"I wasn't the only one who went back to Kirby Creek that night."
"Winifred!" gasped Sampson.
"Exactly. She left the house just before I did. I saw her horse disappear; before I could get mine out and follow her she had disappeared towards town. I rode hard for Yo Chai's place but she wasn't there. I stayed a while to play the wheel, you know, and on my way back I saw Winifred come out of a house and climb on her horse."
"Come out of a house?" repeated Sampson, white of face.
"Exactly! I rode up to her. But she turned her horse and galloped like mad up the valley. She beat me home."
"And you said nothing about it to me?" asked Sampson hoarsely.
"If she had wished you to know it she would have told you," said Kirk coldly. "I waited for her to speak."
"God!" breathed the elder man, and straightened to his feet with his hands clenched at his sides.
"You think —" he whispered.
"I think nothing," said Kirk, and shrugged his shoulders. "But the house she came out of that night was Yo Chai's. Perhaps Clung was inside it."
"It must be right," groaned Sampson, "and now she knows everything about Clung — knows he's white — knows —" He stopped and blinked his eyes. "Kirk, I'm in hell!"
"Nonsense," said the younger man, and he frowned. "I'd trust Winifred to the end of the earth. If I thought —"
"If you thought Clung was in Yo Chai's house," suggested Sampson dryly, "you'd go there with a gun to find him, and be shot from behind a door, eh? I suppose you would, Kirk. That's your way. But I know that Winifred has been at Yo Chai's house every night for this week or more and she's been seeing someone there who —"
He looked at Kirk for help, but the other was blank.
"Don't you see?" suggested Kirk. "She likes to do strange things. She's gone secretly to see Clung because he's an out of the way sort? That's all there is to it and she doesn't dream that he's white. If she did, don't you suppose that she'd run to you to tell it? What keeps her from speaking to you now is because she knows you're only interested on the surface in a half-breed outlaw."
"I'll follow her tonight,” said Sampson, hurriedly, "I'll follow her tonight, if she goes out, and if she goes into the house of Yo Chai —"
"Bah!" snorted Kirk, and he rose as if this conversation wearied him. "In the meantime I'm going to find out all about Clung — if Yo Chai really has him in shelter."
"How?"
"Well, you know that I've been playing the machines in Yo Chai's place?"
"Yes, and beating them with fool, blind luck."
"And tonight I'm going down with a mule load of gold to play old Yo Chai himself. I'm going to break him, and after he's broke, I’ll offer him all his money back if he'll tell me what he knows of Clung."
"And if he tells you?"
"I’ll take Clung and serve him a handsome horse-whipping and send him out of the country. The puppy needs a lesson for playing about with Winifred in this manner."
The elder man searched the face of Kirk with the beginning of a sarcastic smile which gradually died away.
"By Gad, Kirk," he muttered at length, "I almost believe that you're man enough to do it. And then Winifred? You're my last hope with her, Billy!"
"When the time comes," said Kirk calmly, I’ll go to her and take her." Take — Winifred?" gasped the financier, his emphasis rising.
"Once," said Kirk harshly, "she promised to marry me. It's a bond on her still. She's my woman!"
"Are you drunk, Billy?" asked the other anxiously.
"Drunk?" thundered Kirk suddenly. "Yes, I’m drunk!"
He threw his great arms above his head in a gesture of exultation.
"Drunk with life, Sampson, and drunk with living. Fve crept out of the little rat-hole I used to call the world, and now I’m seeing things as they really are. Drunk? If this is drunkenness I hope to God I’m never sober. Winifred? Bah! What is she but a woman — a pretty girl. When I want her, Sampson, I’ll come and take her!"
"There will be a fine little war over this,” answered Sampson. "I suppose I ought to be irritated to hear you talk of my daughter like this, but Fm not. It rather pleases me in a way to think of the little tyrant finding a master. But Gad, Kirk, what a war there'll be when you come to her like this!" He chuckled at the thought.
D'you think so?" said Kirk carelessly. Not a bit, sir, not a bit. We've handled our women too gently. What they need is a master who'll show 'em their right place — and that place is at the foot of the table. S'long."
