Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  "Some," he said. He sucked two little streams of smoke up his nostrils and drank half his whisky before he let the smoke out. When it came out there wasn't much of it, and that thin. He didn't look at me, but at the three rows of dark bottles behind Canby. Canby wiped the dry bar again. He was ashamed. It was all right for Moore, but I didn't like Canby acting at if we were outsiders. Neither did Gil.

  "Do they know anything about it?" he asked Moore. "Is that why Risley's out here?"

  Moore finished his whisky, and nodded at the glass, which Canby filled up a third time. "No, we don't know anything, and that's why he's here," he said. He put his change in his pocket, and took his whisky over to the table by the front window. He sat down with his back to us,

  so Canby could talk.

  "It's getting touchy, huh?" Gil said.

  "They don't like to talk about it," Canby said, "except with fellows they sleep with."

  "It's a long way from any border," he said after a minute, "and everybody in the valley would know if there was a stranger around."

  "And there isn't?" I asked.

  "There hasn't been, that knew cattle," said Canby, sitting back up on the counter, "except you two."

  "That's not funny," Gil told him, and set his glass down very quietly.

  "Now who's touchy?" Canby asked him. He was really grinning.

  "You're talking about my business," Gil said. "Stick to my pleasures."

  "Sure," Canby said. "I just thought I'd let you know how you stand."

  "Listen," Gil said, taking his hands down from the bar.

  "Take a drink of water, Gil," I said. And to Canby, "He's had five whiskies, and he's sore about Rose." I didn't really believe Gil would fight Canby, but I wasn't sure after his disappointment. Whenever Gil gets low in spirit, or confused in his mind, he doesn't feel right again until he's had a fight. It doesn't matter whether he wins or not, if it's a good fight he feels fine again afterward. But he usually wins.

  "And you keep your mouth shut about Rose, see?" Gil told me. He had turned around so he was facing right at me, and I could tell by his eyes he was a little drunk already.

  "All right, Gil," I reassured him. "All right. But you don't want to go pitching into your best friends on account of a little joke, do you? You can take a joke, can't you, Gil?"

  "Sure I can take a joke," he argued. "Who says I can't take a joke?" He stared at us. We kept quiet. "Sure I can take a joke," he said again, but then turned back to his drink. "Some jokes though," he said, after a swallow, but then took another swallow, and let it go at that. I looked at Canby and bent my head a little toward Gil. Canby nodded.

  "No offense meant, Carter," he said, and filled Gil's glass again, pouring slowly, as if he were doing it very carefully for somebody he thought a lot of.

  "It's all right, it's all right," Gil said; "forget it."

  Canby put two plates on the bar, and then got some hard bread and dried beef from under the counter and put them on the plates. Gil looked at them.

  "And I don't need any of your leftovers to sober me up, either," he said.

  "Just as you like," Canby said. "It's a long time since lunch. I just thought you might be hungry." He put some strong cheese on the plates too, and then took some cheese and a bottle over to Moore at the table. He stood by Moore, talking to him for a while. I was glad neither of them laughed. I ate some of the dry food and cheese. It tasted good, now that I was wet down. We'd had a long ride, and nothing to eat since before daybreak. Finally Gil began to eat too, at first as though he weren't thinking about it, but just picking at it absent-mindedly, then without pretense.

  "Are they sure about this rustling?" I asked Canby when he came back.

  "Sure enough," he said. "They thought they'd lost some last fall, but with this range shut in the way it is by the mountains, they'd been kind of careless in the tally, and couldn't be too sure. Only Bartlett was sure. He doesn't run so many anyway, and his count was over a hundred short. He started some talk that might have made trouble at home, but Drew got that straightened out, and had them take another tally, a close one. During the winter they even checked by the head on the cows that were expected to calve this spring. Then, it was about three weeks ago now, more than that, a month, I guess, Kinkaid, who was doing the snow riding for Drew, got suspicious. He thought one of the bunches that had wintered mostly at the south end was thinning out more than the thaw explained. He and Farnley kept an eye out. They even rode nights some. Just before roundup they found a small herd trail, and signs of shod horses, in the south draw. They lost them over in the Antelope, where there'd been a new fall of snow. But in the Antelope, in a ravine west of the draw, they found a kind of lean-to shelter, and the ashes of several fires that had been built under a ledge to keep the smoke down. They figured about thirty head, and four riders."

