The Accomplice: The Silent Partner

by Marcus Galloway

  Bullock got his cards situated and then promptly tossed them onto the same stack as Alice’s. “Me, too. Good night to you all.”

  “I’m in,” Doc announced. As he counted up the money needed to cover the raise, Doc looked at the saloon’s front window. The glance was quick and went unnoticed simply because he’d been doing it throughout the entire game. In fact, the excellent view of that window was why he’d chosen his seat in the first place. Doc spotted two familiar men approaching the saloon. Creek gave a quick wave into the Bella Union and Caleb rode alongside him with his hat pulled down and his head hanging low to obscure his face.

  Unfortunately, it seemed that Bullock was also about to catch sight of Caleb and Creek riding down Main Street.

  Vasily asked for two cards and Doc flipped them to him. Then Doc dealt himself the two he’d needed to fill in what he’d discarded. Only a few seconds had passed, but that was long enough for Bullock to say his good-byes to a few of the locals in the place and head for the door.

  Creek and Caleb were just now passing in front of the saloon.

  “What the hell is that?” Doc asked in a loud, offended tone.

  Vasily was still in the process of gathering his cards. “What?”

  “That extra card under your arm,” Doc replied with angrily narrowed eyes.

  At first, Vasily was grinning. But when he moved his arm and found the card that had been wedged under there, his smile quickly disappeared. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  Doc pounded the table with his fist and got up quickly enough to knock his chair over. “The only two places it could have come from is your sleeve or your palm. Either way, you’re in for some trouble.”

  Still holding his arms up, Vasily looked around like a drowning man searching for a low-hanging branch. “You were sitting there, Alice. What did you see?”

  Alice gnawed on her cigar for what felt like an eternity. It didn’t take a particularly keen observer to figure Vasily was genuinely upset. Her powers of observation had been put to the test, however, when she’d barely caught sight of Doc flipping that extra card under Vasily’s arm during the deal. The only reason she hadn’t said anything before was out of pure curiosity to see where such a reckless and peculiar maneuver could be leading.

  When she caught Doc glancing at Bullock, Alice figured out at least a piece of Doc’s plan. “I didn’t see anything,” she finally replied. “Just leave me out of this one.”

  Doc didn’t waste any more time before leveling an arm at Bullock and saying, “As the closest thing to the law in this camp, you should settle this, Bullock!”

  Even though Bullock had been watching Doc’s table since the commotion had started, he seemed just as confused as everyone else in the room. Grudgingly, he walked back to the table and asked, “What the hell’s going on here? This was a friendly game when I left it.”

  “And I thought it still was,” Doc replied. “That is, until this one started palming aces.”

  Vasily still hadn’t touched the card that had been found under his elbow. “I never even saw that card until Doc pointed it out. This is some sort of mistake.”

  Reaching down to the table, Bullock picked up the card and flipped it over. It was the ace of clubs.

  “How’d you know it was an ace, Doc?” Bullock asked.

  Without missing a beat, Doc shrugged and asked, “What other card would someone want to palm?”

  After mulling that over, Bullock snapped the card back onto the table. “I’ve had enough of this already and I sure as hell am not going through another official hearing. There’s already a man in my jail bound for the courthouse in Yankton and I’m too damn tired to haul another one in. You two men want to settle this like civil folks or do I have to keep talking?”

  There was a moment of heavy silence as everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. All eyes were drifting from Bullock to Doc and to Vasily, just waiting to find out whose blood would get spilled first.

  As always, Doc was the first to break the silence.

  “I’ll be the bigger man,” Doc said. “Consider the matter settled.”

  Bullock blinked and relaxed his posture, but kept his hand by his gun. “You sure about that?”

  Looking at the Russian, Doc asked, “What’d you have before the draw?”

  Vasily showed his cards. “Three nines.”

  “You’ve got me beat,” Doc replied as he showed a pair of tens and the ace of hearts. “Take the pot. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

  Bullock nodded and let out the breath he’d been holding.

