by Scott Connor
‘Well I’ll be,’ Ellison declared, tucking his thumbs in his vest pockets. ‘That’ll teach you, Billy. You’ve been pulling that trick on us for years. It’s about time someone paid you back.’
‘Yep,’ Murphy said, chuckling. ‘I’m not losing sleep over someone fleecing you.’
Jack’s expression remained as dour as it had been all night.
‘Quit the banter,’ he said. ‘I want to hear what Billy has to say about my raise. Unless he’s too yellow to play real poker.’
‘Hey,’ Ellison said, raising a hand. ‘We may have argued with Billy, but this is a friendly game between friends. We have a few drinks, swap gossip, and enjoy our evening. We don’t play real poker.’
‘We might not,’ Billy said, eyeing Jack with interest. ‘But it isn’t long past that I used to play real poker and I’m ready to play some now.’ Billy drew a pen and an envelope from his pocket. With his head down, he scrawled a note on the envelope, signed it, and tossed it on the pot. ‘I match your two hundred and raise you five hundred. That interest you, or are you too yellow to play real poker?’
As one, Ellison and Murphy slammed their hands over their eyes. Even Lincoln joined them in wincing.
‘I’m not too yellow,’ Jack said. He took the envelope Billy had scrawled on. He added his own note below Billy’s, signed it, and threw it back on the pot. ‘I’ll pay to see you.’
Sporting a sly smirk, Billy laid down his cards. Combining with the two tens on the table he had a full house, aces over tens.
Jack glanced at his cards. Then one at a time he laid down his cards to reveal he had the remaining two tens.
Billy snorted and lowered his head until his brow rested on the table. He massaged the back of his neck as he breathed deeply. Then he leaned back in his chair and forced a smile.
‘I didn’t think you could have both tens,’ he said. His voice caught. ‘That was the only hand that could beat mine.’
‘It sure was a rare stroke of luck.’ Jack glanced at Ellison, Murphy, and then Lincoln and Thoreau. ‘You all witnessed our promises.’
‘We’re an honorable town,’ Ellison said, leaning back in his chair to pat his rounded belly. ‘Don’t doubt for a moment that one of our citizens won’t pay his debts.’
Jack tipped his hat. ‘No offence meant.’
‘None taken,’ Ellison said. He sighed and slapped his hands on his thighs. ‘On that note, I reckon that’s my last hand tonight.’
Murphy murmured an agreement, Lincoln joining him.
‘What about you, Billy?’ Jack said, placing a finger on the envelope. ‘Have you had enough?’
‘Yeah. Perhaps it has been too many years since I last played real poker. I reckon I’ll quit.’ Billy tipped his hat and scraped back his chair. ‘You’ll have to wait until morning for me to get the money from the bank.’
‘I can do that, but it’s a pity the game had to end so early. Perhaps if you were to stay, you might win your money back.’ Jack picked up the envelope and wafted it back and forth. ‘Then you won’t have to visit that bank tomorrow morning.’
Billy turned to file out through the door behind Ellison, but then stopped, looked aloft, and slowly turned back. Everyone looked at him, shaking their heads.
‘Remember, Billy, what Lincoln was saying earlier,’ Thoreau said. ‘Two members of this poker-group have had terrible luck recently.’
‘Well, perhaps it’s about time I changed that luck,’ Billy said, heading back to the table.
Chapter Five
In the morning Marshal Lincoln Hawk headed into the sheriff’s office.
‘Enjoy your important meeting last night?’ Curtis asked, his face hidden beneath his hat as he leaned back in his chair.
Lincoln provided a rueful grunt. He went to the stove and poured himself a mug of coffee.
‘In short, I didn’t.’ Lincoln swirled his coffee.
Curtis raised his hat, intrigue lighting his eyes as he rocked his feet down from his desk.
‘You couldn’t have lost that much with their five-dollar limit, surely.’
Lincoln shrugged and headed over to Curtis’s desk.
