The Gamble (I)

by LaVyrle Spencer

  Dan had sensed undercurrents building all night. Collinson was spoiling for a fight, and Dan had his orders. He squared the deck and raised two fingers to Jack at the bar, who immediately poured two double shots of whiskey. Jack nodded to Scotty, who caught the signal and turned from his conversation with a cowpoke to bring over the shot glasses.

  “You gentlemen mind if I sit in for a few hands?” he inquired with practiced indifference.

  “Why, shore.” The young Texan beside Collinson looked relieved as Gandy caught a nearby chair with a boot and slid it up to the table.

  “Your drink, Dan.” Scotty stretched to place one shot glass before the dealer, then set the other at his own elbow.

  “What’s the game?” he inquired, reaching into his ticket pocket and extracting some bills.

  “Blackjack,” replied Loretto. “Who’s in?”

  Collinson shoved his next-to-last dollar into the center of the table.

  Loretto smacked the deck down on his left and Collinson watched to make sure all hands stayed on top of the table during the cut. The punk was good, but he’d make a slip sooner or later, and when he did, Collinson would be watching. Meanwhile, he could be as cool as a frog on a lily pad.

  While the first two rounds were dealt, he struck up a seemingly idle conversation with the cowpoke. “What they call ya, boy?”

  “Who, me?”

  Collinson nodded and squinted through his own cigar smoke.

  “Slip.” The boy swallowed. “Slip McQuaid.”

  Collinson checked his down cards—a pair of aces. That was more like it. He split them up and noticed the dealer, too, showed an ace along with his down card. Goddamned punk had to get it from up his sleeve—nobody could be that lucky that often—but it riled Collinson that he wasn’t able to catch him at it. He wiped his mouth with the edge of a rough finger and pushed his last dollar in to cover the double wager. Loretto hit him twice—a nine and a four.

  Collinson’s eyes grew beadier. He shifted his soggy cigar to the opposite side of his mouth, riveting his eyes on the dealer while he spoke to McQuaid. “Hope that ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with how ya play cards. Wouldn’t wanna play with nobody had the reputation for bein’ slippery.” Collinson gave a tight laugh, watching Loretto check his down card without clearing the green baize tabletop.

  “N... no, sir. I slipped off a wet saddle when I was first startin’ to ride and busted my collarbone. My pa give me that name.”

  “Cards?” Loretto inquired of McQuaid, ignoring Collinson’s innuendo.

  Gandy noted the slight shift of Dan’s hips beneath the table as he crossed his left ankle over his right knee, bringing the concealed derringer within reach.

  McQuaid took a card and pondered, while Collinson questioned him further. “What outfit ya ridin’ with?”

  Gandy refrained from interfering, though Collinson broke a cardinal rule: disturbing McQuaid during play.

  “Rockin’ J, outta Galveston.”

  “That where ya learned t’ play cards?”

  McQuaid tensed but tried not to let it show. “I played some in the bunkhouse with the boys... One more,” he told Loretto, then cursed when he tallied twenty-two.

  Gandy waved a palm over his resting cards as a signal that he’d stand pat. His eyes met Collinson’s belligerent stare and he forced each muscle to relax. Loosen up, Gandy, be ready.

  “And where’d you learn, Loretto? I’ll take a hit—over here.” He knuckled the down four. Loretto upturned a seven. Collinson’s brown teeth worked over the soaked end of his cigar while he considered and sweat broke beneath his arms. “Again.” The king put him over. His temperature went up a notch. The goddamned punk couldn’t be that lucky! Collinson still held twenty in his other set, but he’d been hoping to rake in double on this hand. “Yessir, I recall when Danny, there, was no taller’n an angleworm. Used t’ wear short sleeves then.” Collinson squinted pointedly at Dan’s knuckle-length black sleeves. “You ‘member, don’t ya, Doc?”

  “I remember,” Doc replied vaguely, though it took him some time to do his recollecting. “Hit me, Danny.”

  Loretto deftly whipped a card his way.

  Doc took a long time pondering.

  “Hurry up!” snapped Collinson. “Don’t see what the hell can take ya so long.”

  Again Gandy held his temper. When Collinson blew, he’d blow hard. Meanwhile, Doc finally decided.

  “Again,” he mumbled.

