by Jane Toombs
Sherman nodded, thinking back to his first meeting with the Creole. Shortly after the boat pulled away from Galveston, he'd wandered into the saloon, noticed men seated around a table playing cards, and sauntered over to watch. The game, he discovered, was vingt-et-un, French for twenty- one. Some of the Americans called it blackjack.
As soon as he understood the point of the game, he quickly realized the man wearing the flowery vest was by far the cleverest player and so watched him exclusively.
Later, on the deck, the annoyed St. Vrain had confronted him and asked why in hell Sherman kept breathing down his neck.
"I'm trying to learn to gamble before I reach New Orleans," Sherman admitted. "You're the best I've seen."
His frankness had disarmed St. Vrain, leading the gambler to further the acquaintance.
As the boat pulled into the dock, Sherman shifted his shoulders uneasily. New Orleans was much larger than he'd expected. Smells and noises assailed him--scents of tar and fish mingled with the sweetness of flowers growing everywhere in colorful profusion. Black dock workers shouted to one another and carts clattered over the wooden planks of the wharf. Steamboat whistles hooted and from St. Louis Cathedral a deep-toned bell tolled.
"Nervous?" St Vrain asked.
"Yes."
St. Vrain smiled. "Good. That'll keep you on your toes. If you're going to be a gambler you have to stay alert. Always."
He didn't know Sherman must be on his guard at all times, gambling or not.
"Just because you're a natural," St. Vrain said, "doesn't mean you won't run into trouble. Tell me, what will you do if you find someone at your table is cheating?" Sherman repeated what St. Vrain had taught him. "Cash in and leave as soon as possible. No confrontations." "Right. Accusations of cheating lead nowhere but to death." He adjusted the gold cuff-links set with diamonds he wore on the sleeves of his shirt. "And what if you win big?" "I'd expect to be followed and robbed, so I'd take precautions. No drinking, no women."
"See that you remember. And for the love of God don't rush out and buy a brocade vest with your first winnings." Sherman blinked. "Why not? You wear one."
"Son, I'm a gambler. It's in my blood, it's how I make my living year after year. If you're telling me the truth, you only want to make enough money to buy wilderness land-- God knows why. But it's none of my business."
He scanned Sherman quickly, head to toe. "Your clothes mark you as country and that's in your favor. No one expects a rough lad to know beans about cards. I dress the way I do so people realize I'm a gambler, so they'll come and play with me, trying to beat me. I dress like what I am--and so must you. No fancy vests. If you must buy new clothes, get working clothes."
Sherman nodded. He meant to buy the vest in spite of what St. Vrain said but he wouldn't wear it when he gambled. "I wish I didn't have to go upriver to St. Louis," St. Vrain said. "I'd like to be with you at least once to make sure you know what you're doing. New Orleans is fancy and slick on the surface but rough and tough underneath."
"I'll be careful."
"If you hadn't latched onto me, you wouldn't last a minute in this town. Even with all I've told you--" St. Vrain paused and sighed, putting a hand on Sherman's shoulder. "You're a likeable lad--I wish you well."
"Meeting you was the best thing that's happened to me for a long time," Sherman told him. "If ever I can do anything for you, I will."
"Remember, son, there are no old gamblers. Win your stake and buy your land. And never cheat. Sooner or later, you get caught." He gripped Sherman's shoulder hard for a moment, turned away and disappeared into the crowd on deck. Is what I do cheating? Sherman wondered as the boat bumped against the dock.
He didn't manipulate the cards but he suspected his high rate of wins wasn't pure luck. A natural, St. Vrain had called him. By natural, St. Vrain meant a man who watched his opponents' hands and eyes and predicted the outcome partly on the watching and partly on how many cards had been dealt and what they'd been. He learned that quickly but he wondered if he had some hidden gift that also helped.
With the constant danger of men turning against him if they discovered what he was, he needed every advantage he could find. St. Vrain had been a big advantage. He'd miss him.
Sherman took a deep breath and turned his attention to the city spread out before him, bright and shining in the March sun.
