by J. T. Edson
So the game of chance that was taking place in Charles Wagon’s tack-room was unusual. However, only one of the participants was British.
Although Stanley “Slick” Markey was one of the most dishonest jockeys ever to avoid being ‘stood down5 by the Stewards of the Jockey Club for his misdemeanors, 38 he had a curiously blind spot where other forms of gambling were concerned. A wiser man would have avoided becoming involved in a fast action game of chance for high stakes with which he had not previously come into contact. Yet, on the surface, the game of “craps” 39 had seemed so simple when watching his American colleagues that he could not resist joining in.
Basically, the game was simple. A player, known as the “shooter” threw two dice. If the numbers on their upper surfaced totaled seven or eleven, a “natural”, it was a winning decision and called a “pass”. Throwing the numbers two, three, or twelve, “craps”, was a losing decision and termed a “missout”. Should the result be a four, five, six, eight, nine, or ten, that number became the “shooter”s’ “point”. He then continued to throw until repeating his point effected a winning decision. However, if he threw a seven before he made his “point”, he lost.
Before making his first throw, the “shooter” placed whatever sum he wished on the playing surface, showing he wanted to wager that he would make a “pass”. Any of the other players who were so inclined could cover the amount he had put down to back their belief that he would “missout”. If a “point” number appeared, the “shooter” neither won nor lost. Instead, he continued to throw until he repeated his “point” or a seven appeared.
There was, Markey had soon discovered, vastly more to craps than that. One could wager in a variety of ways among the other players and was not restricted to ‘fading’, covering the amount put down by the “shooter”. Experimenting with the various forms of bets had proved costly. Nor had his attempts to recoup by doubling the amount previously wagered after each loss helped him out of his difficulties. Rather the opposite.
Apart from the “shooter”, all of the eight men gathered around the blanket covered table were clearly jockeys. Their small size, ages and the way they were dressed was evidence that they had risen over the rank of stable lad or apprentice. Just under six foot in height, the exception loomed above them. Attired after the fashion of a British farm laborer, he was burly and had a hard, vicious face. His harsh mid- western twang as he made his challenge while shaking the dice suggested that his appearance was deceptive. So did the big .45 Colt 1917 revolver thrust into his waist band.
‘Not me,’ declared Bucky Borofin, from Markey’s side, in his lazy Southern drawl. ‘You’re way too hot for me, Kinch’’
‘I don’t fade-a nobody who makes six-a passes in a row,’ Angelo Pirelli went on, his Italian-American accent at odds with his blond hair. ‘That’s-a too lucky for me.’
Staring down at the pile in front of Stanton Kinch, Markey ran the tip of his tongue around his lips. There was greed and a calculating glint in his shifty eyes as he considered the statement made by the New York Italian jockey. Six times in a row, Kinch had thrown a “natural”. He was allowed to continue “shooting” until the dice produced either a “point” or a “missout”. To Markey’s way of thinking, the odds were greatly against him ‘shooting’ a seventh “natural” in succession.
‘I … I’ll fade you!’ the English jockey announced, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘If you’ll take my marker.’
Markey was already adopting the other players’ term for an I.O.U.
‘That’ll be over fifteen hundred pounds—or whatever you call ’em—that you’re in for, Slick,’ warned Ivan Drobsky, whose reputation on American race courses was almost the equivalent of Markey’s in England.
‘I’m good for it!’ Markey snapped.
‘You’d better be, seeing as most of it’s to me,’ Kinch growled, continuing to shake the dice. ‘Do you want it?’
‘I said I’d fade you!’ Markey spat back.
‘Come seven!’ Kinch chanted and his right hand shot forward.
Bouncing across the blanket, the two dice came to a halt in front of the English jockey. Almost sick with disappointment, he saw that one upper face showed three spots and the other four.
‘And a “natural” it is, gents,’ Drobsky announced. ‘Hard luck, Slick. You’re still shooter, Ki—!’
