by Max McCoy
“Thing is, I don’t have to be as tough as those old boys,” he said. “I just have to be tougher than you.”
The cowboy whirled around while trying to pull the gun out of the fancy holster. The front sight caught on a loop of leather stitching, the half-cocked hammer fell, and the gun discharged. The cowboy fell to the floor, a .45-caliber slug in his thigh.
“Sonuvabitch,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I think my leg is broken.”
Gamble was half out of his chair, the Manhattan in his left hand, the hammer drawn. The cowboy’s friends were standing around the craps table, motionless.
“I should kill you,” Gamble said, then gently lowered the hammer on the Manhattan and placed it on the table. “But I won’t. I want you to live to be fifty or sixty years old and have some punk come try you and see how it feels to be called old and washed-up when you know that you are one cold and sober second away from having to splatter that kid’s brains all over the floor. You will remember that, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” the cowboy said. He had wrapped his hands over the wound and was watching the blood spurt from between his fingers. “I’ll remember, I promise.”
“What are you waiting for?” Gamble asked. “Get him out of here. Find a doctor or a vet or a dentist, I don’t care which.”
His friends grabbed the cowboy by his boots and under his arms and carried him toward the door.
“Take the gun,” Gamble said.
One of them scrambled back, snatched the bone-handled Colt from the floor, and ran out. The door slammed behind him with a clap.
It was suddenly silent in the tent. The pit man, a scruffy-looking character with wire-rimmed glasses and a bowler hat, used the stick to scratch his head.
“Christ,” Buell said, uncorking a bottle of rye and pouring himself a shot. “You sure know how to break up a game of craps. Them boys was good customers. I should have stuck to the five dollars an hour.”
The woman walked slowly over to Gamble and placed a hand on his arm.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t thank me.”
“Oh, but I must.”
She wet her lips, then leaned down to whisper in his ear.
“How about a poke?”
“Pass,” Gamble said.
“A blowjob, then. You can’t turn that down.”
“Watch me.”
She stroked his cheek.
“Do you prefer boys?”
“That’s revolting,” Buell called from behind the bar, then downed the rye. He made a face and poured himself another. “For Christsake, Penny, leave the man alone. Go away for a while and come back when it’s time for your show.”
The woman frowned, then turned back to Gamble.
“Don’t I know you?”
“No.”
“You sure look familiar.”
“Everybody says so.”
“Why are you so cold?” she asked, drawing one of the cards from the middle of the fanned deck with her forefinger. But instead of flipping it over, she kept her forefinger on it.
“Now you.”
Gamble hesitated.
“I don’t play except for money.”
“How about a sawbuck?”
“Show me coin or paper.”
“I don’t have it now, but I will, after the show.”
“What kind of show is it?”
“Oh,” she said, slyly, “You’ll just have to see it to believe it. Ten bucks. What do you say?”
“Ten dollars, on credit? I don’t think so.”
“I’m good for it. In fact, Old Buell will advance me the money, right?”
Buell waved.
“All right,” Gamble said.
He pulled a card from the left side of the deck and turned it over, not looking at it until the motion was complete. It was the one-eyed Jack of Spades.
The woman turned over her card.
The four of clubs.
“Damn,” she said. “I am the unluckiest woman in the world. Double or nothing?”
“No,” Gamble said. “Buell?”
Buell poured another shot of rye. Then he took an eagle from his pocket and gave it a toss. Gamble caught the gold coin and closed his fist tight around it.
“Thanks for playing,” he said.
The woman turned and walked out.
Buell walked over to the table with the bottle of rye and two shot glasses in his hand. He placed the cleaner one in front of Gamble, filled it, then refilled his own glass.
Gamble took a silver dollar from his pocket and slid it toward Buell.
“Your cut,” he said. “Tell me about that woman.”
