Читать книгу Stand Pat; Or, Poker Stories from the Mississippi - David A. Curtis - Страница 8

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Brownsville was disturbed. It can hardly be said that the industries of the place were interrupted, for there were no industries in Brownsville that were liable to interruption, except at such times as one of the river steamboats was lying at the levee, either loading or unloading.

Outside of Brownsville the prairie stretched indefinitely to the north, west, and south, and there were persons who cultivated the soil with a minimum of labour and obtained a maximum of results, and so far as planting, harvesting, and marketing the products constituted an industry, these persons were industrious.

Inside the town, people mostly sat around. Except, as aforesaid, when there was a boat at the levee.

To a stranger no visible signs of disturbance would have been apparent. Looking up and down the long street that constituted the main portion of Brownsville, he might have noticed that there were no women to be seen, but the feminine fraction of the population, insignificant in number, was at no time obtrusive.

Such social functions as were in vogue with the female sex consisted mostly of long-range conversations between women who stood, each at her own door, or leaned out, each at her own window. And the subject-matter of these conversations would have been totally devoid of interest to the stranger.

At the moment when the action of this tale was about to begin, there was no sound of conversation, nor appearance of a petticoat. There was, instead, an ominous hush, though the stranger might not have recognized the omen.

It was yet early in the forenoon, and the only interruption to the unwonted silence of the morning had come from a crash in Long Mike’s house half-way up the street. It was such a noise as might have been made by an angry man who should survey his breakfast-table, and, finding nothing on it to his liking, should upset it with such violence as to send some of the dishes against the walls of the room and others through the front window.

The strained attention of Brownsville had caught no further sound for half an hour, and though at every other door but his and one other, men stood as if prepared for observation or action, as the case might be, they had heard nothing further, nor seen anything.

Suddenly Long Mike’s door flew open. What force impelled it cannot be stated positively, but Stumpy, whose house was almost opposite, saw the recumbent figure of a man several feet back from the doorway, where it might have fallen after an energetic kick and a sudden recoil.

Slowly and with evident effort the man arose to his feet, and after some minutes stepped uncertainly forward. Steadying himself by the lintels, he gazed out, as if dubious of the result of further effort.

Up and down the street he looked for a long time, with as much earnestness as was compatible with a confusion of ideas that seemed to be buzzing around his head, seeking entrance as bees might endeavour to enter a sealed hive.

Presently his eyes fell on the one doorway, not far from his own, where no man stood. The faces he saw at the other doors were all mistily familiar to him, but he gave no sign of recognition, and no man spoke to him. The alert but motionless figures might have been graven images, so far as any emotion could be detected, and they stirred him not.

But the empty doorway fixed his unsteady look. His eye cleared, and with a mighty lurch he sallied forth, saying nothing when he started but gurgitating violently as he strove to arouse his vocal organs to action.

“Mother of Moses!” muttered Stumpy, grimly observant. “He’s lookin’ for Gallagher. Now if Gallagher was home what a broth of a shindy there’d be! Saints be! but it’s good he’s took a sneak.”

Deviously, and with many pauses and new starts, Long Mike made his way toward Gallagher’s house. Arriving in front of it he paused, and cleared his throat with a yell, the like of which Brownsville had never heard, save from the exhaust-pipe of some steamboat.

Following this came a monstrous cataract of vituperation, Homeric in strength, Gargantuan in explicit epithets, shameless in profanity, and seemingly endless in continuance, but bibulously uncertain as to its exact purport. The general tenor of it seemed to indicate a strong desire for a personal encounter with one Gallagher.

When, after a long period of this, silence ensued, Long Mike waited for awhile, but no answer came. The door remained closed, and no sign of life came from within. Standing forward at length, he raised his foot, and Gallagher’s door flew in.

“Glory be!” muttered Stumpy again, “it’s little use he has for latches and locks the mornin’. And it’s little good Gallagher’ll get of his furniture from now.”

This last statement was undeniably true, for Long Mike, finding no living being in the house, seized a chair and painstakingly demolished everything destructible on the premises. Then he came out, and after whooping wildly a few times at the uttermost pitch of his powerful voice, made his way slowly and crookedly to the barroom. And after him, one by one, the heads of the households in Brownsville came slowly.

