The Wisdom of Coinage

a play in one act

by

S. A. Scoggin

S. A. Scoggin
sascoggin@gmail.com

1
 CHARACTERS

MISS GILLY is what can be kindly called a barmaid, an

unattached single female who performs a multitude of tasks
in the saloon. Young, but the edges are starting to show
wear. She is wearing a gay dress; her hair is done up; she
is a performer ready to assume a part.

VERNON AMUNDSEN is a cow hand who is barely old enough to

have whiskers. His shirt is tattered and threadbare. His
pants are greasy, and his hat is a battered, shapeless
thing.

PEABODY is a traveling man. He speaks as one accustomed to

using words to his advantage. His sharp black suit is
protected by a long dust coat. His hat would be black if
the white flour of alkali dust were brushed off.

2
 SETTING

The interior of a saloon in the western United States

sometime in the 1870’s. The walls are rough planks. Stage
right is a door to the street; stage left is a short bar
running upstage and down. Upstage center is a piano. There
is one round table with four chairs piled atop it. A single
lantern hangs from the wall over the piano.
There are two windows in the wall. They are heavily
curtained, but still admit blades of white-hot sunlight
through cracks and rips. When the door is opened, brilliant
light blasts through, giving the impression that the
outside is being pummeled by a parching heat.

3
 (The stage is dim. Miss Gilly enters
through the door, shaking the dust from
her dress. She lights the lantern, and
the lights come up on the stage. She
sets the chairs about the table, then
goes to the piano and uncovers the
keys. She strikes several notes of
“There Is A Tavern In The Town“ and
begins to sing, continuing as she goes
behind the bar and searches out a
cloth. With this she begins to wipe
shot glasses, removing them one by one
from a pile on her left and stacking
them to her right. She spends a long
time polishing and inspecting each one
against the lamp light.)

GILLY
There is a tavern in the town, in the town
And there my dear love sits him down, sits him down
And drinks his wine ‘mid joyous laughter free
And never never thinks of me

Fare thee well for I must leave thee

Do not let the parting grieve thee
And remember that the best of friends must part, must part
Adieu, adieu kind friends, adieu, sweet adieu
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you
I’ll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree
And may the world go well with thee

(VERNON AMUNDSEN enters with a brave

first step, then, seeing no other
patrons, freezes with his hand still on
the open door.)

GILLY
Close the door before the whole county blows in.

AMUNDSEN
So you’re open?

GILLY
If you’re flush, we’re open. That’s our motto.

AMUNDSEN
Oh, I’m flush.

4
 (He pats his pocket.)
Yes. Ma’am. I’m a paying customer.

GILLY
Well excuse me, Commodore Vanderbilt. I didn’t recognize
you in this light. Entree to the salon and I will ring for
the iced champagne. Oui?

AMUNDSEN
(Removing his hat, he laughs
nervously.)
Aw, ma’am.

GILLY
Come here. Sit.

(AMUNDSEN does as directed.

She reaches out and firmly
shakes hands with him.)

GILLY
My name’s Gilly.

AMUNDSEN
Vernon Amundsen, ma’am.

GILLY
Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Amundsen. Are you a
visitor to our fair community?

AMUNDSEN
No, ma’am. Miss...Gilly. I’m roping and tying over at the
Double Bar B.

GILLY
No! I had you marked for a banker.

AMUNDSEN
You’re teasing.

GILLY
Why haven’t I seen you in here before now, Vernon? You
ain’t studying for the cloth are you? Taken a vow? Have you
alone in this valley of debauchers found that God who keeps
account of sin?

AMUNDSEN

5
Not me.

GILLY
Then you must true to one of the other sporting
establishments in town.

AMUNDSEN
Ma’am?

GILLY
The Rose and Crown? The Crowing Cock? No. I see you over
at the Harvard Club, sitting back in a big old cracked
leather armchair with a two-dollar cigar and sipping brandy
as old as your grandfather.

AMUNDSEN
Now I know you’re gilding the lily, ma’am. Miss Gilly.
There’s the smithy shop, and the general store, and I saw
two stables cross from them. And this place. I didn’t see
another saloon.

GILLY
You are new around here, aren’t you?

AMUNDSEN
Yes, ma’am. I signed on with the Double Bar up in Bodie on
the winter drive. Been on three months now.