  "And the count came short this spring?"

  "Way short," Canby said. "Nearly six hundred head, counting calves."

  "Six hundred?" I said, only half believing it.

  "That's right," Canby said. "They tallied twice, and with everybody there."

  "God," Gil said.

  "So they're touchy," said Canby.

  "Did everybody lose?" I asked after a minute.

  "Drew was heaviest, but everybody lost."

  "But they would, wouldn't they, with that kind of a job," Gil said angrily.

  "The way you say," Canby agreed.

  We could see how it was, now, and we didn't feel too good being off our range. Not when they'd been thinking about it all year.

  "What's Risley doing here? Have they got a lead?" Gil asked.

  "You want to know a lot," said Canby. "He's down just in case of trouble. It's Judge Tyler's idea, not the cattlemen."

  I was going to ask more questions. I didn't want to, and yet I did. But Moore got up and came back to the bar with the partly emptied bottle. He pushed it across to Canby, with another dollar beside it.

  "Three out of that," he said.

  "Lost any over your way?" he asked us.

  "No," I admitted. "No more than winter and the coyotes could account for."

  "Got any ideas?" Gil asked him. Canby paused, holding Moore's change in his hand.

  "No ideas, except not to have any ideas," Moore said. He reached for his change and put it in his pocket. "Game?" he asked, to show we were all right.

  Canby fished a deck out of a back drawer for us, and the three of us sat down at the front table. Moore played his cards close to his vest, and looked up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes every time before he'd discard. We played a twenty-five-cent limit, which was steep enough. Canby sat in with us until others began coming. Then he went back and stood wiping the bar and looking at them; he never liked to speak first. Most of the men who came in were riders and men we knew. I thought they looked at Gil and me curiously and longer than usual, but probably that wasn't so. Each of them nodded, or raised a hand, or said "hi," in the usual manner. They all went to the bar first, and had a drink or two. Then some of them got up a game at the table next to ours, and the rest settled into a row at the bar, elbows up and hats back. The place was full of the gentle vibration of deep voices talking mostly in short sentences with a lot of give and take. Now and then some man would throw his head back and laugh, and then toss off his drink before he leaned over again. Things didn't seem any different than usual, and yet there was a difference underneath. For one thing, nobody, no matter how genially, was calling his neighbor an old horse thief, or a greaser, or a card sharp, or a liar, or anything that had moral implications.

  Some of the village men came in too: old Bartlett, who was a rancher, but had his house in the village, Davies, the store owner, and his clerk, Joyce, a tall thin sallow boy with pimples, a loose lower lip which made him look like an idiot, and big hands, which embarrassed him. Even the minister from the one working church, Osgood, came in, though he ostentatiously didn't take a drink. He was a Baptist, bald-headed, with a small nose and close-set eyes, but built
like a wrestler. His voice was too enthusiastic and his manner too intimate to be true, and while he kept strolling pompously among the men, with one arm flexed behind him, the fist clenched, like the statue of a great man in meditation, the other hand was constantly and nervously toying with a seal on the heavy gold watch chain across his vest. I noticed that none of the men would be caught alone with him, and that they all became stiff or too much at ease when he approached, though they kept on drinking and playing, and spoke with him readily, but called him Mr. Osgood.

  Bartlett came over to the table and watched. He was a tall man, looking very old and tired and cross. The flesh of his face was pasty and hung in loose folds, even his lower lids sagging and showing pools of red, like those of a bloodhound. He breathed audibly through his mouth, and kept blowing his mustache. He had on boots, but a flat Spanish sombrero and a long black frock coat, such as only the old men were wearing then. When Jeff Farnley came over too, Moore invited them to sit in. Farnley had a thin face, burned brick red, stiff yellow hair and pale hostile eyes, but a quick grin on a stiff mouth. He wiped his hands on his red and white cowhide vest and sat. Bartlett sat down slowly, letting himself go the last few inches, and fumbled for a cigar in his vest. When he got to playing he would chew the cigar and forget to draw on it, so that after every hand he had to relight it.

