Alison had no respect for buffalo hunters, but then he had no respect for any man who earned his money the hard way. But the hunters knew the land, maps in their heads constantly revised as they broadened their fields of operation. To get answers to his questions, Shuck Alison could put up with their stink. He called to the bartender for a bottle then pushed it across the table. The old man put out a dirty hand and filled the glass to the brim, then tossed his lank hair back away from his face before tipping the glass to his mouth. As the last drop of whiskey disappeared he opened his eyes and looked at his benefactor. The hunting had been bad that season; not enough hides to justify his team’s wages. He would be lucky if he could put another outfit together come spring. His credit was fast running out. He filled the tumbler again.
“What’d you want to know?”
Alison lit a long cheroot, then noticed the hunter’s eyes eagerly watching. He took a fresh one from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Ever hear of the Double Mountains?”
The hunter laughed and bit off the cheroot’s end. “Sure. Everyone’s heard of them. Down Texas on the White River. Long ways from here.” He reached for the bottle but Alison beat him to it.
“Not that one. One near here.”
The hunter shrugged. “Nearest mountains are ’bout ten days ride from here. West.”
“Double Mountain there?”
“Could be. Trapped up that way one time. Not enough beaver to make it worthwhile. Wild mountains, them. Hoss broke a leg. Had to ride a pack mule outta there.”
“Anything that could be called Double Mountain?”
“Maybe.” The foxy eyes flashed. “Why’d you want to know?”
“My brother has a place out there. Rumors ’bout Indians. I was gettin’ worried ’bout him.”
The hunter shook his head. “No injuns up there. Maybe a few Utes, but no great villages of ’em.”
“See,” Alison lied, “my brother said his place is on the Double Mountains and it’s west from Redrock.”
The lank-haired old man pursed his lips and fingered his straggly moustache as he eyed the whiskey bottle. Alison pushed it over. It seemed to achieve the desired effect. “Could be. Rec’lects a pair of Mountains just in past the foothills. Stand together. Two big peaks that carry snow. Could be the place.”
“You draw me a map?”
The hunter shrugged and downed the remains of the whiskey, looking long and meaningfully at his empty glass. Alison barely contained his temper. Any more of this and he would blow the filthy old man to pieces. He restrained himself from reaching for the Colt and brought his breathing under control. Information was what he needed. He placed a gold double-eagle on the table then covered it with his left hand. The hunter looked from the hand to Alison's blank expression. He leaned back from the table and hooked his thumbs into his gun belt, then after a moment of staring at Alison, he sniffed and eased forward in his chair.
“You got some paper?” was all he said.
***
Morgan Clay picked up the cards from the table and slowly fanned them. Three deuces, a ten and a king. It had been a long game and the hour was close on midnight. His eyes were sore from the smoke that hung in the crowded saloon and his gravelly throat wasn’t eased any by the Irish whiskey. The sharp eyed pistolero had taken over the chair opposite earlier during the game and somehow the other players had sensed this was to be more than just a friendly game. Almost every hand had left only the prospector and the pistolero facing each other until even the slowest witted of the cowhands eventually realized both men had an edge over them when it came to really playing poker. They had dropped out as they were cleaned out, and when the last one had folded and sat back, the cowhands’ money looked to be evenly distributed between the two remaining players.
They had played alone for an hour now, money passing back and forth across the table, neither gaining significantly. Morgan watched intently each time Alison handled the cards and could not detect him cheating. Sharp-eyes had a good poker face, not once smiling, but there was an eagerness smouldering beneath the facade. There was no doubt he was playing to win, even if it took all night. Yet if he was not cheating he was playing well.
Morgan held his cards closed and gently tested the edges of the king with his fingertips. There were no telltale thumbnail nicks. All clean.
“Well?” Alison asked, touching a flame to a thin cheroot clenched between his teeth.
“$20.”
“I’ll go along with that. How many?”
