Tiger's Chance

by H. V. Elkin

  “Couple years ago or more I was down there after a wolf.”

  “The Victorio wolf?”

  “Yeah. That was just a few months before I came into the Elkhorn for the first time.”

  “Before we met.”

  “Yeah. What do you figure, Iris? You think the bear’s down there?”

  “No.”

  Cutler looked at her. Iris had good instincts about things. She could read Cutler’s moods from across a room, and she knew what to do or what not to do about every one of them. Then, too, there was that uncanny way she had of almost always being where Cutler turned up. She used to talk about Fate. She did not do that much anymore because she sensed Cutler did not believe in anything a man could not do for himself. But there was still, to Cutler, something about Iris that made you want to take her intuitions seriously. If she said the bear was not in Texas by the Davis Mountains, then maybe it was not.

  “You’re probably right,” Cutler said. “Guess I can save myself a trip.”

  “Really?” She sounded doubtful.

  And he knew that, once again, she had read him right. The fact is he thought he would probably go. That was the feeling, anyway. The problem was he did not know why.

  “I’ll sleep on it,” he said.

  Iris smiled to herself. She knew what Cutler’s decision would be, all right, and she knew his mind would be firmly made up in the morning. She smiled, not because she sometimes knew him better than he knew himself, but because she wondered if it was the sleep that helped Cutler become sure about things or if it had something to do with her sharing the bed.

  When the sun came through the bedroom window the next morning, it crept across the room to the bed, toward the bodies that were so still they might be dead, toward Cutler and Iris whose sleeps were usually very deep. Then suddenly Cutler was awake. There was no transition. One moment his eyes were closed, the next they were wide open. There was the usual moment of adjustment as he got his bearings and remembered where he was. It was necessary for a man who hardly slept two nights a row in the same place. Then, when he knew where he was, there was a faint smile, and he reached out to touch Iris’s hair that was fanned out on the pillow next to him. Then she woke, as suddenly as he did, but without a moment to remember where she was. She reached out her arm and draped it across his chest.

  “I’ll be goin’,” he said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “It’s kinda crazy, too. It ain’t that I think the bear’s down there exactly. I just don’t know about that. But I can’t take a chance that he ain’t.”

  “If you go,” she said, “you’ll find something. Perhaps not the bear. But something.”

  She did not have to look at him to know he was frowning. She lifted herself up and put her head over his; her hair, now glorified by the sunlight, formed a kind of tent for their faces, shutting out everything else for one moment. She saw the frown go away. “You think everything’s an accident, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Well, some things you make happen on purpose like I’m gonna do in a minute.”

  She smiled. “This is market day for most of the ranchers and farmers around here. Right now, in a dozen places miles apart from each other, men are hitching up wagons, women are putting on dresses, all kinds of preparations are being made. And within two hours all those people are going to come together in one place. The town will change for a few hours. And things will happen, some on purpose, some by accident. And when everybody goes home, they’ll all be a little different from when they came. I run saloons, so I know these things. I mean, I own the places where people come together, so I’ve seen it. And do you know what that’s left me with?”

  He frowned. “Some notion about Fate, I reckon.”

  “You reckon right.”

  “Fate’s whatever happens,” Cutler said. “And chance is what makes it happen.”

  Her eyes opened wider. “That’s one way of looking at it, yes. But, you see, whether there’s someone making us do what we do or it happens by chance, it all still ends up meaning something.”

  What she was saying bothered Cutler for a couple of reasons. He remembered his father used to tell him that God put bends in the river so men would want to see what was around them, and He built mountains high so men’s curiosity had to be great to take them to the top. Now he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that wherever he would go, around however many bends in the river, across however many mountains, there was always going to be someone waiting for him there. In his experience that was not always a good or a happy situation. He preferred to ride a trail without expectations and to cross bridges when he came to them. Another reason he was disturbed about Iris talking philosophy was it made her seem especially feminine, and the disturbance was a physical one. That one he could handle. He reached up and pulled her face down to his.

  Chapter Two

  It took more than six weeks for Cutler to get close to the Davis Mountains. He saw them looming in the distance, and that meant it was time to make a decision, whether to pause near here or keep on going east toward Langtry.

  He rode steadily toward the decision that was waiting for him.

  He rode on the seat of the spring wagon which behind him had a tarp covering over hoops, a small covered wagon. Most of his life, this was his home, his general store and his arsenal. It carried all manner of animal traps that clanked together, suspended from the hoops inside. It carried his guns and the provisions needed for himself and the others who invariably traveled with him.

  He was not strictly a loner, after all. For days on end he might not see another living soul if you believe that animals do not have souls. But beside him on the seat sat a huge Airedale with a curly, rusty red coat, a tinge of black along the spine. Pulling the wagon were a perfectly matched pair of sleek black mules, Kate and Emma. And following the wagon untethered was his magnificent bay gelding, Apache. These animals had become his family as much as the wagon had become his home. Man and animals had become so attuned to one another that verbal commands were seldom needed. The kind of feats that were possible between man and animals in a circus after strenuous training had become possible for Cutler and his animals, and they had just naturally evolved to the point where they were taken for granted.

