by Zane Grey
The band now began a different strain—dance music. Neale slowly worked his way around. At the end of the big tent a wide door opened into another big room—a dance hall, full of dancers. Neale had seen nothing like this in the other construction camps. A ball was in progress. Just now it was merry, excited, lively—the first dance of the evening. Neale got inside and behind the row of crowded benches where he stood up against a post to watch. Probably two hundred people were in the hall, most of them sitting. How singularly it struck Neale to see good-looking bare-armed and bare-necked young women dancing there and dancing well! There were other women—painted—hollow-eyed—sad wrecks of womanhood. The male dancers were young men, as years counted, mostly unfamiliar with the rhythmic motion of feet to a tune, and they bore the rough stamp of soldiers and laborers. But there were others, as there had been before the bar, who wore their clothes differently, who had a different poise and swing—young men, like Neale, whose earlier years had known some of the graces of society. They did not belong there; the young women did not belong there. The place seemed unreal. This was a merry scene, apparently with little sign at that moment of what it actually meant. Neale sensed its undercurrent.
He left the dance hall. Of the gambling games, he liked best to watch and to play poker. It had interest for him. The winning or losing of money was not of great moment. Poker was not all chance or luck, such as the roll of a ball, the turn of a card, the facing-up of dice. Presently he became one of an interested group around a table watching four men play poker.
One, a gambler in black, immaculate in contrast to his companions, had a white, hard, expressionless face, with eyes of steel and thin lips. His hands were wonderful. Probably they never saw the sunlight, certainly no labor. They were as swift as light, too swift for the glance of an eye. But when he dealt the cards, he was slow, careful, deliberate. The stakes were of gold and the largest heap lay in front of him. One of his opponents was a giant of a fellow, young, with hulking shoulders, heated face, and broken nose—a desperado if Neale ever saw one. The other two players called this strapping brute Fresno. Of these, the little man with a sallow face like a wolf was evidently too intent on the game to look up. He appeared to be losing—beside his small pile of gold stood an empty tumbler. The other and last player was a huge bull-necked man who Neale had seen before. It was difficult to place him, but, after studying the red cheeks and heavy, black, drooping mustache, and hearing the loud voice, he recognized him as a boss of graders—a head boss. Presently the sallow-faced player called him Mull, and then Neale remembered him well.
Several of the watchers around this table lounged away, leaving a better vantage place for Neale.
“May I sit in the game?” he inquired, during a deal.
“Certainly,” replied the gambler.
“Naw, we gotta ’nough,” said the sallow man, and he glanced from Neale to the gambler as if he suspected them. Gamblers often worked in pairs.
“I just came to Benton,” added Neale, reading the man’s thought. “I never saw the gentleman in black before.”
“What’n hell?” rumbled Mull, grabbing up his cards.
Fresno leered.
The gambler leaned back and his swift white hands flashed. Neale believed he had a Derringer up each sleeve. A wrong word now would precipitate a fight.
“Excuse me,” said Neale hastily. “I don’t want to make trouble. I just said I never saw this gentleman before.”
“Nor I him,” returned the gambler courteously. “My name is Place Hough and my word is not doubted.”
Neale had heard of this famous Mississippi River gambler. So evidently had the other three players. The game proceeded, and, when it came to Hough’s deal, Mull bet hard and lost all. His big hairy hands shook. He looked at Fresno and the other fellow, but not at Hough.
“I’m broke,” he said gruffly, and he got up from the bench. He strode past Hough, behind him, and then as if suddenly, instinctively answering to fury, he whipped out a gun.
Neale, just as instinctively, grasped the rising hand. “Hold on, there!” he called. “Would you shoot a man in the back?” And Neale, whose grip was powerful, caused the other to drop the gun. Neale kicked it aside.
Fresno got up. “Whar’s your head, Mull?” he growled. “Git out of this!”
Attention had been attracted to Mull. Someone picked up the gun. The sallow-faced man rose, holding out his hand for it. Hough did not even turn around.
