'Well, it's something we have in common. We both like you. And we're both worried about you, and we wonder… if…'
'Worried about me?'
Ruth Lillian took up the task of explaining. 'Mr. Stone told me about what happened in Nebraska. He showed me a newspaper. And he thought-we both thought-that maybe, you know, sometimes people need to talk about things to get them off their minds. And because we're friends, you and me, and we've talked about everything under the sun-about Cracker-Jacks and infinity and everything- I thought maybe…'
'You thought maybe what?'
'Well, it must have been awful when you were a kid. With your pa always beating on your ma and all.'
'But it wasn't his fault!'
'Whose fault was it?' B. J. asked, sitting back in his chair so as to take himself out of the lamplight.
'It wasn't nobody's fault. It was just bad luck. Pa was always full of ideas and. plans, but he never had any luck. People saw him like he was at the end, staggering around, drunk and sick. They never thought about what he might have been, if he'd only had a little luck. One night when Ma was sick, I sat up to change her mustard plasters, so I was still awake when Pa came home crying-drunk… which was a heck of a lot better than mean-drunk. We sat by the fire, him and me, and he started talking about how it was when he was young. I guess he wanted someone to understand why he was like he was. Like you said, sometimes people need to talk about things to get them off their-'
A flash-crack of thunder was followed by a strange splitting sound from lower down on the mountain, as though the lightning had blown something off its flank. For a moment, the drilling din of rain on the roof abated as the storm seemed to inhale. Then it came back with redoubled force, the wind sucking at the windows, rattling them in their loose frames as it alternately moaned and shrieked.
COOTS'S NECK MUSCLES FLINCHED when the flash-crack of thunder was followed by the splitting, sound from lower on the mountain. He pressed against the back wall of the Traveller's Welcome, avoiding the gush of rainwater that fell from a broken downspout, but was snatched by the wind into spume before it reached the ground.
Teeth bared in a wincing grimace, he eased open the kitchen window just as-bad luck-the covering sound of the rain and wind abated, as though the storm had inhaled, and for a moment he could hear the thumping rhythm of the player piano from the barroom beyond. As he waited for the storm to regain its fury, Coots took off his boots and left them there beside the wall. Then, with the feline sinuosity of the Cherokee, he slowly hoisted himself up and disappeared into the pitch-black kitchen, carefully pressing the window closed behind him.
'PA JUST SAT THERE staring at the fire, tears running down his cheeks. He told me how he'd meant to bring me back a book, but somebody had cheated him out of his money. It was Pa that brought back my very first Ringo Kid book after he'd been away on a long binge. He started talking about how someday he was going to strike it rich and everybody would respect him. But he never had any luck, not a single drop! Chasing after luck was why Pa came to America in the first place. He met a what they call a 'labor-broker' back in the old country, a man who would pay Pa's way to America and find him a job in return for so much a month until the debt was paid off. Well, Pa was only seventeen years old, but things were sort of hot for him in his village because of some girl, so he jumped at the chance. When he got to America, they took him right from the dock and put him on a train-forty men to a boxcar-and the train brought him to the job the labor-broker had found for him. A slate quarry up in Vermont. It was hard work, and dangerous… the kind of work native-born Americans wouldn't touch. After he'd slaved for a whole winter, getting only a few dollars a month over and above his room and board, he found out that he had only worked off seventeen dollars of what he owed the labor-broker. All the rest had gone for interest and 'special charges.' At that rate he would have to work at the quarry for six years before he was free to look for another job. Well, Pa wasn't going to put up with that. He ran off, and for the next few years he drifted west, roaming from place to place, but never finding that one little nugget of luck he was looking for. People would lie to him and cheat him and underpay him, so he'd steal from them, just to get even. Every business deal he ever figured out turned sour through no fault of his own. Just no luck!'
Matthew went on to tell how his father met a girl at a charity social in Tarkio, Missouri; a plain, religious girl. She was not at all the 'easy' sort he usually chased after, but someone told him the girl's father was old, and she would inherit the farm. Young Dubchek immediately envisioned himself as a farmer. He would plant corn-or whatever-and bugs-or something-would come along and wipe out everybody's crop but his, and they'd all go bust while he made a bundle, so he'd buy up their farms for a song, and become a big landowner. He'd hire others to plant and harvest for him, then he'd expand, go into the grain and feed business, not just your paltry little feed store in some whistle-stop tank town, but big-time. He'd corner the market! That's the way to do it! Work out the percentages, then corner the market! All you need is that first little bit of luck.
