Kate gave Sam a soft bland smile.
Sam set his red whiskey down on the arm of the hair sofa. “Aw, Kate, I favor you.” Suddenly Sam put his cumbering bear arm around her and handled her like she might be a bundle of wheat. “I favor you.” He hugged her so hard that a sound came from her chest like a suddenly closed concertina. “I’ve beat on your door, and pounded on it, and yet I’ve just never had me the right key to open your lock. By God, if you don’t open up to me pretty soon, I’m gonna have to tromp your door down, Kate.”
“Sam, please!”
“Kate, I favor you.” Whiskey tears filmed Sam’s bear eyes. “Kate, girl.”
Kate managed to free an arm and then grabbed Sam’s glass of whiskey before it spilled onto the floor. “Sam! You’re letting your nose get out of joint now. Be careful.” Kate still had a soft bland smile for Sam, but her voice had turned chilly.
Ransom couldn’t see for a moment. Red blankets seemed to have dropped down across his eyes. He tried to remember that Sam was his father and uncle and brother all rolled into one.
Kate said, “Sam, you know that’s impossible for me. You of all people know this.”
Sam gave a little cry, and swallowed over his pride, and after a bit let her go.
“That’s better.” Kate winked at Tidbit. “Another round for the boys. On the house this time.”
From the back of the house came some scuffling, then laughter. A moment later a door to the rear opened and a cowboy and one of the girls sauntered in. The cowboy had a leached-out look around the eyes and the girl, a Mexican, was flushed. The cowboy was still sweet on her, and he clung to her hand.
A firm look passed from Kate to the Mexican girl.
The girl immediately withdrew her hand.
The cowboy was hurt. “Aw, honey…” He reached for her hand again.
Kate said crisply, “Jamie boy, it’s turn and turn about here, you know. Unless you care to pay double.”
Sam woke up. “Hey. Ain’t that Little Coyote? The one I’ve heard so much about? Why, I’ve even heard tell of her on Pike’s Peak.”
“Could be, Sam.”
“Gives you as purty a waddle across a sheet as any duck alive today.”
Upon a hint from Kate, Little Coyote threw another discouraging look at her cowboy; then worked up a little house smile for Sam.
The downcast cowboy left.
Sam threw a last sad look at Kate. “When all’s said and done, it’s really all one and the same thing, ain’t it?” Sam got up and went over and put his great arm around Little Coyote. “C’mon, you little prairie wolf, let’s you and I dig us a den on the other side of the hill.”
Kate smiled approvingly.
Sam waved the flat of his hand against Kate and disappeared into the rear of the house with Little Coyote.
Kate and Ransom exchanged smiles.
A moment later there was a thunderbolt of a knock on the door.
“Horses!” Kate exclaimed, bounding to her feet. Her carven Indian lips turned white.
Ransom came to his feet too. “Where? Who?” His right hand fell naturally to the butt of his gun.
“Close the bar, Tidbit!” Kate hurried to the front door. She moved with long almost leaping strides. “Hurry.”
Tidbit pulled one handle, then another, and two sliding doors came out of the wall and in the flick of an eye completely hid the bar.
Two other girls, Hermie and Frankie, both braw and strong, rushed to Kate’s side. Their chins were suddenly hard.
The rest of the girls quickly dashed into the rear of the house.
Kate got her hands on the bar to the door all right, but before she could slam it to, the big oak door swung inward and brushed her aside as if she were a whisk broom.
“Horses! Oh you! Now, no rough stuff now.”
A shaggy stud of a man, black hair pluming straight up, heavy nose ridging high between black eyes, lunged around to face her. He was dressed in Army blue. His black boots looked more like hoofs than human footwear. “Luv!”
“Now, Horses, you just be civilized now. You hear me? No roughhousing. Civilized.”
“Kate, you know I can’t be civetlike.”
“Civilized, I said. Not civet cat.” Kate moved back from Horses a good half-dozen steps, imperious, single eye glittering darkly. The two braw girls flanked her. “You’re drunk, Horses. Go home and sleep it off.”
Ransom edged over in case Kate should need him.
“Horses, please now.”