“Penny Dreadful?” Buell asked. “She’s the highest-priced whore on the Porch, a dope fiend, and a woman who is in the prolonged act of suicide. Don’t know her real name, but I hear tell she came here from Denver, where she was married to a big shot banker and bore him a baby boy. But the child was colicky and cried all the time, which upset the husband, and Penny was frantic to find a way to restore wedded bliss. So to quiet the baby, she began giving it a patent medicine to put it to sleep. Problem was, the medicine was ten parts sugar and water and one part alcohol and morphine. After a week, she finally gave the baby just enough so that it never woke up at all.”
Gamble sipped the rye.
“The husband accused her of poisoning the child and the prosecutor tried her for murder, but the jury leaned for accidental,” Buell said. “But they might as well have locked her up, because her husband divorced her and drove her to the streets. Nobody in Denver would have anything to do with her. So, she is making money the old-fashioned way.”
“What’s this show tonight?”
Buell grinned.
“Penny doesn’t just want to kill herself, she wants to debase herself in the worst ways first. That’s a powerful hate she has for herself, but it’s powerful lucky for me. Along about midnight, when the boys are gambled out, we’ll throw a tarpaulin over the craps table and turn the lamps up real bright. Then Penny will climb up there and take all comers. Those that can’t pay to do will pay to watch.”
“Christ,” Gamble said.
“I’m sure there’ll be a special show tonight, seeing as how it is New Year’s Eve.”
“And you allow her do this.”
“Allow her?” Buell asked. “I encourage her. You understand that I am a pimp and a whiskey peddler and run an illegal gambling establishment out of a tent on the line between the States and the territories? How long do you reckon it’s going to be before the authorities ride in and close me and everybody else in the Porch down? I’ll serve hard time when they catch me. But before that day happens, I’m out to make as much money as possible, and it seems that my clientele likes to witness intimate acts. And Penny Dreadful does things they don’t even have names for yet.”
Gamble finished the rye, then held his hand over the glass when Buell tried to refill it.
“Does anything separate us from the beasts?” he asked. “Wait, I slander the beasts, because they cannot conceive of such depravity. Their cruelty is dictated by survival. Ours is for amusement.”
“You talk strange sometimes,” Buell said.
“You have me pegged,” Gamble said. “Look, I’ll be out of here and settled up by the time the show starts. I’m as curious as the next man, but knowing her story has tarnished the attraction.”
“Suit yourself,” Buell said. “But you’ll miss an eyeful. You know, if Lester Burns would sell me that cute little Kiowa gal he has over there—now, wouldn’t that make a show.”
The door screeched open and a man with graying hair and wire-rimmed glasses stepped inside, rubbing his hands to warm them.
“You fellows open?”
“Hell,” Buell said, rising and taking the shot glasses and the bottle of rye with him.
“What’re you looking for?” Gamble asked.
The man walked over to the table and removed his overcoat, revealing a Montgomery Ward suit. He
eyed the deck of cards, pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, and gave Gamble a toothy smile.
“Poker,” he said.
EIGHT
Gamble left the tent shortly after ten o’clock with forty-eight dollars in paper and coin tucked into the pocket of his vest. He had won steadily, beginning with the clerk in the mail-order suit, and continuing with a pair of bachelor farmers, the city prosecutor from Caldwell, some hired hands on their way back to Kingfisher, and a widower who played and lost a couple of five-dollar hands while waiting for Penny Dreadful’s show to start.
It was snowing again, but there was no wind, so the big flakes drifted down from the black sky as if somebody were sprinkling powdered sugar on a cake. It didn’t make the Porch look any prettier, he thought.
If it hadn’t been the middle of the night in winter, he would have walked back to Caldwell, redeemed his fiddle from the pawnshop, even if he had to roust the owner from home. Then he would buy a ticket on the next southbound Santa Fe at the depot. But he was tired, the path to town was covered in a fresh blanket of snow, and his joints ached. He didn’t relish the thought of sleeping outside the depot, if it was locked. It was New Year’s Day, and Gamble was uncertain of what kind of schedule the station master in the sleepy cow town of Caldwell would keep on a holiday.