  “Wait a second,” Vasily growled. “You cannot accuse me of cheating and walk away. Where did that card come from?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it was an honest mistake,” Doc replied in a voice that was laced with just enough sarcasm to ruffle Vasily’s feathers.

  “Admit what you did, Holliday,” Vasily snapped.

  Doc held up his hands as he walked toward the door. “I admitted a mistake and settled the score fairly. Does anyone dispute that?”

  Nobody spoke, although Alice did let out a giggle, which she covered up with her hand.

  “You’re a picture of decorum, Vasily,” Doc said. “Keep up the fine display.”

  If Vasily had intended on letting the matter drop, his mind was quickly changed when he saw the grin on Doc’s face and the subtle wink Doc gave as he turned his back to the rest of the room.

  “Don’t turn your back to me, Holliday!” Vasily shouted.

  And then the Russian made the worst move he could make. He went for his gun and called down a chaotic torrent as everyone from Bullock, the bartender, and every man responsible for keeping the peace within the Bella Union armed themselves in kind.

  The saloon erupted with the stomping of boots against floorboards, the overturning of chairs, and so many shouting voices that they all blended into one.

  Doc walked outside, checked his watch, and then nodded to Caleb and Creek who were waiting farther down the street at the edge of Chinatown. Before taking another step, Doc turned and eased the door open so he could reach inside the Bella Union. After taking his coat from the stand near the door, Doc pulled it on and walked quickly down the street.

  As more and more people were drawn to the sounds coming from the Bella Union, Doc untied his horse from a nearby post, climbed into the saddle, and rode away. By the time he got to Caleb and Creek, Doc was laughing hard enough to dredge up some nasty coughs from the back of his throat.

  “What the hell was that about?” Caleb asked.

  Doc appeared to be truly offended. “That’s a fine way to thank me for a perfectly good distraction. Or would you have preferred it if Bullock stepped outside just in time to watch you moseying along, pretty as you please?”

  “If you two wanna bicker, how about we do it once we’re a few miles away from camp,” Creek suggested. “Between the jailbreak and looting Farnum’s store, Caleb isn’t exactly welcome around here no more.”

  Doc grinned and nodded as he extended a hand. “Well done, my friend. I hope you soaked that little weasel for all he’s worth.”

  Perhaps it was the smell of fresh air or the prospect of leaving Deadwood, but Caleb smiled and shook Doc’s hand. “I did my best, Doc. All the same, Creek’s right. We should put this camp behind us and maybe even find a spot to lay low for a bit.”

  “What do you say, Creek?” Doc asked. “Care to join us?”

  Creek Johnson seemed amused by the other two, but winced as he saw the commotion now spilling out of the Bella Union and onto Main Street. “Seems like I don’t have a lot of choice.”

  10

  It wasn’t an easy ride through the Black Hills. After parting ways with Creek Johnson a few miles outside of Deadwood, Doc and Caleb rode south with the hopes of catching a train bound for Laclede, Kansas. It would have been a tedious process under any circumstances, but the harsh winter only made things worse. Piles of snow made it difficult to tell the difference betw
een a patch of rugged trail and a cluster of rocks. Bitter cold made their horses want to move slower, while the thought of crossing paths with anyone looking to drag them back into jail made the riders want to go faster. No matter what pace they kept, the winding paths snaking through the Black Hills made it hard to tell if they were truly making any progress at all.

  Despite the fact that they weren’t native to the Dakotas, both men knew plenty of more direct routes to get where they were going. Unfortunately, those routes would only bring them closer to anyone out searching for the fugitives escaping local justice. Caleb wasn’t certain he could get all the way to Kansas without anyone seeing him, but he thought it was a good idea to try to get as far from Deadwood as possible without running the risk of his whereabouts being reported back to Bullock. That, combined with the ever-present cold, made the entire next day more of a trial than the farce held in E. B. Farnum’s store.

