Dead Man’s Hand

by John Joseph Adams

  Gunsmith raised an eyebrow. “You in need of killing someone?”

  Quentin looked at his boots. “Not anymore.”

  She let this pass. She looked at Hiram. “So I guess your father was Jeb Tetch?”

  Hiram nodded.

  “When I met him, he was going by the name ‘Hoyle,’” Quentin said.

  “Hoyle?” Gunsmith said. “The nerve of that man. He used to go by Cannonball. As in ‘all the subtlety of.’ The man was a brute, but—” Her eyes squinted in recollection. “—boy could he dance.”

  Quentin looked at Hiram, who shrugged.

  “So, I take it you’re now teaching this one.” She indicated Hiram.

  “As much as I know,” Quentin said.

  “And how is that going?” she asked Hiram.

  “Well, ma’am,” Hiram said, “he’s about as fun as a bucket of mud, but I think he’s learning me just fine.”

  Gunsmith eyed them both, shaking her head. “I should send you both packing.”

  “But you’re not,” Quentin said, picking up on her reticence.

  Gunsmith sighed. “No. Against my better judgment I’m not.” She looked at Hiram. “As a favor to your father. He wasn’t all bad.”

  Hiram shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “Besides,” she continued. “You remind me of better times, of my own apprentice.” Her face darkened for a moment. Then she smiled. “Why don’t you boys come by tomorrow. We can have lunch. Will that suit?”

  “Yes,” Quentin said. “Thank you. We’ll see you then.”

  * * *

  Quentin couldn’t deny something like a thrill as he dressed the next morning. He couldn’t wait to meet with Gunsmith, couldn’t wait to hear more about the Cards. He had twenty-six left, but he hoped to learn a way to use them more wisely. Or even just learn more about where they came from. How they worked. He had promised the old man that he would teach Hiram. This would help. And then, when he was done, he could start using the Cards to help people. To do good instead of violence. Hell, maybe they both could.

  He went outside for a quick smoke, then went to fetch Hiram, who was already two drinks deep at the bar. “Isn’t it a bit early?” Quentin said.

  “Just needed a little fortification,” Hiram said. “I’m good now.”

  “Good. Because we have an appointment today.”

  “I know,” Hiram said. “The old lady.”

  “You be respectful,” Quentin said. “We could learn a lot from her. You’d do well to pay attention.”

  “I’d love to get my hands on one of those Colts,” Hiram said. “D’ya think she’d give us some kind of discount?”

  “No. And no asking her neither. Be polite.”

  They stopped by the fancy store up the street, the one that carried imported goods, and walked out with some tea from back east and some biscuits. Then they went over to Gunsmith’s.

  There was no answer when Quentin knocked, so he knocked again. Then again.

  “Do you smell smoke?” Hiram said.

  Quentin sniffed the air, then kicked in the door.

  The interior of Gunsmith’s shop was in disarray, glass cases broken into shards, pistols and rifles and instruments strewn across the place, curtains torn down, tables overturned.

  “What do you think—?” Hiram said.

  Quentin shushed him, his Deck already out in his hands. Hiram followed suit. They crouched down and stalked through the store. The place was silent save for the sound of their own steps, and whatever had been burning had been doused already, so there was no immediate danger.

  At the back of the shop, they found Gunsmith. She lay on the ground, stiff, her arms and legs contorted, her face twisted in a permanent expression of complete pain.

  “Good god,” Hiram said, and turned away.

  Quentin crouched by the body. Touched one claw of a hand. It wouldn’t budge. Then he searched the woman’s pockets, her apron.

  “God, man, be decent,” Hiram said.

  “I’m checking for her Cards,” Quentin said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t imagine she would let this happen. And—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He needed to be sure.

  His search turned up nothing. No Cards. None even littered the ground. As an afterthought, he checked her boots. Hiram’s father had taught Quentin to keep his Jokers there, since their uses were unpredictable. Quentin had taught Hiram to do the same.

  Gunsmith’s boots were empty.

