Journeyman (11 page)

“What do you figure it’s worth?”

“About fifty dollars like it stands now.”

“Fifty dollars!” Clay said, shaking his head. “It’s bound to be worth more than that. A heap more than that.”

“What makes it bound to be?”

“I’ve only had it a year now, and I paid four hundred dollars for it in McGuffin.”

“They might have cheated you,” Semon said, turning once more to inspect the rear end of the automobile.

Clay shook his head. He valued his car at far more than the price Semon had set upon it.

“It’s worth a hundred, if it’s worth a dime,” he said. “I couldn’t take less. I’d be cheating myself if I did.”

“Well, being as it’s you, Horey,” Semon said, “I’ll say it’s worth that. How about you, Tom?”

Tom nodded.

“It’s a God-damned sight better than that car of mine out front there,” Semon said. “And mine ain’t hardly worth the junk that’s in it. I reckon a hundred for yours wouldn’t be any too much to place on it, being as it’s you.”

Semon took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He unloosened his collar and smoothed back his black hair that hung over his forehead like a horse’s trimmed mane.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m rearing to go, coz. When I get set shooting crap, I can’t be satisfied till the game has run through everything like a dose of salts.”

Clay squatted lower on his heels.

“I’m ninety-nine in it,” he said. “Is that right?”

“That’s right, Horey. Now hold on to your seat. I don’t want to have to halt the game while you stop and figure every time how many times you’re in the machine. See if you can’t keep up with the game.”

He warmed the dice in the palm of his hand, shaking them until they clicked like a swiftly running clock. He jerked his hand down, pulling the dice out of the air, and hurled them to the ground with all his might. They all bent forward watching the spinning dice come to a stop on the hard white sand.

“Grab that left ball of yours, Horey!” Semon shouted. “It won’t do you no good to pull the right one, because that’s the one I’m squeezing.”

C
LAY’S SHIRT AND HAIR
were wet with perspiration. The sun was sinking behind the barn, and the shadows were long; but Clay could not keep from sweating. Across from him, only three feet away, Semon Dye looked as cool as the early morning dew.

Semon had said nothing for a long time. He sat lower on his heels, and the seat of his pants scraped the ground each time he moved. He had become accustomed to his position.

Against the brick chimney Tom sat watching them with not a word to say. He had long before lost everything he had with him, and his pockets were empty.

“Looks like something’s wrong,” Clay said desperately. “It don’t look like I ought to lose right straight along as fast as the dice drop.”

Semon clicked the dice, shaking them in the cupped palm of his hand, and paid no attention to Clay. He had not even heard what Clay had been saying for the past hour.

Clay was down to his last lone dollar. Semon had been doubling and redoubling. Clay could not understand how a whole hundred dollars could pass out of his hands that fast, and leave nothing behind to show for it. It was more money than he usually cleared on a year’s farming.

Semon won the next pot, as usual. There was nothing Clay could do to stop his winning.

“I’m going to give you a chance to win your car back, Horey,” Semon told him coldly. “I don’t like for any son of a bitch to say that I walked out of the game the winner, and wouldn’t give the loser a chance to get even. I’m not that kind of a crap shooter.”

“Maybe I’d just better quit,” Clay said. “Luck looks like it’s against me all around today. I ain’t never lost like this before in all my life. I’ve won a little, three or four dollars, and I’ve lost a little, maybe four or five; but I ain’t never gone through all I owned before like this.”

“It’s tough on you, Horey; but you can’t argue with the dice. What they say is the way it’s meant to be. Ain’t no use swearing at the dice, either. If you put up a stake, you have got to take your chances of losing as well as winning.”

“Maybe I’d do better next time. Looks like it ain’t no use to keep it up now. I’d only be losing everything in the world.”

Semon picked up the dice.

“I want you to have a chance to get even,” he insisted, “I can’t walk out of a game without giving the loser that last chance at luck.”

“I don’t want it, though. I ain’t got a thing left to put up, for one thing. And if I had it, it wouldn’t be no use today, because I haven’t done a doggone thing but lose all the way through.”

“You’re going to take it, anyhow,” Semon stated, looking at him through the slits of his leather-tight face. “You’re going to take that last chance to get even, Horey.”