  Five days earlier Cutler had reached El Paso and found his way to the office of the El Paso Daily Times. He talked to a short fat man with white hair and a pencil behind his ear. The little man looked at the newspaper Cutler showed him.

  “This is old news, Mister. Must be two months ago we printed this.” The man looked at the date. “Yep. Just about that.”

  “Any truth to it?” Cutler asked.

  “Truth? Why sure it’s true. We put it in the paper, didn’t we?”

  “That mean the grizzly was seen around the mountains?”

  “No, it don’t say that. It says it was rumored to’ve been seen. I expect that part’s true enough. There was rumors.” The man eyed Cutler suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you . . . ?”

  Cutler avoided the question. “I’d like to talk to the man who wrote this.”

  “Well sir, let me see . . .” The man took the pencil from behind his ear and riffled through papers on a desk to find something to write on. When he found a clean sheet, he sat down and poised his pencil over it. “Let me see . . .” the man repeated, apparently stalling.

  “Is the man here?”

  “Well, that all depends on who’s asking, I guess.”

  There did not seem to be any way out of it. “I’m John Cutler.”

  The man nodded. “Thought so. Well, Mr. Cutler, I’ll be happy to do what I can for you. Figure you could help me out, too, a little?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’d just like to ask you a few questions and do a story on your coming to El Paso. That be okay?”

  “If you keep this between me and you until I’m gone.”

  The man looked disappointed. “It’d help if it wasn’t just my word to say you were here.�
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  “That’s the deal, though. I’m just passin’ through, and I don’t want to have to put up with people gawkin’ and askin’ fool questions.”

  “Just my fool questions.”

  “That’ll do. Then you can print whatever it is after I’m gone. That’s the deal.”

  After the man had finished his interview with the legendary hunter, he was effusive in his thanks. Also regretful. “I wish to hell you could stay around. Lots of people’d like to meet you, Mr. Cutler. But if that’s the way it’s got to be . . .”

  Cutler’s tone took on a no-nonsense sound. “What about the man who wrote that story about the grizzly?”

  “Name’s McKay. Mike McKay. He left the paper some little time ago. He wrote a lot of stuff like this around that time. Performed a real public service, too. Got people all stirred up and proud about their town. But he left, the paper and the town.”

  “You think he’d know any more about that bear than he put in the story?”

  “He might. But probably not. Can’t say. You know, sometimes when folks know you’re with a newspaper, they’ll say whatever they think you want to hear, get their names in print that way, maybe.”

  “Then you don’t think there’s anything in this?”

  “I didn’t say that. Probably it’s nothing more than a rumor, like it says. But Mike’d be the only one who could tell, you for sure.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Well, I don’t know. But I can guess, if that’ll help.”

  “Better’n nothin’.”

  “Okay. Mike covered that Fitzsimmons-Maher fight over by Langtry. Then later on, he talked a lot about Langtry and Roy Bean and so forth. Said Bean was interested in finding a literary gentleman to write a book about him. My guess is that’s where Mike headed, back to Langtry. Bet you could find him there. That’s the sort of job that’d appeal to a man like Mike. Not just the idea of writing a book about that scoundrel Bean. But Bean runs a saloon, don’t he?”

  Cutler nodded.

  “And,” the man went on, “Mike liked to drink some. So I figure that’s just the sort of setup he couldn’t stay away from.”

  Cutler liked to drink, too. In his case it was more a matter of necessity, and there was a lot of necessary drinking to get through before it got near to being a pleasure. It was a part of his life on the trail, those periodic drunks when he got to town. It was also a fact, as most people knew, that he never drank when he was working. Then, at the end of a trail or when a job was finished, it was time again to tie one on. The reason was that after a month or two of abstinence, the memory of his dead wife would come back strong, come rushing up from some dark place inside where he had managed to bury it for a while, and it would stare him hard in the face and start that pain inside that was worse than a bullet or anything a wild animal could do to you. Then Cutler drank heavily. He could consume a whole bottle of whisky without feeling anything, before the torturing image faded and went back into hiding to give him some peace.

  That night in El Paso, Cutler had a binge.

  And now, as he approached the Davis Mountains, he was feeling more human than he did before El Paso. His mind was clear to make the decision.

  If the bear existed, it was last seen around here. So rather than spend time traveling another week to get to Langtry where the ex-newspaper reporter might not be found, maybe Cutler should just take his chances on finding the bear here right now. It would be like hunting a needle in a haystack, of course, in those mountains, without something more definite to go on. Also, chances were that if the grizzly had been around these parts more than two months ago, he was probably somewhere else now. Maybe nearby, but probably somewhere else. A good reason to go on to Langtry.

  Another reason to pause here had nothing to do with the bear. The last time Cutler had been in these parts, in the August of ’94, he had met a person named Fairfax Randall who had been Secretary of the Davis County Stockraisers Association. It was at Fairfax’s request that Cutler came here to hunt the Victorio Wolf. Much to his surprise he found Fairfax to be a very attractive woman. She had, he remembered, a great mass of chestnut hair and beautiful green eyes. She and her son Jess had become the family Cutler never had. He , remembered promising to come back soon. And now he was within miles of Fair’s ranch.

