Dead Man's Poker

by Giles Tippette

  His face was a mix of worry and wonder. He said, “No.”

  I said, patiently, “We’re going to play one hand of five-card stud. We bet the bullets. If you win your cartridges back, you shoot me. If I win back the ones you got, the ones that fit my revolver, then I’m going to shoot you.”

  His eyes got as big as the open end of a coffee cup. He said, “Whaaat?”

  I said, “I think we’ll call this Dead Man’s Poker. That sounds like a good game, don’t you reckon?”

  I took up the cards and began to shuffle them. “Ante up,” I said. I shoved one of his .32-caliber cartridges into the middle of his desk.

  He didn’t move.

  I said, “Goddammit, ante up!”

  He said, “I don’t want to play.”

  I said, “You ain’t got no choice. Now, goddammit, ante up!”

  With a shaking hand he pushed one of my .42-.40 cartridges into the middle of the desk. He said, “Why—” He cleared his throat because he had started off with a squeak. He said, “Why are you doing this?”

  I stopped shuffling. I said, “Because you ain’t very much of a man. In fact you remind me of what comes out of the cow when the calf is born. And I got a rule that I don’t go up against nobody that ain’t got a chance against me, and you wouldn’t have a chance if I put a loaded revolver in your hand, cocked it for you, and gave you to the count of three before I drew. So this is all I can figure. You can play poker. Not real good, but you can play. You win your cartridges, you load your gun and shoot me. I win mine, I shoot you. Understand? I am just nearly eat alive to kill you, but I got to give you a chance.”

  He mopped his brow with his handkerchief. He said, “But this doesn’t make any sense. Even if I win, you’re not going to sit still and let me shoot you.” He nodded at Chulo, who was lounging by the dining room door. He said, “He’ll shoot me first.”

  I shook my head. I said, “No. He is not going to shoot you. He’s got orders to stay out of this, haven’t you, Chulo?”

  “Chure,” he said.

  Which was a damn lie since he didn’t know any more about what I was up to than Sharp did. Besides, Sharp wasn’t going to win. I’d stacked the deck and I wasn’t going to offer him a cut. I was going to give him two pair, queens over tens, and I was going to deal myself three jacks, catching the third jack on the last card just when Sharp’s hopes were the highest.

  I said, “You ready? To play for your life?”

  He swallowed. His eyes were riveted on the deck in my hand. He said, “Is there no other way?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then deal.”

  I gave him a card facedown, a queen, a jack myself, and then dealt him a queen faceup and gave myself a four. I said, “You’re high with the queen.”

  He mopped his forehead and said, “I check. No bet.”

  I smiled at the perspiration on his forehead. I said, “Phil, I’ve heard the saying, but I never thought I’d see it. You are actually sweating bullets.”

  He swallowed and said, “Deal.”

  I gave him a ten and myself a jack, pairing the jack I had in the hole. I said, “Queen, ten high. Your bet.”

  He cautiously pushed a bullet into the pot.

  “I call,” I said. I flipped a .32-caliber cartridge into the middle of the desk.

  I turned his fourth card. It was another ten. Now he had two pair, the queens and the tens. I gave myself a seven. Something like hope was beginning to build in his face. Two pair is a mighty good hand in five-card stud.

  “Pair of tens high,” I said.

  Even though hope was glimmering for him, his hand was trembling badly as he pushed two cartridges forward. “Bet two,” he said.

  I went through a big show of looking at my hole card and then looked at what I could see of his hand. I fidgeted and acted unsure. Finally I reluctantly called his bet. I said, “Last card.”

  He watched it as I turned it faceup in front of him. It was a five. No full house, but then he hadn’t really expected one. He was expecting the two pair to stand up.

  Then I turned the jack for my fifth card, matching the one showing and the one he didn’t know about what I had in the hole.

  He stared at the jack and licked his lips. The odds were still on his side. Two pair was much more likely for me than three jacks, and his two pair would beat mine, which would have to be jacks high since I didn’t have another card higher than a jack showing.

  I put the deck down on the top of the desk. I said, “Well, now I am high for a change with two jacks. I guess I’ll just bet a bullet on each one.”