“I was goin’ to hold him up,” said Mull. He glared fiercely at Neale, wrenched his hand free, and, with his comrades, disappeared in the crowd.
The gambler rose and shook down his sleeves. The action convinced Neale that he had held a little gun in each hand. “I saw him draw,” he said. “You saved his life. Nevertheless, I appreciate your action. My name is Place Hough, will you drink with me?”
“Sure . . . My name is Neale.”
They approached the bar and drank together.
“A railroad man, I take it?” asked Hough.
“I was. I’m footloose now.”
A fleeting smile crossed the gambler’s face. “Benton is bad enough, without you being footloose.”
“All these camps are tough,” replied Neale.
“I was in North Platte, Kearney, Cheyenne, Medicine Bow during their rise,” said Hough. “They were tough. But they were not Benton. Benton is hell! And the next camp west, which will be the last . . . it will be Roaring Hell. What will be its name?”
“Why is Benton worse?” inquired Neale.
“The big work is well under way now, with tremendous push from behind. There are three men for every man’s work. That lays off two men each day. Drunk or dead! The place is wild . . . far off. There’s gold . . . hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold dumped off the trains. Benton has had one pay day. That day was the sight of my life! Then besides time and place and gold . . . there are women.”
“I saw a few in the dance hall,” replied Neale.
“Then you haven’t looked in at Stanton’s?”
“Who’s he?”
“Stanton is not a man,” replied Hough.
Neale glanced inquiringly over his glass.
“Beauty Stanton, they call her,” went on Hough. “I saw her in New Orleans years ago when she was a very young woman . . . notorious then, she had the beauty and she led the life . . . did Beauty Stanton.”
Neale made no comment and Hough, turning to pay for the drinks, was accosted by several men. They wanted to play poker.
“Gentlemen, I hate to take your money,” he said. “But I never refuse to sit in a game . . . Neale, will you join us?”
They joined a table just vacated. Neale took two of the three strangers to be prosperous merchants or ranchers from the Missouri country. The third was a gambler by profession. Neale found himself in unusually sharp company. He did not have a great deal of money. So in order to keep clear-headed, he did not drink. And he began to win, not by reason of excellent judgment but because he was lucky. He had good cards all the time and part of the time very strong ones. It struck him presently that these remarkable hands came during Hough’s deal, and he wondered if the gambler was deliberately manipulating the cards to his advantage. At any rate he won hundreds of dollars.
“Mister Neale, do you always hold such cards?” asked one of the men.
“Why, sure,” replied Neale. He could not help being excited and elated.
“Well, he can’t be beat,” said the other.
“Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,” remarked the third of the trio. “I pass.”
Hough was looking straight at Neale when this last remark was made. And Neale suddenly lost his smile, his flush. The gambler dropped his glance. “Play the game and don’t get personal in your remarks,” he said. “This is poker.”
Neale continued to win, but his excitement did not return, nor his elation. A random word from a strange man had proven to sting him. Unlucky in love . . . alas . . . what was luck, gold . . . anything t
o him any more?
By the time the game ended Neale sensed a friendly interest in Hough that was difficult to define or explain, and the conviction gained upon him that the gambler had deliberately dealt him those remarkable cards.
“Let’s see,” said Hough, consulting his watch. “Twelve o’clock! Stanton’s will be humming. We’ll go in.”
Neale did not want to share his reluctance, yet he did not know just what to say. Then he was drifting. He went.
It seemed that all visitors who had been in the gambling hell gravitated to this other dance hall. The entrance appeared to be through a hotel. At least Neale saw the hotel sign. The building was not made of canvas but painted wood in sections, like the scenes of a stage. Men were coming and going; the hum of music and gaiety came from the rear; there were rugs, pictures, chairs; this place, whatever its nature, made pretensions. Neale did not see any bar.
They entered a big room full of people, apparently doing nothing. From the opposite side, where the dance hall opened, came a hum that seemed at once music and discordance, gaiety and wildness, with a strange carrying undertone, raw and violent.
Hough led Neale across the room to where he could look into the dance hall.