  “Maybe she didn’t carry them with her,” Hiram said.

  “You know what the Cards are. How special they are. Would you keep yours anywhere but on your person?”

  “No,” Hiram said. “But… maybe she was empty. Dry. No more.”

  The thought chilled Quentin. “She did use the power in her guns. Maybe she had run out.”

  “Shit,” Hiram said. “What do we do now?”

  Quentin clenched his jaw. He knew that they should just move on. Someone good enough to take out Gunsmith, to make this kind of Play, might be more than they could handle. But this was the end of their trail. If they walked away now, they might never find another person who knew the Cards.

  “I don’t want to spend too much time here, but I say we do some quick exploring. Might be something here that could help us out.”

  Hiram nodded. Quentin gritted his teeth. He hated going through the woman’s things—it felt too much like looting—but anything that would help them, any more information on the cards, would be a boon.

  This wasn’t what I bargained for, he thought. Skulking around like a criminal. Yet, the Cards are too important.

  He closed Gunsmith’s eyelids and rose to search her shop.

  * * *

  They found the Spades revolver in one corner of the room, and the cylinder had only two bullets left in it. “She used this,” Quentin said.

  “But it didn’t help her,” Hiram said.

  “No. And since there’s no other body here, we’ll have to assume she didn’t hit anyone.”

  Hiram took the pistol and tucked it into his belt. “No use leaving this behind,” he said. “Not with the magic in it.”

  Quentin winced at the word. He hated thinking of it like that. But Hiram always named it so.

  Quentin ran his fingers along the edge of his Deck. He could rustle up something to help track the killer, but it would use up a Card. He’d dealt out half of them while pursuing revenge against his uncle—payback for the death of his father. He’d hoped to honor his father by doing something better with the Cards afterward. And he would, once he’d finished schooling Hiram.

  He could ask Hiram to make a Play. The boy would put up a fuss, but in the end he’d probably do it. But that idea left a bad taste behind it.

  That was the thing about the Cards. As wondrous as they were, they made one a miser. Like an old man clinging to a dwindling fortune.

  “I don’t like this,” Quentin said. “Whoever killed her didn’t seem to take much. Most of the weapons are still where they belong. Save for those that got knocked over.”

  “And it weren’t no gunfight,” Hiram said. “Not with that smell in the air. If it weren’t her Cards, then maybe someone else made the Play?”

  Could that be it? Quentin thought. She had said she’d made enemies. Did one come back to kill her? “Let’s go upstairs and see if we can find anything.”

  They moved through Gunsmith’s rooms, pulling open drawers and pawing through chests and bureaus.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” Hiram said.

  “I don’t know,” Quentin replied. “Something to give us direction.”

  In the end, they found nothing beyond what a woman of Gunsmith’s age might have in her house—clothing, some toiletries, and linens—plus an assortment of tools in an old chest. But nothing about the Cards. No notebooks or diaries, either.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Quentin said.

  “Okay,” Hiram said. “Just give me a minute. I want t
o check on something.”

  Quentin descended the stairs… and froze when he saw a woman standing in the room beside Gunsmith’s body. She was young, blonde, with piercing blue eyes; she wore traveling clothes and held a deck of cards (he had to assume they were Cards) in her hand.

  Suddenly, she noticed him. “Who the hell are you?” she said. She stepped back.

  Quentin’s eyes flicked to her Deck. “Now hold on,” he said.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “D’you kill her?”

  “What? Me?” Quentin said. “No, I—”

  She pulled a Card from the top of her deck, though Quentin could only see the red back of it. He raised his own Card. But something held him back.

  “Let’s not be hasty,” he said, moving slowly forward. “This could all be a misunderstanding.”

  “What isn’t a misunderstanding,” she said, “is that my mother’s dead. Murdered. And I find you robbing her house. No, there ain’t no misunderstanding.”

  “Wait, your mother?” Quentin said. “She never said she had a kid.”

  “Oh, and you knew her so well, did you?” She still held the Card out in her shaking hand. All it would take was some concentration and she could rain fire down on him. Or something else. He could try to counter, but there was no knowing what card she held. Quentin would either have to Play one of his highest or risk going down.

