by Beverly Long
“Mr. Stroud. Please tell me that you’re going to give me a chance to redeem myself, to earn back some of the money you so gleefully took off my hands.”
It was the first time Jed had heard Toomay speak, other than the brief conversation that the man had had with Bella at the hotel. For some strange reason, the sound of Toomay’s voice made the hairs on Jed’s arms stand up.
“I thought you were on your way to California,” Stroud said.
“I’m taking the long route.” Toomay started dealing the cards. At the empty spot, he dealt as if someone had claimed the seat.
Stroud didn’t hesitate. He shrugged his coat off, threw it across an empty chair, and sat down. He picked up his cards. Lenny and Pete gave Stroud a quick nod. They no doubt knew the man since they all came from the same parts.
Stroud took the first two hands, Earl Bean the third, and Toomay the fourth. All the pots were relatively equal so there weren’t any big winners. People in the saloon lost interest and went back to their conversations. The piano player started up, singing off-tune like usual. Glasses clinked and chairs squeaked as men shuffled in and out.
It was just another night at Hawkin’s Saloon.
But it wasn’t. Jed knew it, could feel it in his bones. When Earl Bean took the fifth hand, Jed hoped that it might be enough to discourage Lenny and Pete but neither seemed inclined to move from the chairs. In fact, both were hunkered over their cards and sweat ran from Lenny’s brow down the side of his face. When Toomay ordered a bottle of whiskey, Pete gratefully accepted a refill. He and Lenny had already finished off their bottle.
Jed sat at the bar and sipped his own whiskey. He watched Toomay’s hands and his eyes and saw no evidence that the man was cheating or getting signals from elsewhere in the room. In fact, he didn’t seem to be a particularly adept card player, making it easy for Jed to believe that it was probably not just Stroud who’d relieved Toomay of some money over the years.
All hopes of getting Pete and Lenny out of the game diminished when Pete won both the sixth and the seventh hands and Lenny the eighth. They both had another drink to celebrate and Jed knew it would take a mule team to drag the men away from the table.
It was Stroud’s turn to deal and when Lenny picked up his cards, Jed could see the man sit up a little straighter in his chair. It was most always that way when a man had had too much to drink—he became less able to hide his reaction to the deal. Jed figured he either had a hell of a good hand or a hell of a poor one. When it came time to discard and ask the dealer for cards, both Pete and Lenny stood on their hand. Stroud took three cards, Toomay the same, Earl Bean asked for four of his five to be replaced.
Toomay and Earl Bean folded early. “I’ll bet it all,” Lenny said, pushing his pile of money toward the center of the table.
Pete looked at his cards again. Then at his money. Very deliberately, he matched what Lenny had put it. It left him with just a few coins. Both men turned toward Stroud.
From Jed’s perspective, it was pretty clear that both Lenny and Pete had good hands. Neither one of them had bluffed worth a damn all night and it wasn’t likely they were going to start now. Whiskey didn’t generally have that affect on men.
He’d played enough draw poker in his railroad days to know that the likelihood that three of the five players all had good hands was slim. Given that, he expected Stroud to throw his cards in. Either Lenny or Pete would win and in either case, it’d probably be fine because knowing the two as well as he did, they’d probably split it up later anyway.
Stroud put his cards on the table and reached for his money. Jed thought the man was calling it a night. However, when he pushed three of the four stacks of coins into the center, Jed felt the cloying sense of dread that had hovered all night suddenly spring up and threaten to choke him.
Something was very, very wrong.
Jed caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Yancy had sat up straighter in his chair. His eyes were on Toomay’s table but just for an instant he looked up and met Jed’s gaze. It was obvious that Yancy could feel it too.
Lenny was squirming in his chair. He hurriedly turned over his cards. Full house, aces and eights. Dead man’s hand. That’s what it had been known as since Wild Bill Hickok, holding the very same hand, had gotten killed in Deadwood a year earlier.
On most nights, it would be a winner.
Pete could hardly get to his cards fast enough. In fact he rushed so that four flipped over and one stayed hidden. It didn’t matter. What showed was enough. Four nines.
