Black Jack, Max Brand [snow like ashes .txt] 📗

out of his

hands; obviously Slim was not so pleased. He looked coldly up to the

girl.

 

“This is between him and me,” he protested. “I don’t need none of your

help, Kate.”

 

“Don’t you? You’re going to get it, though. Gimme that gun, Slim Dugan!”

 

“I want a square deal,” he complained. “I figure Phil has been crooking

the dice on me.”

 

“Bah! Besides, I’ll give you a square deal.”

 

She held out her hand for the weapon.

 

“Got any doubts about me being square, Slim?”

 

“Kate, leave this to me!”

 

“Why, Slim, I wouldn’t let you run loose now for a million. You got that

ugly look in your eyes. I know you, partner!”

 

And to the unutterable astonishment of Terry, the man pulled his gun from

its holster and passed it up to her, his eyes fighting hers, his hand

moving slowly. She stepped back, weighing the heavy weapons in her hands.

Then she faced Phil Marvin with glittering eyes.

 

“It ain’t the first time you been accused of queer stunts with the dice.

What’s the straight of it, Phil? Been doing anything to these dice?”

 

“Me? Sure I ain’t!”

 

Her glance lingered on him the least part of a second.

 

“H’m!” said the girl. “Maybe not.”

 

Slim was on his feet, eager. “Take a look at ‘em, Kate. Take a look at

them dice!”

 

She held them up to the light—then dropped them into a pocket of her

skirt. “I’ll look at ‘em in the morning, Slim.”

 

“The stuff’ll be dry by that time!”

 

“Dry or not, that’s what I’m going to do. I won’t trust lamplight.”

 

Slim turned on his heel and flung himself sulkily down on the blanket,

fighting her with sullen eyes. She turned on Phil.

 

“How much d’you win?”

 

“Nothin’. Just a couple of hundred.”

 

“Just a couple of hundred! You call that nothing?”

 

Phil grunted. The other men leaned forward in their interest to watch the

progress of the trial, all saving Joe Pollard, who sat with his elbows

braced in sprawling fashion on the table, at ease, his eyes twinkling

contentedly at the girl. Why she refused to examine the dice at once was

plain to Terry. If they proved to have been gummed, it would mean a gun

fight with the men at a battling temperature. In the morning when they

had cooled down, it might be a different matter. Terry watched her in

wonder. His idea of an efficient woman was based on Aunt Elizabeth, cold

of eye and brain, practical in methods on the ranch, keen with figures.

The efficiency of this slip of a girl was a different matter, a thing of

passion, of quick insight, of lightning guesses. He could see the play of

eager emotion in her face as she studied Phil Marvin. And how could she

do justice? Terry was baffled.

 

“How long you two been playing?” “About twenty minutes.”

 

“Not more’n five!” cut in Slim hotly.

 

“Shut up, Slim!” she commanded. “I’m running this here game; Phil, how

many straight passes did you make?”

 

“Me? Oh, I dunno. Maybe—five.”

 

“Five straight passes!” said the girl. “Five straight passes!”

 

“You heard me say it,” growled big Phil Marvin.

 

All at once she laughed.

 

“Phil, give that two hundred back to Slim!”

 

It came like a bolt from the blue, this decision. Marvin hesitated, shook

his head.

 

“Damned if I do. I don’t back down. I won it square!”

 

“Listen to me,” said the girl. Instead of threatening, as Terry expected,

she had suddenly become conciliatory. She stepped close to him and

dropped a slim hand on his burly shoulder. “Ain’t Slim a pal of yours?

You and him, ain’t you stuck together through thick and thin? He thinks

you didn’t win that coin square. Is Slim’s friendship worth two hundred

to you, or ain’t it? Besides, you ain’t lying down to nobody. Why, you

big squarehead, Phil, don’t we all know that you’d fight a bull with your

bare hands? Who’d call you yaller? We’d simply say you was square, Phil,

and you know it.”

 

There was a pause. Phil was biting his lip, scowling at Slim. Slim was

sneering in return. It seemed that she had failed. Even if she forced

Phil to return the money, he and Slim would hate each other as long as

they lived. And Terry gained a keen impression that if the hatred

continued, one of them would die very soon indeed. Her solution of the

problem was a strange one. She faced them both.

 

“You two big sulky babies!” she exclaimed. “Slim, what did Phil do for

you down in Tecomo? Phil, did Slim stand by you last April—you know the

time? Why, boys, you’re just being plain foolish. Get up, both of you,

and take a walk outside where you’ll get cooled down.”