  He looked at my hand and then at his. Then he looked at my face. He said, “What happens if I don’t call?”

  I said, softly, “Then I take the pot. You know that, Phil. And there are four of my cartridges in it. Guess what I’m going to do with them? First I’m going to put them in my revolver, and then I’m going to put them in you.”

  He said, “Then I have no choice.”

  “No. I don’t need but one cartridge anyway.”

  He heaved a breath and slowly pushed his last two cartridges into the pile. He said, “What have you got?” His voice was trembling.

  I watched his face. I smiled. I slowly turned over the third jack.

  He went dead white in the face, his eyes riveted on that hole card that beat him.

  I raked the whole pot in and then picked up my revolver and slowly began picking out my cartridges and loading my gun. When I was finished I snapped the cylinder gate closed and cocked the hammer. I said, “I’m going to shoot you slowly on account of all the bother and trouble you caused me. One bullet here, one bullet there.”

  He suddenly jumped up and screamed. Screamed just like a girl. “No!” he shouted. “Wait! No! No!”

  CHAPTER 14

  He was still yelling, “Wait, wait, wait!” like I was going to shoot him that instant. He had his hands up as if by raising them he would stay the bullet.

  I said, “Goddammit, Sharp, shut up! They can hear you in Dallas!”

  He said, “Just don’t shoot until I can say something.”

  “Then say it, dammit!”

  He was so scared that he was babbling, but it came out that he had a safe, right there in the office, with a lot of money in it, and he’d give it to me if I wouldn’t kill him. He said, “But it’s a combination safe. The kind you have to know the numbers. The—”

  “I know,” I said.

  He went on, stumbling around, to make the point that he was the only one who knew the combination and that if I killed him, I’d never be able to get it open.

  Well, I didn’t know about that, but I said, “I don’t see no safe.”

  He half turned toward the rear of the cabin. He said, “It’s in that bulkhead there. Right behind that louver. It’s a fake louver.”

  I looked at the wall behind him. Sure enough, right low on the wall, almost to the floor, was a little slatted louver that I figured was for ventilation. It was made out of the same wood as the rest of the cabin, teak or mahogany or whatever they used on boats. I said, “Then open it.”

  He put his hand in his pocket. I raised my revolver level with his chest. I said, “Careful.”

  “It’s just a penknife,” he said. He dug it out and showed it to me. “I have to pry off the louver.”

  I watched while he knelt by the wall and sprung the latch on one side of the louver. It was hinged on the other side. He swung it back, and I could see that it had concealed a small safe. In the middle of the front of the safe there was a knob with numbers on it. He put his hand on the knob and started to fiddle with it. Then he looked back at me and said, in a kind of anguished voice, “Please don’t point that gun at me. It makes me so nervous I can’t think of the combination.”

  I lowered the gun to my side. I was about two feet on the door side of the desk; he was about eight feet further on, at the wall. I’d already reckoned the office to be about fourteen feet square. I figured if he came out of that safe w
ith a derringer, he wasn’t going to hit me, because a derringer, even in the hands of a good shot, is only accurate up to about six feet. And he wasn’t going to be dumb enough to come out shooting against two men that could make him look like a sieve before he could even draw a breath.

  He fiddled with the knob, turning it first this way and then that, and finally took hold of a handle and opened the door and swung it back. He put his hand inside and then turned toward me, still kneeling, and fired. He had, indeed, had a derringer in the safe.

  I was so surprised that I didn’t shoot him. For the rest of my life I would never understand why I hadn’t instantly brought up my revolver and gunned him down.

  For a second we just stared at each other. At first I thought he’d missed me completely, but then I felt a little burning sensation at the point of my shoulder. I saw that Chulo was about to draw, and I yelled, “No, Chulo!” His hand relaxed, but he took a step toward Sharp.

  Sharp and I were just staring at each other. He was still holding the derringer, and he still had one shot left in the double-barreled weapon. But the trigger pull on a derringer, especially for the second barrel, is a hard business. Sharp’s hand was starting to tremble. He said, “I forgot it was in there.” His voice quavered. He said, “It went off by accident.”

