by Mark Warren
“Appears I should have listened.” Bat nodded toward the saloon. “They cheatin’ in there?”
Wyatt buttoned his shirt pocket over the tintype portrait. “Any man’ll cheat when he thinks he can get away with it. Part o’ the game.”
Masterson frowned. “One o’ them in there is a deputy sheriff.”
Wyatt looked into the dark interior of the saloon. “Don’t matter. Gamblin’s got its own rules on what’s right and wrong. Different from everything else.” Masterson frowned and tumbled the coins in his pocket. “Tell you what,” Wyatt suggested, “next time you got a winning hand, close up your cards and tap the edges on the table.”
Masterson’s frown deepened, and his eyes went hard. “What the hell for?”
“That’s what you done every time you held a poor hand. It’ll likely throw ’em.”
Masterson tried for a look of indignation, but the doubt on his face would not yield to it.
“Every time you’re holding high cards,” Wyatt continued, “you’re closing ’em with two hands and holdin’ ’em like they’ll break. There’s two fellows in there reading you like a book.”
Bat’s eyebrows lowered, and his upper lip curled to his nose. “Well, hell . . .”
Wyatt touched his hat brim and leaned as he reined his horse around. “Good luck.”
The next morning Wyatt looked up from his pan of sizzling pork to see a lone rider approaching—someone too straight in the saddle to be Jim Elder. Masterson reined up short of stirring up dust into Wyatt’s breakfast. Setting down the fry pan, Wyatt stood and raised his cup as an invitation.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“No, sir. I come over to thank you.”
Wyatt sipped coffee and watched the boy over the rim of the cup. “How’d you come out?”
Masterson smiled. “Walked out two hundred dollars better’n I walked in.”
Wyatt laughed deep in his chest, the sound reminding him of Virgil. It was the first time he could remember laughing since he’d left Missouri.
“Mr. Nixon says you’re a damned hard worker. You’re out here alone?”
“I got help.” Wyatt pointed with the cup. “He’s in town throwing his money at a whore.”
Masterson looked off that way and nodded slowly. In the silence that followed, he surveyed Wyatt’s camp, letting his eyes linger on the stack of hides loaded in the wagon and then on the five horses picketed just beyond.
“That’s some handsome horses you got.” The young gambler looked to Wyatt for some response, but Wyatt just sipped his coffee. “I got to get back. I just come over to thank you.”
The boy looked down at his horse’s mane and fingered a strand of coarse hairs from one side to the other. Still looking down, he nodded as if assuring himself of some private thought. When he looked up, he eased his horse forward then leaned from the saddle to offer his hand.
“Name’s Bat. Just call me Bat.” Their hands clasped and pumped once.
“Wyatt Earp.”
Bat nodded. “Mr. Nixon told me your name, Mr. Earp. I like that game too much to quit. I appreciate what you told me.”
Wyatt smiled. “You tried faro yet?”
Bat shifted in his saddle and hardened his face to cover his lack of experience. “I reckon not. I’m still trying to figure out this poker business.”
Wyatt recognized the fire in the boy’s blue-gray eyes. “We all learn it one way or the other,” he said. “Keep your hands idle when you gamble. You already got the face for it.”
When Masterson rode off toward Nixon’s camp, Wyatt watched as the boy dipped into a swale and then moved smoothly up the rise on the other side. His grip had been firm but not testing. His back was strong measured against the horse’s gallop, but he knew how to break and give with the rhythm of the stride. Out of earshot, man and horse crested the swell in the land and appeared for a moment to float above the grass before the dark silhouette sank into the land.
Something in the boy’s youth had left Wyatt open to a remembrance from his past. Something about options and the freedom to pursue them. The feeling came to Wyatt like a forgotten note from a song plucked right out of the air. He let his gaze extend to the horizon, and he felt that same elevated perspective he had sometimes gained from the old blackjack oak back in Iowa. That one step up onto the root had meant the difference between “what was” and “what could be.”