  With a snap of his wrist, Dan sent another card to its mark.

  Doc peered at it myopically, sighed, and folded. “I’m out.”

  Collinson’s face turned bloodred. “That leaves me against the house, don’t it? Now just how lucky would a man have t’ be t’ win around here?”

  “You got something to say, Alvis, say it.” Dan kept one hand on the table but dropped the other to his thigh.

  “Let’s see your cards, boy,” Collinson challenged, biting hard on his cigar.

  Dan took another hit with the hand that had never been out of sight, then showed three cards totaling a perfect twenty-one.

  “You crooked sons-o’-bitches!” Collinson’s face turned ugly as he produced a knife. “Don’t tell me you ain’t got no cards up your sleeves!”

  Gandy rose slowly, each muscle tense, prepared, but his voice came out like slow honey. “I don’t allow fightin’ in here, Collinson, you know that. Now put the knife away.”

  Collinson crouched with the blade flashing in his hand. Doc and McQuaid backed off.

  “Put it away before somebody gets hurt,” Gandy warned.

  Collinson swung toward him. “You, too! I’d be doin’ this town a favor gettin’ rid of both o’ ya! Which one o’ you wants it first?”

  “Be sensible and drop it,” Dan said, bringing the gun into sight. “I don’t want to have to shoot you, Alvis. Dammit! I’ve known you all my life.”

  “I ain’t droppin’ nothin’ but one o’ you!”

  “Four dollars is hardly worth gettin’ shot over,” Gandy cajoled. “Put it away and we’ll have a round on the house.” He began to signal Jack.

  “This ain’t just about four dollars, Gandy, an’ you know it. It ain’t enough you bastards take my money with them cards you keep up your sleeves; you turn my own flesh an’ blood against me, too.”

  The place had gone silent. Every eye in the room watched warily.

  “Go home, Alvis. You’re drunk,” Dan said reasonably, rising to his feet. “I told you, I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

  “I ain’t drunk. I’m broke is what I am, ya crooked—”

  “Give it t’ me.” Gandy moved in, palm up. “We’ll talk outside.”

  “Like hell we will, you fancy, no-good son-of-a-bitch, stealin’ everythin’ I got—”

  Alvis drew back his arm and all hell broke loose at once. The knife plunged into Gandy’s upper arm. The derringer exploded and Collinson fell facedown across the round, green tabletop. Customers dove to the floor. The girls screamed. In the sudden silence Gandy grimaced and grabbed his right arm.

  “Damn! He got you anyway.” Dan jumped forward to help and Jubilee came running, wild-eyed. But Gandy shrugged them both off and dropped to a chair.

  “Check Collinson,” he said quickly.

  Dan rolled him over and felt for a pulse. He raised doubtful eyes to Gandy, who sat slumped and panting, still clutching his limp arm.

  Dan raised his voice. “Somebody run and get Doc Johnson!” Then he turned to Adkins, who seemed to have come out of his stupor for the first time in years. His face was chalky, his eyes round with fright.

  “Doc, get over here,” Dan called. “He can use your help.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re a veterinarian, aren’t you? See what you can do to keep him alive till Doc Johnson gets here.”

  “B... but I—”

  “He’s your friend, Adkins!” Dan bellowed impatiently. “For God’s sake, quit sniveling and act like a man!” Then he turned to Scotty and wen
t down on one knee beside him. He glanced up dubiously at Jubilee, swallowed hard, and fixed his eyes on the knife protruding from Gandy’s arm. “What do you want me to do?”

  Gandy was fading in and out from the pain. He lifted his head and stared dazedly into Dan’s face. Sweat stood out in beads on his own. “Get... it... out...” he whispered, clutching his right biceps, where blood already had turned his black sleeve shiny.

  At that moment Agatha reached the back door after hearing the shot. She entered, puffing, and paused near the keno table to survey the scene before her. She saw someone lying on a gambling table with blood soaking his plaid shirt, and Scott was lying slumped on a chair with a knife protruding from his arm.

  “Dear God!” she whispered, hurrying toward him.

  Marcus tried to stop her, his hands strong on her arms, his eyes begging her to heed his silent plea and do as he indicated.

