And they did, Nathan thought with just a touch of envy. His father had surprised them all by arranging for the purchase of a house in town rather than buying farmland. It was a comfortable frame house on the road that led south to Hiram and Mantua. With it had come thirty-some acres of cleared land. But his father did not plan to farm it. He had already sent for the surveyors to mark it off into individual residential lots. Members of the Church were flocking to Ohio, and they had to have places to live. His father was going to become a businessman, a developer of real estate. That absolutely floored Nathan. He still found it hard to believe.
Joseph sat back, appraising Nathan’s father calmly. “You’re not still thinking that I’m filled with the devil, are you, Ben?” It was not so much a question as a simple statement.
There was a moment’s pause, then Benjamin slowly shook his head. “No, Joseph, I’ll admit to that much. And I’m sorry I ever said such things about you.”
The blue eyes fairly danced with pleasure. “Good. That’s progress, wouldn’t you say?”
Benjamin was not about to be bested. “Maybe,” he drawled, “but that’s not to say I don’t wonder about your common sense. I mean, running off to the ends of the world to find something called Zion—sounds pretty daft to me.”
Joseph laughed and picked up a chicken leg. “Daft I can live with,” he said. He took a bite. “It was all that devil stuff that was getting to me.”
Jessica Steed came awake with a start the moment Joshua’s hand touched her. She jerked up to a sitting position, clutching the sheet to her as she looked around wildly, trying to get her bearings.
“Jess, it’s me. It’s all right.”
It didn’t register, only that there was a dark shape looming over her. She shrank back against the coldness of the brass headboard.
“It’s me, Jessie. Wake up.”
“Joshua?” Her hand brushed across her eyes.
“Yes. Come on, wake up.”
He stepped back and let her fight off the torpor. She had been so deep in sleep that in waking up she felt as if she were clawing her way out of a pit with steep, slippery sides.
“What is it, Joshua?” She looked around, trying to see the clock in the darkness. “What time is it?”
“It’s not even ten-thirty yet. For heaven’s sake, what time did you go to bed anyway?”
“About an hour ago.” She didn’t add that she went to bed early now almost every night when he didn’t come home. When dusk began to settle and the house darkened, she didn’t even bother lighting the candles or a lamp. She would just slip into her nightdress and crawl between the sheets, falling asleep almost instantly. That alone was indication she was pregnant again. By supper time she felt as drained as if she had walked fifty miles across the prairie.
“Well, get dressed. I need you.”
She gaped at him for a moment.
“Come on, Jess,” he commanded sharply. “This can’t wait.”
She swung her feet over the edge of the bed. “What is it, Joshua?”
“Get going. I’ll tell you while you dress.”
As he stood up and stepped back, she caught a whiff of the whiskey. It had mixed with the smell of cigar smoke and chewing tobacco and was foul enough that it made her turn her face away. “You’ve been drinkin’ again, haven’t you?” she said in disgust.
“Jess, this ain’t no time for one of your lectures.”
“What is it you want? Where we goin’?”
“You just dress while I talk.”
She leaned over to the small night table where she kept a small kerosene lamp, its wick barely glowing. His hand shot out of the darkness and gripped her wrist, startling her. “I’m just going to turn up the lamp, Joshua.”
“No light. Just dress.”
She stood slowly and went to the wardrobe. She opened it and groped for her dress, not hurrying, trying to ignore the deep sense of foreboding that was surging up inside her.
“All right,” he said, his voice lowering, “listen! There’s a poker game goin’ on, and I—”
She whirled around. “Poker?”
“Yes.”
“This is about poker?”
“Shut up and listen!” he snarled. “I’ve got to get back. If I’m gone too long they’re gonna suspect somethin’.”
She stood rock still, staring at him in the darkness.
“Here’s what I need you to do. Get dressed. Go out the back door and down the alley to the back of your father’s saloon.”
“Joshua?” A note of pleading had crept into her voice and she hated herself for it, but she had to stop him. She didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.
He rode right over her. “Go up the back steps. Your pa will have the door unlocked. Don’t make no sounds. The poker game is moving from the main saloon hall up to your pa’s living quarters. They think I’ve gone for more money.”
