Wolf Creek (8 page)

When Luke only nodded, Ben added, “Course
there are other games around town for a lot less money required to
sit in. There’s Asa’s Saloon.” He hesitated for a moment. “I
wouldn’t recommend going there alone. You might check it out during
the light of day.”

Luke then hoofed it over to the Imperial
Hotel and booked a room, then made a stop at Ma’s Café for a
meal.

After eating, Luke walked to The Wolf’s Den
and ordered a beer. He leaned against the bar and studied the
gaming floor. Friendly enough place, two girls circulating, smiling
touching men’s arms and shoulders as they made their rounds. Tables
were abundant; at one table were four seated men engaged in a card
game. It was early yet and Luke figured on checking out the other
places before working his way in on a game. He finished the beer
then walked out.

He made his way to The Lucky Break and stood
before the bar. The big, bearded bartender, Rob Parker, patted the
bar before Luke. “What can I get you?”

“A beer and some information on the
tournament,” Luke replied.

The man nodded, then turned and, grabbing a
mug from a shelf with a beefy hand, stepped to the beer spigot. He
set the full mug before Luke and scooped up the coin Luke had
placed on the bar.

Before Luke could ask anything further, Rob
Parker went right into what everyone but strangers already knew.
“The games start tomorrow night, after all the named gamblers get
into town. It costs one hundred dollars to buy in, which you get
back in chips. If you make it through the first round then you
advance to the next round and so on. Only the best will play in the
finale. With all the big betting going on, it’s sure to
please.”

“Thanks,” Luke said. “That’ll give me time
to get used to the town and play a few hands to sharpen up.” Luke
was somewhat relieved by the games beginning tomorrow night instead
of tonight; that gave him a whole night of gambling to see if he
could win enough to cover the entry fee. After paying expenses, he
had thirty dollars left.

Luke looked around the room while he drank
his beer. It appeared much like the Wolf’s Den, with one low stakes
game going on. He finished the beer then walked on down to Asa’s
Saloon. The liveryman had been right, Luke surmised, the beer was
cheaper and so were the surroundings, including the looks of the
clientele, which did not appear very genteel. Luke figured it would
be wise to do his gambling in the other establishments, where the
stakes were apt to be a little higher and the chance of
confrontations a lot less.

It was after eight that night before Luke
settled into a game at The Wolf’s Den. He won the first two hands
and felt his luck was good tonight. The cards were coming his way.
Three hours later, he was forty dollars ahead. If things continued
on this winning course, he stood to double that and have more than
enough of a stake to get into the tournament games tomorrow.

Around midnight he still sat at the same
table with four others; then three chairs emptied as the gamblers
either lost or tired of the game and left. It didn’t take long for
replacement players to fill the empty chairs. A beefy yellow haired
cowboy came to the table lugging with him a gunnysack of unknown
contents. He clumsily fell into one of the chairs across from Luke.
The man appeared drunk and began making obnoxious insinuating
remarks to a soiled dove who wandered by.

“Hey darling,’ I’ll show you what a real man
is like and I won’t even charge you.” A few other remarks and
wandering hands was enough to send the dove scurrying away. The man
cackled with laughter from his own remarks, but others at the table
did not comment.

“The ante is a dollar,” the dealer, named
Wilkes, declared. The yellow haired man reached into his shirt
pocket; his hand came out with a wad of bills and coins. He dug
through the pile, hesitating long enough to count out a dollar’s
worth of coins, then pushed them into the center of the table.
Everyone at the table exchanged first names, including the yellow
haired man, who called himself Hardy.

Hardy Briggs talked too loudly, spat
carelessly in the direction of the cuspidors and cried out
gleefully when he won the ante pot after everyone but he folded on
the initial deal.

Later on, Luke had just pocketed more than
thirty dollars from the last hand and the look on the face of the
drunken Briggs reflected more than dismay at having lost five out
of the last five hands, his pile of money growing smaller after
each game. His discomfiture did not bother Luke in the least. The
man had the same chance as everyone else at the table but his bets
were stupid.

Wilkes seated to Brigg’s left, offered.
“This game will be here for a while, Hardy, if you wanted to take a
break and get some coffee.”

Briggs brushed the comment off, too
inebriated to listen to reason, “Naw, just deal the cards.”

Wilkes glanced at Luke and the others then
shrugged and dealt out a hand of five-card draw.

When the draw was finished, Luke bet ten
dollars on his three tens. Wilkes and two others folded. Hardy
Briggs began counting out the money and came up short. He only had
four dollars left.

The men at the table watched while Briggs
began a search of his pockets. When the search ended, everyone
figured Briggs, unable to call the bet, would have to fold his hand
and go crash somewhere to sleep off the liquor. Instead, Briggs
reached down beside his chair and brought up the gunnysack, then
plunked the sack in the middle of the table. “That ought to cover
it,” he said.

When no one made a move, Wilkes said, “I
guess he wants us to look in the sack.” He then reached to open the
sack and pulled out a pair of fancy boots. Wilkes looked at them a
moment and said, “Nice ones,” then offered one to Luke to
examine.

Luke rolled the boot around in his hand.
“Yes, they are,” Then he turned his head to Briggs. “So you are
saying you are willing to put these boots up to cover the bet?”

Hardy Briggs grinned and nodded.

Wilkes sat back and declared so that those
around could hear, “This man is betting these boots on this
hand.”

At the next table over, one of the men
nudged the man next to him, “Some damned fool is betting his boots
over there.” They halted their playing to watch.

Luke looked at the boot again and judged it
to be about his size. “Okay, I’m willing to say they are worth the
six dollars.”

“Hell, they’re worth more’n that!” Briggs
scoffed.

