Stuart Brannon's Final Shot

by Stephen Bly

  Brannon found Laira hiking up in the thick forest. He couldn’t help notice the initials of Laira and Tanglewood and the date carved in a nearby tree.

  “Where’s Darcy?” he demanded.

  “She stayed on the beach. She didn’t want to miss a whale. She was going to shout at me if she saw something.”

  By the time they returned, Rebozo and Sylvia had dragged a soaked and limp Darcy near a prepared but not lit bonfire. A lone cottonwood, dead on top, provided wood to burn.

  “Is she all right?” Brannon asked.

  “She tried to catch the canoe when it began to sink back to sea,” Sylvia explained.

  “And I almost drowned.” Darcy’s pale face lacked its usual sparkle. “I was going down for the hundredth time when Mr. Rebozo saved me.” She tried to smile at him, then coughed and gagged.

  “Oh, you poor thing.” Laira tried to comfort her new friend while she avoided Brannon’s eyes.

  “I am so sorry,” Tanglewood said. “I should have stayed here.” He touched Darcy’s arm, a move that brightened Darcy and brought a frown from Laira. “I am so glad you are okay.”

  Brannon started the bonfire. The storm eased and passed. Sylvia wrapped the items they found at the big bay in a tarp. Laira passed around cheese, huckleberries, blackberries and pemmican as Darcy sniffed and coughed.

  Brannon opened the jar of cherries and pulled out a few pieces of the tart-sweet fruit, recalling a Christmas Day during a hard winter at a place called Broken Arrow Crossing… the agony of a mother, Elizabeth, and the birth of a baby, a brave warrior named Littlefoot.

  Elizabeth ate all the cherries that night.

  “Are we going to be marooned here?” Laira said. “All day and all night?”

  Brannon couldn’t tell if the girl considered that a good or bad idea. “We’ll leave as soon as the storm dies down and Keaton gets the canoe fixed.”

  “This is like being shipwrecked.” Darcy wrapped the blanket tighter as she scooted close to the fire.

  “Keaton’s the son of a shipwrecked sailor,” Brannon said.

  “Oh, twee,” said Laira. “That must have been dreadfully pernickety.”

  Tanglewood hummed as he caulked the seam with pitch and rosin.

  “Tell us about it,” Laira prodded.

  Tanglewood stopped his work. “Not much to tell. My father’s ship stalled in a windless pocket, got stranded and drifted into the rocks. The captain of the ship was drunk at the time. I think my father was too. But he turned out to be a good father.”

  “Where is he now?” Laira asked.

  “Out on another ship. I see him about once a year.”

  On the way back to the mainland, in spite of a violent and fierce current, the canoe stayed on course. It seemed as if even the sky and ocean mourned the loss of at least one good man.

  Tanglewood hollered as a gray whale broke the surface beyond them, then disappeared. He surfaced again, jaw wide open. Giant fountains of water ejected from his blowhole.

  Laira and Darcy clapped, entranced. The whale sighting accomplished the outing’s goal for them.

  However, high waves threatened to prevent a safe landing. The temperature dropped and the girls shivered. Sylvia offered to share her fur wrap with them. They huddled next to her. Water sprayed everyone on board.

  “It’s rougher out here than it looks like from the shore,” Laira said.

  No one disputed her observation.

  Finally, they landed and everyone dispersed back to Gearhart. Brannon determined to figure out something that troubled him. He found Lady Fletcher in the hotel lobby. “I’m looking for Edwin.”

  “He’s up on the roof.”

  “Why on earth for and at this time of evening?”

  “To get his prize golf balls that landed up there. He’s been practicing out on the lawn.”

  Lady Fletcher scurried outside and called to her husband, who peered over the edge and waved. “Oh good, there you are, Stuart. I’ll get right down and we can have a chat.”

  Brannon held the ladder for him as he wobbled down each step.

  “I met with several foreign representatives from Italy, Germany, and France today. They’re here for the Lewis and Clark Exposition.”

  “What great controversies did you have to solve?” Brannon asked.

