Tiger's Chance

by H. V. Elkin

  “You are not here ... in your capacity as deputy? The judge did not send you?”

  “He doesn’t even know I’m here, and that’s the way I want it, if that’s okay with you.” Cutler was getting irritable. “What’s the matter with you people? Don’t you want my business?”

  “Oh yes, of course, senor.” The man gestured to the others. “Please!” he said, and the guitar music started in a tentative way. So did the talking in Spanish. “Welcome to the Eagle’s Nest. I am Jesus Torres, the owner.”

  Cutler extended his hand across the bar. “John Cutler.”

  The main raised his eyebrows. “The one who ...”

  Cutler nodded wearily. “Yeah.”

  “I am honored, Mr. Cutler! Very honored! What will you have?”

  “You got any bourbon?”

  “Ah no. I am sorry.”

  Cutler nodded. “Tequila then.”

  “Yes,” Torres beamed. “Tequila I have. But come.” He took a bottle from the bar and two glasses and led Cutler to a corner table where two men were playing cards. One of them looked up and frowned. “John Cutler,” Torres said. Then the man smiled, and he and his partner moved to another table.

  Torres gestured to the corner chair. “I know the habits of gunmen,” he said. “You wish to sit there where no one can get behind you, no? Where you can see the whole room?”

  Cutler grinned. “Old habits don’t break. Thanks.” He slid into his seat.

  Torres poured a glass of tequila and handed it to Cutler, then lifted the empty glass. “Do you mind?”

  Cutler had a quiet night in mind, but he nodded. “Sure, sit down. It’s your place, ain’t it?”

  Torres sat and poured himself a tequila. “One cannot always be sure, Mr. Cutler. Not here in Langtry.” He shook his head and said ruefully, “Langtry!” Then he looked up and smiled. “But to your health, Mr. Cutler!”

  They drank.

  “We are deeply honored,” Torres said.

  Cutler frowned. “Torres, could you maybe forget for one night that I don’t happen to be Mexican and that my name’s Cutler?”

  Torres smiled. “Forgive me. But it is not just those things that honor me. It is that this is the first time someone like you has been a customer of my saloon. I do not mean a celebrity. I mean a man who works for the judge.”

  “I don’t exactly work for him. My bein’ a deputy, it’s more of an honorary thing that lets me wear my gun without any fuss.”

  “And, as you say, you are not here on business.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I must warn you, the judge might not like it that you were here in my place. I know he would not.”

  “Why’s that? His place seems crowded enough to keep him happy.”

  “Would it offend you to hear some things about him that are not ...”

  “We ain’t exactly friends,” Cutler said. “But I don’t see no need to badmouth him neither.”

  “But you ask why the judge would mind you being in my place.”

  “Some kind of feud between your two saloons, I suppose.”

  “Ahah!” Torres exclaimed. Then he thought a minute and said, “Mr. Cutler, as a hunter, you must want to know as much as you can about the animal you track before you start the hunt.”

  “Probably wouldn’t be alive to say so if I didn’t.”

  “And you expect to have dealings with the judge.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I suggest you go to him as much on your guard as you would with a rogue animal.”

  Cutler poured himself another tequila. “He don’t look so dangerous, Judge Bean don’t.”

  “And a snake,” Torres said, “may have a beautiful skin.”

  Cutler drank the tequila down. “I’m listenin’.”

  “Who would you guess owns this town?”

  “Well, if anyone owns it, I guess it’s Bean.”

  Torres shook his head. “It is my town, Mr. Cutler. It is land that belonged to my father, land that I laid out for a town when the railroad came through and the water tower was put here.”

  Cutler smiled. “Well, if I wanted a town to be mine, the last thing I’d do is let Roy Bean into it.”

  Torres smiled sadly. “I agree. Bean was not invited here. He just squatted on the railroad right of way and here he stays.”

  “How could he do that?” Cutler leaned forward.

