The Adventures of Slim & Howdy

by Kix Brooks; Ronnie Dunn; Bill Fitzhugh

  Following the applause, Slim stepped to the microphone and said, “Thank you. Here’s one you prob’ly know.” A man of few words.

  Howdy bet himself that Slim would open with the song that landed him the gig. “She’s Gone, Gone, Gone.” But he didn’t. Instead, he went with a sly, winking arrangement of “Act Naturally” that clicked with the crowd and had them singing along with the familiar chorus.

  All the sudden, Mack Osborne said, “Hey, cowboy. It’s a hundred to you.”

  Howdy looked at his hole cards. Three, nine, unsuited. He tossed them into the muck pile and said, “Fold.” As the rest of them played out the hand, Howdy listened to Slim do his thing. The guy was good, no doubt about it. He was eager to hear one of Slim’s original compositions.

  Meanwhile, back at the table, the hand came to a showdown between Dempsey Kimble and Mack Osborne. Mack won it with a jack high flush.

  Dempsey Kimble muttered something un-Christian under his breath. As he gathered the cards, his elbow hit his shot glass, spilling the whiskey on the muck pile. “Ahh, shit.” He pushed back from the table to keep his pants dry, then he gathered the wet cards and looked for a place to dump the ruined deck.

  Charlie Pepper pointed at a cabinet and said there was probably a fresh deck in there. Dempsey dried his hands and looked in the cabinet. A second later he turned around and tossed a new deck—still in the cellophane—onto the table. Mack Osborne broke the seal, started shuffling, and said, “Okay, we’re back in bidness.”

  They played a half-dozen hands, trading pots back and forth across the table.

  Outside, Slim was still doing covers, a Haggard followed by a Jones, then a Buck Owens. Howdy was starting to wonder if the guy actually had anything original.

  Charlie Pepper dealt the next hand. Two down around the table. Howdy had a good feeling about this one, even before he picked up the cards. He brought them close and slowly slid them apart. And there they were, gaudy as all Vegas—Siegfried and Roy, two big queens. Howdy did his best not to tell. He looked over at Dempsey, who was studying him through his reading glasses. When the bet came to Howdy, he threw in fifty, real casual, just to see what would happen.

  The others checked their hole cards again, hoping they’d improved since the first time they’d looked. Whatever the strategies, one after the other, they all called the bet.

  Out in the bar, Slim finished his set with “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass,” which he imbued with more sexual innuendo than Buck Owens tended to. After a hearty round of applause and a few “Thanks a lots,” the room got quiet.

  While Slim took a moment to tune a string and find a new pick, some girl yelled out, “You can cut my grass any day!” The crowd laughed and hooted. High fives all around.

  Howdy could hear Slim chuckling into the microphone, that little half smirk no doubt on his face like he’d seen once or twice that night at Lucky’s. Slim leaned into the mike, mothering it like some old FM rock deejay and said, “I trim hedges too.”

  The girl yelled something about needing to get her stump ground, but the crowd was making too much noise for Howdy to hear the exact details.

  After the audience settled down, Slim said, “Here’s one I wrote. Hope you like it.”

  Howdy perked up at that. Finally going to hear an original tune. Based on the pacing of his set so far, Howdy expected a bust- ’em-up honky-tonker but instead he got a string of lonely notes in a minor key, enough to soften a hard heart. Slim repeated the line before moving into some bluesy changes that took advantage of his vocal range, singing about the hurt of a long-suffering woman who had talked till she was blue to a man who wouldn’t listen, a man who stood as living proof that some fools never learn.

  By now, Charlie Pepper had dealt the flop. Ten, king, king.

  Howdy stayed focused on Slim’s song. The chorus had a sweet hook and, as the tune progressed, Howdy tried to imagine how it would sound opening with notes from a piano instead of the picked guitar.

  Charlie said the bet was to Howdy, which brought him back from his role as imaginary record producer. Howdy looked at the flop. It gave him two pairs: kings and queens with a ten high. Not bad, unless somebody had a king in the hole. He looked around the table to see if anybody had a tell, but nobody looked like they were holding three kings. Howdy went with a modest bet, trying to flush the bluffs.

