The Desert Fiddler

  CHAPTER X

  It was perhaps an hour later that Bob Rogeen went down the main streetof the Mexican town, also headed for the Owl. Off this main streetonly a few lights served to reveal rather than dissipate the night.But under the dimness Mexicali was alive--a moving, seething,passionate sort of aliveness. The sidewalks were full, the saloonswere busy. In and out of the meat shops or the small groceriesoccasionally a woman came and went. But the crowd was nearly allmen--Mexicans, Chinamen, American ranchers and tourists, Germans,Negroes from Jamaica, Filipinos, Hindus with turbans. All weregathered in this valley of intense heat--this ancient bed of the seanow lower than the sea--not because of gold mines or oil gushers, butfor the wealth that grew from the soil: the fortunes in lettuce, inmelons, in alfalfa, and in cotton.

  "Odd," thought Bob, "that the slowest and most conservative of allindustries should find a spot of the earth so rich that it started astampede almost like the rush to the Klondike, of men who sought suddenriches in tilling the soil."

  Across the way from a corner saloon came the twang of a mandolin; andhalf a dozen Mexican labourers began singing a Spanish folk song. In ashop at his right a Jap girl sold soda water; in another open door anold Chinaman mended shoes; and from another came the click of billiardballs. But most of the crowd was moving toward the Owl.

  As Bob stepped inside the wide doors of the gambling hall the sceneamazed him. There were forty tables running--roulette, blackjack,craps, stud poker--and round them men crowded three to five deep. Downthe full length of one side of the room ran a bar nearly a hundred andfifty feet long, and in the rear end of the great barnlike structurethirty or forty girls, most of them American, sang and danced andsmoked and drank with whosoever would buy.

  Bob stood to one side of the surging crowd that milled round the gamingtables, and watched. There was no soft-fingered, velvet-footed glamourabout this place. No thick carpets, rich hangings, or exotic perfumes.Most of the men were direct from the fields with the soil of the day'swork upon their rough overalls--and often on their faces and grimyhands. The men who ran the games were in their shirt sleeves, alert,sweatingly busy; some of them grim, a few predatory, but more of themeasily good-natured. The whole thing was swift, direct, businesslike.Men were trying to win money from the house; and the house was winningmoney from them. This was raw gambling, raw drinking, raw vice. Itwas the old Bret Harte days multiplied by ten.

  And yet there was a fascination about it. Bob felt it. It is idioticto deny that gambling, which is the lure of quick money reduced tominutes and seconds, has not a fascination for nearly all men. As Bobstood leaning with his back against the bar--there was no other placeto lean, not one place in that big hall to sit down--the scene filledhim with the tragedy of futile trust in luck.

  All these men knew that a day's work, a bale of cotton, a crate ofmelons, a cultivator--positive, useful things--brought money, positive,useful returns. And yet they staked that certainty on a vague beliefin luck--and always, and always lost the certainty in grabbing for theshadow.

  Most of these men were day labourers, clerks, small-salaried men. Itcost a thousand dollars a day to run this house, and it made anotherthousand dollars in profits. Two thousand dollars--a thousand days'hard work squandered every night by the poor devils who hoped to getsomething easy. And some of them squandered not merely one day's workbut a month's or six months' hard, sweaty toil flipped away with onethrow of the dice or one spin of the ball.

  While Bob's eyes watched the ever-shifting crowd that moved from tableto table he saw Rodriguez, the man for whom he was searching. He waswith Reedy Jenkins and three others coming from that end of thebuilding devoted to alleged musical comedy. Besides the nattyMadrigal, the sad-looking Rodriguez and Reedy, there were a Mexican andan American Bob did not know. All of them except Rodriguez woreexpensive silk shirts and panama hats, and had had several drinks andwere headed for more. Reedy, pink and expansive, chuckling andoratorical, was evidently the host. He was almost full enough andhilarious enough to do something ridiculous if the occasion offered.

  After two more rounds of drinks the party started for the gamingtables. The crowd was too thick for them to push their way in as abody, so they scattered. Reedy bought ten dollars' worth of chips at aroulette table, played them in stacks of twenty, and lost in threeminutes. As he turned away he caught sight of Bob Rogeen and cameacross to him.

  "Hello, Cotton-eyed Joe," he said with drunken jocularity, "let's havea drink."