Lenny’s eye started to twitch but Jed didn’t think most people noticed. Every eye in the place was on Stroud. He flipped his cards over, one by one. Ten of spades, jack of spades, queen of spades—oh, shit—king of spades, ace of spades. A royal flush. On any night, it was a winner.
The only sound in the room was Lenny’s breathing. Heavy. Labored. He was staring at Pete, who was looking down at his cards. Fresh sweat had popped out on Lenny’s brow and he’d run his hands through his hair so many times that he looked like a wild man.
Toomay leaned back in his chair and yawned widely. “Gentlemen, thank you for the entertainment. But I’ve traveled far today and I’m tired. Let’s say we call it a night,” he said.
Stroud stood and with one long arm, swept the money in his direction. But nobody was looking at him. Everybody was looking at Lenny, who had tears running down his cheeks. The only thing that stopped them from spilling onto the table was that they were getting sopped up by his big beard.
No man was comfortable watching another man cry and Jed was no exception. It was no surprise when one by one, the crowd turned away and started gathering up their things. Jed watched everyone and everything in the room. Many a poker nights had ended badly when somebody had decided that they didn’t like the way the cards had fallen.
Pete pushed his chair back. “Let’s get out of here, Lenny,” he said. He stood up and put his coat on.
Jed started to relax. The two had lost big but it looked like they weren’t going to make a fuss about it.
When Lenny continued to just sit at the table and cry, Pete braced his arms on the table and leaned across it. “It’s over,” he said to his friend, his voice soft.
Lenny started to cry harder, his shoulders shaking.
Maybe it was seeing his friend cry. Maybe it was the realization that he needed to go home and face his wife after losing what would easily have fed his family for the next three months. Or maybe it was the pure despair of losing after being so sure he had a winning hand, but whatever it was, it hit Pete like a train going downhill that had lost its breaks. The man whirled toward Stroud, his gun pulled.
Lenny looked up. “No, Pete,” he yelled. “Don’t do it.” He pushed his chair back, stood up, and lunged in front of Stroud just as Pete fired his gun.
When the bullet hit, it was Lenny who dropped to the floor. It was as if his skull had exploded, with bits and pieces of it flying everywhere.
Jed felt the whiskey in his stomach lurch upward and he swallowed hard.
“Oh, Christ, no!” Pete dropped his gun onto the table, ran to his friend’s side, and fell to his knees. “Lenny. Oh, Christ, no. Oh, Lenny. I’m so sorry,” he cried. He picked up the man’s body and hugged it to his chest.
Stroud dropped into a chair, his movements uncoordinated, his mouth open. He stared at the blood pouring from Lenny’s head and his eyes held the knowledge that it could easily have been him on the floor.
Grown men, used to seeing violence, had their hands over their mouths and their complexions were taking on various shades of yellow and green. Pete, his shirt covered in Lenny’s blood, looked up. Tears ran down the man’s broad face. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what came over me. Jesus.”
Pete looked at Jed, like he somehow expected him to be able to fix it. “Sheriff?” he said, his voice quivering. “He was my best friend.”
“I know,” Jed said. That didn’t much matter now. It was his job to arrest P
ete. “You need to come with me,” he said. He bent down and cupped his hand around Pete’s elbow.
Pete leaned forward and gently laid his friend onto the floor. Now big sobs wracked the man’s body.
Jed helped him up and once he was on his feet, Jed gave his back a gentle shove, to get him started toward the door.
He glanced around the room. “Somebody needs to go get Doc Winder to come and see to the body.”
Yancy stepped forward. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Jed nodded his thanks. He looked at the crowd of people. “The rest of you, go home.”
Nobody argued. And nobody seemed inclined to want to finish their drink.
Jed and Pete were just feet from the door when Jed caught a motion out of the corner of his eye. It was Toomay. He was shuffling his cards. It wasn’t his calm indifference to the killing that caused Jed to practically miss a step. No, it was the look on his face. He looked…Jed searched for the right word. And when he came upon it, he felt the whiskey in his stomach roll once again.