  I leveled my revolver right between his eyes. It was still cocked. I said, “Why don’t you try the other barrel? The minute I see your finger tighten, I’m going to shoot.”

  He swallowed hard. His hand was shaking so bad the small gun fell out of his grasp. Chulo stepped over and picked it up. Sharp slowly stood up. He put his hands in the air. He said, “I swear to God it went off by accident. I was going to hand it to you, that’s all. There’s money in the safe. Look for yourself. A lot of money. Cash.”

  His whole body was trembling. I turned and looked at my shoulder. The bullet had just nicked me, barely breaking the skin. But a little blood was oozing out, and it had made a hole in my shirt.

  I said, “Goddammit, Sharp, enough is enough. That’s the second time you’ve shot me and the second time you’ve ruined a shirt for me. You silly son of a bitch, I wasn’t even going to kill you. I was going to take you back to Galveston and see you in jail.”

  “What!” he said. “Not kill me?”

  I wasn’t listening to him. I was sighting my pistol at the side of his head. I said, “If you value your life, you’ll hold real still. Don’t even breathe.”

  I fired. The slug took off the biggest part of his left ear. He let out a high-pitched scream, clamped both hands to the left side of his head, and pitched over sideways on the floor. Blood was spurting everywhere. Ears will bleed like that, but they won’t bleed long.

  Chulo laughed. He said, “Es that whot chou meen when chou say chou choot my ears off?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I went around the desk. Sharp was rolling back and forth on the floor, screaming his head off. I said, “Hold still, goddammit, or I will kill you.”

  But he just kept flopping around like a fish out of water. I finally had to get him by the hair of the head and hold him still while I shot away his right ear. If he hadn’t been so wild and had listened to reason, he wouldn’t have got the dose of powder burns he did on account of me having to be so close.

  Now he really was screaming and flopping around on the floor like a chicken with his head cut off. He didn’t know which side of his head to hold, so he finally just put one hand to the remains of each ear. Blood was flying everywhere, some on my pants.

  I said, to Chulo, “Unlock that door and then throw him in there with them others. I never heard such a racket in all my life.”

  Chulo unlocked the door and then got Sharp under the arms and dragged him over to the door and heaved him in. He shut the door. It cut down on the screaming a little but not all that much.

  About that time the door from the deck opened. It was Romando. He looked around, seeing the blood, hearing the screaming. He said, accusingly, “You have kill this Sharp. You said I could take my vengeance.”

  I said, “He ain’t dead, just nicked a little. How are we doing?”

  He said, “We are almost in the Gulf. We have the wind. Now is when I need the help.”

  I said, “Go on back out. I’ll send you some right away.”

  He turned to go, and I saw that he was again wearing his gunbelt. I said, “Romando!”

  He turned back to me. “Señor?”

  I said, “Take that goddam gunbelt off before somebody takes that gun away from you again. And I’m getting tired of telling you. Take it off and pitch it in behind that chest there. You can wear it when you get home.”

  He did as he was told, looking a little guilty. I never could figure out why folks who didn’t know how to use a gun wanted to wear one. To me that was just an easy way to get killed.

  When he left, Chulo nodded at the room he’d just slung Sharp in and said, “Why you doan keel hem?”

  I said, “You ought to understand that. You know me.”

  He said, “Two time he chout you. Two time.”

  I said, “Yes, and ’two time’ I ’chout heem.’ Now shut up and open that door. I need some sailors.”

  They crowded toward the light, all except Sharp, who was laying somewhere back in the dark moaning. Mr. Cattle Broker was in the forefront. I put my hand on his chest and shoved him back. He yelled, “I demand to be put off this ship!”

  I said, to the three others, “I need some sailors to help work this boat to Galveston. If you help, you’ll get food and water. If you don’t, you’ll stay in that room in the dark and you won’t get nothing. No food, no water, nothing. What about it?”

  They all began to surge forward, muttering various forms of yes. I said, “One thing you better understand. Either me or that man”—I pointed at Chulo—“will be on deck at all times. You try anything, you’ll get yourself killed before you can even say you’re sorry. You behave and do your work, and I’ll set you free in Galveston with some money in your pockets. What do you say? Do you understand?”

