They Don't Dance Much: A Novel by James Ross Page B

went toward the back. He was whistling when he went in the side door.
    He stayed in there an hour or more, then came back to where I was.
    ‘Gimme twenty-five more,’ he said, dead-panned as a statue.
    ‘You losing?’ I asked him. It wasn’t any of my business, and I wouldn’t have said it if I’d thought.
    ‘The night’s young. I’ll clean them buzzards yet,’ he said. Still he wasn’t whistling this time when he walked off.
    When it was midnight everybody had left the place except for Badeye and me. Badeye was polishing glasses and I knew he’d take one more drink and hit the hay. When he got to polishing glasses and picking up stuff on the floor and brushing specks off the counter it was a good sign that he was about drunk enough for that night. I locked the front door and went back to see if the poker players wanted anything. If they didn’t I was going to bed.
    I got there just in time for the fireworks. I reckon they’d been playing poker for a spell and couldn’t make much headway in any direction. Anyway it must have been too slow for Smut. Right after I got inside the door he threw the deck of cards he was shuffling on the table and said: ‘To hell with this. I’m tired of this. Let’s roll the dice for a little while and call it a night. Course you all can stay here long’s you want to. But I’m going to bed myself rather than keep on like this.’
    Baxter Yonce yawned. I noticed there were dry streaks in his shirt. ‘I never had no luck with the bones,’ he said.
    ‘Why, sure, Smut, I’d as soon roll you a few times as not,’ Wilbur Brannon said.
    Smut got up and walked over to the window. He took a little box off the window sill and shook two dice out of it. ‘Roll you for five bucks, Wilbur,’ he said.
    Wilbur looked at Bert Ford, who was sitting there rolling his snuff-brush around in his box of snuff. ‘Want to get in on this, Bert?’ Wilbur said.
    ‘Naw,’ Bert said, and put the snuff-brush into his mouth.
    Wilbur rolled first. He rolled a nine. Smut came up with an eleven to start with and Wilbur peeled off a five-spot from a small roll he took out of his pocket. They rolled again and Smut won again. Wilbur didn’t pay him that time, but said, ‘That’s five I owe you.’ He looked toward Bert Ford. ‘Still don’t want to get in?’ he said.
    Bert hesitated a minute. ‘Yes, by God, I will get in,’ he said.
    They got to rolling them up against the wall pretty fast. I don’t know that there’s any craft in rolling dice—just luck. But for a while Smut was lucky. He was taking ten dollars in every time they rolled. But just as sudden the luck started toward Bert Ford. He won eight times in a row before he lost one to Wilbur. Losing to either one of them was bad for Smut, for he’d been the main loser in the poker game. But he wouldn’t quit.
    After a while Wilbur said: ‘Well, I’ve already lost thirty dollars more than I won playing poker. I think I’ll quit this dice-chunking right now.’
    Bert Ford looked around his back. ‘Got enough, Milligan?’ he said.
    Smut gave him a hard look. ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘Roll.’
    ‘All right, son,’ Bert said. He rolled an eleven.
    Smut lost three in a row before he won. Then he said: ‘Here I go now. Watch my smoke.’
    ‘I’m watching,’ Bert Ford said. He took off his hat and threw it on the floor. He spat toward the corner of the room, and looked around him like he was amongst enemies and was afraid somebody’d knife him in the back.
    Baxter, Wilbur, and myself bent over there and watched the dice rolling. Niggers talk to the dice, but Smut and Bert didn’t say a word. Maybe they were praying. If they were, Bert’s praying did the most good. He was lucky that night, or he was a better bones-thrower than Smut was. When they finally quit, Smut gave him a check. ‘Hold it off for a week, if you will,’ he said to Bert.
    ‘All right,’ Bert said. He took out his pocketbook, folded the check in the middle,