‘I lost fifteen dollars, but it isn’t what I lost that’s depressing me. It was what Billy Stone lost.’ Lincoln placed his coffee mug on Curtis’s desk and folded his arms. ‘This gambler Jack Porter took Wesley’s place at the table and beat Billy for hand after hand.’
Curtis winced. ‘How much did he win?’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-five dollars!’ Curtis laughed. ‘Billy can afford that.’
‘No, twenty-five thousand.’
Curtis’s mouth fell open. Then he blew out his cheeks as he glanced away.
‘You’re jesting.’
‘I wish I were.’ Lincoln sat on the edge of Curtis’s desk and nursed his coffee mug. ‘It was the worst streak of luck I’ve ever seen. Billy kept raising the stakes and Jack kept matching him and beating him. Billy figured that his luck had to change, but it didn’t and by the time sense had descended on him, Jack had taken him for everything he had.’
Curtis blew out his cheeks. ‘Trouble?’
‘Nope. Billy was just too plumb distraught to complain.’
‘I reckon Billy had it coming to him. I’ve always reckoned his talk of how he once took on the big city gamblers was probably just that – talk.’
‘If it was just talk, last night it rode into town, chewed him up and spat him out.’ Lincoln stood up and headed to the window. He peered at the burnt-out wreckage of the Golden Star saloon while sipping his coffee. ‘It seems as if it’s true. Independence’s poker-group has had bad luck recently. First Ben gets murdered. Then Wesley loses everything. Now Billy has, too.’
Curtis shrugged. ‘Trouble comes in threes. Let’s hope that’s it.’
‘I’m not superstitious.’ Lincoln turned and considered Curtis. ‘What did you find out when you followed Alex last night?’
‘Ah, I lost him,’ Curtis said, not meeting Lincoln’s eye. ‘He was too damn sneaky for me.’
Lincoln gulped down the last of his coffee to avoid saying that a dead rattler in a cage could probably have outfoxed Curtis.
‘Luckily I’m sneakier than the likes of Alex.’ Lincoln opened the door and called over his shoulder as he headed outside. ‘I’ll see if Wesley is well enough to talk. You do . . . do whatever it was you were doing.’
Curtis grunted with contentment, settled back in his chair, and drew his hat down over his eyes. Lincoln noted that sleeping was one of the few activities at which the deputy excelled.
Wesley was still staying with Doc Thoreau. Last night after the poker-game Lincoln had returned the half-photograph to Thoreau with a request that he sneak it back into Wesley’s jacket.
When he arrived at the doctor’s house, Thoreau reported that Wesley was still resting and he didn’t want Lincoln to disturb him.
‘I know you want Wesley to get as much rest as possible,’ Lincoln said, ‘but I have to question him some more.’
Thoreau sighed. ‘I guess it won’t hurt, but do it quickly and don’t get him agitated. He swallowed a lot of smoke.’
Thoreau beckoned Lincoln to follow him through to the living-room, but then stopped in the doorway.
The room was empty. A tangled heap of blankets showed where Wesley had been having what was clearly his unsettled rest.
They searched the rest of the house, confirming that Wesley had gone. Although Wesley’s health was in a poor state, it didn’t put him in any immediate danger, so neither man was too concerned as they headed outside and looked around.
They questioned each person that passed. Nobody had seen Wesley.
Lincoln was about to head off to search for him when Thoreau reported that he had some promising news on the other matter to arise the previous day. He beckoned for Lincoln to follow him and took him through to his surgery.
On a table was the coffin containing the body Lincoln had fished out of the river. On a
nother table lay a moldering pile of clothes and beside it a smaller pile of objects. Thoreau pointed out a distorted slug.
‘I got that out of his chest,’ he reported.
Lincoln went over to the table and fingered the slug.
‘So it was murder,’ he mused.
Thoreau removed a photograph from the pile of belongings and gestured with it to get Lincoln’s attention. He gave a slow and knowing nod.
‘You also might find this interesting,’ he said, passing the picture to Lincoln. ‘It’s from the dead man’s possessions.’