"Wait!" called Sampson, and he trotted up to the side of the big man. "I've got a dozen things to ask you."
"Manana!" snarled Kirk. "Today I'm busy. I'm going down to break Yo Chai!"
Chapter 34
His broad shoulders bulked in the door, blocking it from side to side, and then he swung down the path to the stable. In a few moments he was trotting down the road to Kirby Creek, leading a pack mule behind him. It was a small pack, but a weighty one, for it contained in gold all the tens of thousands of dollars which Kirk had won from the gaming house of Yo Chai.
In the street of the mining town many men knew him, for he had grown the most conspicuous figure in the gaming house of Yo Chai. They shouted their salutations and he waved a hand back at them. A tipsy miner stopped him and proffered a drink from a flask. Kirk accepted and half drained the flask at a single swallow.
"Where you bound?" asked the miner, who was too drunk to recognize the lucky gambler.
"Bound for Yo Chai's," said Kirk, "with a mule load of gold. I'm going to break him."
It was too spectacular an announcement to be overlooked. Rumor took up the tale with her thousand tongues, and the tongues of rumor in Kirby Creek did not whisper. They shouted aloud and men heard the announcement with a joyous cheer. This was better than gold-digging. They swarmed across the street in front of William Kirk like the vanguard of an advancing army. And Kirk, his flannel shirt open at the throat, his face darkened with the unshaven growth of two days, cheered them on, and they cheered him to the echo in return.
Into the doors of Yo Chai's place the host poured. Kirk dismounted at the entrance, tethered his horse, and strode on through the doors, leading the pack mule straight to the center of the gaming house. The place was in riotous tumult. From every table the players had risen, staring at the strange host of invaders, and finally joining their voices to the clamor. The drunken miner who had stopped Kirk in the street now went forward like a herald. Instead of a baton he carried his nearly empty whiskey flask. Climbing on to the dais at which Yo Chai sat, he flourished the flask around his head and brought it down on the table; it crashed in a million splinters of shivering glass, and the gamblers shrank back from the deadly shower.
"Get up!” yelled the drunkard. "Get up and let a gen'lmun with a mule-load of gold play agin the damn Chink!"
They rose willingly enough and turned to gape at Kirk who stood with his mule behind him wagging its long ears. Clung rose also.
The hubbub rose to an inferno. Through it the voice of Clung cut like a knife, not loudly, but with a sharp, metallic sound distinct from the hoarse roaring of many throats.
"Silence!" he called.
He repeated it once more and the confusion died away, falling to a hum in the farther corners.
"Yo Chai," said Clung, turning his smile upon Kirk, "has been waiting for you. Name your game.”
Kirk stepped on the dais, laughing.
"For a game chap,” he said to Yo Chai, "you rank with the best, and I hate to do it. But a gambler takes his chances. And because of that I’m going to break you, Yo.”
"This,” said Clung, "is pleasant talk to Yo Chai. What is the game?”
"Something quick,” answered Kirk. "Stud poker, eh?”
"You can pick your dealer,” said Clung and waved towards the crowd.
Kirk chose at random from the faces nearest him, and he selected a small man with white hair and beard and wrinkling eyes that shone with honesty. They s
ettled at once around the table. So the game began.
As for the rest of the house, there was not a single table in action. Everyone stood up and waited. A self-elected talesman mounted the dais where he could command a view of the game and proceeded to enlighten the listening crowd in a voice of thunder: "Ace to Yo Chai, seven of spades to Kirk; jack of hearts to Yo, king of clubs to Kirk/' etc.
And people cheered when Kirk won and groaned when he lost.
Which was not often. He won the first three hands in a row and the table in front of him was piled high with chips, for the betting ran a hundred dollars at a chip. It was worthy of Monte Carlo at its reckless best. The fourth hand Yo Chai won. The fifth hand Kirk wagered a thousand on a pair of sevens, was called by Yo Chai, and won over a pair of fours. The whole house went wild.
