Falcon smiled and shrugged. “You’re right, Johnny. I was awfully lucky tonight. Maybe next time it will be your turn to have the luck.”
Seven
Beaver Smith opened a door next to the bar and ushered Falcon into his office with a sweep of his hand. Falcon was impressed at the size and the opulence of the place. Though the saloon, like all of the other buildings in Fort Sumner, was nondescript and ordinary, Beaver’s office was furnished and decorated very tastefully.
The entire floor was covered in a thick, woven rug, and the walls had dark wood paneling. There was a couch against one side wall, a small, well-stocked bar against another, and in the rear was a large, oaken desk with two heavy, easy chairs arrayed in front of it.
Beaver must have noticed Falcon’s admiring gaze, for he said, “You like my little hideaway?”
Falcon nodded. “Yes, it’s very nice, and rather unexpected.”
Beaver grinned. “Yeah. When I bought The Drinking Hole more’n ten year ago, I decided if I was gonna spend half my life runnin’ the place I wanted to make myself a room I’d enjoy bein’ in.”
He waved his arm at the chairs in front of his desk. “Take a load off, an’ I’ll get you a nip of some really fine bourbon—brought all the way from Kentucky it says on the label.”
In a few moments, he had drinks for both of them and he was settled in a plush, overstuffed desk chair, watching Falcon with appraising eyes.
“You don’t strike me as the normal sort of travelin’ gambler we usually get around here, Falcon.”
There’s more to this man than meets the eye, Falcon thought. “That’s because I’m not a gambler. At least I don’t make my living at it,” Falcon replied.
Beaver took a long sip of his whiskey, wiped his beard with the back of his hand, and sighed. “Man, that’s smooth.” Then, he cut his eyes back at Falcon. “I didn’t think so. Just what do you do for a livin’, Falcon?”
“Oh, I’ve got my hand in several ventures. I own a ranch and breed some horses, and I own a saloon in Valley, Colorado, called The Wild Rose.” He smiled and added, “And I do a bit of gambling to pass the time when I’m not otherwise engaged.”
“So, you must know what I have to put up with, runnin’ The Drinking Hole.” Beaver shook his head, “Sometimes I think I’m gettin’ a bit long in the tooth to be in this business. If it’s not drunken cowboys shootin’ the place up, it’s pissed-off soldiers fightin’ and throwin’ chairs and breakin’ furniture.”
“Yes, it can be rather exciting, especially late in the night when the boys have gotten a snootful of whiskey and realize they’ve lost all their money for the rest of the month.”
Falcon paused to take a drink of his bourbon, noticing it was a good brand, so rich and flavorful he could almost taste the redwood barrels it had been aged in. “That’s why I’d like to make you an offer on The Drinking Hole.”
Beaver’s eyebrows almost disappeared in the mop of wild hair on his head. “You mean you want to buy my saloon?”
Falcon nodded. “If it’s for sale.”
Beaver shrugged. “Son, everything’s for sale, if the price is right.” He held his glass up and stared into the amber fluid for a moment. “Though I don’t rightly know just what I’d do with myself if I sold out. It’s true, runnin’ the place gets a bit wearying, but I’m not the sort to go sit by a stream with a pole and fish the rest of my life.”
“I realize that, Beaver, and I’m not the sort of man to settle down in one town for any length of time. So, how about this? I’ll pay you a fair price for half ownership in The Drinking Hole, and for as long as I’m around I’ll run it and you can take some time off to rest up or travel or whatever you want to do. When I get tired of Fort Sumner I’ll be on my way, and you can send my half of our profits to my bank back in Valley, Colorado.”
Beaver pursed his lips. “You’d trust me to do that, young feller?”
“I never enter into a business arrangement with a man I can’t trust,” Falcon said. “And in all my years I’ve never yet been disappointed in any of my partners.”
Beaver thought for a moment, eyeing Falcon over the rim of his glass as he drank. Finally, he got up and poured them both another round.
“Well, if we’re gonna make a deal, let’s get down to some serious negotiatin’,” he said with a wide grin.