  For all the trouble Caleb had in adjusting to the northern climate, Doc found it progressively difficult to keep upright for more than a few hours at a stretch. Although he would insist he was fine after a bout of coughing, Doc kept spitting bloody wads onto the snowy ground. Caleb kept his eye on the Georgian, but knew it was useless to suggest anything other than moving forward along their chosen path.

  “Where’s Laclede, anyway?” Caleb asked as he shifted to try to get more comfortable in the frozen leather of his saddle.

  Doc cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that was strained from the effort of holding back a cough. “Kansas,” he said.

  “I know that much, but what’s there?”

  “I have family there.”

  “No offense, but why do I want to pay your family a visit?”

  “My aunt Anna lives in Laclede. She’ll be happy to see us and she’s a fine cook. When’s the last time you’ve had a proper home-cooked supper?”

  “As tempting as that sounds,” Caleb said, “there’s better ways to spend our time. Didn’t you say Farnum would see to it that nobody bothered to come looking for us?”

  Doc grinned as he recalled his last days in Deadwood. “Oh, yes. But do you honestly think he can back that up?”

  Reluctantly, Caleb shrugged. “Probably not. He may not even bother trying if that proves to be too much work.”

  “Oh, he’ll hold it up. It’s either that or risk letting folks know about the gold we gave him. Something tells me the Honorable Mr. Farnum isn’t one to be parted with his gold. Speaking of which,” Doc added as he dug into one of his saddlebags. “Here’s your cut.”

  For a moment, Caleb didn’t realize what Doc was talking about. His memory was jogged quickly enough when Doc handed him a small pouch that was a whole lot heavier than it looked.

  “Is this . . . from Creek?” Caleb asked.

  “That’s right. You look perplexed, Caleb. If I’ve made a mistake, you can most certainly hand it back.”

  “I don’t think so,” Caleb snapped. He then opened the pouch and took a quick look inside. When he saw the rough chunks of gold sitting amid a generous helping of glittering dust, he cinched the pouch shut and tucked it away.

  Doc leaned his head back and glanced at the snow-covered trees rising up to his left like the walls of a fort. “If you’d like to invest in my current run of good luck, I could always use a bigger stake. I can’t guarantee your return, but it could prove to be a hell of an investment.”

  Glancing around to make sure nobody was paying too much attention to him, Caleb said, “I’ve learned firsthand how luck can change, remember?”

  “Oh, yes,” Doc replied sleepily. “You really should adopt a more optimistic outlook where that’s concerned.”

  “My outlook’s just fine. Actually, from that same outlook, I saw Creek hand over the deed to his claim.”

  Doc stared at Caleb with a furrowed brow. “From your outlook? I was under the impression you’d been properly educated. That sounds like one of those miners talking.”

  “My grammar may not be perfect, but my eyesight is just fine and I sure as hell saw Creek hand over that deed during my hearing.”

  Settling back into his saddle, Doc let a smile take up residence beneath the thick mustache on his upper lip. “Indeed, you did.”

  “Then where’d this gold come from?”

  “Did you hear the explosions that night Creek and I went to put those two partners of his into the ground?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Only one of those was for a grave.”

  Caleb leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he was worried some of the animals tucked away in their holes might be listening in. “The rest was to blow up those rocks?”

  Doc nodded. “Creek wasn’t lying about the gold that was under there. We could have gotten more if we had the time or a few extra sets of hands, but I’d say we made out pretty well.”

  “How much did you get?”

  “I’m not a miner, but it seemed like a lot to me. Creek was happy and the illustrious Mr. Farnum could barely contain himself with what we gave him. Creek had his doubts about whether or not Farnum would be swayed when it came to his capacities as a judge, but I knew better than to underestimate the depths of a small man’s depravity.”

  Even though Caleb nodded, it wasn’t entirely due to what Doc was saying. “And I assume you got a cut of that gold?”

  “Of course. I daresay I earned every bit of it.”

  “I’m not arguing, Doc. I’m just saying we all made out pretty well. Creek included.”

