Ace High (Ben Blue Book 3)

by Lou Bradshaw

  He looked at his key and said, “By golly, he did. Go ahead and take this room, it doesn’t really matter… one’s probably just as bad as the other.”

  So we switched rooms, it would have been easier to just exchange keys, but at the time it didn’t occur to either of us. We just moved over about eight feet and went in different doors. After stowing my gear, I sat on the edge of the bed and cleaned my guns. I like to make sure that they are loaded and working well. A tap on the door brought me out of my busy work stupor.

  “Hey, Max, you up for something to eat…. Ol’ Tater out here is about to starve to death.”

  We went on down the stairs to the hotel dining room to put our feet under the table and watch Tate shovel in the grub.

  After our noonin’ I walked over to the livery to fuss over my horse a bit. He was a mighty fine animal, and I hadn’t given him the attention that he deserved of late. He was happy to see me and gave me a little nip just to prove it. I gave him a good brushing and a thorough going over just to make sure there weren’t any sore spots or any tender places. He seemed to like the attention, so I sat on the top rail of the fence and talked to him a while.

  A man riding alone in this country will often talk to his horse as they ride. They hardly ever say anything back, but you get the feeling that they are listening and understand what you are saying. He just stood there facing me with his head practically in my lap taking in every word. It was good for both of us.

  “You know a fella gets caught talking to his horse that way might get folks to start looking at him a little sideways.” Ben said as he walked up behind me.

  “I’d better watch it then, I sure wouldn’t want to get a reputation as someone who liked his horse… Lot of folks wouldn’t understand that you can tell your horse anything you want and feel safe that he ain’t goin’ to tell anybody. Oh he may talk it over with another horse, but these critters know how to keep a secret.”

  “What are you up to?” I asked. “I figured you’d be in your room sleeping off that big dinner… Lord, I got filled up just watching Tate eat.”

  He chuckled and said, “Them youngsters can sure put the groceries away… I thought about takin’ a little snooze, but decided to come over here and have a little conversation with that big gray gelding I been riding.” He then went into the stable and returned with that big horse, a brush and a hat full grain. Lordy that was a fine looking animal.

  He fussed with his horse pretty much the same way I had with mine. In the meantime I sat on that rail and fooled with my horse’s ears, main and what not. “I keep waitin’,” I said, “for you to start talkin to that critter… figuring to learn some of your secrets, but you ain’t sayin’ nothin’.” He just laughed and went on fussing over that big cayoos.

  When he had finished, we walked over to the nearest saloon for a beer and a little idle time tall tale tellin’. I’ll have to give Ben credit for being a natural born storyteller. He knew when to add a little good natured hyperbole. Of course when you’re yarn spinning a little exaggeration wasn’t considered lying… I don’t even think the loudest shouting preacher would ever consider it sinning. It looked like we were in for a long four days.

  Later on we collected Tate and he led us to supper in the hotel dining room. He must have used up everything he’d stored at noon because he was running empty again. It was an adventure just sitting there wondering where he was putting it all. He wasn’t as big as either Ben or me.

  Ben said, “I used to be able to eat like that. I don’t reckon I got filled completely up between Missouri and New Mexico… In fact, it was sometime last year that I realized that I was full. My feet grew so fast as a youngen that folks said that was where all my victuals were goin…. They were probably right because when my feet stopped growing, I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

  That’s the way it went until Ben went upstairs to his room to tend to some letter writing and some book reading. Tate and I went up the street to one of the noisier saloons. They had some fella in a derby hat torturing an already stressed piano. He knew what he was doing, but that poor old piano had seen some hard times and was sporting no less than three bullet holes that I could see. There were a couple of cowboys dancing with the girls and having a great time.

