Free Crows & Cards by Joseph Helgerson

there ain't nothing going to make that right."
    "Far as I can tell," Chilly reasoned, biting back some bile, "there ain't enough right to go around in this world, and a man in your shoes, Mr. Ho-John, ought to be the first to know it." To me, he added, "What you got to ask yourself, Zeb, is whether you want to lend a hand in spreading that right around. 'Cause what do you think the Brotherhood has me do with the money we earn from all this?"
    "Help out orphans?" I guessed.
    "That's exactly right," Chilly agreed, "along with other poor and needy. Old widows and one-legged Indian scouts and what have you. You remember why we share our winnings?"
    "'Cause sharing is what makes a man great," I quoted, double relieved to have remembered that lesson.
    "That's right, Zeb. It does. Now isn't that something you think worth doing? And before you answer that question," Chilly piled on, "you better answer this one: how do you think those rich folks got rich in the first place?"
    He had me there.
    When I said hard work, he pounced, asking if I'd ever seen any calluses on a rich man's hands.
    Well, I'd never seen a rich man's hands, not close up, but I didn't imagine they had any slivers sticking out. So I asked if they couldn't have maybe inherited their riches. Chilly allowed I might have a point but said if inheriting was all there was to it, we'd still be ruled over by some king or other back in England. That seemed an even sprucier point.
    When I guessed maybe they had found their riches, say in a gold mine or something, Chilly came right back with the news that whoever found a fortune still had to keep it, and how did I reckon they'd manage that, what with every chicken rustler and snake charmer between here and kingdom come after it.
    By then I was pretty much played out for answers and finally just came out and told him so. Chilly filled me in on the right answer pronto.
    "Zeb, my boy, nine times out of ten a rich gent got his fortune by cheating somebody else out of theirs. If they run a plantation, they got wealthy off the sweat of someone like Ho-John over there. If they own a store, they got it by charging everyone a nickel too much for whatever they're buying. So if you're bound and determined to think in terms of cheating, you better first give some thought as to who you'll be cheating. Hereabouts, you'll only be cheating the cheaters and taking their money and putting it in the hands of the less fortunate."
    I hadn't ever thought of all that before, and I must say it was an approach that took some getting used to. I'd got caught cheating once back home, when I'd bribed my sister Becky into copying some definitions from Ma's dictionary for me. Such lessons was how Ma taught us penmanship, and she spotted the difference in our handwriting without a blink. Even now I don't care to dwell on what happened next, 'cause I spent an awful sorrowful string of afternoons writing out triple the number of definitions I'd started with. Ma had been a schoolmarm before hooking up with Pa, and not one you ever wanted to cross.
    "What about that one rich man out of ten who earned his fortune without cheating?" I come back with, kind of weak.
    "You don't have to worry any about him," Chilly promised. "He ain't never going to be showing up around here trying to double his fortune. He's going to be plenty satisfied with what he's got and won't begrudge us what we're getting."
    Answers such as Chilly's deserved to put my mind to rest, and maybe they would have, if Ho-John hadn't been clucking his tongue real soft—the same exact way my pa was known to—and shaking his head as though Chilly's calculations beat all. When Chilly slapped a dime in my hand and told me to run down to First Street to get some telegraph wire, I jumped at the chance, more than happy to get shut of all the bothersome, naggy questions swarming around me.
    "Just don't let any crows follow you back," Chilly warned out of the blue, right before pushing me outside.
    "Do they