A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

by Norman Maclean

  You know, watching a poker game isn’t like watching most other card games where all is silent while the hand is played and then there’s a round of relaxation and comment after the cards have been thrown into the pile. In this usual kind of card game everybody sees all the cards by the time the cards are thrown in, so nobody’s giving anything away by talking when the game’s over. But in draw poker half or more of the game is psychology, and you toss your hand face down into the pile so no one can see what cards you held unless you’re willing to stay in the game and bet that you’re the winner. Hand after hand in poker is played with nothing showing at the end but a pair of whatever it took to open the betting, and nobody would be allowed to watch the game if he gave an indication of what the cards were that had been tossed face down into the pile. In draw poker, you pay for every card you see.

  As I stood at the door of the pool room looking back at the poker table, a moment of my life came back to me and I was a child watching a pageant of big boys dressed as sheepherders trying to be statues bent over something mystic in a shining light.

  Turning to the barkeeper nursing his shot of moonshine, I said, “It looks like Sunday school at Christmas,” and I walked rapidly toward the back room, nervous that I was making any noise at all and nervous also about that .38 I was leaving in my back.

  Although Mr. Smith was standing at the door of the poker room where he should be, he wasn’t happy. According to the plan, he was to be the palace guard and keep out all except our guys, but when the earth had tilted he obviously had been covered by a landslide. I told him, “The barkeeper has a .38.” He didn’t say a thing to me, but he shoved people aside until he got me to a spot right behind the cook. Before I really looked at the cook I looked at the pile in front of him. It was a pile all right, not big but forty dollars anyway. The other three at the table had big hat brims but small piles of money. Bill Bell was standing right behind Biggest Brim. The light shade over the table almost cut Bill in half. In the semi-darkness above the light his shoulders and hat were gigantic; then suddenly beneath the light his hands glared on his hips, as if he had a gun. My attention stopped jumping while I studied him for a bulge around the waist or a shoulder strap, and I knew finally for sure it was going to be just a plain fight. As I was studying Bill, Biggest Brim moved his chair to the right and, when he moved a second time, I guessed that Biggest didn’t like Bill directly behind him. Just as he took a look at Bill, Bill pushed a bystander to the right and got behind Biggest again. I thought, “If they go on doing this they’ll be in front of me before long.” Just then, the redheaded kid developed out of the shadows and became a form on one side of Biggest Brim. The red-headed kid was about my size, but he didn’t budge an inch when Biggest tried to make another move to get another look at Bill. I didn’t have to guess any longer about whether he would have shot on the fireline.

  Then who appeared on the other side of Biggest Brim but the gassed Canadian. He coughed but he didn’t move either.

  In front of me, the cook looked just as cocky as ever. In fact, standing over him, I could look down on that bluejay tuft sticking up from the back of his head. Being the only player not hidden by a hat and being the only player with a fair-sized pile in front of him, he was the one we all watched most.

  He stood out even more when it was his turn to deal, and it was clear to me after a couple of rounds that the strategy of the Faceless Three when it came to dealing cards had changed completely since early evening when they had tried to draw me into the game by looking clumsy. Now every player knew the other was a gambling man, so the psychology had changed to shaking the other guy’s confidence in his game. The three Brims were pretty handy with cards, but no better than that. I was just beginning to find out that there were quite a few differences between my picture of a gambling man and a small-town shill who lies in wait for working stiffs with monthly checks. The cook, though, was a flash. The cards leaped out of the messy pile into his hands, and then darted out of his hands around the circle of the table. For my money he was too flashy and was showing off, but our crew was proud of him, and, standing right over him as if I owned him, I guess I was, too, although never completely losing the feeling that something was missing in him somewhere.

  By what he had said earlier, he was playing percentage poker, although I wouldn’t have called it that. It was a lot more daring than just sitting there counting the spots and playing the odds. For instance, twice in a short time he had a chance to open the betting on a pair of jacks (jacks were the lowest openers) and twice he passed and twice somebody else opened and then both times he raised the opening bet. But from there on he played each hand differently. To the first hand, he drew only one card, as if to suggest that he was holding two pairs and hadn’t opened the betting on them because of the difficulties you can get into with two pairs if you have to bet on them before getting an idea of what anybody else has. The smallest of the Faceless Three, who was sitting to the cook’s left, opened the betting, and he drew an honest three, which meant, since jacks were openers, that he could be holding any one of three pairs that would beat the cook—and, at worst, he couldn’t be holding less than a pair of jacks, which was all the cook was holding after he drew his one card.

  Bigger Brim and Biggest Brim dropped out after the raise. Since Big Brim had opened, it was his turn to bet first after the draw and, thinking a long time about the raise the cook had given him, he passed. The cook had done his thinking long before. He bet two dollars. Two dollars at that stage of the game was a pretty good-sized bet—not staggering as if you were betting big because you weren’t holding much but big enough to look as if you had what you thought could win and you wanted to get the other guys to stay in the betting. This time Big Brim had done all his thinking. He showed a pair of queens for openers, and the cook lowered his elbows and embraced the pile of money. Biggest Brim grunted. If I had been playing against him I would have figured he didn’t like to be bluffed.