Now Gallagher, as all Brownsville knew, was Long Mike’s foreman, and Long Mike’s ownership of all the mules in Brownsville was hardly more absolute than his proprietorship in all the available human labour of the place, and, moreover, the imperious character that had enabled him to conquer his position in the community made him its autocrat.

The reflected glory of such a man, to be enjoyed by one fortunate enough to be his foreman, would be enough for any ordinary person, but Gallagher was not ordinary. Debarred by nature from the possibility of attaining the highest eminence, he was still covetous of distinction, and the satisfaction he derived from the hearty hatred of the men he tyrannized over, was poisoned by the reflection that the good-natured giant who tyrannized over him held him in contempt.

Because of these things there was frequent friction between the two. Gallagher could extract more work from a mule or a man than any one else, and Long Mike valued him accordingly. Nevertheless, there were times when the foreman’s unruly tongue would so stir up the temper of his employer as to secure his immediate discharge. Having little confidence in anything that Long Mike said, Gallagher would proceed with his work, serenely indifferent to his dismissal, and would collect his wages as usual at the close of the week.

It had happened, however, that ever since the night when the one-eyed man had suddenly perished in a controversy with one Wharton, which controversy touched on points of etiquette appertaining to the game of draw-poker, Long Mike had been unable to steady his nerves, despite his persistent efforts to do so by a liberal use of the one specific in which he had faith. Being unusually irritable, therefore, he had resented Gallagher’s latest impertinence more bitterly than usual, and, in addition to discharging him, had attempted also to kill him.

This he would undoubtedly have succeeded in doing with his bare hands, for he had the strength of seven men, but, fortunately for the foreman, there was considerable uncertainty in his movements, and his intended victim had eluded him by a quick movement which was continued in a panicky flight. The flight had taken him across the gangplank of the Pride of the River, just as the deck-hands were hauling it aboard, and he had gone down the river on the boat, a fact not yet known to his employer.

There was a Mrs. Gallagher, but she had found refuge with a sympathetic neighbour, and took no part in the events of the day.

In the barroom there was an atmosphere of doubtful expectancy. Just what Long Mike would do when he found his rage balked in the direction of Gallagher, no one could tell, and in truth none was anxious to see. The consequences of any fresh accession of fury might be decidedly unpleasant.

It was therefore with considerable anxiety that the crowd listened for Sam’s answer, Sam being the bartender, when Long Mike questioned him.

“Where is that man Gallagher?” he demanded, thickly.

“I’m lookin’ for him every minute,” said Sam, in a matter-of-fact way, as he placed bottles and glasses on the bar. No order had been given, but Long Mike’s ways were known, and a round of drinks at his expense seemed to be an appropriate ceremony.

The due performance of this engrossed the general attention for a few minutes, and then Long Mike again demanded to know where Gallagher was.

“I’m lookin’ for him every minute,” said Sam in the same tone as before. And to the same question, repeated at irregular intervals for the next quarter of an hour, he replied in the same words.

After each answer Long Mike stood, apparently satisfied, looking as steadily as he was able to do toward the door, with the evident expectation of seeing his foe appear, but abstaining from speech. Slowly, however, he seemed to gather the idea that he was being trifled with, and presently he said, with a violent hiccough:

“Where is that man Gallagher?”

“I’m lookin’ for him every minute,” said Sam, imperturbably.

Long Mike turned and look at him with a scowl.

“Ye said that before,” he exclaimed.

“I was lookin’ for him before,” said Sam.

This seemed to divert the big man’s mind to a new channel of thought, and he pondered it awhile, uncertain whether to laugh or be angry.

At length he leaned over the bar and shook a huge forefinger in Sam’s face.

“You’re a fool,” he said, and glared.

Sam made no reply, but Stumpy, judging that something must be done, interposed:

“Ye’ll all have a drink with me,” he said.

Ordinarily this form of speech was unchallenged by any critic in Brownsville, and Long Mike was possibly the one citizen least likely to offer any objection, but on this occasion he turned to the speaker, and, shaking his forefinger at him, exclaimed again:

“You’re a fool.”