It took almost two more hours and the rest of the bottle of bourbon before they agreed on a price for Falcon to purchase a half interest in The Drinking Hole.
As they shook hands and Falcon prepared to return to his hotel, Beaver said, “I told you I was a good judge of character. If you run the saloon half as well as you bargain, our profits are assured.”
* * *
The next night, after Beaver had packed up a suitcase and gone to visit his daughter over in Roswell, Falcon began his first night as new owner of The Drinking Hole. He arranged with the cook at the hotel to provide a large tray of sandwiches and several jars of pickled eggs, which he placed on the bar next to a sign saying Free Food.
Roy, the bartender, asked, “Why are we giving the food away for free, Mr. MacCallister? We could charge for it and make a profit on it.”
“We’re going to make a profit on it, Roy. The more a puncher eats, the more he drinks, and our real profit is in the whiskey and beer we serve. Those pickled eggs make a man mighty thirsty, and the more we give away, the more whisky we’ll sell.”
“What about the sandwiches?”
“A man with a full stomach is less likely to get dead drunk and start a fight, or shoot up the place. And the longer it takes a man to get drunk, the longer he can drink and the more whiskey we’ll sell.”
Roy smiled and shook his head. “I can see things are going to be a mite different around here.”
“Not too different,” Falcon said. “Beaver ran a nice place. I just want to help him out with a few minor changes to enhance our profit margin a little.”
As the saloon began to fill up Falcon went to his table. He had set up a felt-covered table in a corner away from the entrance, and he sat with his back to a wall so he could observe everything that went on and could see who came in the door before they could see him. He wanted no surprises. It was a habit of carefulness he had acquired over the years, and it had served him well.
He had Roy bring him a cup of coffee and he sat there, watching the play at the other tables and the faro game, and dealt himself a game of solitaire to play until the heavy poker players arrived.
When he saw Billy Bonney and Dick Brewer, John Tunstall’s foreman, walk through the door, he waved Billy over to his table. Billy left Brewer at the bar and pulled up a seat across from Falcon.
“Howdy, Kid. Would you like a beer?”
The Kid frowned. “You know I don’t drink nor smoke, Falcon.”
“Well then, how’s the new job going?”
The Kid smiled. “It’s all right, so far. Mr. Tunstall seems a right decent man to work for.”
“He got you punching cows?”
“No, thank goodness. Dick’s in charge of the cattle. My job is to stay next to Mr. Tunstall and make sure nobody shoots him in the back.”
Falcon frowned. “Things getting that bad?”
The Kid nodded. “Yeah. The boss thinks Murphey and Dolan are getting right tired of him taking their business away from them with his store, and he said Mr. Chisum was working on gettin’ some of those government contracts to sell beef to the Indians. Mr. Tunstall says if that happens the lead is liable to start flyin’ sooner rather than later.”
“Well, be sure to keep a close eye on your own back while you’re watching out for Tunstall’s, Kid.”
The Kid patted the Colt on his hip. “I keep my holster greased and the hammer thong off all the time, Falcon. I’m ready for whatever those galoots want to throw my way.”
“What are you doing out this way, Kid?”
“I heard you bought into the saloon here, and I wanted to come give you some business. Mr. Tunstall a
dvanced me some pay, an’ it’s been too long since I’ve sat in on a good poker game.”
“You any good at poker?”
The Kid shrugged. “I usually win more’n I lose.”
“That’s all that counts.”
Falcon glanced over the Kid’s shoulder and saw Ben Johnson, Johnny Albright, Louis Longacre, and Marcus Cahill coming through the door.
“You’re in luck, Kid. Here come some gents who’ll be glad to test your luck.”
The Kid smiled. “Luck has very little to do with winnin’, Falcon. It’s all in knowin’ who you’re up against, and bein’ ready to do whatever it takes to beat him.”
Falcon waved the men over and introduced them to the Kid.
“You men ready to play?” Falcon asked.
“Deal ’em,” Johnny Albright said, his voice slurred enough to show he had already started drinking. “I feel real lucky tonight.”
The Kid looked over at Falcon and winked, making Falcon smile in return. In some strange way, the Kid was a man after his own heart.
