Dead Man's Poker Read online

  Justa shook his head. He said, “That don’t make no sense! All right, I ain’t seen it, but let’s just say you got a cathouse and saloon and casino that is the toast of Texas. Del Rio is still a hell of a long way from Galveston. And they got some pretty good cathouses in Galveston, though I don’t know about gambling casinos.”

  “He always said he was on his way to Mexico. Shipping business.”

  Justa said, “Well, goddam, Will, there are quicker ways to Mexico from Galveston than going up north to Del Rio, which is at least three hundred miles from the damn ocean.”

  “I don’t know.” I said. “Man just told me his business took him to the ports in Mexico to grease matters, ports like Tampico and Vera Cruz. I reckoned he was going down there to spread some money around amongst the different officials to speed matters up when he was shipping goods down there.”

  Justa said, “That still don’t explain Del Rio. You must have a hell of an establishment to drag a man that far out of his way. Hell, he can take a train direct from Galveston to Laredo to Monterrey to Tampico. Del Rio is way out of his way. Even after he’s there, he’s got to take the train 150 miles south to Laredo just to get back to where he ought to have been in the first place.”

  I said, “I never asked the man. He usually come in with a couple of associates, and they spent a lot of money and didn’t cause no trouble. Just because the man didn’t have a good head for geography wasn’t no reason for me to throw him out.”

  Justa sighed. He got out his watch. He said, “Hell, it’s seven o’clock. You got to eat some supper. You feel like going down to the dining room, or you want me to have them bring it up here?”

  I was thinking of just laying back. I said, “Tell you the truth I think I’d rather just take a little rest. I—”

  Justa said, “Hell, no! Dr. Adams left word you was to eat and eat plenty. You are going to eat a steak if I got to cram it down you.”

  I said, “Me and Dr. Adams is going to have to have a little talk here pretty soon. I ain’t sure he ain’t done me more damage than the gunshot.”

  He reached out and picked up the little bottle of laudanum and held it up to the light to see how much was missing. When he seen it was still full he said, “You must not be hurting.”

  I said, “Oh, I don’t reckon you want to trade places with me right now. I expect you’d have tears in your eyes.”

  He gestured with the little bottle. He said, “This is good stuff. You might ought to take a couple of tablespoonfuls. Give you some rest from the pain.”

  I said, “Oh, I’ve taken it. Used it once when I’d been shot three or four times. I forget how many.”

  He gave me just the slightest trace of a smile. He got up. He said, “I’ll go get us a meal sent up. You want that iced tea you like or you want a cold beer with your steak?”

  I said, “This town got a icehouse? Wooo ha!”

  He said, “Hell, we even got a bank. Ain’t got no money in it, though, since somebody robbed it a few years back.”

  I said, “Any man that would put his money in a bank is foolish in the first place. Why you reckon all them crooks rob banks? It’s because they got the money gathered up there.”

  He went out, and I laid back so as to get what rest I could before I had to eat steak. Hell, I didn’t even know how I was going to be able to cut the damn thing. If I moved my left arm, my side let me know about it, and I was already doing a pretty good job of hurting, though I hadn’t wanted to let on to Justa about it. I glanced over at the little bottle of laudanum and considered it, but the idea that I’d give in to the pain would give Justa more ammunition than he needed.

  He was back in about half an hour with three hired hands helping him. One was carrying a fair-sized table that I figured we were going to eat off of, and the other two were carrying trays with our supper on them. While they were getting us set up, Justa pulled the two straight-backed wooden chairs over to the table, setting them opposite each other. He said, to me, “You need help getting over here?”

  I heaved myself off the bed, using my right leg and right side for most of the work. I said, “I reckon I can manage it.”

  I pulled my chair out with my right hand and sat down and looked at my plate. Somebody had already cut my steak up for me. I looked up at Justa. There was faint amusement in his eyes. He said, “I taken notice you weren’t just all that spry with your left arm, so I asked the cook if he could help out an invalid.”

