The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1

by Louis L'Amour

  Henry made the coffee. It had the strong, healthy flavor of cowpuncher coffee, the best for a rainy night. He filled our cups, saving the best for the lady. She smiled quickly, and that rugged gentleman of the dark trails flushed like a schoolboy.

  Tallman was talking loudly. “Sure hit the jackpot! All them women, an’ me gettin’ the best o’ the lot! Twenty o’ them there was, an’ all spoke for! Out in the cold, they said I was, but all right, I told ’em, if there’s an extry, I get her! An’ this one was extry!”

  The future Mrs. Tallman flushed and looked down at her hands.

  “How did it happen, Miss Houston?” I asked her. “Why didn’t they expect you?”

  She looked up, grateful for the chance to explain and to make her position clearer. She was entitled to that respect. “I wasn’t one of them—not at first. I was coming west with my father, in the same wagon train, but he died of cholera and something happened to the little money he had. We owed money and I had nothing … well, what could I do?”

  “Perfectly right,” I agreed. “I’ve known some fine women to come west and make good marriages that way.”

  Good marriage was an expression I should not have used. Her face changed when I said that, and she looked down at her hands.

  “Should o’ heard the others howl when they seen what I drawed!” Tallman crowed. “Course, she ain’t used to our rough western ways, an’ she ain’t much on the work, I hear, but she’ll learn! You leave that to me!”

  Haven shifted angrily on his bench and Rock Wilson’s face darkened and his eyes flashed angrily. “You’re not married to her yet, you say? I’d be careful if I were you. The lady might change her mind.”

  Tallman’s face grew ugly. His small eyes narrowed and hardness came into his jowls. “Change her mind? Not likely! You reckon I’d stand for that? I paid off her debts. One o’ them young fellers back yonder had some such idea, but I knocked that out of him mighty quick! An’ if he’d gone for a gun, I’d o’ killed him!” Tallman slapped his six-shooter. “I’m no gunman,” he declared, “but I get along!”

  This last was said with a truculent stare around the room.

  More to get the conversation away from the girl than for any other reason, I suggested poker.

  John, the ex-doctor with the sallow cheeks, looked up sharply, and a faint, wry smile hovered about his lips. The others moved in around the table, and the girl moved back. Somehow, over their heads, our eyes met. In hers there was a faint pleading, an almost spoken request to do something … anything … but to get her out of this. Had we talked an hour she could not have made her wish more clear.

  In that instant my resolution was made. As John picked up the cards I placed my palm flat down on the table in the old, international signal that I was a cardsharp. With a slight inclination of my head, I indicated Tallman as the object of my intentions, and saw his agreement.

  Tallman played with the same aggressive manner of his talk, and kept a good eye on the cards that were played. We shifted from draw to stud and back again from time to time, and at first Tallman won.

  When he had something good you had to pay to stay in the game, and he rode his luck hard. At the same time, he was suspicious and wary. He watched every move closely at first, but as the game progressed he became more and more interested and his vigilance waned. Yet he studied his cards carefully and took a long time in playing.

  For me, there were no others in the game but Tallman and John. Once, when I had discarded, I walked to the fire and added a few sticks, then prepared more coffee and put the pot on the fire. Turning my head I saw Carol Houston watching me. From my chair I got my heavy coat and brought it to her. “If you’re cold,” I whispered.

  She smiled gratefully, then looked into the flames.

  “I do not wish to intrude on something that is none of my business.” I spoke as if to the fire. “It seems that you might be more comfortable if you were free of that man.”

  She smiled sadly. “Can you doubt it? But he paid bills for me. I owe him money, and I signed an agreement to marry him.”

  “No one would hold you to such an agreement.”

  “He would. And I must pay my debts, one way or another. At the moment I can see no other way out.”

  “We’ll see. Wait, and don’t be afraid.” Adding another stick to the fire, I returned to the table. Tallman glanced up suspiciously, for he could have heard a murmur, although probably none of the words spoken between us.

