Wheeler's Choice

by Jerry Buck

  “King-high straight flush,” he said, smiling triumphantly.

  Tatum’s face reddened as he stared at Rollins. “You seem to have a lot of luck, Mr. Rollins. That’s the third straight pot you’ve won with mighty fancy cards.”

  The smile vanished from Rollins’s face.

  He said evenly, “Mr. Tatum, luck has nothin’ to do with it. If you don’t realize that poker is a game of skill and not of chance, then, sir, I think you are playing the wrong game!”

  The flush on Tatum’s face deepened. His mouth tightened. I waited to see if he would make a play.

  He didn’t, so I knew it was up to me.

  I said, “Gentlemen, I think Mr. Rollins is right. Poker is a game of skill.”

  Fowler agreed. “It ain’t no place for greenhorns, thas fer sure.”

  Rollins beamed across the table at me. His hands reached for the pile of chips.

  “Mr. Rollins is quite skilled in the art of poker,” I continued blandly. His smile widened.

  “And in the art of cheating.”

  His smile quickly turned to a frown. Then a black scowl. He slowly moved his hands away from the pot, back toward the edge of the table.

  I guessed that Rollins had a bellybuster derringer hidden somewhere in his ruffled shirt. He would go for it soon enough. But his hands were still on the table.

  “I’ll kill you for that!” he snarled.

  I stood up and flipped my coattail away from my holstered gun. He eyed the .45 resting in the holster and figured the odds. Rollins was a gambler, but he never took chances.

  Out of the comer of my eye I saw Fowler start to work his way behind me. He pretended to be trying to get a better look.

  I said, “Mr. Fowler, would please stay where I can see you.”

  He moved back.

  If Rollins went for his gun, I could shoot him dead and it would be over. I’d probably have to shoot Fowler, too.

  I didn’t think Rollins would, and he didn’t. He decided, instead, to play out his bluff.

  His hands were back on the pile of chips. He said, “I believe this is mine. You gentlemen saw me. Did I cheat? Feel the cards. Do you feel any pinpricks? Examine them. Do you see any marks? Have they been shaved or cut in any way?”

  Several of the players examined the cards. “No marks that I can see,” said one.

  Rollins nodded his head. “I’ve encountered sore losers before,” he said. “But I do believe this . . . this gentleman is the limit.”

  Now was the time for me to play out my bluff.

  I said, “Ask Mr. Rollins to spread his legs.”

  The other players looked at me strangely. Tatum said, “I beg your, pardon, sir?”

  I moved behind Rollins and motioned for Fowler to stay in my line of sight. I said to Rollins, “Keep your hands on the table and spread your legs!”

  He looked up at me. His eyes were a blank. The man was a poker player to the end.

  If my bluff failed, if Rollins wasn’t wearing the Kepplinger holdout, I’d just as well swim to shore.

  I repeated my command, but Rollins didn’t move.

  I said, “Either you spread your legs, Mr. Rollins, or I will do it for you! And may I remind you to keep your hands on the table! And Mr. Fowler, I want you to keep your hands where I can see them!”

  Rollins began to open his legs.

  “Wider!” I ordered.

  He opened his legs wide. His hands were on the table, palms down.

  Tatum said, “I don’t see no card!”

  The cotton planter looked at me and scolded, “This has been a regrettable demonstration, sir! No gentleman would behave in such a fashion!”

  I had to play it out. I said, “Ask him to turn over his hand.”

  Rollins turned his right hand palm up. It was empty.

  “The other hand!”

  The hand turned over slowly. It was curled into a tight fist.

  “If you please, sir,” said Tatum.

  The fingers slowly uncurled.

  In his fist was a crumpled card.

  The next morning I returned Dusty’s rabbit foot. It had brought me good luck. I thanked Dusty and said I hoped it would continue to bring him good luck.

  “I tol’ you it’d work, din’ I, Ben?” he said proudly.

  “You were right, Dusty. It worked.”

  He kissed the furry rabbit’s foot and put it into a pocket.

  Petrie, his eyes on the ripples revealing the presence of a shoal reef a hundred yards downriver, said, “Mr. Rollins will never play on the river again. The man’s a pariah now. No one will play with him. I doubt if any steamboat company’ll book his passage.”

  I said, “That’s the risk you take in poker.”

  Turning the boat expertly away from the shoal, Petrie said, “I always suspected he was up to no good. But I never knew for sure.”

  There was a straight course of river ahead. Petrie beckoned Dusty to the wheel.

  “Put both hands on ’er and hold ’er steady as she goes,” he said.

  Dusty grasped the wheel. “Like this, Mr. Petrie?”

  “By golly, I think you got it,” he said. “I’ll make a lightnin’ pilot of you yet.”

  “A lightnin’ pilot! Did y’hear that, Ben?”