Time was running out on this mad killing spree with the buffalo. And the waste was horrendous. In truth, nothing about the shaggy animals appealed to Wyatt. In size and solidarity perhaps they were regal, but in the sights of his Sharps rifle, they were big stupid beasts with a price tag. Now their rotting carcasses and sun-bleached ribs jutted up from the landscape like gravestones scattered along the plains. But for the skinning and scraping, it was all too easy. There was a tacit shame in the occupation that, as long as it was bringing in money, no one was willing to put into words. A few remnants of the great herds might last another season or two, but as a business venture, Wyatt knew, the books were closing. It was time to open a new book.
At the end of the season he paid Jim Elder, sold off his rig and three of the horses to Tom Nixon, and then rode north through Kansas with no destination in mind. Now with the federal warrant a thing of the past, he simply wanted to be shed of the hunter’s life.
Without his brothers to partner with in the saloon business, he began to consider cattle. Buying up livestock and making a fortune off selling beef might bring a certain respectability, the kind gambling alone might not afford. The cattle trade had become the rock upon which many of the railroad towns were now flourishing. Cattle, it seemed, were here to stay. After all, the buffalo grass would be here. Something had to eat it.
CHAPTER 23
* * *
Summer, 1873: Ellsworth, Kansas
The cattle business suffered that dry summer of ’73 on the plains. Those Texas drovers who did push their stock north to Kansas eventually gravitated to the Smoky Hill country, where an anomalous but merciful pattern of weather had kept the grama grass green on the flats. There the force-marched longhorns were fattened up to boost their selling price in the town of Ellsworth. By the time Wyatt crossed the bridge over the Smoky Hill River into the new cattle-shipping center, most of the Texas drovers had blown off their steam and pointed their ponies south for home. The best Wyatt could hope for in Ellsworth was to engage any lingering cattlemen in a high-stakes card game.
After securing a boardinghouse room, he crossed the tracks in the main plaza to Brennan’s Saloon. The room was spare with mismatched chairs. For decoration a longhorn skull hung on the east wall, a buffalo skull on the west. The symbolism of the face-off was not lost on Wyatt.
The gaming tables were empty. Behind the bar a stoop-shouldered man in a clean white apron leaned over a newspaper, a mug of coffee steaming by his elbow. At the sound of Wyatt’s boots, the man’s head came up.
“Come on in and enjoy a little quiet. It’s a welcome commodity these days.”
Wyatt stepped to the bar. “What time does your gambling crowd come in?”
The man straightened and squinted at the empty back table. “Depends on where our damned police force is. If they set up in here I ain’t likely to see a Texas boy all night.”
When the man asked his pleasure, Wyatt nodded to his coffee. “Any more of that?”
The old man walked into the backroom and out a backdoor. Returning with a black kettle swinging from a wire handle, he took down a ceramic mug from a shelf and blew into it.
“Where’d you come in from? You’re not a drover, are you?”
Wyatt shook his head and waited while the man poured. “Problem with your officers?”
The man set the pot on the floor and spewed air from his lips. “Ain’t a one of ’em worth spit. Crookeder’n snakes, all but the sheriff. Our marshal and his deputies . . . if they run a losing streak at the tables . . . they trump up charges against the winners—if they’re from Texas, that is�
��and haul ’em off to court and take their share of any collected fines. Hell . . . ’bout the only difference between the law and the hell-raisers is the badge, which lets ’em carry their pistols.”
Wyatt sipped his coffee and studied the room. “Who runs the biggest cattle outfit . . . if a man wanted to talk some business?”
The bartender laughed a single humorless note and went back to his paper. “Any man with enough sense to do that’s already gone back to Texas. Only ones left are the troublemakers.”
“How’s the gambling?” Wyatt said.
The bartender pointed toward the back of the room. “You want high stakes, find you a game at that table in the corner back there. Them that play there . . . their pockets ain’t empty yet.”
Wyatt dug into his pocket for a coin, but the man waved a hand before him. “No charge. Coffee’s on me. Come back tonight and buy a drink. That’ll square us.”
Wyatt sorted out the proper change and set it on the bar. “Then I’ll pay for yours,” he said and nodded toward the old man’s cup. “Now we’re square.”