  One of the girls latched on to Tate and drug him out on the floor. He didn’t hesitate a bit. He just jumped right into it and gave that gal a whirl. Another gal took a bead on me, but I motioned that I was more interested in playing cards than I was in playing anything she might have in mind. So I sat in on a game of five card stud. I’d rather play seven card, but I wasn’t calling the shots, and this wasn’t my saloon.

  I sat in on the first couple of deals merely going through the motions, and folding early. I was just getting a feel for the game and the players. It was pretty much what I expected… a low stakes friendly game.

  Somewhere I lost sight of Tate and his various dancing partners. I figured him to have been missing for about a half hour, and I figured I had a fair idea where he disappeared to. When he showed up again, I could tell by the expression on his face that I’d been right.

  He set a fresh beer down in front of me and pulled up a chair to sit behind me. I’d given him and some of the boys a few lessons over at Railroad Town, but he was getting a live demonstration, and I could tell that he was following my eyes around the table. We’d talk about it later, but for now neither of us said a thing. He would ask me about a particular hand later and I would tell him what went on and why. It would be surprising to most folks, that most professional gamblers could recall almost every hand that was played in a game.

  Tate sat there hunched over with his chin propped on his palm and his elbow planted on his left knee just staring at the play. He’d forgotten about his beer in his right hand. I doubt that he had forgotten about the trip upstairs with the lovely miss, not more than thirty minutes earlier, but I’d bet that memory had been moved back a bit.

  “What the hell are you gawkin at, Bub?” said one the players glaring at Tate. He didn’t move.

  I nudged him and said, “The man’s talkin to you, Tate.”

  He blinked a couple of times, looked up and said, “Uh… nothin’ I guess… just watchin’ the game.”

  “Well go watch some other game. I don’t like people watchin’ me.” The man said.

  Tate started to get up, but I put my hand on his arm and stopped him. “Now, Mister, he ain’t doin’ no harm… he’s just learnin’ the game… lighten up a little.”

  “No by damn, if he ain’t playin’ then go sommers else.”

  “Alright, friend, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll stake this boy with twenty dollars, and I’ll bet you another twenty dollars that at the end of the game he’ll be ahead of you… Table stakes… no markers.”

  Tate looked at me like he was in shock and said, “Max, I can’t let you do that… What if I mess up… you’ll be out forty dollars…”

  “Don’t worry about it, I can afford the loss, and you won’t get any better lesson than sittin’ here with cards on the table.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” the man said and laid twenty dollars off to the side of his chips.

  I gave Tate a twenty dollar gold piece and he bought a stack of chips, and then I set two ten dollar chips off to the side.

  The first few hands didn’t go well for Tate. He was nervous and a little afraid that he was over his head. After all he was playing cards with almost a month’s cowhand pay on the table. I could feel him looking at me, but I never looked back. He soon picked up the method to my madness and followed my eyes. I was looking at the cards and the players faces. I wanted him to do the same, and he soon got the idea. When he stopped worrying about losing, he started winning.

  There were no large pots, only a string of small pots. The winning and the losing shifted around the table and everyone had a taste of success and failure. But Jesse, the gent that I’d baited into the side bet wasn’t getting his share of wins. He was doing exactly what I figured
he’d do. He was more concerned with not losing than he was with winning. He started folding quickly, and he didn’t seem to have any confidence in his cards. In fact, he threw away several good pots due to lack of nerve.

  Within an hour and half he was out and I was twenty dollars richer. At the end of the game, Tate was eight dollars ahead and proud of himself. I was up thirty five including the side bet.

  It was near eleven o’clock when we walked into the hotel lobby. Tate was beside himself with excitement. We almost tripped over Ben sitting in a big overstuffed chair reading a week old Kansas City news paper. He had a mug of coffee on a little table beside him.

  “Woah there. What’s all the excitement?” He asked.

  “Boss, we just skinned some feller… and it was all straight up and honest… he just didn’t…”

  “Hold on, Tate…. Ben, where’d you get that coffee?”

  “In the kitchen…hep yourself.” The desk clerk answered for him.

