Chris Offutt - Kentucky Straight - Stories

“You ain’t buying the first pot,” Connor said. He flipped a pair of aces. “I got two bullets coming your way.”

“Three fours wired,” Duke said, showing his hand. “I never bluff on the last card.”

He pulled the pile of greasy bills in front of him, no expression on his face. Connor slouched in the old maple chair and tucked a cigarette in the gap between his upper front teeth. When he talked, the cigarette didn’t move but his legs jittered from the diet pills.

“Thought I had the pot and wound up sucking hind tit,” he said.

“That’s the way it goes,” Duke said, “first your money then your clothes.”

“Since I lost square, I’ll not say you got a smart mouth.”

“Best not,” Duke said, his voice low. They stared at each other across the scarred table.

“Next case,” Catfish said. “You two keep your panty hose on. I’d run you outside but it’s a blizzard coming on. We’ll be burning furniture soon.”

He glanced at Fenton for help.

“I reckon I got the best seat, then,” Fenton said. “Concrete don’t burn good.”

W. stood and fed a split oak log into the stove.

“I’ll take my shift now,” he said. “But it’s on you pups to keep me warm. The old woman’ll faint if I get carried home on a door. Happened to my uncle once.”

“What?” Connor said.

“He died.”

“Just the one time?”

W. cocked his head and skewered Connor with a stare.

“If it weren’t for rheumatiz, arthritis, and outright pity for a tomcat, I’d black your eyes and send you home.”

Everyone laughed and W. returned to the table, worn smooth at the edges from the combined hours of men’s hands. The steel stove cooled. Connor spat on it, and when it failed to ball up and dance, he stood to add more wood. He placed a hand on W.’s shoulder.

“Stay rested, old man. Don’t want you wore out before we fight.”

“Honey, you’d best pack a lunch,” W. said. “You’ll need your strength.”

The faint smell of old smoked meat increased with the heat. They played steadily for a few hours, each man accommodating to the rhythm of the game: three shuffles, a cut, the whisper of cards and money. Fenton’s bridgework ached. One of the tiny struts had broken and he wiggled it with his tongue. His legs and feet felt frozen while his upper body sweated from the stove’s uneven warmth. He was down three hundred, coming in second again and again with cards too good to fold. He tightened his play, hoping the others wouldn’t notice and drive him out with raises he couldn’t afford.

After losing a big pot to Duke, Connor stepped outside and returned with his face flushed by whiskey. Nobody drank inside. Three years ago Catfish had banned liquor after a scuffle that left a man shot in the forearm. Everyone dived to the floor except W. He insisted they play the hand before doctoring the wounded, and W. won with kings full. A day later someone shot the shooter’s chimney off his roof, following the old Melungeon code of warning. Vengeance escalated until a man was killed and then another in retaliation.

Feeling responsible, Catfish shut down the game for six months. When he reopened, he barred guns and whiskey, and considered banning Melungeons. Fenton argued that Connor and W. claimed Melungeon blood and would take it the wrong way. Since Fenton’s wife was Melungeon, he’d have to follow the ban as well. Catfish relented. He understood that loyalty to his friend meant preventing Fenton from having to choose a side.

Connor complained about bad luck and the weather. On his deal, the deck slipped from his hands.

“Too greasy,” he said. “Where’s the flour poke?”

Catfish handed him the bag he kept in a corner. Connor dumped the cards in, shook the bag, removed the deck, and dropped the cards again. Flour dappled the floor.

“Too slick, now,” he said.

“Let Catfish deal for you,” Fenton said.

Connor shrugged and passed the deck. Wind carried the high yip of a coyote along the ridge. Fenton had heard they never attacked humans, but he didn’t trust any animal in the woods. He’d once strangled a coon that had chewed a hole in his tent on a fishing trip.

“Door locked?” Connor said.

Catfish nodded.

“Don’t let that coyote spook you,” W. said.

“Takes more than that.”

“It should,” W. said. “A coyote is on the human side of dog. Most mutts, they’re to the dog side of a man.”

Duke’s mouth pulled at the corners. “That’s the first good sense I heard since leaving Asia,” he said.

Fenton glanced at Catfish to see if he understood.

“Wood sure is handy for burning, ain’t it,” Catfish said. “Be a hard night without it.”

Wood was a favored topic, with each man having a preference, depending on season and purpose. Fenton took a breath, intending to explain the virtues of pine, useless in a stove, but sure to draw furious opinion. Duke spoke first. “It’s not wood that burns.”

Wind shivered the door, rattling the hinges. Stray snowflakes fluttered through a crack and specked the floor. Catfish began to shuffle.

“Let’s throw out the log pile, then,” he said. “If wood don’t burn, we’ll get some elbow room in here. Place ain’t big enough to swing a cat in.”

“Oxygen burns, not wood,” Duke said.

Fenton frowned at the stove, which was flaking paint from the heat. He’d burned wood all his life and enjoyed watching a log’s collapse into fine gray ash.

“Then Where’s the wood go?” he said.

“Gets took hostage till the heat shows up,” Connor said. “To hear him tell it, I don’t reckon a hen lays eggs either.”

“Not without a rooster,” Duke said. “And that’s what wood is. Oxygen is a hen and fire’s the egg.”

His voice held a tone of finality that silenced the men. Fenton didn’t know if Duke was joking or presenting fact. Maybe he’d learned something in his years away, or maybe his sights were a little off.

Connor kneaded his crotch with both hands.

“If that’s true,” he said, “I got me a big old log needing a hen. I’ll bet twenty dollars against five I got the stoutest here.”

The men grinned, shaking their heads. Connor leaned close to W.

“I heard you owned a turkey neck, old man. Willing to put money on it?”

W. rubbed the side of his nose. The red-veined tip hung nearly to his lip. Patches of white hair showed under his jaw where he’d missed while shaving.

“It hibernates come winter. Catch me at the thaw if I’m still living.” He jerked his chin at Catfish. “Deal, son. I ain’t had a hand in ten years.”

The men laughed and everyone anted but Duke, who stared across the table at Connor.

“Maybe I got what you’re after,” Duke said. His head was tipped forward, mouth tight, eyes hard. He snapped a five-dollar bill between his hands. “I’ll take your bet.”

Connor snatched a bill from his pile and set it to the side.

“You first,” Connor said.

“No. I called your bet.”

Connor lifted his eyebrows to Catfish.

“Way it is, Connor,” Catfish said. “It’s on you to show your hand.”

Saliva clung to the corners of Connor’s mouth. He pushed his lower jaw left and scratched it, frowning. Fenton recognized the gesture from previous card games. Connor’s bluff had been called and he wanted to fold, but he’d proved himself so many times, he was stuck in the habit.

A knot exploded in the stove, rattling the metal like buckshot. Connor scooted his chair away from the table, slowly stood and turned around. The back of his belt loosened and his jeans went slack. His right arm pumped twice. Fenton sucked the inside of his cheeks to stifle his laugh. Connor was cheating with a couple of strokes. Suddenly he spun back, his genitals swinging at the dusky edge of the lantern’s light.