"Ready or not, New Orleans, I'm here," he said under his breath and grinned at his bravado. The crowds and the noise and the city's size scared him half to death.
In Galveston, listening to the talk around him about the easy money to be made gambling in New Orleans, the notion had appealed to him because it seemed so simple. The times he'd played monte with Juan, he'd always won until Juan had refused to take him on any more. There wasn't much to gambling, that's what he'd thought. St. Vrain had taught
him otherwise.
He'd had to sell all his horses but Rawhide to pay the steamboat fare and have a bit left over for a stake. Rawhide he'd brought with him, below deck, and he was glad. The swaybacked dun would be one familiar thing in this strange and frightening city.
Country, St. Vrain had called him and the gambler had been right. Well, the country lad would try his luck in New Orleans. He had no other choice.
Once Sherman collected his few belongings and retrieved Rawhide, he found he didn't have to look far to find a gambling establishment. They were all over--by the docks and along every street. St. Vrain had recommended an inexpensive hotel, the Chartes, but since it was already late afternoon, Sherman decided he'd look in on a few of the gambling-houses first and visit the Chartes later. Rawhide had been fed aboard the boat so he'd be comfortable enough tethered outside while Sherman gambled.
Walking along the narrow bricked streets, he did his best not to gawk at the handsome buildings with their latticed iron-work along the balconies. Vines with red and purple flowers grew over the walls that hid what he suspected were courtyards. The passersby all seemed to be talking to one another, mostly in French.
He'd never seen so many Negros, the woman wearing red or blue scarves--tignons--covering their hair. Many of the woman were very attractive. St. Vrain had said the Negroes weren't all slaves, like the blacks he seen in Galveston.
New Orleans, he'd insisted, prided itself on accommodating free people of color.
He tried the Royal first, finding it anything but--most of the men were dressed as roughly as he was. Sherman watched for a bit and decided not to sit down at the vingt- et-un table after he spotted the dealer sliding cards off the bottom of the deck. He didn't plan to try any other game. "You might as well dump your money in the gutter as play faro," St. Vrain had warned. "And poker's got too many variations for me to teach you in so short a time. The Creoles, including me, enjoy craps but there's too much of a chance of loaded dice. Stick to what you have a chance to win."
Sherman drifted in and out of three other gambling- houses, two on St. Charles Street and one on Bourbon before he found a vingt-et-un dealer he thought was honest in the Palace on Canal Street. By this time dusk had settled over the city. Sherman decided to try his luck for an hour or two, then go to the hotel and eat. When a player left, he sat down in the man's place.
At first he concentrated on the dealer and the cards, winning modestly. After a time he glanced at the gentleman to his right at the end of the table, white-haired, in a rusty black coat, playing a cautious game, keeping about even. The three men to his left were young, well-dressed, and seemed to be friends. All had been drinking. The two next to him were plainly bored and kept urging their companion at the end to leave. As Sherman looked at him, he raised his head from the study of his cards and smiled at his friends.
Sherman's breath caught. He knew him! After an instant he realized he was wrong, that he'd never seen the man
before but he was so shaken that he carelessly lost the next hand when he failed to ask for another card.
Suspecting something from his past had surfaced, that the man reminded
him of someone he'd once known, Sherman kept an eye on him, hoping other memories would be triggered. He was disappointed.
The man's two friends left, weaving their way to the door. "Quitters," the man mumbled, the word slurred.
As Sherman watched him, fascinated, the man won hand after hand while violating every precept of vingt-et-un, proving what St. Vrain had told him:
"There is such a thing as luck--good and bad. If yours is good--ride the tiger. If bad, cash in before you lose everything."
The young drunk was riding the tiger. Suddenly he swept up his winnings and staggered over to the faro table.
Another man sat in his place. Sherman continued to play vingt-et-un until he'd tripled his stake, then quit. It was time to find his hotel and something to eat.
On his way to the door, he passed the faro table and stopped to see how Tiger was doing. Others had gathered around to watch and he peered over their heads.
"Never saw such luck," the man in front of him said.
"He can't lose."
"Drunk as a lord, he is," another commented. "Don't know what he's doing and that's the truth."
