Crows & Cards Page 3

  And here stood one of them before me. I was spellbound, honored, parched, and speechless. Mr. Chilly Larpenteur was saying something, but I didn't catch it and he had to repeat himself.

  "You interested?" he said.

  The whole world cocked an ear to hear what leaked out of me next, or at least it felt that way. I had encountered my first real decision as an adult, without Ma or Pa yeaing or naying over my shoulder. Not wanting to bungle it, I closed my eyes to concentrate and sort it all out.

  And that's when it happened. One of them crated chickens we was standing next to managed to peck the back of my hand a good one. In addition to hurting like the dickens, drawing blood, and proving I was right to be wary of them birds, it also cleared my head considerable. All of a sudden the way my folks had forced me out of my home to become something I didn't want to be—even if it was for my own good, especially if it was for my own good—stuck in my craw so bad that I knew I wasn't going through with it. No sir. If I had to pick out something to be for the rest of my life, then the decision ought to be mine. That's what I told myself. Praying that I could somehow or other get over my fear of the rivers that a riverboat gambler would be floating on, I summoned up all the spit I could muster and told Mr. Chilly Larpenteur, "You bet."

  He chuckled as though that was a pretty witty thing for a would-be gambler to come out with, then got down to business fast.

  "For a hundred dollars I'll take you on."

  "I only got seventy," I told him, swallowing hard and holding out the envelope with my money. "Plus a couple of coppers I been saving."

  Before my eyes had a chance to go smeary on me, he snatched the envelope and said, "Done. You can pay the balance out of your share of the winnings."

  Winnings? Right off I started wondering how much I could send home to Ma and Pa, to show them how well I was doing without Great-Uncle Seth. Chilly tucked the seventy in a vest pocket so fast that I never saw his hands move, and I've no idea where he stowed those coppers. He ripped up the envelope the money had been in, along with the directions to my great-uncle's tannery, and after glancing all around us—even up to the sky—he seemed satisfied that no one was watching and sent the paper scraps fluttering over the brown waters. Why would anyone care about those directions? Don't know, didn't ask, wasn't time. Soon as the last piece of paper touched the river, Chilly declared I was overdue to be introduced to a game of chance. That marked the first thing I learned about my new profession: if you saw an opportunity, you didn't let it spoil.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHILLY LARPENTEUR RAN ME UP some rear stairs to the Rose Melinda's second deck, what's known as the boiler deck. Fast as he moved, you might have thought someone was chasing us. On the way we had to weave in and out of cords of wood higher than my head and stacks of lead rods that rose up to my chin. Pigs of lead, they called those rods. Don't ask me why 'cause I never heard 'em oink.

  Before we hit the stairs, I sneezed my way past horses, chickens, mules, goats, pigs—live ones—and a small flock of sheep. I heard three or four languages being jabbered, saw an Indian wrapped up in one of them bright-colored Hudson Bay blankets, and had a mountain man in buckskins wink at me.

  We passed a bunch of soldiers lounging around and bragging over who could spew a cheek full of tobacco juice the most accurate. The deck was plenty slippery in spots.

  Chilly talked the whole way, though I didn't catch but half of what he had to say 'cause we crossed paths with a side paddle wheel that drowned out all conversation. One step before the boiler deck he stopped to shout in my ear, "Watch close now. We'll double our seventy dollars faster than you can blink."

  Then he plunged through the doors leading to the second deck's main cabin, which stretched most of the boat's length. The whole distance was lined up with dinner tables and chandeliers fit for kings and dukes and whatnot. The ladies and gents at those tables—why, every one of them held out their little pinkies as they sipped their midday tea or sarsaparilla. Cigar smoke blued the air real pretty, and somewhere down the line a piano was being plinked at while a woman was singing "The Last Rose of Summer." That main cabin was almost quiet enough to hear every word of her song, and she sang it in tones so honey-sweet, they nearly melted your heart with worry over what would befall that last rose.

