“That’s sandbaggin’. We don’t play like that in Stovepipe.”
The man from Yunt put his finger in the first man’s face. “That’s how you play the game, chickenshit. That’s poker.”
“That’s ambushin’, you mean, and it would take somebody with sawdust for brains to play like that.”
The other man straightened his back and strutted two steps sideways like a rooster. “If they hadn’t of took my Smith I’d see what was in your fool head. Prob’ly lead sinkers.”
“Aw, sit down and just call dealer’s choice if you want to sandbag,” Duggs told him.
“Or what?” the man from Stovepipe Bend demanded, drawing a pearl-handled straight razor from his coat pocket.
Everyone at the table turned toward the sound of a pistol being cocked. Sam had pressed the muzzle of his revolver behind the man’s ear. “Or you’ll get a hot pitchfork in your ass in about half a second.”
Charlie took a step away from the table. “Easy, Sam.”
“Let’s have the razor,” Sam said, and the man handed it over his shoulder, his arm the only thing moving at the table. “We gonna have any more trouble out of you?”
“No,” the man said, but even from the one syllable Sam knew that for the rest of his life he’d better never find himself in Stovepipe Bend past dark.
IN TEN MINUTES the area was again filled with hollering and the stink of homegrown tobacco. Sam and Charlie leaned against the capstan, looking back into the lighted area of gamblers and drinkers.
“You scared me for a minute back there.”
“I kind of scared myself. I should’ve hauled his ass down to the engine room.”
“Well, maybe it was that other fellow got you excited. We all tend to go downhill when someone sticks a pistol in our face. Who the hell was that?”
“One of those Skadlocks I told you about.”
“Half man, half weasel.”
“The weasel part might be right.”
FOR THE NEXT HOUR they kept in motion on the dance floor, showing their pistols and palming slapjacks. Elsie appeared again and sang “Leave Me with a Smile,” her sweet alto taming down the room and calming Sam as well. Her voice was a drink of cool water.
Toward the staggering, glass-breaking end of the trip he went back to the engine room and saw Ralph standing above two passed-out drunks, holding on to the bars, staring at all the heaving machinery.
“We’ll get to the bank in about ten minutes, and I’ll escort you off.”
“Where’s my pistol?”
“Part of my salary for a hard night.”
Skadlock’s eyes showed several worlds of pain. “You gonna law me?”
Sam put his hand on one of the bars, tempted to say he wasn’t worth the trouble, but that would only make things worse. His uncle had taught him that for some people, hard words were the same as bullets. Finally he shook his head. Then he asked, “What do you know about the trouble down in Troumal?”
“I was livin’ in Arkansas them days.”
“Do you know who did it?”
Skadlock looked away, feeling the lump on the back of his skull. “Coulda been anybody.”
“You know.”
“Why would I tell you? You couldn’t touch ’em, even nowadays.” The big backing gong went off like a detonation above his head, but he didn’t flinch.
“How did you know somebody survived?”
“I didn’t till you hauled up in our kitchen.”
“Who did it?”
Skadlock stared at the port engine as though he envied its un-touchable heat.
Sam cocked his head, imagining what he could say to make Skadlock talk. Finally, he said, “Maybe I could pay them a visit like I did you.”
At that, Ralph Skadlock’s eyes rolled sideways into jaundiced thought. After a long time he said, “It was Cloats what did it.”
The name went through him like a chill. “How do I find them?”
“Everbody around Bung City has a opinion.”
“You’re just a fountain of information.”
“Go to hell. If I was you I’d grow some eyes in the back of my head.”
Sam heard the engine bells jangle for the landing. “Who’d you sell that little girl to?”
“The devil.”
“When I find her, I’ll do my best to send the law after you. Maybe some federal law.”
“I ain’t got her. They can’t arrest me for havin’ thin air.”
“But I got a feeling you’re worse than the ones that do.”
Skadlock looked away as if offended. “I don’t know about that. I ain’t the start of your troubles. And I sure as hell didn’t deserve no dead dog.”
When the landing whistle began roaring, Sam unlocked the brig and walked him to the stage.
Skadlock pushed out the dent in his hat and settled it back on his head. “I ain’t forgot about that Dutchman.”
“That’s your trouble. You don’t forget much of anything.”
“Keep a lookout, coonass.” He started down the plank with the rest of the tipsy crowd.
Sam faked a friendly wave. “
THE SECOND MOONLIGHT TRIP was worse. Among the eighteen hundred people dawdling at the landing, two hundred or so had been drinking while they waited. After they frisked the crowd and the boat slid off into the river, the generator failed again. The band kept playing, but after a few minutes a blind volcanic brawl broke out that took half an hour to stop. The mates and several waiters and even the cooks had to wade in to separate the fighters as best they could, and the captain showed up with a megaphone and shouted that there would be no more music if the crowd didn’t calm down. The crew brought up the coal-oil lanterns and hung them, and under the smoky yellow aura the band continued playing for the reeling dancers. Sam was still breathing hard when someone called out “Fire,” and he and the first mate ran to quench a smashed lamp in the men’s toilets at the rear of the boat, beating it down with sacks until an oiler coaxed the fire hose alive.
Sam sat down on a stool by a sink, his mouth open, and watched the muddy water knock down the flames. “Son of a bitch. If that had got away from us this tub would’ve gone up like a haystack in July.”
“Get up, bud,” Swaneli told him. “I just heard a gunshot.”
On the first deck several men had started shooting at the ceiling-fan blades, and one had his arm broken by a ricochet. The three mates fought them and then hustled the banged-up men to the brig, stacking them in with five others already there.
The cafe ran out of food halfway back to the landing, and the cooks began to fill any pot that had a lid with oil and made tubs of popcorn they salted and sold cheaply to staunch the angry hunger of the drunks. The cafe register was so full of money it wouldn’t close, the people wild to buy anything, even extra salt. When Sam stepped through the door he was hit across the chest with a chair, and before he could get up a woman began screaming into his face that her friend was being raped up on the Texas roof. He took the stairs two at a time to a dark open area where passengers were not allowed and saw men in overalls hoist a yowling, half-naked man over their heads and throw him off the boat. Sam looked down and saw a white scissoring motion in the water, headed
