tough wood.
20.
THE MINUTE Jake stepped in the door of the Dry Bean Lorena saw that he was in a sulk. He went right over to the bar and got a bottle and two glasses. She was sitting at a table, piddling with a deck of cards. It was early in the evening and no one was around except Lippy and Xavier, which was a little surprising. Usually three or four of the Hat Creek cowboys would be there by that time.
Lorena watched Jake closely for a few minutes to see if she was the cause of his sulk. After all, she had sold Gus the poke that very afternoon-it was not impossible that Jake had found out, some way. She was not one who expected to get away with much in life. If you did a thing hoping a certain person wouldn't find out, that person always did. When Gus tricked her and she gave him the poke, she was confident the matter would get back to Jake eventually. Lippy was only human, and things that happened to her got told and repeated. She didn't exactly want Jake to know, but she wasn't afraid of him, either. He might hither, or he might shoot Gus: she found she couldn't easily predict him, which was one reason she didn't care if he found out. After that, she would know him a lot better, whatever he did.
But when he sat down at the table and set a glass in front of her she soon realized it was not her who had put the tight look in his face. She saw nothing unfriendly in his eyes. She took a sip or two of whiskey, and about that time Lippy came over and sat down at the table with them as if he'd been invited.
'Well, you've come in by yourself, I see,' Lippy said, pushing his dirty bowler back off his wrinkled forehead.
'I did, and by God I intend to be by myself,' Jake said irritably. He got up and without another word took his bottle and glass and headed for the stairs.
It put her out of sorts with Lippy, for it was still hot in her room and she would rather have stayed in the saloon, where there was at least a breath of breeze.
But with Jake so out of sorts there was nothing to do but go upstairs. She gave Lippy a cool look as she got up, which surprised him so it made his lip drop.
'Why air you looking at me that way?' he asked. 'I never tolt on you.'
Lorena didn't answer. A look was better than words, where Lippy was concerned.
Then, the very minute she got in the room, Jake decided he wanted a poke, and in a hurry. He had drunk a half glass of whiskey while he was climbing the stairs, and a big shot of whiskey nearly always made him want it. He was dusty as could be from a day with the cattle, and would usually have waited for a bath, or at least washed the grit off his face and hands in the washbasin, but this time he didn't wait. He even tried to kiss her with his hat on, which didn't work at all. His hat was as dusty as the rest of him. The dust got in her nose and made her sneeze. His haste was unusual-he was a picky man, apt to complain if the sheets weren't clean enough to suit him.
But this time he didn't seem to notice that dust was sifting out of his clothes onto the floor. When he opened his pants and pulled his shirttail out a little trickle of sand came with it. The night was stifling and Jake so sandy that by the time he got through there was so much dirt in the bed that they might as well have been wallowing around on the ground. There were little lines of mud on her belly where sweat had caked the dust. She didn't resent it, particularly-it was better than smoke pots and mosquitoes.
It was only when Jake sat up to reach for his whiskey bottle that he noticed the dust.
'Dern, I'm sandy,' he said. 'I should have bathed in the river.'
He sighed, poured himself a whiskey and sat with his back against the wall, idly running a hand up and down her leg. Lorena waited, taking a sip or two of whiskey. Jake looked tired.
'Well, these boys,' he said. 'They are aggravating devils.'
'Which boys?' she asked.
'Call and Gus,' he said. 'Just because I mentioned Montana to 'em they expect me to help 'em drive them dern cattle up there.'
Lorena watched him. He looked out the window and wouldn't meet her eye.
'I'll be damned if I'll do it,' he said. 'I ain't no dern cowpuncher. Call just got it in his head to go, for some reason. Well, let him go.'
But she knew that bucking Gus and the Captain was no easy thing for Jake. He looked at her finally, a sadness in his eyes, as if he was asking her to think of a way to help him.
Then he grinned, his little smart lazy grin. 'Gus thinks we ought to marry,' he said.
'I'd rather go to San Francisco,' Lorena said.
Jake stroked her leg again. 'Well, we will,' he said. 'But don't Gus come up with some notions! He thinks I ought to bring you along on the drive.'
Then he looked at her again, as if trying to fathom what was in her thoughts. Lorena let him look. Tired as he was, with his shirt open, there seemed nothing in the man to fear. It was hard to know what he himself feared. He was proud as a turkey cock around other men, irritable and quick to pass an insult. Sitting on her bed, with his clothes unbuttoned, he seemed anything but tough.
'What was old Gus up to all afternoon?' he asked. 'He never got back till sundown.'
'The same thing you was just up to,' Lorena said.
Jake lifted his eyebrows, not really surprised. 'I knowed it, that scamp,' he said. 'Left me to work so he could come and pester you.'
Lorena decided to tell it. That would be better than if he found it out from somebody else. Besides, though she considered herself his sweetheart, she didn't consider him her master. He had not really mastered anything except poking, though he had improved her card game a little.
'Gus offered me fifty dollars,' she said.
Jake lifted his eyebrows again in his tired way, as if there was nothing he could possibly be told that would really surprise him. It angered her a little, his acting as if he knew everything in advance.
'He's a fool with money,' Jake said.
'I turned him down,' Lorena said. 'I told him I was with you.'
Jake's eyes came alive for a moment and he gave her a smart slap on the cheek, so quick she scarcely saw it coming. Though it stung her cheek, there was no real anger in it-it was nothing to some of the licks she had taken from Tinkersley. Jake hit her the once as if that was the rule in a game they were playing, and then the life went out of his eyes again and he looked at her with only a tired curiosity.
'I reckon he got his poke,' he said. 'If he didn't, you can hit me a lick.'
'We cut the cards for it and he cheated,' Lorena said. 'I can't prove it but I know it. He gave me the fifty dollars anyway.'
'I ought to told you never to cut the cards with that old cud,' Jake said. 'Not unless you're ready for what he's ready for. He's the best card cheat I ever met. He don't cheat often, but when he does you ain't gonna catch him.'
He wiped some of the mud off her belly. 'Now that you're rich you can loan me twenty,' he said.
'Why should I?' Lorena said. 'You didn't earn it and you didn't stop it.'
Besides, he had money from his own card playing. If she knew anything, it was not to give a man money. That was nothing more than an invitation to get sold with their help.
Jake looked amused. 'Keep it then,' he said. 'But if it had been any other man than Gus I would have shot you.'
'If you'd known,' she said, getting up.
Jake stood looking out the window while she stripped the bed. He sipped his whiskey but didn't mention the trail again.
'Are you going with the herd?' she asked.
'Ain't decided,' he said. 'They'll be here till Monday.'
'I plan to leave when you leave,' she said. 'With the herd or not.'
Jake looked around. She was standing in her shift, a little red spot on one cheek where he had slapped her, a lick that made no impression on her at all. It seemed to him there was never much time with women. Before you