Wyatt cleaned up in his room and slept the afternoon. After dark when the August heat was beginning to lift from the day, he donned a new linen shirt, brushed the dust from his hat, and returned to Brennan’s. By ten o’clock he was one of six players at the back table. It was the only game in the room. No chips were on the table, only cash.
In his company were a local cattle buyer, a railroad clerk, and two brothers—the latter being Englishmen, who were vocal to a fault about their adopted home of central Texas. The older, Ben Thompson, was a stout, round-faced man with bushy moustaches and confident eyes. Wyatt sized him up as the kingpin of what remained of the Texas crowd. Thompson was a man accustomed to having his way—that domination backed up by the ring of loiterers who hovered around him. The more he drank, the more his acquired Texas twang gave in to the clipped manner of his native tongue. As a gambler he was all business.
The younger Thompson—Billy—was a dedicated drunk, and in that condition he was volatile and loose with insults toward any man he chose. His youthful face knew only two expressions: outrage and sulk. Despite the disagreeable nature of Bill’s personality, Wyatt recognized in Ben the same loyalty that bound Wyatt to his brothers, only in Ben’s case, the effort had to be considerable.
As the game progressed into morning, Wyatt bided his time, placing small bets and letting the averages work for him, but for the one time when the stakes were low enough that he could afford to lose the hand. He pushed the pot to thirty-five dollars with only a pair of jacks to show for it. Billy Thompson beat it with three nines. It was a tactical sacrifice.
Three hands later, Ben raised the pot by fifty dollars, trying to bluff the nickel-and-dimers. When Wyatt’s turn came, he met the bet and upped it fifty again. The others assumed the newcomer had finally come into a winning hand, and they bowed out—all but Ben and, of course, Billy, who never folded.
When it came time for Ben to call the play, he stared at Wyatt a long time. “Looks like the cards are favoring you this time.” Thompson’s gaze held steady. When he smiled, his eyes squeezed to half their size. “ ’Course, could be you’re a fancy gun with no cartridges.”
Wyatt’s face was unreadable. “Could be.”
Thompson stared at him for a quarter minute, then let the smile drop from his face. “Son, you either got ice in your veins or you’re dumber’n hell.”
Billy slouched back in his chair and glared at Wyatt. “He ain’t got nothing. Raise his ass again and watch him go pale. He’ll have shit in his breeches, is what he’ll have.”
Ben Thompson paid no attention to his brother. “Here’s eighty more,” Thompson barked, holding the coins at eye level. The older gambler posed like this with the little shining tower of silver stacked between his thumb and index finger.
Wyatt breathed in heavily through his nose and let it out slowly, staring at the coins as though they threatened to tip the scales away from his favor. It was as far as he was willing to go with the subtle theatrics that figured into moments like this.
“I don’t care to break you, Mr. Thompson.”
Thompson laughed and slapped the stack of coins at the edge of the pot. “My pockets are a helluva lot deeper than this, son.”
Billy flung an arm on the table and gawked at his brother. “How the hell am I gonna meet that?” he whined.
Ben snorted. “What the hell does it matter, Bill, if it all stays in the family?”
Wyatt pulled reserves from his money belt. “I’ll see yours and go another fifty.”
Billy tossed his cards into the scatter of deadwood and cursed. Ben held his smile, sat back, and smoothed the front of his shirt. “Rest of my money’s over at the hotel.”
“Your note is good with me,” Wyatt said.
Thompson thought about his decision for a time and then privately fanned open his cards to study them again. He tapped the fingertips of one hand across his moustaches.
“What about an English-made shotgun?” he offered.
“If it’s a part of the bet,” Wyatt said, “I’d like to take a look at it.”
Billy leaned so close to Wyatt that his breath violated Wyatt’s space. “It’s as goddamned good a gun as you’ll ever fuckin’ hope to see.”
Wyatt kept his eyes on Ben. “That about right?”
Ben pushed Billy back into his chair. “Gibbs, twelve gauge. Precision made. Well took care of.” His voice was earnest, connected to that pragmatism common to men who knew guns.
Wyatt, not dismissive of the man’s loyalty to a prized tool, closed his cards and nodded once. “Let’s call it then.”
