The Loner: Killer Poker

by J. A. Johnstone

  Rose’s company perked him up. She talked brightly and animatedly, obviously enjoying herself. After what she had gone through in order to help him out, he was glad he could give her a fine evening. But she would have to understand that he might never see her again.

  When they were ready to go, he linked arms with her as they walked out to the buggy. Rose leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s been such a lovely evening, I hate for it to end,” she said wistfully. “Conrad, do you think we could go for a drive before you take me back to Mrs. Sherman’s house?”

  Conrad thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I don’t see why not.” Denver’s city government recently had begun widening many of the streets and planting trees in the center of them. It would be a picturesque drive, and the night air might refresh him and make him more alert for the poker tournament.

  He helped Rose into the buggy, then got the team moving and swung the vehicle into one of the recently widened boulevards. The trees were in bloom, filling the night with their fragrance.

  “It’s beautiful,” Rose said.

  Conrad had to agree. He was about to say so when he heard hoofbeats behind the buggy. It sounded like a couple riders were about to overtake the vehicle.

  At first he thought they just wanted to pass him, but the horsebackers split, one galloping up on each side of the vehicle. Both men wore black bandannas pulled up over their faces as they pointed revolvers into the buggy.

  Rose let out a sudden scream.

  Chapter 12

  Conrad hauled back on the reins as hard as he could with his left hand while his right flashed behind his back and reached under his coat for the .32. The team lurched to a halt, their harnesses preventing them from rearing.

  One of the gunmen yelled, “Out of the buggy! Out of the buggy now!”

  Rose screamed again and clutched at Conrad’s arm, inadvertantly keeping him from pulling his gun.

  He couldn’t start trading lead with those two, anyway, he realized. Not with Rose in the buggy where a stray shot might kill her.

  “Hold your fire,” he told the men as they struggled to keep their horses under control while continuing to aim their guns at him.

  “Get out of there,” the other man ordered. The bandanna over the lower half of his face muffled his voice, but the words were clear enough. “Get out and hand over all your money, mister, or that pretty girl with you won’t be so pretty anymore.”

  So it really was a robbery, Conrad thought. The men must have been watching the restaurant, waiting for one of the wealthy patrons to leave.

  Or was it? he suddenly asked himself. Maybe what they were saying was just for Rose’s benefit, so after he was dead, she could tell the authorities the killing was a hold-up attempt turned deadly. Either way, those two hombres were going to regret what they were trying to do . . . just as soon as he was sure that Rose was out of the line of fire.

  He wrapped the reins around the brake lever but didn’t set it. He held out his hands so the gunmen could see them. “Take it easy. I’m getting out. Just leave the lady alone.”

  “Sure,” one of the men said with a sneer in his voice. “We just want your money and any other valuables you got, mister. We’ll take the gal’s handbag, too.”

  Conrad climbed down from the buggy. “Whatever you want, that’s fine. You boys sound like you ought to be out robbing stagecoaches.”

  “Ain’t no stagecoaches no more,” the man on the right said. He sounded a little wistful.

  The man on the left snapped, “Shut up. No more talking than we have to. Now, mister—”

  “Hyaaahhh!” Conrad yelled, snatching off his hat and slapping it against the rump of the nearest horse. He leaped away from the vehicle as the horses lunged forward, dragging the buggy behind it. He caught a glimpse of a startled Rose being thrown back against the seat as the team took off.

  The next instant, the .32 was in his hand, spitting fire and lead. The short-barreled gun cracked twice as Conrad put both bullets in the chest of the man closest to him. As that man slumped backward in the saddle and struggled to stay mounted, his companion opened fire. Conrad heard a bullet whip past his ear as he dived to his left. He fired twice more as he was falling.

  One of the slugs went through the left shoulder of the second gunman. He howled in pain and twisted in the saddle. His gun hand dropped, then he forced the weapon up again. Conrad wanted to take the man alive, but it didn’t look like the varmint was going to give him much choice in the matter.