Sherman couldn't take his eyes off Tiger. Something about the way the man smiled, even though his smile was drunken and foolish, plucked at a chord inside Sherman's heart.
Tiger's winning big, Sherman noted, feeling a tinge of envy. St. Vrain's warning about big wins echoed in his head. Tiger was in no condition to look out for himself.
It's no concern of mine, he thought. Time I left. He didn't move. A thread from the past connected him to the man, making it impossible to walk away. As he continued to watch, getting a feel for faro, he took stock of Tiger.
About nineteen or twenty, dark hair, brown eyes. Medium height and slender build. Expensive clothes.
"Tha's it," Tiger said as a game ended. "Gotta go."
His words were barely intelligible. He stood and crammed gold coins carelessly into his pockets, some falling to the floor.
Pushing through the crowd, Sherman picked up the money and handed it to Tiger.
The man waved the coins aside. "Keep 'em."
Sherman dropped the twenty and fifty-dollar gold pieces into Tiger's pocket. When the man staggered toward the door, he followed.
Outside, night cloaked the city and a cool wind blew from the river. Sherman unhitched Rawhide, waiting for Tiger to do the same with his horse. Instead, the man lurched off along the plank sidewalk--banquettes, they called them in New Orleans. Mounting Rawhide, Sherman walked the horse along the street beside Tiger.
Tiger staggered along block after block until Sherman wondered if he'd ever reach a destination. Finally Tiger turned down a street more dimly lit that the others. Sherman hesitated, pulling up on the reins when he read the sign. Gallatin. At last he continued on, disturbed and apprehensive. The poor lighting cast ominous shadows and the disreputable men emerging from the ramshackle buildings exuded a sense of menace.
The hair on Sherman's neck rose with an increasing sense of danger. What the hell was he doing? Hadn't St. Vrain warned him to stay off Gallatin Street? Nothing but trouble could come from trailing a drunk with his pockets full of money, a drunk heading into what St. Vrain had called the hellpit of New Orleans.
Chapter 8
Sherman pulled Rawhide even with the staggering, weaving man he'd dubbed Tiger, wondering what in God's name Tiger could want in this rundown part of New Orleans, a section that was definitely not la belle. Instead of brick and stucco buildings with delicate iron traceries, the wooden dwellings on dimly lit Gallatin Street were little more than shacks. Filth heaped high in the gutters, making Sherman grimace at the stink.
A gaudily dressed woman emerged from a shadowed doorway to accost Tiger and Sherman reined in Rawhide, watching. He knew what she was, he'd learned about whores in Galveston, though he hadn't patronized any. Even if he hadn't worried about fathering a child, the idea of bedding a woman used by many men was distasteful to him.
She whispered something in Tiger's ear. He shook his head, fumbled in his pocket, handed her a gold coin, patted her on the rump and, to Sherman's relief, weaved away from her. Sherman urged the dun forward before she could decide he was fair game.
Noticing an alley ahead, Sherman focused on it, trying to sense whether danger lurked in its dark entrance. His sensing of life energies was all but useless in a city, he'd discovered, because too many people were crowded together for him to easily separate one energy from another.
He thought there were men in the alley but he couldn't be sure. Damn this city, damn this filthy street whose shadows hid danger. Every instinct warned him to wheel Rawhide and gallop away. But he couldn't abandon Tiger, he'd have to haul him aboard Rawhide before getting the hell out of here.
He halted the dun and swung off just as Tiger turned into the dark alley, obviously intent on relieving himself. Cursing under his breath, Sherman sprang to Tiger's side. Before he could do more than thrust Tiger against the wall of a building and leap in front of him, four men lunged at them. Sherman wore a knife sheathed in his boot but the first man jumped at him too fast for him to draw it. The attacker was big and burly and a dirty fighter. As Sherman struggled with the brute, trying to fend off the others at the same time, from behind him he heard Tiger laugh, then the clink of metal hitting the bricks of the street.
The drunken fool was throwing money!
