Journeyman Page 8

  He looked again to see her move her head slowly up and down while her eyes bored into him.

  “Where? Oh, just out around the barn,” he said.

  He did not look at her after that.

  “Dene said she couldn’t figure out what you folks were doing out there all that time,” Tom said. “I told her that maybe you and Semon and Lorene were digging fishing worms.”

  Clay hoped the questioning would stop there. When Dene said nothing more for a while, he thought it had stopped. But later, after thinking about it, he realized that the questioning had just begun. Dene would keep him awake night after night asking him, begging him, threatening him; and she would not stop until he had told her where he had been and what he had done there. But even that would not be the end; Dene would worry him for months afterward, making him talk about it. Clay did not know what he could do about it, though. He would just have to let her talk.

  “I don’t reckon there’s an organ in the schoolhouse,” Semon said, not to anyone in particular. “We can get along without it Sunday though, I reckon. Somebody ought to bring a fiddle or a banjo, and we can raise a tune with that. I never have much trouble with the music and singing at a meeting. People like to sing in a church or schoolhouse when they all get together. Looks like sometimes they’d a heap rather sing than listen to the sermon. I’ve figured it out so as to give half the time to one, and half to the other. That pleases almost everybody.”

  Clay took out his harmonica and tapped it on his knee. After that he ran his fingers over it to wipe off the tobacco dust from his pocket. When he was satisfied with it, he began playing.

  “What are you aiming to preach about Sunday, preacher?” Tom asked. “You didn’t exactly ever say, did you?”

  “Preach about? About sins. I always preach about sins, Tom. There’s nothing else the people will put up with, for any length of time. And the more sins, and the worse sins, and the reddest sins, I can preach about, the better the people like to listen. I believe in preaching about the things the people want to hear. I’ve found out what the people want to hear, and I give it to them.”

  “How can you tell what folks like to hear?”

  “I tell by the size of the offering they drop in the hat, and by the number that come through with religion. I’ve been preaching long enough to know just what people everywhere want to hear.”

  “I reckon you know all about it then,” Tom said.

  “Know all about it? Sure, I know all about it.” He stopped until Tom had filled his glass from the jug. After swallowing half of it, he continued. “I know just about all there is to know. I’ve been traveling over Georgia and Alabama since I was twenty years old, and I’m nearly fifty now. That’s why I know so much about preaching. If I had sat down in one church, like most of the preachers do, and not got out among the people, I wouldn’t know a bit more than the settled preachers know. But I travel. I’m a traveling preacher, and I know just about every sin there is in Georgia. And then some!”

  Chapter XI

  LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, after Lorene and Dene had gone into the house to take a nap, Semon left the porch without comment and walked around the corner of the building. Tom and Clay followed a minute later to see what he was doing around there.

  Semon was sitting on his haunches near the brick chimney, rolling a pair of dice on the hard ground. He did not look up when they approached.

  “That’s my game,” Tom said enthusiastically. “How’d you know it, preacher?”

  Semon went on rolling the dice, snapping his fingers occasionally, and did not bother to look up. The easy rhythm of his motion made it plain that he had had much practice.

  Tom sat down in front of him, squatting on his heels, and watched the cubes tumble over the hard white sand.

  “Let’s have a friendly little game,” Tom suggested, unable to hold himself back any longer. “I don’t know a better way to pass the time of day.”

  Clay also had become magnetized by the dice. He rubbed his fingers together, hoping to get a chance to touch them.

  “It’s going to be a friendly game,” Tom insisted. “I wouldn’t like to have it end up in a scrap.”

  Semon nodded assent. He looked over at Clay.

  “How about it, Horey?”

  “Doggone right!” Clay said, shifting the weight of his body to his other heel and scooping up a handful of sand to sift between his fingers.

  “Got any money?” Semon inquired casually, rolling the dice and watching them come to a stop with a spinning motion that loosened the sand.

  “Sure, I’ve got money,” Tom said. “Least, I’ve got enough for a friendly game.”