  Osgood stood behind Moore and watched Gil and me playing. We were new to him, and I had an uneasy feeling, from the way he was sizing us up, that we were due to get our souls worked over a little. There was that about Osgood; he wouldn't know the right time from the wrong. Not that he'd try it here, but we'd have to move sharp when we left.

  Then I forgot Osgood because I had something else to worry about. Gil was tight enough so I could see him squinting, sometimes two or three times, to make out what he had in his hand, but he was having a big run of luck.

  I knew he wasn't cheating; Gil didn't. Even if he'd wanted to he couldn't, with hands like his, not even sober. But with his gripe on he wasn't taking his winning right. He wasn't showing any signs of being pleased, not boasting, or bulling the others along about how thin they'd have to live, the way you would in an ordinary game with a bunch of friends. He was just sitting there with a sullen dead-pan and raking in the pots slow and contemptuous, like he expected it. The only variation he'd make would be to signal Canby to fill his glass again when he'd made a good haul. Then he'd toss the drink off in one gulp without looking at anybody or saying a "mud," and set the glass down and flick it halfway to the middle of the table with his finger. If there hadn't been anything else in the air you couldn't play long with a man acting like that without getting your chin out, especially when he was winning three hands out of four. I was getting riled myself.

  It didn't seem to be bothering Moore. Once when Gil took in the chips three times running on straight poker, Moore looked at him and then at me, and shook his head a little, but that was all. A couple of other riders who'd sat in after Bartlett and Farnley, started prodding Gil about it, but they stayed good natured and Gil just looked at them and went on playing cold. But that made their jokes sound pretty hollow, and after a little they didn't joke any more, though they didn't seem sore either. Old Bartlett, though, was beginning to mutter at his cards; nothing you could hear, just a constant talking to himself. And he was throwing his hands in early and exasperated, and not bothering to relight his cigar any more. But it was Farnley I was really worried about. He had a flaring kind of face, and he wasn't letting off steam in any way, not by a look or a word or a move, but staring a long time at his bad hands and then laying the cards down quietly, sliding them onto the table and keeping his fingers on them for a moment, as if he had half a mind to do something else with them. I hoped Gil's luck would change enough to look reasonable, but it didn't, so I dropped out of the game, saying he'd had enough off me. I thought maybe he'd follow suit, but even if he didn't, it would look better without his buddy in there. He didn't, and he kept winning. I didn't want to get too far from him, so I did the best I could and stood right behind him, where I could see his hand, but nobody else's.

  After two more rounds Farnley said, "How about draw?" He said it quietly and watching Gil, as if changing the game would make a real difference. Gil was dealing and Farnley had no business asking for the change; it was picking the worst time he could. I knew by the set of his head that Gil was staring back at him like he'd just noticed he was there and wanted to get a clear impression. He held the cards in his fist for a moment and ruffled the edge of them with his other thumb. Moore was going to say something, and I had my fist all doubled to persuade Gil, but then Gil said,

  "Sure. Why not?" So I saw the muscles bunch on Farnley's jaws; and Gil began to deal them out.

  "Double draw, for a real change," Farnley said.

  That's no poker player's game; draw's bad enough, but double draw's for old ladies playing with matches.

  "Wait, Jeff," Moore started. Farnley looked at him quick, like he'd paste him if he said another word.

  "Double draw it is," Gil said, without breaking his deal.

  "Look 'em over careful, boys," he said, when they were all out. "Maybe somebody has two aces of spades."

  Farnley let it go. He picked up his cards, and his face didn't change from its set look, but I could tell from the way he looked them all over again, and then bunched them together with his other hand before fanning them to stay, that he thought he had something this time. He drew two cards out and slid them onto the table face down, and this time didn't keep his fingers on them. I looked at Gil's hand. He had the queen, jack and ten of spades, the ten of clubs and the four of hearts. He looked at it for a moment, but this was double draw. He threw off the club and the heart.