Thompson’s moustaches lifted as he spread out three queens and two aces. Wyatt laid down his cards. He had the fourth queen . . . and next to her were four tens.
Thompson flung his cards down. “Shit!” He chewed on his defeat as his brother carped about a foolhardy play. Finally he scraped back his chair. “I’ll have to walk over to the hotel to get the scattergun.”
“No hurry,” Wyatt offered. “We can settle later. I’m overdue on some sleep.”
Ben Thompson settled back into his chair and studied Wyatt’s face. “You’ve played this game some before.” Wyatt stacked the paper money on the table, folded it, and tucked it into his money belt. Then he started on the coins. Billy splashed more whiskey into a glass and downed it with a spastic toss of his head. Ben stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “I like your manner. No bluster. Just get the job done. But I might like a chance to win back that shotgun tomorrow, if you’re of a mind. You be around?”
As Wyatt looked across the table, he was already considering the new tactics he would need to employ with Thompson come another night. “I’ll be around.”
Wyatt slept until mid-afternoon, paid the boardinghouse keeper for another night, and then ate a meal in the dining room of the Grand Central Hotel. Afterward he stepped outside into the oppressive heat of the broad plaza and walked across the sun-baked thoroughfare over the railroad tracks to Brennan’s, where the bar was already lined with customers.
He was surprised to see the Thompsons at the back table. They wore the same wrinkled clothes from the night before. The man in Wyatt’s chair had his sleeves rolled up past thick, hairy wrists, and his shoulders hunched around a thick neck. In the dim light of the room, a silver badge glinted on the breast of his shirt.
A shorter man with greasy, coal-black hair sat with his back to the door and turned to look at Wyatt. He also wore a badge—his metal pinned to a flashy, crimson shirt. His olive skin suggested mixed blood, and the whites of his eyes shone brightly against his swarthy face. Sucking on a tooth he spat something on the floor with a light popping sound from his lips and turned back to the game. Wyatt stepped to the bar and ordered coffee.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned. And here I thought I was rid of my tight-ass kinfolk.”
Wyatt turned to the shorter man at his left. His face was bordered in whiskers, a
nd his scalp shone where his hair had receded from the temples. But the eyes were Earp. James was thicker in the face and around the middle. The two brothers grasped hands and squeezed nine years of separation into their grip.
“What are you doing in Kansas?” Wyatt asked. “You give up on Montana?”
“Morg and me did all right up there. Did you know he was on the police force there?” Wyatt nodded his approval, and James slapped his brother’s upper arm. “You look lean as a prairie wolf. What the hell have you been doing since Peoria?” James grinned. “I heard all about that from Morg.”
“Tryin’ to make a dollar.” Wyatt received his coffee from the bartender and then nodded to his brother’s inert left arm. “How’s the shoulder?”
James assumed a solemn expression and bumped his good fist against his backside. “Hurts all the way down here.” He winked. “It’s a pain in the ass.” He pulled a cigar from his coat, clamped it in his teeth, and smiled around it.
A chair scraped loudly on the wood floor at the gamblers’ table. “What kind of horse shit is this!” Billy Thompson screeched. Still seated, he threw his cards facedown on the table. Everyone at the bar quieted and turned to the disruption. “What do you mean you ain’t payin’?” The drunken slur of Billy’s words was gone. His eyes snapped with anger. “You goddamned son of a whore!” But his threat passed as quickly as it had flared. Billy folded his arms against his chest and slumped back into his chair to sulk.
Ben leaned across the table and said something low and grumbling to the big deputy, and the two stared at each other. A wiry man sporting a goatee laughed too hard for the deputy’s liking, and the policeman backhanded the man in the face, knocking him half out of his chair.
“Here we go,” James muttered out of the side of his mouth. He lit his cigar and settled against the bar to watch things develop.
The deputy struck the man again and immediately winced and snapped his hand in the air, whip-like, shaking out a pain. Billy came out of his drunken stupor enough to enjoy a yammering, high-pitched laugh. The bearded man righted his chair and glared at the deputy. His lip bled, but he said nothing. He just stared at the gun holstered to the deputy’s belt. Even when Billy finally quieted, the tension at the table continued to hum in the silence of the saloon.
