“Senora, I was born in El Paso, Texas, where the Spanish priests constantly corrected my faulty Mexican Spanish. Senora, I regret that the captain failed to tell me your name?”
“I am Maria Rozas, the sister of Teresita’s father.”
Throughout the entire meal, Teresita spoke only to Maria Rozas who would then relate it to Daniel even though she knew that he had heard and understood every word Teresita had said.
Daniel had heard of duennas and their duties but he had never encountered one before. He understood that it was regarded as shocking for a respectable unmarried girl to speak to an unrelated man. Daniel thought that this might have been a custom brought down from the days when Spain was ruled by the Muslim moors.
When dinner was over, Daniel bowed to the two ladies and returned to the card tables.
On this occasion, the Colonel who called himself Cajun was in evidence and he deliberately approached Daniel and said.
“Mr Beauregard, would you be any relation to General PGT Beauregard?”
“None at all, sir, not to my certain knowledge.”
“Ah, pity, I was hoping that you might have known or have a connection to General Robert E Lee.”
“I know General Lee very well indeed. What do you want of him?”
“General Lee has a mighty powerful standing in Texas and I wanted to persuade him to endorse a project I have to combine cotton plantations into a single large business corporation in which everyone in the south could buy shares. It could go a long way toward restoring the economy of the Southlands.”
“It sounds exciting, sir, but I do not know General Lee’s whereabouts at the moment. As an individual he is not as easy to locate as he was when he had an army around him.”
“Ha ha ha! Yes, indeed, I take your point! You are a gambler, sir and may I say you play a superb game, is it possible that I may interest you in my project?”
“Sir, I have just fought a long and bitter war. Right at the moment, all I want to do is find myself a nice place to settle down. I shall need all my financial resources for that.”
“Oh, what a pity.”
Daniel noticed that Cajun waited for him to be seated before he chose another table at which to play.
Daniel held back in his play for a long while as he memorized the pattern of the cards. The other players that had not already sacrificed a good deal of their money to him earlier in the day, thought him to be a timid player. When he felt he had a good idea of where the cards lay he began to make his final play of the evening. This was sheer bluff on his part, his face cards showed two kings but his hidden cards were a two, a four and a nine all of different suites. From his recollection only one man had three Jacks and he could not see any of the others that were still in making a winnable hand from what they had showing. Daniel had won fourteen hundred that day and he used it all to scare out the man with the three jacks leaving him with two players that were also bluffing and had more money than sense. When the cards were turned Daniel was surprised to see that both of his opponents had pairs, one had two queens and the other had two fives. You cannot keep track of every card in the pack, Daniel thought philosophically as he collected his winnings.
Daniel took a stroll down to steerage to see how Jack was faring.
“How are the horses, Jack?”
“They are both fine, sir. I checked them after supper. These people do not seem to know about rice. All they serve is potatoes and corn.”
“We will not be long aboard Jack and then you can get back to cooking your rice. Is your cabin comfortable enough? “
“I have to share it with three others. All three are drunk most of the time but apart from snoring, they do not bother me.”
“As I said before, I am sorry that I cannot join you but I cannot play poker from out of steerage and someone has to watch the horses.”
Jack had become quite adept with the horses. He even rode tolerably well. Daniel had bought him a pinto pony with five gaits that made riding easier for him. Ex-army horses were flooding the market and prices had collapsed.
On the following morning, Daniel rose early and went out on the deck to find Teresita Rozas alone by the rail watching the paddle-wheel.
“Good day senorita Rozas, I hope that you slept well.” He said in Spanish to her, expecting her to ignore him.
She did not. “Thank you senor, I slept well as I trust that you did.”
“Yes, I have just spent several years in the army; one learns to sleep anywhere.”
“Ah, and with which army were you, senor?” she asked prettily.
“I was with both actually.” He said without thinking how ridiculous that sounded.
“With both? Senor, you are making fun of me. I know that I am merely a woman but I am not stupid! If you do not wish to converse with me I shall withdraw!”
Before he could raise a defense, she flounced off the deck leaving him feeling bewildered.
He went into breakfast and was relieved that the two Spanish ladies did not put in an appearance. By that time he had analyzed what he had said to Teresita and realized that she could only conclude that he was making fun of her or else he was a gibbering idiot. No other woman had ever had this effect upon him.
When he entered the saloon, several games were already in play. One of them had even continued through the night. Daniel had never felt that sort of compulsion to play, poker was a means of making money, it was not a pastime nor was it an obsession.
He observed the largest game for a few hours before he took the seat of a retiring player. Daniel looked at his cards and glanced at the dealer. It was another of the professional players, which he had noticed on the previous day, named Mr Benson by one of the players. He had been dealt two aces showing and two aces and a two of clubs hidden. Again this was not in accordance with the pattern Daniel had memorized. He glanced at the show cards before Benson: a king of clubs with a ten of clubs. Again, a ploy to get the sucker to bid up on a sure thing when the professional knew that he had a royal flush.
