The Silver Shooter

by Erin Lindsey

It probably goes without saying that I’d never played poker in my life.

  Mam had a strict Catholic aversion to cards of any sort, which she’d done her best to enforce. I knew twenty-one—show me a servant who doesn’t—and the special branch taught us whist and euchre, the better to blend in among high-society households. But that was the extent of my education, and something told me none of it was going to be all that helpful just now.

  “All right,” Sam said, dealing the cards. “Ask your questions. But first, you’re the big blind, Englishman. That’s a dollar.”

  That sounded awfully steep to me, but Thomas didn’t bat an eye, dropping his chips cheerfully onto the table. That made it my turn, but when I started to reach for my chips, Thomas lifted his fingertips ever so slightly off the table.

  Don’t.

  That puzzled me. Hadn’t he wanted me to play? But I trusted my partner, so I pushed my cards away. “Fold.”

  “What, already?” Thomas laughed. “Dear me. Watch and learn, Miss Gallagher, watch and learn.” It was completely unlike him to be so condescending, which meant he was sending me a message. His gaze skipped over the other players one by one. Watch them. Learn them.

  Now that was a game I knew how to play. And in the meantime … “I suppose I’ll handle the questions, then. Were all of you acquainted with Mr. Upton?”

  “Abner and me knew him pretty good,” Sam said, gesturing at Black Hat. “Enoch … you’d have played with him now and then, I guess. Jake here was still living in Denver, so he’s no good to you.” He raked out three cards and turned them faceup.

  “Does the name Kit mean anything to you?”

  He snorted. “Cousin Kit? Sure.”

  That set me back a step. “He and Upton were relatives?”

  “Guess so. He never got into the details. Just kept going on about how Cousin Kit was a pain in his nethers.”

  “Which made him a pain in everybody’s nethers,” Abner put in. “Had to listen to Ben’s bellyaching damn near every night.”

  I watched the players carefully as the betting went around, and they watched each other, looking for clues about their opponents’ hands. They were detectives too, of a sort. I could get to like this game, I thought. Mam would be horrified.

  “Did he ever describe Kit?” I asked. “What he looked like, for example? Or maybe his last name? Anything specific?”

  “Naw, nothing like that.” Sam flipped another card faceup. “Something you gotta understand about Ben Upton. Most of the time, he didn’t have two words to rub together, least when he was sober. Then, every night about six, he’d amble in here, get a few drops of rye in his gullet, and it’d be like somebody uncorked a bad bottle and let it all come fizzing out. We just let him yammer, long as he kept the pot nice ’n’ shiny.”

  I’ll bet you did. Rich, drunk, compulsive … Upton would have been ideal prey for Sam and his friends.

  And speaking of ideal prey … “I believe I shall go all in,” Thomas said brightly, adding his silver belt buckle to the pile.

  Sam’s mouth quirked. “Feeling lucky?”

  “Chance has very little to do with it. It’s a question of probability, as I said.”

  I wasn’t sure if Thomas was in earnest, but if so, he’d miscalculated. I’d seen the way Texas Sam eyed the cards in front of him, and though his expression hadn’t changed, I could tell he liked what he saw. He’d looked at those cards just the same way he looked at the Patek Philippe: fixed and focused, without a single blink.

  Even if I’d worked out a way to signal Thomas, it was too late. He’d already made his bet, and a moment later, my intuition proved out. “Three queens,” Sam declared, and Thomas’s silver buckle disappeared into his pocket.

  Thomas sighed. “It would appear that my calculations were flawed. I shall have to be more conservative in future.”

  “That mean you got something else to play with?” Texas Sam was feeling mighty pleased with himself. He had a wolfish gleam in his eye now.

  “Let’s start with these, shall we?” Thomas removed one of his emerald cufflinks and added it to the pot. “This gets me through to the river. Agreed?”

  The cards were dealt again. This time, I was the big blind, which meant I had no choice but to play. I put down my dollar and tried not to look worried.

