“You squander my money?” Strawl asked him.
“ It’s a heap of wampum. I can’t spend it that fast. At least on the normal amenities. Maybe I bought stocks and bonds.”
“You don’t know a stock from a bond.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“That place is all I had. I halved it for you.”
“It’s all I had, too, so I sold it. You hadn’t ought to be willing things if you’re going to keep living. No hard feelings, of course.”
“I been talked about dead before,” Strawl said.
“How’s Hemmer taking care of the place?”
“He’s not. I bought it back six weeks ago. Cost me my last dime and a promissory note, to boot.”
“That’s unfortunate. It’d have been a good joke, you sitting on the porch watching him run things.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
Elijah shrugged. “Maybe you’ll fall off your horse and get crippled.”
“Mornings it feels like I already have,” Strawl said.
Elijah spat his cigarette onto the ground. Strawl watched it smolder and die.
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?”
“You’ve had plenty to eat.”
“And they shall say unto the elders of the city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”
“Apparently you’re deaf, then,” Strawl told him.
“Or this isn’t Israel.”
“ It’s surely not that,” Strawl said. “You going to tell me what you did with the money?”
Elijah, still dangling, shook his head. Strawl folded the blade to sheath it, then built himself another cigarette and one more for Elijah. He struck a match for himself and left the box.
“Suit yourself,” Strawl said.
Rusting automobiles lined the road into the skeleton of the old town. Since the Crash, few could afford gas or oil to move them. Most had resigned themselves to horses once more; they went slower, but on grass, which the bigwigs hadn’t devised a way to ration or commandeer.
The town’s major lumber mill, now closed in the face of the flood, but a tavern run by a Chinese, which served the best food within a hundred miles, remained. Its owner, Woo, had never considered straying so far north when he was imported to drive rail and later took his chances on mining claims, an endeavor in which success was as dangerous as failure. Those without a strike starved; the few happening onto one fared worse. One winter, a rounder from Lewiston and his partners murdered thirty-six. An early runoff stirred the Snake River bottom enough to loosen the rope anchoring the bodies which passed through the sawmill town of Lewiston, one or two a day. Schoolboys abandoned books and chores altogether for casting lures in the current and the chance of hooking a Chinaman. The murderer was squandering his plunder on gin and whores when word reached him. A day later, he was apprehended lounging in a bubble bath, assuming no one would undertake the nuisance over a gaggle of Buddhists.
Eventually Woo migrated onto the reservation over a period of a year, chefing local spoons and catering hotels, collected enough savings to go halves with a drunken Canadian, who one day went north and didn’t return. Strawl had heard Woo was too stubborn to drag up stakes despite the deluge. It was the closest to a useful fact he had acquired all day. Strawl had not put a chair before portions more exotic than chicken pie in years. It was a luxury he’d decided to allow himself.
The tavern had no shingle, but it was not difficult to find, as fewer than twenty people remained where more than a thousand had resided before. A humid odor, more greens than meat, spread itself from the building.
Lanterns provided the only light, one for each table. The nearest still flickered from the breeze he’d let in. Cooking behind a counter were three small Chinese, speaking their bell-like tongue in a kitchen lantern-lit, too, though he’d seen power poles just up the block.
The tavern was one long rectangle, and a smaller one behind it that held the kitchen. A bar reclaimed from one of the Nespelem fires stood in front of the kitchen, with a half dozen rickety stools. The rest of the place held tables with checked linen cloths and, in the back under an overhead lamp, a large card table and a game made up of four white men in clean cotton button-ups, one in store-bought trousers and a shirt too clean for labor, and two Indians wearing checked flannels and canvas trousers.
The room’s raw studs held no gypboard, and a warm evening draft fluttered the tablecloths, but the food was highly regarded; people went out of their way for Woo’s meals. Three girls tended the dining tables, packing steaming teapots and plates loaded with rice and vegetables. He saw chicken glazed in apricot sauce and thin beef strips cooked with peas and peppers. One plate held an entire duck seared near black with sugar. A woman sipped soup as clear as water; a fried egg was taking up the bottom of the bowl. Girls in dresses and men and women wearing their Sunday clothes dotted the tables.
Strawl tipped his cap to Woo and nodded, though he saw no sign the man recalled him. Strawl was disappointed, as he had frequented his bar more than others and thought their relationship amicable.
“What you like?” Woo asked. He wore a mustache, though not one you’d associate with a Chinese. He’d shaved its edges to barely span the bottom of his nostrils. He shuffled when he walked and his hand palsied, holding his spatula.
“I’ll have green tea,” Strawl said, and took a stool at the bar. “And that sugared duck you cook. And make it peppery. With sweet and sour gravy and those vegetables.”
Woo smiled. “You want soup, too?”
Strawl nodded.
“May be long time,” Woo said. “I forgot how to cook real Chinese, I think.” He laughed a high-pitched laugh. “I thought you cop no more.”
“I just had a hankering for foreign company,” Strawl said.
Woo shook his head. “You just like Woo’s duck.”
“That’s a fact,” Strawl said.
The meal arrived family-style. Woo offered a pair of sticks as a joke.
