Marshal Jeremy Six #7

by Brian Garfield

  They reached the mailbox of the Princess Mine and turned off the main road, going up the narrow wagon drive, winding through scrub mesquite and piles of boulders. Moonlight and the cloudless sky made the road easy to follow. At its end, under the looming shadow of the Mogul Rim, lights winked across the hills—the lights of the Princess Mine, which Amos Krausmeier owned. Krausmeier was a gruff bachelor whose new-found fortune somehow had not made a dent in his ways; he still lived like the pack-burro prospector he had once been. His home was a ramshackle cabin, far less comfortable than the big bunkhouses in which his foreman and crews lived.

  Krausmeier was sitting out front of the house in a rocking chair, easing back and forth, puffing smoke from a pipe. His black hair, salted with gray, stuck up straight from his square head like a curry brush; he had a friendly open face and an easy smile. He welcomed them cordially and said, “I’ll go inside and roust out something for you young folks to set on. Too blamed hot to stay indoors.”

  At his courtly best, Earle helped Lisa down from the buggy before he turned and said, “No need for that, Amos. We won’t stay long.”

  “Hell,” Krausmeier said, “you didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go back.”

  “It’s only four miles,” Earle pointed out. “We just thought we’d drop by.”

  “Mighty sociable of you,” Krausmeier said. Refusing to be dissuaded, he disappeared inside momentarily, and came out with a pair of empty wooden crates. He said apologetically, “Never did get around to fixin’ the place up with much furnishings. Miss Lisa, you take that old rocker, it’s mighty comfy settin’.” He gave her a wink that was half friendly leer. “Ain’t often I get a chance to entertain such a beautiful lady at this shack of mine.”

  Lisa curtsied prettily. “Why, thank you, Amos.”

  Krausmeier laughed. “Don’t be impertinent to your elders, girl. I’m too old to flirt with and not old enough to be treated like a senile crotchet. Not yet, anyhow. There’s a few years left in the old bones yet.”

  Earle said, in an effort to sound casual, “Spending all your evenings up here must get to seem kind of tame after a while, Amos. Nothing much to do, is there?”

  “Oh, I go to town now and then,” Krausmeier said, with a quick glance at Lisa, who understood that he was talking about Fat Annie’s establishment, and understood that he knew she knew. He gave her a mock-lecherous wink and added, “But most of the time I just set around here. Beautiful clear nights up here. You can see a long way out across the desert yonder. Then once in a while I drop by the bunkhouse and take a hand of penny ante draw poker with the boys.”

  “You used to be quite a gambling man, I hear,” said Earle.

  “I used to be a lot of things when I was your age, son. You get to be my age, you slow down some.”

  “Don’t you ever get the itch to get into a big game—now that you can afford it?”

  “Now and then,” Krausmeier admitted. “But you can’t find the likes of that around the Princess bunkhouse. And the three-raise limit they play down to the Drovers Rest, hell, that don’t give a man room to maneuver at all. Better to play for matchsticks than get into a limit game.”

  “There’s a new no-limit game in town,” Earle said in a very idle tone. Lisa gave him a curious glance. He added, “Table stakes. A man can really split wide and howl, if he’s a mind.”

  “You talkin’ about that new gent bought the Tres Candelas?” Krausmeier said. “I hear that’s a pretty rough bunch.”

  “Sid Stratton?” Earle said, astonished. “Why, he’s just a gentleman gambler, Amos. Don’t let that Cat Town location fool you. Matter of fact, I was just on my way to drop Lisa off at Mrs. Dali’s and go on down to Stratton’s myself. Isn’t that right, Lisa?”

  Surprised, she nodded, not speaking. Earle went right on, hurrying:

  “Matter of fact, now that I think of it, why don’t you come along with me, Amos? You might get a kick out of it. That’s a good card game down there. A man could get some real excitement and satisfaction out of a freewheeling game.”

  Krausmeier expelled a ball of pipe smoke into the air. “It’s a thought,” he said. “I ain’t honed my skills in a real game for a good long spell. But I don’t know. What I hear about this Stratton tinhorn, he’d as soon have a man’s guts for guitar strings as look at him. I’m gettin’ a mite old to buck a cardsharp operation.”

