King of Spades (6 page)

Kitty stirred, and rolled over to face him. “Daddy?”

“What the hell is Roddy doing in my bed?”

“Is that you, Magnus?”

“What the hell is my son doing in my bed?”

Kitty whispered up to him. “Roddy's had a hard day. So, shh, don't wake him.”

“Don't wake him? Where the hell am I going to sleep then?”

“Shh. I felt so sorry for him.”

“So sorry? Damnation, woman, don't you know I don't hold with sons sleeping with mothers?”

Kitty's sleepy lips drew back in partial snarl. “There's no harm done. He's only a baby.”

“Damnation, woman, you know what my wishes are in this matter.”

“Oh, come now, Magnus, dear, you're not really jealous of that little tassel of his now, are you? It's hardly there. Just a little johnny-nods.”

“Keep this up and you'll someday have him spoiled for a woman his own age.”

“I don't let him touch me. Just excepting maybe my feet.”

“Damnation, woman, but that's just the point.”

“Just about everybody lets their kids sleep with them when the old man is gone.”

“Old man, is it?”

“You're always at me when I do something nice for the boy.”

“Well?”

“Well, I'm getting fed up on it.”

“Not when you do the right things for him.”

“Maybe you've got a rotten mind, Magnus, dear.”

“In my doctoring I've run into some damned strange things. And now I find that lightning has finally struck here in my own house.”

“Are you suggesting—”

“Goddammit!” he roared, in sudden black passion. “Wake the boy up and chase him back to his own bed.”

“You do it.”

“I want you to do it. So that he'll know it's you who's ordering him out of our bed. You. Not me.”

Roddy suddenly sat up out of the bedclothes. “Don't bother, Dad, I'll get up by myself. All this racket waking me up.”

Magnus shivered. Check. So the boy had been awake all along. Had probably been awake those other times too. The boy knew. Father and mother had no secrets from him. That made it all the more devilish.

Magnus waited for Roddy to get settled in his own bed, then said, “Now there'll be no more of this, you hear?”

Silence.

“You hear?”

Silence.

“That's an order.”

“This is not the army, Magnus,” Kitty said. “The War between the States is over.”

“It's still an order.”

Silence from Roddy's bed.

Magnus blew out the lamp; dropped in bed; covered himself.

Kitty sighed as if she'd finally had the last straw.

Magnus worked his head deep into his pillow. The more he wriggled down the more he could still smell Roddy in the pillowcase.

Kitty drew away from Magnus, sleeping as far away from him as she could.

Magnus continued to work his head deep into his pillow.

“Besides,” Kitty said in the dark, “Roddy and me slept between different sheets. Not that it really matters.”

“That I believe.”

“If you'd just feel around a little, you'd see.”

Magnus lay stiff. A muscle just above his left kneecap began to quiver.

After a bit, Kitty gave him a light touch on the hip through the sheet. “You see.”

“Aha! Now I know for sure it did concern you. After all.”

“You must be insane.”

“Very likely. But it still goes. And now you can shut up about the matter and go to sleep.”

“I don't intend to shut up when you accuse me of something of which I'm not guilty. There has been no one. As the boy, yes, as even God is my witness.”

“The boy is a boy. And God I don't believe in.”

“Now I know for sure you're off your rocker.”

“We will see.” Magnus snapped the sheet tight under his chin. Deliberately he stiffened himself for sleep.

“What a fool I was not to listen to my aunt. Ohh!”

When will our ship come in?

3

Clear weather pushed out heavy weather.

Magnus awoke cheerful in the morning. He swung out of bed full of charge for the day.

He also found himself full of affection for Kitty and the boy. Weren't they all orphans together, himself included? Singletons? All the blood kin they had in America, in the world for that matter, was they themselves. Suppose something should happen to one of them, who would rush to their aid with help and love except they themselves?

Magnus shaved over the washbasin in the kitchen. Kitty made breakfast. Roddy set the table.

Not much was said. Roddy and Kitty seemed to be waiting for Magnus to begin.