  “Not much. Some are concerned about vandalism to their exhibits, especially the French Exhibit.” Lord Fletcher squinted his eyes at Brannon. “Apparently a marauder broke Louis XIV’s bed and shot up his mirrors.”

  “They should be as concerned about their staff attacking visitors.”

  “Stuart, why can’t you be a normal tourist like everyone else, instead of leaving carnage behind wherever you go?”

  Brannon pulled out the compass found on the Tillamook Head beach. “Are you missing this?”

  Lord Fletcher took the compass and looked it over. “Very nice, but it’s not mine. There are no initials and the one I inherited from my father is in London in a drawer of my drawing room.”

  “So, I’ve only got your word that this doesn’t belong to you.”

  Lord Fletcher scratched his cheek. “I say, that’s about it. Why do you ask?”

  He engaged them both with all earnestness. “We found this compass in the beach near where we found Tom Wiseman’s body.”

  Harriet gasped, her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear.”

  Edwin wrapped his arm around Brannon’s shoulder. “So, Wiseman’s dead.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m so sorry, Stuart. This compass is your best lead?”

  “So far.”

  “But surely you didn’t think I had anything at all to do with that?”

  “I had to check it out.”

  “Yes, quite. But I have seen that compass… or one like it. Can’t recall where or with whom. It’s this aging thing, you know. The mind’s a bit bonkers at times. If I recall, I’ll let you know, old chap.”

  Relieved, Brannon searched for Rebozo and found him in the café. He tried to change his attitude from adversary to partner. For now, it was a necessity. “Edwin says the compass doesn’t belong to him.”

  Rebozo lit a Murad. “Do you believe him?”

  “Without question.”

  “I say we stir the stew, confront some other suspects.”

  “Like wearing the compass around one of our necks and watch the reactions? Or offer it as an auction prize and nab the highest bidder?”

  “Or we could narrow the field of contenders and challenge them to a duel or to a game of some sort… such as poker, one of my fortés…” Rebozo fostered a light tone, but then he became serious.

  “And pile it in a pot?”

  “Actually, it might work. But we’ve got to corner actual suspects. Can you hazard a guess?”

  “Yes, two… you and Lanigan. Any on your list?”

  “I’m on a hot trail, a paper trail, that is. Should point to a guilty party any day now. Meanwhile, I sure don’t mind pulling together a table of players for you, but it will take a little arranging. I’ll aim for late tonight. Should be fun.”

  “And revealing, I hope.”

  Later, Rebozo announced, “Game’s all set. Just have one more player to contact. We’re meeting at the Black Duck Saloon at ten o’clock.”

  Twenty-eight

  That evening, Brannon pushed through the partially-open door at the back of the Seaside barroom, the slap of his spurs and boot heels on the wooden floor the only sounds.

  As the door swung open, a mix of beer, wine and whiskey fumes with sweaty heat slapped against his face like the tail of an annoyed horse. The small card room held a round table in the center with enough space for seven or eight players. The backs of the chairs, when occupied, crammed against the rough-hewn walls, impossible for anyone to walk behind them without turning sideways.

  And the smoke, as thick as tar and twice as toxic, spread like a caked fog from the lit cigars of the men already at the table.

  If I had smoke thi
s thick in my eyes at a campfire, I’d move to the other side of the ring. Probably should be grateful for it, though, as it helps to cover the other smells.

  As the close quarters exposed the increase of mingled layers of stale and foul breath, Brannon felt as out of place as a milk bucket under a bull. He laid his hat crown down on a tiny table next to the door, then inched into the room as he surveyed the players.

  Lanigan, tense and focused on his cards, sat two seats away from Rebozo, who barely glanced in Brannon’s direction with his red, glazed eyes and rosy hue in his cheeks.

  Stay alert, Rebozo. Keep with the plan.

  Next to Lanigan plopped two men. The first was the Frenchman, the friend of DeVache, with his air of aristocracy. At this late hour his tie was unfastened, his collar unbuttoned and his dinner jacket slouched on the back of his chair. Indentations in his graying hair just above his ears indicated a hat had been recently worn, but was not in the room.

  The fourth man appeared to be a gentleman, in dapper suit and bowler hat, but the man’s eyes had the weary look of someone who spent many hours on the trail, his hands worn from years of hard labor.

