Short Fiction by Ernest Hemingway (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

“Would you like to have one or two wampums for a keepsake?” Skunk-Backwards asked.

“I wouldn’t like to take your wampum,” Yogi demurred.

“They have no intrinsic value really,” Skunk-Backwards explained, detaching one or two wampums from the string.

“Their value is really a sentimental one to Skunk-Backwards’s family,” Red Dog said.

“It’s damned decent of you, Mr. Skunk-Backwards,” Yogi said.

“It’s nothing,” Skunk-Backwards said. “You’d do the same for me in a moment.”

“It’s decent of you.”

Behind the bar, Bruce, the Negro bartender, had been leaning forward and watching the wampums pass from hand to hand. His dark face shone. Sharply, without explanation, he broke into high-pitched uncontrolled laughter. The dark laughter of the Negro.

Red Dog looked at him sharply. “I say, Bruce,” he spoke sharply; “your mirth is a little ill-timed.”

Bruce stopped laughing and wiped his face on a towel. He rolled his eyes apologetically.

“Ah can’t help it, Massa Red Dog. When I seen Mistah Skunk-Backhouse passin’ dem wampums around I jess couldn’t stand it no longa. Whad he wan sell a big town like New Yawk foh dem wampums for? Wampums! Take away yoah wampums!”

“Bruce is an eccentric,” Red Dog explained, “but he’s a corking bartender and a good-hearted chap.”

“Youah right theah, Massa Red Dog,” the bartender leaned forward. “I’se got a heart of puah gold.”

“He is an eccentric, though,” Red Dog apologized. “The house committee are always after me to get another bartender, but I like the chap, oddly enough.”

“I’m all right, boss,” Bruce said. “It’s just that when I see something funny I just have to laff. You know I don’ mean no harm, boss.”

“Right enough, Bruce,” Red Dog agreed. “You are an honest chap.”

Yogi Johnson looked about the room. The other Indians had gone away from the bar, and Skunk-Backwards was showing the wampum to a little group of Indians in dinner dress who had just come in. At the pool-table the two woods Indians were still playing. They had removed their coats, and the light above the pool-table glinted on the metal joints in the little woods Indian’s artificial arms. He had just run the table for the eleventh consecutive time.

“That little chap would have made a pool-player if he hadn’t had a bit of hard luck in the war,” Red Dog remarked. “Would you like to have a look about the club?” He took the check from Bruce, signed it, and Yogi followed him into the next room.

“Our committee room,” Red Dog said. On the walls were framed autographed photographs of Chief Bender, Francis Parkman, D. H. Lawrence, Chief Meyers, Stewart Edward White, Mary Austin, Jim Thorpe, General Custer, Glenn Warner, Mabel Dodge, and a full-length oil painting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Beyond the committee room was a locker room with a small plunge bath or swimming-pool. “It’s really ridiculously small for a club,” Red Dog said. “But it makes a comfortable little hole to pop into when the evenings are dull.” He smiled. “We call it the wigwam, you know. That’s a little conceit of my own.”

“It’s a damned nice club,” Yogi said enthusiastically.

“Put you up if you like,” Red Dog offered. “What’s your tribe?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your tribe. What are you⁠—Sac and Fox? Jibway? Cree, I imagine.”

“Oh,” said Yogi. “My parents came from Sweden.”

Red Dog looked at him closely. His eyes narrowed.

“You’re not having me on?”

“No. They either came from Sweden or Norway,” Yogi said.

“I’d have sworn you looked a bit on the white side,” Red Dog said. “Damned good thing this came out in time. There’d have been no end of scandal.” He put his hand to his head and pursed his lips. “Here, you,” he turned suddenly and gripped Yogi by the vest. Yogi felt the barrel of an automatic pushed hard against his stomach. “You’ll go quietly through the clubroom, get your coat and hat and leave as though nothing had happened. Say polite goodbye to anyone who happens to speak to you. And never come back. Get that, you Swede.”

“Yes,” said Yogi. “Put up your gun. I’m not afraid of your gun.”

“Do as I say,” Red Dog ordered. “As for those two pool-players that brought you here, I’ll soon have them out of this.”

Yogi went into the bright room, looked at the bar, where Bruce, the bartender, was regarding him, got his hat and coat, said good night to Skunk-Backwards, who asked him why he was leaving so early, and the outside trap-door was swung up by Bruce. As Yogi started down the ladder the Negro burst out laughing. “I knowed it,” he laughed. “I knowed it all de time. No Swede gwine to fool ole Bruce.”

Yogi looked back and saw the laughing black face of the Negro framed in the oblong square of light that came through the raised trap-door. Once on the stable floor, Yogi looked around him. He was alone. The straw of the old stable was stiff and frozen under his feet. Where had he been? Had he been in an Indian club? What was it all about? Was this the end?

Above him a slit of light came in the roof. Then it was blocked by two black figures, there was the sound of a kick, a blow, a series of thuds, some dull, some sharp, and two human forms came crashing down the ladder. From above floated the dark, haunting sound of black Negro laughter.

The two woods Indians picked themselves up from the straw and limped toward the door. One of them, the little one, was crying. Yogi followed them out into the cold night. It was cold. The night was clear. The stars were out.

“Club no damn good,” the big Indian said. “Club heap no damn good.”

The little Indian was crying. Yogi, in the starlight, saw that he had lost one of his artificial arms.

“Me no play pool no more,” the little Indian sobbed. He shook his one arm at the window of the club, from which a thin slit of light came. “Club heap goddam hell no good.”

“Never