  “Now, then,” said Thomas, “where were we? You say you don’t recall anything specific, but if Upton was as loquacious as you suggest, he must have had his favored themes.”

  Sam shrugged. “Just the sorta thing any man might say about a cousin he didn’t get on with. How Kit was jealous of him. How he didn’t have no talent of his own. Weren’t nothing but a bummer. So forth and suchlike.”

  “Sounded to me like they was close once upon a time,” Abner put in. “And Ben had some ghosts about it.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Some of the things he said … It reminded me of a feller drowning his sorrows after he just buried his mean cuss of a daddy or something. You know, like he’s got his regrets, but he don’t wanna face ’em, so he just sits there rambling to anybody who’ll listen how that sumbitch got what was coming to him.”

  Like he felt guilty about something. It would explain the drinking, and the obsessive grumbling too. “Does that mean you think Kit’s dead?”

  “Naw. He’s down in Deadwood. Least he was back then.”

  “Yeah, but…” Sam leaned back in his chair and scratched his muttonchops, eying the newly revealed cards. “I think he mighta moved up here at one point. I’ve a notion that’s what set ol’ Ben off that night. You boys remember—when he knocked the table over?”

  “Tell us more about that,” I said.

  “Sure thing. Just as soon as you bet.”

  I glanced down at my cards. As far as I could tell, all I had was a pair of tens. I knew that was something, but I doubted it would be enough.

  I must have hesitated for too long, because Sam said, “You wanna keep asking questions, you’re gonna have to play.”

  I matched Abner’s bet. “There. I’m playing. Now, you said you thought Kit might have come to Medora. What gave you that impression?”

  “Don’t recall the particulars, but he said something about how the good Lord couldn’t even give him one whole month without seeing Kit’s ugly mug. How Kit was following him around like a dog, eating scraps from his table.”

  “Scraps from his table? What does that mean? Was Kit a prospector too?”

  “Couldn’t tell you what line he was in. Far as table scraps go, Ben was talking about some old ranch house his cousin moved into. I guess Ben, he had his eye on it first, but he passed it over. Now here was his cousin moving in there, like he was trying to buy it out from under him. You ask me, that’s what drove him off.”

  “Sam here don’t think Ben’s dead,” Abner explained with a toothless grin. “He keeps hoping Ben’ll come back one day and sweeten the pot like he used to.”

  He’s dead, all right. I saw him myself. As for who killed him, Cousin Kit was sounding more and more like our man. Following Upton around like a dog … He must have known his cousin was lucky, and from the sounds of things, it was an issue between them.

  By this point, most of the players had folded, but not Texas Sam. He raised yet again. “Whaddya say to that, Englishman?”

  “Regrettably, I must withdraw.” Thomas pushed his cards away. “The odds simply aren’t in my favor.”

  Sam looked down at the pot, fixing that unblinking stare of his on Thomas’s emerald cuff link. He could practically taste the gold between his teeth, I knew. “Guess that leaves me ’n’ you, little lady.”

  I had two pairs now, which still didn’t seem like much. I’d have folded, emerald cuff link or no, but I was afraid that would bring the interview to an abrupt end, and I wasn’t quite through. “Where was this place?” I asked, throwing in the rest of my chips. “The ranch house Kit moved into?”

  Sam frowned. “Ain’t I answered enough questions? I’m try
ing to play here.”

  “A deal’s a deal. I play, you talk.”

  He sighed impatiently. “Alls I know is, Ben thought it was real funny. Ironic, like. Said Kit was only squatting there ’cause he thought Ben had his eye on it, but the joke was on Kit, ’cause Ben had given it the once-over and it weren’t worth a nickel. Called it a fitting place for a feller who turned out to be nothing but a disappointment. I guess he told Kit he could go ahead and rot there, and they was through.”

  A final falling-out. That’s probably what pushed Kit over the edge. He was our killer. I was sure of it. And I was equally sure that we’d got about all we could out of Texas Sam and his friends. “Speaking of through … Shall we show our cards?”

  “We ain’t done here. I raise you ten dollars.”

