The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
everybody, the celluloid good-fellowship that passes for ivory with nine
in ten of the city crowd. But not so with the sons of the sagebrush.
They live nearer nature, and they know better.
But the Virginian blandly accepted “old man” from his victim: he had a
game to play. “Well, I cert’nly thank yu’,” he said. “After a while I’ll
take advantage of your kind offer.”
I was surprised. Possession being nine points of the law, it seemed
his very chance to intrench himself in the bed. But the cow-puncher
had planned a campaign needing no intrenchments. Moreover, going to bed
before nine o’clock upon the first evening in many weeks that a town’s
resources were open to you, would be a dull proceeding. Our entire
company, drummer and all, now walked over to the store, and here my
sleeping arrangements were made easily. This store was the cleanest
place and the best in Medicine Bow, and would have been a good store
anywhere, offering a multitude of things for sale, and kept by a very
civil proprietor. He bade me make myself at home, and placed both of his
counters at my disposal. Upon the grocery side there stood a cheese too
large and strong to sleep near comfortably, and I therefore chose the
dry-goods side. Here thick quilts were unrolled for me, to make it soft;
and no condition was placed upon me, further than that I should remove
my boots, because the quilts were new, and clean, and for sale. So
now my rest was assured. Not an anxiety remained in my thoughts. These
therefore turned themselves wholly to the other man’s bed, and how he
was going to lose it.
I think that Steve was more curious even than myself. Time was on the
wing. His bet must be decided, and the drinks enjoyed. He stood against
the grocery counter, contemplating the Virginian. But it was to me that
he spoke. The Virginian, however, listened to every word.
“Your first visit to this country?”
I told him yes.
“How do you like it?”
I expected to like it very much.
“How does the climate strike you?”
I thought the climate was fine.
“Makes a man thirsty though.”
This was the sub-current which the Virginian plainly looked for. But he,
like Steve, addressed himself to me.
“Yes,” he put in, “thirsty while a man’s soft yet. You’ll harden.”
“I guess you’ll find it a drier country than you were given to expect,”
said Steve.
“If your habits have been frequent that way,” said the Virginian.
“There’s parts of Wyoming,” pursued Steve, “where you’ll go hours and
hours before you’ll see a drop of wetness.”
“And if yu’ keep a-thinkin’ about it,” said the Virginian, “it’ll seem
like days and days.”
Steve, at this stroke, gave up, and clapped him on the shoulder with a
joyous chuckle. “You old son-of-a!” he cried affectionately.
“Drinks are due now,” said the Virginian. “My treat, Steve. But I reckon
your suspense will have to linger a while yet.”
Thus they dropped into direct talk from that speech of the fourth
dimension where they had been using me for their telephone.
“Any cyards going to-night?” inquired the Virginian.
“Stud and draw,” Steve told him. “Strangers playing.”
“I think I’d like to get into a game for a while,” said the Southerner.
“Strangers, yu’ say?”
And then, before quitting the store, he made his toilet for this little
hand at poker. It was a simple preparation. He took his pistol from its
holster, examined it, then shoved it between his overalls and his shirt
in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing
his hair for all the attention any one paid to this, except myself. Then
the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which
Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the shoulder.
Clearly this wild country spoke a language other than mine--the word
here was a term of endearment. Such was my conclusion.
The drummers had finished their dealings with the proprietor, and they
were gossiping together in a knot by the door as the Virginian passed
out.
“See you later, old man!” This was the American drummer accosting his
prospective bed-fellow.
“Oh, yes,” returned the bed-fellow, and was gone.
The American drummer winked triumphantly at his brethren. “He’s all
right,” he observed, jerking a thumb after the Virginian. “He’s easy.
You got to know him to work him. That’s all.”
“Und vat is your point?” inquired the German drummer.
“Point is--he’ll not take any goods off you or me; but he’s going to
talk up the killer to any consumptive he runs across. I ain’t done with
him yet. Say,” (he now addressed the proprietor), “what’s her name?”
“Whose name?”
“Woman runs the eating-house.”
“Glen. Mrs. Glen.”
“Ain’t she new?”
“Been settled here about a month. Husband’s a freight conductor.”
“Thought I’d not seen her before. She’s a good-looker.”
“Hm! Yes. The kind of good looks I’d sooner see in another man’s wife
than mine.”
“So that’s the gait, is it?”
“Hm! well, it don’t seem to be. She come here with that reputation. But
there’s been general disappointment.”
“Then she ain’t lacked suitors any?”
“Lacked! Are you acquainted with cow-boys?”
“And she disappointed ’em? Maybe she likes her husband?”
“Hm! well, how are you to tell about them silent kind?”
