King of Spades (12 page)

“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.

While the girls with their skinny arms and legs and unleavened breasts flailed and flapped at each other, Horses
still lay on his back, knees up, a big wandering eye full of wonder on each side of his high nose.

Between cloudbursts of laughter, Sam managed to gasp, “You know, watching them two fight over Horses, it's like seeing two sparrows fight over a turd. By the Lord if it ain't now.”

At that Horses came up off the floor, first on his hands and knees, then on his feet. He backed off exactly four paces. He glared down at Sam with red-dotted eyes. “Sam, the Army don't like that. Even if you was to smile along with it.”

“Well?”

Horses stood with legs wide apart, right hand poised. “Instead of laughing like you is.”

Sam continued to sit laughing beside the gaming table. “Horses, you think too much like a calf in a swamp. Too slow and hardly at all. We don't mean you no harm.”

“You just named your day to pay up your 'rears.”

“Oh, c'mon now, Horses, lay off.”

“Close your valves, and draw.”

Kate cried, “Boys, please now!”

Everybody scrambled out of range.

Ransom stationed himself at Sam's right.

Sam lifted his upper lip. “You must be plumb off your mental reservation, man. This ain't no shootin' matter yet.”

“Get to your feet! You're about to make a trip alone.”

Sam laughed, short. “I'm not getting up for nobody.”

“Sam!” Kate warned. “He's in the Army now, you know. If something should happen to him, you know what the Army'll do to this house. They'll close us down tight.”

Sam waved Kate down. “I know my Horses. There won't be any cathop here.”

Little spasms worked in Horses' right hand. “Cathop or no cathop, calling a man what you just called me is plain low wrong. Even if you was to just plain smile with it.”

“Horses, you're an old pard of my bosom. Sit down and resume the game.”

Horses continued to eye Sam malignant. “I'm standing pat on what I says.”

Sam folded his arms and leaned back.

“Draw.”

Sam tried a wink on Horses. He smiled forgiving.

“Work in one more wink, Sam, and I drills a hole right in the middle of the eye that winks.”

Sam turned to Ransom. “Boy, can't you say something that'll set his intellects to milling the other way?”

Ransom found his right hand poised.

“Draw,” Horses said down to Sam. “You dirty mother-forker.”

Sam shook his head.

“Then, Sam, it's time for the Army to speak up. The whole U.S. Army of these here United States.” There was a whirl of a big hand and a loud pop.

A little cloud of dust puffed out of Sam's buckskin shirt, from the left shoulder. Sam's face turned pale. “Horses! Why, you're crazier than a woman's watch, man.”

Horses shot Sam again, in the stomach. “This time then.”

Red life began to gush out of Sam's belly. Slowly he crippled over at the waist; at last, face first, tilted forward like a landslide.

“Sam!” Kate caught Sam in her arms.

The girls screamed.

Kate grabbed a red goose pillow off the chaise longue and eased it under Sam's head. “Dear. Dear.”

Sam ignored Kate. He turned his head and fixed his eyes on Ransom. “I thought you had a quick gun, boy.”

Ransom chilled over.

Sam let go a bloody sigh. “Wellsomever, it's all right, boy.” He lay guggling. “Guess I better get in my last will and testament. Pronto.” Again he fixed his eyes on Ransom. “Boy, them span of rats is yours. I give 'em to you.”

“Sam,” Kate said.

Sam managed a white smile through his bushy gray mustache.
“You might say that this was a case of two studs trying to get into the same collar at the same time.”

Kate wept.

“Don't waste any salt on me, woman. In a minute I'll be dead enough to skin.”

The girls of the house filed silently in. Like bewildered magpies they stood ringed around Sam, gagging and gawking.

A green fly appeared from nowhere and buzzed in and around them and with a final turn landed on the tip of Sam's nose.

Kate shooed it away.

Disturbed, the green fly buzzed straight for the nearest window, hit the blind with a light thud, then came buzzing back. Once again it landed on Sam's nose.

“Shoo.”

Sam whispered, “That fly is right, Kate. Leave it alone. Because I'm dead.” And with a jerk Sam was dead.

Kate snapped a fingertip at the green fly.

The green fly again headed for the window; hit the blind with a light thud. This time it stayed put.

Gun still in hand, Horses stepped up. He circled Kate's waist with his left arm and hauled her to his feet. “All right, luv, now that we've got rid of him, let's spill some tallow.”

“Horses!”

There was a click of a gun.

Horses turned, gun still leveled.

Ransom fired.

Suddenly Horses had three red eyes. He staggered backward.

The second bullet caught Horses as he was falling. The bullet cut his blue uniform up the front as neatly as if a running shears had done it. At the last second, kicking, Horses slewed around and landed across Sam's body. Blood spurted over the green Brussels carpet. Crimson rivuleted down the red goose pillow under Sam's head.

“Mr. Ransom!” Kate cried, a hand to her mouth.

“Horses!” Sulie and Rut gasped.

The green fly came for another look. It landed on Horses' forehead, then itched over to examine Horses' new red eye.

Ransom holstered his 4ms..5 and turned to go.

Kate quick caught his elbow. “Don't.”

Ransom shivered at her touch. His green eyes glittered down at her. “Don't you think it's high time I skip the country?”

“Wait.” Kate clutched at him. “Where were you and Sam staying?” Her single dark eye was sharp, imperious.