ATDTDA (13): Rounder-type antics, 361-362 #2

[Paul Nightingale]

For Reef the "sworn opponent unreachably within" is a greater threat than
"all the death-packing law, Pinkerton and public" (361): different kinds of
law to regulate social interactions, each in their own way serving,
ultimately, the interests of capital. Cf. Burke telling Lew "the best Brad
can hope for is to stay alive long enough to get the trial moved down to
Denver, where our local junta don't cut that much of a figure, and the
papers back east can get to the story ." (174).

On that occasion, for Burke, "the papers back east" held out the promise of
a kind of justice, however remote. The current section ends with another
reference to mass communications, in the form of "the wanted bills" that
recycle myth, as opposed to "any real-life badman likeness" (362). The
plutes' agents might or might not have their faces on such bills; they are
nonetheless more guilty than their employers. Why? Because they have choice?
One might expect Scarsdale Vibe to be limited in his options when dealing
with Webb Traverse; the same isn't true of Deuce Kindred, who might have
asked whose side he was on. Is this consideration an extension of the way
Reef thinks of his own situation? He too claims that he has had no say in
the matter, "like a damn Christer" in spite of himself.

At the outset here, "[i]t had never been Reef's intention to be part of any
outlaw dynasty" (361). Talk of a "dynasty" implies what comes after, ie
Jesse, no less than Frank perhaps, as well as what Reef himself has
'inherited' from Webb: talking to Stray he fakes losing his temper, as
though testing the limits of their relationship. She has exposed him "on her
way to visit with her sister Willow": her family ties leading to the
conflict that has resulted from his own family ties. So back to Lew and
Burke: "The conflict was explicit, between the State and one's blood
loyalties." (174) Which isn't to say Stray might turn him in, of course;
although undeniably there is now the possibility, given her knowledge, that
she might have to make that decision, deciding like Deuce whose side she is
on.

That Reef has lied to her has two likely explanations, to keep her (and
consequently part of his own life) 'clean', and also to avoid any such
decision-making on her part in the unspecified future. Reef's "rounder-type
antics" are, then, carefully calculated to maintain the status quo, to allow
Jesse's parents to go on "thinking their own miles-apart personal thoughts"
(361).