词汇：card

n. 卡片；纸牌；明信片

相关场景

Throughout his years as a Ranger, Augustus had always been renowned for his remarkable eyesight. Time and again, on the high plains and in the Pecos country, it had been proven that he could see farther than other people. In the shimmering mirages the men were always mistaking sage bushes for Indians. Call himself could shade his eyes and squint and still not be certain, but Augustus would merely glance at the supposed Indian for a moment, laugh and go back to card playing or whiskey drinking or whatever he might be doing.>>完整场景

Augustus was in a card game with the Irishman and Lippy. The stakes were theoretical, since he had already won six months of their wages.>>完整场景

Ned Tym and his friends soon resumed their card game, but the other players’ nerves were shaken and Ned soon drained them of money.>>完整场景

“What’s going on here, Ned?” the man asked, prudently stopping by the card table. Augustus still held the big pistol in his hand.>>完整场景

“Why, this place’ll catch New Orleans if it don’t stop growing,” he said. “If we’d put in a barbershop ten years ago we’d be rich now.” There was a big saloon on the main street that they’d frequented a lot in their rangering days. It was called the Buckhorn, because of the owner’s penchant for using deer horns for coat and hat racks. His name was Willie Montgomery, and he had been a big crony of Augustus’s at one time. Call suspected him of being a card sharp, but if so he was a careful card sharp.>>完整场景

“I can’t imagine why you think so,” Call said. “I wonder what’s become of Jake?” “Why, Jake’s moseying along—starved for a card game, probably,” Augustus said.>>完整场景

“Bol might have been taking target practice,” Augustus said. “He might have fired at a cowpie.” “It don’t matter what it was,” Call said. “The damage is done.” Augustus was enjoying the little break the accident produced. Walking along all day beside a cow herd was already proving monotonous—any steady work had always struck him as monotonous. It was mainly accidents of one kind and another that kept life interesting, in his view, the days otherwise being mainly repetitious things, livened up mostly by the occasional card game.>>完整场景

Watching her lie there, calm and silent, Jake felt hopeless and took another long drink from the whiskey bottle. Heconsidered himself a smart man, and yet he had got himself in a position that would have embarrassed a fool. He had no business traveling north with a woman like Lorie, who had her own mind and wouldn’t obey the simplest order unless it happened to suit her. The more he drank, the sorrier he felt for himself. He wished he had just told Lorie no, and left her to sweat it out in Lonesome Dove. Then at least he could be in camp with the men, where there were card games to be had, not to mention protection. Despite himself, he could not stop worrying about July Johnson.>>完整场景

“I guess there’s nothing I could ask that you’d do,” Jake said. “I wish that dern Gus would show up. At least we could have a card game.” Lorena lay back on her blanket and didn’t answer. Anything she said would only make him worse.>>完整场景

“Go gamble,” she said. “I never said you couldn’t. I’ll stay in camp.” “Oh, no doubt you’ve made arrangements with Gus,” Jake said. “I guess he’s planning to come over and teach you card tricks,” he said bitterly, and turned on his heel.>>完整场景

It seemed to him harder, as he got older, to find a simple way of life. On the one hand there were his friends, who expected something of him; on the other there was Lorie, who expected something else. He himself had no fixed ideas about what to do, though he thought it would be pleasant to live in a warm town where he could find a card game.>>完整场景

“Why should I?” Lorena said. “You didn’t earn it and you didn’t stop it.” Besides, he had money from his own card playing. If she knew anything, it was not to give a man money. That was nothing more than an invitation to get sold with their help.>>完整场景

He’s the best card cheat I ever met. He don’t cheat often, but when he does you ain’t gonna catch him.” He wiped some of the mud off her belly. “Now that you’re rich you can loan me twenty,” he said.>>完整场景

Jake lifted his eyebrows, not really surprised. “I knowed it, that scamp,” he said. “Left me to work so he could come and pester you.” Lorena decided to tell it. That would be better than if he found it out from somebody else. Besides, though she considered herself his sweetheart, she didn’t consider him her master. He had not really mastered anything except poking, though he had improved her card game a little.>>完整场景

“Call ain’t God,” Augustus said. “He don’t have to get his way every day of the month. If she was my sweetheart, I’d bring her, and if he didn’t like it he could bite himself.” “You couldn’t afford her, Gus, no better card player than you are,” Jake said, standing up. “I believe I’ll go to town. I don’t feel like bumping around Mexico tonight.” Without another word he got his horse and left. Call watched him go and walked back over to Gus. “Do you think he’ll come on the drive?” he asked.>>完整场景

“You think Lippy will tell on us?” she asked. To her surprise, she felt no guilt at all about operating behind Jake’s back. So far as she was concerned she was still his sweetheart. It had happened only because Gus had been too quick for her in a card game—it didn’t affect the situation one way or another.>>完整场景

