“Oh, Lord!” My friend’s mouth gaped. “Amends? Yep. That’s his nature. Might call it mendin’ his pocket and his lip. And you don’t yet savvy that your ’lady’ ’s Montoyo’s wife—his woman, anyhow?”
“Montoyo? Who’s Montoyo?”
“The monte thrower. That same spieler who trimmed us,” he rapped impatiently.
The light that broke upon me dazed. My heart pounded. I must have looked what I felt: a fool.
“No,” I stammered in my thin small voice of the hotel. “I imagined—I had reason to suspect that she might be married. But I didn’t know to whom.”
“Married? Wall, mebbe. Anyhow, she’s bound to Montoyo. He’s a breed, some Spanish, some white, like as not some Injun. A devil, and as slick as they make ’em. She’s a power too white for him, herself, but he uses her and some day he’ll kill her. You’re not the fust gudgeon she’s hooked, to feed to him. Why, she’s known all back down the line. 135 They two have been followin’ end o’ track from North Platte, along with Hell on Wheels. Had a layout in Omyha, and in Denver. They’re not the only double-harness outfit hyar, either. You can meet a friendly woman any time, but this one got hold you fust.”
I writhed to the words.
“And that fellow Jim?” I asked.
“He’s jest a common roper. He alluz wins, to encourage suckers like you. ’Tisn’t his money he plays with; he’s on commish. Beginnin’ to understand, ain’t you?”
“But the bent card?” I insisted. “That is the mystery. It was the queen. What became of the queen?”