GILLY
For three long dry months you have been able to resist the
siren's song?
(She gestures to the empty
room.)

AMUNDSEN
I’ve been working extra. To save up some to buy my own
head, run my own place.

GILLY
Then three booming huzzahs for you, Vernon. We don’t have
many come in that door who have much - hell, any - trace of
ambition. Pardon my boudoir French.

AMUNDSEN
That’s all right.

6
 GILLY
You don’t start if a woman’s mouth is sullied by vulgarity?

AMUNDSEN
I can bear it.

GILLY
You are a rare gentleman. Perhaps the only one employed at
the Double Bar B. Those unrepentant groundhogs probably had
you too terrified to set foot through that door. I know the
scurrilous lies they spread - that the cards have only
fifty-one in the deck - that Noah carried yon jar of
pickled eggs onto the Ark. They would swear before the
Almighty that Milton stretches a barrel of whisky with
tobacco juice and sagebrush tea, and that the women here
take moral positions which are remarkably flexible. Damned
lies!
(She winks at him.)
Most of them. So what will you have to drink tonight? Did I
say tonight, when it is not yet that other three o’clock?
And poor Milton is laid abed with the gout again. So today
the whisky flows pure, as brown as a Paiute’s nose and as
smooth as his squaw’s derriere.

AMUNDSEN
I would have one of those, please.

(She turns to a small wooden keg set up

on a stand and fills a glass by turning
a tap at the bottom. She slides the
full glass onto the bar so that
Amundsen has to be alert to stop it
from going into his lap.)

GILLY
And as we are fast old friends, what is a rosy-cheeked man
of temperance and industry doing in here on a Tuesday while
the rest of the honest world bends its back?

AMUNDSEN
Well, the cutting out was done, so I kind of volunteered to
bring the buckboard in to the smith’s. The durn springs is
tearing loose again.

GILLY
So you didn’t come just to see me? My reputation has failed

7
me for the first time!

AMUNDSEN
I don’t-

GILLY
I shall never see you again, shall I? This is but cruel
fate that has thrown us together. No more Saturday evenings
of song and laughter and gay times?

AMUNDSEN
I believe I... might come back.

GILLY
Tell me the truth, Mr. Amundsen. Is it the ambience which
draws you back fluttering like a doomed moth to the flame.
Or is it the fine liquor? Perhaps - dare I say it - it is
the company?

AMUNDSEN
Everything. Everything’s fine, ma’am.

GILLY
A spark of hope! Hope for a bright shining future!

AMUNDSEN
Yes, ma’am. I suppose....

GILLY
You think my jest empty of truth altogether, don’t you?
Well, Mr. Amundsen, I shan’t be Milton’s saloon decoration
forever. I’m waiting for a man with some spine and some
brains, and I’m going to partner up with him. Sound good to
you, Mr. Amundsen?

AMUNDSEN
Yes, ma’am.

GILLY
I’ve been saving up too. How about it Vernon? What would
you say to combining our assets and throwing in together on
some land and some cattle? Someday real soon there's going
to be sixteen hundred acres and a real house - not a bark-
side-out shack - but a real ranch house with a stone
chimney, glass in the windows, and a porch for rocking
chairs in the evenings. All with my name on it. And
thirteen fat children stampeding about - maybe with your

8
name on them.

AMUNDSEN
I-

GILLY
Not so fast, partner. The man I’ll be bidding for has a big
heart and a bigger imagination. I won’t settle for a cull.
I’m a prize, Vernon. I’m strong and smart, and I’m still
pretty. And I know some things that a mail order bride
would not.

AMUNDSEN
Yes, ma’am.

GILLY
But I’ll keep an eye on you. Another whisky?

AMUNDSEN
Yes, ma’am.

(As she draws him another glass,

Peabody enters. He walks stiffly, as if
his whole lower body is sore.)

PEABODY
Praise be! An oasis in the desert.

GILLY
That’s us. We are famous for that.

(Peabody limps to the bar. Amundsen

shies away from him.)

PEABODY
I count myself fortunate to be still drawing breath. I was
just in the market across the avenue, begging the
proprietor for sweet liquid to slake my desperate thirst.
He showed me to a bucket swinging by the door. It was
filled with water! I am sure it was water. It was almost
clear.