  It was my deal, and as I gathered the discards my eyes made note of their rank, and swiftly I built a bottom stock, then shuffled the cards while maintaining this stock. I placed the cards in front of Henry for the cut, then I shifted the cut smoothly back and dealt. John gathered his cards, glanced at them, and returned them to the table before him. Tallman studied his own, then fidgeted with his money. I tossed in my ante and we started to build Tallman. We knew he liked to ride hard on a good hand and we gave him his chance. Finally, I dropped out and left it to the doctor. Tallman had a straight, and Doc spread his cards—a full house, queens and tens.

  From then on we slowly but carefully took Tallman apart. Haven and Wilson soon became aware of what was happening. Neither John nor I stayed when either of them showed with anything good, but both of us rode Tallman. Haven dropped out of the game first, then Wilson. Henry stayed with us and we occasionally fed him a small pot. From time to time Tallman won, but his winnings were just enough to keep him on edge.

  Once I looked up to find Carol’s eyes on mine. I smiled a little and she watched me gravely, seriously. Did she guess what was happening here?

  “Your bet, Mistah Duval.” It was John’s soft Georgia voice. I gathered my cards, glanced at them, and raised. Tallman saw me and kicked it up. Henry studied his cards, shrugged, and threw them in.

  “Too rich for my blood,” he said, smiling.

  John kicked it up again, then Tallman raised. He was sweating now. I could see his tongue touch his lips, and the panic in the glance he threw at John when he heard the raise was not simulated. He waited after his raise, watching to see what I would do, and I deliberately let him sweat it out. I was holding three aces and a pair of sixes, and I was sure it wasn’t good enough. John had dealt this hand.

  My signal to John brought instant response. His hand dropped to the table, and the signal told me he was holding an ace.

  Tallman stirred impatiently. Puttering a bit, as if uncertain, I raised twenty dollars. The Southerner threw in his hand and Tallman saw my raise, then felt in his pockets for more money and found none. There was an instant of blank consternation, and then he called. He was holding four queens and a trey when he spread his hand.

  Hesitating only momentarily, I put my cards down, bunched together.

  “Spread ’em!” John demanded impatiently, and reaching across the table he spread my cards—secretly passing his ace to give me four aces and a six.

  Tallman’s eyes bulged. He swallowed and his face grew red. He glared at the cards as if staring would change their spots. Then he swore viciously.

  Coolly, I gathered in the pot, palming and discarding my extra six as my hand passed the discards. Carefully, I began stacking my coins while John gathered the cards together.

  “I’m clean!” Tallman flattened his big hands on the table. He looked around the room. “Who wants to stake me? I’ll pay, I’m good for it!”

  Nobody replied. Haven was apparently dozing. Rock Wilson was smoking and staring into the fire. Henry yawned and looked at the one window through which we could see. It was faintly gray. It would soon be morning.

  From the ceiling a drop gathered and fell with a fat plop into the bucket. Nobody spoke, and in the silence we realized for the first time that the rain had almost ceased.

  “What’s got into you?” Tallman demanded. “You were plenty willin’ to take my money! Gimme a chance to get even!”

  “No man wants to play agin his own money,” Wilson commented mildly.

  My winnings were s
tacked, part of it put away, yet of what remained the entire six hundred dollars had been won from Tallman. “Seems early to end a game,” I remarked carelessly. “Have you got any collateral?”

  He hesitated. “I’ve got a—!” He had started to put up his pistol, but changed his mind suddenly. Something inside me tightened when I realized what that might mean.

  Tallman stared around, scowling. “I guess I ain’t got—” It was time now, if it was ever to be time. Yet as the moment came, I felt curiously on edge myself.

  “Doesn’t she owe you money?” I indicated Carol Houston. “And that agreement to marry should be worth something.”

  Even as I said it, I felt like a cad, and yet this was what I had been building toward. Tallman stared at me and his face darkened with angry blood. He started to speak, so I let a string of gold eagles trail through my fingers and their metallic clink arrested him, stopped his voice in his throat. His eyes fell to the gold. His tongue touched his lips.

  “Only for collateral,” I suggested.

  “No!” He sank back in his seat. “I’ll be damned if I do!”

