The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. Owen Wister
fluently upon a second I strolled out. There was not enough wit in this narrator to relieve his indecency, and I felt shame at having been surprised into laughing with him.
I left that company growing confidential over their leering stories, and I sought the saloon. It was very quiet and orderly. Beer in quart bottles at a dollar I had never met before; but saving its price, I found no complaint to make of it. Through folding doors I passed from the bar proper with its bottles and elk head back to the hall with its various tables. I saw a man sliding cards from a case, and across the table from him another man laying counters down. Near by was a second dealer pulling cards from the bottom of a pack, and opposite him a solemn old rustic piling and changing coins upon the cards which lay already exposed.
But now I heard a voice that drew my eyes to the far corner of the room.
“Why didn't you stay in Arizona?”
Harmless looking words as I write them down here. Yet at the sound of them I noticed the eyes of the others directed to that corner. What answer was given to them I did not hear, nor did I see who spoke. Then came another remark.
“Well, Arizona's no place for amatures.”
This time the two card dealers that I stood near began to give a part of their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There was in me a desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine Bow had seemed to glide beneath a sunshine of merriment, of easy-going jocularity. This was suddenly gone, like the wind changing to north in the middle of a warm day. But I stayed, being ashamed to go.
Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and betting between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were new faces.
“No place for amatures,” repeated the voice; and now I saw that it was the dealer's. There was in his countenance the same ugliness that his words conveyed.
“Who's that talkin'?” said one of the men near me, in a low voice.
“Trampas.”
“What's he?”
“Cow-puncher, bronco-buster, tin-horn, most anything.”
“Who's he talkin' at?”
“Think it's the black-headed guy he's talking at.”
“That ain't supposed to be safe, is it?”
“Guess we're all goin' to find out in a few minutes.”
“Been trouble between 'em?”
“They've not met before. Trampas don't enjoy losin' to a stranger.”
“Fello's from Arizona, yu' say?”
“No. Virginia. He's recently back from havin' a look at Arizona. Went down there last year for a change. Works for the Sunk Creek outfit.” And then the dealer lowered his voice still further and said something in the other man's ear, causing him to grin. After which both of them looked at me.
There had been silence over in the corner; but now the man Trampas spoke again.
“AND ten,” said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. He might have been deaf.
“AND twenty,” said the next player, easily.
The next threw his cards down.
It was now the Virginian's turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a—.”
The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: “When you call me that, SMILE.” And he looked at Trampas across the table.
Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting their positions.
“Sit quiet,” said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me. “Can't you see he don't want to push trouble? He has handed Trampas the choice to back down or draw his steel.”
Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of its strangeness. Voices and cards, the click of chips, the puff of tobacco, glasses lifted to drink—this level of smooth relaxation hinted no more plainly of what lay beneath than does the surface tell the depth of the sea.
For Trampas had made his choice. And that choice was not to “draw his steel.” If it was knowledge that he sought, he had found it, and no mistake! We heard no further reference to what he had been pleased to style “amatures.” In no company would the black-headed man who had visited Arizona be rated a novice at the cool art of self-preservation.
One doubt remained: what kind of a man was Trampas? A public back-down is an unfinished thing—for some natures at least. I looked at his face, and thought it sullen, but tricky rather than courageous.
Something had been added to my knowledge also. Once again I had heard applied to the Virginian that epithet which Steve so freely used. The same words, identical to the letter. But this time they had produced a pistol. “When you call me that, SMILE!” So I perceived a new example of the old truth, that the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life.
III. STEVE TREATS
It was for several minutes, I suppose, that I stood drawing these silent morals. No man occupied himself with me. Quiet voices, and games of chance, and glasses lifted to drink, continued to be the peaceful order of the night. And into my thoughts broke the voice of that card-dealer who had already spoken so sagely. He also took his turn at moralizing.
“What did I tell you?” he remarked to the man for whom he continued to deal, and who continued to lose money to him.
“Tell me when?”
“Didn't I tell you he'd not shoot?” the dealer pursued with complacence. “You got ready to dodge. You had no call to be concerned. He's not the kind a man need feel anxious about.”
The player looked over at the Virginian, doubtfully. “Well,” he said, “I don't know what you folks call a dangerous man.”
“Not him!” exclaimed the dealer with admiration. “He's a brave man. That's different.”
The player seemed to follow this reasoning no better than I did.
“It's not a brave man that's dangerous,” continued the dealer. “It's the cowards that scare me.” He paused that this might sink home.
“Fello' came in here las' Toosday,” he went on. “He got into some misunderstanding about the drinks. Well, sir, before we could put him out of business, he'd hurt two perfectly innocent onlookers. They'd no more to do with it than you have,” the dealer explained to me.
“Were they badly hurt?” I asked.
“One of 'em was. He's died since.”
“What became of the man?”
“Why, we put him out of business, I told you. He died that night. But there was no occasion for any of it; and that's why I never like to be around where there's a coward. You can't tell. He'll always go to