So engrossed had the players been in what was going on that none of them had noticed the door of the tack-room open. However, turning his gaze from Markey to Kinch, Drobsky became aware that a newcomer was present. What was more, studying the way he was clad, the New England jockey realized that he was a stranger. Noticing how Drobsky was behaving, the others turned their heads to follow his gaze.
‘Who the he—?’ Kinch began, taking in the comparatively small size, youth and Western attire of the man who had entered, and letting his right hand move towards the butt of the black Colt.
‘I’d forget that, was I you,’ advised the young Texan who had been given a ride into Little Venner by Beryl Snowhill.
Gently as the words were spoken, they seemed to carry a greater menace than if they had been shouted violently. The Texan had advanced until he was about fifteen feet from the table before his presence was detected. Halting as soon as he was seen, he balanced on spread apart feet. His hat was dangling on his shoulders by its barbiquejo chin strap. While his left hand grasped and drew open the side of his jacket, the right was pointing towards it.
Not only had Kinch’s words been brought to a halt, his hand’s movement towards the revolver ended well clear of it. Suddenly^ in some way he could not fathom out, he felt he was no longer looking at a small interloper. It seemed that the newcomer had grown, become very large and was charged with an aura of deadly menace.
‘You’d best listen to him, Kinch,’ Borofin drawled.
‘Do you know him, Bucky?’ Drobsky inquired.
‘I’ll say I do,’ Borofin confessed, with an air of satisfied self-importance. ‘He’s Rapido Clint.’
‘Rapido Clint?’ Kinch ejaculated, staring with even greater intensity at the newcomer. ‘Is that right?’
‘You-all try taking out that hog-leg, hombre,’ the Texan suggested, still in the same quiet and yet somehow menace-filled tone. ‘And I’ll right soon give you the answer.’
‘Go on, Kinch-boy,’ grinned Borofin, having no liking for the burly man. ‘I could be wrong, seeing’s how I only had him pointed out to me the one time when I was riding in a meeting down to San Antone.’ 40
‘Hey!’ the bald Link Gruber put in, his Pacific North-West accent showing excitement. ‘I’ve heard about you, Mr. Clint. You wiped out all the Mendez gang down in Texas, then cut the legs from under the O’Brien bunch when they wouldn’t pay you for doing it.’
‘Now don’t that just show you-all how things get all exaggerated,’ the Texan drawled, without taking his eyes from Kinch’s face. ‘Shucks, I didn’t but put blue windows in ‘Lonzo Mendez, Mick O’Brien and maybe three each of their boys afore the rest was up and running.’
‘Then, from what I heard,’ the burly man growled, having his reputation for toughness to consider and feeling he should demonstrate it. ‘That there “Cap” Fog of the Texas Rangers ran you clear down into Mexico.’
‘That’s what you-all heard, huh, hombre!’
Giving no prior warning of his intentions, either by a look or the tone of his voice, the Texan moved far faster than he was speaking. Gliding forward while he was talking, he lashed his right arm around and up almost simultaneously with the word hombre. Clenching as it rose, the back of his fist crashed against the bottom of Kinch’s jaw. Small the newcomer might be, but he was clearly very strong. Taken unawares, the force of the blow sent Kinch spinning away from the table to sprawl on his hands and knees. Spitting out obscenities, he rolled until he was sitting up. Then, glaring at his assailant—who was several feet away and well beyond reach—he grabbed at and began to tug the revolver from his waistband.
‘What the hell’s going—?’ bellowed a voice from the doorway. ‘You!’
‘Me,’ confirmed the Texan, recognizing the tones even before he had turned to look at the speaker.
Having had no desire to go into the house and tell Him what had happened in the yard behind the Starters Hack, or that the attempt to borrow the publican’s car had been unsuccessful, Wagon had taken a roundabout route back. He had just finished unsaddling the hunter and was unaware that the woman calling herself Olga Garvin had arrived. Wishing to delay the interview with Him for as long as possible, the trainer had decided to accompany the two “stable hands”—who had been equally desirous to stay away from the house and were in their quarters above the hunter’s loose-box—to see what kind of gambling was taking place in the tack-room.
