At noon, on the day following, he stood on the top of Cheap Mountain,
gazing back into the deep, verdant cleft of Greenstream. From Cheap the
reason for its name was clear--it flowed now direct, now turning, in a
vivid green stream along the bases of its mountainous ranges; it flowed
tranquil and dark and smooth between banks of tangled saplings, matted,
multifarious underbrush, towering, venerable trees. It slipped like a
river, bearing upon its balmy surface the promise of asylum, of sleep, of
plenty, through the primitive, ruthless forest, which in turn pressed upon
it everywhere the menace of its oblivion, its fierce, strangling life.
He saw below him stretches of the steep, rocky trail by which he had
mounted with the mounting sun; both had now reached the zenith of their
day's journey; from there he would sink into the shadow, the
secretiveness, of night.... Greenstream village lay twenty-eight miles
behind; it was seventeen more to Sprucesap: he hurried forward.
In his pocket rested not the thirty dollars, to which he had limited
himself in thought, but his entire month's salary,--he might lose all by
the lack of a paltry dollar or so.
He was dressed with more care than on the day previous: he wore a dark
suit, the coat to which now swung on a stick over his shoulder, a rubber
collar, a tie of orange brocade erected on a superstructure of cardboard;
his head was covered by a hard, black felt hat, pushed back from his
sweating brow, and his trousers hung from a pair of obviously
home-knitted, yarn suspenders. He shifted the stick from right to left.
His revolver dragged chafing against a leg, and he removed it and thrust
it into a pocket of the coat.
He followed by turn an old rutted postroad and faint, forest trails, and
shortened distances by breaking through the trackless underbrush, watching
subconsciously for rattlesnakes. The sun slowly declined, its rays fell
diagonally, lengthening, through the trees; in a glade the air seemed
filled with gold dust; the sky burned in a single flame of apricot. The
air, rather than grow dark, appeared to thicken with raw color, with mauve
and ultramarine, silver and cinnabar.
When he arrived at the little, deeply-grassed plain that held Sprucesap,
it was bathed in a flaring after-glow, a magical, floating light. A double
row of board structures faced each other across a street of raw clay and
narrow, wood sidewalks; they were, for the most part, unpainted, hasty
erections of a single story. A building labelled the Steel Spud Hotel was
more pretentious. The others were eating houses, stores with small windows
filled with a threatening miscellany--revolvers, leather slung shots and
brass knuckles, besides lumbering boots, gaudy Mackinaw jackets, gleaming
knives and ammunition. Beyond the street a single car track ran
precariously over the green, and ended abruptly, without roadbed or
visible terminus; at one side was a rude platform, on the other a great
pile of bark, rotting from long exposure--the result of some artificial
condition of the market, the spite of powerful and vindictive merchants.
A second hotel stood alone, beyond the car tracks, and there Gordon
removed the marks of his journey, resettled his collar and the resplendent
tie. He felt in his coat for the revolver, in order to transfer it to a
more convenient pocket.... Its bulk, apparently, evaded his fingers. His
search quickened--it had gone! He had lost it somewhere on his long,
devious passage of Cheap Mountain. Without it he would be in the power of
any spindling gambler who faced a dishonest ace. It would be necessary to
procure another weapon before proceeding with his purpose ... ten dollars,
perhaps fifteen; revolvers were highly priced in the turbulent distant
wild. Could he afford to lose that amount from his slender store of
dollars? Intact it was absurdly inadequate. He debated the choice--on one
hand the peril of gambling unarmed, on the other his desperate need for
money. Once more he considered Clare: in the end his arrogance of manhood
brought a decision--he would preserve the money for play. He was, he
thought insolently of himself, quick as a copperhead snake, and as
dangerous. After supper he sat on the porch, twisting and consuming
cigarettes, waiting for the night.
X
Large kerosene lamps dilated by tin reflectors lit the front of the Steel
Spud. In their radiance he saw the gaily-attired form of a woman. She wore
a white hat, with a sweeping, white ostrich plume, which hid her face with
the exception of a retreating chin and prominent, carmine lips; while a
fat, unwieldy body was covered by a waist of Scotch plaid silk--lines and
squares of black and primary colors--and a short, scant skirt of blue
broadcloth that, drawn up by her knees, exposed small feet in white kid
and heavy ankles.
Gordon Makimmon paused, and she leaned forward to meet his challenging
gaze. "Just in from camp?" she inquired, in a voice hoarse, repellent,
conciliatory, and with a mechanical grimace which he identified as a
smile. He stopped at the invitation in her tones, and nodded. "And looking
for a good time," he further informed her; "perhaps a little game."
"Stop right where you are," she declared. "You've found them both." He
mounted to the porch, and shook her extended hand, cushioned with fat,
and oddly damp and lifeless. He could see her countenance now--it was
plaster white with insignificant features and rose like an amorphous
column from a swollen throat, a nose like a dab of putty, eyes obscured by
drooping, pouchy lids, leaden-hued.