  Thomas tsked. “For shame, sir. The lady is a novice. There’s no need to bully her into submission.”

  “That’s the game, mister.”

  Two pairs is something, isn’t it? Better than one pair, surely? Biting my lip and praying my instincts were right, I slid my precious hairpin across the table.

  Sam flashed a tight smile. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  They’d put that on my tombstone, and no mistake.

  “All right, then, I’ll raise you this bit of silver.” He took out Thomas’s belt buckle and dropped it loudly on the table. “Too bad you can’t match it.”

  “In fact, she can.” Thomas produced the Patek Philippe. “This will more than cover it.”

  Oh, Thomas, what are you doing? I knew how much he loved that watch. And I also knew Sam had been trying to get it into the pot since the first card was dealt. What if he’d been playing me this whole time?

  Sam sat very still for a moment. Then he said, “No staking.”

  That’s when I knew I had him. And so did everybody else.

  Abner burst out laughing. “Since when? You let Ben stake you when that fancy Chicago gambler came through.”

  “Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” Enoch agreed with a yellow-toothed grin. They’d been humbled by Texas Sam one too many times, it seemed, and were eager to see the tables turned. “Go on, then. Lay ’em out.”

  With trembling hands, I turned over my cards. And Texas Sam? He swore a streak that would have made any Five Pointer blush. Because he was a bully, and he figured he could bluff some greenhorn little girl with a pair of fours. But I’d seen the way he looked at that river of cards. His eyes, his posture, even his ridiculous facial hair had told me everything I needed to know.

  The other players whooped with laughter—all except Thomas, who sat perfectly solemn. As for me, I gathered my winnings as quickly as I could, figuring we’d better skedaddle before we found ourselves in our third shootout of the day.

  As soon as we were outside, Thomas let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Will you think less of me if I confess how thoroughly I enjoyed that?”

  “I’d be a hypocrite if I did.”

  “That was profitable in every way. We have a name for our killer at last, to go along with our motive. All we need now is a location.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “And I have an idea about how we can get that, too.”

  CHAPTER 21

  A TRIO OF DISAPPOINTMENTS—CATHOLIC GIRLS AND ENGLISH GENTLEMEN—HERD MENTALITY

  “Simply brilliant,” Thomas said as we climbed the stairs at the hotel. “You handled him perfectly. Have you truly never played poker before, or was that just part of the act?”

  “Never. But that look you gave me said to trust you, so…” I shrugged, still unable to wipe the grin off my face.

  “Not at all. It said to trust yourself. You are singularly gifted at reading people, Rose. I had every confidence that if I played the decoy, you would handle the rest.”

  “Which you did masterfully. Say…” I spun to face him at the top of the stairs. “Maybe we’re on the wrong side of all this. I’ll bet we could have a brilliant career as confidence artists.”

  What can I say? Our success had quite gone to my head.

  Nor was I the only one, judging from the glassy look in Thomas’s eye. “There’s a thought,” he murmured, mounting the last stair abruptly and bringing his face within inches of mine. “Shall we use my room?”

  “P-pardon?”

  “We ought to confer, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “By all means, let us … confer.”

  Thomas showed me in and set about preparing the stove and kettle. “At last, some real progress, largely thanks to you. You really have come such a long way, Rose.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  He smiled, slipping his fingers casually through mine. “I don’t know about that, but you’ve certainly been an excellent student. Soon, there won’t be anything left for me to teach you.”

  “I can think of a few things.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and a fierce blush scalded my cheeks. Thomas’s color came up too, a flash of pink beneath his dark beard. His fingers tightened around mine, and the look that came into his eyes sent a delicious shiver down my spine.

  The kettle whistled. Thomas made tea. We tried to act like professionals.

  “All right,” he said, settling into a chair across from me. “Let’s hear your idea.”

  I blew on my tea, stalling. He wasn’t going to like it, but I didn’t see any alternative. “Now that we know the killer is Upton’s cousin, it seems to me that the quickest way to find him is—”

  “No.” Thomas set his teacup down, instantly grave. “We discussed this. Consulting the ghost is far too dangerous.”

