King of Spades

by Frederick Manfred

  He leaned an elbow over her. With his finger he gently poked her near breast, then her chin, then the tiny crow’s feet at her eyes.

  His touches melted her. “Oh, Ransom, I do so love you.”

  He smoothed back her gold hair with his full hand.

  “Though sometimes I think the way we act we’re no better married than monkeys about the middle.”

  “Who am I?”

  She blinked. “What did you say?”

  “Skip it.”

  She studied him. The string to her eye patch had slipped a little from his stroking of her hair and she adjusted it.

  “But I agree with you. It should mean more than just coupling in the dark.”

  She smiled, expecting advances. “How more, Ransom?”

  He looked at the early morning sunshine glowing in the pine tree outside their bedroom window. “Oh, I don’t know. Like a bobolink singing maybe.”

  “That’s just what it means to me. Sweet birds sweetly singing.”

  He closed his eyes. He recalled Sam Slaymaker’s remark.

  “Oh, you’ll know when you finally make it, boy. It’s like when all the birds fly out of the straw pile.”

  “Isn’t it birds singing for you too when we’re together?”

  He couldn’t get himself to say it wasn’t.

  “Isn’t it?”

  He let his smile linger for answer.

  “You got to love me now darling. You’ve just got to.”

  He ran a fingertip up and down her long scar.

  “You see”—she lisped the next words—“our baby should have the privilege of growing up with its own father.”

  His head came up.

  “Because, you see, we are going to have a baby. You’ve probably noticed.”

  He stared big green eyes at her.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you want it?”

  Silence.

  “I thought you said you wanted sons?”

  Silence.

  She pushed his hand away from her scar. A pout darkened her face. But she couldn’t quite look him in the eye.

  In turn he pushed her hand aside and once more placed the flat of his hand on where she said she had his baby. The thought of a little acorn of his own flesh started there under the scar almost unhinged him. Lord. Now he was to be a father of children with two different women.

  “Isn’t it really birds singing for the both of us?”

  He swore to himself inside. She couldn’t have it. She couldn’t. She had to get rid of it. Somehow. And if she didn’t, by God, he’d drive the damned little nubbin out of her himself. Hard. Mean. If he had to.

  “Aren’t you happy about it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I thought you once told me you wanted a son? To start a new line off with?”

  “I do.”

  “Well?”

  He needed time to think. He masked his feelings as best he could. “Sure I wanted a son.”

  “Because if you don’t want it, it’s easily taken care of. With me it is anyway.”

  “It’s fine. Fine. It’s just that it’s … kind of a shock to know … it’s finally coming at last.”

  “Well, that’s a lot better.”

  “Ahh … I suppose you would be the one to know how it could be easily taken care of. If need be.”

  Pause. “That hurt too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Abruptly Katherine got out of bed and began to slip into her clothes. “Time to make breakfast. For a hungry man.”

  He watched her. Erden didn’t have wrinkles in the armpits. Nor creases under the thighs. It had to be that Katherine was one of those who couldn’t help but look old for her age. Because Katherine couldn’t be that much older than he was.

  “Just you remember one thing though, my husband. I’m not going to let you throw me on the scrap heap like some old sucked-out lemon.” She tied a knot in the belt of her robe. “I don’t know what’s been troubling you lately. But whatever it is, I’ll never let you get rid of me. I’ll kill myself first.” She fluffed her gold hair in place. “And that’s not so funny. I’ve looked death in the eye before.”

  His lower lip doubled on itself.

  “I do hope the new preacher will arrive soon. So we can get it over with.”

  He allowed himself to nod, slowly. “Yes, I suppose we ought to get that done. Before they start talking.”

  “Don’t the boys think we’re married?”

  “I was thinking for the baby’s sake.”

  “Oh. That. Yes, of course, the baby.”

  He shot her a look. What? Had the thought of the coming baby already slipped her mind so soon? By the Lord, it actually seemed to mean less to her than it did to him.

  “The last I heard, our new preacher will be here in a couple of weeks.”

  The pines outside stirred in the wind.

  “Shall I have announcements made then?”

  He thought: “I’ll probably never see Erden again. And I’ve got to have at least one of my children around me.” Aloud he said, “Go ahead.”

  The wind pushed against the bedroom window.

  He didn’t deserve Erden. He was to her what Katherine was to him.

  Outside someone far up the gulch hallowed a piercing coyote-like howl. “Oh, Joe!” The howl was picked up by those next in line. “Oh, Joe!” It came swiftly down the gulch. “Oh, Joe!” Louder and louder. “Oh, Joe!” As it passed by the house the gulch jangled with its echoes. “Oh, Joe!” Gradually it faded away. “Oh, Joe.”

  It was time to get up.

  Dawn light came through the blind a dull gold. The brook below rippled over stone baffles.

  He’d had a dream. It was so compelling it left him stiff. He groaned.

  Katherine rolled up on an elbow to have a look at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nuth-ing.”

  She shook him. “There is too something the matter with you?”

  He lay staring straight up at the ceiling, eyeballs stiff.

  “You’re not dying on me?” She threw back the quilts for a better look.