Satisfied. Toomay looked satisfied.
***
Jed had had less than two hours of sleep when he saw Bella drive her rig into town. It wasn’t as cold this morning and she’d left her hat off. She had her hair piled on top of her head and her cheeks and lips were pink. She looked fresh and young and in comparison, he felt soiled and old. After leaving the saloon, he’d escorted Pete to the jail and handed him off to Bart. Then Jed had saddled his horse and taken a cold ride to Shinoah. Once there, he’d gotten the marshal out of bed and the two of them had ridden to Lenny’s house to tell his widow and six children of his death. Then, they’d ridden to Pete’s house and told his wife and four children that Pete was in jail for his best friend’s murder.
He’d gotten back to Mantosa in the wee hours of the morning. He’d sent Bart home and laid his head on the desk. He’d been awakened around dawn, by Pete’s screams. The man had been having a nightmare.
Jed hadn’t been sleeping all that soundly himself. In his dreams, Toomay had been dealing his cards to an empty table. When Jed had ventured forward to pick up a hand, he hadn’t seen hearts and spades and such. No. Each card was a picture of Bella, in the rose colored dress she’d worn to the dance. He’d run around the table, gathering up cards, and every hand had been the same. He’d tried to rip them but that had proven impossible. He’d tried to burn them but they wouldn’t burn.
When he’d looked at Toomay, there’d been that same satisfied look on his face that he’d had the night before.
Bella would be having lunch with that smug son-of-a-bitch in just a few hours and that made the coffee in Jed’s stomach surge up. What the hell was she thinking?
What had made Toomay pick Mantosa? Was it merely coincidence that he’d arrived just days after Bella?
Jed didn’t believe in coincidence. He did believe, however, in paying attention. Sometimes it wasn’t what a man saw or heard that mattered—sometimes it was something he just felt. Jed had felt a connection of some sort between Toomay and Bella. They’d acted as if they were strangers but there’d been something there—something that had not escaped Jed’s attention.
He hated puzzles. Hated not knowing how each piece fit up against another, hated not seeing the whole.
Once Bart had arrived this morning, Jed had left the sheriff’s office, intending to walk a bit and clear his head. That was before he’d seen Bella drive into town.
Now, he pushed up the brim of his hat and walked toward Bella’s rig. When she saw him, he didn’t miss how her spine straightened or the slight jut of her chin. She was wary of him. She had good reason. Yesterday, when he’d kissed her in the barn, he’d given her cause to wonder just what he might do next.
He wanted to assure her that he had everything under control but in fact, he wasn’t all that confident. It seemed like when she was around, he wasn’t himself.
“Good morning,” he said. He held out his hand to assist her. She hesitated but he held his hand steady. Finally, she put her hand in his. She had her gloves on and her hand felt small and soft. Once on the ground, she removed her hand immediately. He expected that she might scurry away but instead she tilted her face up.
“You look tired,” she said.
He supposed he did. He felt about a hundred years old. “It was a long night,” he admitted. “I’ve got a prisoner at the jail,” he added, surprising himself. He never talked about his work—hadn’t with his mother, didn’t with his sister.
“What did he do?” she asked.
“Killed a man. His best friend.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “How awful.”
“Yeah. He lost at cards and he meant to shoot the winner. His friend got in the way. Right now I don’t think that’s making him or his friend’s widow feel any better. Between the two families, there are ten children that have lost their fathers.”
She grabbed the side of the wagon. “What happens now?” she asked, her voice sounding strangled.
“We wait for the county judge to come. I’ve already sent a wire, advising him of the matter.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. He turned slightly, as did Bella.
Toomay stood across the street. He had on his fancy coat again and he was lighting a cigar. He flicked the match onto the street and took a big puff. He looked out onto the street, like a king looking out onto his kingdom.
Son-of-a-bitch. Jed dug the toe of his heel into the snow that had been packed down by heavy wagon wheels. “He was part of the card game. I don’t think he helped matters any.”
Bella didn’t respond.