  “The Southern Pacific feels indebted to Bean. He made law in these parts when the railroad was building. Now he has named my town, and it has come to pass that Torres is the squatter. How can this be?” Torres shrugged. “Oh, there have been many things. Many things to make me bitter. But I am a peaceful man and do not want to fight him. Besides, he has the law on his side, since he is the law here. Perhaps I will stand for election, but I do not know if anyone can take Justice of the Peace away from Roy Bean.”

  “I wish you luck,” Cutler said, and he meant it.

  “There was the time,” Torres said, “when he had me arrested for assault. It was a lie . . . but the judge is the law. He tried me over there in the Jersey Lily, and he fined me twenty-four bottles of beer for the jury.” Torres chuckled and shook his head. “I have to laugh in spite of it.”

  “Well,” Cutler said, “at least you had the beer here.”

  “Ah, but Bean said the fine had to be paid on the spot, and I was in his saloon, so . . .”

  Cutler poured a tequila into Torres’s glass.

  ‘Thank you,” Torres said, and he leaned back in his chair. “Another time,” he said, “I was arrested for disturbing the peace.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  Torres smiled. “I was getting too much business in my place, and the judge said we were too noisy. Well, Bean heard I thought he was angry because I was getting so much business, and he got angry about that. He sent someone to me to tell me when I stepped out of my door, Bean would be waiting to shoot me. And he was sitting across the street there with his shotgun on his lap, waiting. I had to pretend I did not say what I said. He made me swear it on a cross before he would unload his gun.”

  “Sounds like he’s got the upper hand.”

  “That is the only way I can run a business across the street from him, Mr. Cutler. I must always let him have the upper hand, and then he is content.”

  “Don’t know if I could go that far myself.”

  “That is my way.” Torres drank his tequila. “It may not be yours. But the truth is Bean must be handled in some way or he will handle you. The truth is he does nothing which will not benefit him in some way. Be careful if it seems otherwise, if the skin of the snake starts to look too pretty.” Torres put down his glass. “Well, I must tend to my business. I hope you will heed my words.”

  “Thanks, Torres. Much obliged to you. I’ll sure give ’em some thought.”

  “Good.” Torres got up and started away, then turned. “Sam is another one,” he said. “He has probably killed me. But, of course, no one can be sure of that. Do not turn you back on him.”

  Cutler nodded. “Thanks. I don’t turn my back on anybody.’

  ‘The tequila,” Torres said, “it is on the house.” Then he went back to the bar where he and some other men got into an excited conversation in Spanish.

  Cutler thought Torres an exceptional man in this environment. In some ways, he was like the mustang stallion who did not lose face by retreating from an impossible fight. It was odd, Cutler thought, that the subject had come up only a few hours earlier out on the circus lot, and now here was a man who typified it. One of life’s strange coincidences, he told himself, one of those unusual conjunctions of chance, like drawing to an inside straight.

  But where chance was concerned and Bean was concerned, Cutler thought one had little to do with the other. One thing that Torres said seemed to stand out very clearly. Bean was not the type of man likely to do anything that did not benefit him in some way. Anything the judge did seemed calculated. And any good luck he had was not likely to be luck at
all. Bean was a self-made man to whom very little happened by chance. And Bean, from his own point of view, probably thought he had Torres performing like a trained animal. In a way, he did.

  If Bean suddenly decided that the circus should stay an extra day in Langtry, there was probably a good reason. Cutler had no reason to believe that Bean was getting a percentage of the take. But, if that was true, what was the sly old coot up to? Cutler realized the circus might be in as much danger from Bean as it was from its rogue tiger. He even began to wonder if one had anything to do with the other.

  The next morning Cutler got his first real look at Langtry. It was mostly a collection of adobe buildings and bare yards and had a look of poverty about it.