“Luv, I’ve missed you so.” Horses had more of a neigh than a voice.
“You go home or I’ll call the Colonel.”
“Why, I ain’t done nothin’ yet, Kate.”
“I know you.”
Horses worked to get both his black eyes focused on Kate; finally managed it. “Luv, you know you promised me I could come once in a while.”
“You’re a liar.”
Horses reared back. “Liar, you say?” Horses reflected. “Well, maybe I sometimes do lie. But, by God, nobody’s ever caught me at it. Not yet, anyway. Nosiree. Not even the Colonel.”
Kate had to laugh. “Horses, please now, go home.”
“Luv.”
“Look, dearie. The girl you like, Ivory, is with a friend just now. Come back later and I’ll let you visit her a little. On the house.”
Horses held his head to one side. “Kate, you know I think Ivory is perfectly beautiful, with the exception that her mouth is a little crooked. Which comes from reaching after all them high notes when her heart ain’t in it.”
Again Kate had to laugh. Sometimes the remarks that originated in his huge horse of a head could be as piercing as horse radish. If only he had a bit more horse sense. “And your other two admirers, Sulie and Rut, they’re busy entertaining two other friends just now.”
“Aw, shucks, Kate, I never did care for Sulie or Rut none.”
“Well, I’m just telling you, is all.”
“Luv.” Horses made a sudden plunge for Kate.
Ransom took a quick step forward and tripped Horses.
Horses plowed nose first through a row of chairs on the far side of the sitting room. Four of the chairs tipped over.
Silence.
Horses lay like a big overturned boat, unmoving.
Kate had a smile for Ransom. “Thank you.”
“Hope I didn’t kill him.”
“Horses? Never.”
“Looks pretty quiet to me.”
“Pah. He’s been known to run down telegraph poles, and get up off the ground none the worse for it.”
Sam came in. Alone. Subdued. His brown bear eyes looked around uneasy.
A high light sparked in Ransom’s green eyes. He couldn’t help but stick it into Sam a little. “Well, and how was the neat little trick that makes the world go roun’?”
“Shut up.”
Kate acted surprised. “You didn’t find it satisfactory?”
“It was as flat as mouse urine on a plate.”
The light in Ransom’s green eyes continued to shine derisive. “You didn’t get to dig that den on the other side of the hill then?”
“She didn’t even begin to take the boil out of my blood.” Sam’s beard twitched. “I still say, Kate, you was made for me, and someday you’ll be mine.”
“Sam.”
Sam banged his chest with a fist. “By God, woman, Sam Slaymaker will even marry you, if that’s your wish.”
“Sam, Sam.”
“I’m still making you the offer. And I’m baiting it with gold. Gold, you hear? Gold, gold!”
A groan came from behind the fallen chairs. Then came a single word. “Luv.”
Sam hauled up short. “Hey, look who’s here.”
“Yes, dear old Horses has paid us a call.”
“ Luv ”
“What’s that he says?”
“Luv.”
Sam thickened. “By God, who’s he calling Luv?”
“Ivory.”
“Oh. That�
�s different.”
“Luv.”
Sam went over and gave Horses a kick in the butt. “Get up, you two-inch fool. Who you holding down on the floor there, the mayor’s wife again?”
“The mayor’s wife?” Kate said.
Sam let go with a wild horse laugh. “Oh, down on the Des Moines once, Horses made a woman get down on her back in the bottom of his boat before he would row her across. Horses ran a ferry there.”
“Why, the dirty old fool.”
“Yeh, Horses is quite a Horses all right.” Again Sam gave Horses a kick in the butt. “Get up, you brain-broke stud you, or your life won’t be worth a gooser.”
Horses, groaning, finally managed to get up on all fours, then on all two. He threw back his black hair, adjusted his six-shooter, and glared at Kate. The brass buttons on his blue uniform glowed. “You know, luv, more and more you’re turning out to be a mean old hag of a thing.”
“Now, Horses, dearie.”
“And your tongue’s got to be about as dangerous as a barrage of arrows.”
A thought came to Kate. “Horses, I wonder, me and the boys were about to sit down to a couple of hands…. You wouldn’t want to … ah …?”
