The Road to Ratchet Creek

by J. T. Edson

  “Maybe the boy don’t play cards for money, Wally,” Thorbold remarked.

  Already smarting under a sense of injustice at Calamity’s desertion, John found the word “boy” irritating in the extreme. Sure he might lack years, but he could handle a man’s work in the gunsmith’s shop and had mended the carbine, a task probably beyond the capabilities of the drummers.

  “Sure I do!” he snapped. “Let’s have a game.”

  Exchanging glances, Conway and Thorbold settled down in their chairs. While Thorbold handed around the drinks, Conway asked John to open the deck and stack the cards ready to begin.

  “Maybe you’d best take the bank first, Wally,” Thorbold suggested. “That way we can show you easier, Johnny.”

  “Sure,” John replied, not certain if such was the accepted thing but unwilling to admit his ignorance.

  “It’s easy enough,” Conway explained as John gave the cards an awkward over-hand stack. “All we do is split the deck into three piles and you two bet the bottom card of the stack you fancy is higher than mine. If it is you win, if not you lose. Ace’s high, deuce low.”

  Despite his brilliance in matters pertaining to guns, John’s schooling had been fragmentary. On the face of it, to his way of thinking, the game seemed easy enough and its odds evenly balanced between banker and players.

  “I understand,” he said, watching Thorbold remove a wallet and drop it on to the table. Not wishing to be out-done, John took out his own wallet, containing twenty dollars given by his father to cover his expenses, and placed it by his glass.

  Taking the deck, Conway split it into three even piles.

  “I’ll have a dollar on the middle,” Thorbold announced.

  A dollar was, to John, a vast sum of money. However he did not want the men to know it. Acting as nonchalantly as if he did the same kind of thing daily, he pulled a bill from his wallet and laid it on top of the left hand pile of cards in imitation of Thorbold’s move.

  “Seven of clubs,” Thorbold said, raising his pile.

  “Nine of hearts,” Johnny went on, looking at his bottom card.

  “Just to show there’s no cheating, I’ll split mine,” Conway remarked and cut the remaining pile to show the middle card. “Eight of spades. You win, Johnny, but I’m up a dollar on you, Lou.”

  Never had John made a dollar with so little effort and he felt that gambling had its advantages.

  Three more times he won, on the last occasion placing down two dollars instead of one. He became aware that Thorbold doubled the amount bet after each loss and wondered why.

  “That’s the way to do it, Johnny,” the drummer told him, winning the next show of cards while John’s two dollars went to Conway. “Double up each time you lose and when you win, it all comes back to you.”

  Thinking about the matter, John saw that Thorbold spoke the truth. As the dealer paid off at even money, the doubled-up bet brought in the amount already lost and showed a dollar profit. With that in mind, John did not hesitate to place four dollars on his next choice.

  “Nine of spades,” he said.

  “Nine of diamonds,” Conway countered. “Ties go to the dealer.”

  “That’s the rules, Johnny,” Thorbold confirmed.

  Collecting when both he and the player held a card of equal denomination gave the banker an advantage of five and fifteen-seventeenths percent, an edge which showed a profit even in an honest game.

  The next pass around of the betting saw John lose and he felt worried as he placed sixteen dollars for his next try.

  “King of spades,” he said with relief.

  “Six of hearts,” Conway replied, cutting the cards. “You win.”

  Counting out sixteen dollars, the drummer dropped them before Johnny and a grin crossed the youngster’s face.

  “It’s a good system,” Thorbold said as Conway insisted on fetching another round of drinks. “I’m going to start betting five dollars, that way I’ll get an extra five back when I win instead of one.”

  “But he’s your friend,” John protested.

  “Not when we’re playing cards. Anyways, he can afford to lose.”

  So, on Conway’s return, John placed five dollars down on a pile and won. Sitting back, he wondered how long this kind of thing had been going on. There were times when his father’s business did not take five dollars during a day, yet he had won that much at one turn of a pile of cards. The next time, however, John lost. With just a touch of trepidation he piled on ten dollars for the next try and, winning, recouped the loss. Then he lost again, doubled up the bet, lost once more and a third time in a row.

