Tiger's Chance

by H. V. Elkin

  “That’s right.”

  “What you want with a man who’s workin’ for me, Cutler?”

  “Want to ask him some questions, that’s all?”

  “Questions of a legal nature, are they?”

  “No. Don’t this all sound familiar to you, Judge? Didn’t we say all this yesterday?”

  “When a man’s lyin’,” Bean said, “a story don’t come out the same way twice.”

  There was an edge in Cutler’s voice. “You think I’m lyin’, do you? That what you think, Judge?”

  Bean looked up at Cutler, and their eyes locked onto each other for a long moment. They did not shift their gaze as Sam rode his horse from around behind the cages and galloped off to the west of town. But Bean broke the look by glancing after his son’s retreating figure before it got out of sight. He spoke away from Cutler. “No call for anybody to get hot under the collar.” He had decided that Cutler was not a man who could be intimidated or bluffed. He had also decided that could turn into a problem.

  “What about McKay?” Cutler asked.

  “You figure on leavin’ town after you talk to him?” Bean asked, looking back.

  “That’s what I figure.”

  “No matter what he says?”

  “Unless he tells me that you’re hidin’ a three-footed grizzly right here in town.”

  “Well then,” Bean said, “let’s get the Irishman up and get it over with.”

  Bean got up and went through the doorway. Cutler followed. They looked down a long hallway with doors on either side. Bean stopped at the door on the right next to the saloon, and he knocked on it. There was no answer. He knocked again. A fuzzy voice from inside: “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go,” Bean said.

  Silence.

  Bean knocked again. “Okay,” the voice said, annoyed.

  “Remember,” Bean said, “if I have to call you too many times, I stop bein’ polite.”

  “Okay, okay,” the voice said. “I’m up.”

  Bean led Cutler back into the saloon where they waited. Bean went behind the bar. “Sure about that drink?” he asked Cutler again.

  Cutler ignored the question and said, “If you want to get breakfast, go ahead. I don’t need no help talkin’ to McKay.”

  “No,” Bean said. “I figure on stickin’ around.”

  “Okay,” Cutler said, “but it ain’t necessary.”

  “Well, sometimes McKay needs a lot of help gettin’ started.” Bean went to the wall and knocked on it with the butt of his shotgun. In a moment an organ played through the wall, just a series of discordant notes without a recognizable tune.

  Bean leaned his head to the noise. When it stopped, he told Cutler, “That’s to tell me he’s out of bed. He knows if he ain’t, the next step’s for me to go in there with a bucket of water.”

  Cutler smiled. “I just hope it’s not as an organist that you’ve hired McKay.”

  Bean didn’t get the joke. “No, he can’t play worth a damn. He’s stayin’ in what used to be my daughters’ room before they went off and got married. They had the organ in there to practice on. I used to make ’em play it so they wouldn’t hear what was goin’ on here in the saloon when things were gettin’ out of hand. Just never got around to movin’ the organ out after they left, so now McKay uses it to show me he’s up.” Bean opened a bottle of beer and sat it on the bar. He turned to the wall and bellowed, “You comin’?”

  “Coming!” came back the muffled voice from behind the wall.

  In a moment, there were shuffling steps in the hallway and what would be a man, probably, when he was fully awake came through the door. He was hunched over but seemed to float as if he was sleepwalking or in a dream. He had sandy-colored hair and freckles and was a young man who had aged prematurely. He looked neither right nor left but went directly to the bar, his hand reaching for the beer, automatically, something he could have done and probably did do with his eyes closed, an established routine performed by a trained man.

  “Mr. McKay?” Cutler asked and went up to his right at the bar.

  Bean held up a hand to indicate Cutler should wait. Cutler could see McKay had not heard him. McKay was concentrating on the bottle of beer, slowly ritualistically, lifting it to his mouth and drinking. A long gulp. Then he held it out at arm’s length and cocked his head as though looking down a rifle sight, then brought it back slowly and took another drink. After that, he put the bottle on the bar and stared at it. “Good morning, Judge Bean,” he said. “Good morning to you, sir.”

