Snakes had appointed himself the dealer. As he passed out the cards to Beau while they sat in his drawing room, he said, "So what's it like, coming from a big family?"
"The Mavericks are a very close-knit bunch," Beau said, still guarded.
"Yeah, but do they really welcome someone who isn't like the rest of them?" Snakes dealt himself in and set the rest of the deck aside.
Beau stiffened. "What are you trying to insinuate?"
"Let's get one thing straight," Snakes said. "After I got beat down by your cousin the first time, I looked up everything I could about the family. You're the one who got sent to England for five years because he dared to come back from the war a hero, right?"
This was definitely not a conversation Beau wanted to have with someone like Snakes Tolliver! "I was in England," he said. "That must be obvious from my voice. But I could have been there for any number of reasons. For schooling, perhaps."
"Yeah, schooling on how you're not to go against the patriarch of the family." Snakes studied his hand. "Your uncle runs things with a real iron fist, don't he?"
"That's not true," Beau defended. "He just does what he feels is best for each family member's continuing safety." Even so, he felt a certain knotting in his stomach. Snakes had hit a nerve, something that Beau had thought himself in his darkest moments, especially after he had been shot and his uncle had verbally raked him over the coals for it.
"Whatever you say," Snakes shrugged.
The first few hands were silent, the only speech that of poker talk. It wasn't until the sixth hand that Snakes tried again. "I'm surprised your uncle didn't disown all of you boys for going to war."
"Bret and Bart had no choice in the matter," Beau said stiffly. "They were drafted."
"But you weren't." Snakes drew another card from the deck. "It was the same with me; I enlisted. Lied about my age to get in, even."
"You must have been very gallant about the cause," Beau said.
"Not really," Snakes said, and Beau found he wasn't that surprised. "All I really wanted was a change of scenery. I grew up in an orphanage and hated it. Everybody felt the same about me, too."
"What were you, the terror and the con artist of the place?" Beau asked.
"Nah, I was the kicked puppy," Snakes drawled. "It might sound unbelievable now, but I used to be a pretty nice kid growing up. Maybe I did a little petty theft, but only to get some decent food or a little money to get some decent food. Maybe a decent toy now and then. But I was still pretty willing to share or help people in trouble . . . even though things rarely went right for me when I did. It was only during the war that I finally realized that people didn't really care about anyone but themselves and that they got the greatest pleasure from tearing other people down. I was sick of being the one they tore down."
"So you decided the thing to do was to become like the ones doing the tearing down," Beau finished.
"Basically, yeah." Snakes grinned. "Being meek and submissive sure never got me anything like this." He gestured at the well-furnished room.
"And do you like tearing people down?" Beau couldn't refrain from asking.
Snakes' eyes flickered and he looked down at his hand. "If they deserve it, yeah." He looked up again. "Don't tell me you don't like dealing out your brand of justice on the people you think deserve it."
Beau frowned, uncomfortable. "I only go after con artists or other criminals, especially if they've already done something to me or my family."
"Same principle, really. Okay, we have different methods, but you're not going to get me to believe we're not ultimately after the same thing. Neither of us is the law, but we feel like coming down on people we don't like."
Beau didn't like being compared to a crime boss at all. "I do it because I don't like thinking of all the innocent people who will be hurt if they're allowed to operate," he said. "You do it out of malice or vengeance."
"You don't know why I do what I do." Snakes suddenly sounded cold. His next words were lighter again. "But if you're all about helping the innocent, that really goes against what your uncle taught you, doesn't it? He's all about looking after number one?"
"No," Beau protested. "Well . . . maybe he says things like that, but all of the Mavericks believe in helping the innocent, even Uncle Beau."
"He doesn't practice what he preaches, in other words. Well, a lot of people are like that. Probably most." Snakes won the next hand and smirked.
"I'll deal this time," Beau said, collecting the cards and grabbing the deck.
"Go ahead," Snakes said calmly. He leaned back. "One thing I have to wonder is, if your uncle is for helping people, why did he blow his stack over you enlisting in the war? Surely he knows that gambling and fighting crooks are some of the most dangerous things around."
Beau practically flung the cards at Snakes' side of the table. He honestly didn't know the answer to that. It was something that had been bothering him for some time, even moreso after he had been shot. Bart himself had raised the question back in the barn. It chilled Beau to remember that. If the surgery didn't go well, it might be one of the last things Bart would ever say.
"And to punish you for doing something that got you branded a hero? Wow, that is some pretty backwards thinking."
That snapped Beau's patience. "And you think your logic isn't backwards?" he exclaimed. "Abandoning all decency and behaving like an animal operating by the law of the jungle?"