  We didn't stop for none of it though, just dashed on till we reached some glass doors, first such doors I'd ever spied. As if being made of glass didn't make them special enough, they had a pair of eagles painted in gold on 'em. Chilly held up before those doors but a second, just long enough to make a sign of the cross, kind of secret-like, as if we was entering a church. Then we plowed past those gold eagles to a bar beyond them, where fifteen to twenty fellows were crowded around a single table. The men in back had to stand on chairs to see what was happening.

  "Pearl Gulliver's dealing," Chilly said in my ear. "Game's called faro. He's a cheat and a bluffer, but I've about figured out the spots on his deck, so we're set. Watch careful now."

  Chilly waded into the crowd, elbowing and whispering his way closer and closer to the table till he disappeared beneath the hatted heads leaning over the game. I heard a low, crackly voice that must have been Pearl Gulliver's. "Back so soon?"

  That got a round of guffaws from the crowd, but as soon as it died down, Chilly called out real even-like, "Come back for my money."

  "This ain't no house of charity," Pearl Gulliver advised. "It's a game of chance, and I ain't huge on lending losers back their bankroll."

  "Nobody's asking you to," Chilly said.

  "Not but a half hour ago you was broke and begging these gents to spot you some," Pearl Gulliver pointed out.

  "I've come into an inheritance," Chilly answered, which brought on another round of snickers, during which Chilly must have dropped my seventy dollars on the table. That brought on a bout of quiet.

  "Mighty puny leavings," Pearl Gulliver observed.

  "If you're running an honest game, it ought to be enough."

  The drumroll I heard must have been the beating of my heart. Several men tensed up and leaned away from the table, as if about to dive for cover, and Pearl Gulliver didn't settle any nerves by saying, "If you think the table ain't square, don't sit."

  That set off a ripple of yeses.

  "And leave you with my money?" Chilly laughed. "Deal 'em out."

  It took some doing, but eventually I found me a wobbly chair to stand on and tried to forget about how high I was climbing. (Anything much above a footstool gives me second thoughts.) From my perch I had a clear look at Pearl Gulliver, a shrivelly old man with a gray beard full as a brush fence. His eyes skipped around that table so fast, you might have thought someone was trying to sneak up on him. The rough way he handled the cards and chips almost made it seem as if he hated 'em. And wasn't the oilcloth covering that table something? Green as a pasture, it was, and with pictures of cards where the gamblers placed their bets.

  As for how the game of faro was played, I never did entirely get the hang of it. Not that day, anyway. Pearl Gulliver slid two cards out of a shiny, silver box that was all decorated up with mother-of-pearl. The cards were face-down and players bet on them by laying money on the pictures of cards that decorated the oilcloth. The face-down card that Pearl Gulliver slid to his right was the losing card, and any money bet on it went to him. The face-down card that ended up to his left was the winner, which meant that Pearl Gulliver had to pay out to anyone who bet on it. Money placed on any cards other than those two rode till the next hand.

  To place bets, hands crisscrossed the table worse than summer lightning, shoving money this way and that, collecting winnings, replacing losings. There was more cackling and crowing than the time a raccoon hit our hen house.

  Sometimes players won. Mostly, they seemed to lose. All the while Chilly wagered small and studied the cards hard enough to see clear through them.

  And I learned that a whole tribe of blacksmiths couldn't have been more superstitious than the men crowded round t
hat table, and I didn't know anyone who spewed out more charms and signs than the ornery smithy back home. Why, nearly every man present was rubbing a rabbit's foot or kissing a clamshell or crossing himself three times—minimum—before every new hand got dealt. I hadn't ever seen such excitement around a table, not in my whole life. Even Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners couldn't hold a candle to it. Those men watched Pearl Gulliver's hands the way a starving man would keep an eye on a loaf of bread that was about to be sliced. The roof might have blown off the boat and I got my doubts they'd have looked up, unless it was to see what cards got sucked away.