It made Jed want to shake her. He’d given her the perfect opportunity. Oh, really. Well, then, maybe I don’t want to have lunch with him. But no, she kept her mouth shut.
“I don’t much care for strangers,” he said. “I think it’s time for that man to ride on.”
“But…” Bella started, then stopped.
“But what?” Jed prompted. Tell me. He wanted to beg.
Bella shook her head. Her face had lost its color. Now, it could have been his going on about Pete’s troubles but he thought it had more to do with Toomay. What was the link between the two of them?
“I’ve got to open the Mercantile,” Bella said.
He reached for her arm but she twisted away. “I’m late,” she said, already moving. She lifted her dress a few inches, perhaps to keep it from dragging in the snow, perhaps to aid her fast retreat.
He wanted to race after her. He wanted to hold her close, to convince her to tell him the truth. Hell. What he really wanted was to take her back to his house and keep her in bed for about a week.
That’s what had him turning the other direction.
He needed to stop thinking about her. Something bad was about to happen. He could feel it. And he needed to keep his wits about him.
***
By lunchtime, Bella’s stomach was so tight with nerves that she didn’t know how she would be able to eat anything. Tomorrow, almost exactly thirty-six hours from now, unless she somehow managed to kill Toomay first, her father would follow Toomay up the stairs and set in place a series of events that were too horrible to contemplate.
Her family would be slaves to Bad Magic. It would be an eternity of pain and deprivation, a future so bleak and so terrifying that it almost paralyzed her.
She left the Mercantile at just minutes before twelve. She pushed through the doors of Hawkin’s Saloon and her heart sank when she didn’t see Toomay. There were six other men—four playing cards at a table and two standing at the bar, sharing a bottle of whiskey. All of them turned to look at her and she realized that she knew one of them—Yancy Tate.
She tried to smile but she caught her reflection in the mirror above the bar and realized that it looked more like a grimace of pain. Her jaw was so tight that it felt as if it was wired shut.
Hopefully Snake served soup for lunch.
Yancy studied her. Then he nodded and turned so that his back fa
ced her once again.
She kept her eyes off the floor. There was no way she’d be able to do this if she happened to look down and saw a dark spot on the wood, evidence of the blood that had been cleaned up.
She heard one of the card players tell the table that she was Freida’s niece. That got her a couple friendly nods, even a smile or two.
She gave a general nod in return and sat down at the table, facing the door. Her hands were trembling so she put them in her lap. She heard a woman’s laugh and turned her head, just in time to see Delilah come from the back. She was carrying two plates of food which she sat in front of Yancy and other man who was standing at the bar. When she saw Bella, her eyes narrowed.
She approached Bella’s table. “I wouldn’t have expected to see you here,” she said. She wiped her hands on the towel that was slung over her shoulder.
“Lunch was really good yesterday,” Bella said. “I thought I’d see what today’s special was.”
Delilah assessed her. “I don’t need no preachin’ from you.”
“I know that,” Bella said. If her father and Averil could only see this. She was getting scolded for giving someone advice. Bella was usually on the receiving end of advice. Nobody needed to tell her how irritating it was. But she’d only been trying to help. And if Delilah only knew what she knew?
But she didn’t. And Bella couldn’t tell her. “Really, all I want is lunch.”
“Snake doesn’t serve lunch to anybody who doesn’t buy a drink.”
A really nice glass of Pinot Noir would hit the spot. But she didn’t think Snake had a wine list. “Excellent. I’ll take a whiskey.”
Delilah had just returned with Bella’s drink when Rantaan Toomay walked in. Bella could feel the general stir in the room; evidently everyone had heard about the shooting. He wore all black—trousers, shirt, vest, and hat.
He brushed past Delilah, his front to her back, close enough that his body touched her. Bella caught just a hint of the woman’s involuntary shiver. However, the expression on Delilah’s face never changed.
“I’ll take a whiskey, darling,” he said. He pulled enough money out of his vest pocket that he could have bought everybody in the bar their own bottle. “Keep the rest for yourself,” he added.