  With great effort he managed to cross his legs. It always gave him comfort of a sort to feel one leg crossed over the other. “It’s nothing.”

  She bounced out of bed. Running, she got a bottle of brandy and a shot glass. “Here, quick, have some of this. Maybe that’ll help.”

  He downed the brandy before he realized what it meant.

  “Some more?”

  He stirred in his nightgown. “I mussent drink.”

  “As medicine it’s all right.”

  “God.”

  “What’s the matter with you? For a minute there I thought sure you were dying.”

  He drew himself up on his pillow. A great sigh heaved him up for a moment. There were low dots in his half-lidded eyes. “Just a dream.”

  “Must’ve been an awful dream the way you looked. My stars.”

  “No. No. It was more a kind of wonderful dream. I was all wrapped up in it. Too wrapped up in it.”

  She set the brandy and the shot glass on the bedstand and got back into bed with him.

  He breathed deep several times. “It was about my mother.”

  “Your mother? I thought you said you never knew her.”

  “I didn’t. But it was about my mother just the same.” His eyes stared, set and unseeing. “I couldn’t quite make her out always. But it was her. It was what she did that made me know. The way she gave me titty. And the quick way she had of walking around, like she had springs in her legs.” He moved his big toe back and forth, until the edge of the sheet slid off it. “She loved me a lot, too. I could tell. She favored me over my dad even.” He closed his eyes, looking within, trying again to catch sight of the face in the dream. “Funny, but I couldn’t quite seem to catch it. It was just out of reach.”

  Katherine’s brown eye first opened wide, then half-closed. “Why don’t you just forget it? It’s only a dream.”

&nbs
p; “No. No. Because it was more than just a dream. Because this was almost real. Man.” He stirred in the sheets. “I’ve never before felt so drained out after. In my whole life.” He shook his head. “The funny thing is, I’ve got the funny feeling that I knew her better than I think too.” Again he shook his head. “If I could just get more of a hint of some kind. Then maybe I could find out who my ma really was.”

  “Your father wasn’t in this dream then?”

  “Oh, he was there all right. Kind of like a shadow almost. With a gun, shooting.”

  “What!”

  “I could see my ma just as plain. Yet I can’t tell you what she looked like.”

  A long pause. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, if I was you. After all, it was only a dream.”

  “No-o. It was something about her eyes. Green, like mine.”

  Katherine got up abruptly. “I’ll go get your breakfast.”

  He didn’t bother to watch her go.

  After a moment he reached for the brandy and had himself another shot.

  The next night, before dawn, he let go with a great call in his sleep. “Maah!”

  Katherine rose out of her pillow with a start.

  “Maah!”

  “Ransom!”

  “Aaah!”

  “Ransom, wake up! You’re dreaming again.”

  “Nnnh?”

  “Wake up. You’re ringing wet with sweat.”

  “No shadows in her sheets.”

  “Shadows in her sheets?”

  Then he rose out of his pillow with a start. “Huh?”

  Katherine turned up the night lamp.

  Orange illumination bloomed around them. The two of them resembled a papa and a mama bear disturbed out of their sleep by an exploding meteor.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Ransom, Ransom, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  “Why?”

  “That terrible dreaming. If you don’t quit hitting me in your sleep, you’re going to have to sleep by yourself.”

  “I hit you?”

  “You most certainly did.” She showed him her arm. A lump already showed over her bicep.

  “That’s funny. Because it was about my mother again. And it was another wonderful dream about her.” He spoke very slowly and clearly. “I was a little baby. And I was lonesome. And then she said I could sleep warm with her.”

  Katherine reached for the brandy and glass. “Here. Have a shot. It settled you the last time.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know how bad I get when I drink.”

  “One shot more won’t hurt a big fellow like you. And then you go to sleep.”

  “All right.” He drank up.

  “That’s better.”

  He could feel her lying awake beside him in the dark. Well, he was plenty upset about the dreaming himself.

  The next night he hit her a couple of awful ones in sleep. Her gasping woke him. He sat up. “Katherine?”

  She clawed the air for breath.

  He leaned across her and turned up the little lemon tongue in the night lamp.

  Her face was blue. Her eyepatch had fallen off and her empty eye socket was level full with blood. He’d hit her once in the belly and once in the eye.

  “Katherine?” He took her chest in both his hands and pumped the curve of it to help her breathe.

  Of a sudden she filled up, and coughed. The moment strength returned to her she struck him. Blood spilled out of her eyesocket down her cheek.

  He held her off. “You don’t have to go into a catfit.”

  She felt of her face and eye socket. With a night kerchief she wiped all clean and then fitted the eyepatch back in place. “From now on you can sleep on the couch.” She breathed hard. She was mad. “Alone. At least until you get over your crazy nightmares.”

  He glared back at her. He couldn’t help the dreaming. And he rather liked the dreams. He got out of bed on his side. He pulled his nightshirt out of where it’d caught in his seat. “All right. Suits me better anyway.”

  “Well-l … you really did hurt me, you know. Ransom.”

  “Shouldn’t’ve been sleeping here in the first place.”