  "How many?" he asked.

  They drew around, Gil dropping Farnley's cards where he had to reach for them. Farnley looked at them longer this time. Then he put one down very slowly, like he wasn't sure. Four of a kind played cute, or keeping one for luck, I thought.

  "Come again," he said.

  "Don't hurry me," Gil said, putting down the deck to look at his own draw. He had the nine of spades and the queen of hearts. He thought again, but threw off the queen.

  "Place your bets," he said sharp.

  Moore, on his left, tossed his hand in. So did the next man. Farnley bet the limit. Bartlett and the other puncher, a fellow with curly black sideburns like wire-hair, stayed, though Bartlett muttered.

  Gil threw a half dollar out on top of his quarter so it clinked.

  "Double," he said.

  "There's a limit," Moore said.

  "How about it?" Gil asked Farnley, as if the other two weren't in the game.

  Farnley put in the quarter, then threw a silver dollar after it.

  "Again," he said.

  Bartlett balked, but I guess he had something too. When they didn't pay any attention to him he stayed. So did the other man, but sheepishly.

  Gil matched the dollar.

  "How many?" he asked again.

  Moore pushed his chair back from the table to get his legs clear. The change in the game had got to the men at the bar. Five or six of them came over to watch, and the others turned around, leaning on the bar with their elbows, and were quiet too. Canby stood in the ring with his towel over his shoulder and that dry look of malicious pleasure on his face, but watching Gil and Farnley just the same.

  "One," Farnley said. It was quiet enough so his voice sounded loud, and we could hear Gil slide the card off, and its tap on the table.

  "You?" he asked Bartlett.

  The old man had changed his mind. He'd taken just one the first time, but now he took two. Farnley picked up his card slowly and looked at it. Then he put it slowly into the hand, closed the hand up, fanned it again, and sat there waiting for Gil to finish. The man standing behind Farnley couldn't help lifting his eyebrows and looking at Canby, who could see the hand too. Canby didn't appear to notice, but glanced at Gil. Gil was tending to business. He didn't even look up
when Bartlett snorted violently and slapped his hand down, face up.

  "Cover them cards," Moore said. Bartlett glared at him, but then turned the hand over.

  The sheepish man took two.

  "I'm taking one," Gil said, and put the deck down away from his hand, and slid one off the top and rubbed it back and forth on the felt for Farnley to see it was only one. Even at that Farnley didn't give any sign. Gil drew the card into his hand and picked them all up. He'd drawn the king of spades.

  The sheepish man plucked at his mustache a couple of times and threw in.

  "Your bet," Gil told Farnley.

  Farnley tossed out another silver dollar. Gil threw out two. Farnley raised it another. Men stirred uneasily, but were careful to be quiet. Only when Farnley made it five Canby said, "Enough's enough. See him, Carter, or I'll close up the game."

  Gil put out the dollar to see, and we started to relax, when he counted five more off the top of his pile and shoved them out.

  "And five," he said.

  That still didn't make it any sky-limit game, but it was mean for the kind of a game this had started out to be. There was plenty left in Gil's stack, but when Farnley had counted out the five there was only one dollar left on the green by his hand.

  "Make it six," Gil said, and put in the extra one.

  "Pick it up, Gil," I said. "You were seen at five."

  There was some muttering from others too. Gil didn't pay any attention. He sat looking at Farnley. Farnley was breathing hard, and his eyes were narrowed, but he looked at his hand, not Gil.

  "That's enough," Canby said, and started to pick up. It was Farnley, not Gil, who looked at him.

  "Your funeral," Canby said.

  "Maybe," Farnley said, and threw in the sixth dollar.

  "I'm seeing you," he said, and laid out his hand carefully in a nice fan in front of him but opening toward Gil. We craned to see it. It was a full house, kings and jacks.

  Gil tossed his cards into the center so they fell part covered and reached for the pot.

  "Hold it," Moore said. Gil leaned back and watched Moore as if he was being patient with a fool. Moore spread the cards out so everybody could see them. One of the watchers whistled.