Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell

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