  “Oh, hell, Amos, it’s an honest game. If it wasn’t, the marshal would have closed it down long ago. Besides, my father’s played there and I’ve heard him vouch for Sid Stratton. You’ve heard him too, Lisa, isn’t that right?”

  Taken aback, she stared at him for a moment, remembered his remark about green cheese, and said icily, “I don’t recall.”

  Earle gave her a murderous look, turned back to Krausmeier, and said quickly, “Come on along, then. I’ll be in the game too, and if there is any cheating going on—and mind you I can guarantee you there isn’t—but if there is, why you and I between us can sniff it out, I’m sure. How about it, Amos? A night to howl on the town.”

  “Well,” Krausmeier said, banging the bowl of his pipe against his palm, “it’s mighty nice of you to invite me along, Earle. Sure, I don’t see why not. Wait’ll I get my hat.”

  When Krausmeier went inside, Lisa saw the obvious signs of relief on her brother’s face. With a pleased smile he offered her a hand up into the buggy and said, under his breath, “There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “What are you up to?” she said accusingly.

  “Keep your voice down. It’s just a little business deal, like I told you.”

  “At a card game in a Cat Town saloon?”

  “You don’t understand these things. Look, I told him I was dropping you off to call on Mrs. Dali. Is that all right?”

  “Too bad you didn’t think of that earlier. Yes, I suppose it’s all right. What time will you pick me up?”

  “I should be ready to leave by midnight. That too late?”

  “Not for Ginny Dali. She stays up to all hours.”

  “All right. I’ll pick you up around midnight.” He turned, putting on a smile, as Krausmeier came outside tugging a disreputable old hat down over his eyes.

  Smoke hung thick under the low ceiling of the saloons small back room. The room was barely large enough for the octagonal card table, the six players and their chairs. A big lamp hung from center-ceiling above the table, illuminating the players’ faces with stark highlights and cruel shadows.

  The sound of Krausmeier’s sucking on his pipe was loud; there was no other sound in the room. The pot was too big for small talk. Earle peeled up the corners of his two hole cards and glanced nervously at them; in moments of stress he always distrusted his memory. Krausmeier, shrewd and calm, had not looked at his hole cards once since he had put them down after the deal. The sixth card of the seven-card stud game had just been dealt; there was one card to come yet, but it had to be preceded by another round of betting, and the pot already contained several hundred dollars.

  Sid Stratton sat across the table, separated from Krausmeier and Earle by other players. Stratton had folded out of the hand early, and had sat watching unblinkingly ever since.

  Earle’s four face-up cards gave him the highest visible hand on board; it was up to him to bet. He could feel sweat on his palms. He glanced at Stratton, but Stratton was making a point of not looking at him. Finally Earle said, with a casualness belied by the tremor in his voice, “I’ll hit you for twenty bucks, Amos.”

  The next bettor, one of Stratton’s professional dealers, called the bet without remark, tossing a gold double-eagle in the pot. Then it was Krausmeier’s turn. Without expression, Krausmeier said mildly, “Son, I get a feeling you’re trying to buy yourself that last card cheap. Don’t reckon I can let you do that, since I’ve already got my own hand made. You’ll have to pay to see another card. Say about a hundred and fifty on top of your twenty.”

  The other players dropped out, shaking thei
r heads, and it was back to Earle, to drop out, call the bet, or raise back. He had to look at his hole cards again; when he looked up, he had the impression that Sid Stratton had been looking at him, but now Stratton was staring idly at the pot, perhaps counting up the pile of coins and greenbacks.

  Earle had a going-in hand, two spades in the hole and two spades, with two other cards, showing face up. The mathematical odds against his drawing a fifth spade on the final card, to complete his flush, were not good. Four spades had been folded by other players, plus however many spades they may have had in the hole. The chances that Earle would buy the fifth spade were probably not better than eight to one. On the other hand, from the look of the four medium-sized cards showing on Krausmeier’s board, Krausmeier probably had a nine-high straight, and if Earle could make his own flush, the hand would beat Krausmeier’s.

  “You’re called,” Earle said in a taut voice, and pushed one hundred and fifty dollars into the pot.