  "Thanks," replied Bob, "my wildest dissipation is iced rain water."

  Bob just then caught sight of Noah Ezekiel and moved away from ReedyJenkins. He felt it safer--especially for Reedy, to stay out of reachof him.

  Noah Ezekiel's lank form was leaning against a roulette table, a stackof yellow chips in front of him.

  "Hello," said the hill billy as Bob edged his way up to his side.

  "How is it going?" asked Bob.

  "Fine," answered Noah, carefully laying five chips in the shape of astar. "I got a system and I'm going to clean 'em up."

  Bob smiled and watched. The wheel spun around. The ball slowed anddropped on 24. Noah's magical star spread around 7. The dealerreached over and wiped in his five chips.

  "You see," Noah explained, taking it for granted Bob knew nothing ofthe games, "this is ruelay. You play your money on one number and thenrue it." The hill billy chuckled at his pun. "There are 36 numbers onthe table," he pointed a long forefinger, "and there are 36 numbers onthe wheel. You put your money or chip--the chips are five centsapiece--on one number, and if the ball stops at that number on thewheel, you win 35 times what you played."

  "But if it doesn't stop on your number?" said Bob.

  "Then you are out of luck." Noah Ezekiel had again begun to place hischips.

  "Of course," he explained, "you play this thing dozens of ways; one totwo on the red or black, or you can play one to three on the first,second or third twelve. Or you can play on the line between twonumbers, and if either number wins you get 17 chips."

  Noah won this time. The number in the centre of his star came up andhe got 67 chips.

  "Better quit now, hadn't you?" suggested Bob.

  "Nope--just beginning to rake 'em in," replied Noah.

  "Wish you would," said Bob, "and show me the rest of the games."

  Noah reluctantly cashed in. He had begun with a dollar and got back$4.60.

  "You see," said Noah, clinking the silver in his hands as they movedaway, "this is lots easier than work. The only reason I work for youis out of the kindness of my heart. I made that $4.60 in twentyminutes."

  "Here is craps." They had stopped at a table that looked like a guttedpiano, with sides a foot above the bottom.

  "You take the dice"--Noah happened to be in line and got them as thelast man lost--"and put down say a half dollar." He laid one on theline. "You throw the two dice. If seven comes up---- Ah, there!" hechuckled. "I done it." The face of the dice showed [3 and 4]. "Yousee I win." The dealer had thrown down a half dollar on top of Noah's."Now, come, seven." Noah flung them again.

  Sure enough seven came up again. A dollar was pitched out to him. Heleft the two dollars lying. This time he threw eleven and won again.Four dollars! Noah was in great glee.

  "Let's go," urged Bob.

  "One more throw," Noah brought up a 6 this time.

  "Now," he explained, "I've got to throw until another 6 comes. If Iget a seven before I do a six, they win." His next throw was a seven,and the dealer raked in the four dollars.

  "Oh, well," sighed Noah, "only fifty cents of that was mine, anyway.And the poor gamblers have to live.

  "This," he explained, stopping at a table waist high around which acircle of men stood with money and cards in front of them, "is BlackJack.

  "You put down the amount of money you want to bet. The banker dealseverybody two cards, including himself. But both your cards are facedown, while his second card is face up.

 
"The game is to see who can get closest to 21. You look at your cards.All face cards count for ten; ace counts for either 1 or 11 as youprefer.

  "If your cards don't add enough, you can get as many more as you askfor. But if you ask for a card and it makes you run over 21, you loseand push your money over. Say you get a king and a 9--that is 19, andyou stand on that, and push your cards under your money.

  "When all the rest have all the cards they want, the dealer turns hisover. Say he has a 10 and a 8. He draws. If he gets a card that putshim over 21, he goes broke and pays everybody. But if he gets say18--then he pays all those who are nearer 21 than he; but all who haveless than 18 lose."

  While Noah had been explaining, he had been playing, and lost a dollaron each of two hands.

  They moved on to a chuck-a-luck game.

  "This, you see," said Noah, "is a sort of bird cage with threeovergrown dice. You put your money on any one of these six numbers.He whirls the cage and shakes up the fat dice. They fall--and if oneof the three numbers which come up is yours, you win.Otherwise--ouch!" Noah had played a dollar on the 5; and a 1, 2 and a6 came up.