“Two,” Morgan replied, tossing the king and the ten face down on the tabletop. Alison dealt him two cards, discarded three of his own, taking three fresh ones.
Morgan fanned his cards again. He had got the fourth deuce. Expressionless, he closed his hand and lay the cards on the table. He reached for his tobacco and began to build a cigarette. Around the table, the circle of faces carefully watched both men.
Alison jerked his head.
Morgan acknowledged by pushing another $20 into the pot. By the time his cigarette was ready, Alison called and raised $10. That made it $30 a raise, a cowboy’s monthly wages. Morgan inhaled deeply, drawing down the smoke to fill his lungs while he tried to figure out his opponent’s hand. During the last few deals there’d been jacks, queens, and his own discard had included a king, so none of the pictures were in the running. He’d lost a ten too, and his fifth card was a seven, so they were all out. Sharp eyes had bluffed some, and Morgan was willing to bet he held two pairs, or at best three of a kind and a pair.
“Another $30.”
“Call.” No hesitation. The lack of it bothered Morgan. He either held a very good hand or…
He examined his cards briefly again. He couldn’t let him bluff him out when he held four deuces.
“$30 and another $10.”
Alison counted out the $40. “Call.”
$230 on the table. Another raise and he would have laid out all his winnings and the remainder of his stake. He stabbed out the cigarette butt and sipped his whiskey. Alison was almost broke too. There looked to be about $40 or $50 in his stack. Morgan figured there was no choice, he had to roll with it. He fingered his own stack. $53. What the hell, there was always the money deposited at the bank.
He glanced across at Alison. Sharp eyes had been watching him make his calculations and had already made his own. He shrugged. “You’ll have to pay to see them. I can raise more money if need be.”
Morgan counted off the coins and tossed them one by one onto the heap of silver in the centre. “I’ll see them.”
Alison’s lips twitched and Morgan thought for a moment the man was actually going to smile, but he was disappointed. Alison slowly turned his cards over and spread them, almost arrogantly. One-Two-Three-Four nines, neatly in a row. His eyes flickered to the pile of silver coins, then he checked himself and examined Morgan’s face.
“You beat four nines?”
The tension drained from Morgan’s body and he leaned back from the table, reaching an arm to push his own cards still face down into the middle. “You can take it.”
While he downed the dregs of his whiskey and stood up Alison was already raking in his winnings. Morgan glanced down at him for a second, then pushed through the chattering onlookers to make for the street. Near the table, Anne Marie shot a hard glance at Shuck who was now grinning like an idiot, then caught Morgan’s arm before he vanished into the night.
“Need some company?”
“Not tonight. Can’t afford the luxury. My tab takes up my last few dollars. Tomorrow maybe.” She didn’t answer but held on to his arm possessively. He paused and turned to shoot Alison a meaningful look. “Thought you were his woman anyways. You won’t have to work the saloon for a while. He’s loaded now.”
She didn’t even spare a glance for the winner. “Not tonight. He won’t need me. He’ll be playing cards till sunup and drinking till he’s flat out on the floor. Besides,” she added, “it’s you I want for company, not him. He can be a rea
l bad one sometimes.”
Morgan frowned. “You bet. I still don’t know how he did it, but one thing I know for sure. He cold-decked me. That was the only way he could have done it. It was laid out too neat. Gotta be. He must’ve switched those decks somehow.”
“Are you really cleaned out?”
“For the time being.”
“Never mind,” she said, stroking his lapel.
“Never mind what?” He frowned, his eyes slipping back to her, away from Alison.
“I’ll cheer you up when we get back to your room.”
He glanced away, still trying to figure how Alison pulled the switch. “I told you,” he said impatiently. “I’ve no money.”
She did not reply and he turned his head to look at her again. Alison must have switched decks when he lit the cheroot. Now that he knew he felt somehow easier about it. It made life a bit more simple. It wouldn’t happen again. She still hadn’t spoken and he focused his gaze to see her smiling openly. He could read what was written in her bright eyes and he was beginning to smile when she prodded his chest with a long manicured forefinger.