Neale saw a mad colorful flash and whirl of dancers.
Hough whispered in Neale’s ear: “Stanton throws the drunks out of here.”
No, it appeared the dancers were not drunk with liquor. But there was evidence of other drunkenness than that of the bottle. The floor was crowded. Looking out at the mass, Neale could only see whirling heated faces, white clinging arms, forms swaying around and around, a wild rhythm without grace, a dance in which music was but an instrument, where men and women were lost. Neale had never seen a sight like that. He was stunned. There were no souls here. Only beasts of men—and women for whom there was no name. If death stalked in that camp, as Hough had intimated, and hell was there—then the two could not meet too soon.
If the mass and the spirit and the sense of the scene dismayed Neale, the living beings, the creatures, the women—for the men were beyond him—confounded him with pity, consternation, and stinging regret. He had loved two women—his mother and Allie—so well that he should love all women because they were of the same sex. Yet how impossible! Had these creations any sex? Yet they were—at least many were—young, gay, pretty, wild, full of life. They had swift suppleness, smiles, flashing eyes, a look at once intent and yet vacant. But few onlookers would have seen that. The eyes for which the dance was meant saw the mad whirl, the bare flesh, the brazen glance, the close embrace.
The music ended, the dancers stopped, the shuffling ceased. There were no seats unoccupied, so the dancers walked around or formed in groups.
“Well, I see Ruby has spotted you,” observed Hough.
Neale did not gather exactly what the gambler meant, yet he associated the remark with a girl dressed in red who had paused at the door with others and looked directly at Neale. At that moment someone engaged Hough’s attention. The girl would have been striking in any company. Neale thought her neither beautiful nor pretty, but he kept on looking. Her arms were bare, her dress cut very low. Her face offered vivid contrast to the carmine on her lips. It was a round soft face, with narrow eyes, dark, seductive, bold. She tilted her head on one side and suddenly smiled at Neale. It startled him. It was a smile with the shock of a bullet. It held Neale, so that, when she crossed to him, he could not move. He felt rather than saw Hough return to his side. The girl took hold of the lapels of Neale’s coat. She looked up. Her eyes were dark with what seemed red shadows deep in them. She had white teeth. The carmined lips curled in a smile—a smile, impossible to believe, of youth and sweetness that disclosed a dimple in her cheek. She was pretty. She was holding him—pulling him a little toward her.
“I like you!” she exclaimed.
The suddenness of the incident, the impossibility of what was happening made Neale dumb. He felt her, saw her as if he were in a dream. Her face possessed a peculiar fascination. The sleepy, strange, seductive eyes; the provoking half smile, teasing, alluring, the red lips, full and young through the carmine paint; all of her seemed to breathe a different kind of a power than he had ever experienced—unspiritual, elemental, strong as some heady wine. She represented youth, health, beauty terribly linked with evil wisdom, with corrupt and irresistible power, with a base and mysterious affinity for man.
The breath and the charm and the pestilence of her passed over Neale like fire.
“Sweetheart, will you dance with me?” she asked, with her head tilted to one side and her half-open audacious veiled eyes on his.
“No,” replied Neale. He put her from him, gently, but coldly.
She showed slow surprise. “Why not? Can’t you dance? You don’t look like a gawk.”
“Yes, I can dance,” replied Neale.
“Then will you dance with me?” she retorted, and red spots showed through the white on her cheek.
“I told you no,” replied Neale, with cold courtesy.
His reply transported her into a sudden fury. She swung her hand viciously. Hough caught it, saving Neale from a sounding slap in the face.
“Ruby, don’t lose your temper,” remonstrated the gambler.
“He insulted me!” she cried passionately.
“He did not. Ruby, you’re spoiled . . .”
“Spoiled! Hell! Didn’t he look at me . . . flirt with me? That’s why I asked him to dance. Then he insulted me. I’ll make Cordy shoot him up for it!”
“No you won’t,” replied Hough, and he pulled her toward his companion, a tall woman with golden hair. “Stanton, shut her up.”