Stumpy stepped back a little. Long Mike faced the crowd and said with additional emphasis:

“You’re all fools.” Then he broke out with a roar of fury. “Will ye tell me where is that man Gallagher?” but no man dared make answer.

“In just about a minute, now,” said Joe Thorp in an undertone to his nearest neighbour, “there’ll be a ten-acre fight in this here barroom if nothin’ ain’t done to get the old man’s mind off’n Gallagher.”

“I reckon you’re about right,” replied Jim Hunnewell, “but there ain’t nobody here as cares about fightin’ ’cept him. An’ when he’s loaded, he’d a heap rather fight than do anything else, ’thouten it’s play poker.”

“That’s the idee,” exclaimed Thorp, struck with an inspiration. Then, raising his voice, he continued: “Who’ll play a game of poker? Speak up, quick, you chump,” he whispered, and Hunnewell spoke.

“I will,” he said, eagerly.

“And I,” “And I,” “And I,” said Baxter and Wilson and Cosgrove almost as quickly. They had caught the whispered words, and appreciated the emergency.

“Give us the chips, Sam,” called Thorp, bustling toward the card-table in the rear of the room. “Will you take a hand, Mike?” he added, carelessly, as the others followed him with more noise than seemed necessary.

Long Mike considered the matter for a moment, but, finding that he no longer held public attention, he wavered and then said:

“I will.”

“It’s like picking his pockets,” said Cosgrove, with some compunction, as they all took their seats. Even in Brownsville the code prohibits playing with a man who is hopelessly drunk if he happens to be your neighbour and friend.

“Isn’t it better than to have him kill somebody before he sobers up?” said Thorp, and the argument was sufficient for all of them.

But the picking of Long Mike’s pockets did not proceed with any alarming speed. They played the usual game, table stakes, and each man took five dollars in chips at the start. The first pot was a jack.

Cosgrove dealt. Thorp passed. Baxter passed. Wilson opened it for a dollar and a half. Hunnewell threw down. Long Mike raised it two dollars. Cosgrove stayed. Thorp stayed and Wilson stayed.

When they came to draw cards, Thorp took one, Wilson took two, and Long Mike was found to be fast asleep. They roused him with some difficulty, and after scanning his cards with every appearance of dissatisfaction, he called for four. Cosgrove took three.

Wilson bet a white chip. Long Mike chipped. Cosgrove shoved in his pile, having caught a third ace. The others all stayed, and Wilson showed three tens. Thorp had a small straight, and Long Mike had a king-high flush.

It was quick action and called for another jack. As three of the conspirators bought more chips, they consoled themselves as well as they could with the thought that sheer luck like that seldom comes to one player frequently in one sitting.

This time Baxter opened it under the guns. Wilson passed. Hunnewell raised it one dollar on a small straight. Long Mike stayed on a pair of deuces. Cosgrove and Thorp laid down and Baxter saw the raise, having kings up.

In the draw Long Mike caught the three aces Cosgrove had had the deal before. After Baxter and Hunnewell had bought again, there was fifty-five dollars on the table, of which over thirty was in Long Mike’s pile.

In the next deal he caught nothing and promptly went to sleep again. They woke him up in time to look at his next hand, and that failed also to interest him. In the following deal, however, he caught three sevens.

It had been his ante, and the money had been put up out of his pile without waking him, but even under existing circumstances no one cared to go so far as to play his hand for him, the more especially as they all had pretty good cards and saw his raise when he made it two dollars to play.

Catching the fourth seven in the draw, he made good on two raises that had been made before it came to him, and threw in five dollars more. Thorp and Wilson both called for their piles, one having a flush and the other a full.

Just what might have happened in a few hands more it is impossible to say, for the whistle of the Prairie Belle startled the crowd as she steamed up to the levee, and Long Mike staggered to his feet, stuffing his winnings in his pockets as he rose. Neither whiskey nor poker was potent to hold him when there was business to be done.

As he stepped unsteadily into the open air, Sam heard him asking of the wide, wide world, “Where is that man Gallagher?”