“Is this the man from Pittsburgh?”
“Will you just listen!”
She turned around. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of her nightdress, and finally it fell from off her shoulders.
“There’s a tiny nail hole in the door to the bedroom. You’ll be able to see from the bedroom into the room where we’re playing. I’ll see that this Everett fellow is seated with his back partly to you. You should be able to see his cards clearly.”
Once more she turned to face him, clutching her dress in front of her like a shield. “No, Joshua. I won’t cheat for you again.”
“You will!” he barked. “If I tell you to, you will.”
“Please, Joshua, I’ve never forgiven myself for helping you rob the poor farmer from Virginia. Don’t make me do this.”
He was across the room to her in one leap and grabbed her shoulders, his fingertips digging hard into the flesh. He shook her roughly. “Don’t you say it!” he yelled into her face. “Don’t you tell me you won’t do it.” The stench of the whiskey made her gasp. Abruptly, he let her go, and stepped back, his hands dropping. “You want me to lose everything?”
Her head jerked up. “Is it that bad?” she whispered.
He stepped back farther. She could hear him breathing heavily in the darkness.
“Well, is it?” she demanded, her voice and her anger suddenly rising. After her father had come to see her about this poker thing, she had jumped on him about it. There had been an ugly confrontation, and for three nights he had not come home. But finally he had, and he had sworn there would be no more games with the man from Pittsburgh.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
There was a long moment, then with pain, “Bad. If I can’t win big tonight, I’ll have to sell almost everything to pay the bank.”
She felt her knees go weak. Too shocked and hurt and disgusted to speak, she turned her back on him again and began to dress.
When he spoke again it was strangled, filled with shame, and yet also defiant and challenging. “You know the signals that’ll tell you what I’ve got. Same as before. If he’s got the better hand, you just press your thumb up hard against that nail hole. If I’m better than him, leave it clear.”
She nodded numbly. “All right, Joshua.”
“Jessie, I...” She could hear him swallow in the stillness of the room. “I swear to you, if I can come out of this, I’ll never—”
She swung around so abruptly that it cut him off in midsentence. She stared him down in the darkness, letting him feel the fulness of her loathing.
He backed up a step, then his shoulders squared, and his face jutted forward. “You just do it right, Jessie,” he muttered. “Don’t you foul me up on this one.” He turned and started for the door and the stairs. “Remember, don’t make no noise comin’ in. They’re probably already there by now.”
Wilson Everett was a professional gambler, there was no mistaking that. He had all the signs and made no effort to hide them. That was part of the mystique, in fact. There were always those who thought they were maybe just good enough to knock him off. It was a fool’s dream; but then, as Joshua had always said, poker was a fool’s game. But this time Joshua was the fool, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Jessica watched Everett through the tiny hole in the door, seeing now his bewilderment. His fortunes had suddenly changed, and the gambler’s instinct told him something was wrong. But he hadn’t yet figured out what. He had called for a new deck, watched Joshua closely. But he still lost steadily.
There were five people in the room, but only four at the table. Clinton Roundy, Jessica’s father, was not playing. He kept the liquor handy and watched quietly from one corner. Judge Samuel Lucas, the county judge for Jackson County, and Zebediah Sloan, owner of the largest sawmill in the county, rounded out the circle of players. Lucas had played shrewdly, cautiously, and was down no more than a hundred dollars. Sloan had lost heavily and showed an increasingly frightened demeanor as he continued to do so.
Joshua poured himself another glass of whiskey, winning a sharp look from his father-in-law. He laughed, held it high in salute, then downed it in two gulps. Jessica felt a great sense of despair sweep over her. Liquor and pride—it was a deadly combination, and it was only her being the way she was that made the second element in the combination possible.
“Whose deal?” the judge asked.
“Mine,” Everett said. Zeb Sloan gathered up the cards and shoved them across to him. But Everett paid them no mind. He was still watching Joshua, his dark eyes hooded and thoughtful. Without breaking off his gaze, he reached in his pocket and took out a cigar. He took out a small penknife, cut off the end of the cigar, leaned over to the candle, and began puffing until the cigar tip glowed a bright red. Not once did he let his eyes break off their silent appraisal of the man across the table from him.