  He pushed his hand into his overalls pocket and brought out the money he had.

  “How’re you fixed for money, Horey?” Semon asked, still intent upon the movement of the dice after they left his hand.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Clay said. “The fact is, I ain’t got a red penny to my name. That dollar was everything I had. Maybe if you could lend it to me, I might could make it up and pay you back.”

  Semon shook his head decisively.

  “Now, that’s just too bad,” Tom said. “I’m just itching to get in a friendly little game.”

  “If you won’t lend me the dollar, I don’t know how to get in the game,” Clay said, watching the dice.

  “That’s the surest way in the world to make enemies, Horey,” Semon said determinedly. “I’ve never known it to fail. Lending money to start a crap game always ends up in trouble. You’d better stay out if you can’t pay your own way. Man to man, now, I’d lend you the money; but a game of craps is something else. People get killed over little things like that.”

  Clay looked sick. He wished so much to have a hand in the game that he did not know how he was going to stand being kept out.

  “Now, that’s real bad,” Tom said sympathetically. “I hate to see a man have to stay out of a game just because he don’t happen to have a little change on him at the time.”

  Semon shook his head with determination.

  “It’s put up or shut up,” he stated. “This is like anything else that’s real. Most people think they can shoot crap and not have to pay. That’s why I said anybody in this game would have to put up his own money—and on the barrelhead. When it’s all over, somebody is going to start yelling for his money. Promises don’t pay up in a crap game.”

  “Reckon I could put up something to stake me?”

  “What have you got?”

  “Now I don’t know. Just what you see around, I reckon.”

  “Land wouldn’t do me no good,” Semon said. “You can’t stick land in your pocket and ride off with it.”

  Clay looked around. He could neither see nor think of anything he could put up to get into the game. While he was trying to think what to do, Semon rolled the dice methodically, his wrist throwing slowly and surely. He never gave the dice a chance to lie on the ground, but scooped them up the moment they came to a stop. It looked as if he knew what number he was going to throw, and did not take the trouble to see if they rolled as he had thrown them.

  “Maybe you’ve got a watch or something gold in the house,” Semon suggested finally, not taking his eyes from the ground under his eyes.

  “That’s right,” Clay cried. “There’s a watch in the house. I forgot all about that.”

  “That won’t be enough, though,” Semon said. “You’ve got to have enough to keep your hand in if you lose several times to begin with.”

  “I couldn’t lose it,” Clay said.

  “Why couldn’t you lose it?”

  “It belongs to Dene. It’s her daddy’s watch. He gave it to Dene when he died.”

  “It don’t make no difference to me who’s it is or used to be, if you want to play it. The color of money is the same the country over, and watches look all the same to me, if they’re gold.”

  “Oh, it’s gold, all right,” Clay was quick to assure him. “It’s yellowish all over.”


  “Maybe it is,” Semon said.

  “I didn’t know before that you shot craps, preacher,” Tom said. “You act just like nearly everybody else. Most preachers I ever saw wouldn’t touch dice with a ten-foot pole.”

  Semon laughed for the first time since he had started playing with the dice. But even then there was no show of laughter on his face.

  “I’m a preacher when I preach, and I’m a sleeper when I sleep.”

  “And so I reckon you’re a gambler when you gamble,” Tom nudged him. “That’s the thing to do, preacher. I’ve always said a man ought to act the part of what he claims to be.”

  “I reckon we’d better start out with a fifty-cent limit and work up,” Semon said, getting down closer to the ground on his haunch. The seat of his pants almost touched the hard sand. “I always like to warm the game up slow, to start with, instead of pushing it. It don’t do it no good to make it boil before the water’s hot.”

  “That’s right, preacher. You know the right way.”

  Clay came running around the corner of the house, holding the gold watch out in front of him. He was smiling all over his face.

  “Here it is,” he said excitedly. “Just like I said.”