  Coming from her room, Monique looked about her. A frown creased her face as she saw the cards and money. On walking over to stand a short distance behind John, she heard something which handed her a shock.

  “I’ll put forty dollars on the right,” John announced.

  “Can you cover it if you lose?” Conway demanded.

  “Sure I can,” John assured him, not especially worried by the prospect of losing as his previous losses had been swept away by following Thorbold’s system.

  Worry flickered on Monique’s features as she watched the way Conway cut the cards, with particular emphasis at how he gripped them when making the final separation of the pile left to him by the players. She looked around and found the room devoid of possible sources of assistance. Working in saloons taught a girl caution and she could well imagine what would happen to her if she mentioned her suspicions to the drummers without adequate support. There was no sign of Calamity or the “deacon,” while the agent and all his staff had disappeared into the kitchen. Adopting a disinterested expression, she sauntered across to the front door and went through it. Maybe Conway and Thorbold would have attached significance to her actions but they hardly noticed her as they approached the climax of the game.

  On the porch Monique looked around for some sign of help. Seeing no one, she went to the stables and looked inside to find it empty. Next she made for the corrals and again met with disappointment. Just as she thought of returning and telling the agent of her discovery, she saw two shapes leave the darkened barn.

  “Yes sir, Solly,” Calamity remarked as she and the marshal stepped into the open. “We sure proved that the bits do sit——.”

  “Calamity!” Monique called and ran forward. “It’s John!”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Calamity barked.

  “Those two drummers have got him playing at banker-and-broker. I think they are using ‘humps.’ Whichever way, he’s losing a lot.”

  “Is he?” Calamity hissed, her hand going to the whip’s handle and she headed for the main building at a rush.

  While John knew that a win would once more see him five dollars ahead, he still felt concerned as he realized that he must bet six hundred and forty dollars in order to recover the three hundred and twenty just lost. Yet he knew he must go on. Already his losses had cut deeply into the amount needed to purchase the machinery and its owner had demanded the full one thousand dollars before he would part with it. The only hope was that he would win the next cut of the cards, for he could not double up again should he lose.

  Conway exchanged a grin with Thorbold as he riffled the cards. This would be the deciding play, or at least the end of the game. Maybe it was better ended, for at any moment Calamity Jane and the “preacher” might return. Carefully squaring the deck, Conway began to cut it. Again he and Thorbold were so engrossed with the prospect of making easy money that they failed to stay alert. Neither heard the front door open or noticed Calamity and Cole enter.

  Something hissed through the air and struck the table close to Conway’s hand with a pistol-shot crack, carving a groove in the wood. Thorbold let out a startled yell, jerked backward, overturned his chair and sprawled with it to the floor. No less surprised, Conway thrust his chair from under him and came to his feet. John also rose, his eyes following the lash of the bull whip to its owner. Never had the boy seen such an expression
of fury as Calamity’s face held as she stalked toward his table with Cole close behind her.

  “You stinking, no-good, four-flushing bastards!” she spat at the men, then her voice softened a little. “Pick up your money, Johnny.”

  “Go ahead, kid,” Conway sneered. “Pick it up, and then let her wipe your nose for you.”

  “I’ll wipe yours for you!” Calamity shouted and her arm rose, sending the whip’s lash curling behind her.

  “Easy, sister,” Cole said, catching her wrist. “Let me speak with this here miserable sinner for the good of his soul.”

  “You mind your own damned busi——!” Conway began, dropping his right hand into his jacket pocket.

  Before the Colt Pocket Pistol could come out, Cole glided forward and ripped a punch into its owner’s belly. Conway let out a strangled croak, folding in the middle for his jaw to meet Cole’s rising other hand. Calamity watched approvingly as the drummer straightened up again to catch Cole’s third blow solidly on the side of the jaw. From the way the marshal handled himself, it appeared that the Cole branch of the family could do other things near on as good as the Counters. Spinning around under the impact of the punch, Conway crashed into a table which collapsed under his weight, and he measured his length on the floor.