Manifestly there was little skill in this. It seemed the point of honor for each man to take the bet of the other, no matter how high the bet might be placed. It was gambling raised to the n-th power; it satisfied even the hardened heart of the Southwest.
The spectators began to pool their money and gamble recklessly on the side, for the high stakes of the central table set the pace. Gold gleamed and rang on all sides, and changed hands as the voice of the stentorian announcer boomed out the results. The gold on the back of Kirk's mule had not been touched, and the chips before him were stacked high.
Already the spectators were beginning to imagine what the place would be in the hands of the new owner. He would be hard to beat, they all agreed. And they waited breathlessly for the time when Yo Chai should rise with his head tilting back and his lazy smile in the way they had all come to know, and announce: "Gentlemen, the bank is broke!"
A red-letter day even among the sensations of Kirby Creek. Something to be remembered. A dozen men lined the bar drinking the luck and health of Kirk. Every man's voice and hand was against the "damn Chink."
But the certainty with which he had entered the house was rapidly leaving the heart of Kirk. It was the unshakable calm of Yo Chai which daunted him. It was the very size of his own winnings which unnerved him. First it began to seem to him that Yo Chai had resources which even his greatest winning could never drain. Then, again, he felt that the half-smile on the lips of the seeming Oriental was a continual mockery. Perhaps Yo Chai had a reason for consenting to this game. He wondered if all his successes had been purposely planned so that he would be led on and on until he began to lose, and then he would give doubly all that he had taken.
Surely there must be some trickery in the business, hidden from sight. How else could any mortal man, Occidental or Oriental, sit there so calmly and see good dollars depart by the thousands. He began to hate Yo Chai; he began to wait for the turning of the game.
Then he wished that he had not chosen this day for the game. Then that he had not brought so much money to wager. Then that he had not brought more. He decided to cash in the chips that were before him, and was on the very point of doing it and turning away, when he remembered the breathless crowd which waited for his victory. He could not leave. He turned in his chair and saw on every side scores of burning eyes fastened upon him, waiting, waiting. They burned their way into his brain. He called for a drink.
"It is waiting beside you," said Yo Chai.
"You knew I’d drink?" thundered Kirk, suddenly and unreasonably angered. "You Chink devil, d'you think you can beat me, drunk or sober? T' hell with you and your crooked plans!"
He raised the glass from the tray which the patient Chinese servant held, tossed off his drink and turned to wager a thousand on the hand. He lost.
The chill of that loss counterbalanced the flushing heat of the whiskey. He decided to play cautiously. With care he could so husband his chips that when the house closed that night he would still have a comfortable margin.
From now on he would not wager high on anything lower than three of a kind.
But once more he remembered the hungry, waiting eyes of the crowd. He dared not start a conservative game after that wild, spectacular opening. From the tray beside him he raised another glass.
After that there came a time when he played automatically, scarcely knowing what he did, until he finally caught his voice saying: "Call a hundred, raise a hundred."
And the soft rejoinder of Clung: "With what, sir?”
He looked up with a start from his trance. The chips had disappeared in front of him. They were piled now before Yo Chai.
"Lead up the mule!" he shouted to the crowd.
And when the mule was led up he wrenched open one of the hampers and dragged out a canvas sack, ponderous, chiming as he jounced it down on the table. The whole house rang with the cheer of the crowd.
And as if that cheer had brought him luck, he began to win again until half the pile of chips had drifted back to his side of the table. He drank again and ordered drinks for every one in the house. And there were hundreds.
Another cheer for Kirk, but this time he lost.
Lost three heavy wagers in a row.
A heavy, sullen anger possessed him, and with it a certainty that he would lose. He felt, also, that if he could break away from the table only for a moment he would change the luck of the game. Now he knew that it was the eye of Yo Chai, steady, gentle, inflexible, which was breaking his spirit and making him play stupidly.
"I'm cramped from sitting down so long," he said, "and besides, I'm hungry. I'm going over to the bar to eat.”
"It is good,” nodded Yo Chai, and smiled encouragement.
He wanted to take that yellow throat and crush it. It would not be hard to do: hardly the work of a moment.