  I didn’t say anything, just kind of stared back at him. I waited.

  He looked puzzled. He said, “What?”

  I said, “Ain’t you going to ask grace? Man with your sense of humor ought to get in a little praying ever’ chance he gets.”

  He laughed. He said, “Wasn’t me that got shot by some tinhorn gambler with no little bitty pistol. Now you want to talk about who needs to pray?”

  They’d brought me a pitcher of iced tea, but it wasn’t right. I could see they didn’t know the first thing about making iced tea, because there wasn’t any lemons or sliced limes or even any sugar. But I made do with it without comment, not being one to complain.

  We had the steak along with a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy and some sliced tomatoes. In that country, that far south, they could damn near grow crops all year round, especially with the warm sea breeze.

  We finished up, and then had a drink and lit up cigarillos. Justa was studying me. He said, “You are looking a mite peaked. I reckon I better get out of here and let you get to bed.”

  “What time is it?” My watch was in my frock coat.

  He said, “Going on for nine.” He got up. “I’m going to stay here in the hotel tonight. I’ll come around about eight in the morning to see if you feel up to making it for breakfast.”

  My side was throbbing like hell, and I was just wanting him to get out of there so I could lay down. But I said, “Oh, I reckon I’ll be able to make it. Of course you might want to get there early and get the cook to cut up my eggs for me.”

  He said, “Way you’re acting, I might have to. Hell, it ain’t like you was actually hurt. You just got a little bitty hole in you. I’ve seen men hurt worse than that finish out the day’s work and then go out dancin’.”

  I pulled on my cigarillo and said, “Say, am I going to have the honor of seeing Mrs. Williams while I’m stopping in your fair city?”

  He said, “I don’t see why not. Why?”

  I looked at the glowing end of my little cigar. I said, “Oh, I just wanted to get it set in my mind not to mention anything about dancing girls. Didn’t want to slip and mention a girl by the name of Lupita in front of the missus. Man had got to protect his friends.” I give him a righteous look that would have done credit to a Baptist preacher.

  For a second or so he just stared at me. I swear his face started getting red. He opened his mouth. He said, “Wilson Young, you better—You son of a bitch, you wouldn’t do something like—” He stopped. After another few seconds he said, “You better not be threatening me like that.”

  “I wasn’t threatening you. I didn’t hear nobody in this room say anything about threatening you.”

  By now he was red in the face. He said, “Look here, you know as well as I do that nothing—nothing—ever happened between me and that girl. From the dead-level first I said I was a married man, and you know I said that. Now, didn’t you hear me say that?”

  I lifted the palm of my right hand upwards. I said, “I ain’t trying to cause no trouble. I was just cautioning us to be careful what we said about that situation around your missus. After all, you did have your britches off in front of Lupita. And Evita, too, for that matter. And you don’t favor underwear.”

  He had hold of the doorknob, and I thought he was going to squeeze it off. He said, “Goddammit, Wilson, you know that was innocent, you know the facts of that particular matter.”

  I said, “I know you had your pants off and you wasn’t wearing no underwear and they was two young girls right there with you.
Correct me if them ain’t the facts.”

  “Aw, hell!” he said. He jerked open the door. Before he left, he said, “I ought to take that laudanum and your brandy and just leave you here to suffer tonight.”

  I said, “Go ahead, I won’t need it. Won’t hear no moaning from me like I heard from a certain party down in Del Rio over a little piddling nothing.”

  He went out without another word and slammed the door after him. I had to laugh. It was pretty hard to get under Justa’s skin, but I’d got him pretty good. But, if the truth be told, he had a right to hurrah me about my wound on account of the way I’d treated him in Del Rio. In the gunfight we’d got in, he’d had a slug take all the flesh off his right hip and expose the hip bone. Then he’d had to sit in the saddle for an hour during the ride back to my ranch house. Then he’d had to put up with the indignity of having to let me help him out of the saddle and into the house. After that the girls had nearly had to fight him to get his pants down so they could look at his wound. Evita, my woman, was pretty good with them herb cures, and she was determined he was in for a little doctoring, even if it did mean his pants had to come down. He put up a pretty good fight, but he was weak from loss of blood and the shock of being shot. So he finally gave in. But, of course, there was all kinds of ways to tell a story.