Clay started to get up. He felt a hand pushing him down again. He looked at Semon. Semon’s revolver had been pulled from his pocket, and it was laid on the ground between his feet.

“I know when I’m licked,” Clay protested.

“You’re going to throw the dice one more time, Horey. I’m set on having you take loser’s chance to come even.”

Clay glanced at Tom, but he could find no help there. Tom lowered his eyes and contemplated the bulldog pistol between Semon’s feet, and refused to meet Clay’s gaze. He did not wish to take sides in the matter. He was afraid of Semon. After having lost his four dollars. he was through.

“Maybe I would take that last chance,” Clay agreed, “but I ain’t got a thing in the world to put up to stake me. I’m cleaned out—lock, stock, and barrel.”

“You can put up this farm. That’s a fair bargain against the car, and this thirty or forty dollars, and the watch. Your farm ain’t worth much more than all that to you. And if you win, everything will be yours, including all this green money. You’d even get your watch back.”

“That’s Dene’s daddy’s watch,” Clay said.

“I don’t give a good God-damn who’s it was. It’s mine now, and you’re going to shake the dice for it.”

“I couldn’t put up the plowland,” Clay said.

“Why couldn’t you put it up?”

“The bank in McGuffin holds a mortgage on it.”

Semon thought a while. He had not known the place was mortgaged. He had to think quickly.

“You’ve got one thing more to stake, Horey.”

“What’s that?”

“Dene,” he said, nodding at the weather-beaten side of the house.

Clay laughed, but his laughter turned after a moment to a deep frown. He shook his head.

“No,” he said doggedly.

“The hell you say!” Semon shouted. “You’ll do it, or I’ll blow your God-damn brains to kingdom come!”

He grabbed up the revolver, cocking it with a jerk of his stiff thumb.

“Now, wait a minute, folks,” Tom broke in. “Now, just wait a minute.”

Semon turned the pistol on Tom. Tom sat down again.

“No sir-ree bob!” Clay said firmly. “Now I know I ain’t going to throw the dice no more.”

Semon pointed the pistol at his head.

“You’re going to do it, or the chickens will be around here in another minute pecking at your brains.”

“Why, you must be joking, Semon,” Clay said frantically. “You don’t mean that about making me stake Dene, do you?”

“God damn it, yes!” Semon said, shoving the gun forward. “I mean just what I say, and no more.”

“You ain’t satisfied with just my car and Dene’s daddy’s watch and Tom’s money?”

“You heard me, Horey. I’m telling you to take your chance of breaking even. This’ll be the last throw of the dice. I’ll take everything, or nothing. If you win, we’ll all lose to you.”

“I don’t like to dispute you, Semon, but I can’t stake Dene.”

“All right then, Horey. I’ve warned you what I’ll do if you don’t. If you get up from there without throwing the dice, I’ll blast your guts to hell and back, and I don’t mean maybe.”

Clay looked frantically to Tom for help. But there was no help from that quarter. Tom looked afraid to take up for him. He did not have a gun, and Semon did.

“I’ll be tickled to death to stake Lorene,” Clay said hopefully.

“You can’t stake something that don’t belong to you. Lorene’s not your wife. But Dene is. You’ve got to stake Dene.”

“Why won’t Lorene do just as well?”

“I told you why once. She’s not your wife. She don’t belong to you, but Dene does.”

“She used to,” Clay said. “That’s the same thing. She’s my fourth wife.”

“Nothing but present wives count in this game. You can’t put up something that don’t belong to you. Ain’t that right, Tom?”

They both turned eagerly to Tom. Tom glanced from one to the other; he wished to take up for Clay, but he could not ignore the revolver in Semon’s hand. He shook his head.

“I really can’t say,” he replied. “You folks will just have to fight it out among yourselves. I ain’t in the game now.”

“Ain’t I right?” Semon insisted, turning the gun upon him.

“Yes, you’re right, preacher,” Tom said slowly.

“All right now,” Semon said, turning back to Clay. “Put her up.”

“Go get her?”

“No. Leave her be. Just put her up.”

“How can I do that?”

“Say she’s in the pot.”

“You won’t let me put Lorene in there instead?”

“You heard me, you tow-headed son of a bitch! I said put Dene up.”

Clay squirmed in his clothes. The perspiration oozed more freely from his skin. Water dripped from his wrists and from the point of his nose.