  “But it would tell us everything we need to know.”

  “Far from certain. And even if it did, the risks are unacceptable. Need I remind you what happened the other night? You very nearly slipped under forever.”

  “But I didn’t, because you were there to wake me.”

  “Rose.” He closed his eyes and made a steeple of his hands. “I don’t think you quite understand. The effects of these interactions are cumulative. Each one drags your mind a little further down the path to madness. That’s assuming the ghost’s intentions are benevolent. If they are not, and he chooses to try to bind you inside the dream, there will be virtually nothing I can do to stop it. You could be lost forever.”

  I took a swallow of tea, but it did nothing to banish the sudden chill. He was right: I hadn’t really understood. “But we’re so close.”

  “All the more reason not to stumble now. We’ve already wired for a medium. I expect we’ll hear back from the Agency tomorrow, and then—”

  “And then it will take days for someone to make the journey. How many people will die in the meantime? Mauled by the creature, or shot, or at the end of a rope? How much time does Two Horses have left? He’s been in that jail for more than a day already, and the longer he sits there, the more likely it is—”

  “I share your frustration, but that’s no excuse for being reckless with your life.”

  “What about the Agency? Maybe they could dig up something on Kit.”

  “Doubtful. Tracking down a small-town attorney is one thing, but a drifter lately of Deadwood?” Thomas shook his head. “We’ll ask, but I wouldn’t expect much.”

  I growled, grinding the heels of my hands into my eyes. “That ranch house Kit moved into … I’d bet my eyeteeth that’s the cabin I saw in my dream.” Which probably meant he’d been living somewhere nearby this whole time, probably under an assumed name. “If only we had a likeness of him, we could show it around town.”

  “Are you sure you can’t recall his face from your dream?”

  “I’ve tried and tried. It’s almost as if Upton didn’t want to remember him.”

  Thomas sighed. “It certainly sounds as if they had a complicated relationship. Upton reads like a man carrying a considerable amount of guilt.”

  “And anger. That business with the cabin is downright spiteful.” What was it he’d said?
A fitting place for someone who was nothing but a …

  Wait a minute.

  “Ah.” Thomas sat back in his chair. “I know this look well. Take your time.” He sipped his tea.

  I grabbed the journal we’d taken from the safe and started flipping through, scanning for a single word.

  “Something you read earlier?”

  “Here it is. Another day, another disappointment. Had such high hopes for this spot, but it didn’t prove out. That’s three now, but I ain’t gonna let it get to me. Disappointment’s part of the game, and I got a good feeling about number four.” I glanced up. “Can we take a look at Upton’s things again?”

  “Certainly.” Thomas fetched the bundle, and the two of us stood over the bed as he emptied it out with a clink of glass.

  “Three soil samples,” I said, picking up one of the jars we’d taken from the cabin near Painted Canyon. “Three disappointments.”

  “He must have been attempting to pinpoint the precise location of the gold he was sensing.”

  “That ranch house Kit moved into … According to Texas Sam, Upton had already given the place the once-over and decided it was worthless. A disappointment. What would you like to bet that one of these samples comes from that property?”

  “I shouldn’t like to bet at all. I think you’re probably right.”

  In which case … I turned the jar in my hand, watching the earth fall against the glass. “We hoped this might help us trace Upton’s movements, but maybe Mr. Burrows can do something even more useful with it.”

  A slow smile spread across Thomas’s face. “It’s certainly worth trying. And he has been practicing.”

  “Practicing?” I raised my eyebrows. As far as I knew, the only arts Jonathan Burrows practiced were cognac and women.

  “Hard to credit, I know, but the Foster case finally convinced him that his gift could be of some use. His luck is a good deal more refined than it once was. With a little patience, he ought to be able to track down the source of these soil samples.”

  “Which hopefully leads us to the cabin I saw in my dream.”

  “And our killer. A long shot, perhaps, but we’ve cracked cases with less.”