  Lying on his side in the street, he fired again just as the gunman jerked his trigger. The heavy revolver boomed, but the slug smacked harmlessly into the cobblestones. Conrad’s bullet fluttered the bandanna mask as it passed through the cloth and angled sharply upward through the man’s neck into the base of his brain. Blood gushed from the wound.

  Choking and gasping for breath through his ruined neck, the man toppled out of the saddle and crashed to the street.

  Still on his horse, the first man was obviously in great pain as he hauled the animal around and put the spurs to it. Conrad scrambled to his feet and tackled the wounded man, dragging him out of the saddle. They fell, and the impact broke Conrad’s grip on the man. They rolled apart.

  Managing to hold on to the .32, Conrad came up on his knees and pointed the gun at the other man. “Don’t move!”

  The man had lost his gun. He lay on his belly, struggling to get both hands under him so he could push himself up. The light was bad, but Conrad saw that the bandanna mask had slipped down, revealing a coarse, pain-twisted face.

  “You . . . you . . .” he gasped. Choking out something unintelligible, he finished, “. . . bitch!”

  Covering the man with the .32, Conrad said coolly, “I’ve been called worse than a son of a bitch before, amigo.”

  The man didn’t hear him. His head slumped back to the ground with an audible thud as his forehead struck the street. Conrad stood up, moved over to him, and carefully checked for a pulse without finding one.

  Both outlaws were dead. They wouldn’t be answering any questions about whether that had been a real hold-up attempt . . . or something else, something even more deadly.

  Conrad heard police whistles blowing. He didn’t want to spend hours talking to the authorities. The poker tournament was supposed to start in less than two hours. He turned and looked for the buggy. It had come to a stop about fifty yards up the street, where the momentary panic of the horses had run out of steam.

  He grabbed his fallen hat out of the street and hurried toward the vehicle, anxious to make sure Rose was all right. Maybe she would understand it wasn’t such a good idea to spend much time around him.

  When he reached the buggy, he saw her slumped to the side on the seat. “Rose! Rose!”

  He holstered the .32 at the small of his back and sprang onto the seat next to her. Taking hold of her shoulders, he turned her toward him. Her eyelids fluttered, and she moaned. At least she was alive, he thought.

  “Rose, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  “C-Conrad?” she whispered.

  “Yes. Are you hurt?”

  With his help, she straightened up. She blinked rapidly, looking confused for a second. “No, I . . . I’m all right. I think I . . . hit my head against the back of the seat . . . when the horses took off.” Her fingers clutched at his coat. “What about you?”

  “I’m fine. I’d like to get out of here, though. I don’t want to be stuck here talking to the law.”

  “Those men . . . ?”

  “Both dead,” he told her.

  “Oh, my,” she said as he reached for the reins. “Conrad, I . . . I hope you won’t take this the wrong way . . . but I think it might be a good idea . . . if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

  He slapped the lines against the backs of the horses and got them moving again. “Don’t worry, I understand.” A bitter taste climbed up his throat and into his mouth.

  Rose Sullivan wasn’t the first beautiful b
londe who would have been better off if she had never even met Conrad Browning. At least she wasn’t dead.

  Mrs. Sherman made a big fuss over Rose when she found out what had happened. “Someone tried to rob the two of you again?” she said in outrage as she put an arm around Rose and gave Conrad an angry frown.

  “Please, don’t blame Mr. Browning,” Rose said. “He saved us both times.”

  The landlady snorted. “Perhaps it wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t with him. Let’s get you upstairs to your room. I’ll make you a nice cup of sassafras tea, dearie. That’ll settle your nerves right down.”

  “Good night, Conrad,” Rose called over her shoulder as Mrs. Sherman hustled her up the staircase.

  He drove the buggy back to the livery stable in the next block down from the Lansing House, where he turned it over to the hostler. He wouldn’t need the buggy again as the Palace was also within walking distance of the hotel.