  Gutterball and Mack called him and it went around to Dempsey. Howdy couldn’t read Dempsey one bit. Just stared at you with those sour eyes, oddly distorted through the reading glasses. He couldn’t tell if the man was bluffing, but Howdy was feeling good about this one and thinking the higher the stakes, the bigger the rush, so he saw Dempsey’s bet and raised it to boot.

  Gutterball folded like a pup tent. But Mack, Dempsey, and Charlie Pepper all called.

  The turn was a beautiful thing if you were in Howdy’s seat. The queen of hearts made him think of the old Juice Newton song. And just like that Howdy was living in a full house. Queens over kings. It was all he could do to maintain his poker face. He hemmed and hawed for a minute, fingered his chips, feigning uncertainty, and finally threw in a hundred.

  Mack shook his head and folded. “Too rich for me,” he said.

  Dempsey took another shot of whiskey. Half the bottle was gone by now and it wasn’t as if the man was sharing with anybody. By this point, Howdy figured Dempsey was so drunk he couldn’t see through a ladder, but he didn’t act it. Odd.

  Dempsey squinted at Howdy for a minute, acting unsure about the bet. Finally, he tossed in a stack of chips. “I’ll see your hundred,” he said. Then he tossed in a bigger stack. “And raise you two.” He smiled and said, “Easy come, easy go.”

  Charlie Pepper folded, saying, “Easy go is right.”

  There was something about how Dempsey had said it, rubbed Howdy the wrong way. Or maybe it was the half sneer that came with it. Whatever it was, Howdy called Dempsey’s raise, which just about cleaned him out.

  The five of clubs was of no consequence on the river card. Now it was time for the last round of bets. Howdy was up first and it was all he could do not to shout, “All in!”

  Out in the club, Slim had gotten to the final verse of his song and Howdy couldn’t stop listening, even if he should’ve. It turned out that things were past the point of no return for the fool who wouldn’t listen.

  Howdy looked at Dempsey, then at his hand. Full house, queens over kings, was too damn good to fold. Like the man in Slim’s song, Howdy was past the point of no return too. He’d invested too much to walk away. He wasn’t sure if he was a fool or not, figured time would tell. He just put in the rest of his chips and hoped for the best.

  Dempsey’s smile revealed yellow teeth and gum problems. He waited, just to make Howdy squirm. Then he said, “I’ll see that and raise you five hundred.”

  Howdy was out of chips and low on cash. He looked at his cards and the infected gaze of his ornery opponent across the table. Dempsey Kimble said, “Guess it’s time to reach in your pocket.”

  Slim was out there singing about the fool pushing his luck to breaking while Howdy pulled his wallet. Only two hundred bucks left.

  Slim delivered another line about the fool coming around to consider the possibility that maybe he’d gone too far this time.

  Howdy said, “Two hundred’s all the cash I got.”

  Dempsey nodded slowly. “Leaves you about three hundred short,” he said, reaching for the pot.

  “Well, hang on a second.” Howdy nodded toward the parking lot. “I got a Billy Cook High Country Rancher saddle out in my truck, worth about a thousand.”

  Dempsey sat back and said, “You’d bet that?”

  Howdy looked at his full house again and said, “Sure would.”

  Dempsey got calculating eyes and said, “So that would be a raise to me of, what, seven hundred? Right? I mean, you don’t expect me to make change from a saddle, like giving you the stirrups and the girth.”

  Howdy could see his point. All he could say was
, “All right, raise you seven hundred.” Figured that would end things.

  They were playing with a three-raise maximum, so there was still one left. Dempsey bared his yellow teeth and said, “I’ll see that seven hundred and raise you another five.” As you do when you have them by the short and curlies.

  Howdy swallowed hard. He looked at his cards. The hand was too good and he was in too deep to turn back now. He looked over his shoulder at the guitar case leaning against the wall. He said, “I got a Gibson.”

  “Yeah?” Dempsey Kimble leaned on the table and said, “What’s that worth?”

  14

  SLIM FINISHED HIS SONG ABOUT THE LUCK-PUSHING FOOL and the long-suffering woman, said he was going to take a short break and be right back.

  A waitress put some quarters in the jukebox, and the joint kept jumping.

