by J. Lee Butts
Cutter finished his last bite, dropped the fork on his plate, patted an extended stomach. "That was the finest feed I've had in ages, Mrs. Scott. My heartfelt compliments."
"Why, thank you, sir. If you liked the chicken, you're gonna love breakfast come morning. Six scrambled eggs fresh from my own henhouse, six flapjacks, a slab of bacon, and enough coffee to float a horseshoe."
I said, "Sounds mighty good to me."
She showed us to our rooms and said we could come and go as we pleased. "All six of my unfortunately deceased husbands enjoyed their entertainment. So if you feel the urge to partake of the pleasures afforded by what's left of Six Points, I sincerely urge you to do so. One or two right nice young women ply their trade at the saloon and dance hall. And I hear the men who frequent the poker tables are generally most cordial."
We brought our possessions inside, excused ourselves, and headed back to town as fast as we could hoof it for whatever in the way of worldly distraction could be had. And on that particular night, the rapidly dying East Texas town of Six Points had plenty to offer.
Cutter hadn't been in the Lone Star Saloon two minutes when he headed upstairs with a cute little blond twitch named Trixie. Me and a hot-eyed, black-haired gal followed a few minutes later. But my choice for a little carnal pleasure turned out something of a bust after having been with fresh-as-peaches gals like Charlotte and Millie. Hell, that raven-topped Six Points girl looked right fine, but sweet glorious God, she had the worst breath I'd ever encountered from another living soul. Went to kiss her and almost passed out.
So, I did my business quick as I could, which is pretty fast when I put my mind to it, and headed back downstairs for the gambling, drinking, and other forms of manly entertainment. Found an open seat at a poker table surrounded by what appeared to be fairly pleasant company. In less than an hour, I'd turned the twenty dollars my partner staked me with into 280.
Course, I'll admit to consuming a bit more nose paint than I probably should have. Perhaps if I'd stayed upstairs with that nasty-mouthed gal, and not partaken of the questionable espiritus fermenti quite so heavily, an unpleasant episode later in the evening might never have occurred.
8
"You've been cheatin' like a son of a bitch."
My memory of the event has always been that I was about three hours into my cards, and cups, when it happened. Winning hands kept coming my way. Chips and cash had piled up to the tune of more than five hundred dollars. Felt pretty full of myself at the time. Dealer threw me a ten-high straight that trounced a poor goober holding a pair of aces.
The goober was a brute called Bruno. Bullet-headed thug worked the circus as a roustabout and, while he might have been some kind of genius at driving stakes in the ground and putting up tents, the man had no head for poker. Didn't keep him from having rather pointed opinions about my good fortune, though.
When the straight fell, he snarled, "You got a lot of money in front of you there, sonny boy. Sizable chunk of it's mine. Beginning to wonder just how you've managed to go and win so much."
Leaned back in the chair and eased a hand inside my coat to the pistol hanging in my shoulder rig. "Skill, my good fellow, skill. If you work at this game hard enough and pay attention, the mysterious intricacies of poker will eventually reveal themselves."
Most of the other gamblers must have had premonitions of my coming departure from this life, for they carefully scooted their chairs away and tiptoed to the nearest available corner.
"I think your run of luck has absolutely nothin' to do with knowledge of the game, skill, or anything resemblin' such blatherin' balderdash," Bruno growled.
Threw him a shocked smile and said, "What on earth are you implying, sir? Please tell me the exact nature of your distress. Spit it out. Perhaps I can do something to alleviate any misgivings you might harbor." I fear more than a little sarcasm might have crept into my voice at the time, but the big son of a bitch had begun to grate on my only remaining nerve.
Bruno twisted in a creaking chair. His ratty jacket fell open and revealed a Remington hand cannon behind the heavy leather belt cinched tightly around his thick waist. A ham-sized hand rested in his ample lap mere inches from the pistol's walnut grips. Under one of the fine dress coats I'd stolen from Elroy Cumby, I thumbed the hammer back on my short-barreled Colt and waited.