  Hiram’s arrival broke the moment down into pieces. The woman’s eyes jumped to him. Quentin moved. He pumped his legs, closing the gap, and tackled the woman to the ground. He placed one hand across the woman’s eyes, hoping it would momentarily break her concentration. Then he hissed in her ear, “We didn’t kill your ma.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth? Why should I believe you?”

  “We came here to meet with her. She was going to talk to us. About the Cards.”

  “What about them?”

  “We’re… we’re new to this. We thought she could teach us something.”

  The woman looked from Quentin to Hiram. She narrowed her eyes. “That does sound like her.”

  Quentin let go of the woman and got to his feet, offering his hand to her. “I’m awful sorry about your mother. If there’s anything we can do to help, we’ll try.”

  Her face softened, then she took his hand and he helped her to her feet. She turned back to where her mother still lay and took a moment to compose herself. “When did you get your Deck?” she asked, brushing off her skirt.

  “His father gave it to me.” Quentin indicated Hiram. “As a favor.”

  “That’s some favor.”

  “Well, it wasn’t all kindness. He asked me to train this one.”

  “Hey!” Hiram said.

  “My ma gave me mine,” the woman said. She extended her hand. “I’m Clarice.”

  “Quentin.” He shook her hand. She had a good grip. “This here is Hiram.”

  Hiram tipped his bowler hat. “Ma’am.”

  “Do you know who might have wanted to hurt your ma?” Quentin asked.

  “I know she’d made enemies,” Clarice said. “I’d heard tell that someone was gunning for her. One of her friends down in Abilene got word to me. I just… got here too late.”

  All of them turned when they heard the loud voices outside the front door. Quentin peeked through the curtained windows. “The Law,” he said and grabbed Hiram’s arm. “We have to go. Looks like someone heard something. Clarice, if you need us, you can find us at the Sovereign Hotel.”

  “No,” Clarice said. “I’m going with you.”

  “Why?”

  “The sheriff’s not going to believe my ma was killed by a deck of playing cards. And I can’t waste time here with those dullwits while her killer is still out there. I’ll go with you now and deal with the law later.”

  Quentin nodded. “Okay. If that’s how you want to play it. Let’s go.”

  They slipped out the back and made their way to the hotel. Quentin had to stop himself from barraging Clarice with questions. He’d thought his hopes for more knowledge about the Cards had died with Gunsmith. But now he’d found someone else. Only there were more important things to focus on now. But once they were done…

  He pushed the thoughts away. They entered the hotel, and Quentin turned to Clarice. “Why don’t you stay down here, maybe get a drink, and we’ll head up to our room for a minute, then we’ll come back down and join you.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said.

  “But—” Quentin said, exchanging a glance with Hiram. Surely she would be concerned about propriety.

  “My ma just died,” she said. “I need to do something.”

  He shrugged and the three of them walked up the stairs to the room the two men shared.

  Clarice sat on the bed, and Hiram, without being asked, poured her some whisky from the bottle they kept in the room. Clarice took a long draught. Quentin took off his hat, poured some water into the basin, and threw it over his face and neck. Dust and grit colored the water.

  “How many do you have left?” Hiram said behind him.

  “Not enough,” Clarice said, and left it at that. Curiosity burned brightly in Quentin’s mind. Was that part of the etiquette? Don’t let others know what you have? It certainly would be safer.

  “Did your mother have any Cards left?” Quentin said, toweling off his face.

  “I… I don’t know,” she said. “She did last time I saw her, but…” She shrugged.

  “I guess she either’d run out or she used what she had left trying to fight off her killer. If we’re lucky, that means he will have used a few Cards of his own.”

  “There could have been more than one of them,” Hiram said. “If I wanted to take down a veteran Card Sharp, I’d have sent a few men after her.”

  “We don’t know enough,” Quentin said. “If the killer just came here to kill Gunsmith, he might already be on his way out of town.”