Snakes was unconcerned. "Maybe it is backwards. But that doesn't mean his isn't. And I don't think you'd be getting so upset if you didn't feel the same, deep down." He leaned forward, picking up the cards Beau had dealt him. "You're the white sheep of the Maverick family. You don't really belong there, just like I never belonged where I tried to fit in. And you know you're out of place, don't you?"
Beau gripped the cards in his hands. "Are we going to play poker or discuss my life history and psychological makeup? You are a demented, twisted person! We have nothing in common except that we fought for the South, and even our reasons for that were different!"
"And I suppose you were gallant about the cause," Snakes drawled, throwing Beau's earlier words back at him.
Beau decided to ignore him. Instead he laid out his poker hand.
"You beat me this time," Snakes said.
"I'm tempted to call it quits here," Beau said, "especially if we're not playing for money."
"Well, if you want to, we could play for your two thousand bucks," Snakes said. "I know you must want that back pretty bad."
Beau's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "And you would really put that up as the stakes?"
"Not necessarily," Snakes said. "Do you even have anything of your own to put up?"
". . . No," Beau admitted. He could put up the money Bart had won tonight, in the hopes of keeping hold of it and winning back the two thousand. In other circumstances, he probably would have. But with Bart so bad off that he was undergoing surgery and might not even survive, it didn't seem right.
"Then we either keep playing just for the heck of it, like we've been doing, or we stop."
Beau watched him, still suspicious. "Are you going to keep trying to pry into my mind?"
"I think I've got my point across. You can do what you want now."
"Alright then," Beau said. "We'll play. Not talk."
"Not unless you want to, Pal."
"I'm not your 'pal'," Beau growled.
The game proceeded, quietly, as Snakes had promised. But with only the occasional bong of the large clock for commentary, Beau couldn't help how his thoughts began to wander.
What was happening with Bart? Had the doctor found the problem? What if he needed help?
Surely he would call if he did. But between an honest gambler and a crime boss, he would have rather slim pickings.
What if the doctor would think the surgery was going alright and then there would be a new problem afterwards? What if Bart would still die, even if his condition seemed to improve for a while?
Maybe no matter what the doctor did, it wouldn't matter now. Maybe Bart had already lost too much blood. Beau had tried his best to help Bart before the physician was brought in, but it might not have been good enough.
Would Beau blame himself if Bart died?
. . . Would Uncle Beau blame him?
Maybe Uncle Beau would never say anything outright, but if there was a change in his attitude, Beau would probably suspect blame. And if that happened, Beau really wouldn't feel that he belonged. He wouldn't want to leave if he could offer any comfort to Bret by staying, but he wouldn't feel comfortable around Uncle Beau any longer.
And it would be so horrible without Bart. Beau could scarcely conceive of the thought of Bart not being there; he had always been part of the picture before. Even when Beau had been in England, they had kept up a steady correspondence.
No, Beau could not think that Bart would die. It had to still be possible to save him! The doctor would save him.
None of the Mavericks were particularly religious, but Beau said another prayer in his mind for Bart anyway. He needed all the help he could get.
Snakes said that Beau already knew he didn't belong in the Maverick family. That was probably the sorest spot he could have hit; Beau did feel insecure about his position and about letting the family down. He was, oddly enough, probably more interested in traveling than Bret and Bart were. But he also just couldn't quell the more daring part of his nature that made him do things that Uncle Beau hated, like enlist in the Confederate army.
He had never said so aloud, but he knew he had joined up for adventure more than anything else. Oh, not that he hadn't wanted to fight for the Southern states' rights, but he hadn't entirely agreed with everything they had wanted out of the war. Bret and Bart, still more oddly, had perhaps agreed more, yet had not wanted to enlist. But they had ended up fighting anyway.
"Tell me," he spoke after an indeterminable amount of time, "why did you tell me those things about yourself? In fact, how do I even know that what you told me was true? You could have decided you wanted to present yourself as a more sympathetic figure in my eyes, whether or not you actually deserve sympathy."
"I don't need sympathy or pity," Snakes answered. "I guess if you really want to know if any of it is true, you could go back and talk to the people working the orphanage or look up some of the kids who used to beat me down." He sneered. "I showed them what for, once I had power on my side. They know now they never should've messed with me."
"I'm surprised they aren't all dead," Beau remarked.
Snakes just shrugged. "Depends on what I think would be the best medicine for them. As to why I talked about it at all, I haven't revealed any of my deep, dark secrets. Make no mistake that I have those. But when it comes to how and why I came about my worldview, I'm okay with sharing that." He studied Beau carefully. "One of the things I really wanted to ask you is this: You've seen the bad side of human nature more times than I bet you can count. And it's nearly got you killed more times than either of us can count. Why do you keep on insisting on helping people? What's the point?"
"I can sleep a lot easier at night," Beau quickly replied.
