Witches Abroad

match.
    “I seem to recall she come over and helped you out when you had that spot of plague in your village,” she said. “Worked the clock around, I recall. Never known her not treat someone ill who needed it, even when they, you know, were pretty oozy. And when the big ole troll that lives under Broken Mountain came down for help because his wife was sick and everyone threw rocks at him, I remember it was Esme that went back with him and delivered the baby. Hah…then when old Chickenwire Hopkins threw a rock at Esme a little while afterward all his barns was mysteriously trampled flat in the night. She always said you can’t help people with magic, but you can help them with skin. By doin’ real things, she meant.”
    “I’m not saying she’s not basically a nice person—” Magrat began.
    “Hah! I am. You’d have to go a long day’s journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,” said Nanny Ogg, “and this is me sayin’ it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don’t like it.”
    Nanny tapped her pipe out on the rail and turned back to the saloon.
    “What you got to understand about Esme, my girl,” she said, “is that she’s got a psycholology as well as a big eggo. I’m damn glad I ain’t.”

    Granny was twelve dollars ahead. Everything else in the saloon had stopped. You could hear the distant splash of the paddles and the cry of the leadman.
    Granny won another five dollars with a three-card Onion.

    “What do you mean, a psycholology?” said Magrat. “Have you been reading books?”
    Nanny ignored her.
    “The thing to watch out for now,” she said, “is when she goes ‘tch, tch, tch’ under her breath. That comes after the ear-cleanin’. It gen’rally means she’s plannin’ somethin’.”

    Mister Frank drummed his fingers on the table, realized to his horror that he was doing it, and bought three new cards to cover his confusion. The old baggage didn’t appear to notice.
    He stared at the new hand.
    He ventured two dollars and bought one more card.
    He stared again.
    What were the odds, he thought, against getting a Great Onion twice in one day.
    The important thing was not to panic.
    “I think,” he heard himself say, “that I may hazard another two dollars.”
    He glanced at his companions. They obediently folded, one after another.
    “Well, I don’t know,” said Granny, apparently talking to her cards. She cleaned her ear again. “Tch, tch, tch. What d’you call it when, you know, you want to put more money in, sort of thing?”
    “It’s called raising,” said Mister Frank, his knuckles going white.
    “I’ll do one of them raisins, then. Five dollars, I think.”
    Mister Frank’s knees ground together.
    “I’ll see you and raise you ten dollars,” he snapped.
    “‘I’ll do that too,” said Granny.
    “I can go another twenty dollars.”
    “I—” Granny looked down, suddenly crestfallen. “I’ve…got a broomstick.”
    A tiny alarm bell rang somewhere at the back of Mister Frank’s mind, but now he was galloping headlong to victory.
    “Right!”
    He spread the cards on the table.
    The crowd sighed.
    He began to pull the pot toward him.
    Granny’s hand closed over his wrist.
    “I ain’t put my cards down yet,” she said archly.
    “You don’t need to,” snapped Mister Frank. “There’s no chance you could beat that, madam.”
    “I can if I can Cripple it,” said Granny. “That’s why it’s called Cripple Mister Onion, ain’t it?”
    He hesitated.
    “But—but—you could only do that if you had a perfect ninecard run,” he burbled, staring into the depths of her eyes.
    Granny sat back.
    “You know,” she said calmly, “I thought I had rather a lot of these black pointy ones. That’s good, is it?”
    She spread the hand. The collective audience made a sort of little gasping noise, in unison.
    Mister Frank looked around wildly.
    “Oh, very well done, madam,” said an elderly gentleman. There was a round of polite applause from the crowd. The big, inconvenient crowd.
    “Er…yes,” said Mister Frank. “Yes. Well done. You’re a very quick learner, aren’t you.”
    “Quicker’n you. You owe me fifty-five dollars and a broomstick,” said Granny.

    Magrat and Nanny Ogg were waiting for her as she swept out.
    “Here’s your broom,” she snapped. “And I hopes you’ve got all your stuff together, ’cos we’re leaving.”
    “Why?” said Magrat.
    “Because as soon as it gets