‘What the something or other, something, something6 are you doing here?’ Wagon snarled, glaring at the speaker and taking a couple of steps forward.
Much to the surprise of the jockeys and, in particular—knowing him as they did—the “stable hands”, in spite of his obvious rage at the sight of the small visitor, Wagon came to a halt instead of attacking. What was more, he seemed very ill-at-ease for all his foul mouthed question.
There was good cause for Wagon’s reaction. The recollection of what had happened after he burst out of the back door at the Starter’s Hack was still fresh in his memory. Nor would he ever forget it. Roaring his challenge 43 as the interloper had turned to face him, he had lunged to make his attack.
And, somehow, the proposed victim had stopped being small!
In fact, the strangely dressed young man had appeared to swell like a balloon being blown up until he was larger than Wagon.
Even as the trainer was trying to decide what to make of the phenomenon, his right wrist had been caught by what felt like the grip of a steel clamp. He had seen the stranger pivoting around without releasing his trapped limb. An instant later, some irresistible force had caused his feet to leave the ground. He had found that the world was turning topsy-turvy. Despite his instincts as a rider he had alighted on his back hard enough to jar the wind and wits from him. When he had recovered, the stranger was no longer in sight. The only consolation, apart from relief that the attack had not been continued, was he had been able to give the publican at least a passable excuse for his condition without revealing the truth.
Although puzzled by their employer’s behavior, Ollie and Mush, the “stable hands”, were aware of what was usually expected of them when they came into contact with trespassers. Lumbering by Wagon, they converged on the small intruder. If he was afraid, or realized their intentions, he gave no indication of it. Nor, despite Borofin for one—knowing what was portended—expecting him to do so, did he adopt the posture he had assumed when confronting Kinch. Instead, he stood apparently relaxed and without even as much as clenching his fists.
Neither of the “stable hands” was particularly intelligent. Their duties as Wagon’s ‘minders’ called for brawn rather than brain. For all that, they were not so stupid as to be unaware—as their employer and Kinch had become—of the change that seemed to come over their intended victim as they drew near. To find that he gave the impression of an inexplicable increase in size was such a shock that it impaired their usual smooth co-ordination and caused a certain hesitancy in their actions which allowed Ollie to draw slightly ahead of Mush.
Rapido Clint took instant and effective advantage of the pair’s confusion!
Once again, the Texan demonstrated the devastating skill with which he could kick. However, his latest target was not the chin. Snapping forward, his left foot struck Ollie with considerable violence. Letting out a strangled screech of agony, the “stable hand’s” far from pleasant features turned an ashy shade of greenish-gray. Clutching at the stricken area, the most vulnerable and susceptible portion of the male anatomy for such an attack, he folded at the waist and collapsed almost fainting.
Startled by the unanticipated swing of events, it became Mush’s turn to discover how dangerous the man called Rapido Clint could be. Even as his sluggish brain was giving a warning that the affair was not going as it should have, he saw the big stranger’s right arm swinging with extraordinary alacrity in his direction. Yet the blow was not being struck in a manner to which he was accustomed. Instead of being clenched, the hand was open. Held horizontally, its fingers were extended together and the thumb curled across the palm.
Making a sound as if yelling, ‘Kiai!’ for some reason, the Texan slashed with the edge of his hand into the front of Mush’s throat. To the “stable hand”, it felt as if he had been struck with a blunt axe. Gasping and barely able to speak, he staggered backwards but did not go down.
Seeing his men’s discomfiture and hoping to take advantage of the Texan’s preoccupation with them, Wagon rushed forward. To the spectators, it seemed that his charge knocked the—to them, at any rate—small newcomer over.