  “We’ll have to set a value on it, and divide it up,” Semon said. “What do you figure it’s worth, Tom?”

  Tom took the gold watch case and examined it in the sunlight. He shook his head.

  “I’ll be a dead dog if I know.”

  “Let me take a look at it,” Semon said, reaching for it.

  “It ain’t so very old,” Clay said. “Dene’s daddy had it I don’t know how long before he died, and it still looks bright as new.”

  Semon held it to his ear and listened. He could hear nothing.

  “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, and immediately shook it violently. He held it to his ear once more.

  “It’s been lying on the shelf a long time, hasn’t it, Clay?” Tom said.

  “No,” Clay said. “Dene’s been keeping it in her dresser drawer. I had to rummage around under all her clothes just now before I could locate it.”

  “This thing won’t keep time,” Semon said, tossing it to Clay. “It won’t run a tick. That Goddamn watch’s no good.”

  “Maybe it just only needs winding,” Clay said. He proceeded to wind the stem, listening closely all the time to hear if it had begun to tick.

  “It would be worth about a dollar and a half to me,” Semon said. “The gold ought to melt down to that much, anyway.”

  Clay looked soberly at the watch.

  Semon shook his head determinedly.

  “I thought sure it would fetch more than that.”

  “How much do you figure it was worth?” Tom asked.

  “Looks like it ought to bring around two dollars, anyhow,” Clay said.

  “How much?” Semon asked, looking up from the ground.

  “I said two dollars.”

  “Well,” Semon said, “maybe it is worth that much. I might have undervalued it a little. I reckon two dollars would be just about right, being as it’s gold.”

  Clay’s face beamed. He squatted on his heels, shifting the weight of his body from right to left and back again. He rubbed his hands together warmly after laying the watch between his feet on the sand.

  “You’re in the watch four times, Horey,” Semon said.

  “How’s that?” Clay asked, looking from one to the other.

  “We’re playing with a fifty-cent limit, to start with, and so that makes you in the watch four times.”

  “Ain’t that a little steep for a poor man? I didn’t figure on it being more than two bits, anyhow.”

  “That’s a kid’s game,” Semon said. “Four bits makes it a man’s game, coz.”

  “I reckon you’re bound to be right,” Clay, agreed. “I hate to be in Dene’s daddy’s watch only four times, though. It don’t look right, somehow.”

  “Oh, you’ll have us all by the hair in no time,” Semon told him, getting ready to start the game. He smoothed the sand and wiped the dice. “You just wait and see if you don’t. You’ll have me and Tom both by the hair before quits.”

  Semon took out his money, picking quarters from the handful of change. He placed a stack of eight twenty-five-cent pieces at the toe of his right shoe.

  “Pitch in, coz,” he said. He tossed two of his own quarters into the center of the circle.

  Tom laid a half-dollar beside the two quarters. He watched the dice in Semon’s hands all the time.

  “I’m in the watch four times now,” Clay said, laying it carefully on the sand.

  “That’s right, Horey,” Semon told him. “You’re in it four times now. We don’t want no misunderstanding to crop up later and spoil the game.”

  He shook the dice in his hands, changing from one hand to the other.

  “Get’m hot, preacher!” Tom said. “And if you can’t do it, hand them to me.”

  “I want my four bits’ worth covered,” Clay said.

  “Being as you’re visiting, you ought to have the first throw,” Semon said, dropping the dice into Tom’s hand.

  Tom threw another half-dollar on the ground and shook the dice in his cupped hands, holding them high in the air. With a flourish and a grunt he tossed them into the circle. A four and a two came up.

  “Can’t make it!” Semon said, spitting into his hands and rubbing them together. “He wasn’t born to make it!”

  “That’s my lucky number, folks. Just watch it come up when the old man rolls them.”

  He threw, and a nine came up.

  “He can’t make it,” Semon said. “He just ain’t man enough. Watch him crap out!”

  Scooping up the dice, Tom clicked them half a dozen times and threw to the circle.