  As they moved away Noah was shaking his head disconsolately.

  "Money is like a shadow that soon flees away--and you have to hoecotton in the morning."

  "Don't you know," said Bob, earnestly, "that everyone of these gamesgive the house from 6 to 30 per cent., and that you are sure to lose inthe end?"

  "Yeah," said Noah, wearily. "You're sure to die in the end, too; butthat don't keep you from goin' on tryin' every day to make a livin' andhave a little fun. It's all a game, and the old man with the mowin'blade has the last call."

  "But," persisted Bob, "when you earn a thing and get what you earn, itis really yours, and has a value and gives a pleasure that you can'tget out of money that comes any other way."

  "Don't you believe it," Noah shook his head lugubriously. "The easiermoney comes the more I enjoy it. Only it don't never come. It goes.This here gamblin' business reminds me of an old dominecker hen we usedto have. That hen produced an awful lot of cackle but mighty few eggs.It is what my dad would have called the shadow without the substance.But your blamed old tractor gives me a durned lot more substance than Iyearn for."

  They were still pushing among the jostling crowd. There were more thana thousand men in the hall--and a few women. Soiled Mexicans passedthrough the jostle with trays on their heads selling sandwiches andbananas. Fragments of meat and bread and banana peelings werescattered upon the sawdust floor. It was a grimy scene. And yet Bobstill acknowledged the tremendous pull of it--the raw, quick action ofthe stuff that life and death are made of.

  Noah nudged Bob and nodded significantly toward the bar, where Reedywith his three friends and two or three Mexicans, including Madrigal,were drinking.

  "He's cookin' up something agin you," said Noah in a low tone. "Bettergo over and talk to him. He's gettin' full enough to spill some of it."

  Bob took the suggestion and sauntered over toward the bar. As heapproached, Reedy turned around and nodded blinkingly at him.

  "Say," Reedy leaned his elbows on the bar and spoke in a propitiatorytone, "I'sh sorry you went off in such a huff. Right good fello', Iunderstand. If you'd asked me, I'd saved you lot of trouble and moneyon that lease." Reedy stopped to hiccough. "Even now, take your leaseoff your hands at half what it cost."

  "So?" Bob smiled sarcastically.

  "Well, hell," Reedy was nettled at the lack of appreciation of hisgenerosity, "that's a good deal better than nothing."

  "My lease is not on the market," Bob replied, dryly.

  "Now look here!" Reedy half closed his plump eyes and noddedknowingly. "'Course you are goin' to sell--I got to have four moreranches to fill out my farm--and when I want 'em I get 'em, see? AsDavy Crockett said to the coon, 'Better come on down before I shoot,and save powder.'"

  "Shoot," said Bob, contemptuously.

  "Now look here," Reedy lurched still closer to Bob, and put his plumpfingers down on the bar as though holding something under his hand; "Igot unlimited capital back of me--million dollars--two million--all Iwant. That's on 'Merican side--on this side--I got pull. See? Fiftyways I can squelch you--just like that." He squeezed his plump, softhand together as though crushing a soft-shelled egg.

  "You are drunk," Bob said, disgustedly, "and talking through a sieve."He moved away from him and sauntered round the hall. At one of thetables he came upon Rodriguez, the man he was looking for.

  He looked more Spanish than Mexican, had a moustache but did not curlit, a thin face and soft brown eyes, and the pensive look of a poet whois also a philosopher.

  "Well?" Bob questioned in an undertone as they drifted outside of thegambling hall and stood in the shadows beyond the light of the opendoors. "Did you learn anything?"

  Rodriguez nodded. "They have two, three plans to make you get out.Senor Madrigal is--what you call hem?--detec--detectave in Mexico.Ver' bad man. He work for Senor Jenkins on the side."

  Bob left his Mexican friend. He stood in the shadow of the greatgambling hall for a moment, pulled in opposite directions by twodesires. He remembered a red spot on Reedy Jenkins' cheek just underhis left eye that he wanted to hit awfully bad. He could go back andsmash him one that would knock him clear across the bar. On the otherhand, he wanted to get on his horse and ride out into the silence anddarkness of the desert and think. After all, smashing that red spot onReedy's cheek would not save his ranch. He turned quickly down thestreet to where his horse was hitched.