Fallon

by Louis L'Amour

  “Not exactly,” Pollock replied, “but I came west to mine, not farm.” He looked sharply at Fallon. “Nobody seems to be mining … why?”

  “My fault. A town isn’t built by people who want to get rich overnight. I wanted some business going here first; but personally,” he added, “I have been doing some development and exploration on my claims.”

  They talked for half an hour, and then together they went up the hill to the mine.

  Wiley Pollock looked around thoughtfully. It was obvious that some work had been done. The tools stood about, and also the wheelbarrow Fallon had used. There was fresh rock thrown on the dump. Pollock went into the tunnel and knocked off a couple of chunks of rock and studied them.

  Fallon stooped suddenly and picked up a piece of rock, glanced at it quickly, and thrust it into his pocket.

  “May I see that?” Pollock extended his hand.

  “It was nothing,” Fallon said, with studied carelessness, “nothing at all.”

  Pollock walked out into the sun and looked around again. “How much are you asking?” he said.

  Fallon shook his head. “I am sorry. I don’t believe I will sell. I’ll admit,” he said, “I’m not a miner, and I have been ready to sell if the price was right, but I don’t think I’ll sell … not yet.”

  Pollock looked at him shrewdly. “Have anything to do with that rock you picked up back there?”

  “No … no, of course not.”

  “I’ll give you three thousand cash,” Pollock said.

  “Sorry.”

  Macon Fallon looked down the street. Three thousand? It was a good bit of money. Take it, and run. The thought went through his mind, but he dismissed the idea.

  At the door of the. Yankee Saloon, Fallon paused. “I might go higher,” Pollock suggested.

  “It would have to be much higher,” Fallon responded. And then he pushed through the door and went in. At the bar, he said to Brennan, “John, let me have your hammer.”

  Pollock still stood on the boardwalk out front. He heard the back door close, then the sound of a hammer on rock, several blows, and then a grating sound. After a few minutes Fallon came back through the saloon, leaving the hammer on the bar as he went through. He crossed the street to Damon’s store.

  “Get out your gold scales, Damon. I want to weigh up a little.”

  Fallon took out the gold he had collected at the mountain spring. In most gold camps a teaspoonful was calculated as an ounce, and he had less than that, but it would be more than enough.

  “Half-ounce,” Damon said, “a mite over. My guess would be twelve dollars.”

  “All right.”

  Damon paid over the twelve dollars and Fallon slipped it into his pocket.

  “Get that on your claim?” Damon asked.

  Fallon chuckled. “One piece of rock … no bigger than your fist.”

  Damon’s eyes tried to shield his interest. “Much of it around?”

  Fallon shrugged. “Probably not… float, more than likely.”

  He crossed the street and went into the Yankee Saloon again, and within a few minutes he saw Pollock go into the store across the way. Smiling to himself, he went to the back and sat down. Brennan’s eyes followed him.

  Joshua Teel came in, and Budge followed. “Mr. Fallon, are you busy?” Budge said.

  “What is it?”

  “Maloon’s place. Card Graham’s making trouble. He rooked a couple of newcomers last night, then laughed at them when they called him on it.”

  “He didn’t shoot?”

  “They weren’t heeled. But I think they’ll be back.”

  Fallon looked down at his coffee. He had told them what he would do. Of course, he had seen nothing, but it sounded to him like a deliberate challenge. But what about the men he rooked? Would they come back?

  “You saw them,” he said to Teel. “Will they come back?”

  “They’ll come. He trimmed them good, and didn’t seem to care whether they knew it or not.”

  Macon Fallon got to his feet. “I’ll talk to Graham.” He stepped outside and looked down the street. He could see the wagons of the newcomers on the flat below the town.

  Across the street, on the upper floor of the building, Lute Semple pointed at him. “See?” he said. “He’s right where I want him. You call him, I shoot him. Everybody will think it was you. But you shoot twice, d’you hear? And miss that second shot so there’ll be a place for mine if they try to figure it out.”

  “Yours might be in the back.”