  “Huh!” he grunted, and a four and a three came face up under his eyes. “God Almighty!”

  “When I say crap out, they can’t do nothing else but,” Semon said.

  Clay looked at the unfamiliar dice in his hand, gently shaking them until they turned over and over.

  “The time ain’t long,” he said to himself, shaking the dice with jerky motions of his wrist.

  “Hit the dirt!” Semon said as the dice left Clay’s hand.

  A perfect seven turned up.

  “What in hell do you know about that?” Clay asked. He did not expect anyone to answer him. “Now ain’t that something!” He scooped up the silver coins and patted the gold watch.

  “Shoot the two dollars,” Clay said, dropping the cash and watch again. “I feel right.”

  He was covered, but when he finished shooting, he found he was back where he started, with only three-quarters of his watch to bet with.

  “We’d better make this game a little more interesting,” Semon said, shifting his weight to his left heel and picking up the dice. “I’m in favor of raising bets to a dollar.”

  Clay was excited now. He was willing, and anxious, to raise the limit. He nodded enthusiastically and squatted lower on the ground.

  Semon rolled the dice between his hands, warming them over and over again. When he was ready to throw them, he hurled them heavily to the hard sand. A nine came up. He grinned and scooped the dice.

  “Can’t beat the old man,” he said, blowing the dice and shaking them around his head. “Can’t never beat the old man at his own game. I’m a crap shooter from way back yonder, folks!”

  “Lucky?” Tom said, watching the dice. “No, not lucky. Just plain God-damn good at it. I was raised on these before breakfast. I’ve never forgot how, either.”

  The dice spun on the sand. The same nine lay on top. There was no way to beat luck like that.

  “How much are you in the watch now?” he asked Clay, winking at Tom.

  “A dollar,” Clay said. “I was in it three times before you shot.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Semon shouted angrily, reaching out and covering the watch with his hands. “We raised the limit to a dollar. That makes you only four bits in it no
w, Horey.”

  Clay was confused. He had not realized that almost all he owned in the watch had gone, and he could not understand how it went so easily. Reluctantly, he laid it in the ring.

  “Just a friendly little game, coz,” Semon said. “I wouldn’t have hard feelings crop up for no amount of money. When I shoot craps, I like for everybody to feel good, win or lose. That’s how I am about it.”

  “My time’s coming,” Tom said. “I just ain’t hit my stride yet.”

  “If I lose this time, I’m sunk,” Clay said dejectedly. “I won’t have nothing to put in the pot.”

  “Don’t shuck your corn till the hogs come home,” Semon said, counting his money.

  After that he threw the dice a second time. He got a five and a six.

  “What the hell kind of a game is this, anyhow?” Tom said.

  “When I shoot dice, I do just that. Now if you boys want to get your money back, just lay something down to shoot for.”

  “I’d like to get Dene’s daddy’s watch back,” Clay said, his eyes following it as it was dropped into Semon’s pocket.

  “You’ll have to work for it then, Horey. That’s how I got it. Nobody gets nothing in this world without working like almighty hell.”

  “How long have you owned those dice?” Tom asked.

  “Take a look at them for yourself,” Semon offered, throwing him the pair. “I don’t want nobody thinking I’d crook a game.”

  Tom inspected the dice closely, judging the size and weight, but he could find nothing wrong with them. He handed them back to Semon, shaking his head.

  “You must be a lucky-born crap shooter, preacher,” he admitted, still shaking his head.

  Semon shook the dice and held them poised over his head. He looked down at the ring. Clay felt his eyes upon him.

  “Somebody didn’t get in this time,” Semon stated.

  “I’m sticking,” Tom said. “That’s my dollar bill.”

  They both looked at Clay.

  “I’m cleaned out,” he said. “I ain’t got a cent.”

  Semon dropped his hand and rolled the dice in the open palm of his hand meditatively.

  “Ain’t in, coz?”

  Clay shook his head.

  “Ain’t got nothing else to put up?”