Blood Feud

by David Robbins

  Drake gave Chace a scrutiny. “Damned if I don’t believe you about the wicks. But it takes a lot of practice to become good at my profession. I wouldn’t have the time to teach you.”

  “I’m a fast learner.”

  “I’m sorry.” Drake started to move on.

  “What if I paid you?” Chace asked.

  The gambler stopped. “I can always use stake money but I doubt you can afford me.”

  “Would two hundred dollars be enough to start and then two hundred a month thereafter?”

  “That’s a lot of money for someone your age. Fixing to rob banks and stagecoaches, are you?”

  “How I get it is my business,” Chace said. “But I can pay you. And it won’t take a lot of your time. An hour a day, or every other day if that’s too much. In a month I can be earning big money like you.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Drake said. “Cards take skill. Even then, luck trumps skill more than you would think. There are nights I earn big, yes. There are nights I lose big, too.”

  The brass knocker thumped the door. Chace admitted two townsmen, and when they were out of earshot said, “I can’t do this all my life. Gambling strikes me as something I’d like. You work when you want. You don’t have a boss saying what you should wear and how you should talk. If I get as good as you, I can dress nice like you do and afford a fancy lady every night.”

  Jason Drake smiled. “You’ve given it thought, I see. Did you hear me say it takes skill? You have to be quick with your hands and in your head. You live by your wits and your instincts and you never know when some hay-seed is going to pull a pistol or a knife on you because he’s lost all he has. It isn’t like clerk work or law work or any kind of work you can think of. You are your own man, and sink or swim, it is up to you.”

  “So what are the bad parts?” Chace said.

  “You remind me of someone,” Drake said, and laughed.

  “Who?”

  “Me when I was your age.”

  “You’re not much older,” Chace said. “Ten years or thereabouts, according to Madame Bovary.”

  “Gretchen sure is fond of you,” Drake remarked, and touched his hat brim. “I’ll think it over and get back to you.”

  “If it will help, there’s something else you get besides the money.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Me as your friend.”

  “You should sell patent medicine for a living,” the gambler joked, and moved on to the parlor.

  “That went well,” Chace said to the mirror. For the next hour he worked the door for a stream of well-to-do clients. They were polite and pleasant but nearly always treated him with reserve. An older man with a face like a hatchet always pinched him on the cheek and said what a fine boy he was. Chace balled his fists and smiled.

  At seven o’clock Jason Drake came back down the hall with his wide-brimmed black hat in his hand. In his curly brown hair, over his right ear, was a rose.

  “My, oh my,” Chace said.

  “I have shot men for mocking me.”

  “A special girl gave me a flower once. It was a daisy she picked in a meadow. I wore it in my ear just like you.” Chace opened the door. “Let me know when you’ve made up your mind.”

  Drake took the rose out and put it in an inside pocket. He stood in front of the mirror and put his hat on, tilting the brim so it hid his eyes. “Ever been to the Gem Saloon?”

  “Not in it but I’ve seen it. Down by the water, not far from Harvest Fisheries.”

  “The corner of Avenue A and Twenty-first Street. I’m usually there by three in the afternoon. Meet me there tomorrow and I’ll give you your first lesson.”

  “You won’t regret this,” Chace said.

  “I hope not. But you have Sasha to thank, not me.”

  “Sasha?”

  “I mentioned our talk to her and she said that she thinks you have what it takes.”

  “Are we talking about the same Sasha? The one I’m thinking of would like nothing better than to pound me with a rock.”

  Drake stepped to the doorway. “If you’re serious about this, I’d suggest different clothes.”

  Chace looked down at himself. “What’s wrong with these?”

  “Nothing. For a doorman.” Drake took the rose out of his pocket and sniffed it and stuck the stem in a button hole. Whistling to himself, he went off into the night.

  A soft rustling brought Chace around. “He told me what you said. That was awful nice.”

  A green dress with no back and a low front accented Sasha’s many charms. She smiled and pursed her ruby lips. “You are so dumb.”