GILLY
Some claim to have tasted it.

PEABODY
My condolences to the next of kin. Please tell me that you-

9
 (He eyes Amundsen’s glass
greedily.)
-do not peddle water.

GILLY
No, sir. We are strictly against water here.

(She fills a glass from the keg and

sets it before him.)

PEABODY
Glory hallelujah.

(Peabody picks the glass up, peers into

it, and takes it in one gulp. He peels
off his trail coat and carefully folds
it into a square. He puts this on top
of a stool and sits gingerly upon it.)

GILLY
Been in the saddle long?

PEABODY
Since daybreak in a cheap piece of leather, mule leather
most likely, formed to another man’s posterior, on a steed
mindful only of his own comfort and convenience.

GILLY
Not your mount?

PEABODY
That is the kind of question discreet strangers do not ask
one another in these parts, Miss-?

GILLY
Gilly.

(Peabody rises gravely and extends his

hand.)

PEABODY
My very great pleasure, Miss Gilly. The name is Peabody.
(He presses her hand to his lips, then
sits again, painfully.)
The horse is mine, as is the accursed saddle. I acquired
them both two days ago in Goldfield.

10
 GILLY
Mr. Peabody? Or is Peabody your Christian name?

PEABODY
Just Peabody, unadorned and unaccompanied. I once had two
other names, but they now belong to a gentleman who was
holding three jacks to my nines.

AMUNDSEN
(Just realizing.)
You’re a gambler.

PEABODY
That voyage we call life is a gamble, mister. We are all
taking our chances.

AMUNDSEN
I didn’t mean....

PEABODY
No offense taken.

(He offers his hand. After a moment,

Amundsen shakes it.)

AMUNDSEN
Vernon Amundsen.

PEABODY
Of course you meant to say, Mr. Amundsen, that I am a
professional risk-taker, and you are absolutely correct.
Defying the gods of chance is my trade by necessity. As is
painfully evident, I have no comfort nor skills upon a
horse. Cattle ignore my commands. I cannot crack a whip. I
am allergic to sheep. I can do only simple sums after great
effort of thought, thus shopkeeping is beyond me. I can’t
shoot to save my life. I suffer from sea sickness and flat
feet, therefore both the Navy and the Army must carry on
without me. The cold fact is that the only way for me to
eke out this miserable existence I call my own is by such
simple sport as I come across in my wanderings. How about
you, Mr. Amundsen? What is your vocation?

AMUNDSEN
Ranching.

PEABODY

11
Ah, now there is a man’s life. Under the cleansing sun and
heaven’s turquoise sky. A day’s sweat and an honest dollar
in return. I envy you.

AMUNDSEN
And Miss Gilly’s a-

GILLY
Barkeep.

PEABODY
Yes, I know what Miss Gilly is and I dare say she knows me
as well. Every good...barkeep...sees men of my trade come
and go.

GILLY
Not out here, we don’t. See that table? Twice a week we got
a poker game up at that table. Always the same seven, eight
cowhands running a nickel ante. If the pot builds past a
dollar, they start to get the jitters. They don’t even
trust each other. If you were to sit at that table on a
Saturday night, you’d be sitting alone until well into
Sunday.

PEABODY
The good citizens hereabouts can rest easy. I am here only
to catch my breath and wet my desiccated whistle. My loyal
steed threw a shoe. The smith is laboring now to advance my
cause - which is to reach Virginia City by tomorrow
nightfall.

GILLY
That’s a sound business decision.

PEABODY
Indeed. Besides, I could not in good conscience sit at that
table. True professionals like myself are as the knights of
old. We joust only against one another. Armor against
armor. Steel upon steel. I speak of contests and battles
for which hard-working men like Vernon here are not armed.

GILLY
I see what you mean.

AMUNDSEN
You wouldn’t let me play poker with you?

12
 PEABODY
Perhaps for pleasure. If I were so fortunate as to be here
on a Saturday night passing the pasteboards with you and
your friends, I would say to hell with gold. We would play
with match sticks, like children, just for the sheer
delight of playing the hands.

(Gilly rolls her eyes. Amundsen does

not see her.)

AMUNDSEN
You would play for fun?

