Crows & Cards by Joseph Helgerson Read Free Book Online Page B

flopped down in the same breath, without any marching orders from me. Why, I didn't feel much different from some puppet on a string, which spooked me considerable. To get a good deep breath in me, I had to step back from the railing.
    "Looks like old Chief Standing Tenbears has cards on his mind," Chilly said, satisfied-like.
    "Y-you know him?" I stuttered.
    "More than I care to admit," Chilly mumbled.
    "He lives here?" St. Louis appeared to have everything.
    "So long as I still got his medicine bundle, he does. I don't imagine he can go home without it. That thing means more to him than life itself."
    "How'd you get ahold of such a thing as that?"
    "The chief likes to imagine himself a poker player. Matter of fact, he's got a solid gold crown you're going to help me win."
    "I am?" I edged back to the railing for a peek, but the princess had already returned to the chief and moved on.
    "Oh yes," Chilly predicted. "You and that telegraph I told you of."
    We stood there quite some while longer as Chilly explained that a little ways back the chief had wagered the most valuable thing he owned against a sizable pot of cash. Chilly took the bet, assuming that the chief's prize possession was a gold crown he was supposed to tote around.
    "Wasn't the case though," Chilly muttered. "When that scamp lost, he trotted out a moth-eaten old medicine bundle, claiming it was what he owed me. There was tears pouring down his cheeks—that's how shook up he was 'bout parting with it."
    Seeing how much that ratty bundle meant to the old man, Chilly had offered to take the chief's gold crown instead, but that wouldn't do. The princess declared that above everything else her father was a man of his word. He'd wagered his most valuable possession and that meant his medicine bundle, which was worth a half-dozen gold crowns so far as he was concerned.
    "Couldn't budge him on it either," Chilly complained. "But it ain't no matter. I'm still going to get that gold crown or my name's not Charles Ambrosius Larpenteur—the Third."
    Hearing his whole name roll off his tongue like quicksilver gave me goose flesh. I, for one, wouldn't have bet against him. The freight wagons and Conestogas rolling by on the levee didn't stop to call him on it either. Even a policeman strolling past bit his tongue, though he did seem to keep a wary eye on us.
    Not till the policeman was good and gone did Chilly give the sky one last peek and decide that the coast looked about as clear as it was likely to get. We headed ashore, jumping aboard a coach that was leaving the corner of Locust and Second streets for the south part of St. Louis. That suited me about perfect, since my Uncle Seth's tanning yard lay to the north end of town.
    For a few blocks the coach clacked over cobblestones, which took some getting used to after the muddy, rutted lanes back home. The storefronts along the way were mostly stone or brick and right smart looking. Off to one side I saw a hotel so fancy, it flew its own flags up top. Down another street rose up a domed courthouse, though I didn't know what a dome was till I asked. Chilly explained that to me as if I was some kind of chucklehead, which didn't rub me too wrong, not busy as I was taking in the sights. There were tobacco warehouses and stove works and a church with a spire so tall that its clapboards must have got their white from rubbing against the moon. I saw a game of ten pin and noticed that most everyone who could afford the luxury was puffing cigars. The smoke must have scared off some of the odors ranging around.
    Any kind of critter capable of pulling something was on duty. I even saw a dog harnessed to a toy wagon full of coal chunks. The ragamuff guiding that dog was a lippy little thing, sticking his tongue out at me as we rolled by. The brat's ma caught him at it and right there in public took a broom to his bottom. He commenced to weeping and wailing, but I didn't feel too sorry for him. Unlike some of us, didn't he still