Gambling fever instantly flashed in Horses’ eyes. Horses rolled back on his heels. “Draw?” Horses made little crinching noises between his thumb and forefinger.
“Draw.” Kate threw a look at Sam and Ransom. “You still want to sit down to a little game, boys?”
Sam went along with her little ploy. Sam pursed his lips in his beard. “Aw, Kate, you know how I hate to take Horses’ money away from him. It’s like taking it from a little kid.”
“Ho ho!” Horses roared. “We’ll see about that.”
Gambling fever also awoke in Ransom. He had never been able to resist the fascination of the luck of the draw, and ever since his first game in Denver, when he and Sam had been cleaned out by a mustached slicker, had worked hard at becoming an expert at cards. He had even learned how to play his hunches well when he wasn’t sure of his averages.
“Mr. Ransom?” Kate asked.
“Oh, I guess I’m game for a few hands.”
“Good.” Kate led the way to a gaming table. Her purple dress swished on each vigorous stride. “Anybody object if the house does the banking?”
Nobody did.
Kate sat at the head of the table, Ransom on her left, Sam across from her, Horses on her right. Each man bought ten dollars’ worth of chips. A blue chip was worth a dollar, a red chip a half-dollar, a white chip two bits.
Kate said briskly, “Ten percent kitty for the house. OK?”
“Suits us.”
“And house rules will be as follows: nothing higher than a two-bit ante and a four-bit raise. That all right?”
“Suits us.”
“I don’t want the game to get rough.” Kate produced a fresh set of celluloid cards and fanned them out over the table. Each picked a card. Ransom came up with the two of hearts, Sam the king of spades, Horses with the ace of clubs, and Kate the ten of diamonds.
“Ha,” Horses cried. “I’m high man with God’s card.”
Sam growled, “I never could figure out why them birds who invented cards ever put anything above a king. Ain’t the king always the head of the guv’ment?”
Horses smiled the superior smile of a horse. “Why, Sam, it’s because there’s something higher than the human bein’. Higher even than a king human bein’. And that’s God, of course. The one and all.”
“Deal out,” Sam said.
“Ante before you see a card, all.”
Everybody tossed in a white chip.
“Jacks or better.” Horses had big rough hands, but when it came to cards they weren’t clumsy. He shuffled expertly, dealt out five each in five wheeling revolving motions.
“Kate? How many?”
“Pass.” Kate threw her hand into the discard.
“Kid?”
Ransom fanned out his cards one by one. “Just one.”
“Ha. Drawing to a straight or a full house, I see.” Horses flipped down one card. “Sam?”
“Three.”
“Ha. Got a pair, I see. Three it is for Sam.”
Sam growled to himself.
Horses looked down either side of his high nose at his own hand. “And two for me.”
Sam passed cigars. Horses took one, Ransom declined. Sam and Horses lit up.
Silence. Kate sat back, watchful. Ransom rested easy. Sam blew up a little whirlwind of smoke.
Horses shifted on his hams. “Kid? Openers?”
Ransom had them. He’d drawn an eight to a bobtail straight queen down. He tossed in a white chip. “I’ll bet two bits.”
“Sam?”
“Check.”
Horses pursed big rubbery lips. “Raise you a quarter.” He tossed in a red chip.
Ransom wondered. Had Horses peeled one off the bottom of the deck? “Raise you another.” He tossed in a red chip.
“Sam?”
“I fold.” Sam threw his hand into the discard too. He sat back on two legs.
“Kid?”
“Raise you.” Ransom tossed in another red chip.
Horses pushed out his big heavy lips even farther. He gave Ransom a horse-nose sneer. “No round-the-corner straights now.”
“Call or shut up.”
Horses’ ears set out. “You’ve got an awful big blab for a feller with such a teedly little gizzard.”
Sam dropped down on all four legs. “Easy, Horses.”
“Why easy with him?”
“The kid’s got a gizzard as big as a tub. Loaded with gravel.”
Horses looked Ransom over, from head on down. “Where’s he keep it then?”