“You can have this one on account,” she said, then pursed her lips with a tilt of her head. “Your credit’s good. ’Sides, I think you need it.”
Morgan laughed and pushed his way out through the batwing doors, Anne Marie clinging to his arm. His grin was wolfish, his breath frosty in the chilly night air.
“You just talked me into it.”
***
“Well, now we know for sure,” Alison said, lowering the field glass from his red rimmed eyes. In keeping with Anne Marie’s prediction he had found no time to sleep. Confidence bolstered when Morgan Clay failed to detect his cleverly timed switch, he had taken on all comers into the early hours, cheating time and again, but the rewards from the less affluent members of the community had hardly repaid the effort involved. Watching for Morgan with the field glass hadn’t helped his headache any. An hour after Anne Marie had left the hotel, the prospector had emerged dressed in his wolf skin coat and paid a visit to the bank. There was no doubt now. The money must be there and the old coot only carried enough to cover his day to day expenses.
“It’s going to be a long winter,” he said. “At this rate it’ll take us that long to get all that cash money out of him. That’s one hell of a lot of poker games.”
Anne Marie looked up from painting her toenails to make a pained face. “He won’t fall for that one twice. He knew you used a cold deck on him. He told me.”
Alison chuckled and swaggered away from the window. “Yeah, I was pretty neat, if’n I say so myself. Mind you,” he frowned, “he ain’t nowhere’s as easy as shootin’ fish in a barrel.”
“So you keep telling me,” she observed caustically.
Alison swung round. “Mind your mouth! I ain’t taken no lip from a woman since I was a bread snapper, and I ain’t about to start now. Just remember honey, my way’s the hard way. All you got to do is lay on your back and open your legs. You don’t even have to smile.”
“You think I like it?” she snapped.
“One time I didn’t think so, sugar, but now I ain’t so Goddam sure. Last night you seemed ready enough to jump in bed with him.”
Her eyes flashed. “Why d’you think that was? You were going crazy with liquor and sure enough one of us had to keep an eye on him. That left only me.”
Alison scowled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. He still talking in his sleep and having them nightmares?”
“Yes. He’s pretty cagey, but I got the feeling when winter breaks he’ll be riding back to the mountains. He’s got a score to settle.”
“Well, if he does, I’ll be right behind him.”
Anne Marie glanced up. “You find out about this Double Mountain?”
“Yep. Even got me a map.”
“Well if you go after him, I’m coming too,” she said defiantly.
“Hell, no you ain’t,” he spat, obstinate. “You’d make more noise up in them mountains than a wagonload of turkeys going to market. Sound travels mighty far in them canyons.”
She knew he was right. The closest she’d been to wild country was the view out of a Concord stagecoach. But she still didn’t like the idea of him going after all that gold on his own. She had the feeling if he found it she would never see him again. That terrified her. With that much money he wouldn’t ever need her again.
His voice broke into her thoughts. “Honey, you’re a real pretty woman. If there are Indians up there, especially Kiowas…” He shook his head and winced. “I’ve seen what they can do to a white woman and it don’t make good listenin’. I seen one, one time, her head shaved bare and her nose cut right off her face. She’d tried to escape and they’d sliced the hamstrings behind her knees. Couldn’t hardly shuffle along. She was that ugly by then, none of the braves wanted to use her so all she did was carry firewood all day long, with an old squaw walking behind beatin’ her with a stick.” It was a lie he’d heard in a saloon someplace, but he knew Anne Marie set great store by her looks and nothing would induce her to risk losing them.
“I didn’t think of the Indians,” she shuddered, ashen faced, her fingers winding in her long black curls as though to reassure herself they were still there.
“There you are,” Shuck smiled, laying a hand on her cheek. “That’s what I’m here for, to think of all these little things for you. You got to keep pretty.”