  She met them squarely, understanding afresh that he cared enough to be concerned about her welfare as well as Scott’s. “Let me go,” she ordered gently. “He helped me; now it’s my turn.”

  Marcus reluctantly released her and she hurried forward, already issuing orders to Jack and Ivory and all the girls, who hovered undecidedly around Gandy’s slumping form. “Lay him down before he falls off the chair.”

  Dan and Jack reacted without a pause. Gandy groaned and his forehead grew shiny as they laid him on the raw pine floor. Agatha struggled to her knees beside him. She released his tight tie and collar button and touched his throat lovingly. “Oh, Scott,” she whispered, her face drawn with concern, “oh, my dear.”

  He managed a faint smile. “Gussie...” he whispered weakly, fluttering the fingers of his bloody hand.

  She clasped them tightly and pressed the back of his hand between her breasts, heedless of the fact that her own hand grew bloody.

  Just then Doc Johnson burst through the swinging doors with his nightshirt tucked into his trousers, his suspenders trailing beside his knees, and his red hair standing up on end.

  “Step aside!” It took him less than thirty seconds before he pronounced, “Collinson’s dead.”

  The name penetrated Agatha’s mind. Kneeling beside Scott, she fired a glance at Dan. “Collinson?” she repeated, shocked. “He shot Collinson?”

  “No, I did,” Dan corrected.

  She looked down at Scott’s blanched face, the knife protruding from his flesh. “Then how—”

  “He tried to get Alvis to give over the knife... Alvis gave it over, all right.”

  “Move aside!” ordered Doc Johnson impatiently. He knelt down, took one look at the knife, and advised, “Better get this man drunk. And the drunker the better.”

  Jack fetched a full bottle of Newton’s whiskey. Scott lay on the floor blearily smiling up at the bartender. “Make sure you got the ninety proof, Jack.” He attempted a crooked smile, but it looked ghostly on his pale face.

  Sheriff Cowdry arrived and made a silent inspection of Collinson’s body, while Jack fed Scott more whiskey than Agatha thought one man could consume and still remain conscious. Jubilee sat on the floor with Scott’s head in her lap while his blood dried on Agatha’s palm.

  Cowdry questioned the customers, then cleared them out. The undertaker came to haul away Collinson’s body and two tables were pushed together to create an emergency operating room. Marcus, Dan, Ivory, and Jack lifted Scott gently and laid him down. He was grinning loosely, his lips wet, his face flushed. He beckoned Marcus with one finger.

  “Listen...” he whispered mushily. “This stuff’s damned good, but don’t tell Agatha I said so.” He chuckled drunkenly and craned his head to see Ivory, behind him. “And if I kick the bucket, none o’ your Baptist dirges at my funerull, boy. I want the cancan, ya unnerstan’?”

  Jack put the bottle to his boss’s lips again. “One more, Scotty. That should do it.” The liquor trailed down Scott’s cheek and made a dark spot on the green baize. His eyes blinked slowly once, twice—but still didn’t close.

  “Gussie?” he whispered, his eyes suddenly searching. “Where’s—”

  “I’m here, Scott.” She moved quietly beside the table and found his good hand. He clutched hers desperately.

  “Willy... you’ve got t’ tell Willy.” His eyes were rimmed with red. Against his black brows and hair his skin appeared waxy, except for the unnatural tinge of red brought to his cheeks by the liquor. “I’m sorry... tell ‘im I’m sorry.”

  She touched the limp hair clinging to his perspiring brow, brushed it back. “I promise.”

  Doc opened his black case and began threading a needle with a piece of horsehair. “Bring a fresh bottle of whiskey,” he ordered. “And anybody that’s queasy, get out.”

  Agatha stayed long enough to watch Doc pull the knife blade out of the bone in Scott’s arm, and to see his body convulse and to hear him cry out in agony. Long enough to hear Doc order, “Give him another shot!” Long enough for her stomach to twist and her eyes to fill and her throat to thicken. But when Doc dipped the needle and horsehair into the whiskey, she slipped out the swinging doors to gulp the clean night air and sob alone.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Agatha had not been back to the Collinson house since that first time. But the smell was the same: a combination of must, coal oil, sour linens, and unwashed bodies. Even before she lit a lamp she knew she’d find no improvement in her surroundings.

