WESTERN CLASSICS - Ultimate Collection: Historical Novels, Wild West Adventures & Action Romance Novels. Owen Wister
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Virginian.
"There's parts of Wyoming," pursued Steve, "where you'll go hours and hours before you'll see a drop of wetness."
"And if yu' keep a-thinkin' about it," said the Virginian, "it'll seem like days and days."
Steve, at this stroke, gave up, and clapped him on the shoulder with a joyous chuckle. "You old son-of-a!" he cried affectionately.
"Drinks are due now," said the Virginian. "My treat, Steve. But I reckon your suspense will have to linger a while yet."
Thus they dropped into direct talk from that speech of the fourth dimension where they had been using me for their telephone.
"Any cyards going to-night?" inquired the Virginian.
"Stud and draw," Steve told him. "Strangers playing."
"I think I'd like to get into a game for a while," said the Southerner. "Strangers, yu' say?"
And then, before quitting the store, he made his toilet for this little hand at poker. It was a simple preparation. He took his pistol from its holster, examined it, then shoved it between his overalls and his shirt in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing his hair for all the attention any one paid to this, except myself. Then the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the shoulder. Clearly this wild country spoke a language other than mine—the word here was a term of endearment. Such was my conclusion.
The drummers had finished their dealings with the proprietor, and they were gossiping together in a knot by the door as the Virginian passed out.
"See you later, old man!" This was the American drummer accosting his prospective bed-fellow.
"Oh, yes," returned the bed-fellow, and was gone.
The American drummer winked triumphantly at his brethren. "He's all right," he observed, jerking a thumb after the Virginian. "He's easy. You got to know him to work him. That's all."
"Und vat is your point?" inquired the German drummer.
"Point is—he'll not take any goods off you or me; but he's going to talk up the killer to any consumptive he runs across. I ain't done with him yet. Say," (he now addressed the proprietor), "what's her name?"
"Whose name?"
"Woman runs the eating-house."
"Glen. Mrs. Glen."
"Ain't she new?"
"Been settled here about a month. Husband's a freight conductor."
"Thought I'd not seen her before. She's a good-looker."
"Hm! Yes. The kind of good looks I'd sooner see in another man's wife than mine."
"So that's the gait, is it?"
"Hm! well, it don't seem to be. She come here with that reputation. But there's been general disappointment."
"Then she ain't lacked suitors any?"
"Lacked! Are you acquainted with cow-boys?"
"And she disappointed 'em? Maybe she likes her husband?"
"Hm! well, how are you to tell about them silent kind?"
"Talking of conductors," began the drummer. And we listened to his anecdote. It was successful with his audience; but when he launched fluently upon a second I strolled out. There was not enough wit in this narrator to relieve his indecency, and I felt shame at having been surprised into laughing with him.
I left that company growing confidential over their leering stories, and I sought the saloon. It was very quiet and orderly. Beer in quart bottles at a dollar I had never met before; but saving its price, I found no complaint to make of it. Through folding doors I passed from the bar proper with its bottles and elk head back to the hall with its various tables. I saw a man sliding cards from a case, and across the table from him another man laying counters down. Near by was a second dealer pulling cards from the bottom of a pack, and opposite him a solemn old rustic piling and changing coins upon the cards which lay already exposed.
But now I heard a voice that drew my eyes to the far corner of the room.
"Why didn't you stay in Arizona?"
Harmless looking words as I write them down here. Yet at the sound of them I noticed the eyes of the others directed to that corner. What answer was given to them I did not hear, nor did I see who spoke. Then came another remark.
"Well, Arizona's no place for amatures."
This time the two card dealers that I stood near began to give a part of their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There was in me a desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine Bow had seemed to glide beneath a sunshine of merriment, of easy-going jocularity. This was suddenly gone, like the wind changing to north in the middle of a warm day. But I stayed, being ashamed to go.
Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and betting between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were new faces.
"No place for amatures," repeated the voice; and now I saw that it was the dealer's. There was in his countenance the same ugliness that his words conveyed.
"Who's that talkin'?" said one of the men near me, in a low voice.
"Trampas."
"What's he?"
"Cow-puncher, bronco-buster, tin-horn, most anything."
"Who's he talkin' at?"
"Think it's the black-headed guy he's talking at."
"That ain't supposed to be safe, is it?"
"Guess we're all goin' to find out in a few minutes."
"Been trouble between 'em?"
"They've not met before. Trampas don't enjoy losin' to a stranger."
"Fello's from Arizona, yu' say?"
"No. Virginia. He's recently back from havin' a look at Arizona. Went down there last year for a change. Works for the Sunk Creek outfit." And then the dealer lowered his voice still further and said something in the other man's ear, causing him to grin. After which both of them looked at me.
There had been silence over in the corner; but now the man Trampas spoke again.
"AND ten," said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. He might have been deaf.
"AND twenty," said the next player, easily.
The next threw his cards down.
It was now the Virginian's turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke. "Your bet, you son-of-a—."
The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: "When you call me that, SMILE." And he looked at Trampas across the table.
Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting their positions.
"Sit quiet," said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me. "Can't you see he don't want to push trouble? He has handed Trampas the choice to back down or draw his steel."
Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of its strangeness. Voices and cards, the click