Angry bully snatched the well-chewed panatela from the corner of his yellow-stained lips, spit a sprig of tobacco across the table, and roared, "Well, if you must know, you thievin' little bastard, I'm a-thinkin' as how you've been cheatin' like a son of a bitch ever since setting down at the table with us traveling boys. My luck was runnin' pretty good till you plopped your narrow ass down."
God Almighty, but there just isn't anything can bring silence to a gambling establishment like use of the words "cheat," "cheating," or "cheater." Seems that everyone who frequents gaming tables has his ears pricked up and waiting for some ignorant jackass to make such an accusation so the real entertainment can start.
Got real quiet for at least ten feet in every direction around ole Bruno and me. Considerable number of attendees at that night's prayer meeting sucked away from our table and started making bets on which of us would survive his mean-mouthed accusation.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cutter stroll up and take a spot near the bar, directly to my left. Felt pretty good, because I figured if Bruno the stake driver got lucky and killed me, he wouldn't live but about another second before Cutter turned him into a flour sifter.
"No cheating here. I'm simply better at the game and a lot luckier than anyone playing tonight. Tomorrow the cards could run in the exact opposite direction," I said. Had no intention of trying to stop the inevitable. Must admit, I was having fun.
Bruno gritted rotting teeth so hard, it sounded like buckets full of rocks rolling across the floor. "Nobody's that lucky, boy. I been playing poker all my adult life. Can spot a cheat sure as the man's head is painted red as a New England barn."
His stunningly foolish barn comparison was the one that sealed his fate for damned sure. I decided to kill him right then and there. But like a cat that can't stop playing with a dead mouse, I couldn't send him to Satan until after a little more fun at the thick-headed bastard's expense.
"Do hate to be the one to inform you of this, sir, but playing the game doesn't have a damned thing to do with whether you win or not."
He eyeballed me like I'd lost my mind. "Altogether, that's just about the stupidest goddamned thing I've ever heard come out of anyone's mouth."
"You didn't let me finish, Mr. Bruno, sir. As I was about to say, before being so rudely interrupted, winning requires a degree of talent and intelligence. You have displayed neither in this game. And the truth is, if I hadn't taken a seat, someone else would most likely have won all your money and be the object of your intemperate bile at this very moment."
A seriously perplexed look popped onto his broad, pockmarked face like someone had dropped a dead skunk on the table between us. "Are you callin' me stupid, you persnickety little twit? Takes a lotta goddamned nerve to call a man as dangerous as me stupid."
"Is that a fact?" I shot back. Then, out of nothing more than bald-faced recklessness, I delivered the spoken coup de grace. "Well, Bruno, bet I could keep you busy for a week searching for the top on a pistol ball. You're so righteously dumb, you'd have to study for ten or twelve years just to be a half-wit."
He went for his gun and, truth is, the big bastard got it out pretty quick. Unfortunately for him, the cavalry-model Colt he carried had about an inch too much barrel. It caught on the edge of the green felt playing surface. His first shot blasted a crater in the floor between my feet. Honest to God, looked like the table jumped six inches off the floor from the concussion of Bruno's horribly misguided aim. His eyes met mine as I thumbed off a round that hit him dead center. His shocked gaze dropped to the hole in his chest and he kicked his chair backward almost two feet.
Raw strength, and a dead man's de
termination, brought an arm as thick as a Tennessee plow horse's leg up for another try. His second blast sent a blue whistler burning harmlessly past my ear.
I stood, shifted the pistol to my weak side, and drew my hip gun. Ripped off four shots so fast they sounded like one thunderous explosion. A crimson spray of blood and bone squirted out Bruno's thick back, and his body jerked and flopped in the cane-backed chair each time one of my heavy slugs slapped into him.
Pandemonium went through the place with the vengeance of a West Texas cyclone. Men rushed about like chickens with their heads cut off. Liquor vendors ducked for cover behind their heavy oak bar. Women squealed, fell to the floor, and covered their heads with trembling hands. Overturned tables and chairs thudded and banged against one another as most of the panicked crowd jumped to their feet and headed for any available exit.