  “You alive yet?” Bean asked.

  “One moment,” McKay said. “One moment.” He took another slow drink from the bottle, put the bottle down, belched loudly. “There.”

  “This here’s John Cutler,” Bean said. “He wants to talk to you.”

  McKay did a slow swivel to his right to see Cutler. “John Cutler. John Cutler. Familiar name.”

  Cutler took the newspaper clipping from his shirt pocket and put it on the bar in front of McKay. “You write that?”

  McKay was still looking at Cutler. “Write that?”

  “That!” Cutler tapped his finger on the bar. McKay heard the sound and let his head swivel down. He saw the clipping. “Oh! That!”

  “Did you write it?”

  “Let me see. Let me see ...” He read the story to himself slowly, his lips mouthing the words. When he had finished, he looked up. “Now, what was the question?”

  “Did you write that?”

  “Oh.” He looked back at the clipping. “Did I write that? Did I write that? Yes, I believe I did. Now, let me see. That would be about two, three months ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  Bean turned the clipping around and looked at it. “I got this one,” he said. He told McKay, “You got it back there in the box of stuff you’re workin’ on. It’s part of the collection.”

  McKay nodded solemnly.

  “The fight was back in February,” Bean said, “and this was after that and afore you came here. So that puts it at two and a half months ago for the story there.”

  McKay nodded.

  “Cause you been here two months already.” Bean got suddenly angry. “Two damn months! And what’ve we got to show for it?”

  McKay held his head. “It’s too early to argue, Judge.”

  “Be that as it may, I think you’re just soakin’ on me, Mike! I got a good mind to turn you out! After you pay me for all the beer and whisky it’s took to keep you goin’.”

  McKay looked offended. “I thought the drinks were to come out of my pay, and so far I have seen not one penny of hard cash.”

  “If you earned it you’d have drunk it up by now. But you ain’t even earned it. I ain’t seen a page of writin’ since you been here.”

  “It’s too soon to show it,” McKay said. “Now if it were a newspaper article, you would have it overnight. But this is to be a longer, serious work on a very complex individual. You, Judge Bean, are far from a simple man. It has taken this long for me to just begin to grasp the enormity of your character. It has taken this long to digest your collection of letters and news stories and so forth. We are just now at the point where the serious writing can begin. You will see pages any day now.”

  “You said that exact same thing two weeks ago.”

  “Well, I ran into a snag, but I’m over it now. This time for sure, Judge Bean. This time for sure.”

  “If I don’t see pages tomorrow,” Bean said, “I’m gonna try you for . . . for extortion . . . and when the jury finds you guilty, I’m gonna fine you whatever you got on you, then hang you from that rafter up there.” Bean shook his head. “Hell! I know you’re not gonna produce. I might’s well get it ready as stand around wastin’ words with you.”

  Bean took a rope from the pile of odds and ends in the corner of the room by the bar, and he began to tie a noose in one end.

  “Now, now, Judge,” McKay said. “There’s no cause to get riled.”

  “Who’s riled?�
� Bean asked, continuing to tie the noose. “The law don’t get riled. It just does its business ’thout anger. Here,” he handed an end of the rope to McKay, “take ahold of that end there, will you, Mike?” As Mike held the rope, Bean tested the noose by letting it slip down around his arm. “Good,” he said. “That oughta do it fine. Thanks, Mike. You can let go now.” McKay dropped the rope as if it had suddenly become red hot.

  “Judge!” he protested.

  “Never mind me,” Bean said. He reached under the bar and brought out another bottle. “Here. You might as well enjoy yourself. Life’s short. Go on and finish your talk with Cutler and don’t mind me.”

  McKay had forgotten anyone else was in the saloon. “Cutler?”

  “McKay,” Cutler tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s finish this off so’s I can be on my way and you can get to work.”

  McKay gave Cutler an intense look and whispered, “The judge doesn’t understand that a man can’t produce a work of art overnight.”

  “Well, if a man’s life’s on the line,” Cutler said, “maybe he can produce a page or two.”