“Talking of conductors,” began the drummer. And we listened to his
anecdote. It was successful with his audience; but when he launched
fluently upon a second I strolled out. There was not enough wit in
this narrator to relieve his indecency, and I felt shame at having been
surprised into laughing with him.
I left that company growing confidential over their leering stories,
and I sought the saloon. It was very quiet and orderly. Beer in quart
bottles at a dollar I had never met before; but saving its price, I
found no complaint to make of it. Through folding doors I passed from
the bar proper with its bottles and elk head back to the hall with its
various tables. I saw a man sliding cards from a case, and across the
table from him another man laying counters down. Near by was a second
dealer pulling cards from the bottom of a pack, and opposite him a
solemn old rustic piling and changing coins upon the cards which lay
already exposed.
But now I heard a voice that drew my eyes to the far corner of the room.
“Why didn’t you stay in Arizona?”
Harmless looking words as I write them down here. Yet at the sound of
them I noticed the eyes of the others directed to that corner. What
answer was given to them I did not hear, nor did I see who spoke. Then
came another remark.
“Well, Arizona’s no place for amatures.”
This time the two card dealers that I stood near began to give a part of
their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There was in me a
desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine Bow had seemed
to glide beneath a sunshine of merriment, of easy-going jocularity. This
was suddenly gone, like the wind changing to north in the middle of a
warm day. But I stayed, being ashamed to go.
Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where
counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one
seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and betting
between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were new faces.
“No place for amatures,” repeated the voice; and now I saw that it was
the dealer’s. There was in his countenance the same ugliness that his
words conveyed.
“Who’s that talkin’?” said one of the men near me, in a low voice.
“Trampas.”
“What’s he?”
“Cow-puncher, bronco-buster, tin-horn, most anything.”
“Who’s he talkin’ at?”
“Think it’s the black-headed guy he’s talking at.”
“That ain’t supposed to be safe, is it?”
“Guess we’re all goin’ to find out in a few minutes.”
“Been trouble between ’em?”
“They’ve not met before. Trampas don’t enjoy losin’ to a stranger.”
“Fello’s from Arizona, yu’ say?”
“No. Virginia. He’s recently back from havin’ a look at Arizona. Went
down there last year for a change. Works for the Sunk Creek outfit.” And
then the dealer lowered his voice still further and said something
in the other man’s ear, causing him to grin. After which both of them
looked at me.
There had been silence over in the corner; but now the man Trampas spoke
again.
“AND ten,” said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange
it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal
taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. He might have been deaf.
“AND twenty,” said the next player, easily.
The next threw his cards down.
It was now the Virginian’s turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did
not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a--.”
The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding
it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded
almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so
that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders
to the man Trampas: “When you call me that, SMILE.” And he looked at
Trampas across the table.
Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the
bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large
room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware
of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts,
I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting
their positions.
“Sit quiet,” said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me. “Can’t you
see he don’t want to push trouble? He has handed Trampas the choice to
back down or draw his steel.”
Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of its
strangeness. Voices and cards, the click of chips, the puff of tobacco,
glasses lifted to drink,--this level of smooth relaxation hinted no more
plainly of what lay beneath than does the surface tell the depth of the
sea.
For Trampas had made his choice. And that choice was not to “draw his
steel.” If it was knowledge that he sought, he had found it, and no
mistake! We heard no further reference to what he had been pleased
to style “amatures.” In no company would the black-headed man who had
visited Arizona be rated a novice at the cool art of self-preservation.
One doubt remained: what kind of a man was Trampas? A public back-down
is an unfinished thing,--for some natures at least. I looked at his
face, and thought it sullen, but tricky rather than courageous.
Something had been added to my knowledge also. Once again I had heard
applied to the Virginian that epithet which Steve so freely used. The
same words, identical to the letter. But this time they had produced a
pistol. “When you call me that, SMILE!” So I perceived a new example of
the old truth, that the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it
life.
III. STEVE TREATS
It was for several minutes, I suppose, that I stood drawing these silent
morals. No man occupied himself with me. Quiet voices, and games of
chance, and glasses lifted to drink, continued to be the peaceful order
of the night. And into my thoughts broke the voice of that card-dealer
who had already spoken so sagely. He also took his turn at moralizing.
“What did I tell you?” he remarked to the man for whom he continued to
deal, and who continued to lose money to him.
“Tell me when?”
“Didn’t I tell you he’d not shoot?” the dealer pursued with complacence.
“You got ready to dodge. You had no call to be concerned. He’s not the
kind a man need feel anxious about.”
The player looked over at the Virginian, doubtfully. “Well,” he said, “I
don’t know what you folks call a dangerous man.”
“Not him!” exclaimed the dealer with admiration. “He’s a brave man.
That’s different.”