  The contorting around the table tickled Pearl Gulliver, though he kept his trap shut and never poked fun, not even at the rough fellow who had named his lucky clamshell Sherry-Ann. He just waited for everyone to settle down. The only player who kept his distance from all the good-luck hocus-pocus was Chilly. All the fandango chafed on him some, and he lifted out his gold pocket watch a few times to check on how long all the messing around was taking, but otherwise he bided his time. It left me feeling puffed up as big as all outdoors to be with the one man who took it all in stride.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ONCE A GAME COMMENCED, EVERYONE WENT SERIOUS as a flock of ministers. Eventually, a couple of gents got up, saying their wells were dry, but Chilly held his own with my seventy dollars, gaining here, losing there. Mostly he was still as a toad waiting for the buzz of a fly. Then all of a sudden Chilly must have seen something on the backs of those cards that he liked, 'cause he bet all we had on a single hand. Everybody around the table took a deep breath and held 'er in, waiting to see.

  When Pearl Gulliver flipped the winning card over, he snorted, angry-like. Chilly had won, doubling our pile.

  "Luck visits us all from time to time," Pearl Gulliver spouted.

  Chilly returned fire by saying, "Some get visited more than others."

  He wasn't done, either, not by a long shot. Lump together everything he'd said about the wonders of being a gambler, and it still wouldn't have impressed me as much as what came next. Soon as Pearl Gulliver slid two new cards out of the box, Chilly shoved all our winnings onto one of the card pictures painted on the oilcloth. Every man round that table went quiet as a deep woods. The only one still moving was Pearl Gulliver, who chuckled softly beneath his beard.

  When the next two cards got flipped, I raised my hands above my head and whooped it up with everyone else. Chilly had doubled our money again. We now had upwards of two hundred and eighty dollars looking pretty on our side of the table, and we hadn't been sitting there for more than twenty minutes. It would have taken all six of my years with Great-Uncle Seth to see that much loot. I was beaming like a tree-sized candle, and I ain't talking no sapling either.

  And then Chilly did something that had me laughin' for joy, 'cause it appeared he wasn't done working that table yet. Yes sir, when Pearl Gulliver trotted out the next two cards, Chilly toyed with him some by lifting out his gold watch to check the hour, as if it might be time for us to be moving on with our winnings, but then he showed a change of heart and let everything ride on another picture.

  A hush fell over the table. Maybe three seconds passed before the dam burst and every player rushed to piggyback on Chilly's run. Holding tight to their rabbits' feet and clamshells and ivory crosses, every man there shoved his money on the same picture as Chilly.

  "Out to bust the bank, are you, boys?" Pearl Gulliver's face was pinched up tight as something stitched shut.

  "Aiming to see the next cards," Chilly answered, speaking up for the rest of us.

  To his credit, Pearl Gulliver flipped the cards over without the slightest tremble.

  What happened afterward had best be called an explosion. Everyone rose in the air a foot or so and hats went sailing. There were cries of "Glory be" and "Oh mama" and "We're bucking the tiger, boys. Bucking her good."

  Me? The numbers were flying through my head faster than buckshot. We had upward of five hundred and sixty dollars and counting. I would have been a full-grown man before my Great-Uncle Seth forked over that much. It all meant nothing to Chilly though. He sat still at the center of the celebrations, watching Pearl Gulliver's hands for treachery. That's when I knew for sure how Chilly Larpenteur had got his nickname. I'd heard tell of men with ice water in their veins, but that didn't touch how cool Chilly was.

  "The game's still on, gents," Pearl Gulliver reminded everyone. There was a terrible fire burning in his eyes that made me look away from him.

  The others turned to Chilly, who was just about ready to shove our winnings onto the picture of a new card when a woman's voice filled the room.

  "Gentlemen," she called out. "Please, can you spare something for the poor orphans of St. Louis?"

  The whole bunch of us turned as one toward the door, where stood a lady pretty enough to strike you blind if you had sight or give you sight if you were blind. She had honey gold hair and a voice that would have given songbirds the miseries, so sweet did she sound. It was the same lady who'd been singing at the piano in the main cabin. You could hear the heart of every man there take an extra pitter-pat.