“What do you aim to do with her if you win her?”

“That wouldn’t be none of your God-damn business,” Semon said flatly. “That’s for me to know.”

“You wouldn’t take her off with you, would you?”

“I’d do with her as I damned pleased. She’d belong to me then. If you win your car back, wouldn’t you do as you pleased with it? Well, I’d do what I wanted to with Dene. She’d be mine.”

While they were arguing, Tom reached forward for the dice to examine them more closely than he had the first time. He almost had his hand on them when Semon happened to glance down and see him. Without a moment’s hesitation he fired the cocked pistol at Tom’s hand. He had not taken good aim, and the bullet missed Tom. Before he had a chance to fire again, Tom jumped back out of the way.

“I swear before God I didn’t mean no harm, preacher!” Tom begged.

“If you make another pass for those dice, it’ll be your head you’ll be reaching for. I’ll shoot it off your frame if you make another pass like that.”

Tom sank against the chimney, assuring Semon that he would not attempt to get the dice again.

“Those dice don’t happen to be loaded, by any chance, do they, preacher?” he said.

Semon glared at him.

“You mind your own business, and I’ll mind mine.”

He handed the dice to Clay.

“It’s your turn,” he said. “I wouldn’t cheat a man out of his turn when it came due. Shake those dice, Horey, and throw hell out of them.”

“For all the stakes?”

“For everything,” he replied, nodding.

Clay glanced at the dice in his hand. The weight of them puzzled him, but he did not have the nerve to test them for over-balance. He shook them in his right hand, listening to the click they made when they came together.

“Throw them, Horey,” Semon ordered.

“Is Dene in the pot?”

Semon nodded impatiently.

“She’s your stage.”

“All of her at one time?”

“Everything on one turn of the dice. Winner takes everything there is to take.”

He began piling the silver and greenbacks on the ground within the circle.

“I swear to God; I don’t want to do this,” Clay said desperately.

“Just think how good you’ll feel if you win the pot and all the stakes, Horey. Good God, you’ll have everything back, and my thirty or forty dollars to boot!”

“I don’t care about your money, just so I could have Dene and the car.”

“All right then. Throw the dice and see what turns up. Somebody is going to be the winner.” A moment later he added: “And somebody is going to be the loser. It always happens like that.”

Clay threw the dice on the ground with trembling fingers. When he opened his eyes, an eight lay face up.

“Now, get down and work for it,” Semon said. “That’s your number. Now, work for it, Horey.”

Clay threw the second time. A five turned up. He began to sweat all over again.

“Get those dice hot, Horey,” Semon shouted. He was down on his hands and knees, his face only a few inches from the ground.

The next number was a six. Clay’s face began to turn white, and the perspiration felt as cold as ice when it trickled down his neck and chest. It made him shiver in the heat.

His hand was raised over his head. He was getting ready to throw the dice for the last time.

“What’s my point?” he asked Semon.

“Eight’s your point, Horey. Try and make it!”

Clay threw the dice, closing his eyes when they left his hand. He was afraid to look.

There was an interval of silence. Even Semon had not spoken. The dice lay on the hard white sand between them.

“Do you win?” Clay asked weakly.

He opened his eyes for the first time and looked at the circle before him. The number was seven.

“Do I win!” Semon repeated. “Do I win! What the hell is this, anyway? Of course to hell I win! You didn’t throw the eight, did you? Well, eight was the point you were trying for. I reckon I do win!”

Clay was on his hands and knees before him.

“What do you aim to do?”

“With what?”

“With the car, and with—with—”

“The first thing I’m going to do is to walk out to that shed yonder and take a look at my new automobile. I’ve been needing a new car for about a year now. That pile of rattles out there in front of the house will make a good dump for a gully-wash. Drag it out to one of your gullies and heave it in, Horey. It’ll keep your plowland from washing away the next time there’s a thunderstorm.”

Tom got up and moved towards the front yard. He went around the corner of the house and walked hurriedly to his car beside the magnolia tree. He had started the motor and was on his way home before either Clay or Semon had realized it.

Semon replaced the revolver in his pocket. The dice went into his coat pocket. Clay stood watching him, feeling the dead weight of his hands and arms hanging at his sides. When Semon had finished brushing his clothes, he walked to the shed beside the barn. Clay followed in his tracks.