  The dealer of the hand, a mine superintendent from one of the outfits on the Mogul, picked up the pack and dealt one card each, facedown, to Earle and Krausmeier; they were the only players left in the hand.

  Krausmeier said easily, “Your bet, son.”

  “I’ll check blind,” Earle said. He hadn’t looked at his card yet; he was leaving it up to Krausmeier to bet.

  Krausmeier smiled gently. He had not looked at his new card, either. Without picking it up, he counted greenbacks off his wad, licked his thumb, counted them again, and tossed them into the pot. “Two hundred little old dollars,” he murmured, and gave Earle a sly smile. “Says I got you beat, son.”

  Earle looked at his card. It wasn’t a spade; he hadn’t made his flush. The card was the ace of diamonds. It matched his ace of spades, giving him a pair of aces, but that wasn’t good enough to call Krausmeier’s bet. Krausmeier had to have a straight, that seemed clear.

  Angrily, Earle shook his head and flipped his up-cards over, gathering his hand facedown and tossing it into the discards. “I can’t call you, Amos. Your pot.”

  “Much obliged,” Amos drawled, and gathered in the money.

  Earle said, “What’d you have?”

  “You didn’t pay to find out,” Krausmeier answered amiably. He mixed his cards into the discards and began to shuffle the pack.

  Earle said spitefully, “That’s all right, Amos, we all know you made your straight on the sixth card.”

  Krausmeier made no answer. Earle counted his diminished stack of money on the table. He had only two hundred dollars left—not enough to stay in a big pot, and at table-stakes rules, that meant he could not play unless he had the actual money on the table in front of him. He looked at Stratton and said, “Let me have some cash on my marker.”

  Stratton gave him a lazy contemptuous glance. “All right. Come on back to the office. I’ll get the cash out of the safe.”

  Earle pushed his chair back. “Deal me out this hand,” he said, and followed the saloonkeeper through the door into Stratton’s office. When Stratton closed the door behind them, Earle said, “I guess I’ll need another thousand.”

  “You’re into me for eight thousand now,” Stratton said.

  “Yeah, but you said you’d knock off a thousand for every rich player I brought into the game. Krausmeier makes the fourth.”

  “And you’ve lost the four thousand back again,” Stratton said. “Or don’t you trust my arithmetic? Want me to show you your IOU’s?”

  Earle cursed. “Damn it, I’m just on a bad streak.”

  “Sure you are,” said Stratton, with a curl of his soft upper lip. “Boy, you’ve been taken the way a sheep gets sheared in a wool-cutting contest. Did you have a pair, that last hand?”

  “Pair of aces. But he had a straight. I couldn’t buck that.”

  “Hell, he was bluffing you. He didn’t have a damn thing. If you haven’t figured out how to read Krausmeier’s play by now, you’ve got no business in a game with him.”

  “How do you know he was bluffing?” Earle demanded.

  “I’ve watched how he plays,” was Stratton’s cryptic answer.

  “The hell you have. So have I. He doesn’t give himself away.”

  “Earle,” Stratton said mildly, “his hole cards were the four of spades, the queen of diamonds and the deuce of hearts, which he bought on the last card. He had a queen-high bust.”

  Earle froze. “How do you know what cards he had?” He wheeled toward Stratton. “You’re using marked cards, by Christ.”

  “Am I?” Stratton said smoothly. “You’d have a hard time convincing anybody of that. If I’m using marked cards, then why is it that all your rich friends have been winning steadily?”

  Confused, Earle shook his head. Stratton put his back to the youth, opened the safe, took out a stack of greenbacks and locked the safe. He handed the wad to Earle and said, “Let’s have your IOU for it now.”

  Earle made out his marker and signed it; Stratton said coolly, “That makes nine thousand.”

  “Yeah. What happens if I just walk out and don’t pay you off?”

  “Then these IOU’s go to your old man’s partners in San Francisco. The story gets spread around and pretty soon the scandal will wreck public confidence in your father’s companies. The price of Mainwaring stocks will go down and your whole damned family will go broke. Of course, if that’s what you want, you can just go ahead and renege. But you’re likely to end up in a dark alley somewhere with a knife in your back. I play for keeps, kid.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “I reckon I am,” Stratton said, with a little smile. “But it keeps me amused to watch you rich bastards dance on your toes now and then.”