  They nodded and said yes. I let them get their clothes and told them that they were not to come into the cabin again. I said, “You use the cookshack, or galley, or whatever you call it, but don’t even touch the door of this place again. Mr. Sharp is not going to need any help. Understand?”

  Chulo took them out to report to Romando, to do whatever he told them. I shut the door behind them and then went over to the safe. Sharp was right; there was a bunch of money. Some of it was in gold, but most of it was in greenbacks. It counted out to a little over fifty-two thousand dollars, including the gold. I reckoned he’d gutted the company, and I was willing to bet that he’d had partners that didn’t have their names on the sign out front and who were going to be awful angry at him. And I wasn’t just talking about Patterson.

  I put the money back in the safe and then pushed the door to. It wouldn’t lock so long as the handle was down. Then I closed the louvered door and pushed it until the latch clicked.

  I checked to make sure the door was still locked on Sharp and the cattleman from Houston and then rummaged around the cabin until I found the liquor cabinet. Amongst the other varieties, Sharp was good enough to have brandy. I got out a bottle and a glass and sat down in his chair at the desk and poured myself a drink. The damn foolishness was nearly over, and I was good and tired of it. Inside the dining room somebody was yelling for water. It was probably the important cattleman, but I didn’t pay him no mind. I couldn’t think of any place that I would rather not be more than on a boat, out on the high seas, going down to pick up a bunch of stinking cattle and then sail further out on the high sea and pitch them overboard. I wanted to be sitting at a poker table in Del Rio with a bunch of suckers who had plenty of money and no sense and Evita waiting for me later. “Shit!” I said. I knocked my glass of brandy back. I still wasn’t sure I shouldn’t have killed Sharp.

  * * *

  We sailed on through the night. I made Chulo drink some vinegar that
I’d found in the cookshack, even though he didn’t want to. But I’d explained, in terms as hard as I could make them, that I couldn’t afford for him to get seasick, that one of us had to be on deck and one of us in the cabin at all times. The crew behaved pretty well. There was no belligerence, but they didn’t seem to exactly enjoy their jobs. I think that was mainly because they weren’t real sure about who I was or where we were going or what was going to happen. The dead cook, before he’d taken time off to let Romando give him his gun, had been making a pot of stew, and we all had a little of that from time to time. It was nice out on deck with the breeze blowing and the stars against the dark sky. We were sailing closer to shore than on the trip up, and far in the distance, I could see the dark mountains rising out of the real estate of Mexico. We were sailing faster; even I could see that. Romando had predicted that we would make the voyage to Bodega in not much more than thirty hours once we got sailing. Of course we’d wasted a lot of time drifting around, getting out of the harbor and being late in getting sail up, but now we were just flying.

  Dawn came up, and I let Chulo sleep awhile while I watched my crew on deck. Romando and Rodriquez spelled each other at the helm. There wasn’t much for the rest of the crew to do, so I let them rest in the shade of the cookshack, or the galley, as they called it. Though why a kitchen had to be one thing on the water and another on the land was the beat of me.

  I called Chulo in the afternoon to relieve me. The Important Cattleman was making such a racket about water that I finally got a jug and filled it and unlocked the door and gave it to him. He tried to push past me, but I shoved him back. Then he demanded to be let off the boat. I told him he could jump overboard for all I cared, but that he’d better be a damn good swimmer. Then he wanted to know if I realized there was a wounded man suffering in the confines of that dining cabin. I gave it as my opinion that he wasn’t suffering enough.

  Me and Chulo took turns, after I’d had a sleep, standing guard duty. Then, about five in the morning, Romando had the crew drop the sails and let down the anchor. We had arrived in Bodega after a passage of about thirty-one hours. Or we had arrived close to Bodega. Romando didn’t want to try and dock the ship in the dark. A little after six I went in the cabin and opened the safe and got out twenty-five hundred dollars. After I closed the safe and shut the louver, I went out on deck and hunted Romando up. I got him off where nobody could see us and gave him the money. He looked down at it and counted it and said, “What is this?”