Tiff's Game (Perry County Frontier Series) Read online

  The barge men all knew each other. Lock tenders were in their second generation with sons working the water levels while aged fathers looked on enjoying the reappearance of boats and captains known through a lifetime.

  Long overtaken by the speed and year-round travel of the railroads, the canals were about finished. As freight haulers, the railroads were insatiable. A parked rail car could be filled when convenient then whisked directly to the door of the receiving business. The canals could not hope to regularly compete, but in some cases they could still move cargo more cheaply. If a mill or mine could reach a barge as readily as it could a railroad siding, and if the destination lay along the canal or quite nearby, a canal boat could provide rock bottom shipping rates. For a while longer, the canals could hang on, but another decade or two would probably see them gone.

  Tiff Shatto waited four days for a barge. A load of coal and another of hogs had passed, but the dust of one and the stench of the other encouraged patience.

  A canal-side hotel offering aging but adequate amenities gave shelter during his wait, and Tiff found sociable evening games with good conversation in the hostelry's bar and dining lobby.

  Local men gathered at the hotel to strike up conversations with the few passersby and to exchange news and speculations concerning their neighborhoods. Some enjoyed a few hands at poker or the more quickly resolved games of twenty-one. Cards were rarely new decks, and stakes were small. Large sums did not change hands, and a loser's anguished groans were only melodrama for tablemates. In such games, Tiff could relax and engage in friendly byplay, carefully winning only enough to pay daily expenses. The presence of the personable young traveler incited small talk more vigorous and stimulating than the locals' usual chewed over subjects. Tiff found himself talking at least as much as listening. The far west held endless fascinations for men who had never reached Pittsburgh.

  Tiff's claim to earn his living playing cards roused good natured buffoonery with men pretending to suspect marked cards or hidden aces. When Tiff lost there were often jokes about the winner heading for the Ohio River to try his skill on the notorious gambling boats, or how Tiff might need to borrow a dollar or two when the time came to move on. The joshing was friendly, and Tiff enjoyed the exchanges.

  Once, holding an almost impossible hand, Tiff hesitated. About to throw in his cards, he suddenly knew, with that special and inexplicable insight that drawing the next two cards would fill his inside straight.

  A player frowned fiercely across his own cards and challenged, "Well, Tiff; there's nearly three dollars in the pot. Are you playing or folding?

  Tiff grinned and laid out his hand face up for all to see. "Now is that a hand to draw to? I ask everyone." There was agreement that it was not a hand to play, and the challenger reached for his winnings.

  Then Tiff said, "But . . ." and the table waited. "Because I am a professional . . ." There were concerted groans. "I will accept a two card draw, attempting to fill that inside straight if each of you daring players risks a one dollar bet against me."

  There was studied silence as his three opponents calculated, and kibitzers came over to lend their expertise.

  A player said, "Hell, we can't lose. It'd take a miracle for the two right cards to come up."

  A watcher offered, "I'd like covering one of them dollar bets." Tiff laid out another bill, and the man placed his pocket-wrinkled dollar on it.

  A player said, "We've got to take the bet. He's trying to bluff us into scaring off a sure thing."

  Tiff laughed and put in. "Well, the dealer is clutching the deck so close I guess you'll agree even a skilled professional like me couldn't read a secret mark on the cards."

  The dealer snorted. "These're my cards. They darned sure ain't marked and you ain't had a look at them." He stared at Tiff then decided. "You're just having fun at this, figuring that we'll think you know something you don't. It won't work." He ordered his friends. "Cover his dollars, boys. Tiff's bluffing the wrong crowd."

  With the money down, Tiff appeared to waver. "You boys sure you want to try this? Our dealer is your friend, and although his money is in, I wouldn't want you accusing him of bottom dealing or something so we could split the winnings later on."

  A player chuckled, "Old Harv wouldn't know how to bottom deal." He shook his head a little. "This is the biggest amount we've played for in awhile, but seeing we're going to be enjoying your money, Tiff, I think we'll just go ahead." He stared wide-eyed at Tiff. "Unless you're having second thoughts, of course."