  Slim propped his guitar in the stand, stepped off the stage, and headed for the bar. About halfway there he got intercepted by that girl who wanted him to grind her stump. They flirted for a minute before she slipped her number into his shirt pocket. “You better call me soon,” she said, patting him on the chest. “Grass is getting pretty tall at my place.”

  Slim smiled at her. “Let me get my blades sharpened first,” he said with a nod toward the bar. “You stick around till the end of the night, we’ll talk about your landscape situation.”

  She turned and went back to her table where she huddled with her girlfriends, who giggled and drank and kept their eyes on the tall, good-looking stranger with the beautiful voice.

  Slim tapped his finger on the bar, ordering a beer. Skeets was three stools down, in the same place he’d been all night, pistol within easy reach. He was talking on the old rotary telephone but paying enough attention to give Slim a wink and a thumbs-up, either for his set or for getting the girl’s number, maybe both, Slim wasn’t sure.

  As he waited for his beer, Slim took a few peanuts from the bowl, shelled them, and tossed the hulls onto the sawdust-covered floor. He knew he ought to start working on his next set list, but he was distracted, thinking about how he ought to commit to taking care of that girl’s patch of grass before somebody showed up with a riding mower. Before he could make his mind up one way or the other, he saw Howdy approaching with his guitar case.

  “How’s the game goin?” Slim asked. “You rich?”

  “Not yet.” Howdy shook his head, then nodded toward the stage. “Nice set, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh.” As if something had just occurred to him, Howdy snapped his fingers and said, “Hey, listen, I need the truck keys.”

  “Sure.” Slim reached into his pocket. “Where you off to?”

  “Nowhere,” Howdy said, avoiding eye contact and otherwise acting funny.

  Slim stopped just before he tossed the keys. “Nowhere?”

  “Yeah,” Howdy said. “You ain’t gonna believe what happened.” He shook his head some more and forced a laugh that was a lot more nervous than infectious, which explained why Slim didn’t catch it. “Check this out,” Howdy said. “I opened with a pair of queens in the hole.”

  “Good start.”

  “Oh yeah, real good start.” Howdy proceeded to give the complete bet-by-bet, card-by-card with some colorful asides about the peg-legged dog, Gutterball’s parachute pants, and Dempsey Kimble’s gum problems.

  Slim listened with increasing curiosity—not because he wanted to know how it turned out but because, as he put it, “I still don’t see why you need the keys.”

  Howdy, still assiduously avoiding eye contact, shuffled his feet a bit, shook his head, pushed his hat back, and said, “Aw, hell, I might as well just tell you. I lost the truck.”

  Slim’s expression didn’t change. He just stared, unblinking, at Howdy.

  “Man, I had a queens over kings, boat,” Howdy insisted. “Tell me you wouldn’t have stayed.”

  “You bet the truck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which half?”

  “I know,” Howdy said, ducking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m good for it. I swear.”

  “Good for it? How’re you gonna be good for it? You gonna gimme a piggyback ride to our next stop?” Slim was aware that although they had agreed to put both their names on the title to the truck back at Red’s Used Cars, they’d never actually gotten around to it. His mistake, looking back.

  “Look,” Howdy said. “If it’s any consolation, I bet my saddle first. That was a damn seven-hundred-dollar raise. And by the way, remind me not to get into another no-limit game. Anyway, I figured seven hundred would put an end to it, but the sumbitch saw that, then turned around and raised me again.” He shook his head. “It was like he knew what I had. Hell, I came this close to betting my guitar,” he said, hefting the case. “But, well, I just couldn’t.”

  “So you bet a truck you only own half of?”

  In the vain hope that Dempsey Kimble’s dishonesty would distract from his own stupidity, Howdy said, “I’m pretty sure he cheated.”

  “Uh-huh.” Slim looked around the room, then back at Howdy. “Well, I’m pretty sure you gotta sell that guitar now.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody’s got to get the truck back,” Slim said. “And I don’t think it’s going to be you. That leaves me. And if I’m going to get in the game to see if this guy’s cheating, I’m going to need money. And I damn sure ain’t gonna use my own, if you get my drift.” He gestured at the crowd. “So you better find somebody in here to give you five hundred bucks for that thing.”