For a brief instant, Wagon subscribed to the watchers’ summation. He saw Rapido Clint falling backwards as if forced to do so by the weight of his attack. Except that, he suddenly realized, it was happening before his effort could have produced such an effect. Then he felt his reaching hands knocked away from their intended targets. An instant later, his jacket’s lapels were grasped and, as he tried unavailingly to restrain his onwards impetus, a foot was rammed into his midriff. While his jacket was hauled downwards, the foot shoved in the opposite direction. Then followed an unnerving sensation similar to being thrown over the head of a horse. Performing a half somersault, his body came down spine first upon the unyielding wooden planks of the floor.
Having thrown his assailant by as neat a wrestling move as any of the onlookers had ever witnessed, Rapido Clint uncoiled his body in such a manner that he bounded to his feet.
And into what appeared to be trouble!
Half strangled by the after-effects of the blow to his throat, Mush was far from incapacitated. Wheezing what would have been vilifications if his vocal cords had been functioning correctly, he lunged forward and hurled a punch as the Texan returned to an upright position. Badly aimed, due to its deliverer’s condition, the fist caught Clint on his left shoulder instead of somewhere more harmful. It still arrived with sufficient power to send him reeling. He went over in a rolling plunge, but was sufficiently in possession of his faculties to snatch up Kinch’s revolver in passing.
What was more, as Mush advanced with the intention of continuing the assault, the Texan ended his flight in a kneeling posture. Facing the burly “stable hand”, he thrust out the big revolver with a steadiness of hand that warned he had not been seriously, or even more than moderately, hurt by the blow.
‘That’s close enough, hombre!’ Clint declared and, despite the Colt Model of 1917 revolver being equipped with a double action mechanism allowing pressure on the trigger to perform the whole firing cycle, he drew back the hammer with his thumb.
Hearing the menacing click and realizing what it meant, Mush came to a halt. He was looking into the .45 caliber muzzle (although it seemed vastly larger than that to his eyes) which was pointing unwaveringly at the center of his face.
‘You-all stay back,’ the Texan went on, his voice almost caressing in its easy drawl and yet charged with a terrible threat and fatal certainty. ‘All right now. Somebody’d best take me to meet the head he-hooper of this spread. I didn’t trail all the way from Texas to fool around with—nor kill should I have to—any of his hired help, but to get taken on myself. And, f
rom what I’ve seen so far, he needs some real capable help like me.’
Chapter Nine—This is Purely a Social Visit
Having driven from Camden Town to the West End of London, Mr. J. G. Reeder parked the Frazer-Nash Fast Tourer in Leicester Square. Accompanied by Colonel Brian Besgrove-Woodstole, D.S.O., M.C. and Bar, he crossed New Coventry Street which at that hour on the still pleasant Sunday afternoon was almost deserted and turned into Leicester Place. They were, the detective had informed his guest during the journey, going to try to find William Maxwell Churgwin. Although not engaged in British crime prevention, the Colonel knew him to be one of the city’s major criminals and the leader of a large gang.
A small, ferret-faced and snappily dressed man was locking the door of a building as Mr. Reeder and Besgrove-Woodstole turned the corner. They were both wearing boots with rubber soles and heels, so he was unaware of their presence until he swung around. Instantly, alarm showed on his features and he spun on his heel with his left hand reaching for the bell-button on the frame of the door.
Slipping through Mr. Reeder’s fingers until he grasped it by the ferrule, the umbrella flashed forward and the crook of its handle hooked into the neck of the man’s jacket. With a heave that seemed out of keeping when applied by such an apparently fragile person, the detective plucked his captive out of reach of the bell-button and slammed him back against the wall.
‘Why it’s Mr. Tupper!’ Mr. Reeder declared, with an air of amazement, sliding the umbrella back into a conventional position.
‘You haven’t got nothing on me!’ the small man whined, in the somewhat nasal tones of one born within the sound of Bow Bells, thrusting away the key with which he had locked the door.