PEABODY
(He takes a coin from his
pocket.)
See this twenty dollar gold piece? It was once part of a
monstrous staggering stack of his fellows that threatened
to cave in a stout oak table. It was just myself and a
brother in chance across from me. The whole house was
silent. The music had stopped, and the dancers stood upon
their tiptoes to see over our shoulders. Every possession I
had in the world was lying in that pile between us, and in
my hand not even two cards alike and no draw left. But the
thrill of that is just the same to me as flipping a single
coin.
(He flips the coin, catches
it, and slaps it on the bar.)
You call it, Vernon. You call it right, and I’ll buy you a
drink.

AMUNDSEN
And if I don’t? I have to buy you?

PEABODY
Why shouldn't we risk it? It’s just a drink.

AMUNDSEN
Oh...heads.

(Peabody moves his hand.)

PEABODY
Heads it is. Miss Gilly! A round on me.

(Keeping a close eye on Peabody, Gilly

13
 brings them two whiskeys.)

PEABODY
You know what is the most beautiful thing about a coin? It
has two sides and only two sides. You got your head side
and your tail side, and every time it lands, it lands
either heads or tails. It is a piece of the finest
craftsmanship. Pleasing to the eye. Durable. Manufactured
by the United States Government to exact specifications. It
is the gold standard. Not just in commerce, but in a game
of chance. You see?

AMUNDSEN
I guess so.

PEABODY
Gambling to most folks means poker. Or three card monte, if
your taste is for speed rather than strategy. Faro becomes
the favored game as you climb up into the Sierra Nevadas.
All based on the draw of cards, and all only as fair to you
as are a deck of cards that has no stake in either side.
But only a fool trusts paper, Vernon, because cards can be
inked, shaved, colored, sharpened, bent, and misprinted.
Not to mention secreted inside a sleeve or boot or taped
under a tablecloth. No, sir - never bet your life or any
other thing of value to you in a game which relies upon the
turn of those flimsy devices.
(He tosses the coin and traps it as
before.)
We are staring at the bottom of our glasses. Would you care
to try your luck once again?

AMUNDSEN
Heads.

(Peabody shows the coin.)

PEABODY
Heads it is. Ma’am?

(Gilly fetches them another round, then

she moves down the bar and resumes her
polishing. She keeps an eye on the two
and a cocked ear toward them.)

PEABODY
But to be fair, dice can be drilled lopside and weighted

14
with buckshot. I have seen roulette wheels which appeared
to be solid hickory but had been secretly hollowed out and
fitted with magnets so the drop of the ball might be subtly
influenced.

AMUNDSEN
Damn. That ain’t right.

PEABODY
All for the profit of the house. You have seen such places.

AMUNDSEN
I was in the Silver Lady.

PEABODY
Exactly! You recall the wonderful array of mechanisms
there, all geared and primed to lighten the customer’s
purse? Well, I say: Let the simple be amazed by the clang
of the slot machine, by its running fruit and gleaming
case. I would rather risk my daily bread upon the fall of a
simple coin taken from the safety of my own pocket.

(He brings out another coin from his

pocket and tosses it onto the bar.)

PEABODY
Is that not a work of art? Golden circles more clever than
all the paintings on the east bank of Paris. And easier to
fit in the purse than a canvas. But then these masterpieces
are not strangers to you, ranching being the booming
enterprise it is in this country. You must lose this much
in your sofa cushions. You ranchers must pour them on the
carpet as toys for the children.

AMUNDSEN
Oh...sure.

PEABODY
I on the other hand do not need an entire sofa to hide my
fortune. Perhaps an small armchair. Too often a milking
stool would suffice. Better any furniture than a bank,
however. A man might as well toss his hard-earned gold back
into the mine shaft as entrust it to a bank to be withdrawn
at the convenience of masked desperados or spirited away
into the head teller’s lunch pail. I keep mine deposited
right here on my hip, where it is protected by Mr. Colt and
his six associates.

15
 (He pulls a snub-barreled revolver from
his belt at the small of his back,
shows it to Amundsen, and tucks it
back.)

A man has to have some persuasion on his person sometimes.

AMUNDSEN
I got a Winchester on my saddle. For snakes and varmints.

PEABODY
No doubt you mean real rattling snakes and four-legged
varmints.

AMUNDSEN
There’s no bank here anyway.