Magnus deftly worked the straightedge over and around his chin. Crisp. Crisp. He took hold of his skin over his cheek near his nose and began coming down the side of his face. Crisp. Crisp. He had a fine edge on his straight razor that morning.

Kitty banged a stove lid.

Magnus ignored the banging. He cleaned his razor on a piece of newspaper and folded it away. “What are we having for the breaking of our fast this morning, Mother?”

“Same old thing.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Kitty threw him a surprised look.

Magnus washed his face with soft water and tar soap. He combed his hair until it shone like the glossy back of a crow.

Kitty removed a tray of fresh toast from the oven. With her knee she slammed shut the nickel oven door.

Magnus felt a sudden regret for all the terrible things he said the night before. He shivered. “Jesus.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought you said something.”

“No.” Magnus took his place at the head of the table.

Roddy looked up from his plate. He studied his father's face with grave green eyes.

Magnus summoned up a smile. He winked at Roddy. “What's on tap for today, boy?”

“Nothing.”

“What about school?”

“Teach is getting married.”

“Oho. No school then, eh? That calls for something special. Let's make it a holiday, what do you say?”

A gleam of interest appeared in the boy's eyes.

“What would you really like to do today, boy? Really now?” Magnus cut off a corner of his toast, next cut off a piece of fried egg and placed it precisely on the corner of the toast, next cut off a slice of butter and placed it neatly on the piece of egg, then, in one motion, put the running little triple-decker in his mouth. Very good. Kitty was a great cook for all that. “Name it, Roddy, my man, and we'll do it.”

“You promised me once to give me some pointers on how to shoot.”

“How about a walk out along the new Military Road? See where the Argonauts head out these days.”

Roddy was instantly aglow. “Say, Dad, I forgot to tell you.
Down by the Big Sioux there I found a good place for target practice. Under those giant cottonwoods.”

“All right, boy, done. That's what we'll do.”

Kitty poured Magnus some hot coffee. “Do you think that's wise for a boy so young?”

“Why not?” Magnus gave Kitty a large smile. “The boy had better learn to shoot right. At least out here. The frontier is just across the river, you know.”

Roddy slid over on his father's side of things. “Didn't you hear our mountain lion out howling again last night, Ma?”

Kitty wasn't sure. “I hope you aren't leading the boy astray with all that talk about guns and such.” She took a bite of egg yolk. It ran yellow off her fork. “I just don't like guns.”

“You really are going to take the day off then today, Dad?”

“Of course. A promise is a promise.”

Kitty shook her head. “I don't know. Any time your father wakes up with a smile on his face as big as a small wave on a lake I begin to worry.”

Magnus took a last sip of coffee. He put up his napkin in its ring. “Can't a doctor spend a little time with his family just like anybody else?” Magnus then got to his feet and went around to Kitty's side of the table and placed his hands affectionately on her shoulders. It was like in the old days, almost.

But when Magnus leaned down to kiss her, Kitty ducked away and his kiss fell on her light-brown hair instead.

Magnus still smiled down at her. “Don't begrudge me those lovely Indian lips of yours now, doll. They're like cut rubies.”

“Hmf.”

Roddy got up from the table too. “C'mon, Dad, let's go.”

Together the two men of the house went out back and got the guns from the lean-to, Magnus his pistol and Roddy the double-barreled shotgun.

They carefully wiped off the oil. They polished the wood stock on the shotgun to a shining rosy brown. They filled their pockets with a supply of shells.

 

They sauntered out the new Military Road going west. It crossed several dry coulees. In places iron wheels had cut the black earth deep enough to lay bare its clay flesh.

The road skirted the foot of the north bluffs on their right. High above them leafless trees pricked against the skies like crowds of stick figures.

On their left, meadows fell away in varying slopes between the road and the Missouri. The meadows lay sweet with the year's last clover balls. Bees moved like loops of syrup, slowly, from ball to ball. A tangle of wild roses, belled with hips the color of ripe apples, ringed a buffalo wallow.