"You're lucky you're not sleeping in a pine box," Snakes said dryly.
"Looking out for your own interests is dangerous as well," Beau pointed out. "That's why gambling is such a potentially deadly profession."
"At least you only have to worry about yourself and not a whole lot of other people too," Snakes grunted. "Better to let one person down than everybody."
"Even if that one person is yourself?" Beau frowned. "That's a strange attitude for someone like you to take. I wouldn't think you'd care if you let anyone other than yourself down."
"Maybe I wouldn't," Snakes said. "I'm just saying. And here's a question. You said the reason you help people is so you can sleep easier. Maybe you were just being sarcastic, or not telling the whole truth, but if you were . . ." He smirked. "Then your reason for helping is selfish. You're not thinking about the other people; you're thinking of you. And somehow I can't think that helping people just to feel good about yourself is gonna get you into Heaven any more than doing nothing will."
"You have an answer for everything, don't you," Beau grumbled. "In this case, I have to admit that you're right. And no, that isn't my only reason. I already told you, I don't like to see innocent people suffer."
"Well, hooray for you," Snakes sneered. "Too bad you weren't around when I was in the orphanage."
"Yes," Beau said, and found he sincerely meant it. "That is too bad. Maybe you wouldn't have grown up such a despicable person."
Snakes looked unaffected. "I guess we'll never know."
They continued their game for a while, in silence again. But as the hours stretched on with no news, Beau found he had had enough. He leaned back, massaging the bridge of his nose. "How long has it been?" he wondered.
Snakes reached into his vest pocket for a gold watch and chain. "A long time."
Beau pushed his chair back from the table and stood, going to the door to look out at the hall. Everything was quiet.
"The doctor would've come if there was any news," Snakes said.
"I know." Beau came back to the table. "The question is, is what's going on in that room good or bad?"
"It won't help to dwell on it." Snakes was serious now.
Beau frowned. Was he just imagining, or was there actually a tinge of kindness in Snakes' voice?
". . . Was there absolutely no one for you?" he asked. "I mean, didn't you have any friends growing up?"
Snakes stayed silent for a moment, finding the cards in his hand very interesting. "Every now and then, yeah, there was someone I kind of liked," he admitted. "But they were always the ones who got adopted quick. Or died."
Beau's frown deepened. "If you were really such a nice person as a child, why didn't anyone want you?"
Snakes shrugged. "Who knows. I heard different things. I was too quiet. I was too weak. I wouldn't be able to help much on a plantation or a farm. I was too . . . outside the acceptable."
"And how was that, if not a troublemaker?"
"I'll give you an example. One time I made friends with this free colored boy who was passing through with his family. We were young and innocent and didn't see anything wrong with it. But you can imagine how well that went over." Snakes leaned back. "I never did see anything wrong with it. So I wasn't really the type who fit into the proper Southern society."
"I see," Beau said in some surprise.
"Even now, I have a lot of colored people in my operation. They're on full salary, not just doing work for peanuts. Some of them are in real positions of power." Snakes smirked. "Maybe it's just my way of rebelling against a society that never wanted me. Maybe I'm telling the outcasts of this country that there's a place where they can be accepted and get a good job." He set the cards down and laced his fingers. "In any case, here's where we come to one of the other big things I wanted to get to. Why don't you join us?"
Beau stared, for a moment not sure he had heard correctly. "You . . . you're asking me to work for you?!" he exclaimed. "After everything I've told you about wanting to help people, not hurt them?"
"See, I think I am helping people, in my own way. I welcome everybody who's willing to work for what has to be doneāman, woman, black, white, yellow, red. . . . This country's headed for a new age, and I'm gonna be one of the main ones to get it there."
Beau slumped back. "Maybe so, and maybe on some level that's noble, but you're still getting people into crime. I don't want any part of that!"
"Have it your way," Snakes said. "Just remember I made you the offer. And it's always open if you change your mind."
Beau found himself reeling. This was not what he had expected at all. They should be natural enemies. Instead, Snakes was offering him a job? He wasn't even sure how to react to that.
"Mr. Maverick?"
He looked up with a start. The doctor had arrived in the doorway.
Instantly Beau was on his feet. "What is it, Doctor?" he asked. "How's Bart?"
"Well, he's still alive," the older man sighed, wiping his hands on a towel he had brought with him. "I did what I could and stitched him up. I just don't know if he still has enough blood in him to pull through."
"He's going to live," Beau insisted vehemently. "May I see him now?"
"Stay with him for as long as you want," the doctor nodded. "It's up to him and God now."
Beau hurried to the doorway. "Thank you, Doctor." He rushed past, heading for the bedroom.
Snakes watched him go without protest. When the doctor turned, giving him a questioning look, Snakes ignored him and began to gather the stray cards back into the deck.
