“How do you know whether I love him?”
“Because you love me.”
“Not that way.”
“There’s only one way.”
“Anyway, he loves me, I know that.”
“How?”
“Look what he’s given me.”
“When they buy you, that proves love?”
“What other way can a man show how much he thinks of you, if he don’t give you things? What have you ever given me?”
“Don’t you know why they pay to have you?”
“Because they want me.”
“So you can’t have them.”
“That don’t mean anything I can understand.”
“It means that after it’s over they can walk out and you’ve got no claim on them or right to say any part of them was ever yours or even the right to speak to them on the street. No, I never gave you anything, but myself, and that’s why I’m up here right now—”
Tears began running down her face, and she beat on the sofa with her fists. “It’s not true, what you’re saying! When a man gives you something, it proves how popular you are! It didn’t have to be me. It could have been any girl on the street. But instead of them, he finds me attractive, and the way he shows it, he gives me a present. And when it’s a nice present, a big present, it’s a wonderful compliment!”
I guess she said more, but all I remember is the way her eyes shone through the tears, and the way it hit me in the stomach, to find out at last why she was what she was. To her it was living. It was like being a queen, of a tiny, miserable, rotten little kingdom maybe, but with a crown on her head just the same.
That night came news of Chickamauga, and I don’t know which felt worse, me or the town. Because if it was the biggest thing for the South since Chancellorsville, there was nothing I had done to make me feel I had a part of it. And if the town was Union, there were plenty by now that were beginning to wonder if they’d ever get their war won, which of course they won’t. There wasn’t much whooping in the saloons that night, especially in the Esperanza, where the high-class trade took a thing like that a lot more to heart than a place with nothing but a bunch of bums at the bar. They stood around by twos and threes, talking it over, and not very loud. All you could hear was Bragg, Bragg, and Bragg. One day before, he’d been the funniest object on earth. They’d made jokes about his name, his looks, and his rows with his generals. Now they mumbled about him like he was a cross between Napoleon Bonaparte and a she grizzly, and nothing could stop him.
So out back, where I’d gone for some air, a little more mumbling didn’t mean anything, at first. It was on the other side of the fence, a few feet from where I was leaning against the building, looking at the stars, and I just figured it was a few more lads that had found out that hoping to win a war was not quite the same as winning it. But then all of a sudden I woke up. This had nothing to do with war. It was about a little party that was to start in a few minutes, and the guest of honor was to be me. There seemed to be four of them, but the only name I caught was Hoke. I didn’t know at that time that he was Big Hoke Irving, known from Texas to Canada as one of the worst bad men in the West. He laid it out for them three times. At nine o’clock they were to drift in one at a time and he’d take position near the door. One of the others was to go to the bar, order a drink, and at Hoke’s handkerchief signal begin to shoot. I was the first target, and after I dropped, he was to shoot at lights, bottles, and anything that would make a noise and scare the crowd. Hoke was to holler at them and shoot at anything that made trouble, but mainly huddle them and get them on the floor. When he gave the word, the other two were to go down the line with a gunny sack one of them had under his coat, and grab everything in sight, one holding the sack, the other scooping money. But the main thing, he said, was do it fast and do it rough. If they did it right, they’d be in, out, and away less than five minutes after they started.
I held my breath, and when they moved off I raised on tiptoe to look, but next door was a vacant lot with no lights or anything, and all I could see was shadows. I went inside to warn Rocco and tell him what I thought we should do, which was to get deputies and get them quick. But when I started over to him, where he was talking to some officers near my chair, I stopped. Because coming into the place, with Red Caskie, the fellow that did his errands, his brother Raymond, that had charge of all chemical operations at his mine, and three or four hombres from his office, was Brewer. My head began to pound. I went over to my chair and sat down, but instead of saying something to Rocco I looked at the clock. It was twenty minutes to nine.
Once you saw him, the idea that Brewer could love anybody, unless it was himself, was nothing more or less than funny. He was good-looking enough, in a heavy kind of way, and always had a grin and wave of the hand for whoever came along, but just the same he wasn’t romantic. He wasn’t as tall as I am, but he was at least six feet, with a big barrel chest and a rolling walk they said he got from being a lumberman, up in Wisconsin. Anyway, making all the money he had came from all the stuff he knew about timber. Up to a few months ago almost anybody that could timber a mine so it wouldn’t cave in and kill everybody down there could get rich in Virginia City, and he was thick with Deidesheimer, who taught them how to make squaresets, so right at the start he had a big advantage. Then he brought his brothers in, who were in some college back east, and sent them to work for a bank, and after they learned all they could about processes and finances, they came back with him again. Then Will went to San Francisco, to deal with the mint and the silver-buyers, and Raymond took charge of the mill. But when it came to George, it affected him the way it would affect any dumb lumberman from the north woods that made about ten times as much money as he ever thought he would have. He got this idea that only the best was good enough for him, whether it was food, drink, or cigars, and if you ask me, the main thing he saw in Morina was that she could pile on more clothes, diamonds, and ribbons than any other woman in town, so of course that made her the best, and the way he figured things out, the perfect wife.
He began rapping on the bar with his cane, and ordered up champagne for everybody in the house. Jake had a grin all over his face, and began yelling at Ike and Davey to fill the ice tub, to open cases, to get out the extra glasses in the closet. But when he got out a bottle and held it for Brewer, it wasn’t good enough. Brewer smashed it down on a beer tap, and told him to get some real champagne, and me, I don’t know one champagne from another, but a funny look come over Jake’s face. I can’t prove it, but I’d bet the champagne Brewer paid for that night wasn’t as good as the champagne he slopped on the floor.
Rocco was all grin too, and motioned all dealers and croupiers to close down their games. So the whole mob, except me, crowded to the bar. Caskie came over. “What’s the matter, Rog, don’t you feel sociable?”
“I’m supposed to stay sober.”
“George, he wants you.”
“Tell him thanks, but tonight I’m off it.”
“Listen, there’s not many hombres in this town that’s too goddam busy to step over to the bar when George Brewer wants to buy them a drink.”
“I’m on duty.”
“Listen, Rog, that’s what he’s in here for.”
“To get me drunk?”
“He knows about you.”
“What’s he know?”
“About you and Morina.”
“He don’t know much, if that’s all.”