Daniel had half-decided to throw in his hand when suddenly he changed his mind and opened the bidding high, just as the gambler had expected him to. Benson perked up in expectation of a good score. Daniel pushed up the second round and reached over to place his chips in the pot and ‘accidentally’ flicked one of his hidden cards with the edge of his sleeve directly into the cards before Benson.
“Oh hell! Excuse me sir!” Daniel said and immediately rescued his errant card. Nobody thought anything of it. No-one, not even Benson had seen him remove one of Benson’s cards and replace it with the two of clubs.
Benson gleefully upped the betting as other players lost heart and folded. Benson pushed it to the limit and called. He flipped his cards over eagerly and went red in the face when he saw that his royal flush had been converted into a flush and Daniel’s four of a kind had beaten him.
“But, that was not my card!” Benson blustered. “I had that nine of clubs!”
“You-all musta misread it, sir. It’s there plain as the nose on your face.” The next dealer said as he collected the cards.
“No, wait a minute, something is wrong here. I definitely had that nine of clubs.”
“A gentleman accepts when he has lost, sir.” Another player said.
Benson stood up. “You cheated me!” He said pointing at Daniel.
Daniel pushed his chair away from the table exposing the pistol already in his hand.
“Excuse me sir, all this shouting tends to deafen me. Could you please repeat what you just said?” Daniel said mildly.
Benson glanced at the pistol. “I definitely had that nine of clubs.” He said defensively.
“Now sir do you remember who dealt those cards?” Daniel asked him patiently.
“I did, of course, I ought to know what cards I had.”
>
“So you are saying that you knowingly dealt yourself a royal flush?” The new dealer asked in a menacing tone.
“No! No! But I saw my cards before the betting started. I had the nine.”
“Wishful thinking sir, you might have had a case if Mr Beauregard had been the dealer but he was not, you were. As I see it, either you dealt yourself a royal flush in which case you cheated or else you were mistaken and took the two for a nine, which is it to be?”
Benson paused for no more than a moment. “I guess I musta been mistaken.” He withdrew from the game. He could not very well have continued. He had been cleaned out.
It had been a remarkably profitable trip for Daniel, he had cleared over five thousand dollars. He began to see why his father had been so fond of traveling on the river but Daniel had encountered two professional gamblers here and either one could have been a fast gun besides being a cardsharp. Daniel realized that if he continued in this manner he could easily end up as dead as his father.
Chapter Twenty Seven
He stayed away from the saloon from then until they reached New Orleans. He spent a lot of time on the promenade deck in the hope of seeing Teresita Rozas but neither she nor her duenna came on deck when he was there and they either took meals in their cabin or waited until he had left the table before eating.
Daniel disembarked with Jack and the horses and he was only in time to see the Spanish girl enter a carriage and be driven from the dock.
Daniel banked his winnings before they set out for Vermilionville.
Wherever they looked fields were lying fallow and there was a dearth of animals in those fields. Prices were high on most essential commodities.
Daniel pulled up at a general store since their stock of horse-feed was running low. The horses being unable to graze on board the riverboat had eaten far more than anticipated of the grain rations that they carried.
“Good morning sir, would you have any horse feed in stock?” He asked the store-owner.
“Git that theah high-yaller outta mah store! This ain’t no nigger shop no-how!”
“Sir, that gentleman is a pure bred Chinese man from China. He is not a mulatto or a negro.”
“Don’t make no never-mind! This heah store is fer white-folks ‘n’ onny white-folks.”
Daniel wanted horse feed not trouble.
“Jack, please go wait by the horses. I’ll be out shortly.” Jack nodded and went.
“That theah chinee, he unnerstand ornery English?”
“Yes sir, he was brought up by Christian missionaries.”
“Waal iffen that don’t beat all. I got a coupla sacks o’ hoss feed. You-all want ‘em?”
“Sure, how much?”
“Five dollars!”
“Wow, one of my horses didn’t cost that much.”
“Folks’re sick o’ horsemeat but hogs ‘n’ dogies eat hoss feed jes’ fine. You-all want’em ‘r not?”
Daniel handed over his five dollars and lugged the bags outside where Jack took them over and secured them on the horses’ backs.
“That man was not too friendly.” Jack remarked as they rode on.
“The poor whites are most afraid of the darkies. They say that darkies work for less than they do and get all the jobs. It is going to take a lot of years to get people to treat the blacks like people instead of sub-humans.”
They rode on until just before darkness fell and found a suitable spot to set up a camp.
Jack happily cooked a fried rice meal and made some of the first genuine coffee that they had tasted in well over a year.
“Daniel,” Jack had been instructed to stop calling him ‘sir’ and certainly not ‘General’ or ‘Mister’ Beauregard. “Where do we go from here?”
“Ultimately, I am going to El Paso but I have a friend in Waco that I want to look up so we will be going there first.”
“This friend: did you know him during the war?”
“Yes, I left him there in Waco. He had been wounded and I had to get on with my mission.”
Jack shrugged. “I thought that you were trying to put the war behind you?”