Eight
In Lincoln, a late night meeting was being held in a back room of La Placita, J.J. Dolan’s general store. Dolan had asked Lawrence Murphey, called the Major, John Riley, Jack B. “Billy” Matthews, Jesse Evans, and Sheriff William Brady to meet together to discuss their strategy in dealing with Chisum and Tunstall.
Dolan, holding a glass of Irish whiskey in his hand, paced the room as he talked to the others, who were seated around a large potbellied stove to ward off the autumn chill.
“Sheriff, you’ve got to crack down on Chisum and Tunstall more. Since they’ve opened their damned store and bank, they’ve started to get some support from the smaller ranchers in the area, and I even hear from our friends in Santa Fe that the army is considering giving Chisum some of our contracts to supply beef to the Mescaleros.”
“Hell, J.J., I don’t know what else I can do. Every time I see any of their men in town I brace ’em. I’ve thrown half of them in jail for drunk and disorderly, but Tunstall just bails ’em out and gets ’em back to work.”
Murphey, who was well into his third drink, slurred drunkenly from the corner, “it was different when I ran things ’round here.”
He waved his glass as he spoke, sloshing whiskey on his arm, “We didn’t put up with no interference in our plans. Those that didn’t go along didn’t get credit at the store. That kept those lily-livered ranchers in line, I can tell you.”
Dolan frowned. “Things are different now, Major. La Placita is losing more business every day to that damned Tunstall store, and to make matters worse Tunstall has been writing letters to the army complaining about the quality of meat and flour we’ve been selling to the Mescaleros.”
Brady nodded. “Yeah, and the bastard’s even wrote the U.S. Attorney in Santa Fe tellin’ ’em I haven’t been sending in the tax money I’ve been collectin’ here in Lincoln County. He’s damn sure gettin’ too big for his britches, all right.”
“What about that new hand he’s hired, calls himself the Kid?”
Brady shrugged. “I couldn’t find no papers on him, or his friend MacCallister.”
Leaning back in his chair with his boots on the table, Jesse Evans said, “I rode with him for a while, played some cards with him over at Fort Stanton ’fore he came to work for Tunstall. He talked like he had a past, some trouble back in Arizona, I believe.”
“Arizona, huh?” Brady asked. “I’ll wire the sheriff over there and see if he knows anything. Might be a way to get back at Tunstall, get rid of some of those gunnies he’s been hiring.”
“You do that, William,” Dolan said, “first thing in the morning. Now, why don’t you leave us to talk some business you’re better off not knowing?”
Brady climbed to his feet and nodded. “I’ll do what I can, J.J..”
“You’d better, or that percentage you own in the store and bank here that I gave you won’t be worth a damn to you,” Dolan said.
After the sheriff left, Dolan turned to Riley. “You said anything to Jesse yet?”
“No.”
Dolan turned to refill his glass. “Then tell him what we want.”
Riley leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “It’s getting too expensive to buy our meat from the ranchers. Profits are down. We want you and your gang to start raiding Chisum’s herd for cattle. We’ll buy all you can steal, at good prices, and we’ll make sure Sheriff Brady doesn’t connect you to the rustling.”
Evans pulled a toothpick from between his lips, made a cigarette, and struck a lucifer on his pant leg. After he lighted the cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling, he looked over at Riley.
“John, I take it you wouldn’t be too disappointed if some of Chisum’s men were to get . . . slightly hurt during our raids on his cattle.”
Riley’s lips curled up in a sneer. “We’d be most appreciative for any assistance you could give us in lowering the number of gunhands Chisum has available.”
Dolan turned from refilling his drink. “It wouldn’t be amiss if you got some of the cattle from Tunstall’s spread, too, Jesse.”
Evans shook his head. “That would be a mite more difficult. His Rio Feliz ranch is down on the Pecos River, and it’d be mighty tough to drive stolen beeves across it in the darkness. Plus, it ain’t near as big and spread out as Chisum’s range is. His men would most likely catch us in the act, and I don’t suppose you want a full scale war, do you?”
Dolan pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not just yet, Jesse, but soon . . . soon.”