  “Says you,” Chace said.

  Sasha touched the tip of a long painted fingernail to his chin and dug the nail into his skin. “I’m for anything that helps get rid of you.”

  “So that was why.”

  “Still think I’m nice?”

  “Bitch,” Chace said.

  26

  “Grandpa?” Cassie had just seen one of the buffalo hunters point a rifle at him.

  “We can do this easy or we can do this hard, old man,” Plain Hat said to Jed. “Take your hand off the Sharps, stand up, and turn around.”

  Jed considered resisting. But he would take a bullet, maybe more before he got off a shot. He slowly placed the Sharps on the ground and raised his hands over his head. Standing, he turned. “Happy now?”

  “Very,” Plain Hat said. He nodded at the other one, who came around and took the Sharps and tossed it in the grass.

  “You shouldn’t ought to have done that,” Jed said.

  Plain Hat laughed. “There’s a lot we shouldn’t have done but did. It’s a wonder the law ain’t after us.”

  “Grandpa?” Cassie said once more.

  “Any last words you got to say to him, girl,” the hunter with the leather band said, “now’s the time to say them.”

  “Make it quick,” Plain Hat said. “We’ve been roaming the prairie for weeks and I’ve got the itch bad.”

  Cassie gripped the handle to the coffeepot and took the top off. The water had reached a boil. “The only words I have to say,” she said quietly, “is that this world isn’t like I thought it was.”

  “How else would it be other than what it is?” Plain Hat snorted. “Leave it to a female to say something so silly.”

  Cassie looked at her grandfather. “Remember Chace and the drunk in the stable?”

  Jed tensed his legs. “I will never forget it.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Plain Hat asked.

  “This,” Cassie said, and swung the pot at his face. The boiling water caught him full in the eyes and the nose and mouth and he shrieked and stumbled back. She went after him. He had dropped his rifle and covered his face with his hands but his chin was exposed and she hit him with the pot.

  The other buffalo hunter pivoted toward her and jerked his rifle to his shoulder. Jed sprang, whipping his bowie from its sheath, and slammed into the hunter just as the rifle went off. The slug intended to end Cassie’s life thudded into the ground instead, and Jed drove the bowie into the man’s chest. Or tried to. The blade had penetrated barely an inch when the man roared and grabbed Jed’s wrist in both hands and wrenched Jed’s arm.

  Cassie swung the pot again. The metal on bone made a dull clong. The man staggered but didn’t go down. With a savage snarl he unleashed a backhand. His knuckles only grazed her head but it was enough to stagger her. He was furiously blinking his boiled eyes. The skin around them had been seared pink and was split and blistering.

  “I can’t see, Hank! God in heaven, I can’t see!”

  Hank had his hands full with Jed. They grappled fiercely, Jed striving to wrest free and Hank holding his wrist in a vise. A foot hooked Jed’s leg and he went down with Hank on top. Intense heat spread across Jed’s back and he realized they had fallen in the fire. He attempted to roll out of the flames but Hank slammed him down and grabbed him by the throat.

  “Going to choke you
dead, you old goat.” He glanced at the other hunter.

  “Watch out for the girl, Vern!”

  Cassie smashed the coffeepot against Vern’s knee. He yelped and clutched wildly for her and fell on both knees, which made him yelp louder. Cassie darted in and struck him on the cheek and the forehead. She was trying to batter him senseless but his head was proof against her pounding. She had raised the pot to bash him with all her might when thick fingers wrapped around her leg.

  “I got you now,” Vern crowed.

  Jed was finding it hard to breathe. He bucked but Hank was a lot heavier and a lot stronger. The vise on his throat continued to tighten. He couldn’t pull his knife arm loose. He was close to blacking out when he twisted his face and sank his teeth into Hank’s arm. Hank howled and the pressure on Jed’s throat let up enough that Jed sucked in a breath.

  Cassie pulled frantically on her leg, to no effect. She slammed the pot against Vern’s ear. Blood spurted but he held on and the next instant she was on her back and he had his other hand on her chest.