  The second time that the cook didn’t open the pot on a pair of jacks but instead raised, he drew not one but two cards, as if to suggest he had three of a kind, and damned if one of the two cards he drew wasn’t another jack, so he ended with three of a kind. Of course, when you’re that lucky, you don’t have to be Nick the Greek to play them. This time Big Brim and Biggest Brim both stayed in the game, and it cost Biggest Brim nearly five dollars to think he discovered that the cook didn’t bluff because he ended up with three jacks.

  As the cook’s winnings increased, he became cockier and he began to talk and his game got even better. He was the only one who talked, and he talked all the time about his cards. One of the best poker players I ever saw was a punch-drunk prizefighter who, like the cook, talked all the time about what he was holding. You couldn’t tell what to believe about anything he said, but you couldn’t stop listening. The cook would say, “I’m going to raise you on a pair of jacks,” and he’d have three kings, and then later he’d say, “I’m going to try to raise you again on a pair of jacks,” and this time that’s just what he had. Always he talked about his hand, and generally he lied but every now and then what he said was what he held, and only I who was behind him could tell the difference. I was glad I wasn’t playing against him. Obviously, it was also the flashiest poker the three Brims from Hamilton had seen in some time. Biggest Brim twisted around in his chair until he could pull out his purse from his hip pocket. It was a little black purse that snapped shut and he unsnapped it and unfolded several bills. Then he untwisted, traded bills for silver dollars, started a new pile with the dollars and went on losing.

  Although only the cook talked, there was an audible relaxation of muscles between deals except for Bill who never moved unless to keep Biggest Brim in front of him. Otherwise, Bill was a giant hat and pair of shoulders in shadows, and in light a pair of hands resting on hips that by now everyone besides me had studied. Mr. Smith was a full-time giant beside the door, occasionally looking back in the direction of the .38 Smith & Wesson.
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  My left arm was slightly brushed, and looking down on me but pretending to look at the card game was Mr. McBride. He was standing so much over me that if it had been raining he would have dripped off the corners of his moustache on to my head. I was glad to have that feeling over me, and I reached inside my shirt and touched the sugar sack. Still, I didn’t like it that nearly all our crew were standing in the rim of light around the table, except Mr. Smith and the two lookouts, whose names and locations I can’t remember. I wasn’t much worried about the three Faceless Wonders at the table. After all, we had them outnumbered, and, if they were fighty, they’d been sitting soft all summer around a green table while we’d been getting case-hardened climbing the high hills. I was worried about the extra help that might come out of nowhere. I’d seen at least two housemen working the poolroom earlier in the evening. Then, some of those clumsy pool players had to be housemen who were only faking and would take you to the cleaners if you dropped in from another town and thought you were good. There was also that .38 behind the bar. Still another question: How many of the customers would stick with the house in a fight? There was no way of answering that now. It could depend on who was winning or on how the Oxford treated its customers or on how many friends Bill had in the house. At present, they were standing back in the shadows, but probably were all for war up in front. As for me personally, I knew I’d take a beating. It was getting so that every few minutes I’d feel the sugar sack.

  Evidently, the barkeeper hadn’t yet dared come as far as the door to look.

  The cook kept on winning—not big but steadily—and I began to think he would go on playing his so-called percentage game for the rest of the night as it would have been percentage to do, but I kept forgetting that one thing you can be sure about a show-off is that he will show off.

  When it happened, there was a good-sized pot, not big enough to risk your shirt on and certainly not big enough to risk getting shot over, but still a fair-sized pot. Three or four deals in a row had been passed without an opening bet and of course each time everybody had to ante so the pot got to be a pretty good one. Actually, the cook had made the last deal and, when nobody had an opening bet, I knew he was still dealing honest. Everybody chipped into the pot again and the cook passed the cards to Big Brim, who was sitting to his left. Big Brim handled cards better than anyone in the game except the cook, and was even slightly ahead, but by now I was sure that none of the Brims was a great card player. I asked myself, “Anyway, what the hell ever made you think a great card player would be staying in Hamilton?” Now I had them cased as pretty good card players who probably had a few two-bit tricks up their sleeves to fool the ranch hands and us Forest Service stiffs from the high brush.

  Big Brim dealt out the hands and the cook picked his up and had just started to sort it when he put his cards face down on the table, leaned over and slightly raised Big Brim’s hat.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said with a little stately speech, “I always like to see a man’s face when I play cards with him.”

  I saw something flash and disappear as the cook withdrew his hand from the hat, like the tail of a rabbit into the brush, but even though I stretched my neck I couldn’t get sight of it again. I knew, though, that something had happened to Big Brim from the sudden stir among people across the table who could get a front view of him. Biggest Brim closed his cards in one fist and half pushed himself up from the table. Bill stepped from behind him for a better view and perhaps a better shot. Bigger Brim, who had done little more in the game than lose, raked in his little pile of money, whereupon I reached in my shirt and got a fist on the sugar sack.

  Big Brim himself, though, didn’t seem to notice that a rabbit had ducked into his hat or something like that. With his hat now tilted away from me, he leaned back and started to sort his cards. He had his move timed perfectly, just when the cook had finished sorting his hand and had definitely assumed possession of it.