  “Good… Go ahead, Tater, tell him all about it. I got some coffee to get.” Picking up Ben’s half empty cup, I headed for the kitchen.

  By the time I returned and had Ben’s coffee set down on the little table and mine on my little table, Tate was just finishing up his story. He turned and handed me a twenty dollar gold piece. “Thanks, Max, I almost forgot to give this back to you.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “If you’d a forgot, I’d have asked you about it… but since you remembered… go ahead and keep it… I come out well ahead. Who knows, some day I may need to borrow twenty from you. This way I’ll feel comfortable knowin’ that you’ll have it.”

  “Always try to put something back, Tater, even if it’s just a little bit. And remember; if you’re afraid of losing… don’t play. So what the hell are you goin’ to do after the hanging… You can ride up to Denver with me, but that’s no place for a beginner. And I’ve got an idea that a certain lady might keep me a little preoccupied.”

  “Oh,” Ben said, “He didn’t tell you? Tater’s ridin’ south with me. He’s goin to work cattle and horses on the MB connected. I got about ninety square miles of range and I need smart young fellers that I can count on… and who can cook in a pinch.”

  “What about you Ben… you got your hacienda finished, the ranch is on a payin’ basis, sounds like you got a good start in the horse business… you ready to start fillin’ that casa with red headed youngens?”

  “I reckon… her last letter said that her grandpa’s about ready to sell out and start takin it a little easy… I think I can make it a lot easier for him. He can move those beeves up on the MB and take his time about sellin’ the place.”

  “Soon as I get home I’m goin to put my big ol foot down and press that gal to set a date. You just might be getting’ a wedding invite come June.”

  Chapter 19

  Later that same night, after Tate had settled down and gone off to bed, Ben and I finished our coffee and vacated the lobby. I was asleep before midnight and awake again within an hour. Living in hotels with paper thin walls and cheap doors had given me a knack for sleeping with one eye open, so to speak. I had learned to filter out the street noises and the drunk noises and be alert for the noises that I shouldn’t hear.

  And I shouldn’t be hearing a key going into my lock. I eased my Colt from the holster hanging from the bedpost and waited. I didn’t want to go blasting through the door and shoot some innocent guest who just happened to try opening the wrong door. Then I heard the lock click… it was unlocked. “Who’s there?’” I asked.

  There was a moment of silence then I heard a whispering voice say, “It’s the desk clerk, Mr. Blue. I’ve got a message for you.”

  “Just shove it under the door.”

  “I can’t. It’s a talkin’ message.”

  “OK, come on in.” I told him.

  The door eased open with a slight squeak of a hinge that I hadn’t noticed before. I also hadn’t noticed the unmistakable click of a Navy Colt hammer being drawn back. I ignored the hinge noise and put a bullet into the middle of that dark figure which was filling my doorway. I followed that one up with another one so fast that it almost sounded as one shot, only the second one went higher.

  The man flew backwards and his gun went off into the ceiling. I heard it hit the floor and heard him hit the door across the hall with a splintering crack. I was up and against the wall beside the door. Someone in the room across the hall was doing some down home cussing and yelling.

  Ben rapped on the wall and said, “Max, are you alright?” I told him that I was, and I got my man, but I didn’t know if he was alone.

  “The hallway’s clear.” Tate called out from three doors down.

  I touched a match to the lamp and carried it out into the hall. The body of the man with a talkin’ message was crumpled against the door across the hall, whose occupant was still raging and swearing.

  I banged on the door and yelled, “Shut up in there, unless you want some of it too.”

  He timidly opened the door a crack and asked, “Whu… whu.. whut happened?”

  The devil got a hold of me and I said, “This fella was trying to get into your room and I stopped him… he said something about you and his sister and his seven brothers.”

  That boy must have had a guilty conscience because he closed the door and moved something against it. All I could hear him saying was “Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord!” over and over.