  “Suit yourself.” My shrug was indifference itself. Slowly, I got out my buckskin money bag and began gathering the coins. “You asked for a chance. I gave it to you.” I’d played all night for this moment but I was now afraid I’d lost my chance.

  Yet the sound of the dropping coins fascinated him. He started to speak, but before he could open his mouth Carol Houston got suddenly to her feet and walked around the table.

  “If he won’t play for it with you, maybe he will play with me.” She looked at Tallman and her smile was lovely to look upon. “Will you, Sam?”

  He glared at her. “Sit down! This here’s man’s business!” His voice was rough. “Anyway, you got no money! No tellin’ what you’d be doin’ if I hadn’t paid off for you!”

  Dutch Henry’s face tightened and he started to get to his feet. John was suddenly on the edge of his chair, his breath whistling hollowly in his throat, his eyes blazing at the implied insult. “Sir! You are a miserable scoundrel—!”

  “Wait!” Carol Houston’s voice stopped us.

  She turned to John. “Will you lend me six hundred dollars?”

  Both Dutch Henry and I reached for our pockets but she ignored us and accepted the money from the smaller man.

  “Now, Sam. One cut of the cards. One hundred dollars against the agreement and my IOUs … Have you got the guts to do it?”

  He started to growl a threat, but John spoke up. “You could play Duval again if you win.” His soft voice drawled, “He gave you quite a thrashing.”

  Yet as John spoke, his attention, as was mine, was directed at the face of Carol Houston. What happened to our little lady? This behavior did not, somehow, seem to fit.

  Tallman hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah? All right, but I’m warning you.” He shook his finger at John. “I’m paying no more of my wife’s debts. If she loses, you lose too. Now give me the damn cards.”

  She handed him the deck and he cut—a queen.

  Tallman chuckled. “Reckon I’ve made myself a hundred,” he said. “You ain’t got much chance to beat that.”

  Carol Houston accepted the cards. They spilled through her fingers to the table and we helped her gather them up. She shuffled clumsily, placed the deck on the table, then cut—an ace!

  Tallman swore and started to rise.

  “Sam, wait!” She put her hand on his arm. He frowned, but he dropped back into his seat and glared at me.

  Carol Houston turned to me, her eyes quietly calculating. The room was very still. A drop of rain gathered on the ceiling and fell into the bucket—again that fat plop. The window was almost white now … it was day again.

  “How much did you win from Sam, Mr. Duval?”

  Her face was without expression. “Six hundred dollars,” I replied.

  “Not more than that.”

  She picked up the cards, trying a clumsy shuffle. “Would you gamble with me for that money?”

  John leaned back in his chair, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Yet even as he coughed his eyes never left the girl. Dutch Henry was leaning forward, frankly puzzled. Neither Wilson nor Haven said anything. This seemed a different girl, not at all the sort of person we had—

  “If you wish.” My voice strained hard not to betray my surprise. I was beginning to understand that we had all been taken in.

  She pushed the entire six hundred dollars she had borrowed from John into the middle of the table. “Cut the cards once for the lot, Mr. Duval?”

  I cut and turned the card faceup—the nine of clubs.

  She drew the deck together, straightened it, tapped it lightly with her thumb as she picked it up, and turned—a king!

  Stunned, and more by the professional manner of the cut than its result, I watched Carol Houston draw the money to her. With careful hands she counted out six hundred dollars and returned it to John. “Thank you,” she said, and smiled at him.

  His expression a study, John pocketed the money.

  Haven, who had left the cabin, now thrust his head back into the door. “All hitched up! We’re goin’ on! Mount up, folks!”

  “Mr. Haven,” Carol asked quickly, “isn’t there a stage going west soon?”

  “ ’Bout an hour, if she’s on time.”

  The six hundred she had won from me she pushed over to Sam Tallman. Astonished, he looked at the money, and then at her. “I—is this for me?”

  “For you. It is over between us. But I want those IOUs and the marriage contract.”

  “Now wait a minute!” Tallman roared, lunging up from his chair.

  He reached across for her but I stopped him. “That money is more than you deserve, Tallman. I’d take it and get out.”

  His hand dropped and rested on his pistol butt and his eyes narrowed. “She’s goin’ with me! I’ll be damned if I let any of you stop me!”

