He worked New Orleans, winning and losing, always able to live well, but making no progress. He was young, and he had a liking for money and the spending of it. Moreover, he was a man without a destination.
Natchez, St. Louis, and Cincinnati followed, the river boats, and then, riding a winning streak, Europe. He spent two years there, moving from London to Paris, to Weimar, to Vienna, Innsbruck, and Monte Carlo. He fought his second duel at Nimes, with sabers, and won.
But the winning streaks became fewer, and of shorter duration. He lived well, but the margin with which he played grew narrower, and the feeling grew within him that he was headed for the discard.
He returned to the United States, played a little around New York and Saratoga, often in small, private games. He played honestly, as always, but he played with skill, and he won.
He was well ahead of the game when one night he was recognized as a professional gambler. By noon the following day the clubs were closed to him, and an invitation he had accepted to appear at a party was quietly withdrawn. In Cincinnati he lost much of what he had won, and now in St. Louis he was doing scarcely better. He stared at the river of mud that was the street, and wondered if here, too, he might sink clean out of sight. He was nothing if not honest with himself, and he knew the slight he had received in New York had hurt. Deeply sensitive, he had been proud of his playing, and had never considered playing a crooked game … although he knew how it was done.
He stared at the mud. He was no longer a gentleman—he was a gambler, a questionable character in any sort of society. He was a gambler, and he consorted with gamblers.
Suddenly someone moved up beside him; it was Alien Jones, known wherever men gamed. “Going across to the hotel?” he asked. He smiled and indicated the street. “You’ll never cross that in those boots, Cleve.” “I’ll bet you the best dinner in St. Louis that I can cross that street without getting a speck of mud on me!” Cleve said quickly. “Done!” Jones replied. “I’ll take that bet.”
Cleve glanced around. A bulky, heavy-shouldered man of middle age was coming up the street toward them. “You, there!” Cleve said. “I’ll give you five dollars if you’ll take me on your back across to the hotel.” The man hesitated, looking from Cleve van Valen to Alien Jones. “I’ve a bet on,” Cleve explained, “that I can cross the street without getting muddy.”
The heavy-set man smiled grimly. “All right.” He backed up to Cleve. “Get aboard.”
Cleve stepped astride him from the walk’s edge, and, carrying him piggy-back, the man started slopping through the mud.
“Hey!” Jones yelled. “Ten dollars if you drop him!”
The man spoke over his shoulder. “Want to raise the ante?”
“We made a deal,” Cleve replied. “I stand on the terms.”
“Twenty dollars!” Jones yelled.
Hunching Cleve higher, the man struggled on through the mud, then deposited Cleve on the steps of the hotel.
Taking out a thin packet of bills, Cleve peeled off the five dollars and handed them to his bearer. Coolly, the man reached in his own pocket and removed a sack bulging with bills and coins. He added the five dollars to the sack, then grinned at van Valen. “A little here, a little there. One day I shall be a rich man.”
“You refused a larger sum to dump me into the mud,” Cleve said. The man glanced at him. “You said it yourself. A deal is a deal. If a man’s word is no good in this country he’s nothing.”
“Come inside,” Cleve suggested, “and I’ll buy you a drink. Are you new to St.
Louis?”
The stocky man grinned. “Don’t take me for a man to be plucked, my friend. I’m no gambler. That’s not to say I wouldn’t take a flyer in a business way, but business is my game. Never play another man’s game, that’s what I say.” He stamped the mud from his boots. “Yes, I’ll drink with you. They tell me Professor Jerry Thomas has come up with a new one called the Tom and Jerry.” “He’s the best bartender in the country,” Cleve said. “Come on inside.” In the bar, he looked at the man again. “Maybe I’m wrong, but you look familiar, now that I see you in the light.”
“I doubt if you saw me more than once or twice. I worked for your father.”
Cleve’s expression grew cold. “Oh? I don’t recall any friends back there.” The man was not disturbed. “I’m Gabe French. You didn’t know me; your father did. A time or two when the going was rough he gave me a hand up.” French tasted his drink. “A good man.”
“They robbed him,” Cleve said bitterly.
“That they did … and you as well. It was a good job you did—shooting Black.
He’d had it coming for a long time.” French gave a quick glance at van Valen.
“Ever done any shooting since then?”
“When necessary.”
“You’ve the knack, my friend. I saw it, you know. You simply turned and fired … instantaneous reflexes, no aiming. You simply turned and fired … bull’s-eye.”
Alien Jones joined them. “I owe you a dinner. Want to collect?”
“Mr. Jones … Mr. French.”
French thrust out his hand. “I know you, too, Mr. Jones. Knew you when you were a saddle-maker.”
“I made good saddles.” Alien Jones spoke a little proudly. “There’s a great feeling in it,” he added. “Nothing better than turning a nice bit of work with good leather. I’ll come back to it some day.”
“Join us for dinner?” Cleve said to French.
“No, thanks. Got to be moving. Selling mules to folks bound for California, and I’ve about decided to go myself.” He turned to Cleve, putting his glass down on the bar. “Want to come along? You could do well out there.” “I know when I’m well off. I’ll stay here.”
When Gabe French was gone, Jones turned to Cleve, chuckling. “Do you know who he is—that man you hired to pack you across the street? He’s the biggest stockdealer in this part of the country. He’s the richest man in town, if you skip old Choteau.”
“I can see why he’s rich,” van Valen said. He put down his glass. “I’ll take that dinner now, Alien.”
“The food is better right here,” Jones said, “but the best show is down the street. There’s a new girl down there, just out from the East. She’s really lovely. Dances, sings like an angel, plays the accordion. Her name is Prescott, Lilith Prescott.”
The theatre-restaurant was crowded, but the waiter guided them to a table near the stage, for he recognized Alien Jones at once, and Cleve van Valen was obviously cut from the same cloth.
Cleve glanced around, thinking wryly that if his present bad luck held he soon would no longer be able to afford meals in such a place, or the gambling in the rooms at the Planters’. He would be forced to work the wolf traps or snap houses on the bluff over the river.
Anything but that. Discontentedly he watched the girls on the stage. The dancing was not particularly good, but the swirl of their petticoats was enticing, and his discontent turned to half-amused interest.
The food was excellent, and the Chateau Margaux was a vintage wine. He relaxed slowly. Dick Hargraves, already notorious on the river, joined them, ordering a second bottle of wine. “Wait until you see Lily,” he said. “That girl’s got something special.”
Jones laughed. “Anybody can see that, but nobody seems able to find out how special it is.” He gestured. “Here she comes.”
Lilith moved with an easy, impudent grace. It was at once apparent that she had something the other girls did not have, for aside from her very real beauty and that impudence, she had style.
Her eyes swept the crowd, and she began to sing, leading the chorus in “Wait for the Wagon.” Her dancing was far better than Cleve had expected. Certainly, wherever she had learned, her instruction had been good. He sat up abruptly, refilled his glass from the bottle, and watched. Cleve van Valen, who had seen dancing in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, could see that she knew a great deal more than her present routine demanded. Somewhere, at some time, she had worked very hard to learn.
Curious, he watched her face. She was lost to all but the music … and then their eyes met. Hers held his just for an instant, then moved on, away from him. Had she really seen him? The footlights were not overly bright, so she might have been able to see, and he was close to the stage. He had a feeling that she had seen him and had in that instant catalogued both himself and his friends—drifters, gamblers, ne’er-do-wells.