Slow Smoke/Camron

by Lew Sarett

CAMRON The Indian-trader

Camron, the trader, had a way with him,A something in his thin white thread of lipWhen bargaining with Indians he sought to beatThem down in prices put on huckleberries,With dubious talk of markets glutted, falling.Niggard he was in the currency of speech.Out of a cold white mouth his words would clickAnd clatter on the hardwood desk like coins;And when he deigned to drop a word of barter,Cold and metallic, the squaws would pick it up,And—so to speak—would bite upon its edgeAnd fling it down upon a slab of stone,Spinning and clinking, to find if it was good.

But every word he tossed them, good or specious,The women soon or late would hold of worth;When bellies are flat with hunger as a pike'sIn spawning-season, any round glittering word, Silver or leaden, soft between the teethOr brittle enough to nick a coyote's fangs—If it but jingles faintly on a stone—Falls on an Indian ear like silver music.