Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell Page B

tell by the way you handle the bones that you are a lucky cuss. Don’t be scared, Horey.”
    “I don’t know what Dene would say about it.”
    “Damn that,” Semon said angrily. “It’s yours, ain’t it? If it was mine, I wouldn’t stand back because of what some God-damn gyp might say.”
    Clay looked to Tom. Tom looked at the car, and back at the ground between his feet. He was scared to commit himself.
    “Now, I don’t know about that,” Clay said indecisively.
    “Aw, go ahead, Horey. What’s not worth risking, ain’t worth owning, anyway.”
    “What do you figure it’s worth?”
    “About fifty dollars like it stands now.”
    “Fifty dollars!” Clay said, shaking his head. “It’s bound to be worth more than that. A heap more than that.”
    “What makes it bound to be?”
    “I’ve only had it a year now, and I paid four hundred dollars for it in McGuffin.”
    “They might have cheated you,” Semon said, turning once more to inspect the rear end of the automobile.
    Clay shook his head. He valued his car at far more than the price Semon had set upon it.
    “It’s worth a hundred, if it’s worth a dime,” he said. “I couldn’t take less. I’d be cheating myself if I did.”
    “Well, being as it’s you, Horey,” Semon said, “I’ll say it’s worth that. How about you, Tom?”
    Tom nodded.
    “It’s a God-damned sight better than that car of mine out front there,” Semon said. “And mine ain’t hardly worth the junk that’s in it. I reckon a hundred for yours wouldn’t be any too much to place on it, being as it’s you.”
    Semon took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He unloosened his collar and smoothed back his black hair that hung over his forehead like a horse’s trimmed mane.
    “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m rearing to go, coz. When I get set shooting crap, I can’t be satisfied till the game has run through everything like a dose of salts.”
    Clay squatted lower on his heels.
    “I’m ninety-nine in it,” he said. “Is that right?”
    “That’s right, Horey. Now hold on to your seat. I don’t want to have to halt the game while you stop and figure every time how many times you’re in the machine. See if you can’t keep up with the game.”
    He warmed the dice in the palm of his hand, shaking them until they clicked like a swiftly running clock. He jerked his hand down, pulling the dice out of the air, and hurled them to the ground with all his might. They all bent forward watching the spinning dice come to a stop on the hard white sand.
    “Grab that left ball of yours, Horey!” Semon shouted. “It won’t do you no good to pull the right one, because that’s the one I’m squeezing.”

Chapter XII
    C LAY’S SHIRT AND HAIR were wet with perspiration. The sun was sinking behind the barn, and the shadows were long; but Clay could not keep from sweating. Across from him, only three feet away, Semon Dye looked as cool as the early morning dew.
    Semon had said nothing for a long time. He sat lower on his heels, and the seat of his pants scraped the ground each time he moved. He had become accustomed to his position.
    Against the brick chimney Tom sat watching them with not a word to say. He had long before lost everything he had with him, and his pockets were empty.
    “Looks like something’s wrong,” Clay said desperately. “It don’t look like I ought to lose right straight along as fast as the dice drop.”
    Semon clicked the dice, shaking them in the cupped palm of his hand, and paid no attention to Clay. He had not even heard what Clay had been saying for the past hour.
    Clay was down to his last lone dollar. Semon had been doubling and redoubling. Clay could not understand how a whole hundred dollars could pass out of his hands that fast, and leave nothing behind to show for it. It was more money than he usually cleared on a year’s farming.
    Semon won the next pot, as usual. There was nothing Clay could do to stop his winning.
    “I’m going