. "I prefer to wake indoors." Calling to Dan, he cancels the whole gun-hiring plan. "Come," he says, slapping guiding Bullock towards the door. "Need of canned peaches, Johnny. Let's collect the camp elders. Be baffled among friends, huh?" Yay! Everything makes more sense with peaches. If we could just drop peaches down in the Gaza strip, maybe people would pause bombing the shit out of each other for a few minutes long enough to ask themselves what they hell they're doing.
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By Al Lowe
The NG returns to the livery and breaks the bad news that he was not able to talk Odell out of his Hearst plan. Aunt Lou shakes her head and takes off for the hotel.
All purposes lead to the thoroughfare as Hearst stands on the porch of the hotel, Al and Bullock emerge from the Gem, and Odell walks over from Nuttall's. Hearst has the brass BALLS to nod to Al and the sheriff, and bid them a friendly good evening. Al very stoically bids him one back as Odell comes into the picture. "Fuckin' late, son," Hearst says. Odell apologizes and they start to walk into the hotel, but Hearst just can't resist pausing to stick it to Al. He flips him a bird, asking in a seemingly innocent voice how the finger is. "All right, Mr. Hearst," Al says, calm as you please, and Hearst is almost inside when Bullock can't hold it in any longer. "How's the fuckin' ear?" he calls out, and we see Hearst pause ever so momentarily to record the slight. "Good, Bullock, good," Al sighs, wondering why nobody can keep their 'tude to themselves lately. "By dissembling our feelings we keep the strategic edge." Aunt Lou runs past now, on her way to the hotel. "You don't get him. You don't take him from me," she says over and over to herself. "Not quick," Al notes as she runs by, "but she does seem full of purpose."
Meanwhile, as the sun goes down, Jane is fully drunk, laid out by the livery on a plank. "People are fucking people, and that is fucked up!" she announces to the world at large. Joanie walks up and sees here there. "Who are you talking to, Jane?" she asks. "I wondered where you were. I'd hoped you come stay with me instead of going back to all this." Jane is offended. "Whatever you mean by this," she says, "I have been recently engaged in complicated negotiations with n*ggers...who equal any other creature walking upright being able to fuck themselves up." Joanie ignores this, trying to pull Jane up to her feet to join her at Shaunessey's. "You ain't got the fucking manpower to pull my ass up," Jane slurs, awfully drunk and warning Joanie of her unsteady state. "You're putting yourself very much in danger, my friend. Very, very, very, ver...very, very much in danger." She ain't kidding. Joanie holds her up, pitifully, as Jane pukes all over the ground. "That's all right, Jane," she says, supporting her friend as best she can. "Come on."
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