  Since he’d been rolling around in the street while engaged in the shootout, he wanted to change his suit before he headed for the gambling parlor. Arturo was a little surprised to see him.

  “I didn’t know if you’d stop by here following your dinner engagement with Miss Sullivan or not,” Arturo said. His eyebrows arched as he noticed the disarray and dirtiness of Conrad’s clothes. “Good Lord! Did you run into trouble again, sir?”

  “You sound like Mrs. Sherman,” Conrad commented as he took off his coat and started untying his cravat.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. But to answer your question, yes, a couple men on horseback jumped us while we were driving around after dinner.”

  “And what did you do?”

  In answer, Conrad reached behind him and took off the holstered .32. He placed it on a table.

  “Of course, you shot them. Are you injured?”

  Conrad shook his head. “No, I’m fine. Just wondering why it is that hombres keep trying to rob me.”

  “Beyond the obvious reason of stealing your money?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And are you asking yourself why these hold-up men seem to be drawn to you while you’re in the company of Miss Sullivan?”

  Conrad gave Arturo a hard stare. “What do you mean by that?”

  Arturo didn’t back down. “I mean it’s rather coincidental that the last two times you and Miss Sullivan were alone together, someone attacked you and tried to kill you.”

  “I don’t think I like what you’re getting at, Arturo.”

  “I don’t like it either, sir, but it’s something to consider.”

  As a matter of fact, Conrad had considered it, and the possibility had cropped up even stronger in his mind as he was driving back to the hotel from Mrs. Sherman’s house. The idea had been reinforced by the fact that when he’d picked up Rose’s handbag that afternoon, it had seemed a little heavier than it should have.

  As if a gun had been in it.

  When he first thought that, he had told himself without hesitation that he was crazy. Rose was just a sweet, pretty young woman who worked in Ellery Hudson’s office. That was all. He had no proof there was anything more to her than that.

  Anyway, it was too far-fetched to think that she could have had anything to do with the attacks on him. She had been in danger both times herself.

  Or had she? If the man in the garden had succeeded in burying that knife in his back, what would he have done then? Would he have killed Rose, too?

  Or would she have congratulated him on a job well-done? Conrad felt the blood in his veins start to turn to ice as he remembered how she had been distracting him just before the attack took place.

  But she had killed the attacker herself, he reminded himself. She had plunged that knife right into his back.

  Because she was afraid Conrad would defeat him and question him, and the man might reveal her part in the scheme?

  The only real danger Rose had been in after dinner was when the buggy’s horses bolted, and that had been Conrad’s doing. If he hadn’t made that play, the two so-called robbers might have gunned him down as soon as he stepped out of the buggy and left Rose to tell the police whatever story she wanted.

  She had grabbed his arm when he first reached for his gun, too, he recalled, an act apparently of fear . . . but maybe not.

  The dying gunman might not have been calling him a son of a bitch after all, Conrad speculated. Maybe he had been referring to Rose as a bitch because the job had gone all wrong.

  Rose had admitted that she hadn’t been in Denver for long. All he had for her background was her word. Sure, it was loco to think she might be playing some convoluted part in Pamela Tarleton’s vengeance scheme . . .

  But Pamela had made other elaborate arrangements before her death that didn’t bear their perilous fruit until after she was gone.

  “Sir?”

  Conrad came out of his reverie and realized Arturo was talking to him. He’d been standing there motionless, his cravat in his hand, thinking about Rose and turning over all the possibilities in his mind.

  “Sir, were the police involved in tonight’s incident?”

  Conrad shook his head. “No, since Rose and I weren’t hurt, I got out of there before they could show up. I knew I had that poker game to get to, and I didn’t want to stand around answering a lot of questions.”

  “Indeed, you have Mr. Masterson’s tournament and Mr. McKinney to deal with. But questions do need to be asked. Why don’t you let me ask them?”