Strawl piled the food in mounds that he tried to keep separate, but finally swirled into a tasty mess.
“You chase the bad man?”
“One,” Strawl said.
Woo nodded vigorously. “He scare everyone.”
“What do you know of Chin’s doings?”
“I let you eat free if you kill him.”
“I might take you up on that. What do you have against him?”
“He steal my good horse and damned near shoot the bar mirror.” Woo motioned to the bullet holes on the wall.
“He do these other murders?”
Woo wiped a dish and set it on a stack of others. “He might do them. He is mean.”
Strawl sipped the last of his tea. “I’ll be looking him up,” he said. “How about the Bird tribe?”
“They eat here when they pass. They pay and don’t break things. Many of them. I don’t know all names.”
“Me neither,” Strawl said. “They all look alike, too.”
Woo nodded. “Big.” He thumped his chest.
“Yep. Every one of them could lift a steer and pack it across a creek, women included. You think they’re up to killing?”
Woo shrugged. “I ask nothing. I just listen.”
Strawl nodded. “What do you hear, then?”
“Same as you. Men killed then torn to be funny. No one knows before. No fighting. Very careful, maybe.”
Strawl shook his head. “Too many bodies too fast. Psychopath might kill more, but, you’re right, he’d be careful as a cabinetmaker or he’d be caught. This kind of thing takes time and patience and a plan beyond what your common criminal can muster.” He sat a minute and sipped his tea, then tapped his finger on the cup’s rim. “Killer knew these men, Woo; they trusted him. That’s why there’s no struggle
; they went willing.”
“Woo trust no one,” Woo said.
“Good policy,” Strawl said.
There was a fuss at the back table. One of the poker players had busted. The dealer, young Hollingsworth, stood and grinned, watching him go. Hollingsworth’s pants were wide-legged and gaudily striped like the Chicago gangsters’, though his western-style boots sported pointed toes and smooth soles. He had bangs like a girl’s. Strawl doubted he owned a hat. His father had once tried his hand at politics and campaigned for Strawl’s sheriff position. In response, Strawl had revived a rumor Old Man Hollingsworth passed bad paper, and when the man accused him of slander, Strawl produced a copy of a check for the newspaper. It was smudged and would never suffice as evidence in front of a judge, but the public had no legal training and Strawl won the election handily. After, Strawl issued license plate numbers and descriptions of Hollingsworth’s three automobiles and ordered his deputies to ticket the cars on sight or be canned. A month and Hollingsworth quit coming to his county at all, circling it for Omak or opting for east and Spokane.
Strawl had arrested the younger Hollingsworth two or three times for general rudeness, once jailing him overnight and feeding him bologna he’d dunked in a piss-filled toilet bowl. The son looked boy; most silverspoons did till the day they died—they had poppas too big to be men ever and wouldn’t know a worry from a snipe den.
“Seat right here,” the silverspoon said.
“I’m content where I am,” Strawl said. Cards never held much interest for him. He saw no sport in throwing away cards just for the prospect of more. Triple the money and it still wasn’t worth the time one spent or the company required of him.
Another player circled an arm from the table. He wore striped overalls, the kind the railroad favored; a brakeman, Strawl surmised. His face was red and a pockmarked mess.
“Heard you lost your ranch. Likely too broke for a money game,” the brakeman asked.
Strawl smiled and shook his head. “You a real estate maven, are you?”
The brakeman’s eyes blazed. “Land isn’t the only money.”
“It’s the only kind that counts, you said so yourself.”
“Ignore the old bastard. He’s broker than a carousel pony,” Hollingsworth said. “I know that for a fact.”
“No fighting inside,” Woo whispered to Strawl.
Strawl nodded. He pulled ten dollars from his pocket. Hollingsworth was ahead, so he made change. The others at the table slipped back into themselves and waited on cards. A shovel-faced hired hand called Pete partnered with the Hollingsworth boy, it was clear. Two San Poil cowhands held their cards on either side of Pete and the silverspoon. Cloud was their last name; the country held a bevy of them, cousins or brothers. He didn’t know which they were, but they recognized him, he could see.
“You know the Bird folks?” Strawl asked one.
They shook their heads and a hand later, swapped their cards for their feed caps and exited through the back door.
“You do that to them?” Powell asked. He was the railroad man. He seemed good-natured enough and offered Strawl a cigarette with his grimy fingers, which Strawl declined.
Strawl said, “I have that effect on some.”
All laughed except the dark-complected man across from him. He appeared closer to Strawl’s age. Strawl figured him for a black Irish. The man looked too desperate to have a ranch behind him. Strawl guessed he was one the banks undid, and from the looks of his stack, he was getting undone by his cards, too.
The cards passed among the four of them, but Strawl didn’t give much heed. He’d ante and cut when the deck was offered and deal his turn. But he rarely opened and never bet past his ante. He was hoping to eavesdrop, but the card players seemed intent on disrupting his peace.
“You ever gonna play a hand?” the dark Irish asked.
Pete, the shovelface, thumbed cards to each player. Hollingsworth nodded, and he flipped Strawl’s last card faceup. It was a king.