  Brannon had seen this type before and he let himself conjecture. Maybe he’s come into some money and now trying to break into high society… with only mediocre success.

  The last player took Brannon by surprise—a lady. From the back, in the dim haze of the room, Brannon couldn’t identify her.

  “Room for a sixth?” Brannon bumped and circled his way to the chair between Lanigan and Rebozo, opposite the woman. Burgundy velvet dress, black ribbon and cameo around the neck, burgundy flowers on the tall, narrow hat. Then he noticed the gleam in her eyes.

  Sylvia, what are you doing here? How come you look so different with such a little effort?

  All the players ignored him. They gawked at Rebozo instead, who grabbed a stack of chips and shoved them in the middle of the pot, crying “Call.”

  The man with the rough hands and new suit slumped in his chair and threw down his cards, face up: a pair of sixes. Over bet his hand to scare the others out.

  Rebozo broke into a surly grin, leaned back in his chair and slapped his cards down with a thud: tens and threes. He figured two pair took the biggest pot of the night.

  Seems like so far the luck’s rolling Rebozo’s way.

  The other players relaxed, lounged in their chairs, sipped their whiskey or drew a long drag on their cigars. Brannon noticed only a few dollars left in front of the losing man, perhaps a long night for him.

  A rough night of bad cards and losing hands can make a man desperate. That’s a lot of money to bluff.

  Brannon recalled his occasional poker games in Arizona, stretched out on the porch with his grandkids, playing for bragging rights in the cool of the evening. That’s the way a game—any game—should be played. With loved ones, in a familiar place, with nothing at stake but the right to say “I won.”

  Brannon chuckled to himself as he thought of the exasperated looks on the kids’ faces, as each lost, one by one.

  “How come you always win, Grandpa?” Everett asked one night. “Can you see our cards?”

  “Nope. I just look into your eyes, because a mouth can lie and a face can mislead, but the truth is always in the pupils.”

  Brannon returned to the present after a remark from Lanigan. “Didn’t take you for a card player.”

  Now everyone’s attention was riveted on Brannon. Now’s the time to play the part.

  “That would normally be a correct assumption, but tonight I’m feelin’ lucky.”

  “Minimum buy-in’s one hundred dollars at this table,” the Frenchman said in a gruff voice.

  Brannon reached down into his boot, pulled out a couple folded-up bills and laid them on the table. “Any other rules I should know?”

  The man picked up the bills, counted them out for all to see, then folded them and reached over to Sylvia. She tucked them in a tin can on the chair next to her and passed a stack of chips to Brannon.

  “Dealer’s choice, stud or draw. One dollar ante. Table stakes,” Sylvia explained.

  “And no wild cards or other child’s play,” growled the man who had lost the previous hand. He downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass and latched onto the half-empty bottle. He refilled his glass, scowled as though the action stung him somehow and slung his arm over to Brannon. “My name’s Thompson, Stanley Thompson.”

  “And I’m Yves McKinley.” His demeanor softened to a tentative gesture of friendship. “My mother was French. My father was Scots–Irish and English.”

  “McKinley, like the President?”

  McKinley looked down for an instant. “A distant cousin, but a shock to the family, all the same.”

  Thompson broke in with, “Your deal, Lanigan. Do you know the others, Brannon? Lanigan, Rebozo,” he pointed out, “and the lady is Miss Sylvia Wiseman.”

  “We’re acquainted. Thanks.” Brannon gave a slight salute to Sylvia. He then turned to Rebozo who wagged his head like a dolt.

  He hasn’t shown the compass yet.

  Lanigan called five-card draw and dealt the cards as everyone anteed. The bets were small as they played cautiously after the previous pot, which Brannon estimated at over two hundred fifty dollars. The tension magnified when McKinley splattered them all with a sneeze, Thompson blew his nose long and noisily, and Brannon folded. He wanted to concentrate on each player as they studied their cards or made a bet.

  The light of the body is the eye. You can tell so much about a person by their gaze, their attention, especially if they don’t know you’re watching.