  Groping at the kitchen table, she found stick matches and a lantern. When it was lit she avoided glancing around; instead, she headed straight for Willy.

  He looked so small curled up in a ball with his chin on his chest. He didn’t rouse, even when she brought the light near and set it on the floor. He was probably used to somebody stumbling around in the kitchen and lighting lanterns in the middle of the night. She stood a long time gazing down at him, swallowing the clot of emotion in her throat, wondering what would become of him. So young, so unloved, so alone. Tears burned her eyes. She clasped her hands beneath her chin and said a silent prayer for him. And for herself and the task she must perform.

  Gingerly, she perched on the edge of his bed, forcing herself not to think of the other living things that shared it with him.

  “Willy?” She touched his temple, the skull behind his ear. “Willy, dear.”

  He snuggled deeper into the caseless pillow and she spoke his name again. His eyes opened halfway and immediately she saw they were puffed from crying. When he was fully awake he bolted up, his eyes wide open.

  “Gussie! What’re you doin’ here? If Pa sees you we’ll both be in trouble!”

  There were welts on the side of his neck and a red slash across his ear. Dried blood marked his dirty pillow.

  “Willy, what happened to you?”

  “Gussie, you gotta go!” His eyes grew frantic. “Pa’ll—”

  “It’s all right. He’s still uptown. Did he do this to you?”

  When she tried to touch his ear, he shrugged away and dropped his eyes to his lap. “Naw. I slipped when I was climbin’ on the cattle pens an’ banged it on a rail.”

  She knew he was lying. He refused to meet her eyes, and he scratched at the bedclothes with one dirty index finger. She covered his hand and forced his chin up until she was looking squarely into his eyes. A child’s eyes, she thought, should not have pillows of puffed skin beneath them.

  “He did, didn’t he?” she insisted quietly.

  His eyes began filling. His lips tightened and his chin trembled in her palm. As his throat worked to repress the tears, she was torn between two fervid emotions: love for this forlorn orphan, and a heathen gratitude that his father was dead and could never hurt Willy again.

  “He found some feathers stuck in my shirt and ast me where I got ‘em, and when I told him he thrashed me good with his razor strop an’ said I couldn’t go t’ your place or Scotty’s no more. So you better git outta here, Gussie, or he’ll take the belt t’ me again.” Though Willy managed the admission without breaking dow
n, he came close. So did Agatha.

  She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and squeezed his hands hard.

  “Willy, dear, I have some bad news for you.”

  He studied her blankly for a moment, then declared, “I ain’t takin’ no more baths.”

  “No... no, it’s not that. Darling, your father died tonight.”

  Willy’s eyes widened with bewilderment. “Pa?”

  “Yes. He was shot about an hour ago in Scotty’s saloon.”

  “Shot?”

  She nodded, allowing him a moment to accept that.

  “You mean he ain’t comin’ home?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Willy’s brown eyes stared straight into Agatha’s.

  “He’s really dead?”

  Her thumbs rubbed the backs of his thin hands. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  His gaze dropped and settled on a spot in the shadows beyond her shoulder. “I had a cat once and it died. Pa kicked it an’ it flew against the wall and made a funny sound, and then my friend Joey an’ me, we buried it outside by the toilet.”

  Agatha’s tears could be held at bay no longer. Willy looked up with dry brown eyes to find hers swimming.

  “That what they’re gonna do with my pa?”

  “He’ll be buried, yes, but in the graveyard where your mother is.”

  “Oh.”

  “Y... you’re coming home with me tonight. Would you like that?”

  “Yes.” The word came out flat, expressionless.

  “Willy, your father was probably a... a good man... deep inside. But he’d had a lot of sadness in his life, with your mother dying when she was so young.”

  Willy’s mouth thinned and he stared at the tucks on Agatha’s bodice. Muscle by muscle tightened until a look of defiance was etched across his entire face. “I don’t care if he’s dead,” he said stubbornly. But his chin quivered. “I don’t care!” His voice grew louder and he punched the mattress. “I don’t even care if they bury him outside by the toilet! I don’t care... I don’t care... I d... don’t...”

  By the time he plunged into Agatha’s arms he was sobbing. His small fists clutched her dress and his scraggly head burrowed against her bosom. She spread her hand on his small back as it heaved.