by Peter Grant
“I will.”
“Then let’s go down. We’ll wander among the tables, and approach that dealer slowly so he doesn’t suspect we’ve been watching him.”
They passed a portable roulette wheel, two games of poker, another of vingt-et-un and one of faro as they walked slowly among the gamblers. The players were intent upon the games, but Walt murmured to Rose, “Watch the dealers. Look where their eyes go, and how they tend to look at a few people in particular. They’re either their sidekicks, or those they’ve marked out to fleece.”
“I see what you mean,” she whispered after a few minutes. “They act like jovial, hail-fellow-well-met men, but their eyes are never still. They’re assessing the other players and calculating the odds every second.”
“Yes, they’re like predators looking for their next meal. They’re also watching for anyone trying to cheat them. They know what to look for.”
At last they reached the dice table. The dealer was keeping up a constant patter, telling jokes, bantering with the players, and drawing laughter from the men gathered around the table. Whenever he won a substantial amount, he’d take some from the pile and slip it into a wallet he took from an inside chest pocket of his jacket. “That’s so he doesn’t appear to have won too much,” Walt murmured to Rose as they watched. “If he left a big stack of greenbacks on the table, it might look as if he couldn’t be beaten. As it is, those who know he’s won a lot will move on in due course. New arrivals won’t know how much he’s already put away.”
“That’s clever.”
Another big game finished, and the dealer slipped what looked like a couple of hundred dollars into his wallet. His victim, a tall man wearing the uniform of a sergeant, rose from the table, flushed with disappointment. “You have the luck of the devil himself, man!” he exclaimed, then staggered as he bumped into Walt standing behind him. He spun around. “What the– oh, begging your pardon, Ma’am,” he apologized as he caught sight of Rose, turning even more red.
“I should apologize to you, Sergeant,” Walt said politely. “I’m afraid I was in your way.”
“No harm done, sir,” the NCO hastened to assure him, his eyes still on Rose.
“You look like a gentleman who’d enjoy a game of chance,” the dealer called, eyeing Walt’s new clothing with unabashed avarice. “How about a whirl with Lady Luck in a game of high-low?” He rattled the dice in the cup.
“Thanks, but not tonight,” Walt demurred.
“Oh, come on, now! Win some money for the little lady!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Think you’re too good for us, do you?”
Walt stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean, sir?” He flexed his forearm slightly, and felt Rose squeeze it lightly with her hand before letting go and standing back.
“You sound like one of those Southern gentlemen.” The dealer laid great emphasis on the word. “Even though we beat you on the battlefield, you still think you’re better than we are.”
There was a rumble of agreement among the soldiers gathered around. Walt thought fast. He knew he had to defuse the situation right away.
The chief steward clearly recognized the signs of trouble, because even before Walt could act, he’d appeared by his side. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
“This Southerner thinks he’s too good for the likes of us,” the dealer sneered.
Instead of answering him, Walt reached into the right side of his tailcoat with his left hand and produced a folded sheet of paper. Handing it to the chief steward, he said quietly, “May I ask you to read that aloud, please?”
The steward unfolded the paper and announced, “This is on the letterhead of the Nashville Military District. It’s dated July 30th, 1864, and reads: ‘The bearer of this letter, Mr. Walter Ames, rendered valuable assistance to the Union Army in preparation for our recent cavalry action against the railroads in Alabama. All units are requested to please extend every courtesy and assistance to him.’ It’s signed by Captain J. C. Williams of the Nineteenth United States Infantry Regiment, aide-de-camp to and signing on behalf of Major-General of Volunteers Lovell Harrison Rousseau, General Officer Commanding the District.” He folded it again and returned it to Walt.
As he replaced the letter in his pocket, Walt said coldly to the dealer, “I think that should settle the doubts you’ve tried to raise among these gentlemen about where my sympathies lie.” There was another rumble from the onlookers, one that was much more approving.
