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n-steven. Lose some, win some. Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
Cruesoe glanced out at a darkness rushing into the past, towns vanishing in night.
“Do you, sir,” said the Straight-Arrow gambler, “in front of all these men, accuse me of raping their daughters, molesting their wives?”
“No,” Cruesoe said, above the uproar. “Just cheating,” he whispered, “at cards!”
Bombardments, concussions, eruptions of outrage as the gambler leaned forward.
“Show us, sir, where these cards are inked, marked, or stamped!”
“There are no marks, inks, or stamps,” Cruesoe said. “It’s all prestidigitation.”
Jesus! He might as well have cried Prostitution!
A dozen eyeballs rolled in their sockets.
Cruesoe fussed with the cards.
“Not marked,” he said. “But your hands aren’t connected to your wrists or elbows and finally all of it’s not connected to …”
“To what, sir?”
“Your heart,” Cruesoe said, dismally.
The gambler smirked. “This, sir, is not a romantic excursion to Niagara Falls.”
“Yah!” came the shout.
A great wall of faces confronted him.
“I,” Cruesoe said, “am very tired.”
He felt himself turn and stagger off, drunk with the sway of the train, left, right, left, right. The conductor saw him coming and punched a drift of confetti out of an already punched ticket.
“Sir,” Cruesoe said.
The conductor examined the night fleeing by the window.
“Sir,” Cruesoe said. “Look there.”
The conductor reluctantly fastened his gaze on the mob at the bar, shouting as the cardsharp raised their hopes but to dash them again.
“Sounds like a good time,” the conductor said.
“No, sir! Those men are being cheated, fleeced, buggywhipped—”
“Wait,” said the conductor. “Are they disturbing the peace? Looks more like a birthday party.”
Cruesoe shot his gaze down the corridor.
A herd of buffalo humped there, angry at the Fates, eager to be shorn.
“Well?” said the conductor.
“I want that man thrown off the train! Don’t you see what he’s up to? That trick’s in every dime-store magic book!”
The conductor leaned in to smell Cruesoe’s breath.