  It only took Howdy fifteen minutes to find a buyer but, desperation smelling the way it does, he only got three hundred for it.

  He handed the cash to Slim and said, “Now what?”

  Slim took the money and stuffed it in his pocket. He gestured at the guy who bought the guitar and said, “Now, go back and see if the guy’ll loan it to you so you can do the next set.” He turned and walked past Skeets, snatching the pistol off the bar, saying, “Need to borrow this for a minute.”

  15

  DUCK HUNTING WAS ON THE TABLE WHEN SLIM WALKED INTO the room. The gun was in his waistband, hidden by his jacket.

  Mack Osborne bet forty and said, “I smoke my quack with a Remington 1100.”

  Dempsey Kimble looked at his hole cards and chewed on his lower lip. “I like a Mossberg 935,” he said before folding. “Points real good.”

  Charlie Pepper shook his head and said, “I never understood why anybody’d want to wake up that early in the morning to stand in cold water.” He called Mack’s bet. “But I tell you what,” he said. “You bring me a cooler full of ducks and I’ll cook ’em up right for ya.”

  Gutterball folded, drained his beer, and smashed the can against his forehead, causing the one-eyed pit bull to jump a little. Gutter-ball looked around, all agitated, and said, “Where’s that damn waitress?”

  Since nobody seemed predisposed to ask who he was and why he was standing there, Slim said, “Skeets told me a seat just opened up in here.”

  “That’s right,” Dempsey said, peering over his glasses at Slim as though he had just materialized. “Still warm, I think.”

  Slim pulled the cash from his pocket and somebody pointed at Howdy’s old seat. He got his chips while Charlie Pepper carried on about his favorite way to prepare duck.

  After a minute Mack Osborne was unable to contain himself any longer. He said, “Tea leaves? Oh, I ain’t believin’ it.”

  “I swear,” Charlie Pepper said, hand up like taking an oath. “I tea-smoke them puppies. It’s a Chinese thing. You start by making a rub outta Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, and salt, okay? Then take some fresh ginger, green onions, spread that on the bird, covered real loose, and let it set overnight.”

  As the recipe unfolded, Dempsey Kimble assumed the look of a man who was on the verge of having an old-school stroke. His face grew flush and he made a grunting noise to register his dismay at the emasculation of the American male.

  Charlie co
ntinued, “Next day you mix about a third cup each of tea leaves and sugar. Of course, first you got to steam the duck for a couple of hours, then cool before you put it in the smoker for fifteen or twenty minutes over the mixture of tea leaves and sugar.”

  “Hell,” Mack said. “That sounds pretty tasty.”

  Dempsey Kimble’s expression revealed his scorn. “Used to be a man did the huntin’ and was done with it,” he said with pure contempt. “Woman’s job was to make something to eat out of the thing. Now?” He shook his head in silent despair. Men at the poker table, talking recipes. What was the world coming to? He said, “We gone play cards here or have a damn Tupperware party?”

  Nobody paid Slim much attention. He just played quietly, hand after hand, keeping his eye on that sour-looking Dempsey Kimble, the guy Howdy suspected of cheating.

  After folding a two, nine, unsuited, Gutterball leaned on the table and looked at Charlie Pepper like he was fixing to ask a question about national security. He said, “What’re you cooking on these days?”

  Charlie Pepper held his hands out wide. “Son, I got that new Smokinator 3000 with that barrel square firebox and the forty-five-degree fixed-angle heat-deflector baffle.”

  “Get out!”

  “Hell yeah, it’s got three swing arms for jerky and sausage in the middle of the chamber, three air intakes, and a ten-gallon reservoir.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Thing’s so big you’d have to fall into a coma to end up with dry meat.”

  Although Slim had definite opinions about proper grilling and smoking techniques, he stayed out of the conversation. He just kept a careful eye on everybody as they played. It didn’t take him long to see what was going on. After the deal had been around the table twice, he noticed that Dempsey Kimble never lost a hand that he played, though he didn’t stay every time. He always seemed to know when to fold or when somebody was bluffing. It didn’t matter who was dealing and there was nothing to suggest collusion among any of the other players. Dempsey Kimble simply seemed to have perfect knowledge of who had what every hand, and Slim figured there was only one way to do that.