Gus handed over the money and Lippy pocketed it, knowing he had struck a bargain he had better keep, at least until Gus died. Gus was no one to fool with. He had seen several men try, usually over card games, and most all of them had got whacked over the head with Gus’s big gun. Gus didn’t shoot unless he had to, but he was not loath to whack a man. Lippywas dying to tell Xavier what he’d missed by going fishing, but he knew he had better postpone the pleasure for a few years. One hole in his stomach was enough.>>完整场景

Then, before the issue came to a head, something happened that took Lorena completely unaware. It was a blistering day, the saloon totally empty except for Lippy. Xavier, who had a taste for fish, had gone off to the river to see if he could catch any. Lorena was sitting at a table, practicing one or two card tricks Jake had taught her, when who should walk in but Gus. His shirt was as wet from sweat as if he’d been underwater a week, and even his hatband was sweated through.>>完整场景

Jake took pains to teach Lorena a few things about card playing that she didn’t know. She came to wonder how Jasper and Bert and Needle Nelson got by on so little sleep, for the Captain worked them hard all day and the games went on half the night. The only cowboy likely to pull a sour face if she sat in was Dish Boggett, who wouldn’t get over being in love with her. It amused her that he sat there looking so solemn, with his big mustache. Jake did not even seem to notice that the man was in love with her. She was tempted to tease Jake a little, but he had told her plain out he was a jealous>>完整场景

The card game soon became a torture for everyone but Lorie, who won hand after hand. It pleased her to think how surprised Jake would be when he came back and saw her winnings. He would know she wasn’t helpless, at least. Xavier himself didn’t lose much—he never lost much—but he wasn’t playing with his usual alertness. Lorie knew that might be because of her, but she didn’t care. She had always liked playing cards, and liked it even better now that it was all she had to do until Jake came back. She even liked Dish and Jasper, a little. It was a relief not to have to hold herself out of the fun because of what they wanted. She knew they felt hopeless, but then she had felt hopeless enough times, waiting for them to work up their nerve, or else borrow two dollars. Let them get a taste.>>完整场景

Lorena felt puzzled for a moment. She didn’t ignore the men who walked through the door of the Dry Bean. It didn’t do to ignore men. The majority of them were harmless, with nothing worse than a low capacity to irritate—they were worse than chiggers but not as bad as bedbugs, in her view. Still, there was no doubt that there were some mean ones who plain had it in for women, and it was best to try and spot those and take precautions. But as far as trusting the general run of men, there was no need, since she had no intention of ever expecting anything from one of them again. She didn’t object to sitting in on a card game once in a while—she even enjoyed it, since making money at cards was considerably easier and more fun than doing it the other way—but a good game of cards once in a while was about as far as her expectations went.>>完整场景

AUGUSTUS WAS on the front porch, biding his time, when Wilbarger rode up. Biding his time seemed to him the friendly thing to do, inasmuch as Jake Spoon had ridden a long way and had likely been scared to seek out womankind during his trip. Jake was one of those men who seemed to stay in rut the year round, a great source of annoyance to Call, who was never visibly in rut. Augustus was subject to it, but, as he often said, he wasn’t going to let it drive him like a mute—a low joke that still went over the heads of most of the people who heard it. He enjoyed a root, as he called it, but if conditions weren’t favorable, could make do with whiskey for lengthy spells. It was clear that with Jake just back, conditions wouldn’t be too favorable that afternoon, so he repaired to his jug with the neighborly intention of giving Jake an hour or two to whittle down his need before he followed along and tried to interest him in a card game.>>完整场景

“Way up, past the Yellowstone,” Jake said. “I was near to the Milk River. You can smell Canady from there.” “I bet you can smell Indians too,” Call said. “How’d you get past the Cheyenne?” “They shipped most of them out,” Jake said. “Some of the Blackfeet are still troublesome. But I was with the Army, doing a little scouting.” That hardly made sense. Jake Spoon might scout his way across a card table, but Montana was something else.>>完整场景

THE NAME STRUCK NEWT like a blow, so much did Jake Spoon mean to him. As a very little boy, when his mother had still been alive, Jake Spoon was the man who came most often to see her. It had begun to be clear to him, as he turned over his memories, that his mother had been a whore, like Lorena, but this realization tarnished nothing, least of all his memories of Jake Spoon. No man had been kinder, either to him or his mother—her name had been Maggie. Jake had given him hard candy and pennies and had set him on a pacing horse and given him his first ride; he had even had old Jesus, the bootmaker, make him his first pair of boots; and once when Jake won a lady’s saddle in a card game he gave the saddle to Newt and had the stirrups cut down to his size.>>完整场景

From a distance, standing in the pale street, he saw two shadows against the yellow box of light from Lorie’s room. She wasn’t that set against Dish, it seemed to him, and she had been pepped up from the card playing. Maybe even Lorie would be surprised and find a liking for the boy. Occasionally he had known sporting women to marry and do well at it—ifLorie were so inclined Dish Boggett would not be a bad man to settle on.>>完整场景