  The Jersey Lily stood out in some contrast to its surroundings. Walking toward it from the west, Cutler saw it was a long frame building, big enough to be a hotel. At the front was a porch with a solitary rocking chair. To the left of the entrance was a general store and to the right the saloon. Stretched out to the east of the building were a series of cages, and in these were a couple of wildcats, three coyotes and a panther. Could this have something to do with Bean’s interest in the circus? Was he looking to add to his stock of tourist attractions with animals more exotic than could be captured locally? That idea seemed a little farfetched, and Cutler turned to the entrance to the Jersey Lily. He smiled at the sign “ICE COLD BEER AND LAW WEST OF THE PECOS.”

  He went through the door, then looked into the open door to his right which led into the saloon. There was no movement inside, but he could hear snoring.

  Sam was asleep on the pool table in the center of the room, but the snoring was coming from a corner where Roy Bean slept on a cot. Cutler was obviously earlier than expected. He doubted that Bean remembered he was coming or if it would have made any difference if he did. Staying on the right side of Bean probably did not involve waking him up before he was ready, so Cutler went back outside, sat in the rocking chair and waited. He sat there patiently for half an hour. Then he heard a loud yawn inside, then Sam’s voice saying, “Sorry,” and an answering mumble that sounded like Bean. More silence, then Sam came out to the porch, throwing half a bottle of beer down his throat as he came, and not seeing Cutler until he lowered the bottle.

  He surveyed the visitor without expression for a moment. “That’s the old man’s chair you’re sittin in,” he said finally.

  “Yeah,” Cutler said. “Good mornin’.”

  Sam held up the bottle. “Had breakfast?”

  “Ain’t been workin’,” Cutler said. “Don’t need it.”

  “I was meanin’ a beer,” Sam said. “If you ain’t workin’, maybe you’d be wantin’ a beer. Heard you don’t drink when you work. Figured you did drink when you’re not workin’.”

  “Won’t know if I’m workin’ or not until I talk to McKay. Where’s he?”

  “Sleepin’ off last night.”

  “Where?”

  “One of the rooms in back.”

  “Which one?”

  “How the hell would I know? McKay’s Pa’s business, not mine.”

  Cutler pushed back his hat. “Thought Bean’s business was yours.”

  Sam smiled. “Oh, you heard about me, huh?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, sure, I write Pa’s letters sometimes. And I ride herd on the pastors that ride herd on his sheep. But I ain’t got anything to do with McKay. You probably won’t want anything to do with him, either, after you meet him.”

  Cutler raised his eyebrows.

  “He ain’t a bit like you,” Sam said. “Mike McKay drinks when he works. More drinkin’ than workin’, I guess. But, like I said, that’s Pa’s business.”

  “Bean up and about yet?”

  “Not yet. You’ll know it when he is.” Sam grinned about something he didn’t say. “Like to stay around and see it,” he said, “but I got to go check up on some of those pastors. Got to watch ’em every minute, you know.”

  Cutler did not accept Sam’s implied invitation to engage in some bad words about Mexican shepherds. Sam waited, then took Cutler’s silence as a kind of insult. “You ain’t a greaser lover, are you?”

  Cutler said nothing.

  “Funny thing, Cutler,” Sam said. “You ever think about it? Here we are, you and me, the only ones awake in Langtry. And you and me’s the only ones in Langtry wearin’ guns. Figure that’s a funny coincidence, do you?”

  “I ain’t laughin’.”

  “I didn’t mean funny like that. I meant . . . well, you figure you and me’s gonna have some kind of showdown?”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Just for the fun of it.”

  “It ain’t my idea of fun.”

  “I hear you’ve killed a few men in your time, Cutler.”

  “Hear you have, too.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Don’t recall.”

  “You ain’t one to avoid a fight, are you?”

  “You bet.”

  “Then how come you killed some men?”

  “Reckon they didn’t want to avoid it much as I did.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Well, you only got my word to go on. They ain’t in any condition to talk about it.”

  “Maybe, up ’til now, you just been lucky, Cutler.”

  “Possible. Guess anyone who wears a gun and stays alive has to have some kind of luck.”

  “Then two men meet like us, both of ’em wearin’ guns, chances are one of ’em’s gonna stop bein’ lucky.”

  Cutler looked weary, “Oh, hell! Finish that beer and throw the bottle.”