  Conrad squinted at him. “You mean you’re going to play detective, Arturo? Like that fellow in the stories by Conan Doyle?”

  “Sherlock Holmes, yes, sir. I thought that while you’re busy with other matters, I could make a few discreet inquiries into Miss Sullivan’s background and her activities here in Denver.”

  “Very discreet, Arturo, very discreet. If she’s innocent . . . if she has nothing to do with any of this except being unlucky enough to be with me when those attempts were made . . . then I don’t want her to know I was suspicious of her.”

  Arturo nodded. “Of course, sir. I’ll be the very soul of discretion. Anyway, I can’t get started on my investigation until tomorrow, and perhaps you’ll find out what you need to know from Mr. McKinney tonight.”

  “Maybe,” Conrad said. “I’ll be surprised if it turns out to be that easy, though. I have a hunch McKinney will prove to be a tough nut to crack.”

  With that settled, he changed clothes quickly, made sure the .32 had five rounds in it with the hammer resting on an empty chamber in the cylinder, and set out for the Palace with Arturo’s wish of “Good luck, sir,” following him out of the hotel room.

  He didn’t want to be late for what might turn out to be the most important poker game of his life.

  Chapter 13

  Conrad sensed the excitement in the Palace when he walked in a short time later. Players in the tournament, along with a few employees of the gambling parlor, were the only ones who would be allowed into the private room once the games got underway, but everyone knew what was going to take place. A lot of people were talking excitedly about it. The tournament was the biggest thing to hit gambling circles in a long time.

  Because of that, a large crowd had shown up to wait in the main room and catch bits of news about what was going on in the chamber where the games were taking place.

  Bat Masterson was holding court, surrounded by a number of newspaper reporters scribbling notes on their pads with stubby pencils. Conrad heard him talking about sporting blood and the gallantry of competition, as if instead of a poker tournament it was the old-fashioned kind held between knights, with lances and swords and shields. The sort of tournament where blood might be spilled . . .

  With so much money at stake, it might come to that, Conrad thought.

  Masterson caught Conrad’s eye and winked. When he was through talking to the reporters, he came over and pumped Conrad’s hand.

  “Ah, the fourth estate!” he said with a grin. “What would we do
without them? The thought’s crossed my mind that I might try my hand at journalism myself, one of these days.”

  “I’m sure you’d be good at it, Bat. Is everything ready for tonight?”

  Masterson nodded. “Absolutely. In fact, you’re the last of the players to arrive. That’s why I was so glad to see you. I was afraid you might have changed your mind, or that something had happened to you.”

  Something had indeed come close to happening to him, Conrad thought. Close enough he had heard the bullet whipping past his ear.

  But he didn’t say anything about that. “Did you get my buy-in? Ellery Hudson was supposed to have the bank send it over with some armed guards this afternoon.”

  Masterson nodded again. “Yes, it’s locked up securely in the safe, along with the rest of the money, and there are half a dozen men with shotguns guarding it. Tough men, and I trust them completely. I know that sort of loot might be a very tempting target.”

  Masterson opened his coat a little to reveal he had revolvers in shoulder rigs under both arms. “I’ll be on hand to help protect it myself if need be.”

  Conrad didn’t think most would-be robbers would want to go up against the famous Bat Masterson, even for that sort of money. “What about the players? Is it all right for us to be armed, as well?”

  Masterson grimaced. “I’m sorry, Conrad. But if you’re packing iron, you’ll have to surrender it before the games start. It wouldn’t do to have somebody take offense over the way a hand turned out and start shooting.”

  “As long as it’s that way for everybody, I can go along with it.” Conrad shrugged, even though he didn’t like the idea of being unarmed. Especially with the way things had been going since he arrived in Denver. “Just make sure nobody tries to sneak anything in.”

  “Don’t worry. The only weapons in there will be cards.”