  “That’s why I say your second should miss. You can claim your first shot turned him. But maybe I can get a bullet into him in front… I’ll try.”

  Down in the street Macon Fallon straightened his hat. “I’ll talk to Graham,” he said, “and Maloon.”

  “You’d best hurry, then,” Teel replied grimly, “for here they come!”

  Two men were walking up the street, both of them with guns strapped on. They were some distance off, but they walked in step and with determination, and they looked neither to right nor left.

  Several men stepped out on the boardwalk as they passed, and a woman or two. The story had gotten around, and everyone knew what was happening. Fallon quickened his step, but he was too late. The two men did a perfect flanking movement at the door, and one of them reached up to push the door open.

  The double-barreled shotgun blast ripped through the door and drove the man backward into the street Graham had fired, and then reaching up, caught a second shotgun tossed to him by Maloon. Instantly he was at the door, firing again.

  The second man, shocked by the coughing bellow of the shotgun and by his friend’s sudden death, hesitated that fraction of a second that made him too late. The blast the second shotgun threw at him tore him half in two.

  Macon Fallon spoke quietly. “Empty now, isn’t it?”

  Card Graham seemed to wince, then he turned his head slowly, as a rattler may turn at some uncertain danger.

  “Don’t drop it,” Fallon said. “If you do I might think you’re going for a gun.” Without turning his head, he said, “Teel, take the rear door. If he makes a wrong move, kill him.”

  He walked up slowly and said, “Well go inside, Card. Poker is your game, isn’t it?”

  Graham stared at him. “You want to play?”

  “Yes … if we can call it play. Yes, I want to play.”

  Wiley Pollock was there. Fallon saw him looking on, coolly interested.

  “Pollock,” he said, “let me have your best offer, your final offer for the claim.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Pollock replied promptly. In cash, now.”

  “Done,” Fallon replied.

  “I don’t get it,” Graham was saying. “Why play now?”

  Fallon felt cold and still inside. He felt the way he sometimes had before a gun battle, but he felt something more. He felt hatred.

  He knew neither man who had died, but he had seen them both come into town. They were good men, solid men … and both had families.

  “You owe those men something,” he said quietly, “and they have families. I am going to win it for them.”

  Card Graham laughed without humor. “Don’t be a fool, Fallon. You owe them nothing. Stay out of this.”

  He said it as a matter of course. What he wanted very much was what he was going to get���Macon Fallon in a card game. He did not know Fallon, but he did not like him.

  Fallon followed Graham into the saloon and took a seat at a table with his back to the wall. Card Graham sat down opposite him and took a deck of cards from a box on the table. Graham drew high card, and the deal.

  He shuffled the cards, Fallon cut, and Graham dealt. “We do not stop,” Fallon said, “until one of us is broke, and if you go broke, you leave town.”

  Graham did not reply. Cards were his game, cards were what he knew. He had started playing in a Texas cow camp shortly after coming down from Ohio; he had continued to play in cow camps for a year, then opened a game i
n a cow town. He had picked up a little here, a little there. He had never played the riverboats, never the big places in St Louis or Chicago or New York, but he was very sure of himself.

  They played, and Graham won. He won steadily for an hour, and he was playing a fair game. He knew it, and Macon Fallon knew it.

  Then the cards took a change, and they took the change while Graham was dealing. Fallon found himself with good cards, decided it was not a set-up situation and played it to win. Graham had a fair hand, thought Fallon was bluffing, and lost almost a third of what he had won up to that moment.

  Irritated, Graham played the next hand badly and won, but much less than he should have with the cards he held. An hour later Fallon was winning steadily, and Card Graham suggested drinks. Spike Maloon came around the bar with the drinks on a tray and Macon Fallon glanced up, smiling faintly. He lifted a hand. “Put the tray down on the next table,” he said quietly. “We can take our drinks from there.”

  There was silence in the room. Card Graham’s face paled slightly. “What’s that mean?” His eyes were hot and eager.

  A killer, Fallon thought. The man’s become a killer. He’s begging for a chance to draw his gun.