  “Soon,” he had promised.

  But when he said it, he thought he would get his bear soon and then would be able to consider settling down, at least consider it, assuming there was anything human left in him by that time. In those days, although the bear kept evading him, each time Cutler felt he was getting closer. In those days he thought he could taste victory. To ride into Fair and Jess’s lives now would not be right, and leaving them again could only be worse for all of them than it was last time. Cutler thought he had no business interrupting their lives again. That was another good reason to go on to Langtry.

  Yes, he should not get involved with Fairfax Randall now. If there was going to be a next time, with her, the time beyond it had to be open. And, in Cutler’s life as he lived it now, there was a vague amount of time leading on a twisting path to the killing of the grizzly. In his mind, he carried a picture of that future event. But he did not know how long it would be before he came upon the event itself, and he did not imagine anything beyond it. The kind of man who was killing time until something important came to pass could not make promises. That was why Iris stayed in the picture. She made no demands on Cutler and expected nothing from him but honesty when they were together. Love, in such a man’s life, had to be grabbed on the run, had to be momentary and impermanent.

  Everything was saying go on to Langtry. And as the wagon moved on into the more barren land, as the waves of heat rising from the ground were strong enough to be visible, man and animals seemed to be moving through time. They took on the appearance of a mirage that moved with the smoothness of slow motion, moving within a predetermined pattern, as though they were being pulled by an invisible rope, without effort, toward Langtry.

  The Great Maroney Circus had finished its movements for the day. Early in the morning it had unloaded from the train near Marathon. While some polished the gear for the parade, others fed the animals and raised the tent. After breakfast, the parade passed through town. If Cutler had been ten miles closer he would have heard the music of the steam calliope and that sound would have made his movement through slow-motion time seem all the more unreal, but he was several miles to the east of the Davis Mountains and did not know he was moving toward the same place as the circus.

  Now, however, the circus has stopped to give a show near Marathon. Like Cutler, the people of the circus— the performers, canvas men and roustabouts—moved with studied precision, for the routine had become second nature by now. Unload, shine up, raise the tent, feed the animals, feed the people, parade through town, return to the lot, get ready for the show, give the show, eat ... a series of well-rehearsed movements ending finally in sleep to prepare for more of the same things the next day.

  Except it was not the same somehow. There was something in the air that made animals and people uneasy, and sleep did not come easily for most of them. You might think the reason was simply that most of them slept on planks laid across the benches inside the tent, and that was the reason for restlessness. But they were used to that, too, and that was not the reason.

  Molly Barrie heard the tiger snarl, and then the horses whinny. Disturbances like that seemed to happen every night lately when the circus stayed over for a second performance the next day, when they were not traveling and sleeping on the train. She tried to go back to sleep. So many times before she had heard the animal sounds at night and had thought a tiger might be loose and threatening one of her horses. Each time she had jumped up and run to the menagerie tent to investigate. Each time the tigers were safely shut in their cages, but prowling about in their confined spaces. Several times the tiger named Anna had hissed when she saw Molly. This sort of thing had not happened the year before
and there was no reason for it to be happening now, no reason that anyone knew about. Those who knew the animals best, their own trainers, could not explain it. It was just a new addition to the routine, something to adjust to until maybe it would go away as mysteriously as it came, and conditions would return to the way they were last year when everything had gone so well.

  The circus people might have found some relief in talking about the discomforting phenomenon, but it was not in their nature to do so. They all lived their lives with the determination they gave the show. The show must go on, they said. In this atmosphere, any accidents were regarded lightly, the emphasis given to going on as though nothing had gone wrong. Similarly, if anyone was troubled, it was a point of honor to keep it to himself. So, although nearly everyone was concerned about what might be disturbing the animals, no one mentioned it.

  And yet they saw it on one another’s faces. What was known as the bicycle face back east was the circus face here. Performers just naturally lived with worrying about their performances, and their faces were drawn most times when they were about to perform. The only thing that could cure circus face was the last show of the season. Now in the Great Maroney Circus, the circus faces took on a greater degree of concentration and worry.

  The tiger sound again, and Molly’s eyes flashed open, her only movement. She lay there very still, and she could feel the efforts of the others not to move, their unsuccessful attempts not to communicate their concerns and to pretend they were peacefully asleep.

  Molly looked straight up toward the darkness of the tent. Her eyes were dark and troubled. She tried to think of better times. She remembered one show last year when the audience stood to applaud the finish of her act. That did not happen very often and it had not happened at all this year.

  But then! As she stood there in the ring with the six horses circling around her, then vaulted over the back of one of them to land on her feet outside the ring, her arms up to indicate the act was concluded . . . then, as though the audience had been as well trained as the animals, they stood as one and clapped their hands together wildly and shouted and whistled and made the most wonderful racket. What a wonderful feeling that had been. She felt good about herself. It was almost as though she was in the audience and looking at herself. She saw herself clearly as a talented, attractive woman. And she was.