  Tiff smiled. "Nope. I've made the play, and I'm stuck with it." He discarded the two obvious cards and said, "Deal me two."

  The dealer flicked the first card across face up, and the small crowd howled. The card fit.

  A player groaned. "If you were handling the cards I'd come up fighting, Tiff. That's just too lucky."

  Tiff's grin was broad. "Blame your friend. They are his cards and he's dealing." He added, "Let's have the last one face down."

  The card slid to table center, and they all stared at the unoffending cardboard.

  Tiff said, "I wonder just what the odds are against that card coming up right. Filling an inside straight is a sucker's game—we all know that." He paused, "Anybody want to double their bets?"

  "No more, Shatto. You've already got us jumpy as fleas on a hot rock. Just turn over the card, and we'll take our winnings."

  Tiff chuckled and held his hand away. "Oh no, not me. If it came up right someone'd suspect I had a card trick working. One of you flip the card."

  A player slipped a toothpick under the face-down card and flicked it over. There was an instant of silent disbelief before howls of pretended agony brought even the bartender running.

  The dealer threw his card pack into a spittoon in disgust. "I can't believe it. That's impossible. It just doesn't happen."

  Tiff said, "Don't forget, I'm a professional." More howls rose, and a player held his nose in laughing insult.

  "Tiff, there's no way you could have gypped us, so you've got to be the luckiest man that ever sat at this table. Take your winnings. I'm through for the night."

  Tiff muttered, "Just when I was getting started."

  Groans mixed with added hoots as chairs scraped from the table.

  The dealer announced, "Drinks all around. Tiff's buying."

  Beer flowed, and Tiff paid. For a moment, the last time he had paid for everyone touched Tiff's mind. Baker Shade's dead body had sprawled in front of him then, and his pistol barrel had still been warm from fast shooting.

  This "drinks for all" went down a lot easier.

  Chapter 9

  Tiff's canal barge hauled an immense load of tanbark bound for a Newport tannery. The grizzled and age-shrunken captain grumbled that the cargo was light but it wasn't hardly worth taking downriver. It beat riding empty, he supposed, as long as heavy rain did not soak the bark, adding many tons and requiring repeated pumping to empty the water as it drained through the bark.

  The skipper glared suspiciously at the sky's few white and puffy clouds. He showed his passenger a pair of iron pumps housed in wooden boxes and threatened that if the weather turned foul they might have to take turns at the iron handles. Captain Roth, the boatman allowed, ought to provide sail canvas covers for open barges like this one.

  The name Roth perked Tiff's ears. Yep, the barge man acknowledged, it was Captain Carter E. Roth who owned the boat and maybe a half dozen more working the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers. The old-timer spat reflectively and wondered aloud if Hannah Roth, the Captain's wife, didn't have more to do with the barging than the man did. Hannah had grown up on the rivers and knew the business as well as anyone. Captain Roth? Some said he was a saltwater sailor who had swallowed his anchor and left the sea for good. Rumor had it that Roth had fought pirates and used their gold to set himself up in his fancy house lower down the river between Millerstown on the Juniata and Liverpool on the Susquehanna. The barge captain ruminated and spit a few more times before concludi
ng that Captain Roth's choice of a home site was likely handy to both ports and near enough to Newport and New Buffalo for that matter. He himself would have built near Amity Hall where the canals came close and finally joined near the aqueduct. There some of the barges were winter hauled against freeze up.

  The barge man was loquacious and content to roll through canal stories with little let up, whether his passenger seemed to be listening or not.

  A single mule towed the lightly-loaded barge at comfortable walking speed. Conversation with bank idlers and fishermen was practical, and the barge master appeared to know most of them. When passing beneath a bridge, small boys sprinkled them with armloads of hay bombs, and the skipper cursed them roundly, threatening to pull over and chase them down.

  The incident reminded the oldster of his youth when the new rail lines fought the canals for dominance.

  "A couple of younger barge men loosened a rail and put a work train on its side down in the Lewistown narrows.