  I turned to Ben, who had at least been able to get his pants on, which was more than I could claim. He had the lamp and was holding it to where he and I could see the fellas face… It was Talbert, one of the Bagley riders we’d shanghaied when we caught them branding MB cattle. About that time, Tate came out with his pants and boots on, so I sent him to get the desk clerk and go after the marshal.

  “What do you make of that, Max?”

  I pondered it for a few seconds and said. “It could mean that Talbert felt he had a grudge to settle with you.”

  “Me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, he said he had a message and called me Mr. Blue… I didn’t see any reason for both of us getting up unless it was urgent.”

  “Another possibility,” I went on, “is that Bagley is hanging around in the wings with a score to settle…. You can bet that if he is in town that he and Slack are working together.”

  Tate came back upstairs to tell us that the clerk is knocked cold and had a pretty bad head wound. Ben told him to get the marshal and the doc. I went down to see if there was anything I could do for the clerk.

  It was another hour before everyone settled down and cleared out. The deputy got some of the guests to help him with the body and left. The doc patched up the clerk, but he wasn’t too hopeful, so we laid him out on a couch and I locked the front door. Then I slept in one of those overstuffed chairs.

  The cook from the dining room was banging on the door before daylight. I let him in and told him what had happened… Then I made him the hotel manager until someone else came along to relieve him. I checked on the patient, and he was still alive, so I went back to my room.

  When I came down a few hours later, the doctor was changing the bandage on the clerk’s head and he was awake. He said the last thing he remembered was hearing a board creak behind him, and then nothing till he woke up on the couch. The day clerk was at his post, and I just dared him to ask me to pay for that busted door, but he never did.

  Ben and Tate were already finishing their breakfast when I walked into the dining room. I started off with a cup of strong black coffee. I never did like anything in my coffee to cover up the flavor of the coffee. Besides there were so many times when I didn’t have anything to put in it that I would have felt like something was lacking.

  We talked while I ate. It dawned on me that neither Tate nor myself had ever seen Bagley, so it wouldn’t do either of us any good to be on the lookout for him.

  “Well….” Ben started, “He’s a little bitty fella… about Tater’s size.” Tate’s head popped up and he start
ed to say something until he realized that Ben was having fun with him. “But he’d make two of Tater in bulk… real blocky, he is. He’s about forty years old and bone bald on top over dark brown hair. He wears one of those long droopy mustaches… It’s real bushy and dark… you can’t hardly see his mouth… Oh and he seems partial to those wide brimmed flat topped planter’s hats.”

  I thought for a moment and said, “That sounds a lot like the man who came out from between two buildings yesterday. He acted like he forgot something and went right back where he came from.”

  “We have to assume the worse, and figure that Slack and Bagley have teamed up and are out gunnin’ for my hide. I’d take it kindly if you two would steer clear of me.” Ben told us. “I’d hate to have one of you gettin’ shot up on my account.”

  “You seem to forget.” I shot back at him. “John Slack was offering a hundred dollars for my scalp, long before we ever met up. So I’m in it.”

  Tate wasn’t to be left out. “And I was on my way to collect that hunnerd dollars on Bell’s scalp… till he bought me a beer. Besides, you’re payin’ for my room and my eatin’, so I consider that to be fightin’ wages….. And if you get killed, then I’m out of a job again… so I’m in it.”

  Ben looked at Tate and shook his head saying, “I’d rather you didn’t stick around, but you’re a grown man and you know your own mind.”

  There was no way to make a plan of action since we didn’t know how many were involved and who they were. Our only options were to use caution and don’t put ourselves in unnecessary danger. Caution was the key, and we needed to be damned good locksmiths.

  Over the next few days we got pretty good at scanning the buildings and alleyways whenever we would step out into the street. I lost more poker hands than I normally would, simply because I was too concerned with who was standing at the bar and not paying enough attention to my cards and the cards of those around me.