With his interest piqued Lincoln took the photograph. It was battered and faded, its time in the water and the rough treatment it’d received having worn away most of the picture that had once been there, but it appeared to depict seven people standing in a line.
Lincoln narrowed his eyes and hunched over the picture, trying to discern details of who the people were. Unfortunately, decay had faded their forms to blank ghosts, making their identification impossible, but when Lincoln recalled the half-picture, he reckoned that the people were standing in the same positions in both pictures.
‘Why would a dead man I fished out the river have the same photograph on him as Wesley had?’
Thoreau shrugged. ‘I’m just helping you to uncover the facts. You’ll have to work that one out for yourself.’
‘I wonder if Ben had another copy of this picture?’
‘That’s good thinking, but I don’t know. I’m not sure who got his property.’
Lincoln nodded. ‘Perhaps one of the other men in the picture is the dead man.’
Thoreau glanced at the picture, an amused gleam in his eye.
‘Now that is excellent thinking,’ he said. He pointed at the ghostly image that was standing at the end of the line of people. ‘I can’t be certain, but I reckon that man is Lenox Devere.’
‘You worked out who the body was?’
‘I sure did. It required deductive reasoning, hard work, and a eye for the fine detail that lesser men would miss.’ Thoreau waited while Lincoln provided a congratulatory nod, and then winked. ‘And it helped that the body had an engraved cigarette case on it.’
Lincoln laughed. ‘That doesn’t have to be the dead man’s despite your deductive reasoning and eye for the fine detail.’
‘It doesn’t, but I’ve heard of Lenox. He was a nasty critter from up in Black Point. It doesn’t surprise me that someone with as many enemies as he had ended up dead and floating down the river.’
‘Did he know the Humboldt brothers?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did Ben ever have a run-in with him?’
‘I believe he did.’ Thoreau shook his head as Lincoln registered his interest by raising an eyebrow. ‘Not that I’m saying anything specific. I just know Ben went up to Black Point every month.’
‘But you don’t know why?’
‘Nope.’ Thoreau frowned, appearing apologetic for having raised a question of doubt without anything to back it up. ‘Sorry. I’ve got nothing else to link Lenox’s death to Ben’s, other than a hunch that—’
A gunshot blasted outside, the faint sound coming from some distance away. Both men hurried to the window.
The few people outside were standing still, caught in that moment of indecision where innocent people hear gunfire and want to run, but don’t know in which direction to run. Then collectively people looked towards the edge of town and the wreckage of the Golden Star saloon.
Lincoln and Thoreau exchanged a glance and a nod. Then they hurried outside and ran towards the saloon.
In the windows they passed faces appeared and craned their necks as they looked out to see what had happened, and Lincoln shouted out instructions for everyone to stay where they were.
With Thoreau two paces behind him, Lincoln bounded on to the burnt timbers of the boardwalk outside the saloon and together they peered through the blackened hole of the window.
Within the ruined building, the stray whiff of smoke still emerged from objects blackened beyond recognition, but aside from that, the room was still. Then from further inside a clatter sounded, as of something falling.
Lincoln pointed to the alley beside the saloon and with hand gestures told Thoreau to enter the building through the front door while he went in through the back.
Lincoln scurried down the alley and around the back of the saloon. He picked a route over the heaps of burnt and fallen timbers, many of which had been reduced to ash shadows, to stand on the spot where yesterday he had watched Wesley stagger out of the burning building. Then he slipped inside.
The saloon was small, the main room comprising most of the building. With the fire having collapsed the internal walls, Lincoln could see into all four corners of the building.
He ran his gaze over the charred remnants of Wesley’s business, searching for movement. From the front, Thoreau paced into the doorway and matched Lincoln’s slow gaze around the ruined saloon.
Lincoln edged inside. After three paces, he saw the only splash of color within the building. After another pace he realized it was a leg that had sprawled out from behind the skeletal remains of the bar.
He gestured to Thoreau, conveying that he’d seen something and the two men climbed over the heaps of burnt furniture and a length of collapsed roof to reach the bar.