Holstered my pistols, snatched my hat off, and scraped all the money left on the table into it. As the dense black-powder smoke began to clear, Cutter eased up and stood by my side. He had a cocked pistol in each hand and over the noisy chaos around us yelled, "We've gotta get out of here as fast as we can, Eli. Them carnies find out you done went and killed one of theirs, and our lives will be about as worthless as tryin' to speak Chinese to a pig from Reynosa."
All the doors were jammed tight with people trying to get away from the shooting and dying. Cutter holstered one pistol, grabbed me by the arm, and hustled us toward the saloon's ornate front window on the far side of the room.
He fired his first shot at the top of the beveled pane less than ten feet away from the glass. His second round brought the whole thing down in a sparkling spray of jagged debris that crunched under our boots like gravel as we jumped through his newly made opening.
We'd tied our horses at the wrong end of the street, and were forced to run right through the middle of a raging knot of carnival folk who must have already learned of the kindly Mr. Bruno's unfortunate demise.
Cutter shouted, "News of a killin' does tend to travel fast in towns no bigger than this one. But, you know, the people who follow these damned carnivals seem to find out about such things like mind readers or something. Damned creepy if you ask me."
Luckily, a description of the man who'd sent Bruno the tent raiser to that great circus in the sky must not have made it to their angry red ears. I threw a hurried glance over my shoulder. Saw the carnival followers rage their way through the Lone Star's ruined window swinging ax handles, clubs, and barrel staves. Poor unfortunates who got in their way dropped like felled cottonwood trees.
"There's gonna be a lot of soreheaded folks around here tomorrow morning," I said as we stepped into our stirrups.
Cutter watched for less than five seconds before he hissed, "Let's get the hell away from here, Eli. Bet it won't take half an hour 'fore that snooty desk clerk at the hotel gives me and you over to the mob. Blood-crazed sons of bitches will be after us with a rope. You can bet the ranch that if they catch us, we'll be the guests of honor at an oak tree necktie party."
We kicked for Mrs. Scott's boardinghouse, stormed in, and went to repacking all our belongings. Level of our noisy entrance must have awakened her. She stumbled into the hallway in her housecoat and said, "What on earth's the problem, gentlemen?"
Cutter quickly explained our eventful evening in town, and told her we'd best hit the trail as quickly as possible. She expressed sincere regret that our brief stay with her had to end, and said, "I'll pack you a meal to take along. Have some leftover fried chicken and other things that should be right tasty."
After leaving the kind lady three times her normal room rate, we apologized for any problems our presence might cause her in the future and fogged it west. Cutter knew every back trail and hidden path in Texas. For the next four days, we stayed as far out of sight as possible.
On our fifth day out, my partner said, "Well, ole son, think we've spent enough time hidin' from the world. Ain't been no detectable activity behind us. Might as well get ourselves back to the high road and a bit in the way of easier travelin'. Quicker we blend into the background of Hell's Half Acre, the better."
A week later, we crossed the Texas and Pacific Railroad tracks south of Fort Worth near the depot and headed up Main Street. Cutter said, "Let's stop at the first drinking establishment we come across. I'm mighty dry, Eli."
Reined up in front of a joint called the Local Option Saloon. We were both pretty stiff from being in the saddle for so long when we climbed off our animals and tied them to the hitch. Had to stand in the dusty street and stretch for almost a minute before we could stumble to the boardwalk and the rustic establishment's batwing doors. Sign in the joint's front window advertised the rough-looking watering hole as having Fort Worth's "worst liquor, poorest cigars, and most miserable billiard tables."
Cutter eyeballed the Local Option's facade and said, "Maybe later we'll stroll over to the Palace. Lot bigger and nicer place than this 'un. Pay no attention to the sign. Feller who owns this place had some kind of disagreement with the city over liquor prohibition. He did that just to get attention. Musta worked, because you could barely get in here when the really big herds used to come through on their way to Kansas."