Magnus and Roddy dipped through an ancient riverbed, and then suddenly were in among the giant cottonwoods.

The cottonwoods loomed immense, their tops like high-thrown flukes of sporting whales. Sunlight moved under them in varying puffs.

Sweet grass underfoot, cropped short by the buffalo, gleamed a deep green. The last flies of the year rose out of the grass for a wondering bite. Across the river purplish-green waves moved across a slough of ripgut grass.

Magnus selected a fallen cottonwood limb as the target. Its bark was mostly peeled off, leaving a bone-dry bole. It had numerous little knots which made for excellent bull's-eyes.

Roddy shot well. He aimed instinctively and on the rise. He more squeezed than pulled the trigger. He took the kick of the double-barreled shotgun through the back leg where it rested lightly on the ground.

“Son you have only one fault that I can see.”

“What's that, Dad?” The two barrels of Roddy's gun gleamed iridescent blues and greens.

“It's the way you handle your gun between shots.”

Roddy's lower lip showed pink for a moment.

“Son, there's one thing you must always remember. Always. And you must never forget it. Just a touch on the trigger, on purpose or accidentally, and off she goes.”

“I wasn't pointing it at anybody.”

“You twice had it pointed at me. With your finger still in the trigger guard. Once you even had it pointed at your own foot.”

Roddy's green eyes darkened.

“It's all right. But watch it.”

“Nnn.”

Magnus thought he'd better counter what he'd said with something pleasant. “Maybe this fall you can enter the town turkey shoot.”

At that Roddy brightened. “Boy, Dad, if they'll let me enter, I'll win us a great big fat turkey gobbler for Thanksgiving.”

“Atta way to talk. Might as well be a man as not. While you're at it.”

Magnus took his turn with the pistol. Standing a good twenty paces off, he hit dead center five times out of six. A silver dollar could have covered the bullet holes in and around the tiny knot in the log.

Roddy took pride in his father.

Magnus found a penny in his pocket. He flipped it into the air above them and with a single shot hit it on the way down.

Roddy spotted where the penny glanced off. He went over and got it. “It's bent double, Dad.”

“Didn't I drill it plumb center?”

“You hit it dead center all right. But it didn't go through. Just bent it double.”

“That's blunt-nosed bullets for you.”

“When can I try the six-shooter, Dad?”

“In a couple of years maybe.”

“Why wait that long?”

“A revolver is trickier than a shotgun. Because it's too handy. It can turn on you so much quicker than a shotgun.”

“That's why when a man wants to commit suicide he always takes the revolver then.”

Magnus winced. “Where'd you hear that fool notion?”

“Heard the kids at school talking about it.”

“Good Lord.” Magnus punched his heel into the green turf.

“Say, Dad, suppose you was to meet a real road agent in a saloon? And he was out to kill you? How'd you take care of him?”

“I suppose you heard about that in school too?”

“Yeh.”

“Hum.” Magnus touched a hand to his eye as if refixing a monocle in place. “Well, in the case of a vicious road agent, I'd aim with the eyes, never the gun. Gut-shoot him.”

“Say, Dad, when are you going to give me a monocle like you got at home?”

“Never.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn't fit in America.”

“We're going back to England someday, ain't we?”

“No, boy, no, I guess we never will.”

Roddy kicked loose a round skipping stone from the grass. He picked it up and fitted it expertly in his eye as though it were a monocle.

“Don't, son. I have nothing but bad memories about those things.”

Roddy skimmed the stone away, off across the grass. “Sorry, Dad.”

Magnus shook himself. “Well now, boy. You got any advice to give me? Turn and turn about, you know.”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Nothing? Nothing about how I hold the gun or something?”

“No.”

“Not even the way I stand maybe?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Then I can qualify for a pistol shoot.”

“Boy, I can't wait for the day when I can shoot a pistol.”

Magnus sat down on the bony cottonwood log, and got out his pipe and lighted up. In a moment the tranquil smell of tobacco smoke wafted around them.