 

Slim rose. He and Phil walked slowly toward the door, at a little

distance from each other, one eyeing the other shrewdly. At the door they

hesitated. Finally, Phil lurched forward and went out first. Slim glided

after.

 

“By heaven!” groaned Pollard as the door closed. “There goes two good

men! Kate, what put this last fool idea into your head?”

 

She did not answer for a moment, but dropped into a chair as though

suddenly exhausted.

 

“It’ll work out,” she said at length. “You wait for it!”

 

“Well,” grumbled her father, “the mischief is working. Run along to bed,

will you?”

 

She rose, wearily, and started across the room. But she turned before she

passed out of their sight and leaned against one of the pillars.

 

“Dad, why you so anxious to get me out of the way?”

 

“What d’you mean by that? I got no reason. Run along and don’t bother

me!”

 

He turned his shoulder on her. As for the girl, she remained a moment,

looking thoughtfully at the broad back of Pollard. Then her glance

shifted and dwelt a moment on Terry—with pity, he wondered?

 

“Good night, boys!”

 

When the door closed on her, Joe Pollard turned his attention more fully

on his new employee, and when Terry suggested that it was time for him to

turn in, his suggestion was hospitably put to one side. Pollard began

talking genially of the mountains, of the “varmints” he expected Terry to

clean out, and while he talked, he took out a broad silver dollar and

began flicking it in the air and catching it in the calloused palm of his

hand.

 

“Call it,” he interrupted himself to say to Terry.

 

“Heads,” said Terry carelessly.

 

The coin spun up, flickered at the height of its rise, and rang loudly on

the table.

 

“You win,” said Pollard. “Well, you’re a lucky gent, Terry, but I’ll go

you ten you can’t call it again.”

 

But again Terry called heads, and again the coin chimed, steadied, and

showed the Grecian goddess. The rancher doubled his bet. He lost,

doubled, lost again, doubled again, lost. A pile of money had appeared by

magic before Terry.

 

“I came to work for money,” laughed Terry, “not take it away.”

 

“I always lose at this game,” sighed Joe Pollard.

 

The door opened, and Phil Marvin and Slim Dugan came back, talking and

laughing together.

 

“What d’you know about that?” Pollard exclaimed softly. “She guessed

right. She always does! Oughta be a man, with a brain like she’s got.

Here we are again!”

 

He spun the coin; it winked, fell, a streak of light, and again Terry had

won. He began to grow excited. On the next throw he lost. A moment later

his little pile of winnings had disappeared. And now he had forgotten the

face of Joe Pollard, forgotten the room, forgotten everything except the

thick thumb that snapped the coin into the air. The cold, quiet passion

of the gambler grew in him. He was losing steadily. Out of his wallet

came in a steady stream the last of his winnings at Pedro’s. And still he

played. Suddenly the wallet squeezed flat between his fingers.

 

“Pollard,” he said regretfully, “I’m broke.”

 

The other waved away the idea.

 

“Break up a fine game like this because you’re broke?” The cloudy agate

eyes dwelt kindly on the face of Terry, and mysteriously as well. “That

ain’t nothing. Nothing between friends. You don’t know the style of a man

I am, Terry. Your word is as good as your money with me!”

 

“I’ve no security—”

 

“Don’t talk security. Think I’m a moneylender? This is a game. Come on!”

 

Five minutes later Terry was three hundred behind. A mysterious

providence seemed to send all the luck the way of the heavy, tanned thumb

of Pollard.

 

“That’s my limit,” he announced abruptly, rising.

 

“No, no!” Pollard spread out his big hand on the table. “You got the red

hoss, son. You can bet to a thousand. He’s worth that—to me!”

 

“I won’t bet a cent on him,” said Terry firmly.

 

“Every damn cent I’ve won from you ag’in’ the hoss, son. That’s a lot of

cash if you win. If you lose, you’re just out that much hossflesh, and

I’ll give you a good enough cayuse to take El Sangre’s place.”

 

“A dozen wouldn’t take his place,” insisted Terry.

 

“That so?”

 

Pollard leaned back in his chair and put a hand behind his neck to

support his head. It seemed to Terry that the big man made some odd

motion with his hidden fingers. At any rate, the four men who lounged on

the farther side of the room now rose and slowly drifted in different

directions. Oregon Charlie wandered toward the door. Slim sauntered to

the window behind the piano and stood idly looking out into the night.

Phil Marvin began to examine a saddle hanging from a peg on one of the

posts, and finally, chunky Marty Cardiff strolled to the kitchen door and

appeared to study the hinges.

 

All these things were done casually, but Terry, his attention finally off

the game, caught a meaning in them. Every exit was blocked for him. He

was trapped at the will of Joe Pollard!