  I laughed. “I heard, Dusty. A lightning pilot.”

  I had lost all desire to kill Jasper Rollins. I had had enough of vengeance. It takes its toll on the avenger, as well as the victim.

  I thought Rollins would slink off the boat at the next stop and probably make his way to Natchez-Under-the-Hill.

  After I had seen the scorn heaped upon him in the salon last night, my determination to kill him had vanished. He had been exposed as a scoundrel. He could no longer work the riverboats. His reputation would follow him wherever he went. He couldn’t return to Dodge City. Wyatt Earp was a gambler himself, and neither he nor Doc Holliday had any tolerance for cheaters.

  I doubted that he could return to robbing banks. He had no talent for that at all.

  I had no desire to kill him. His ruined reputation and livelihood were greater punishment.

  No doubt he would disappear to lick his wounds.

  The one thing I didn’t count on was that Rollins’s sense of self-preservation vanished with his reputation.

  That night, the last night before we were due to arrive in New Orleans, he and Fowler tried to bushwhack me in the dark on the texas deck.

  They might have succeeded if anxiety hadn’t gotten the better of them.

  Fowler fired too soon and too carelessly. He should have waited a few more seconds.

  The shot missed. It tore into a doorjamb and threw off a shower of splinters.

  I didn’t miss. Fowler dropped to the deck like a sack of grain unloaded by a roustabout.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’’ Rollins cried in anguish.

  He staggered out into the open, his hands raised high. He stepped over the body of his fallen henchman. “I give up!” he blubbered. “Don’t shoot!”

  I said, “How did Bill Smoot ever tie up with a sniveling coward like you?”

  The color drained from his face. “You th’ one!” he said in near panic. “You the one what kilt th’ Kid and Bill! You th’ one what been askin’ ’bout me in St. Looey! How come? What y’got agin us?”

  “Remember San Miguel, Jasper?” I said harshly. “Remember the woman you killed in the bank. That woman was my wife!”

  “I din’ kill ’er!” he blubbered. “It was Kid Bayliss! He done it! I was outside wit’ the’ horses! Doan kill me! Oh, God, doan kill me!”

  I holstered my gun and said, “You ain’t worth the price of a bullet!”

  Dusty came racing down the stairs. “I heard the shots. You all right, Ben?”

  He ran right into Rollins, and the tinhorn grabbed him around the neck with his left arm.

  Rollins kicked out one leg and a derringer popped into his right hand. He pressed it against the back of Dusty’s head. Rollins was always a m
an for a holdout.

  “One move,” Rollins snarled, “an’ yore frien’ is a dead man!”

  The gun was a Remington .41-caliber derringer, known as an “over-and-under” because of its two barrels, one on top of the other. It was a small gun, but it packed a wallop. Each bullet weighed a hundred and thirty grains.

  “Doan worry ’bout me,” Dusty said bravely.

  “You hurt Dusty and I’ll—”

  “You ain’t gonna do nothin’!” he cried, the panic still in his voice. “Take out your gun real easy like and put it on the deck.”

  I lifted it out with my thumb and forefinger. I bent over and set it on the deck.

  “Now kick it over to me,” he instructed.

  Before I could respond, Dusty twisted away from Rollins.

  The three-inch barrel belched fire and smoke. The report was sharp and loud.

  Dusty clutched at his chest and fell to the deck. He made a kind of “Ooof!” sound.

  “You son of a bitch!” I screamed as I scooped up my gun.

  Rollins swung the little belly gun toward me.

  I fired twice and hit him twice. I fired again for Dusty. The bastard had shot Dusty!

  Rollins fell backward, sprawling half over his henchman’s body. One leg kicked up, then he was still.

  I bent over Dusty. “Dusty! Dusty!” I cried.

  I cradled him in my arms. I was about to bawl like a baby.

  Dusty stirred in my arms.

  “Wha—?” He clutched at his chest. “My chest,” he said faintly. “It hurts like hell!”

  I pulled open his shirt. He had a folded wad of dime novels tucked into his front.

  I picked up the wad. Rollins’s bullet was embedded in the books. It had not gone through.

  “It hurts somethin’ powerful,” Dusty said.

  “I ’spect you’re gonna have a good bruise,” I said. “You are one lucky man!”

  He cocked one eye at me and said, “It was th’ rabbit’s foot! I know it was!”

  I wasn’t going to argue.

  It was over. Montana Smith, Kid Bayliss, Bill Smoot, Jasper Rollins. All dead.

  I felt no sense of satisfaction. I felt no sense of justice. What I had done would not bring Abby back. It was just something I had to do. Now I could get on with my life.

  Dusty and I rode west from New Orleans.

  I wondered if I would accept that offer from Angus.

  Or had the passion for vengeance and the gun set me upon a course from which I could not turn back?

  The answer lay on the trail ahead.