He glanced over to the lodge that housed the opium den. It was glowing warmly.
“Damn, I hate winter,” he muttered. “Almost as much as winter hates me.”
He started trudging for the lodge. He would give Burns a dollar or two to sleep there again, have a bite or two of whatever Little Door Woman might be cooking, and set off early in the morning. The Porch gave him an uneasy feeling, and the sooner he left, the better.
Gamble ducked into the lodge. Opium lanterns glowed in the dark corners.
“Happy New Year,” Burns called from his chair near the fire. “It’s 1898. Seems a strange number, doesn’t it? You know, we might not have that many years left—some say that 1900 is going to be the end of the world.”
“Predictions are risky. Ask the Millerites.”
“Come, sit by the fire,” Burns said. “I understand you’ve been speculating on pasteboard at Buell’s. Any luck?”
“Enough,” Gamble said, lowering himself into the chair. Little Door Woman brought him an enamel cup of coffee. She still wore the Chinese costume. Gamble murmured his thanks, and she smiled at him.
“You left before Penny Dreadful’s show.”
“That’s right.”
“A moralist,” Burns said, then laughed. “You would change your mind if you saw what she can do with a billiard ball.”
“I will sleep here for the night, if it’s square with you,” Gamble said. “Just let me know what I owe in the morning, counting breakfast.”
“Didn’t think you were here for the dope,” Burns said. “Let us greet the new year together. Girl, bring us some whiskey—make it bourbon, not the awful stuff the lotus eaters drink.”
“All right,” Gamble said. “I’ll take some in my coffee.”
Little Door Woman brought over a bottle of Old Crow and poured some in Gamble’s coffee. Burns took the bottle from the girl, then held it up in a toast.
“To the twentieth century,” Burns said, touching the bottle to the rim of Gamble’s cup. “Who would have thought we’d live to see it?”
“We haven’t, not yet.”
Gamble woke shortly after sunrise. He was still in the chair, but someone had placed a blanket over him in the night. Little Door Woman was already up, throwing some meat into the skillet. The coffee was boiling beside the fire. She had on the silk robe, but not the hat.
“Breakfast soon,” she said.
“Bacon?” Gamble asked, wary.
“No,” she said, allowing herself a smile. “Fresh ham. And eggs. He who is still asleep brought it back from town last night. Grandfather, wake up. It’s time for you to refuse to eat.”
Gamble glanced over at the old man. He was still motionless beneath his robe.
“He used to be up long before dawn, every day,” the girl said. “But now because of the dope he sleeps later and later, lingering among the winter counts.”
Gamble rose, pulled on his boots, and stepped outside for a necessary trip to the other side of the horses. The sun was rising in a splash of copper and red, the sky was blue and nearly cloudless, and the prairie was a gently scooped white blanket. It would be a pleasant walk to town.
He patted the chestnut mare on his way back.
After seating himself in the wicker chair, Little Door Woman handed him a plate of ham and eggs. He placed it carefully on his lap, took up the fork, and began to eat.
“Thank you,” he said.
The girl placed a hand on Burns’s shoulder and shook him.
“Wake up, smelly drunk,” she said. “Your breakfast is ready. You too, grandfather.”
Neither man stirred.
Gamble took twenty dollars in coins and held them out.
“What’s that for?” the girl asked.
“Traveling money,” Gamble said.
“I cannot take it.”
“You can,” Gamble said. “Light out at the first chance you get. Go back to Fort Sill and live among your people. Grow up in peace.”
“But my grandfather needs me,” she said. “Put your money away.”
Gamble reluctantly returned the coins to his pocket.
“Grandfather!” the girl said. “Get up. Breakfast.”
The old man rolled over and brushed a tangle of gray hair from his face.
“Granddaughter, I had a dream,” he said, staring up at the blue sky beyond the smoke hole of the tipi. “White Buffalo Woman came to me—oh, how beautiful she was!—and she showed me all of the winter counts that you will paint before you die.”
“But grandfather, I cannot keep the winter count.”