  Naturally I’d given him a hard time about the whole matter, claiming he was carrying on over nothing. I told him I’d seen men get hurt worse than that getting a haircut.

  Wasn’t no sense to it; this was just the way we carried on with one another.

  After Justa was gone, I turned off the lamp and worked my pants off and then laid down. Only way I could rest was on my back, which ain’t my natural way of sleeping, but I was just grateful to be able to stretch out. It was cool in the room but not cool enough to need any covers other than the sheet. As tired as I was, I figured to go right on off to sleep. It didn’t, however, work that way. As soon as everything got still and quiet, my side got to throbbing so bad I could damn near hear it. All in all I spent a pretty bad night. On several occasions I took a good pull of brandy, but it didn’t help all that much. I thought of the laudanum, but I was too stubborn to use it. I was going to return that bottle full to the doctor or die in the attempt. Besides, every time the temptation came on me, I just took some brandy, knowing I couldn’t mix the two.

  It seemed to me that I felt feverish even though the doctor had said it was too soon for sepsis, or whatever fancy name he gave infection. Why couldn’t he just say infection instead of throwing in names that nobody knew unless they’d read the same book as him?

  I did doze off and on, but it was still a pretty long night. I saw the light of dawn and was glad, but I didn’t see it long, because it was about that time that my side decided to let up on me and I dropped into a heavy sleep.

  I come awake to a pounding on the door. I opened my eyes just as it opened. It was Justa. He said, “Hell, we just rent these rooms by the day, not by the day and a half. It’s nine o’clock. You planning on getting up? Dr. Adams needs to see you after breakfast. He’s got to go out of town this afternoon and tend to a man that is really hurt.”

  I got up slowly. My side, bless its heart, was not throbbing, but I felt stiff from the waist up. I sat around on the side of the bed. My pants were on the floor. I went to bend over and get them, but had to straighten back up on account of how dizzy I got all of a sudden.

  Justa walked over and picked them up and put them in my hands. He said, “Now look at who ain’t got no britches on. And who don’t favor underwear. You going to feel like going to the dining room or you want to be mollycoddled up here in bed?”

  I said, “I been up since dawn. Waiting on you. I’ve dressed and undressed twice.”

  “You’re a liar,” he said, “I’ve checked on you three times since seven o’clock. Only banged on the door this time so you’d have to wake up. I’ve already had four cups of coffee, seen Dr. Adams, saw my brother Norris over at the bank, and arranged for a horse and buggy. How’d you sleep?”

  “Just fine,” I said. I had managed to get hold of my boots, but I wasn’t in no hurry to try and pull them on.

  Justa went over to the bedside table and picked up the bottle of laudanum and looked at it. Then he unscrewed the top and smelled it. He said, “What’d you fill this back up with?”

  I said, “Huh! I ain’t touched it. I don’t moan and groan and take on over some little scratch like some people I could name. Hell, go ahead and taste it if you don’t believe me.”

  And damned if the son of a bitch didn’t. He tilted the bottle and got a little on the end of his finger and then touched it to his tongue. He looked all kinds of disappointed. But he said, “You need some help with those boots?”

  I’d got the right one on, but it was difficult with the other because I didn’t dare pull with my left arm. But I finally got it about half on and then stomped it on the rest of the way. I stood up and went over to the wash stand and poured some water in the bowl and washed off my face with my right hand and then did what I could about my teeth. I needed a shave, but I wasn’t going to attempt it. My side still wasn’t hurting all that bad, but I wasn’t going to rile it up and get it started. I said, “I reckon I owe myself a barbershop shave.”

  Justa said, “Ha!”