“Lay off, Horses. I’m warning you. He don’t like that kind of talk much. He can be a wolf on a horse.”
Horses studied his fan of cards. “All right. Raise you four bits.” Horses tossed in a red chip and a white chip.
“Raise you another half-dollar.”
“Sweetenin’ up the pot a little, huh, kid? Raise you the same.”
“Raise.”
“Raise.”
“Raise.”
Kate threw Ransom a wondering glance, then looked across at Sam.
Sam smiled. “He’s all right, Kate. A real student of the picture cards.”
Horses said, “I got a cinch hand, kid. You sure you ain’t bettin’ on a skipper?”
“Buck the tiger or shut up.”
Horses’ high nose came up some more. “Kid, I think you’re pretty much of a bluff. With your big slick toe sticking out there a-tripping people.”
Ransom closed his fan of cards. A smile opened his dark beard.
“You can save your smiles for the wimmen, kid.”
Sam said, “Dammit all, Horses, watch it. For godsakes, man. The boy don’t take much fooster.”
Horses said, “You talk a lot, Sam.”
Sam bristled. “You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
“By the Lord.” Sam bellied out. “You one-inch fool you. You must have a buffalo chip for a brain if you don’t see he’s good grit.”
Horses put down his cigar and stood up. “One inch it is now, ha?”
Kate said sharply, “Tap her light, boys, she’s deep enough.”
Horses glared down at Sam.
Sam sneered up at Horses.
Kate first glanced around to make sure her two girl guards Hermie and Frankie were handy, then said, “Boys, all this pawing and blowing has got to stop right now.”
Just then the big door to the rear of the house opened partially and the voices of two girls bidding a couple of cowboys good night could be heard. Then the girls themselves entered, brushing down their pink shifts and bouncing up the back of their hairdos. One had a hatchet face and the other the face of a sheep.
Horses, seeing them, sat down with a thump. It was Sulie and Rut.
The two girls squealed when they spotted Horses. “Sweetie pie!
” They skipped across the room and fell on Horses’ neck and began to kiss him up and down his big nose and all over his big ears.
Horses bore up under it all with the lofty phlegm of a Shetland pony being petted by a passel of town kids.
It made Kate smile. She relaxed. “Now, now, girls, please. You can have him when we’ve finished our couple of hands.”
The two girls kept up their cooing and kissing.
“Sulie! Rut! Please now.”
Horses finally had enough too. “Sulie,” he said, and he took the dark hatchet-faced one by the arm and flung her gently aside. “Rut,” he said, and he took the blond sheep-faced one by the shoulder and flung her gently the other way. Both girls fell to the floor, skinny shanks exposed.
Ransom’s smile deepened. Ransom thought it one of the funniest things he’d ever seen that great big ugly Horses should invite the affection of two old beat-up railroad whores. The more he thought about it the more he had to smile. Finally a wonderful peal of laughter broke from him.
Horses gave Ransom a steady look. “People in torn underwear hadn’t oughter laugh at the dent in the neighbor’s hat. ’Specially when it’s a silk hat.”
Sam threw what was left of his cigar into the fireplace. “A silk hat, is it?” And Sam began to laugh and laugh too.
Horses fixed big glistening eyes on Sam, first one, then the other. “I’ve shot my gun off in a crib before, you know.”
Sulie and Rut, having collected their wits, scrambled up off the floor and went back to the attack. They went at it so hot and heavy that Horses tipped over backward, chair and all. Horses landed on his back, knees up, the clawing girls on top.
“Girls!” Kate cried. “Let’s be a little civilized now.”
Ransom and Sam continued to roar with laughter.
Sulie and Rut bumped foreheads as they dove down to kiss Horses. The bumping hurt, and they backed off to glare balefully at each other.
“I’m first,” Sulie said, flat.
“You know you promised me him first the next time,” Rut said, flat. “Because there ain’t never enough of him left the second time the same day.”
“I’m first anyways.”
“Now I am mad. Because you promised.”
“First.”
Rut hauled off and hit Sulie one, bony fist on bony cheek.
“Ow! Why, you….” Sulie in turn hauled off and hit Rut one.
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