  “What kind of crazy dreaming is this anyway? You got a guilty conscience or something?”

  The brook outside rippled over rough stones.

  “I don’t suppose I dare ask if you dreamed about your mother again?”

  The pine trees outside whispered in the wind.

  “Was it about your darn mother again?”

  “She seems to bother you more than she does me.”

  “Maybe she does.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you. This time I was two people. Part of me was somebody walking into the back door of some house somewhere. The minute I got into the kitchen of this house I started shooting at my blue blanket. I don’t know just how a blue blanket fits in there. But there it was. And then part of me was somebody else waiting inside this house. The minute the other somebody started shooting at my pet blanket, I shot him. All of a sudden a still somebody else let out a terrible scream. It was my mother. I could tell. Just as plain. Except that again I couldn’t quite make out her face. Though I did get a glimpse of her eyes again. They’re green all right. Then, snap! I woke up.”

  Again Katherine’s brown eye first opened wide, then half-closed. And she slowly turned white.

  He was instantly concerned, and started toward her. “Did I hit you that hard?”

  “Get out!” she squeaked.

  He jumped back. “Well! If that’s the way you feel about it….” With a pounce, he grabbed up all his clothes and brushed out.

  The leather couch downstairs was hard. But he was glad to be sleeping alone again. Now he could think in secret about Erden without troubling his conscience too much. His heart beat fast. He wished there were some kind of heaven to look forward to with Erden.

  The riffling brook and bumbling drunks kept him awake.

  All of a sudden, he got up, put on his buckskin clothes and his gun and belt, and stole silently out into the night, into pale silver moonlight.

  “Goddam. I really am trapped now that I’ve got one in Katherine’s oven too.”

  He headed up the gulch. Some dogs who knew him came out for their customary pat on the head. When he strode past them ignoring them, they instantly set out after him, barking at him from a safe distance.

  He knew the way up the gulch by heart. It was as familiar to him as stepping into his own pants.

  He climbed above his holdings at the beaver dam. The smell of pine stumps bleeding rosin was sticky in the nose.

  “I’ll probably never see Erden again. But if I ever do, I’m going to eat a large piece of humble pie for her. About us whites piling in here like this.”

  He came upon the avalanche that had buried her cave. No one had disturbed it that he could see. He also checked the little park where a crow had come to sit and talk on Erden’s shoulder. No sign of Erden there either. He climbed to his white-quartz claim. No sign of her there.

  “I should tell Katherine about Erden. So long as I don’t, I’m living a lie with her.”

  He sat alone in the toothy granite peaks. The whistling spirits were silent.

  On the way back he found a saloon still open. It was known as No. 10.

  He spotted Troy Barb at the bar. Troy Barb was wearing new store-bought clothes.

  “Troy.”

  “Hello there, pard. What do you know for sure?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Out on an all-night good time, I see.”

  “Wish I was.” Sawdust had packed up under one of Ransom’s boots and he scuffed it off on the toe of the other boot.

  “Have a drink?”

  “All right.”

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Some good red American whiskey. A long one.”

  “Thought you never drank whiskey.”

  “Tonight I am.
What the hell.”

  “Bence, set ’em up.”

  Barkeep Bence set his hands in motion. “Two smokies comin’ up.” Bence had the mottled face of the rachitic.

  Troy Barb gave Ransom a throw of his moon eyes. “Had a fight with the wife, I see.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know the signs. I’ve had my dauber frosted over a couple of times myself.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Well, here’s to the gals, may God bless every one of ’em. Pigs included.”

  Ransom took a good slug. “Where’s everybody?”

  “Why, pard, the night’s about over.”

  “Guess it is at that. Though Old Wild Bill used to stay up pretty late, I hear.”

  “Yeh, he did.”

  “Too bad about him.”

  “Yeh. I see they still got his chair setting there where he got it.”

  Ransom looked toward the back of the saloon. Four empty chairs stood shoved tight against an empty table. No one was playing at the faro table beyond it either.

  “Poor Bill. Getting it in the back of the head like that. And on the only night he ever sat with his back to the door.”

  “Yeh.”

  There was one girl in the saloon and she stood hovering over a game of stud poker near the fireplace.

  Ransom recognized one of the poker players. Bullneck Bill. A troublemaker. Bullneck Bill hadn’t found himself any gold, so spent most of his time complaining about his bad luck and other people’s good luck. He made his keep by gambling, mostly with greenhorns just come to town. He had a large hump of a neck and big loose-set teeth and cold speculative blue eyes. He was always right. Dead right. The other three poker players were raw farmers fresh from Yankton. They’d struck it good only a week before.

  Ransom watched them. He loved playing poker wonderfully and considered sitting in on a couple of hands. Might as well go to hell all in one bucket while he was at it. Also it would be fun to take some of Bullneck Bill’s money away from him.

  Troy Barb nudged Ransom. “Another Jeremiah?”

  “It’s my turn to cough up.” Ransom turned to the barkeep. “Set ’em, Bence. Same medicine.” Ransom got out his bag of gold dust and set it on the bar.

  Bence obliged him, then got out his scales and poured out what dust he had coming to him.