  Bean threw the noose over the rafter. “How much you weigh, Mike?”

  “Why? I don’t know. Why?”

  “The law don’t want you sufferin’ unnecessarily,” Bean assured him. “Don’t want the rope breakin’ when we pull you up.” He got angry then at the injustice of justice. “Why just look at this!” He pulled down the bandanna he wore around his neck, revealing an ugly red mark. “That’s what happened when they tried to string me up once back in Californee. Damn rope stretched so my toes touched the ground, ’til the gal I fought the duel over come and cut me loose. Well, sometimes I wished they’d done a better job of it. How’d you like to have to wear a bandanna round your neck all the time in all kinds’a weather?” Bean shook his head. “Anyway, don’t you worry, Mike. When we hang you up, I’m gonna see to it that the job’s done right! Don’t you worry none about that!” He raised and lowered the noose a few times, then left it hanging over the rafter, so it threw a moving shadow on the wall, and tied off the other end around a leg of the pool table. “There,” he said. “We’re all ready.”

  “Guess I’ll get to work.” McKay picked up the second bottle of beer and started from the room.

  Cutler grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on!”

  McKay turned around, dazed. “What?”

  “John Cutler, remember?”

  “Oh, well, I got to get to work, Cutler. I can feel the inspiration now, and I don’t want to lose it.”

  “Judge,” Cutler turned to Bean as he continued to hold McKay by the shoulder, “might I have a word alone with this employee of yours?”

  “I’m not botherin’ you none,” Bean said.

  “Oh, I know that,” Cutler said. “I know you’re bein’ nice and quiet so me and McKay here can have a little talk. But, some reason your bein’ in the same room makes him nervous this mornin’ and he can’t concentrate. That’s just wastin’ his writin’ time, Judge. So you leave me alone with him a minute or two, I figure we can get our business over with right quick. Otherwise, no tellin’ how long it’s gonna take.”

  Bean thought about this a moment, then said, “Well, I’ll be right out on the porch if you need me.” He glanced proudly at the noose he had made, being sure that McKay was watching him, then smiled reassuringly at McKay, pointed to the noose, nodded, and left.

  McKay took a swallow of beer, keeping his eyes on the noose. He shuddered and turned away from it, only to see its shadow swinging on the wall. Then he put the bottle down and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. He shuddered again, maybe from a hangover, maybe from what hung over him.

  “Look at me,” Cutler ordered McKay.

  McKay slowly and reluctantly took his hands away from his eyes. Then his eyes bugged wide open so you could see all the red marks on the whites of them. Cutler was holding his six-gun under McKay’s nose.

  “I got your attention?” Cutler asked softly.

  “I . . . I . . .” McKay started stuttering.

  “That noose up there might be tomorrow. But this gun of mine is right now.”

  “What’s on your mind, Mr. Cutler?”

  “We’ll start over. Did you write that newspaper story?”

  “The one you brought in with you?”

  “The very same.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “They told me in El Paso it was you.”

  “Yes, I wrote it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Every word. Would you mind puttin’ your gun away now?”

  “Sorry,” Cutler said. “But a man like you needs to keep bein’ reminded about priorities on a mornin’ like this.”

  “What do you want to know, Mr. Cutler?”

  “Tell me about the grizzly.”

  “Well . . .”

  Cutler touched the gun barrel to McKay’s nose. “I already know some of it,” he said. “You don’t know what I know. So just to be safe, you better make sure every word’s the whole truth so this here Bean deputy don’t have to execute you earlier than tomorrow.”

  McKay hesitated and swallowed.

  “Every word the whole truth,” Cutler reminded him and thumbed the hammer back, “and not too loud neither. We don’t want to disturb the judge.”

  McKay said, “I made it up. Please don’t shoot. I’m sorry, but I made it up.”

  “You realize,” Cutler said, surprised that he was not surprised, “what trouble you put me to?”