“I am but that does not mean that I must put my friends behind me just because I knew them during the war. You will like Pierre Chamont. He was a restaurant chef in New Orleans. He will show you how to cook the Cajun way. They even use rice in their meals.”
Jack pulled his blanket over him. “Goodnight Daniel I am glad that you have a friend that knows something about cooking civilized meals.”
They rode on the next day. Daniel took a leisurely pace because he was enjoying the peaceful countryside even if it looked forlorn and deserted.
They rounded a bend in the road and found themselves looking up the barrels of two rifles.
The men holding the rifles had bandanas pulled up over their noses and hats pulled down to shade their eyes. They were wearing long dustcoats over their clothing.
But Daniels eyes fell upon their boots and he knew who they were.
“Throw down your pistol and climb down from your horses.” The taller of the two called out.
Daniel had been caught by surprise. His pistol had been twisted around to his back for greater comfort while riding and both hands were resting on the horn of his saddle with the reins wrapped around them. He reacted quite calmly and spoke up.
“Well bless my soul if it is not Mister Cajun and Mister Benson. Have you come looking to play another round of poker? You sure have come a long way to do it.”
“How in hell does this guy know who we are?”
“Shut up Benson! Get off that horse Beauregard. We’ve come to get our money back. We sure don’t take to having our money taken off us by a card sharp.”
“Me the card sharp? I think you gentlemen have our roles a little twisted here.” Daniel looked relaxed and at ease but while he was talking he was working his pistol holster closer to his right hand. He might have been expecting no trouble but long habit ensured that his pistol was loaded and ready for use.
Jack had taken his cue from Daniel and was also still sitting on his horse.
“Stop stalling Beauregard. Where is the money?” The money was in the bank in New Orleans but Daniel said: “It is in my bed roll. I’ll get it for you.” and he turned to the right as if to untie the rolled blanket but instead he used the movement to pull out his pistol with a speed only rivaled by his card-handling.
The gun seemed to leap into his hand and fire at the same moment. His first bullet struck Cajun in the right shoulder spinning him so that he fell off his horse and his second bullet took Benson in the midriff but only because Benson’s horse had jinked sideways at the sound of the first shot. Benson slumped off his horse.
Jack was off his horse in a trice as he snapped up the two fallen rifles.
“Take a look at the shorter one, Jack. See how he is.”
Jack did a quick inspection. “He is in a bad way, Daniel. I do not think that he will survive.”
“And the tall one?”
“He will live but I do not think he will use his right arm very much from now on.”
“That’s going to be a blow. No more card-sharping for him.”
Jack bound up Cajun’s shoulder and heaved him back onto his horse but it was too late to do anything for Benson: he was already dead.
“Listen to me Cajun. You’ve got two choices you can ride off now and find someone to tend to your shoulder or I can take you to the nearest town and hand you over to the sheriff. What’s your choice?”
Cajun could hardly talk through his gritted teeth but he did manage to say? “No sheriff!”
Daniel let him go. “I was fairly certain that he would have some sort of record with the law, Jack. The way I see it he will be punished enough with a damaged right arm. He will find makin
g any sort of a living very difficult.”
Benson’s horse was still with them and, as it was a fine-looking animal, Daniel decided to take it with them as a packhorse.
They continued peacefully on their way until they reached Vermilionville.
“We will stay indoors tonight for a change, Jack.” Daniel said as he dismounted in front of the saloon. They walked in together and Daniel asked for two rooms for the night.
“Ain’t no problem ‘bout a room fer you-all, sah but ah cain’t accommodate that theah high-yaller. Fact is, he ain’t even allowed through that theah doah.” The desk clerk said eyeing Daniel’s well-worn pistol.
“In that case forget about the room. We will go elsewhere but you should know that this gentleman is not a mulatto but a full-bred Chinese man.”
The clerk made no comment but was vastly relieved when Daniel turned and walked out with Jack.
“Jack, I saw a good camp site just before we came into town. Let’s go back there and camp. You make something for us to eat for when I get back. I saw a poker game in that saloon and I think that I will go take a look at it.”
After he had helped Jack set up camp, Daniel saddled Benson’s horse to give Star a well-earned rest and returned to the saloon.
The game was draw poker and the stakes were low. Vermilionville, like the rest of the south, was still suffering from the effects of the war.
Daniel stayed watching in the hope that some dealer might opt for stud poker but no-one did. Daniel had watched for over an hour and was beginning to get the pattern of the cards when a large man with a metal star pinned to his vest tapped him on the shoulder. “Would you be Mr Beauregard, sir?”
“Yes sir, I am.”
“Ah’m placin’ you under arrest, sir, fer the murder of Japhet Benson and fer armed robbery. Unbuckle yore gunbelt and hand it ter me.”
Daniel did as he was told and was marched to the town jail.
“Sheriff, do I get a lawyer and may I apply for bail?”
“Ain’t no bail on a murder charge in this heah county, Beauregard but you-all c’n have a lawyer. Ain’t but one in this heah town.”
The Texican Way Page 20