He joined the Bible circle of this girl's church, and the very first day he asked her if she'd have the kindness to help him with passages he couldn't quite make out, what with his English not being so good.
The farmer didn't like the look of this Dubchek-to say nothing of his slick ways and his funny-sounding name. He ordered him to stop hanging around his daughter. During their last meeting out in the barn, Dubchek pleaded for a parting proof of her love, and the weeping daughter was unable to refuse him. After that, he hung around doing odd jobs until, a couple of months later, the farmer came to town in his trap with a horsewhip, and ordered him to marry his daughter, or else!
When the farmer died a year later, Dubchek discovered that his wife's inheritance consisted of a web of mortgages and re-mortgages. Once again, he felt cheated, this time by a woman who had dangled a useless, debt- riddled farm in front of him to lure him into marriage. The child was born; the farm was repossessed; and the three of them pushed on west, drifting from job to job, each ending with Matthew's pa being accused of loafing or stealing or drinking or sassing back. Between jobs, there were wild schemes for getting rich quick. One time, Dubchek had a chance to get in on the ground floor with a red fox farm. Red fox furs that were all the rage among rich woman back East, who would pay a hundred dollars to hang one pelt around their necks, its tail in its mouth. A hundred dollars! You multiply that by a thousand, and you've got a hundred thousand dollars. And that's just for starters!
For almost a year, he gave up drinking and held down two jobs, working day and night, in rain and sun, through sickness and health, saving every penny. By spring he had enough for a down payment on a badly eroded farm with a half-ruined house. What did it matter if the land wasn't no good? He wasn't no stupid dirt farmer! He was going to raise red foxes, which only required a few knocked-together hutches out behind the house. Then the bad luck started coming. He had difficulty finding foxes to raise. None of his neighbors had even heard of raising foxes. They thought fox pelts came from trapping. Well… well… well, all right, he'd get some wild foxes and raise them in hutches, and they'd breed and pretty soon the place would be teeming with foxes! He managed to buy three foxes from a trapper, one with a chewed-up leg from the trap. They all died in the hutches, the one with the bad leg lasting the longest… which just proves how everything depends on luck. After a long, cold winter and a long, sodden spring, they had to let the farm go back to the bank… more bad luck to feed Dubchek's bitterness. He started drinking again. Well, why not? What was the use of trying when everyone was against him, and everything was keeping him from making something of himself!?
The wind rose to an insane screech, clutching at the windows of the Mercantile, and slashing at the wide sheets of water that poured from brimful guttering, ripping them into ribbons of froth.
THE DARKNESS WITHIN THE hotel kitchen was intensified by an eye-baffling contrast with a trapezoid of bright light pouring in from the barroom beyond. His flat-topped Colt in his hand, Coots inched toward the blinding swath of light, rolling his weight from heel to toe of his bare feet so as not to make a sound. Queeny-good luck-was singing to the player piano. She's only a bird in a gilded cage, a byooo-ti-ful sight to see-e-e. He inched forward, feeling his way with his bare feet rather than with his eyes…. for her love was so-o-old, for an o-o-o-old man's go- o-old! She's a bird in a gilded ca-a-a-age.
B. J. STONE SAT DEEP in his chair, his face out of the lamplight that glowed in Ruth Lillian's cupric hair. He had listened sympathetically to Matthew's explanation of why nothing was his father's fault, because he never had any luck. But his mind had slipped from time to time to Coots… out there in the rain… in danger.
Matthew's head was bowed, his eyes lost in the shadow of his brow. B. J. had hoped that Ruth Lillian's honest and obvious concern would tempt Matthew to talk about what had happened in that farmhouse in Nebraska. But he had parried her questions by talking about his father rather than himself, and after the last crash of thunder and lightning, he hadn't continued his story. So B. J. cleared his throat and began in a gentle, measured voice, 'I…