“Say, a cowboy,” he said. “Gotta be some luck in that.”
Strawl glanced at the silverspoon, then faced the card down and set it in his hand. He had two more. No one had beaten three kings since he’d taken a hand, but when the bet circled his way, he tabled the cards. When the silverspoon had his turn dealing, he tossed each of Strawl’s cards up. There were a pair of twos and a king and two other cards Strawl didn’t regard.
“Ain’t many card players play faceup,” the shovelface said.
“May as well,” the Irish said. “He ain’t parted with nothing but an ante all night.” They dealt him up the next hand and the one that followed, good cards sometimes, a high pair or one shy of a flush.
“Goddamnit, you don’t like money much, do you?” the Irish said.
The railroad man took the deal, sliding Strawl three sevens.
Strawl tossed the cards on the deck.
“Why, you old bastard. Who are you to pass that hand?” The Irish stood to circle the table, then thought the better of it. “You’re a stupid old goat aren’t you? That’s what you are. Old goat. Stupid.”
“Make up your mind,” Strawl said. “Am I an old goat or stupid?”
“Both.” He looked at the rest of the table. “Nobody calls him nothing but Stupid. Or Old Goat. Those are his names. You understand that, Stupid?”
Strawl smiled. “Old Goat. I like that better.”
“Stupid,” the Irish said.
The silverspoon and his partner grinned. Strawl studied them. They plotted like queers. To them it was always a distraction. You had to attend to what you couldn’t see. The silverspoon kept a knife. He’d seen him rub the top of his boot to check its place.
A hand later, a clatter rose on the porch. The players glanced up. Elijah opened the door, picked up a whiskey bottle behind the bar, and had himself a belt and then another, then held up the bottle to the light. “Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the Lord your God,” he said, pointing the bottle toward the card players, then drank again. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto me what is mine.”
No one answered him.
“Woo, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away, or cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Elijah offered his rifle as collateral and Woo opened the register and separated the bills into ones and fives for forty dollars.
“Goddamn thief,” the Irish said.
“Who is that speaking?” Elijah asked. “Is Coyote deceiving me again?”
“Shit,” the Irish said.
“It is Coyote,” Elijah said. “Coyote it is as the Creator said. All the animals have turned against one another. They have forgotten the Golden Rule.”
“Confusing your religions, aren’t you?” the silverspoon asked.
“God knows no bounds,” Elijah said. He appeared unperturbed. Pete’s boot pushed a chair from the table.
“I thank you,” Elijah said. “Perhaps you have a many-shots rifle to trade.”
“Aren’t any Indians talking like that, anymore,” Pete said. “You’re talking like a used-to-be Indian.”
“And now so are you.” Elijah laughed. He looked to Strawl.
“Stupid is his name,” the Irish told him. “He likes Goat. But Stupid suits him better.”
Elijah shook his head. “His name is Death and he rides a pale horse.”
“Might be old as death,” the railroader said. “We don’t have a need for him or his horse. He don’t ever bet.”
“Might make him good company.”
“I don’t know why,” Powell answered. “He don’t never talk, neither.”
Elijah said, “I am full of talk and he is full of quiet. We are like the sun and the moon, the Alpha and Omega.” He handed the whiskey to the Irish. “Maybe this will at least allow you to live with your small self.”
The Irish drank. Elijah
went on, “The sun will rise from his lodge in the east, that is sure, though there is no evidence this is so, other than the days. Money will pass hands many times before it finds that person to whom it will remain. This, too, is certain.”
Pete the shovelface ignored him, working his stack of ones. The Irish watched Elijah change a dollar bill from the silverspoon’s nickels and quarters.
“Andrew,” Elijah said to the Irish, “you are poor once more. God has no love for you. You gamble like Sinkalip. You should go to the privy and get some advice from your excrement.”
“Goddamn you.” Andrew opened his hand to take a swipe at Elijah. Strawl caught his elbow halfway there and shoved the Irish out of his seat.
“I ain’t scared of you, Stupid.” The man fumbled and righted his chair.
The railroader handed the Irish the bottle. “ I’d let it go, Andrew.”
Elijah took the deck, rattled the cards awkwardly as he was missing his left pinky finger, then slid them across the table. Strawl was to his right, and Elijah looked to him to open. Strawl examined his hand. He had all diamonds. When he checked closer, he was shocked to see they were straight to the jack. He bet a dollar.
“Well, now maybe we’ll get along,” the Irish said. He raised, and Powell raised him. It was five more when it returned to Strawl. He looked for anyone to comment, but they were all contemplating their own hands. They bumped again. The bottle went with the betting. The silverspoon and shovelface pooled their funds. Strawl heard them whispering and saw them signal to compare hands. The silverspoon folded his cards on the next pass.
Strawl reached into his wallet for the expense money. Elijah raised five more. Strawl saw it and watched the others do the same. Each was staring into his own hand, certain he had the winner, except Elijah, who was more amused by the seriousness of the game. Strawl knew putting too much faith in the hand you could see was not good card sense, and it was the good hands that cost money—no one went broke on bad cards—and he saw that each was making the same mistake, courting his own hand rather than guessing against it.
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