Chapter 35
When he turned from the dais and glanced over the heads of the crowd towards the doors he was astonished to see that it was already dark; yet the crowd still hung about the place, waiting. Assuredly they wished him well, but it seemed as if his mind was breaking under the burden of their anxiety. There was a dull ache above his eyes as he turned towards the bar.
They accepted the recess in the game with approbation and fresh rounds of drinks. They literally fought their way to get close to the gambler as he walked towards the bar, and he had to lean forward and shoulder his way through them in a manner that reminded him of his football days. A thousand good wishes rang at his ear, but he said: "Give me room, boys, and a chance at a sandwich. I'm starved."
A dozen hands reached to supply his wants and there were clamors to learn how much he had lost. He did not know that himself, and he shrugged the questions away with carefully assumed indifference and set himself to eating. Seeing that he would not respond they turned to other topics; moreover, the game had proceeded so long that some of its interest was now worn away. Finally he heard a voice near him, at the bar, lowered in a way that proclaims something of vital interest.
And another man said in surprise: "That little old chap?"
And he pointed.
Kirk turned his head in the direction of the pointed arm and made out a withered fellow of about fifty, evidently as hard as tanned leather. He made his way unobtrusively through the crowd, which gave way before him.
"Yep," said the first speaker beside Kirk, "that's Charlie Morgan himself."
"Speakin' personal," mused the other of the two, "he don't look much to me."
"He don't," agreed the first man, "but I've seen him fan his gun and knock over a rabbit at twenty yards. That's straight. They's a lot of talk about these fast gun-fighters that fan a gun, but outside of Charlie Morgan I ain't never seen it done."
"And him you've seen do it once?" suggested the other, scornfully.
"A dozen times, I tell you. I was out with him trappin'. Maybe there's some that's faster on the draw than old Charlie, but there ain't none surer, and I bet twice on the sure shooter for once on the feller that makes a snappy draw and can't hit the side of a barn when he gets his iron out."
"So he's going out after the Night Hawk?" queried the other.
"You don't have to talk low. Charlie w
ants the whole of Kirby Creek to know it. He's going right down the ravine tonight with his pack-mule and he's going to have a bit of dust in the pack. He wants the Night Hawk to know he's coming, and he swears he'll get Dave Spenser's hide tonight. You see, Happy Lynch was Charlie's partner, and when Charlie heard that Happy'd been bumped off by Spenser it made him so riled he couldn't sleep of nights. So he come up here to bag the Night Hawk."
"Here's wishin' him luck," said the other, "but I got my doubts."
"I ain't," said the first speaker. "Of course the Night Hawk might down him from behind, but that ain't the Night Hawk's way. He tackles his meat from the front. And give 'em a square break like that and I bet on old Charlie Morgan."
"What time's he go up the valley? I'd like to see him start."
"Says he's going at moonrise. I dunno jest when that'll be."
"Seems to me,” said a dry voice near Kirk, "that Yo Chai has about used up his patience waitin' for you, partner."
He turned and went back to the table. The mouthful of food had strengthened him; the drink seemed to have cleared his brain, and as he settled into his chair at the table it seemed to him that he could break Yo Chai through the sheer force of physical strength and superior size.
He started again with the old recklessness, but it was as if his brief absence had broken his power over the cards. He was losing now two hands out of three. He emptied one of the mule's hampers. He began on the other.
In spite of himself the mental stupor returned, the feeling that he was being hypnotized into stupidity and with it rose the sullen anger — the desire to kill. The occasional drinks he took instead of clearing his brain were like oil on the fire. Half the time he sat with his attention fixed on the loose sleeves of Yo Chai waiting for the appearance of one of the cards which he was sure must be buried up the sleeve of the Chinaman. But there was never the least flickering of cardboard there to give an excuse for the gunplay. He lifted the last sack of gold from the hamper; it followed the course of the rest; he was broke. And all that he had won from Yo Chai had flowed back to the gaming house. He rose, forcing himself to smile, for one must lose at cards gracefully in the Southwest.
Brand, Max - 1924 Page 15