  “What for?”

  “See how high you can throw and how far you can hit.”

  Sam grinned, then drank the rest of the beer. He started to throw the bottle up, then looked back at Cutler who had pulled his hat down and seemed to be asleep. “You better watch this,” Sam said. “You blink your eye and you’ll miss it.”

  “Go ahead,” Cutler said and did not move.

  Sam wet his lips, stepped off the porch, crouched to give some extra distance to the bottle. He swung it back and forth a couple of times, then hurled it straight up. As he was going for his gun, there was a shot behind him, and the bottle smashed in the air. His gun only halfway out of its holster, Sam swung around and saw Cutler sitting as he had been, as though he had not moved.

  “Sorry,” Cutler said. “I got tired of waitin’.”

  Sam dropped his gun back in its holster and circled to Cutler’s right. He saw smoke coming out of the barrel of Cutler’s gun that stuck through the bottom of his holster. Cutler did not move.

  “That’s mighty impressive,” Sam said.

  “Hope it’s impressive enough.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Hope you’re the type who’s impressed by showin’ off like that,” Cutler said. “Might keep one of us from turnin’ unlucky.”

  “Maybe the shot was lucky for starters.”

  “It was,” Cutler said. “That bottle just happened to wind up in the same spot as my bullet. I just happened to get my gun out before you did. It’s all luck. Sam, I’ve been in a lot of small towns like this, towns that just naturally make a young man restless, men who’d move on where there’s more action if there wasn’t something holdin’ ’em back. So they try to create a little excitement. It’s only natural, I guess, for ’em to do that. And I guess it makes ’em feel better to think they’re superior in some ways, whether it’s in shootin’ or the way they feel superior to Mexicans maybe, or farmers, or sheep men. There’s always someone else a young man can feel better than if he wants to. Men like that can get to thinkin’ what’s important in a man is how tough he looks, or how fast he can get his gun out of a holster. Men like that get impressed by speed. They respect it. So once in a while when another man comes along, if he can show how fast he is, they might both stay lucky a little longer than they would otherwise. I figure it’s good to stay lucky just as long as you ca
n. There ain’t much excitement in the cemetery, not even compared to a little town like this.”

  Cutler had still not moved. He still sat leaning back in the rocking chair with his hat pulled down over his eyes. A hard man for Sam to figure out.

  Cutler’s peripheral vision was better than most men’s. He could see Sam’s face pretty well without looking at it directly, well enough to tell Sam was having trouble figuring out what to do next. Then Sam’s expression changed and his focus went beyond Cutler. To his left, Cutler saw a bulky shape, a protruding balloon of white. He shifted his gaze slightly to make out Bean’s stomach at his eye level.

  “What the hell’s all the noise out here?” Bean demanded. “Who’s disturbin’ the peace now?”

  Cutler looked at Bean and saw that he was holding a shotgun. “Nothin’ to get official about,” Cutler told him. “Just me and your other deputy here protectin’ the town from beer bottles.”

  “Oh,” Bean said. “That’s different.” He thought a moment. “Least it ain’t an arrestin’ matter. But I’m gonna be short a deputy or two next time I get woke up by gunfire.” He looked at Sam. “If you’re up, what’re you doin’ here?”

  “I was just on my way out,” Sam said.

  “Then get on with you. You’re burnin’ daylight.”

  “Which flock you figure I ought to see first?”

  “Well now, what do you think?”

  “I guess the one that’s furthest to the west.”

  “Okay then.”

  Sam nodded and went around behind the animal cages.

  “That’s my chair you’re sittin’ in,” Bean told Cutler.

  Cutler grinned and got up. Bean sat down= “Least you got it warmed up for me,” he said.

  “I didn’t come to sit,” Cutler said.

  “What did you come here for, then? Want a drink, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Want to go over to Mrs. Dodd’s fer breakfast? She can usually take care of an extra mouth.”

  “Judge, like we said yesterday, I came to see Mike McKay.”

  “He’s workin’ for me, I believe.”