Joshua sat back, basking in the new respect he saw in the other man’s eyes.
Everett took another deep puff, then blew the smoke at the ceiling.
“Come on, Everett,” the judge complained. “You gonna deal or what?”
Everett picked up the cards and began to shuffle them slowly. His eyes still did not leave Joshua. “Hear that old Roundy here has a daughter. Understand you married her.”
It was to Joshua’s credit that his eyes showed nothing of the sudden start he felt inside. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Almost two years ago now.”
“What’s the game, Everett?” Sloan was getting impatient.
“Seven-card stud.” He smiled at the mill owner. “What say we make this interesting? Twenty-five dollars to open, no ceiling on the bets.”
Jessica shifted slightly so she could see the other two men’s faces through the tiny hole. Sloan paled. Judge Lucas’s one eyebrow came up. Joshua nodded, too eager. This was what he was hoping. No limits. Get the right hand, then go for the whole thing all at once.
“She a looker?”
Joshua was startled this time. Jessica saw it on his face.
“Who?”
“This wife of yours.”
At that moment Jessica hated her husband. She saw the panic in his eyes, could read his thoughts as if they were a page in one of her books.
Joshua slapped one hand on the table. “Look,” he snapped, “do you want to talk about my wife or do you want to play cards?”
She turned away, sick, ashamed. She didn’t expect flattery from Joshua. She knew what she was. A
looker? Hardly.
It was the duplicity in him that filled her now with loathing. He knew he couldn’t afford to hurt her feelings, not with her holding his financial fate in her hands. But he was also shrewd enough not to say something she would know was a lie. That would be worse. So he had said nothing.
Suddenly Jessica felt the revulsion well up in her like bile, only now the disgust was for herself. Once before she had helped Joshua cheat in a card game. It had been almost three years ago now, but she still was haunted by the face of that naive, dolt of a farmer from Virginia when he looked at his poker hand and realized Joshua had just won everything, his teams, his wagons, a small fortune in freight—a life’s work and a family’s dream. And Jessie had made it happen. She had seen his hand—he being so naive that he didn’t even suspect that the barmaid behind him might be helping his opponent—and signalled Joshua.
Since that night, Jessica had had a recurring dream. It always left her hollow and empty inside. There was a woman, a kindly, weary-looking mother with tattered dress. Clinging to her skirts were three small, emaciated children with tear-stained cheeks. The cabin was in shambles—a door swinging on one hinge, broken windows, a well that was choked with weeds. Suddenly the family’s faces would light with joy. Their father was coming, their trial was at an end. Always in the dream, Jessica could not see the man’s face. He would be half-turned from her view. But as the wife and children ran up to him, shouting aloud with excitement, he would slowly open the broken gate, keeping his back to them until they began to pluck at his clothes, begging him to greet them. Then finally, with infinite slowness, he would begin to turn. It was the farmer. His eyes were but sockets in his face, his mouth pinched and drawn back across his teeth. Then, with that same maddening slowness, he would lift his hands, palms up and fingers outstretched, and hold them out to his children. There was nothing in them, but Jessica would always feel the nothingness running through his fingers, like unseen sand falling to be caught by the wind and drift away.
With sudden resolve, she stepped back away from the door, careful not to make any noise. She retrieved her shawl from the bed, wound it around her shoulders, and quietly slipped out of the door into the night.
Seven-card stud is not a game for the faint of heart. Two hole cards are dealt facedown, then four faceup, and the final hole card facedown again. The player with the best five cards wins the hand. Bets are placed after each deal of the cards. Joshua had finally gotten the hand he was after. Two queens and two aces. One more of either and he would have a full house. A powerful full house! What was better, Everett thought he had a winning hand too. Lucas and Sloan had dropped out on the second deal. Now Joshua and Everett sat facing each other, faces like carved stone, the only movement coming when they dropped another fifty or hundred dollars into the center of the table.
The moment had arrived. Joshua sensed it. Everett was grim. He showed two nines, an eight, and a jack. Two were clubs, so he might be playing for a flush, but Joshua didn’t think so. The man was bluffing; he could see it on his face. Joshua’s gambler instincts told him it was so.