  “Behind you, deacon!” Monique squealed from the front door.

  Whirling around, Calamity and Cole saw Thorbold sitting up and trying to pull the Smith & Wesson from his pocket.

  “He’s mine!” Calamity yelled and sprang forward.

  Maybe Calamity had never seen a savate fighter in action at that time, but she could still use her feet. Perhaps not as well as a Creole trained in the noble art of French foot-boxing, but sufficient for her own simple needs. Certainly she had no cause for complaint at the result. Out lashed her right leg, the toe of her boot driving solidly under Thorbold’s jaw. He pitched over, landed flat on his back and the revolver slid away from his limp fingers; not that he could have used it right then even had he kept hold of it.

  “What the hell?” Janowska yelled, bursting from the telegraph room.

  At the same moment, also attracted by the noise, Mrs. Janowska, her daughter, Cultus and the bartender appeared from the kitchen. Cole turned and looked at the agent, then he indicated the cards.

  “Your guests were sinning and a mite unrepentant, brother,” he said.

  Spitting blood, Conway sat up. He saw Cole’s attention distracted and began to jerk the Colt from his pocket. Before Calamity, or Cultus for that matter, could either give warning or make a move in the marshal’s defense, John took a hand. After completing the repair of Calamity’s carbine, he had replaced the bullets in the magazine and fed one into the breech. Springing to the little Winchester, he caught it up, thumbed forward the safety catch and shot from hip high. For all that, the bullet flung up splinters from the floor close to Conway’s side and caused him to release the Colt’s butt hurriedly so that it slid back into his pocket. Blurring the lever, John sent the empty cartridge case flicking into the air and filled the chamber with a loaded round.

  Cole’s Rogers & Spencer revolver twisted from the holster as he swung to face Conway. Fear crossed the drummer’s face as he stared into the .44 muzzle of the gun and realized that its hammer was held back under Cole’s thumb while the marshal’s forefinger depressed the trigger.

  “W—We were only having a friendly game!” Conway croaked.

  “I just bet you were!” Calamity snapped, coiling the whip.

  “How much did you lose, boy?” asked Cole, holstering his gun and stepping to the table.

  “T-Three hundred and twenty dollars last time, marshal.”

  “Marshal?” repeated Conway, getting to his feet.

  “That’s the dismal truth, brother,” Cole told him. “If I was called to the church, I sure never heard it and a feller has to live. So I took on as U.S. marshal of Utah Territory.”

  “There’s no law against gambling here,” Conway pointed out.

  “You’re right enough about that,” admitted Cole, examining the cards. Then he cut the deck into three piles, gripping the cards at the upper end to do so. “You been doubling up, Johnny?”

  “Yes, sir,” John replied.

  “Then make your pick.”

  “Y—You mean——?” John gasped, putting down the carbine.

  “You started this thing, boy,” Cole replied. “Now finish it. Make your pick.”

  Nobody spoke and John ran the tip of his tongue across his lips. On Calamity and Cole’s intervention he hoped that the game might be called null and void, but that did not seem to be the case. Slowly he reached out his hand to touch the left side pile of cards.

  “Th—This one,” he said and lifted it. “Jack of diamonds.”

  “Take one for that poor sinner you cruelly abused, which same he was asking for, Calam,” Cole continued, nodding in the groaning Thorbold’s direction.

  Although puzzled at the marshal’s attitude, Calamity did not argue. Unless she missed her guess, Cole knew exactly what he was doing and could be relied upon to save John from being swindled out of a large sum of money.

  “That poor sinner, who got what he needed, takes the middle,” she announced and exposed the bottom card of the central pile. “Ain’t he the lucky one, queen of clubs.”

  “Which leaves you this one,” Cole told the scowling Conway. “Only it wouldn’t be fair for you to have the bottom card. So I’ll just cut it again.”