  “Then we should be checking and maybe asking around to see who might be new in town,” Hiram said.

  “I’ll do that,” Quentin said. “I don’t want to chance you running into your friends from the Gold Star Saloon.”

  “What should I do then?” Hiram said.

  “You and Clarice see what you can turn up. Maybe ask around here? It might even make sense to talk to the sheriff.”

  Hiram grimaced, but Clarice nodded.

  Quentin gave Hiram a pat on the back, a pat that the younger man seemed to find uncomfortable, then he left.

  The bright light of Stillwell’s main road brought second thoughts. What are you doing, Quentin? Risking your life and maybe your Cards for something that doesn’t concern you?

  But he had wanted to do good with the Cards. Wasn’t stopping a killer doing good? Wasn’t righting injustice worth the risk?

  He stopped first at the other side of Stillwell at the Alder Hotel where the stagecoach departed from. The next stage wasn’t for at least an hour, and no one was there waiting.

  Next, he stopped by the town stables and asked around if anyone had left in a hurry. No one seemed to have done so. Quentin hung around the stables for a spell nevertheless, until he felt stupid watching for someone who might never come.

  On his way back to the Sovereign, he detoured past Gunsmith’s place. Outside of it, he pulled his Deck from his waistcoat pocket and flipped through it. Hiram had wanted a special case for his—the cigarette case—but Quentin liked to have his pressing up against him, easily accessible.

  Of all the Cards in his deck, he had more Diamonds than anything else. Cards from the other three suits had been burned up in his vendetta against his uncle.

  He found he suddenly wished for a pistol like the one Hiram had picked up. Perhaps the boy had it right. Maybe it was a way to hold on to the Cards a little longer. No wonder Gunsmith survived for as long as she did. Finding a way to make the Cards last was a miracle. Once they were gone, they were gone. It was the one absolute truth he knew about them.

  The lawmen had
left Gunsmith’s house some time ago by the looks of it, probably to cart off the body to the undertaker. He wondered what they would think of her death; there were no real wounds on the body—whatever had killed her had been from the Card Sharp’s Play.

  Quentin reached for his Diamonds. He hadn’t been intending to use a Card for this—it wasn’t even his business, any of this. But finding out what happened to Gunsmith felt right. And Clarice might be more willing to exchange information if he helped find her mother’s killer.

  Making a Play was tricky and never a guaranteed thing. If you tried for something beyond the value of the Card, it wouldn’t work. And you would waste the Card nonetheless. So he thought carefully.

  He needed to sharpen his senses. He flipped to the Five of Diamonds. It seemed right—five senses, after all. But before he drew it, he flipped ahead to the Six and pulled that out. Five normal senses, sure, but there was that elusive sixth. And Diamonds was the suit of vision and also of earth, of buried secrets.

  He entered the house through the open back door and sat down where they’d found Gunsmith’s body. Then he focused on the Six of Diamonds, shaping his desire, feeling the power gather as it always did, and he willed the Card to life. It flared in his hand, burning away to nothing.

  He gasped as his vision swam and the room around him seemed to thicken, as if he were underwater. A shape, like dark smoke, coalesced before him. As he stepped back, it sharpened into Gunsmith. Or at least an approximation of her. Her features were muddied, unclear. But he knew it was her.

  The vision went beyond sight, though. He could feel her boots upon the wooden floor. Could smell the scent of her—oil and leather and something herbaceous.

  She was bending down, lining up some pistols in a glass case. The door opened. She rose and reached for the Spades pistol. The figure in the doorway was black smoke.

  Quentin caught the momentary image of a Card in the figure’s hand. Then a charge ran through the room and the glass case in front of Gunsmith shattered, throwing glass around like sparks from a fire. Gunsmith rose, firing—once, twice, then the pistol went flying from her grasp.

  She reached down to a holster beneath her apron, coming up with a Card.

  The vision blurred as intense energies filled the room. Though he was removed by the veil of time, Quentin thought he could feel Gunsmith’s attack raise the hairs on his arms.