bought her six times in five days-after which, being ashamed of his extravagance, if not his lust, he abstained for two weeks. It was a happy convenience having Lorie in the place, and a fine change from his wife, Therese, who had been stingy with her favors and a bully to boot. Once Therese had denied him anything resembling a favor for a period of four months, which, for a man of Xavier's temperament, was a painful thing. He had been required to hunt Mexican women himself during that period, and had come close to feeling the wrath of a couple of Mexican husbands.
By contrast, Lorie was restful, and he had come to love her. She did not exhibit the slightest fondness for him, but neither did she raise the slightest objection when he felt like buying her, a fact Lippy was deeply resentful of. She refused to be bought by Lippy at any price.
Now Jake Spoon had spoiled it all, and the only way Xavier could vent his annoyance was by winning money from Jasper Fant, most of which he would never collect.
'Where's Jake?' Lorie asked-a shock to Dish. His hopes, which had been soaring as he walked through the dark to the saloon, flopped down to boot level. For her to inquire about the man so shamelessly bespoke a depth of attachment that Dish could barely imagine. It was not likely she would ever inquire at all about him, even if he stepped out the door and vanished for a year.
'Why, Jake's with Gus and the boys,' he said, sitting down to make the best face of it he could.
It was not much of a face, for Lorie had never seemed prettier to him. She had pushed up the sleeves of her dress, and when it came her turn to handle the cards her white arms all but mesmerized him. He could hardly think to bet for watching Lorie's arms and her firm lips. Her arms were plumpish, but more graceful than any Dish had ever Seen. He could not think what he was doing, he wanted her so much; it caused him to play so badly that in an hour he had lost three months' wages.
Jasper Fant fared no better, whether from love of Lorie or lack of skill, Dish didn't know. Didn't know, and didn't care. All he was conscious of was that somehow he would have to outlast Jake, for there could be no woman for him except the one across the table. The very friendliness with which she treated him stung like a scorpion bite, for there was nothing special in it. She was almost as friendly to Lippy, a pure fool, and with a hole in his stomach to boot.
The card game soon became a torture for everyone but Lorie, who won hand after hand. It pleased her to think how surprised Jake would be when he came back and saw her winnings. He would know she wasn't helpless, at least. Xavier himself didn't lose much-he never lost much-but he wasn't playing with his usual alertness. Lorie knew that might be because of her, but she didn't care. She had always liked playing cards, and liked it even better now that it was all she had to do until Jake came back. She even liked Dish and Jasper, a little. It was a relief not to have to hold herself out of the fun because of what they wanted. She knew they felt hopeless, but then she had felt hopeless enough times, waiting for them to work up their nerve, on else borrow two dollars. Let them get a taste.
'Dish, we might as well stop,' Jasper said. 'We'll barely get out of debt this year as it is.'
'I'll take a hand,' Lippy said. 'I might be rusty but I'm willing.'
'Let him play,' Xavier said suddenly. It was a house rule that Lippy was not allowed to gamble. His style was extravagant and his resources meager. Several times his life had been endangered when strangers discovered he had no means of paying them the sums he had just lost.
But Xavier had lost faith in house rules since it had also been a house rule that Lorena was a whore, and now she wasn't anymore. If a whore could retire so abruptly, Lippy might as well play cards.
'What's he gonna pay me with when I win?' Lorena asked.
'Sweet music,' Lippy said cheerfully. 'I'll play your favorite song.'
It was not much enticement, Lorena thought, since he played her favorite songs every time she came in the room as it was, hoping his skill at the keyboard would finally move her to let him buy a poke.
She wasn't about to start that, but she did play him a few hands-the cowboys were too sunk even to drink. The boys said goodnight to her politely, hoping she would think kindly of them, but she didn't. Boys didn't interest her as much as cards.
Outside, Jasper paused in the street and had a smoke with Dish.
'Hired on yet?' Jasper asked. He had a mustache no thicker than a shoestring, and a horse that was not much thicken than the mustache.
'I think so,' Dish said. 'I'm working for these Hat Creek boys night now. They're thinking of getting up a drive.'
'You mean they hire you to play cards?' Jasper asked. He fancied himself a joker.
'Oh, I was just resting,' Dish said. 'I'm helping their danky guard some stock.'
'Guard it from what?'
'From the Mexicans we stole it from,' Dish said. 'The Captain went off to hire a crew.'
'Hell,' Jasper said. 'If the Mexicans knew the Captain was gone they'd come and take back Texas.'
'I reckon not,' Dish said. He felt the remark was slightly insulting. The Captain was not the only man in Texas who could fight.
'He can hire me, if he wants to, when he gets back,' Jasper said.
'He probably will,' Dish said. Jasper had a reputation for being reliable, if not brilliant.
Though aware that Dish might be touchy on the subject, Jasper was curious about what had happened to change Lorie so. He looked wishfully at the light in her window.
'Is that girl got married, or what?' he asked. 'Every time I jingled my money she looked at me like she was ready to carve my liven.'
Dish resented the question. He was not so coarse as to enjoy discussing Lorie with just any man who happened to ask. On the other hand, it was hand to see Jasper Fant as a rival. He looked half starved, and probably was.
'It's a scoundrel named Jake Spoon,' Dish said. 'I reckon he's beguiled her.'
'Oh, so that's it,' Jasper said. 'I believe I've heard the name. A
'I wouldn't know what he is,' Jake said, in a tone that was meant to let Jasper know he had no great interest in discussing the matter further. Jasper took the hint and the two of them rode over to the Hat Creek pens in silence, their minds on the white-armed woman in the saloon. She was no longer unfriendly, but it seemed to both of them that things had gone a little better before the change.
16.
BY THE END of the first day's hiring, Call had collected four boys, none of them yet eighteen. Young Bill Spettle, the one they called Swift Bill, was no older than Newt, and his brother Pete only a year older than Bill. So desperate were their family circumstances that Call was almost hesitant to take them. The widow Spettle had a brood of eight children, Bill and Pete being the oldest. Ned Spettle, the father of them all, had died of drink two years before. It looked to Call as if the family was about to starve out. They had a little creek-bottom farm not far north of Pickles Gap, but the soil was poor and the family had little to eat but sowbelly and beans.
The widow Spettle, however, was eager for him to take the boys, and would hear no protest from Call. She was a thin woman with bitten eyes. Call had heard from someone that she had been raised rich, in the East, with servants to comb her hair and help her into her shoes when she got up. It might just have been a story-it was hard for him to imagine a grownup who would need to be helped into their own shoes-but if even part of it was true she had come a long way down. Ned Spettle had never got around to putting a floor in the shack of a house he built. His wife was nearing eight children on the bare dirt. He had heard it said that Ned had never got over the wan, which might have explained it. Plenty hadn't. It accounted for the shortage of grown men of a certain age, that war. Call himself felt a kind of guilt at having missed it, though the work he and Gus had done on the bonder had been just as dangerous, and just as necessary.
'Take 'em,' the widow Spettle said, looking at her boys as if she wondered why she'd borne them. 'I reckon they'll work as hand as any.'
Call knew the boys had helped take a small herd to Arkansas. He paid the widow a month's wage for each boy,