“But you will!” he said. “White Buffalo Woman has decreed it, for in your lifetime you will see things beyond belief—the entire world will shake twice with war, the fire gourd will fall from the sky and burn everything it touches, an eagle will fly around the moon and back, thoughts will be sent around the earth, connecting the dreams of all people. And in the end, many years from now when you are an old woman, older than I am now, the Kiowa will be free.”
“Was Jesus in your dream?” the girl asked. “Did he bring the buffalo back?”
“No,” Laughing Bear said, puzzled. “He was not. But White Buffalo Woman said you must keep track of all of these things to come so that you can tell those of our people who sleep through them, and then are awakened.”
The old man sat up, sloughing the robe off.
“Grandfather,” she said, placing his breakfast before him. She picked up the robe and put it over his shoulders. “The dope even brings dreams to the whites.”
“No food,” the old man said. “It will be wasted. You eat it.”
“Grandfather ...”
“It is time for me to die. Thank you for being kind to your grandfather. Remember what I have told you about White Buffalo Woman and the winter counts to come.”
Then the old man closed his eyes. His chin fell to his chest and his breathing stopped.
“Grandfather?”
She touched his shoulder. The old man slumped to the floor.
“Grandfather!” the girl screamed, shaking the body.
“Goddamnit,” Burns said, sitting forward in the chair and blinking hard against the light. “What it is?”
“The old man died,” Gamble said.
“For sure or just threatening?”
“Oh, this time it’s for sure.”
The girl threw herself over the body, shaking with tears.
“All right, then,” Burns said, yawning. “Little what’s her name has now become my property. God knows I’ve waited long enough. But I promised her grandfather that as long as he was alive, she would not be whored out. That’s changed.”
The blanket around one
of the sleeping opium smokers rustled, and then was flung away. Penny Dreadful propped her head on her hand and asked what the hell was going on.
Gamble told her.
The woman blinked, absorbing the information. The she wiped the drool from her mouth and sat up, hugging her knees.
“You’re not actually going to sell her to old Buell, are you?”
“What’s it to you?” Burns asked. “Afraid of the competition, I reckon. She’ll put you plum out of business, billiard balls or no.”
“What I do is one thing,” she said slowly. “My choice. Nobody has to understand it but me. But this little girl doesn’t have any choice.”
“Nobody has a choice in this life,” Burns raged, standing. “Do you think I wanted to be the proprietor of a third-rate opium den on the fucking Kansas prairie? What child dreams of that? Christ, my brother-in-law is governor of this flat, godforsaken excuse for a state. But I did the best with the hand I was dealt. This little bitch will just have to do the same.”
The other opium addicts were awake now, and they began scurrying for the entrance. In a moment, they were gone.
“If I was you, honey,” Penny Dreadful told the girl, “I’d run.”
The girl made for the entrance, but Burns grabbed the hem of her silk robe and pulled her back. She turned around, clawing and kicking, while Burns bunched the silk in his hands. But then the fabric tore and the robe came away, and she was suddenly naked—and free.
She began to run, but Burns lunged and grabbed an ankle with his right hand, and she fell. When he had dragged her back to him, he wrapped his left arm around her narrow shoulders and, with his right hand, took a straight razor out of his pocket. He flicked it open.
“Is this what you want?” he asked. “I’ll slit your throat before letting you go, you little bitch.”
Penny Dreadful gave a cry and then covered her mouth.
“Her name is Little Door Woman,” Gamble said. He was standing and was holding the Manhattan easy in his left hand. “You’d best close that razor and let go of her.”
“Or what, moralist?” Burns asked. “You going to shoot me?”
“That’s the size of it.”
“Ha!” Burns said. He put the razor against the girl’s neck and began backing toward the entrance, dragging the girl behind him. Her feet were kicking out wildly, and as they passed the crates on which the whiskey sat, one of her pink heels struck the bottle of Old Crow a glancing blow. It teetered for a moment, then fell and shattered on the bottles beneath.