"It's a good thing you seen me," she told him, endeavoring to establish a
relationship of easy confidence, "instead of them diseased Mags down the
street. Shall we have a little drink upstairs?"
"It's early," he negligently interposed; "how about a turn of the cards
first? Do you know any one who would take a hand?"
"I got my friend here, and there's a gentleman at the hotel would
accommodate us. They're inside." She rose, and moved toward the door,
waving him to follow. Her slow, clumsy body and chinless, full-lidded head
reminded him of a turtle; she gave a still deeper amphibious
impression--there was something markedly cold-blooded, inhuman, deleted,
in her incongruous, gaudy bulk--an impression of a low, primitive
organism, the subtle smell of primal mud.
"Jake!" she called at the entrance to the crude hotel office; "Jake! Mr.
Ottinger! here's a gentleman wants a little game."
Two men hastily rose and advanced toward the door. The first, Jake, was
small, with the narrow, high shoulders, the long, pale face, the long,
pale hands, of a cripple. The other, a young man with a sodden countenance
discolored by old purplish bruises, wore a misfitting suit that drew
across heavy, bowed shoulders, thick, powerful arms. He regarded Gordon
Makimmon with no light dawning upon his lowering face; no greeting
disturbed the dark, hard line of his mouth. But the other, with an
apparently hearty, stereotyped flow of words, applauded Gordon's design,
approved his qualities of sportsmanship, courage.
"Give me the man from the woods for an open-handed sport," he vociferated;
"he ain't a fool neither, he's wise to the time of night. The city crowd,
the wise ones, are the real ringside marks."
"Come up to my room," the woman directed from the foot of a stairway;
"where no amateur John Condons will tell us how to play our cards. I got
some good liquor, too."
In her room she lit a small lamp, which proved insufficient, and Mr.
Ottinger brought a second from his quarters. Gordon found himself in a
long, narrow chamber furnished with two wooden beds, two identical,
insecure bureaus, stands with wash basins and pitchers, and a table. The
floor, the walls, the ceiling, were resinous yellow pine, and gave out a
hot, dry smell from which there was no escape but the door, for the room
was without other outlet.
A preliminary drink was indispensable; and, served in two glasses and a
cracked toothbrush mug--Mr. Ottinger elected to imbibe his "straight" from
the bottle--it was drunk with mutual assurances of tender regard. "Happy
days," the woman pronounced. Only three chairs were available, and after
some shuffling, appropriate references to "honest and plain" country
accommodations, the table was ranged by a bed on which Em--"Call me Em,"
she had invited Gordon, "let's be real homelike,"--seated herself.
The smaller man ostentatiously broke the seal from a new pack of cards,
dexterously spreading them across the table. His hands, Gordon saw, were
extraordinarily supple, and emanated a sickly odor of glycerine. His
companion's were huge and misshapen, but they, too, were surprisingly
deft, quick.
"What'll it be?" Jake demanded; "Jackpots; stud; straight draw--"
"Hell, let's throw cold hands," Mr. Ottinger interrupted, "chop the
trimmings. We're here for the stuff, ain't we?" He was immediately
reprehended for his brusque, unsociable manner.
"He's got the idea, though," Gordon approved; "we're here for the stuff."
It was finally arranged that poker hands should be dealt, a draw allowed,
and the cards shown, the highest cards to take the visible money. "A
dollar a go?" Jake queried, cutting for the deal. On the bed by the
woman's side was a tarnished, silver bag, with an ornate, meretricious
clasp; her two companions produced casual rolls of paper money; and Gordon
detached five dollars from the slender amount of his wage, his paramount
capital. On a washstand, within easy reach, stood the bottle of whisky
flanked by the motley array of drinking vessels.
Gordon Makimmon's five dollars vanished in as many minutes. Oppressed by
consuming anxiety he could scarcely breathe in the close, stale air. Em
gambled with an affectation of careless indifference; she asked in an
off-hand manner for cards; paid her losses with a loud laugh. Jake
invariably gave one rapid glance at his hand, and then threw it down upon
the table without separating his discard. Mr. Ottinger, it was plain, was
superstitious--he edged his hand open by imperceptible degrees until the
denominations of the cards were visible, then hurriedly closed them from
sight; often he didn't look at his draw until all the hands were exposed.
He wrinkled his face in painful efforts of concentration, protruded a
thick and unsavory tongue. At the loose corners of Jake's mouth flecks of
saliva gathered whitely; in the fleering light of the kerosene the shadows
on his face were cobalt. The woman's face shone with drops of perspiration
that formed slowly and rolled like a flash over her plastered skin.
Another round of drinks was negotiated, adding to the fiery discomfort of
the sealed room, of the dry, dead atmosphere. Gordon won back his five
dollars, and gained five more. "Let's make it two a throw," the woman
proposed. The thickset, young man remuttered the period that they were
there for the stuff. "Otty will have his little joke," she proclaimed.
"It's not funny," he protested seriously.
"Two?" Jake demanded of Gordon. The latter nodded.