Evans smiled, hands resting on the twin Colts he wore on each hip. “Then, since I’m going to be in the cattle business, I guess I’d better get to work.”
Murphey staggered to his feet and poured himself another drink of whiskey, spilling more than he got in his glass.
“Damn, Jimmy, things have been going to hell since I sold out to you. Just haven’t been the same since the colonel died.”
Dolan frowned at Murphey. “Major, when Colonel Fritz hired me, you and he were barely making a profit off your meat contracts. If you’ll try to remember, it was me who got the ranchers to take less for their beef or have their credit cut off at the store, and it was my idea to have the Evans gang steal cattle from Chisum so we could get it at an even lower price.”
Dolan took a deep swallow of his whiskey. “So don’t whine to me about the good old days. You’re making more money now than you ever did before you sold out to me.”
Murphey nodded. “I know, Jimmy. I just miss Fritz, an’ wish the consumption hadn’t eaten him up so fast.”
“Be glad it did,” Riley said, putting a cigar in his mouth and lighting it. “If it hadn’t, you would never have sold out to Jimmy, and we’d all have to be working for a living.”
He turned to Dolan. “Jimmy, you need to get in touch with Judge Bristol and William Rynerson, the District Attorney of Lincoln County, and tell them to squash these complaints Tunstall’s been making. Let ’em know their share of our contract profits will end if the army starts listening to what he’s saying.”
“I’m already on it, Johnny. Our friends in the Santa Fe Ring are taking steps to make sure no one listens to anything Mr. Tunstall has to say. Tom Catron, District Attorney in Santa Fe, will make sure the contracts keep coming our way.”
“What about McSween? He’s been making some noises about a lawsuit over at the courthouse.”
“You leave Mr. McSween to me. I’ve got plans for him that will get him out of our hair, too.”
He looked over at Jesse Evans. “Jesse, you can take what I’m paying you to rustle those cattle for us, and I’ll double it if you can help me get rid of McSween.”
Evans smirked. “You want him shot in the back, or the front?”
“Neither. I want you to get with Brady and find some . . . ah, legal way to do it.”
“You want it legal?”
Dolan nodded. “At least, I want it to look that way if anybody asks.”
N
ine
Falcon peered over the top of the cards he held in his hand at a grinning Billy Bonney.
“Come on, Falcon. It’s a simple decision. Call the bet or fold,” the Kid said.
The other four men at the table had folded when the Kid raised Falcon’s twenty dollar bet by fifty dollars. Falcon held a pair of jacks. Kid had drawn two cards in the five card stud game, indicating he might have three of a kind.
As Falcon thought, the Kid chewed for a second on his bottom lip, then resumed his ever present grinning.
“I’ll call the bet, Kid. I have a pair of Dukes, and I think you have a busted flush.”
Kid shook his head and nonchalantly flipped his cards into the middle of the table.
“Take the pot, Falcon. You called it right.”
“Thanks, Kid. I was getting a mite short over here for a while. Maybe this hand changed my luck,” Falcon said as he raked in the pile of money.
“How’d you know what I had?” the Kid asked, his face serious, no grin on it now.
Falcon pursed his lips, thinking on it for a moment.
“If I tell you how, it will ruin the magic of it,” Falcon answered.
Roy Young, a local puncher who was sitting in the game next to Kid, spoke up. “I’d kind’a like to know, too, Mr. MacCallister. Otherwise, people might get suspicious you got these here cards marked.”
Falcon sighed. He knew he shouldn’t have said it the moment he’d told the Kid what he had. That’s what I get for showing off, he thought.
“It’s really very simple. The Kid did something that he always does when he bluffs. If he was bluffing, then he didn’t have three of a kind, so the only reason to draw two cards instead of three or four, is to try and make a flush.”
“What was the Kid doin’ that told you he was bluffin’?” Roy asked.
“That I don’t tell you. If you studied the game as I do, instead of trusting to blind luck, you’d know already. Now, are we going to play cards or chat all night?”
“Deal ’em,” the Kid said, “I still got thirty dollars that I need to make into fifty to get me some new boots and chaps.”
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