PEABODY
Yet you travel openly without an iron piece visible. How is
it that the cutpurses let you pass in and out of town? They
know you are carrying your inspirational funds.

AMUNDSEN
Church money?

PEABODY
You may call it by another name around here. I mean those
funds which ranchers carry upon their persons for
increasing the herd. The yellow gleam of persuasion. Say
you’re driving the family home from church meeting on a
Sunday afternoon and you pass by a field in which you spy
the grandest bull you have ever seen. You stop on the spot
and make the owner of this magnificent animal an offer of
such sudden and blinding generosity that in an instant the
brute is roped up and trotting home behind your coach, the
cows all swooning as you pull into your barn. You’ve got to
have a double fistful of these ready upon your person-
(He taps the coins before
him.)
-to fetch that bull from his own comfortable field and not
let his master think too long on the proposition. Your
foresight allows you to bring the flashing lucre out -
(He lays a handful of coins
on the bar. Vernon's eyes
widen.)
and deaden the sensibility of the bull's owner. It is more

16
soporific than anything Doctor Mesmer could invent.
(Vernon is fixated on the
pile.)
Some ranchers I have known - even those with a modest
spread - make sure never to leave their land without two,
maybe three hundred cash dollars. That’s why I naturally
assumed that a rancher like yourself would have means to
protect his poke.

(Amundsen makes a noncommittal shrug.)

PEABODY
Miss Gilly, how is it that Vernon here can carry himself so
calmly about? Do you have a vigilante committee in town? Do
midnight riders in black robes dangle miscreants from the
old cottonwood?

GILLY
That would be a civic improvement. The county sheriff keeps
to his office in Dayton, sixty miles due north.

PEABODY
Then who keeps the peace for you? Who steps in when
emotions run high?

(Gilly reaches beneath the bar and

lifts up a huge ancient blunderbuss of
a gun.)

GILLY
This is the Cowboy Pacifier. Like our patrons, it is loud
but harmless, and rarely handled by a woman.

PEABODY
Very impressive. Vernon?

(Amundsen nods, and Peabody flips the

coin.)

AMUNDSEN
Heads.

PEABODY
Ride the hot mount? Good strategy.
(He uncovers the coin.)
And a sound decision. Madam, would you be so kind?

17
 (Gilly puts the gun back and turns to
the keg with two glasses.)

PEABODY
Whom shall we toast? The law-abiding citizens of - whatever
is the name of this metropolis?

GILLY
It doesn’t have a proper-

AMUNDSEN
Pizen Switch.

PEABODY
Pizen Switch? What a colorful appellation.

GILLY
That’s not the-

AMUNDSEN
Story I heard is this bar here was first made out of willow
branches chinked up with river mud. There’s the switch.
Pizen is what was sold. Sold as whisky, but tasted like
pizen.

GILLY
That’s just cowpunchers flapping their lips. Think they are
amusing when they are not.

PEABODY
The tale has the ring of truth to it.

GILLY
How can you have a respectable town if you let a bunch of
shiftless, uneducated bean eaters name it for you? The
folks who intend to build and live here ought to be allowed
the right to a finer name than that.

PEABODY
I see your point. I myself favor towns named for the
elemental metals, Leadville for instance. Or Goldfield, or
Silver City.

GILLY
Greenfield is what some favor.

PEABODY

18
Well, I did see some green as I rode into the valley, I
guess. Very dark green. Mostly brown, but Very Dark Green
and Often Brownfield is too much of a mouthful.

GILLY
The smith and his wife are from Greenfield, Massachusetts
originally.

PEABODY
I can’t see traveling the breadth of an entire continent,
braving Apaches, drought, floods, disease, and brush fires
just to saddle your new home with the same handle as the
one you risked your skin to get away from. No, I think you
should name this city Amundsenville, after Vernon.

AMUNDSEN
Who cares what the name is? It’s just a name.

PEABODY
Truer words were never spoken. Upon further contemplation
of the proposition, I have decided that your name is far
too good for this place.

AMUNDSEN
Thank you.

PEABODY
Are we ready for another glass of...pizen?

AMUNDSEN
I am. I’ll stay with heads.

(Peabody tosses the coin.)

PEABODY
Heads once more!

(Gilly had already drawn them another

round; she slaps the glasses down
beside them.)

PEABODY
That is a rare streak you are having.