The woman addressed spoke a few words in Ruby’s ear. Then the girl flounced away. But she turned with withering scorn. “What in hell did you come in here for? You big handsome stiff!” With that she was lost amid her mirthful companions.
Hough turned to Neale. “The girl’s a favorite. You ruffled her vanity . . . You see! That’s Benton. If you had happened to be alone, you would have had gun play. Be careful after this.”
“But I didn’t flirt with her,” protested Neale. “I only looked at her . . . curiously, of course. And I said I wouldn’t dance.”
Hough laughed. “You’re young in Benton . . . Neale, let me introduce you to the lady who saved you some inconvenience . . . Miss Stanton . . . Mister Neale.”
And that was how Neale met Beauty Stanton. It seemed she had done him a service. He thanked her. Neale’s manner with women was courteous and deferential. It showed strangely here, by contrast. The Stanton woman was superb, not more than thirty years old, with a face that must have been lovely once and held the haunting ghost of beauty still. Her hair was dead gold; her eyes were large and blue, with dark circles under them, and her features had a clear-cut classic regularity.
“Where’s Ancliffe?” asked Hough, addressing Stanton.
She pointed and Hough left them. “Neale, you’re new here,” affirmed the woman rather curiously.
“Didn’t I look like it? I can’t forget what that girl said,” replied Neale.
“Tell me.”
“She asked me what in the hell I came in here for? And she called me . . .”
“Oh, I heard what Ruby called you. It’s a wonder it wasn’t worse. She can swear like a trooper. The men are mad over Ruby. It’d be just like her to fall in love with you for snubbing her.”
“I hope she doesn’t,” replied Neale constrainedly.
“May I ask . . . what did you come here for?”
“You mean here to your dance hall? Why, Hough brought me. I met him, we played cards, and . . .”
“No. I mean what brought you to Benton?”
“To Benton . . . I don’t know,” said Neale frankly.
“No work? No intentions? You’re no spiker or capper or boss. I know that sort. And I can spot a gambler a mile! The whole world meets out here in Benton. But not many young men like you wander into my place.”
“Like me? How
so?”
“The men here are wolves . . . on the scent for flesh . . . and like bandits on the trail of gold . . . But you . . . you’re like my friend Ancliffe.”
“Who is he?” asked Neale politely.
“Who is he? God only knows. But he’s an Englishman and a gentleman. It’s a pity men like Ancliffe and you drift out here.” She spoke seriously. She had the accent and manner of breeding.
“Why, Miss Stanton?” inquired Neale. He was finding another woman here interesting to him.
“Because it means wasted life. You don’t work. You’re not crooked. You can’t do any good. And only a knife in the back or a bullet from some drunken bully’s gun awaits you.”
“That isn’t a very hopeful outlook, I’ll admit,” replied Neale thoughtfully.
At this point Hough returned with a pale slender man whose clothes and gait were not American. He introduced him as Ancliffe. Neale felt in the introduction a stimulus to an accumulating interest. Benton might be hell, but he was meeting new types of men and women. Ancliffe was fair; he had a handsome face that held a story, and tired blue eyes that looked out wearily and mildly, without curiosity or hope. The Englishman of broken fortunes.
“Just arrived, eh?” he said to Neale. “Rather jolly here, don’t you think?”
“A fellow’s not going to stagnate in Benton,” replied Neale.
“Not while he’s alive,” interposed Stanton.
“Miss Stanton, that idea seems to persist with you . . . the brevity of life,” said Neale, smiling. “What are the average days for a mortal in this bloody Benton?”
“Days! You mean hours. I call the night blessed that someone is not dragged out of my place. And I don’t sell drinks! I’ve saved Ancliffe’s life nine times I know of. Either he hasn’t any sense or he wants to get killed.”
“I assure you . . . it’s the former,” said the Englishman.
“But my friends, I’m serious,” she returned earnestly. “This awful place is getting on my nerves . . . Mister Neale here, he would have had to face a gun already but for me.”