Burly tried a kidney punch, Sherman blocked it, at the same time smashing the edge of his hand against the bridge of Burly's nose. Bone crunched, Burly gave a hoarse cry and fell back. From the way the second man crouched, Sherman was sure he held a knife, blade up, ready to rip into Sherman's gut. Sherman kicked hard, felt fiery pain slash along his leg as the toe of his boot caught the knife wielder under the chin. His assailant crumpled to the ground and lay motionless.
Gold coins jingled on the bricks as though Tiger threw them by the handfuls. Intent on the recovering Burly, Sherman didn't dare look. Evidently hearing the jingling, Burly turned from Sherman and lumbered into the street where the other two men were scrambling for the gold.
Sherman grabbed Tiger by one arm, dragged him from the alley and flung him across Rawhide's rump. He swung onto the dun, wheeled him sharply and urged him into a trot, keeping a firm grip on Tiger's belt. A glance over his shoulder showed Burly and the two others fighting among themselves.
He didn't draw a full breath until they turned off Gallatin Street onto St. Ann and passed St Louis Cathedral. Reining in under a street lamp, he turned to look back at Tiger and saw the blood. His blood. His pants were slit down the right leg and blood oozed from a deep cut along his calf.
Swearing, he tried to yank Tiger into a sitting position but it was like attempting to mold soft butter. He shook him. "What's your name?" he demanded.
"Guy."
"Where do you live?"
"La Belle." Guy smiled at him and slumped in his grasp, out cold.
Damn. La Belle could mean anything, even la belle New Orleans, St. Vrain's beautiful city. At the moment Sherman didn't think much of the place.
What was he to do now? Further shaking had no effect, Guy slept on, oblivious. Checking Guy's pockets he discovered most of the money was gone. Counting the remainder, he transferred the coins into his own pockets for safekeeping. There was nothing else on Guy to give Sherman a clue to his last name or where he lived.
It occurred to him Guy might have had a horse tethered outside the Palace and was, perhaps, known there. Gripping Guy's belt again, he set off for Canal Street.
When he reached the gambling-house, he left Guy draped across Rawhide's back while he limped inside. Certain the man who'd won so much would be remembered, Sherman first asked the faro dealer, who recalled the winner but didn't know who he was. The name Guy meant nothing to him.
The vingt-et-un dealer shook his head. "We get scores of young Creoles coming in here. You can't expect me to keep track of who's who."
"Have you ever heard of a place called La Belle?" Sherman
asked.
The dealer shook his head. "Sounds like a plantation
is all I can tell you."
"Yeah," a player agreed. "One of them by the lake, I reckon."
Discovering lake meant Lake Pontchartrain, Sherman asked for directions before he returned to Guy, still draped over the dun's rump, snoring. When Sherman couldn't rouse him, he decided carrying two men any farther was expecting too much from Rawhide. Guy couldn't so much as sit up, much less stand and, though Sherman's leg had stopped bleeding, the cut ached like the devil. He wouldn't get far afoot.
Not knowing what else to do, he untied the dun and led him along the plank walk in front of the tethered horses, with Guy's head nearest the animals, pausing in front of every horse. The first two ignored him. the next stomped, pulling back on his tether. The fourth showed interest in Rawhide. By the time he reached the last horse, at the end of the block, Sherman was ready to give up--until the animal nuzzled Guy's head and whuffled.
"That's good enough for me," he muttered to the black horse with the white blaze on his forehead. "You're elected."
He transferred Guy's limp body from Rawhide to the
black and tied him on. If the horse belonged to someone else, after all, then that would be Guy's problem to solve when he came to.
Riding Rawhide, he led the black through the maze of narrow streets, taking a deep breath of relief when the houses thinned. St. Vrain might love New Orleans but he never could. Not so much because of tonight but because it was so crowded. Cities, he decided, were not for him.
At last trees replaced buildings and, finally, following a trail along Bayou St. John toward the lake, Sherman began to feel himself again, one with the night. He was at home only where people were few. Any love he felt was for trees and hills, for the land and what grew upon it, not for towns and cities. He belonged in the wilderness.
Glancing up at the half-moon shining bright and serene in the western sky, he whispered, "How can anything so beautiful be so cruel?"