  “Don’t make me lie to you, Mr. Cutler. I’m sorry I put you out. I never thought anything I wrote would bring you to these parts. I just thought if you were nearby you might come and, if you did, that’d be another feather in El Paso’s cap. Besides, I needed a story. I had to have something to fill up space.” He saw Cutler looking at him as if he did not understand what all the babbling was about. “You don’t know!” McKay whispered desperately. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to turn out copy, even if there isn’t anything to write. You still have to come up with something.” He glanced up at the noose. “I thought workin’ on Bean’s biography would give me a chance to write when I felt it, when I had something to write about. But here I am back in the same situation. Got to turn out words just to keep my job.”

  “This time,” Cutler said, “it’s to keep your life.”

  “Yeah,” McKay said. “That, too. But I’m sorry I lied about the bear. I’ll make it up to you any way I can.”

  Cutler eased the hammer back and returned the gun to its holster. Then with the suddenness of a rattler striking, he pounded the bar with a fist that hit like a sledgehammer and sounded as if it was going to break the bar in half. McKay’s beer bottle jumped three feet in the air, and Cutler caught it, looking as if he was going to squeeze the bottle into pieces.

  “Everything okay in there?” they could hear Bean calling.

  Cutler nodded to McKay and McKay called back, “Just fine, Judge!” Then McKay said quietly to Cutler, “Appreciate your hitting the bar instead of me.”

  Cutler spoke with clenched jaws. “Can’t make a man tell the truth then hit him because the truth’s about a lie, can I?”

  McKay decided not to answer that. In a moment, Cutler took a deep breath, then a swig from the bottle, then handed the bottle to McKay.

  “Thanks,” McKay said. “And, as I say, I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

  “What could you do for me?”

  “Why, I could write your biography! How about that? Now there’s a book people would want to read!”

  Cutler turned his back on McKay and looked out the window at the street. A dog barked somewhere. A rooster crowed. “You better get to work,” Cutler said.

  “You mean you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “You got it right.”

  “You think you’re too famous as it is, correct? You’re thinking if folks didn’t know about you so much, I’d never have written that story and brought you o
n a wild goose chase like this. But a book would give us a chance to get the facts straight in people’s heads. That would help you more than it would hurt you.”

  Cutler spun around and grabbed McKay by the shirt. He pulled McKay’s face close to his and hissed, “Shut your foolish mouth! Don’t make it so hard for me not to hit you! Now go do that job for Bean. Maybe tomorrow I won’t want to see you get hanged so much as I do right now. Go do your job and save your miserable life!” He pushed McKay away, and he fell backwards over the pool table. He was dazed a moment, and when he was okay he saw the noose swinging above his head.

  “Oh yes,” McKay said. “The Bean biography. And my life. I can’t believe it, Cutler, but you actually made me forget about those two things for a moment. Thanks for reminding me.”

  McKay left the room. In a moment, Cutler heard him closing the next door and could hear him moving around behind the saloon wall. Then Cutler took a deep breath, went behind the bar and opened a bottle of beer. He took a long drink from it, then carried it to the porch where Bean was rocking in his chair with his shotgun across his lap. Bean looked up when Cutler came out.

  “That’ll be half a dollar for the beer.”

  Cutler flipped him a coin and he caught it.

  Bean asked, “You got yourself all straightened out with McKay, have you? Straightened out to your satisfaction, is it?”

  “You mean like the circus stayin’ over today bein’ to everybody’s satisfaction?”

  “I say that?”

  “Yes, sir, you did.”

  “Well, anyway, guess you’ll be goin’ now.” There was a trace of hope in Bean’s voice, and Cutler wondered what it was doing there. What difference did it make to Bean whether Cutler left town, or stayed and got drunk on Bean’s whisky at Bean’s inflated prices? “I come here for nothin’,” Cutler said. “Wish there was some way I could turn it into something.”

  Bean nodded. “Well, best thing to do about a mistake is not make it worse by wastin’ any more time on it.”

  “Guess so.” Cutler idly watched the distance where he could see a man riding toward town at a fast clip. He thought about Molly and the circus still being only a mile or less in that direction. “Maybe I’ll take another look at the circus before I go on, long’s I’m here.”