She could feel his rancid breath, reeking of cigar smoke and whiskey as it washed over her. That look she knew so well was coming into his eyes, and she knew what was coming next.
“As I said,” he continued as he unbuckled his gun belt and took off his jacket, “if we have to pick his money away from him slow and easy, it’s going to be a real long winter.”
And it was.
CHAPTER 7
The heavy norther that had punished the hammered joints of the wooden buildings ceased its moaning and faded. The snow-heavy clouds that had remained a constant threat disappeared from the sky, allowing the pale sun to shine through and pick at the snow crusted ground. It was still bitter at night and the frost undid most of the sun’s work, but as the days passed the land drained and the melted slush grew steadily shallower. It would soon be first grass and the ranchers tidied their barns and readied their branding irons. Eyes crow-footed, gaze resting on the distant skyline, unconsciously their gloved hands fashioned loops, then recoiled hand-woven lariats, ready for rounding up the winter’s scattered cattle.
In the hotel room overlooking the street Morgan contemplated his dwindling bank account. Out of $3,000 there was barely $600 left. Where had it gone? He made a face. No use asking damn fool questions for he knew all too well where. Poker, whiskey, and Ann Marie’s tender ministrations. Which of it, he wondered, had been the most wasteful?
He glanced out at the brightening day. What the hell, if it wasn’t for the cards, the ladies and the bottle, what the hell else was there to live for? Good point, he decided as he spat the cork across the room to bounce off the wall and tilted the life giving whiskey into his raw throat. Better? Much obliged Mr Whatever your name was who invented this brew.
$2,400 gone. Well, what of it? Plenty more where that came from. Or there had better be, because the six hundred he had left wouldn’t be a king’s ransom by the time he’d resupplied his outfit and bought two more horses to haul the ore. He would have to carry a few bottles of whiskey too. Drying out too fast wouldn’t do him much good. Likely kill a man. Besides, it was medicine, it helped keep away those dreams. He hated to try and count how many times he had faced his own death while asleep. Only Anne Marie’d helped soothe them away, cradling him in her arms like a scared baby. He wondered why she bothered so much with an ornery old man like him. Fair enough, she was just making a buck like everyone else, but she seemed to make it much more than just a chore. She was real friendly about it, and over the months he had begun to think of her as, well, his woman.
He stood up and stamped i
nto his boots. Better hurry up and get back to the mountains and let the clear air blow all these fool notions out of his whiskey-soaked brain. Women? He always remembered the echoes of his father’s words: “Remember boy, there’s one woman you’ll meet someplace along the trail that’ll be the one, but them you pay for, just use ’em and forget ’em. Nobody falls in love with a whore. Nobody but a fool.” He’d paused then and looked off into the distance. “Ain’t in a man’s nature.”
The picture faded. His father’s words took him back to his last visit home. It had been before the war, and by the time Morgan received the news and journeyed there, all that was left were two wooden markers side by side on a hill that looked out over the Missouri River. Nobody had known what the sickness was. One day they’d both been well and a week later they were both dead. Back to the earth. It was fitting. His father had always loved the feel of the soil as it crumbled between his fingers. Now it would surround him until Kingdom Come.
He sniffed. That was the way it went. At least his father had someone to think of him, not that Morgan had. He’d always wanted a wife and a son to follow on after him, but he had never been in the right place at the right time. Before he could stop the thought he wondered if Ann Marie would shape up. Could she cook as well as she handled the other requirements? No, ridiculous, she was a whore. He’d blow some gold up in Frisco and have a good time, then maybe when he bought some land he would think again about a wife. Plenty of years left to sire a son, and he thought with a wry grin, there was enough life in him yet to sow the seed.
The old negro greeted him warmly when he ventured inside the livery stable. Morgan looked first to his horses and nodded at the care lavished on them. The dun gelding was frisky, and the grain feeds had sleekened the bay’s flanks. He fondled both animals affectionately and returned the ostler’s toothy grin.
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