“Well, that don’t give you the right to think you’re better than we are!” the man blustered.
“I know I’m better than you are. I’ve never cheated any man.”
The dealer erupted to his feet, right hand going to the cuff of his left sleeve. “Are you calling me a–”
His voice cut off and his eyes bugged out as Walt’s right hand disappeared into the left breast of his jacket and emerged holding the cut-down Army Colt, its mechanism clicking as he drew back the hammer to full cock. At the same moment he heard a faint scuffle behind him, and the sound of another revolver being cocked. Rose said, her voice calm and collected, “Sir, I’ll be obliged if you’ll leave your gambling friend to fight his own battles. If you try to interfere, I’ll shoot you.”
The chief steward raised both hands. “Nobody do anything foolish!” He looked behind Walt. “Ma’am, I must say, I’ve never seen a lady with a revolver like that before. Most ladies carry single-shot pistols or the like.”
Rose favored him with a smile. “But, sir, ladies who carry pistols of that sort generally aren’t ladies.”
A roar of laughter erupted from the men clustered around the table. More joined them every moment as word of the confrontation spread. The sergeant who’d bumped into Walt slapped his thigh, cackling. “Ma’am, you just said a mouthful!”
“This lady is my aunt,” Walt informed him, but he didn’t take his attention off the gambler, who was still frozen in place. “Now, if someone will please pull this snake’s fangs, I’ll prove to you all that he’s cheated everyone who’s lost at this table tonight.”
The chief steward eyed the dealer as if the man had, indeed, turned into a serpent. “Oh, really? I don’t tolerate crooked games in my saloon, sir. Just a moment.”
He frisked the gambler expertly. He knew all the hiding places favored by gamblers, and pulled a small single-shot pistol from the man’s left sleeve as well as a push-dagger from his right. Finished, he stepped clear, nodding to Walt. “I think he’s clean, sir.”
“Thank you.” Walt looked at the sergeant. “Would you please get that man’s dice and place them on the table in front of me?”
“You bet I will!” The NCO reached across and grabbed them, ignoring the gambler’s strangled squawk of protest, and laid them in front of Walt. “What now?”
“Watch.”
Walt rotated the cylinder to bring the empty chamber beneath the hammer once more as he lowered it: then he reversed the gun in his grasp and hammered one of the dice hard with the bottom of the grip. The ivory cube cracked and split open, and a drop of mercury spilled out onto the green baize cloth laid over the table’s polished wood surface. Everyone stared at the little silver sphere as if mesmerized by it.
“The mercury alters the balance of the dice,” Walt explained in the deafening silence as he returned the gun to his shoulder holster. “If you use the right wrist action, you can line them up in the cup. I’m sure some of you noticed that he just rattled the cup when he wanted to lose, and threw the dice any old way. He wasn’t trying to get a high score then—in fact, he wanted a low one, to gull those he was trying to fleece. However, every time he won, he’d spin and twirl the cup in a sort of figure-eight motion, then pull it back as he threw so that the dice came out in a line on the baize and didn’t bounce much, if at all.”
“I’ll be damned if you ain’t right! That’s exactly what he did!” The sergeant looked stunned for a moment, then murderous rage surged across his face. “I’ll–”
“Hold it!” the chief steward barked. “Sure, he was cheating, but you can’t kill him for that. You’ll be charged with murder.”
“He’s got a wallet full of ill-gotten money in his inside pocket,” Walt commented.
“Has he now?” The chief steward reached towards the gambler’s jacket. When the man tried to object and pull away, two burly soldiers grabbed an arm each and held on tightly while the steward fished out the wallet. He opened it, extracted a fat wad of banknotes, added them to those on the table in front of the gambler, and counted swiftly.
“There’s more than twenty-three hundred dollars here,” he announced loudly. A growl of anger rose from the soldiers.
“Yeah—twenty-three hundred dollars of our money!” the sergeant exclaimed.