  The next several hands progressed the same with polite but reserved banter between the players. Brannon perceived a kind of recoil before a strike.

  No unbelievers in a foxhole. No friends once the cards get dealt.

  Brannon bet small or quickly folded, but never made it to a showdown. Sylvia pivoted towards Lanigan, followed his every move and encouraged with “nice hand” when he won a few dollars. Lanigan flushed with pleasure, pulled at his collar like he needed air and strummed his chips with a nervous clink, clink, clink.

  Come on, Rebozo, I can’t stand much more of this.

  Twenty-nine

  Sylvia dealt five-card draw. Rebozo bet hard at twenty-five dollars. Brannon folded his rainbow ten-high hand and Lanigan raised to seventy-five dollars. McKinley gaped at his cards and fingered them one by one several times each, as though he missed an extra ace. Then he slapped them face down on the table with an “Arrrrgh!”

  Thompson seemed happy to fold and Sylvia offered no argument or complaint to exiting the hand.

  Now all eyes centered on Rebozo, who had played whiskey-loose, though his stack had not suffered.

  Lanigan had been the tight player all night and had refused all offers of drinks, although he did challenge Thompson on a large pot at one point. Rebozo’s hand shook as he plucked out a stack of chips and shoved them into the pot, an implied call.

  There are only a few hands in a night that catch the attention of all the players, and maybe only one that feels destined to be talked about for days to come. This began to feel like one of those hands.

  “How many?” Sylvia asked.

  Rebozo croaked out, “Two,” without looking up. He threw down his pair of cards onto the table.

  Sylvia counted out both cards and pushed them towards Rebozo, who glowered over at his competitor. He stuck the deal in his hand with a quick glance, then watched Lanigan as he pulled out one card and flipped it, spinning, onto the table near Sylvia. She reciprocated with a new card flung, spinning in front of Lanigan.

  At first, Lanigan registered no reaction as he placed the card in his hand. He gazed at his cards for a moment, then folded them and set them face down in front of him. Rebozo grabbed his glass and drained the contents with a whiplash-quick head bend, as Lanigan turned towards him with a smirk on his face.

  Rebozo, less amused, slowly closed his own cards and laid them
down in front of him. He let out some whiskey breath, counted out three equal stacks, and pushed the chips towards the center of the table.

  “One hundred fifty dollars,” Rebozo said and focused his attention to the center of the table. Though he had won the large pot earlier, his stack had since diminished.

  Less than one hundred dollars left, Brannon calculated.

  Lanigan snorted, his glassy eyes sparkling as though exuding confidence.

  Rebozo’s whiskey brimmed to full force, swimming in his head.

  Stay in the game, Brannon advised in silence.

  “You expect me to believe that?” Lanigan cajoled. “No way you got a fourth. You’re sittin’ with a small set, and we all know it.”

  Rebozo ogled the center of the table, a bead of sweat at his temple.

  Lanigan tried to stare Rebozo down, but couldn’t get him to engage. He squinted his eyes, then widened them trying to read the other player. Rebozo played whiskey dumb.

  “Nope,” Lanigan confirmed. “All in.” He used both hands to shove his chips into the pot.

  The other players shifted in their seats, moved closer, intent on the action. Even Brannon leaned forward.

  However, Rebozo leaned back and looked down at his stack. Then he raised his head slightly to study Lanigan, who rocked in his seat and folded his hands behind his head.

  A clock ticked. Cigars smoldered or died out.

  Rebozo’s cheeks twitched. He rubbed his eyes, then frowned at Lanigan as he swayed. He reached out to his stack with the inaccuracy of the inebriated. “I can’t cover your bet in full, but this should make up the difference.”

  He pulled out the compass from his pocket and balanced it on his remaining chips, never taking his attention from Lanigan.

  McKinley was the first to protest. “Table stakes only. You know the rules, Monsieur Rebozo.”

  “Yeah, we all agreed,” Thompson chimed in.

  But Rebozo, Brannon and Sylvia watched Lanigan for any sort of response to the compass. Recognition? Fear? Anger?

  Lanigan bent far over as though to peruse the object, squinting, then enlarging his eyes. He then righted himself. “Fine by me.”