  “I’m superstitious,” Fallon said, “about trays. I don’t like trays near the table while I’m playing.” He smiled into Graham’s eyes. “I know this is an honest game, but sometimes a tray can have a cold deck under it.”

  Graham wanted to say something, but he hesitated, and Macon Fallon knew why he hesitated. There was a cold deck under that tray, and if he said anything Fallon would suggest the tray be turned over.

  “Forget it!” Graham said, shrugging. “Let’s play cards.”

  Fallon was looking away from the table when he heard the faint whisper of a bottom deal. The sliding of that bottom card off the end of the pack had a faintly different sound, but he did not react. When he picked up his cards he was holding three nines. He discarded two cards and was given two more, and one of them was the other nine.

  He folded his cards together and raised another two dollars. Graham seemed to be studying his cards, which gave Fallon time to think.

  Three nines was logical. It was the sort of hand a fairly careful card mechanic might give, enough to make him raise, yet not too big. The fourth nine was not logical.

  Fallon studied Card Graham in his mind and decided the fourth nine was an accident. The deck, he was sure, was not marked. The nines would be unlikely marking in any event, for usually that was reserved for face cards, aces, and tens���although complete marking had often been done. It was probable that Graham figured the chance of his getting that extra nine was impossibly high … and it was unlikely. Yet unlikely things were always happening in poker games.

  Graham raised ten dollars, and Fallon upped it one hundred. Graham’s face was unreadable, but Fallon had an idea Graham was pleased, for it must seem that Fallon had taken the bait. Macon Fallon smiled inwardly���and grimly, for perhaps he had. He was betting that the fourth nine was an accident. Graham saw his raise and boosted it five hundred. At the showdown, Graham showed a full house, queens and jacks, and Fallon spread out his four nines.

  Carl Graham stared unbelievingly at the cards as Fallon raked in the money. His tongue touched his lips, for he knew how great the odds were against Fallon’s picking up that fourth nine on the draw. But Fallon had done it, and there was no way it could have been rigged, because Fallon could not have known what cards Graham would give him.

  Fallon watched Graham with seemingly casual interest The fun was over. Card Graham had been hurt where he liked it least���in his skill as a card mechanic. From now on, it would be every man for himself.

  Idly, Fallon gathered the cards, shuffled, pushed them over for Graham’s cut, then dealt. Fallon was a good poker player, but few card sharps were, for they were too busy building up a chance to cheat, or watching for that chance … and they are depending on cheating to win, not on good poker playing. Yet a good card mechanic need cheat only once in a game, if he chooses the right time.

  Fallon bluffed on a small pair, but Graham was no longer sure, and would not go along. Fallon was keenly aware of Graham’s problems. It takes time to get the cards in place for a crooked deal, and it is easier when the game is stud and some of the cards can be seen each time a hand is played, exposed on the table and easy for the pick-up. At stud it is comparatively easy to follow the cards one wants, separate and stock them for a bottom deal. In draw poker the selection is limited by the number of cards that can be seen, for unless a cold deck can be introduced into the game, the necessary cards must be located and stocked.

  Also, the fewer involved in the game the fewer the cards that can be seen. Fallon wondered which ones Graham would select. His own elaborate appearance of ease was deliberately calculated to infuriate the gambler.

  The game seesawed back and forth. For a while others joined in, but the contest was so obviously between the two men that they were glad to get out. Everybody in Red Horse knew the game was on, and everybody knew it could only end in trouble.

  Spike Maloon sat or walked behind the bar and watched the progress of the game with cynical eyes. They were eyes that had looked upon much that was evil, little that was good, and upon many men who were hard, brutal men in their hours of trial. More and more he found his eyes shifting to Macon Fallon. His own future rode with Graham’s winning, but as the hours passed he saw that Graham was playing a losing game. The cards were erratic, no long winning streaks coming to either man, with Graham unable to control them as he wished. And even when he could, Fallon seemed to pull away from every trap by instinct as much as by card sense.