“I think you’re about to be refunded,” Walt said with a grin.
The chief steward nodded firmly. “Indeed you are. I’ll use this to repay everyone who lost at this table tonight. Please line up, all of you, and tell me how much you’ve lost. Be honest—others will have seen you play, and if you claim too much, I’ll find out and have to take it back.”
“Hey!” the gambler objected. “I brought five hundred in here with me! It’s not all their money!”
“If you didn’t cheat them out of it, you cheated others, so it’s theirs now,” the chief steward assured him cheerfully. “Anything left over will buy a meal and a drink for these men and their friends outside.”
“Wait a minute!” the sergeant objected. “We’ll get our money back, right enough, but this gennelman here’s the one who showed us how this bast– beggin’ your pardon, Ma’am,” and he half-bowed to Rose, “how this gambler was cheating. He should get something too.”
Walt shook his head. “I don’t want anything, thank you, sergeant. However, my aunt here lost her husband, and then lost their farm to taxes. She’s trying to make a fresh start teaching school in St. Louis. I’m escorting her there. She helped me tonight, so if you gentlemen agree, I’d like her to receive any reward you would have given me, to help her get back on her feet again.”
“Now that’s a very Christian gesture, sir,” the chief steward said approvingly. “What say you all?”
“I say ‘Aye’!” the sergeant roared, looking around challengingly. “This war’s widowed far too many good women. Far as I’m concerned, she should get the gambler’s money. All those in favor?” There was a loud rumble of agreement from his fellow soldiers, many of whom cast sympathetic glances at Rose. “Then so be it. Ma’am, we can’t make up for the loss of your husband, but we hope this helps make up for the loss of your farm. You’ve got a fine nephew there. Thank you for backing his play tonight.”
“Oh, I couldn’t, really!”
The chief steward silenced her by rapidly counting off five hundred dollars in greenbacks, then thrusting it into her reticule. “It’s settled, ma’am. Thank you for assisting your nephew so capably. Now, if you’ll please put away your revolver, we’ll take care of this man, since he was obviously in on it, too.”
With a strangled half-laugh, half-sob, Rose lowered the hammer of her revolver onto its empty chamber and put it back in her reticule. Two soldiers grabbed the burly man who’d been circling around to come up behind Walt, and dragged him over to join the gambler.
“What are you going to do with them?” Walt asked.
The chief steward glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’ll be tying up at Clarksville for the night within half an hour. I’ll deliver them to the town marshal and bring charges against them. I’ll take these as evidence.” He picked up the dice from the table, and scowled at the two men. “Whatever the marshal does with you, don’t let me see you aboard the Queen again, or it’ll be the worse for you!”
The gambler’s eyes blazed with hatred as he looked at Walt. “I won’t forget this—or you.”
“You’d better not,” Walt retorted, staring him down. “You’re getting off easy tonight. Next time you won’t.”
The sergeant whispered in the chief steward’s ear, who nodded. “Yes, thank you, sergeant. If some of your men will hold these two on the afterdeck until we reach Clarksville, we can hand them over there.”
Hard, unpleasant grins broke out on the faces of many of the soldiers as they roughly herded the gambler and his assistant out of the saloon. Walt almost felt sorry for the two men, knowing they’d be beaten black and blue before they were handed over to the law. Others lined up with the sergeant as the chief steward began to count out the gambler’s money.
“Come on, Rose,” Walt said quietly. “Let’s get out of the way and leave them to it.”
She didn’t demur, but took his arm again. They slipped away down the side of the saloon until they came to the stairway, and climbed it in silence. He saw her to the inner balcony door of her stateroom, where he said softly, “Go in alone—some of them are still watching us. I’ll join you in a moment through the connecting door.”
“All right.”