I'd only ever been to Fort Worth, or any other town of such size and renown, once before in my entire life. Pa had mostly kept his soul-saving business on a circuit in the rough hinterlands south of Austin. He justified this strange behavior by saying, "I don't have to confront the Devil in his own front yard to know that it's an iniquitous spot peopled by gamblers, drunkards, whores, whoremongers, pimps, and killers. My mission is to keep the fine folk of this pristine South Texas country from wanting to visit bilious blights like Fort Worth's tenderloin."
As a consequence, I'd spent most of my young life hoping and dreaming for an opportunity to fritter away as much time amongst the gamblers, drunkards, whores, whoremongers, pimps, and killers of Fort Worth as humanly possible. And now, a famed man killer I'd met by accident had led me into the most celebrated den of iniquity in all of Texas.
Only problem was that two things awaited me in Hell's Half Acre that I didn't expect and could easily have done without—fame and reputation. Both of them brought to my doorstep by an overly ambitious need to make some money and have a bit of fun.
9
"Do you want to die tonight, son?"
We stood at the Local Option's highly polished bar and had two drinks, and Cutter was ready to move on. "Lots to see and plenty to do," he said as we saddled up again and headed north on Main Street. "Have some special plans in mind for you, Eli. Gonna see, for certain sure, just how good you are with the pasteboards."
We'd almost reached the Emerald Saloon when I said, "What are you up to, Cutter?"
He threw me a sly grin. "Lots of gamblers pass through the Acre every day. They come here thinking to fleece any unsuspecting cowboy stupid enough to sit down at the table with them."
"Well, what makes you think I'd have any better chance against professionals than the trail hands?"
"You're gifted, boy. You can play and spy the cheat if one comes up better'n anyone I've ever seen. Might not know exactly how a cheater's doin' it, but I know you can spot it. Knowledge and skill beat cheatin' every time. Saw it back there in Six Points. Ain't a handful of folks can handle themselves at a poker table the way you do. See, gamblers don't make any money off each other. No, they're in it for the leather pounders, waddies, and shit kickers they can suck in and strip clean."
Decided there was nothing to be gained by telling Cutter about my gaming instructions at the knee of Diamond Jim back in Waco. Figured it might be interesting to go along with whatever he had in mind, and said, "Do I look like a real, honest-to-God brush popper?"
"Not yet. But you're gonna look like one. And you're gonna play like the slickest card bender who ever sat at a green felt table. It'll surprise 'em so bad, they won't know what hit 'em. I'll back you up. See to your safety. Be covering your back every second. All you have to do is play cards. Any
body gets testy like ole Bruno did, and I'll take care of 'em before the situation can get out of hand."
"What if I don't win?"
"Well, you might lose some. Most gamblers don't win all the time. But son, I've never seen anybody run 'em like you do. This is gonna be fun."
We rode past places like the Headlight Bar, Comique Saloon, Texas Wagon Yard, and a host of other equally attention-grabbing bars and sights. Cutter got us a room on the second floor of the El Paso Hotel. Had us a window that faced north. White Elephant Saloon and the Merchants Restaurant were right across the street. Country boy like me couldn't have been anymore impressed if he'd put us up in Pair-ree, France, at L'hôtel Grand.
Stretched myself out in a bed I could have died in when Cutter said, "You stay put for a bit, Eli. I'm gonna stable the horses. Do some shopping for you. Don't want anyone to see you till we've got your duds right. Won't be long, son. Don't be wandering around while I'm gone."
Took him about two hours before he got back. My empty stomach went to gnawing at my belt buckle, and I was just before heading across the street to the Merchants Restaurant when he stumbled into the room with an armload of clothing wrapped in brown butcher paper.
I busted one of the packages open and said, "Hell, Cutter, this stuff is used. Ain't nothing new here."
He held a faded bib-front shirt against my chest and said, "Of course it's used. Gotta make you look like an actual South Texas bronc-bustin' chuck-wagon follower who can ride anything with hair."