With his teeth gritted in preparation for seeing what he reckoned he’d see, Lincoln peered over the bar and confirmed the leg belonged to Wesley, who lay prone.
He stood aside as Thoreau slipped past him and rolled the body over.
Wesley flopped over to lie on his back, his mouth wide open, the bullet wound that had ripped into the center of his forehead showing he’d never share a friendly chat with anyone over a whiskey again.
Thoreau still hunkered down beside him. He fingered his neck and then shook his head.
Lincoln noted that Wesley was clutching his copy of the burnt photograph, its image possibly being the last thing he’d seen before dying.
With his voice sounding gruff, Lincoln asked Thoreau to stay there while he checked out the rest of the building. Lincoln paced around as much of the building as he dared, searching for any hidden assailant without risking the walls collapsing in on him.
They hadn’t seen anyone running away from the building and so the killer could still be here. But the fire had reduced everything he touched to insubstantial ghosts that had the rigidity of powder, and there was nowhere where someone could hide.
He returned to find that Thoreau had pulled Wesley out from behind the bar and laid a singed cloth he’d found over his face. He was standing over the body with his hat tipped back, shaking his head.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Lincoln said.
‘I don’t. Wesley was free to come and go as he pleased.’
Lincoln patted Thoreau’s shoulder and then looked around the saloon with his hands on his hips. He sighed, pondering on recent events while taking deep breaths to clear his lungs of the lingering taint of burning and death.
Movement caught his eye and he glanced to the side. He stumbled back in shock.
A man was looking at him through the blackened gap of the saloon’s back window.
The window was high in the wall and so Lincoln could see only his body above shoulder-height. The man had his hat pulled low and the face that peered out from beneath the hat was not that of a man.
It appeared to be a skull, although Lincoln thought he caught the glimpse of eyes within the sockets.
‘Thoreau, who’s that?’ he said, turning to him.
‘Who’s what?’ Thoreau asked, looking around.
Lincoln pointed as he turned back, but the man had gone, leaving silently as if he’d never been there, the sudden nature of his arrival and departure suggesting it’d been a vision. Lincoln had been thinking back to the fire and this along with Alex’s cryptic comment about the man with a skull for a face added further credibility to this possibility.
‘Do you believe in .
. .?’ Lincoln trailed off, unwilling to complete his question.
‘You look spooked.’
‘I guess I am. Stay here with Wesley.’
Lincoln shook his head as he walked to the window, freeing his mind of its consideration of the sighting being a vision.
He peered outside but saw nobody. He slipped out through the rear exit and looked back and forth. He still saw nobody and as he headed off towards the bank he considered.
Anyone who’d gone in the opposite direction and headed away from town would have had to pass the door and someone acting stealthily wouldn’t have done that, so he had to have gone towards the bank.
Lincoln stopped. If the person’s escape route was the same as it’d been the previous night, he knew where he’d go.
He doubled back, ran through the saloon, shouting out a quick instruction to Thoreau to alert Deputy Curtis, and then hurried to the stables.
At the stables, he rounded the corner at a run and just caught a fleeting glimpse of a man disappearing around the next corner. Keeping his footfalls light he hurried to that corner and peered around the side, but saw nobody.
Then he noticed that the back door to the stables was open.
With his gun held out before him he paced to the door and looked inside. Five yards beyond, in the darkened interior, a man was standing with his back to him, looking around.
Lincoln wasted no time and paced up to him, his gun aimed at the small of the man’s back.
The man continued to look around as Lincoln approached. Then he flinched, apparently realizing that Lincoln was closing on him. He started to turn and so in a rush Lincoln paced up to him.
When the man completed his turn he found himself looking down the barrel of Lincoln’s gun. For his part, Lincoln had expected to be confronting the skull man, but found that he was facing the more familiar form of Alex Humboldt.
‘What are you doing here?’ Lincoln demanded.
‘I was chasing after that man,’ Alex said, his eyes darting about, perhaps in shock, or perhaps furtively. ‘He was the same one that I saw yesterday. I thought he came in here, but perhaps he didn’t.’