  “No, suh.” It was John’s soft voice. “You’ll just be damned. Unless you go and get on that stage.”

  Tallman turned truculently toward the slighter man, all his rage suddenly ready to vent itself on this apparently easier target.

  Before he could speak, Dutch Henry spoke from the doorway. “You’ll leave him alone, Tallman, if you want to live. That’s Doc Holliday!”

  Tallman brought up short, looking foolish. Doc had not moved, his right hand grasping the lapel of his coat, his gray eyes cold and level. Shocked, Tallman turned and stumbled toward the door.

  “Henry Duval, you quit gambling once, did you not?”

  She held my eyes. Hers were clear, lovely, grave. “Why … yes. It has been years … until tonight.”

  “And you gambled for me. Wasn’t that it?”

  My ears grew red. “All right, so I’m a fool.”

  Until that moment I had never known how a woman’s face could light up, nor what could be seen in it. “Not a fool,” she said gently. “I meant what I said by the fire—up to a point.”

  We heard the stage rattle away, and then I looked at Carol.

  A smile flickered on her lips, and then she picked up the cards from the table. Deliberately, she spread them in a beautiful fan, closed the deck, did a one-hand cut, riffled the deck, then handed them to me. “Cut them,” she said.

  I cut an ace, then cut the same ace again and again. She picked up the deck, riffled them again, and placing them upon the table, cut a red king.

  Picking up the deck I glanced at the ace and king she had cut. “Slick king and a shaved ace,” I said. “Tap the deck lightly as you cut and you cut the king every time. But where did you have them?”

  “In my purse.” She took my hands. “Henry, do you remember Natchez Tom Tennison?”

  “Of course. We worked the riverboats together a half dozen times. A good man.”

  “He was my father, and he taught me what I did tonight. Both things.”

  “Both things?”

  “How to use cards, and always to pay my debts. I di
dn’t want to owe anything to Sam Tallman, not even the money you took from him, and I didn’t want to be the girl you won in a poker game.”

  Dutch Henry, the Cherokee Strip outlaw, slapped his thigh. “Women!” he said. “If they don’t beat all!”

  It was almost two hours before the westbound stage arrived … but somehow it did not seem that long.

  Duffy’s Man

  Duffy’s man had been on the job just six days when trouble started. Duffy, who was older than the gnarled pin-oak by the water hole, knew there would be trouble when he saw Clip Hart riding up to the stable. Duffy had covered a lot of miles in his time, and had forgotten nothing, man or animal, that he had seen in his travels.

  Clip Hart had killed a man seven years before in El Paso, and Duffy had seen it happen. Since then there had been other killings in other towns, and three years in the state pen for rustling. From time to time Hart had been investigated in connection with robberies of one kind or another.

  Hart was older, heavier, and harder now. He had the coldly watchful eye of a hunted man. There were two men with him and one of them rode across the street to the Pine Saloon and stood alongside his horse, watching the street.

  Hart looked at the sign on the livery stable and then at the fat old man in the big chair. “You’re Duffy?” Hart measured him as he spoke.

  “I’m Duffy.” The old man shifted his bulk in the polished chair. “What can I do for you?”

  “The use of your stable. I’ve seven horses coming in tonight. They’ll be kept here in your stable, saddled all the time.”

  Duffy shifted himself in his seat. “None of that here. I’ll not want your business. Not here.”

  “You’ll keep them. You don’t move very fast, Duffy.” Clip Hart struck a match on the seat of his pants and held up the flame. “Your barn can’t move at all.” He lifted the flame suggestively. “Where’s your hostler?”

  Duffy turned his head on his fat neck. He was no fool, and he knew Hart was not bluffing. He opened his mouth to call for his hostler, and as he turned his head he saw him there, standing in the door, his hands on his hips.

  Duffy’s man was tall, lean, and wide-shouldered. His face was still. Sometimes his eyes smiled, rarely his lips. The stubble of beard he had worn when Duffy hired him was gone now, but he wore no hat and he still wore the worn, badly scuffed shoes, unusual foot gear in a country of boots and spurs.