  “Ever squished a bug, girl?”

  To Cassie it felt as if the weight of the world bore down on her. She kicked and hit with the pot but he was immune to her blows. She heard a great roaring in her ears, as if all the blood in her body was being forced up into her head. She realized she might die and never see Chace again. She couldn’t bear that. Vern’s blistered eyes were just above her. Whether he could see or not, he could still feel pain, and letting go of the pot, she sank her fingernails into his sockets.

  At Vern’s scream, Hank looked over. Jed used the distraction; he tore his arm free and speared the bowie at Hank’s throat. The big blade stroked in like a knife into butter and Hank’s scream mingled with Vern’s. Hank’s changed to a roar of rage as he batted Jed’s hand from the hilt, and with the bowie sticking from his neck, Hank proceeded to choke the life from him.

  Blood poured from Vern’s ravaged eyes. He threw himself back onto his hands and knees. Cassie pushed upright. Near her lay one of the buffalo guns. She scooped it up and brought the stock to her shoulder. It was the heaviest gun she ever held but she got it steady and thumbed back the hammer.

  “Where are you, girl?” Vern roared.

  “Right here,” Cassie said. She gouged the muzzle into his face and squeezed the trigger. It was like a cannon going off. She was flung back and nearly lost her hold. Acrid gun smoke swirled into her nose and mouth and she coughed to clear them. Vern was on his back with his arm flung out, a hole where one of his boiled eyes had been.

  Jed was losing consciousness; the world was fading to black. His lungs were fit to burst for their need for air, and his body was going numb. In a final act of defiance he gripped the bowie’s hilt and twisted it like a corkscrew. Hank arched his back and his face went slack and his arms sagged. Breathing shallow, he pitched onto his side. It took all Jed had to get up on his knees. He yanked the blade out and bent over the buffalo hunter. Hank’s mouth was opening and closing. “You mangy son of a bitch,” Jed said, and stabbed him four more times.

  Cassie was so weak, she could hardly stand. She teetered and put her arm across his shoulders and sagged against him, saying, “I am plumb tuckered out.”

  “You and me both, girl,” Jed admitted. He wiped the bowie on Hank’s britches. “What is it about you that draws these coyotes like flies?”

  “Oh, Grandpa.”

  “From here on out we don’t trust anyone,” Jed vowed.

  Cassie said, “Especially if they wear britches.”

  The Gem Saloon was as glamorous as a saloon could be: a chandelier sparkled like the stars, velvet covered the tables, the bar was mahogany, the spittoons were polished, and the floor was swept several times a day. Two bartenders were always on duty to meet the demand. Situated as it was near where the ferries and boats unloaded and boarded passengers, the Gem was the busiest saloon in Galveston.

  Chace held the batwings apart until he spied Jason Drake, and entered. He crossed to the table and waited for the gambler to look up.

  “Damn, son. What have you done?”

  “Sir?”

  “You look like me.”

  “You said to get new clothes.” Chace was wearing a black frock coat with a white shirt and string tie. He had on black pantaloons and black boots made from calf leather. To crown his new wardrobe, he had bought a wide-brimmed black hat,which he wore with the brim tilted low.

  Drake chuckled and motioned for Chace to take a chair and said again, “Damn, son.”

  “I have a name,” Chace said.

  “Do you have a weapon?” Drake asked.

  Chace patted his frock coat. “I have a pistol in my pocket.”

  “Is it an ordinary pocket?”

  “What other kind of pocket is there?”