  The only one who had any wits about him was Chilly, who gathered up our earnings, rose from the table, and made a courtly bow to the lady.

  "Those orphans are deserving of some supper too," Chilly agreed.

  When I watched him dump half our winnings in a little basket the lady was holding, I couldn't have felt any prouder than if I'd done it myself. Every other man had his eye on Chilly too, and what's more, they all followed him over to do the same.

  "St. Jerome blesses you," the lady said.

  "And you," she said to the next man.

  "You won't be forgotten," she promised a third.

  And so on down the line, 'cause dang if every man at the table didn't make a sizable contribution to the orphans of St. Louis. Every man but me, that is, 'cause I didn't have a cent in my pocket, and Pearl Gulliver, who stayed right at his table, looking devastated by the shower of gold coins raining into that woman's basket. Every dollar that went to them orphans was a dollar he wouldn't be seeing again.

  "You've proved to those orphans that the world cares," she told us, dabbing a tear from her eye. "God bless you, one and all."

  With that, she swept back out to the main cabin, moving from table to table to ask for more contributions. It looked as though the example set by Chilly and the other gamblers was reaping rewards out there too. All the ladies and gents was dropping money in the basket left and right.

  I felt filled full of sparks to think of the good we'd done. Not too long back I'd been wondering if I'd even make it to St. Louis without drowning, and now here I was, helping poor orphans. Wouldn't my brothers and sisters be all atwitter if they could see me now? Even Ma and Pa might have their doubts about the wisdom of packing me off to Great-Uncle Seth's.

  As soon as the doors closed behind her, the spell was broken and everyone spun back to Pearl Gulliver, who was waiting for us with a nasty smile wrinkling his face. His hands were resting on the dealer's box and looking none too innocent.

  "You do-gooders ready to play?" he asked.

  Hearing that, Chilly charged back to the faro table as if a bugle was blowing. Single-minded as he looked, I don't think he'd have noticed a flaming arrow landing square in his chest. I'm ashamed to admit it, but just then a little wave of doubt washed over me and I grabbed at his coat sleeve. I was thinking maybe it was time to scoop up our earnings and call it a day before some calamity hit us. Even after helping out those orphans, we still stood two hundred and eighty dollars up, or thereabouts, which was miracle enough to last me for a stretch. But Chilly brushed me off easily as a leaf, maybe knowing he had one more lesson to learn me that day.

  Lowering himself back down to the table, Chilly gazed hard at the two cards that Pearl Gulliver now slid out of the box. Nodding to himself as if everything was in apple-pie order, he checked his pocket watch as though we were on a schedule and proceeded to wager all
our money on the picture of one more card. The entire room fell still as something pinned under one of them Egyptian pyramids. Empires could have come and gone while we sat there. Kings could have grown beards long enough to trip over.

  Somebody sneezed, ending the stillness. Every other player whipped out his good-luck charm and rushed to catch onto Chilly's coattails.

  It didn't look as though Pearl Gulliver had a friend in the world other than himself, but that turned out to be enough. Flipping over the next two cards without a moment's pause, he knocked the wind right out of us.

  Chilly lost.

  Everything.

  And everyone else went tumbling right down with him.

  Pearl Gulliver had broke the entire room in one blow. What with his gloaty, satisfied smirk, the old fraud had to have dealt a crooked hand. While we'd been tending to orphans, he must have been tending to the cards. But losing didn't bother Chilly one bit. He rose up from that faro table without a word of complaint, checked the time as if late for an important appointment, and left without a backwards glance. Such nobility is a rare thing in this world. I may have been only twelve, but I'd seen enough to know that much. Chilly and me had just lost somewhere around two hundred and eighty dollars, but it didn't weigh on him, not a bit. He had faith in his abilities to win it all back soon. You could tell by the lofty way he carried himself out of there.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU," Chilly advised once we were back down on the passenger deck. "Every man's got his weakness and mine's faro."

  "Know what you mean," I answered, doing my best to sound worldly. "My little sister Emily is mine. She's all the time getting me into trouble without even trying."