  “Sorry, pardner,” he said to the cook, “but you’ll have to throw in your hand. You’ve an extra card.”

  “Who? Me?” asked the cook.

  “Yes, you,” said Big Brim. “You have six cards in your hand. You must have had that extra card up your sleeve just for a big pot like this one.”

  “Count’em,” said the cook, and he spread them face down in a small fan in front of Big Brim.

  Big Brim spread them even further apart and counted. “How many?” asked the cook. Big Brim went back over the cards, spread them even further apart, felt each one, and gave them another count.

  From across the table, Bill asked, “How many?”

  Big Brim looked at the cook and not at Bill. “Five,” he said, still feeling the cards.

  The cook said, blown wide open with pride, “If you’re looking for that extra card you dealt me to get my hand thrown out of the game, you’ll find it in your hatband.”

  Big Brim took off his hat and rested it on the table while he tried to believe it. There in his hatband was the deuce of clubs, the lowest card in the deck, but if it had still been in the cook’s hand it would have put him out of the game.

  The aces the cook had palmed into my shirt pocket at Elk Summit jumped out of my mind like rabbits and arranged themselves around the band of Big Brim’s hat. Nobody needed to tell me how the deuce of clubs got there or where the rabbit had gone.

  I went for the money.

  First for the pot on the table, figuring that the cook should be able to protect his pile until I got there. I don’t know who started the fight. I heard a chair crash. Either somebody got hit with a chair or was knocked off one.

  Somebody slugged me as I reached for the pot, and it happened just as I had imagined it would—somebody from the side slugged me high on the jaw, and I never saw him. I guess it was Big Brim, and it must have been Mr. McBride who flattened him. Anyway, while I was still reaching for the pot Big Brim lit on top of me and didn’t move until I heaved up straight and let him slide off. There was still some money left in the pot that hadn’t spilled or been taken but, when I reached over to pick up the remains, somebody grabbed my arm and somebody else stretched out and helped him twist it. I could also feel things hurt in my ear where I was hit on the side of my head.

  When I finally got my arm loose it was so weak I couldn’t pick up the rest of the pot, but I didn’t miss much, maybe a couple of dollars of change that were hard to pick up with numb fingers. Instead, I went for the pile of money in front of the cook, who, so help me, was just sitting there. You would think that somebody would have flattened him right off, but there he sat with the tuft on his head and nobody had laid a hand on him, probably because, as I said earlier, among men the cardshark is a sorcerer in everyone’s eyes, and this one had just performed magic. Maybe they were afraid they’d go up in smoke if they touched him. So there he sat, untouched and maybe untouchable. The son of a bitch didn’t even help me stuff his money into the sack, although I think I got it all.

  Then somebody hit me between the eyes harder than I was ever able to remember. I just stood there and my clothes felt like a potato sack and my body felt like potatoes, and the sack sank to the floor with me inside it. I tried to remain conscious. I tried to think, knowing I was nodding at the fringe of reality. I tried to think big thoughts, as if I were having thoughts about life. I even started sentences that began, “Life is…,” but I never finished them, because I never had any thoughts to put in them.

  At first, everything corresponded exactly with my foresight. I reached across the table for the money, and there was no way I could protect myself. Next, as in anticipation, I felt actual blood from inside my head slip down my throat.

  But, as I folded on the floor, everything became unexpected. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, I got not one but two ideas of how I could have protected myself when I reached across the table, whereas for weeks before, when an idea would have done some good, I couldn’t get a single one. I struggled to my elbows to see if it was too late to act, but, once on the tri
pod of my elbows, I could tell the ideas weren’t worth a damn. And in another moment they disappeared, never to be remembered again.

  While my body was still raised off the floor, though, I managed to shove the sugar sack into my shirt. In the process, I realized I recognized some of the feet under and around the table.

  Lying again on the floor on the side of my face, I wondered, since I couldn’t think believable thoughts, whether, by watching feet, I could figure out some of what was going on. I lifted my face again from the sawdust and stained Bull Durham butts, and again put it on the tripod of elbows. This was to be the biggest fight I ever viewed almost entirely from the prone position. And under a poker table.

  Right off the bat I could tell us guys from those guys. They were the cowboy boots and we were the logging boots, and I remembered with a sickly feeling that later this night we were going to clean out all the ranch hands in town. It took me time to sort out this fight between men up to their knees. But things got clearer, and first there was the biggest pair of cowboy boots right across from me. The knees were spread wide apart and the boots were turned up at the toes. Bill, the redhead, and the Canadian must have nailed him to his chair before he ever moved. Then suddenly a pair of cowboy boots went straight up in the air and then just dangled there—one of our boys must have draped this body across the poker table and left his head and feet hanging over. To check, I looked on the opposite side and, sure enough, there was his head with saliva stringing out of his mouth. I looked back real quick to see who of our guys had stretched out the body, and, just as expected, there were Bill’s big loggers spread out. Bill’s loggers, you remember, had that fringed extra tongue, you couldn’t miss them, and they were working slowly toward me.