  There was nothing Maloon could do. He had brought the cold deck to the table, but Fallon had been ready for them, so he could only sit it out. Men came and went; gradually as the night wore on they tired out and the crowd dwindled. Joshua Teel remained. Devol left, but Riordan came. And when the Yankee Saloon closed, John Brennan came down to Maloon’s place.

  Card Graham was sweating. He could make nothing work for him tonight, but half an hour ago he had stolen an ace, and now he had another. Three times he had set Fallon up for a trimming, and each time he had failed. He had managed to give him a full house, only to have Fallon discard and ask for three cards. He caught himself just as he was about to look up, like any greenhorn.

  Fallon had a memory for cards. It was a priceless asset to a gambler, and Fallon suddenly realized that it had been some time since he had seen the ace of diamonds. He picked up the deck … thin … it was a thin deck. One or two cards were gone. A gambler learns to judge such things, but even though he might be wrong, he was not prepared to risk it.

  He put the cards down. “This deck is bad luck,” he declared. “Neither of us has done any good with it. Let’s have a new deck.”

  Graham felt a sudden surge of viciousness, and a wild impulse to leap up and slap Fallon across the mouth. Two aces out and a switch in decks!

  On the back bar there was a pack of cards that had not been there when Maloon brought the tray to the table. They had appeared on the back bar right afterward. Undoubtedly this was the stacked deck they had tried to slip into the game.

  As Maloon started to reach under the back bar for a deck of cards, Fallon indicated the deck on the back bar. “We’ll use that one,” he said.

  Maloon hesitated the briefest instant, then brought the deck to the table. Graham started to interrupt, then stopped. It could be a trap. It could be a means of exposing him, for after all, this was his place. He was the gambler in this saloon.

  As he took the deck Fallon managed a glance at the bottom card … a trey … an unlikely card for part of a bottom stock. The chances were that the arranged cards were at the top. As Graham had planned to cheat him, the first card was intended to go to the sucker, the second to the winner, and so forth.

  Talking easily, Fallon took the deck, undercut about three-fourths of the deck, jogged the first card, and shuffled off to t
he break, then threw the remainder on top. He worked with the practiced skill of years, a skill that had worked on the riverboats and in the crowded gambling salons of New York, Saratoga, New Orleans, St. Louis and Cleveland.

  He pushed the deck toward Graham for the cut, talking as he did so. Graham cut the deck and Fallon picked it up, commented on the gun a spectator was wearing, and at the same time did a one-hand shift of the cut, shielding the move with his right hand as they came together.

  Shifting the cut was a standard practice of the skilled card sharp, for a stacked deck is relatively useless without returning the cut cards to their original position. Fallon knew half a dozen methods, but preferred the one-hand shift.

  The packet of cards that he wanted on top had to go on the bottom when picked up, so as he brought the two packets together in his left hand he held a slight break open between them with his second finger. It required much practice to tilt the bottom half of the deck and slide the upper packet beneath it, but it could be done instantaneously, returning the cards to their original arrangement before the cut was made.

  Light was just breaking in the street outside when Fallon dealt the hand. Card Graham stared at his cards, then threw them aside in disgust, recognizing them as the hand he had set up in the cold deck for Fallon. Fallon simply grinned, raking in the few chips.

  Half an hour later he saw his chance. Graham had won two small pots by straight poker, and was beginning to feel his luck had changed. He also won a third hand, with a full house, aces and queens.

  As Fallon swept the cards together, he noted the position of the aces, including one from his own hand, and the queens. He did a fast card shuffle, picking up the other two queens in the process, and after the cut did another one-hand shift of the cut. When he dealt the cards, he gave Graham three queens.

  As for himself, he held his cards, staring at them, glancing at the pot, at Graham, finally seeing Graham’s bet and raising. On the draw he gave Graham the fourth queen and another card, taking two cards himself. On the showdown, with two thousand dollars in the pot, he showed four aces to Graham’s four queens.

  Graham stared at the cards, his face slowly turning pale and ugly. When he looked up at Fallon his eyes were vicious. “Why, you���!”