  “A tailored pocket made of leather so you can slick your smoke wagon faster.” The gambler sat back and thoughtfully drummed his long fingers on the table. “All right. First lesson. Our profession is not without its perils. I’ve had to shoot four men and stab two others. Not because I wanted to. Because they left me no choice.” He glanced at the bar and raised an arm and held up two fingers and one of the bartenders nodded. “The problem is those who sit at our tables. Too often they are terrible at cards. They don’t know how to play but they think they do. They bet too much on poor hands. They bluff when they shouldn’t. They try to have a stone face so we can’t read them but they are poor at it. So they lose, and if they lose a lot, they get mad. They say things they shouldn’t. The same with the drunks but the drunks are worse. Drunks are always on the prod. When they lose, they jerk a pistol or a knife. Then there are our fellow cardsharps. They take losing as a personal slight and sometimes resent it so much that they pull on you, too.” Drake stopped and grinned. “Do you still want to be a gambler?”

  “More than anything,” Chace said.

  The bartender brought over a tray with a bottle and two glasses. He set the bottle and a glass in front of Drake and a glass in front of Chace and left.

  Drake waggled the bottle. “I’m treating you to a drink to see how you handle it. When we work we need a clear head. I never drink when I’m playing for stakes and I advise you to do the same.”

  Chace shrugged. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “Good. Stay that way. I’ve seen too many good gamblers brought low by red-eye. Their play suffers to where they lose more than they earn. It’s a downhill slope that ends in ruin. The only thing that destroys more of our fraternity is women.”

  “My ma is as nice a lady as ever lived. Not all women are bad for men.”

  About to pour, Drake said, “Not all, no, I grant you. But they can cause no end of trouble. They want nice dresses and they want to eat at nice restaurants and stay at nice hotels and be pampered and waited on hand and foot, so they badger you to earn more, and yet they smile at every man they see and expect you to ...” He frowned and fell silent.

  “What was her name?” Chace asked.

  A slow smile spread across the gambler’s face. “I was much younger, and stupid. Fortunately I came to my senses before she put me in the poorhouse.”

  “That explains Madame Bovary’s.”

  Drake filled a finger’s worth in his glass and the same in the other. “A man can’t go without. It can be a distraction if it is all you are thinking of while you are in a game. I pay Sasha a visit to keep my head clear for cards.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Oh, hell. We’ve barely scratched the surface.” Drake slid the glass across. “What I’m giving you are the basics. No drinking. No women. Always be armed. Which reminds me. Do you have any compunction against killing?”

  “Any what?”

  “Some men don’t have it in them to kill even when their own lives are at risk. Can you if you have to?”

  “I reckon it’s safe for me to say it won’t be a problem.”

  “Good.” Drake sipped and set the glass down. He picked up the cards he had
been playing solitaire with and shuffled them, his fingers moving so swiftly the shuffle was impossible to follow. He splayed the cards, riffled them, shaped them into a pile, and shuffled them again. “Can you do any of that?”

  “No,” Chace admitted.

  “Then learn.” Drake reached inside his frock coat and brought out a new deck and tossed it to Chace. “For you. Practice as much as you can. Not for in a game but to show the yokels you can.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When you’re playing for stakes you always deal slow so everyone can see. Otherwise some fools will accuse you of cheating. Deal from the top and pretend your hands are molasses.”

  “But those tricks you just did.”

  “They’re for showing off. Do it before a game or between games. It impresses the hell out of the store clerk or butcher or bank president who has sat at your table. You dazzle them and they regard you as a professional. You deal square and they regard you as honest. And they’ll keep coming back and keep losing their money but they won’t resent it and they won’t pull a hideout on you and try to blow your brains out.”

  “You put a lot of thought into this.”

  “Gambling isn’t for dull-wits. A good gambler is thinking all the time. It’s what separates him or her from the store clerks and separates them from their money.”

  Chace opened the deck. The cards were shiny and smooth. He hefted them and shuffled them fast and smoothly and set the deck down.

  “Not bad,” Drake said. “You’ve had some practice.”

  “These are the first cards I’ve ever held,” Chace said. “Ma didn’t take with gambling and such. She didn’t allow them in her home.”

  “Shuffle them again.”

  Chace complied, and imitated the riffling trick the gambler had performed, although not as fast.

  “A natural, by God,” Drake declared. “You have the knack. Some don’t. They try and try but the best they will ever be is fair. You keep at it and you could be one of the best.”