  I picked up one of the new shirts that Wayne had brought me and got it unbuttoned. In the mirror over the washstand I’d seen that no blood had seeped through the bandages that Dr. Adams had put on. Either all the blood in me had run out or my wounds had clotted.

  I got my right arm through the proper arm of the shirt, but Justa had to come over and help me with the left. He didn’t say anything, which was kind of surprising.

  I picked up my gunbelt, contemplated it, and then dropped it back on the bed. Justa said, “I don’t reckon you’ll need that here.”

  When I had my hat on, we went on into the dining room. It was empty, of course, but I guess when you own the place, you can have breakfast anytime you want it. I drank some coffee, and then they brought us each a big plate of bacon and eggs. My side was loosening up some, but the going was still difficult. While we were eating, I asked Justa what he had the horse and buggy for.

  He said, “To carry you out to the ranch. I know you can’t sit a horse, and a buckboard would be too rough on you. Dr. Adams said you might as well be out there as bothering him here in town.”

  I said, “Hell, Justa, I never meant to fall in on you like some grubline rider. I can make it here in the hotel. I need to be getting on, anyway.”

  He said, firmly, “That ain’t what Dr. Adams says, and I reckon he knows more about doctoring than you do. Though I figure you’ll want to argue that point with him. He says you need to rest for at least a week. You did get shot, you know.”

  “So you’re going to put me in a buggy just to shame me. That the idea?”

  “No. In spite of the fact I’d like to drag you behind my horse for them remarks about them girls, I am going to carry you in a buggy with good springs so you don’t start bleeding again. I hear you’ve already ruined one set of sheets at the hotel, and you do that to one of my wife’s sheets, and she’ll say to you, that’s all right and don’t think nothing about it, and then she’ll kill me.”

  I hated to intrude on his hospitality, but I reckoned it was for the best. In spite of my brave talk, I knew I was going to be laid up somewhere for a time, and it might just as well be that much closer to my target. As soon as the doc was finished with me, I’d figured on going on back to Mexico and healing up at my own ranch house, but I wasn’t averse to a little socializing with Justa and his family. We did not, after all, know each other that well, though a stranger, listening to us getting at each other, would figure we’d tumbled out of the same crib.

  Of course we had sober moments. We never made light of serious matters.

  We went directly from breakfast over to Dr. Adams’ office. Fortunately it wasn’t but a walk of a short block. The doctor showed
us into his examining room and then helped me off with my shirt and told me to get up on a little bedlike table. He asked if the laudanum he’d brought over had helped.

  Right then Justa said, “He never used it. Said he didn’t need it.”

  I give him a look that should have fried his brains. Dr. Adams just said, pleasantly, “Oh, is that right? I guess that means the wound’s not sore, and I won’t have to be careful while I treat it.”

  I give Justa another look, but he was leaning up against the wall and looking as pleased with himself as a cat with cream on its whiskers.

  Dr. Adams took the bandage off, and that part was all right. Then he pulled out the tents, and that didn’t do much more than make me wince a little. But then he went to probing around again, and I had to start in to gritting my teeth. He said, “I hear you’ll be going out to the Williams ranch. Well, that’s just as well. This thing will either get infected or it won’t. If it does, they got plenty of room out there to bury you. If it don’t, you won’t need me.”

  And all this time he’s talking, he’s digging around inside me until I near about want to weep like a baby. He said, “Closing up a little too fast on the outside. Need to debride that a little. That doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  Naturally I had to shake my head no. Behind me Justa let out a little laugh.

  The doctor said, “You’ve clotted up nice. Was very little blood on that dressing I put on last night. You shouldn’t bleed anymore unless you wrench it around. I’m going to put another drain in each wound. Justa, you can jerk them out in a couple of days. Then just put on a clean bandage.”

  I don’t reckon he shoved those drains into me more than a foot and a half. If he’d gone any further, it might have hurt. But he finally got through just before I passed out. He wrapped another bandage around my chest, charged me ten dollars, and said I was free to go. I said, “Hell, Doc, I got to you on that one. I’d’ve given a hundred to get out of here.”