AMUNDSEN
Just lucky.

19
 PEABODY
Being the educated man you are, you probably realize just
how lucky it is. As I said, I do not have a head for sums,
but I do know a thing or two about probability.

AMUNDSEN
Uh huh?

PEABODY
(He picks up an empty glass.)
Suppose this glass were a coin. Set up is heads. Upside
down represents tails. Now in one throw, you get either
heads or tails. Two possibilities.
(He turns the glass upside
down and puts it next to
one which is upright.)
Throw a coin twice, and it can come up heads the first time
and heads the second time or heads the first time and tails
the second or tails and heads or tails and tails.
(He sets out four rows of two glasses in the
possible states.)
Four ways to throw twice. So your call of heads the first
two times was only one possibility out of four. See?

AMUNDSEN
Sure do.

PEABODY
Then three throws - now the third toss could be heads or
tails, so we got heads and heads and heads or heads heads
tails or heads tails heads or heads tails tails or tails
heads heads or tails heads tails or tails tails heads or
tails tails tails. Eight outcomes from just three throws.
On your third win, three heads in a row, you beat the odds
one out of eight. And then you did it for a fourth time. I
think Miss Gilly has enough crystal here for us to reckon
that out. Here we go.

(Amundsen hands him glasses one by

one.)

PEABODY and AMUNDSEN

(Mostly in unison, they
mumble.)
Heads heads heads heads, heads heads heads tails, heads
heads tails heads, heads heads tails tails, heads tails
heads heads, heads tails heads tails, heads tails tails

20
heads, heads tails tails tails, tails heads heads heads,
tails heads heads tails, tails heads tails heads, tails
heads tails tails, tails tails heads heads, tails tails
heads tails, tails tails tails heads, tails tails tails
tails.

AMUNDSEN
(Tapping the first
row of glasses.)
Sixteen! I called one out of sixteen!

PEABODY
And the odds against your streak seem to double with every
throw. Let’s see now. If we were to throw this coin five
times, there would be....

AMUNDSEN
Thirty-two?

PEABODY
I believe you are correct. Do you see why I was astounded?
Five heads in a row is but one out of thirty-two ways it
could land. So logically, the odds against it coming up
heads one more time is-

AMUNDSEN
One in thirty-two?

PEABODY
Incredible, isn’t it? Seems like betting on the tails
turning up now is the sure thing. If I were sitting on this
situation at a table at the Silver Lady, I would
immediately and without doubt wager everything I had on
tails. Seems a waste to squander it on a small glass of
very average whiskey. Oh, well....

(Peabody taps the coin against the bar

as he seems to be suddenly fascinated
by the mirror on the wall. Amundsen
squirms on his stool and unconsciously
pats his hand against his hip.)

AMUNDSEN
We could wager on it.

PEABODY
You mean bet money? Oh, no. Unthinkable.

21
 AMUNDSEN
How come?

PEABODY
Why, the odds are just too staggering. One in thirty-two!
See here-
(He brings out some more coins from his
pocket.)
I’ve got only sixty dollars all told, and that’s all I have
in the world besides what I wear and a horse whose name I
cannot remember. To make an even bet of this - if you took
the position that the next toss must give tails thirty-two
to one - and I were to defend the lonely chance of five
heads in a row, the proper and fair wager would be this
sixty dollars here against sixty times thirty-two, which is
upwards of two thousand, I would venture.

AMUNDSEN
Oh my gosh.

PEABODY
Exactly. And even you ranchers can’t be expected to carry
that much, even to bet on a sure thing. All you have is
that bull money, right?

AMUNDSEN
Right.

PEABODY
Which is...what, a hundred or so?

AMUNDSEN
Hundred and seventy-three.

PEABODY
See what I mean? No sensible being could expect me to risk
these few pieces of pure gold - these precious jewels of
the minter’s craft - against only one hundred and seventy-
three dollars, barely one-tenth of the fairly calculated
wager.

AMUNDSEN
I guess not.

PEABODY
Though these mean nothing to me - I am by the necessities

22
of my profession numbed of the human desire to clutch mere
baubles against my breast. Copper or gold, wealthy or
destitute, I stay my jaded course all the same. But I would
need to keep two dollars for the blacksmith’s trouble.

AMUNDSEN
Oh...sure thing....