  "Word got around as to who done it. A week or so later a rail was let off a bridge about like that one we just went under. Railroaders had it tied to the bridge straight up and down. They cut her loose when the barge started under. Damned thing went through the barge bottom like a spear. Went into the canal bottom so deep a crane was needed to suck it out. Sunk the barge a'course, and held up passage for two days."

  When not listening to the captain, who manned his tiller at the boat's stem, Tiff wiled away hours atop the small cabin's roof. He leaned comfortably against a lowered mast used to boom cargo and watched the land move by.

  The season was early enough to be relatively insect-free, although huge droning flies did require occasional waving away. Barges moving upriver were passed by one of the boats dropping its towline to allow the approacher to glide across. There seemed to be a mutually recognized right-of-way requiring no signals or shouts.

  The yielding barge pulled hard to the bank opposite the towpath and stopped. A metal weight on a light line was let down the towrope to sink the rope below the oncoming barge's keel and rudder. The mule knew the drill and without command moved off the path. With the barge past, the mule leaned into his harness, the towrope tightened, and the boat moved away. At his leisure, the mule handler reeled in his weight and stowed it on the mule. The maneuver was smooth and almost effortless. Only once did it vary.

  A fancy barge, bright in varnish and imaginatively knotted rope decoration, entirely enclosed by a high, flat-topped cabin, overtook them. Someone aboard the handsome craft blew mightily on a coach horn and waved peremptorily from the cabin top. Pulled by a team, the craft was overhauling them at a trot, and with mild cursing, Tiff's captain put his boat tight to the near bank, and their mule stepped aside.

  The captain said, "Watch careful when his rope comes over. Damned thing can hook you off the cabin."

  The team came on hard, driven by a rider atop one animal. Almost even with Tiff's barge, the rider slipped off, slowed his team and raised the rope as high as possible. Tiff's mule handler hastened to help. Together they got the heavy line overhead.

  Momentum carried the fancy barge past and a husky deckhand seized his end of the line and held it above cabin height. Tiff hopped across the rope as it passed, and a moment later the team was put to the tow. The line tightened, and the fast barge surged ahead. It was nicely done, but there was a sense of arrogance, and no words were exchanged.

  As he settled down, Tiff's captain spit aside and glowered at the stem of the handsome barge.

  "That's Haycock's boat. Man's richer than Midas. Thinks he owns the canal. Can't do much about him 'cause he's got a bullyboy crew that likes fighting." The captain quieted but continued to glower.

  Tiff said, "Maybe some of you should give him a railroad rail off a bridge."

  The old man sniggered. "I'd join in, but canaling's about done and most of us are past that sort of thing."

  After a pause, probably visualizing such an encounter, the captain said, "Haycock wouldn't be aboard anyway. He don't get on till his boats tied up and gaming gets underway."

  "Gaming?" Tiff's attention sharpened.

  The captain seemed surprised. "Don't you know about Haycock? Thought everybody did. Man's a gambler. Runs a lot of his games right into towns where the law don't even allow 'em. Seems the canals come under other jurisdictions or something. Some people that tried interfering got hurt, so everybody looks the other way. Fact is, a lot of men like having Haycock come to town. Gives a little excitement to a few evenings, even if they ain't the ones playing.

  "I suppose most places he's welcome. Seems like fools can't wait to give him their money. Why I heard of men who've lost land and home to Haycock."

  "Gambling can be a fever for some."

  "Sure can be, and Haycock ain't got no mercy, or so they say. He ain't got any of my money, and he ain't ever likely to."

  Occasionally, Tiff got off to stretch his legs along the towpath. In the west, no one walked any distance. Men mounted their horses to go to the privy. Well, it was almost that bad. Here, in the eastern mountains, he saw few riders. Most men and families moved by wagon, surrey, buggy, and, of course, on the trains. Heavy work teams plodded roads, and oxen hauled plows and wagons.

  Pennsylvania distances required adjusting to. Communities were only an hour or two apart. A man was likely to arrive before he hardly had time to settle into his journey.