  Earle cursed and yanked the door open and slammed back into the game room. “Deal me back in,” he demanded, and took his seat.

  The game went on, grim and taut; only Stratton and old Amos Krausmeier seemed calm and easy. Earle lost track of the time. Two players left, diminishing the game to four men—Earle, Amos Krausmeier, Sid Stratton, and Stratton’s house man, whose name was AL Hutton. The pile of money in front of Amos Krausmeier continued to grow steadily; he had won close to five thousand dollars, of which more than a thousand had come from Earle.

  Krausmeier, dealing, called a game of five-card draw. Stratton passed the open. Earle looked at his hand and was excited to see that he had three tens. He opened the betting with one hundred dollars. Hutton, the house man, called the bet. Krausmeier said mildly, “Reckon I’ll just bump you gents a little—say about two hundred on top of your hundred?”

  Stratton called the bet. Earle was tempted to raise again, but that wouldn’t leave him much money on the table; he merely called. Hutton did the same.

  Now, before the draw, there was already a sizable sum in the pot—one thousand, two hundred dollars. Earle watched the draw closely. Stratton replaced three cards; he was obviously drawing to a pair—a high pair, or he wouldn’t have stayed in for three hundred dollars’ worth of bets.

  Earle himself took two cards—and bought a pair of jacks, making his hand a full house, a very good hand indeed. His pulse quickened. Hutton, the house dealer, took one card—probably he had two pair. The odds against his making a full house were prohibitive. Amos Krausmeier smiled gently—and stood pat.

  Stratton said, “Opener bets,” and looked at Earle.

  Earle considered it. From the drawing, it was evident that Krausmeier would be the toughest contestant in the hand. By standing pat, not drawing any replacement cards, Krausmeier was advertising that he had a made hand. Or was he bluffing again? Either way, the chances were that Earle’s hand was better. Krausmeier might be bluffing; he might have a straight, he might have a flush, but Earle’s full house would beat either of those. If Krausmeier had a full house, the chances were still good that Earle’s tens full would be a higher full house than whatever Krausmeier might have. The only hands that would beat Earle were four-of-a-kind, or a straight flush. But if Krausmeier had four-of-a-kind, he would
have drawn one card, just to make the others think he had two pair or something smaller. And the odds against a straight flush were astronomical.

  Earle, confident he had Krausmeier beat soundly, said, “I’ll bet you ten dollars, gentlemen.” It was a tiny bet, tantamount to a pass; but he fully expected Krausmeier to make a big raise, and he wanted the satisfaction of winning after Krausmeier had been the aggressor. Krausmeier’s chagrin would be all the greater if he got whipped by an unexpected opponent.

  The house dealer called the ten-dollar bet. Krausmeier said amiably, “Small potatoes, Earle. Let’s make it five hundred on top of your ten and see where it gets us.”

  Stratton, the next player in turn, immediately folded his hand and sat back. Then it was Earle’s turn. He grinned. “Amos, I’m going to see your five-hundred raise and tap myself out on top of that. I raise you two hundred more.”

  Hutton, the house man, was faced by a seven-hundred-dollar raise. When he folded his hand, it was indication enough that Earle had guessed right: the house man had two pair, not strong enough to see the big raises.

  It left just Krausmeier and Earle in the game. Krausmeier said, “All right, son, seeing as how it’s table stakes and you ain’t got any money left, I’ll just call your raise. What you got that you’re so proud of?”

  Earle stared eagerly at the $2,620 pot. Making an effort to keep his voice calm, he said, “Just a little boat, Amos, tens full.”

  “Ain’t that a shame,” Krausmeier murmured. “And all I got is a little old straight from the deuce to the six. All clubs.”

  “Straight flush,” Hutton murmured in awe.

  Sid Stratton’s lip curled, but he didn’t speak.

  Earle sank back in his chair, hands shaking. “Jesus Christ. I figured you just had to be bluffing.”

  “Me?” Krausmeier laughed and raked in the money. “I never bluff a pat hand, son.” He laughed again. “Well, seeing as how I’ve tapped you gentlemen out pretty good, I think maybe I ought to call it a night.” He filled his pockets and stood up. “Much obliged for the game, gents.”