  Watched by the others and ignoring Conway’s angry glare, Cole split the pile; only he did so by gripping the cards in the center.

  “Four of diamonds!” John whooped. “I’ve won!”

  “It sure looks that way,” agreed Cole and looked at Conway. “Don’t it now, brother?”

  “He wins,” snarled the drummer.

  “Are you headed for Ratchet Creek?”

  “No, marshal. I’m leaving the stage at Shadloe and going South.”

  “Forget it, brother. Aman with your talents’d do better back East.”

  “Are you telling me to get out of the Territory?” Conway asked.

  “Right out,” agreed Cole. “Like you said, gambling’s legal—but the way you play’s not gambling, now is it?”

  “You mean he was cheating me?” John demanded.

  “Let’s say you didn’t have much chance of winning, boy,” Cole replied.

  “Why you——!” John began and reached toward the carbine.

  “Leave it, son!” Cole ordered. “Mind what the Good Book says, whosoever sheds blood is plumb likely to get the other feller’s kinfolk hunting him for evens.”

  “You’ve won your money back, Johnny,” Calamity went on. “Call it straight and forget it.”

  “Only remember it next time somebody asks you to play cards with them,” Cole continued.

  “It’s over, Johnny,” Calamity said gently.

  “For me as well?” growled Conway.

  “Not for you, brother,” Cole told him. “There’s the matter of that table you busted. When you’ve paid Mrs. Janowska for it you can say it’s all over and not before.”

  Chapter 9

  I’M NOT A NICE GAL

  “I STILL DON’T KNOW HOW HE DID IT,” JOHN REMARKED after Conway and Thorbold disappeared into their rooms under orders to stay put until morning. “It doesn’t seem possible that he could cut the cards he wanted.”

  “He couldn’t,” admitted Cole. “Not to cut ’em and say he’d get one certain card. But he could get ’em close enough for what he needed. Take a look at the deck and see if you can find out how.”

  John did as ordered, picking up the cards and studying them. At first he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Then he looked closer and ran his thumb and forefinger gently down the long edges of the deck. In years to come John would gain a reputation for being able to gauge minute measurements as accurately with his finger and thumb as most men could using a micrometer. Already the Browning “feather touch” had developed sufficie
ntly to let him feel certain irregularities in the cards.

  “The sides aren’t even,” he said wonderingly.

  “That’s right, they’re not,” agreed Cole. “Look at a few high cards.”

  Selecting a ten, jack, queen and king, John examined them closely. “They’re thinner in the middle than at the ends.”

  “You’ve got real good eyes, boy,” complimented Cole. “Now look at some of the low cards.”

  “These’re cut down at the ends,” Johnny said after examining a deuce, three and four.

  Which, while true enough, did not mean that the alterations could be seen easily. In fact Calamity studied the cards for a long time before confessing that she was unable to detect the trimmed-down sections.

  “They’re there, sister,” Cole told her. “This’s what they call a deck of ‘belly-strippers’ down South.”

  “I’ve always heard them called ‘humps,’” Monique put in, having stood in the background.

  “Say, thanks for telling us about those two jaspers,” Calamity remarked.

  “I didn’t want to see him lose all his money,” Monique replied. “Well, I’m going to bed.”

  Waving away John’s attempts to thank her, the girl walked off to her room. Curiosity brought John’s attention back to the cards.

  “I may be dumb, but I still don’t see how they work,” he said.

  “Look,” Cole answered and gripped the cards in the center to cut them. “It’s low, under eight.” He showed the three of clubs and replaced the cut section on the deck. Taking hold at the upper end, he raised another portion. “This time I’ve got a card over eight.”

  When he made the test, John could see how the “humps” worked. By taking hold of the deck in the center, the banker’s fingers closed on the extended edges of the low cards. Not until he gripped at the end of the deck would he come into contact with the higher denominations. By skilled manipulation of the betting, the banker could then arrange to build up his victim’s confidence and be certain of winning in the end.

  “But Conway let me keep doubling my bets,” Johnny pointed out.