  Then there was the woods. To a westerner, accustomed to looking across vast open lands, the forested hills squeezed tightly. There were no ranches, and the small farms appeared in continual battle against encroaching growths of honeysuckle, bramble, and brush—which would shelter the growth of sapling trees struggling to replace hewn down forest giants.

  Tiff felt the pull of the land of his people. He could understand the love of a few acres carved by sweat and toil from virgin wilderness. He sensed the skill demanded to stalk and kill deer and bear through thickets and across twig strewn forest floors. Shooting would be short range and quick as the game bounded between trees, to be gone in a wink if the shot was slow.

  There were houses, mills, in fact entire communities built close against the canal. Villages appeared comfortable with the waterway, its slow pace, and its long settled banks and lockings.

  The railroads were a different matter. Their rails sliced like polished blades through the hearts of the towns. Steam swirled, engines puffed, and cars crashed together. Smoke roiled and whistles shrieked warnings. Innocent things, whether animal or human, were fair game for the rushing iron monsters, and their size and speed seemed infectious as the men serving them rushed and struggled to load and unload, feed, water, and urge ahead the great coal gulping freight movers. On the plains and in the vastness of the western mountains, railroads barely intruded. There they seemed lonely ribbons of steel unable to affect the horizon-stretching land they crossed. Along the Juniata, beside the quietly natural old canal, the railroad was a loud and bawdy newcomer. Many, Tiff suspected, would wonder if the increased business and travel were worth the uproar and disturbance.

  On Saturday, well before dusk, Tiff's barge tied along Lewistown's lengthy dock. As with every community edging the canal, the village rose gradually to higher ground. In river towns, Main or Market Street either ended at the docks or paralleled the waterway a block away. The street bordering the canal was almost invariably called either Front or Water Street. The names were not imaginative, but neither were the Elm, Oak, and Apple streets that abounded elsewhere in the towns. Often there was a Church Street, and more than occasionally School Street could be found. As towns grew, street names could lose their original significance. Schools moved and a street so named lost its identity. Most communities also numbered streets that ran parallel. First Street was often close to the river. Tiff decided that numbering was more efficient than naming. Few streets were marked, and directions to strangers were given as "the fourth street up" anyway.

  On Saturday, farmers came to town. Their marketing began in the a
fternoon and concluded about dusk. Traveling the rough country roads was best conducted in daylight. By dark, the villagers had retired to front porches with some visiting back and forth, but soon lamps winked out and the respectable part of town slept.

  By then the city waterfronts had begun to bubble. Saloon hotels spilled light from porch lamps and downstairs windows. Pianos tinkled and men's raucous laughter and boisterous calls attracted the hard drinking and excitement seeking. Men also gambled in the brightly lighted saloon rooms.

  Tiff had mixed with the spruced and polished farm families on their weekly adventures in town. He eyed handsome young women, each of whom was almost surely accompanied by a far less attractive friend. Tiff wondered if like beautiful flowers attracted the plain, or whether the pretty girls needed the more common to enhance their own beauty. Whatever the reason, that coupling seemed to rule everywhere he had ever been.

  Men loaded purchases into wagons and women filled their baskets in general stores. Where ladies circulated among milliners, pharmacists, and notion shops, their men congregated outside hardwares, barber shops, and farm supply businesses. The youngest children allowed loose were a constant rush and eddy through and around the more sedate strolling of almost eligible girls and the packs of timid but distantly admiring boys. Grown-ups too made more than a single tour of the requisite sights. The village square was common ground, with side trips to the train station and down to the canal side docks. Rowdys hung about the docks, but they were few and too outnumbered to intimidate a Saturday crowd.

  It was a cluttered and crowded scene, rich in sights and smells. Horses manured in biscuity mounds, then restlessly stomped their droppings into the already aromatic road mixture. Men chewed tobacco and spit in all directions. Fly hordes rose and settled. Pipe and cigar smokers thickened and perfumed air already fragrantized by men's witch hazel and women's lavender or lily-of-the-valley.