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Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Summary

Jake settles in at a Fort Worth saloon, winning steadily and paying ten dollars a day to sleep with Sally Skull, the tall, hard, powder-taking woman who runs the whores upstairs with alarm clocks and no patience. He freezes out the Hat Creek men when they pass through, blaming Lorena's loss on her own stubbornness while her beauty grows in his memory. Sally shoots a foreman, is jailed, and dies on the cell floor in a struggle over a deputy's gun that kills them both. Jake takes six hundred dollars from her hatbox and moves to Dallas, where he learns that a sheriff from Arkansas is somewhere in Texas looking for him. That fear is what makes him ride north with the Suggs brothers — Dan, Roy and little Eddie, cold-eyed men who talk of "regulating" trail herds and robbing banks — and their silent black gunman Frog Lip, whose shooting Jake recognises at once will not stay pointed at deer.

Analysis

Jake's descent completed by drift rather than decision. Sally Skull is his mirror — appetite without illusion — and her squalid death frees him only to fall in with worse. He joins the Suggses out of fear of July, which is the fear that finally hangs him.

Plates

Bill's Saloon on the Trinity River bluffs at Fort Worth, where Jake has settled in, with a small herd trailing north beyond it.
00 Bill's Saloon on the Trinity River bluffs at Fort Worth, where Jake has settled in, with a small herd trailing north beyond it.
A trail foreman tries to hire Jake for the drive to Montana and Jake laughs him off across the card table.
01 A trail foreman tries to hire Jake for the drive to Montana and Jake laughs him off across the card table.
An alarm clock goes off in the upstairs hall and Sally Skull throws the door open and stands watching while the cowboy gets his buttons done.
02 An alarm clock goes off in the upstairs hall and Sally Skull throws the door open and stands watching while the cowboy gets his buttons done.
Jake sits with his boots on the porch rail watching the Fort Worth wagons, and Sally comes out with her whiskey glass to help him watch.
03 Jake sits with his boots on the porch rail watching the Fort Worth wagons, and Sally comes out with her whiskey glass to help him watch.
First light in Sally's room — she pulls the cork out of the whiskey bottle she keeps by the bed, green eyes still wide from the powders.
04 First light in Sally's room — she pulls the cork out of the whiskey bottle she keeps by the bed, green eyes still wide from the powders.
The Hat Creek outfit passes through and two of the hands come in to say hello; Jake freezes them out over his cards.
05 The Hat Creek outfit passes through and two of the hands come in to say hello; Jake freezes them out over his cards.
A young foreman gives Sally lip when she tries to rush him off and she shoots him in the shoulder with the derringer she keeps under her pillow.
06 A young foreman gives Sally lip when she tries to rush him off and she shoots him in the shoulder with the derringer she keeps under her pillow.
Sally and the deputy, having shot each other fatally over the one gun, lie dead together on the cell floor.
07 Sally and the deputy, having shot each other fatally over the one gun, lie dead together on the cell floor.
In a Dallas saloon the Suggs brothers put the regulating scheme to Jake while Roy goes on spitting tobacco on the floor.
08 In a Dallas saloon the Suggs brothers put the regulating scheme to Jake while Roy goes on spitting tobacco on the floor.
First day out on the ride north, Frog Lip drops a deer at a distance Jake would have thought impossible — and takes the shot for granted.
09 First day out on the ride north, Frog Lip drops a deer at a distance Jake would have thought impossible — and takes the shot for granted.