  Doc shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “He could have gotten a lot more if he wasn’t so quick to hand over that deed. Then again, he didn’t seem as happy as I would have expected when we were scooping away those blasted rocks. Maybe it wasn’t as big of a strike as he’d thought.”

  “Or maybe he’s smarter than most folks and knows when to pull up stakes and cash in for a profit.”

  “Either way, I know whoever’s the legal owner of that claim now is going to have to go through plenty of trouble to find any more gold,” Doc said. “We were there well into the next morning and picked up all the gold that was loosed in that explosion. Creek loaded up a wagon with rocks I thought were useless, but he probably knew what he was doing.”

  “Was there a cave?” Caleb asked.

  Doc opened one eye halfway and looked at Caleb with a puzzled expression. “Pardon?”

  “Under the rocks. Was there a cave under there?”

  “There was a hole with some frozen water in it, but I’d hardly call it a cave.”

  Caleb let out a breath that drifted from his mouth like steam from a kettle. It was the closest he’d been to relaxed since he’d left Deadwood. “Then maybe Creek’s even smarter than I thought. He was banking on a cave being under those rocks that was supposed to be lined with gold.”

  Doc let out a short snort of a laugh. “That’d explain why he was so quick to hand over that deed. And here I thought I deserved an award for my talents as an actor back at that hearing.”

  Both men sat back and enjoyed the ride for a few moments before Caleb spoke up.

  “Where are we supposed to board this train again?”

  After a moment to think it over, Doc replied, “I don’t recall the name of the town, but it’s not far from here. We should be able to get a ticket to Kansas City from there and then on to Laclede.”

  “Maybe I’ll buy a ticket to St. Louis.”

  “St. Louis, huh? I might join you. There’s supposed to be some fine games being held there over the summer.”

  “Not over the summer, Doc. I think I may head there now. I can buy my ticket when we get to Kansas City. There’s gotta be a line that runs from there to—”

  “You’ll miss out on my aunt’s cooking,” Doc warned.

  “Maybe I’ll stop by her place on my way back. That is, if you leave word for her to expect me.”

  Doc shrugged. “You can go where you want. I’m not your keeper. I just think you may want to keep your head down for a little whi
le and the best way to accomplish that doesn’t involve starting up a game in St. Louis.”

  “Actually, I was kicking around the idea of starting up a gambling hall. I wouldn’t run the place,” Caleb explained. “But this gold should be enough to put together a decent establishment and with all the things I’ve picked up these last few years, it’d be a whole lot easier running card games than a saloon. Once things get rolling, I’m sure I could scrape up another investor who might be interested in having a place they can call home away from home.”

  “You’d better not be looking at me when you say that. I prefer to clean out card games, not run them for a living.”

  “Consider it, Doc. I know I’m not cut out for running a business and nobody in their right mind would say you were.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly with that,” Doc said.

  “But there’s something to be said in having something real to your name. Something more than fancy clothes or whatever can fit into a saddlebag.”

  “Some of us don’t have the luxury of thinking that far into the future.”

  “It doesn’t need to be a big commitment,” Caleb explained as he shifted his eyes toward the horizon. “More of an investment. I’d have some respectable sort running the place and I’d keep my head down until I’m not wanted by some lawman or another. You could just be a silent partner. We would come and go when we please, keep a room for when one of us is in town, sit in on the good games, maybe even see a profit for those times when I don’t have bags of gold falling into my hands.”

  Doc made a rumbling sound under his breath. “I don’t know about you, but I plan on having as much gold fall into my hands as possible.”

  “You know what I mean, Doc.”

  “And if you had this place of yours, I suppose you’d go there in the tough times,” Doc pointed out. “Times like these right now.”

  “Well . . . sure.”

  “And when you got there, anyone who knew you had a stake in that place would know exactly where to find you?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  Settling back into his saddle as if he was about to doze off, Doc muttered, “That plan sounds like a real daisy.”