PEABODY
And you would pay for these drinks with your winnings?

AMUNDSEN
Of course.

PEABODY
Wait. Let us lay our offerings upon the altar, that I might
resist this strong temptation.

(Amundsen slowly pulls out a small

leather purse and counts his coins into
piles next to Peabody’s.)

PEABODY
This is insanity. Look at this imbalance.

AMUNDSEN
Yeah.

PEABODY
I should never drink whiskey before sundown. It makes me a
damn fool, unable to resist plunging into hopeless
situations.

AMUNDSEN
Uh huh.

PEABODY
Still...you insist?

AMUNDSEN
I guess.

PEABODY
You will take the certainty of tails? Thirty-two to one?

AMUNDSEN
Okay.

23
 (Peabody prepares to throw the coin.)

GILLY
Vernon, I don’t-

PEABODY
I appreciate your concern, Miss Gilly. You have a kind
heart, but I am an impetuous fool. Always was, always will
be.

GILLY
No. It’s his-

PEABODY
You are worried for Vernon, how he may later be overcome
with remorse and guilt for gaming with a thoughtless man?
For whatever comfort it gives you, I enter with eyes wide
open. The wager is made between two free men of sound mind,
though one be overly generous.

GILLY
That is the-

AMUNDSEN
Yeah, that’s right. It’s our bet.

GILLY
Fine. Don’t the loser come crying to me for sympathy.

(She turns her back on them.)

PEABODY
Here we go.

(He spins the coin even higher than

before, snaps it out of the air, and
claps it to the bar.)

PEABODY
(Resignedly.)
And by the odds, it must be-

(He uncovers it.)

AMUNDSEN
Heads?

24
 PEABODY
Well! Shit fire and save matches! What a long shot!

(He sweeps up both piles of money.

Gilly has turned around to watch. He
tosses her the coin that was flipped.)

PEABODY
For your trouble, Miss Gilly. Farewell, Vernon, I think my
mount awaits. Pleasure meeting you all.

(He is gone in a flash, moving with

none of the stiffness he displayed
before. Amundsen sits paralyzed,
staring at the rows of glasses.)

GILLY
That was your stake, wasn’t it? That was all you saved up?

(Amundsen nods slowly.)

GILLY
Why didn’t you tell him you weren’t no rich ranch owner?
Don’t you think he knew you’re nothing but a rope-puller?

(Amundsen shrugs.)

GILLY
And how in the name of all we hold holy could you let him
talk you into that bet?

AMUNDSEN
You saw.
(He motions to the array of glasses on
the bar.)
I had thirty-two chances to his one.

GILLY
You damn fool! A coin has got two sides. Only two sides. It
don’t remember. It doesn’t know how it landed in the past.
Every time it goes up it can only come down heads or tails.
Fifty-fifty, Vernon. You bet one hundred and seventy-three
dollars against sixty on an even chance.

(Amundsen seems to shrink in on

himself. Gilly steps around the bar and

25
 takes his arm. She stands him up and
leads him toward the door. He
cooperates dumbly.)

GILLY
This isn’t a house of charity. If you’re flush, we’re open.
But you are broke.

AMUNDSEN
You’re closed?

GILLY
For you we are. Come back Saturday when you get your pay,
cowboy, and we’ll have some more fun.

AMUNDSEN
I’m so stupid.

GILLY
Not anymore you aren’t. You just got one hundred and
seventy-three dollars worth of lessons. Why, that’s
probably six months worth of a Harvard education.

AMUNDSEN
You think so?

GILLY
Sure I do. And here’s one on the house. Never play for
money with a man wearing fifty-dollar boots.

(She pushes him gently out the door.)

GILLY
Saturday night!

AMUNDSEN (O. S.)

Yes, Miss Gilly.

(Gilly goes back to the bar and picks

up her rag. She takes one of the
glasses left on the bar by the two men
and begins to shine it up. She starts
to sing again.)

GILLY
He left me for a damsel dark
Each Friday night they used to spark

26
And now my love, who once was true to me
Takes that dark damsel on his knee

Fare thee well for I must leave thee

Do not let the parting grieve thee
And remember that the best of friends must part, must part
Adieu, adieu kind friends, adieu, sweet adieu
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you
I’ll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree
And may the world go well with thee

THE END

27