He took a moment to toss his tailcoat and gun onto his bed, then opened the connecting door to find Rose standing there, waiting. She was shaking with the aftereffects of tension. He took her into his arms and hugged her wordlessly. She stiffened for a moment at the unexpected intimacy, then suddenly relaxed and leaned against him, returning his gentle hug.
“I– I hope I did the right thing,” she said at last, hesitantly, as he released her.
“You were perfect!” he assured her, smiling. “Holding up that man with your revolver was exactly the right thing to do. It allowed me to concentrate on the gambler.”
“What was that letter? Surely it’s false?”
Walt flushed. It had never occurred to him how it might make him look in Rose’s eyes. “It is. You see, I knew I might need to convince any Union men I encountered that I was trustworthy; so I stole a few pages bearing the letterhead of the Nashville Military District from Jim Webber’s office. I forged the letter using the copperplate handwriting you taught us in school, and traced the captain’s signature from a letter he wrote to my father last year about county business.”
She laughed, a little shakily. “I don’t know whether to congratulate you on your cleverness, or be appalled by your larceny—but I’m glad you’re no traitor to the gray!”
He shrugged. “The war may be over, but I’ve been fighting the Union Army for the past three years. They also cost me my inheritance, what with Jim Webber marrying my sister. Until I’m safely out from under their military government, I just won’t feel safe. I don’t feel guilty in the least for deceiving them.”
“I understand, but… what about all that money the men gave me? I can’t keep it, Walt! I just can’t! That sergeant thought I was a war widow, but my husband died years before the war.”
“Of course you can keep it! You never claimed to be a war widow, and I didn’t say you were one. If the sergeant assumed that, you’re not to blame. Besides, even though he offered it to me, I couldn’t have accepted a reward. Some of those soldiers were bound to object. They’d have wanted more for themselves. On the other hand, by asking them to give it to you, I made them feel good about themselves. The way they see it, they’re helping someone who’s lost everything. No, you’d best take it.”
“That’s almost two years’ salary for a schoolteacher! What shall I do with it?”
“You’ll need a home of your own in due course. That should be enough to buy a house—a nice place, with a couple of extra rooms. You can rent them to other teachers or ladies of good quality, and make some more money that way.”
“I owe you so much, Walt! You’ve been a real blessing to me, and given me a whole new perspective on life. How can I ever thank you?” Her voice shook a little, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. Despite himself, his heart went out to her.
“You already have,” he assured her. “In a way, you’ve been as much of a blessing to me. I’ve spent the last three years fighting a war. There’s still a lot of anger and bitterness inside me. Helpi
ng you makes me think about someone else’s needs, and keeps me from always thinking about my own. What’s more, your friendship and companionship have come to mean a great deal to me. You’re good company.”
She blushed. “I’m glad, because your friendship has meant a lot to me as well.”
He smiled. “I’d better leave you to get some sleep. Goodnight, Rose.”
“Goodnight, Walt.”
He was surprised to discover how much the thought of parting from her unsettled him. As he closed the connecting door, he wondered for the first time what it would be like to have a wife. He’d never seriously considered marriage before—during the war he hadn’t thought about much more than staying alive—but the past week in Rose’s company had opened his eyes to many things he’d been ignoring.
It took him a long time to fall asleep as he mulled it over. It had felt good to know Rose was guarding his back. You could trust a woman like her—and damned if she wasn’t a pretty one, too!
The waterfront in St. Louis was the busiest, most bustling place Walt had ever seen, even compared to the large army encampments he’d known. A couple of dozen paddlewheel riverboats and steam tugs were tied up along the quay, along with scores of wooden barges used to float cargo up and down the Mississippi River. Gangs of men loaded and unloaded cargo, passengers searched for their ships, friends and relatives looked for new arrivals, freight brokers and wagon drivers bustled to and fro, and NCOs bawled orders at animals and people. A cacophony of sound, drifting clouds of smoke from the ships’ funnels, and the odor of dung dropped by all of the draft animals made it an unforgettably noisy and smelly spectacle.