When the cards lay face up, the three tens
in Luke’s hand clearly won over the pair of kings and pair of sixes
that Briggs had.

Brigg sat for a moment in disbelief. He
stared at the cards on the table, his face becoming scarlet with
rage. He ran a hand to his forehead. “Shit!” Briggs said, then
stood, kicking his chair behind him, and stomped out.

When Briggs reeled out the door and into the
street, he kicked at a dried horse turd in frustration. The whiskey
was coursing through his bloodstream, making him sweat more with
each step he took. It attacked his brain to play havoc with his
coordination.

Briggs tried to think. He knew he’d been
reckless and stupid with his money. He’d taken the kid’s boots as a
prank, intending to give them back tomorrow but dang it, the
whiskey had got the best of him. A man who had worked this long and
hard to get here, after eating the dust of that damned herd, was
entitled to let loose and worry about the consequences later. His
inebriated mind told him he wanted another drink but not in this
place, hell, they’d skinned him out of his money. What he needed to
do was to go find Jiggs Malone. He’d spring for the drinks.

Briggs wasn’t exactly sure just where he had
last seen Malone. He muttered curses incoherently as he managed to
shuffle to The Lucky Break. The place was only mildly busy, as it
was late. Briggs stepped inside then stood with a hand on the back
of chair for support as his eyes scanned the room for a familiar
face, but found none.

Briggs turned and went back outside. He
staggered to lean up against the building front. “Damn it!” he
said; nothing was going right for him. He was disgusted and tired
of walking. When a horse nickered at its tying at the hitch rails,
Briggs looked around. There was no one out front but him. He
stepped to stand alongside a big black gelding, then ran a hand
along the sleek neck. The horse was docile and did not recoil from
his touch.

“You and me could be good friends. We could
go far,” Briggs muttered, then took the reins loose and swung up
into the saddle. He reined the animal around then touched a heel
lightly and the horse stepped away at a leisure pace. “To hell with
it all!” Briggs declared, then rode away.

Back at the Wolf’s Den, Luke replaced the
boots into the gunnysack and continued playing until he grew tired.
Satisfied that he now had enough money in his pockets to cover the
tournament fee, he called it a night and left, carrying the sack
with him.

* * *

The next day, Sam Gardner at first smiled
when Quint told him of the boot theft, then frowned. “Damn, I
didn’t know that we had that kind of lowlifes coming in to town.
This could be just a case of simple assault and robbery, but
stealing a man’s boots is, to say the least, in damned poor taste.
It should be easy enough to locate a pair of fancy stitched boots,
although I’m not inclined to go around looking at footwear all day.
On top of that, someone stole a horse last night from in front of
The Lucky Break. I find it damned strange all this thieving going
on right under our noses but without a witness to either crime, we
may never find out who’s responsible. A heavy hand might be better
than trying to be friends with any of those bastards down in Dogleg
City.”

“Asa and Harry have always been up front
with me,” Quint retaliated, “otherwise we wouldn’t be aware of half
the stuff that goes on in that part of town.”

Gardner cast his eyes to Quint with an
ominous glare. “Still, Asa’s place and those that frequent it draw
flies.”

Quint nodded rather than listen to his boss
carp about how he would do the job. Quint had his own way of
dealing with folks and being an asshole to the business owners was
not one of them. He stood. “I’ll check with Asa later, see what he
knows about it.”

Gardner nodded. “I wouldn’t spend a lot of
time on it, Quint. It’s just a pair of boots and nobody got killed
over it. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, what with all these high
rolling gamblers coming to town for the big poker tournament. We
need to make sure the gamblers and the games are not disturbed. Dab
Henry and others put a lot into enticing the gamblers to Wolf Creek
and, if successful, it could be an annual event. ‘Good for
business,’ Dab Henry said.”

“I’ll be extra vigilant,” Quint said.
“Still, it’s a shame that fella got his boots stole from him, right
out in the street.” He shrugged a shoulder, then said, “I’ll see
you a bit later,” and left.

He spent considerable time investigating the
horse theft. It was past six when Quint walked into Asa’s Saloon,
casting his eyes in a sweep around the room, to absorb who was
where. The usual crowd noise in the saloon died off a bit. Men
standing at the bar took notice of the badge on Quint’s shirtfront.
One man stiffened, letting his hand brush against his holstered
six-gun as he stared with steely eyes. Those seated at tables paid
him only a cursory glance then went back to their games. Quint was
aware of the usual glares he received when walking into any of the
saloons. If a man had a grievance and was on the prod, it would not
take long for him to make a move. The conversations and general
noise of the saloon resumed when Quint stepped to the bar to stand
before Asa Pepper.

When asked about the previous night’s
incident, Asa replied, “Harry told me all about it. The Mexican you
mentioned is most likely Miguel Santos. He works up at the rail
yard, comes in most every day.”

In Santos’s defense, Asa made note,
“Sometimes others come to town in the empty box cars. They don’t
have any money and look for a way to get a drink or a meal. Could
be one of them was waiting in the dark for an easy mark to come out
of the saloon. Sometimes they sleep down by the creek behind the
tents.” Quint nodded his understanding and intended to check it
out.

Asa motioned his head toward the tables.
“Miguel is sitting at that far right hand table.”

Quint walked over to the table, where a
thick-bodied man sat shuffling a deck of cards, apparently, waiting
for others to engage in a game. He had neatly combed black hair;
his hat lay on a chair nearby. “Are you Miguel Santos?” Quint
asked.

The man exhibited a friendly face when he
looked up and smiled broadly, then nodded. “Yes, that is right, I
am Miguel.”

“Like to talk to you,” Quint said, then
waited until Miguel nodded in agreement. Quint pulled out a chair
and sat down. He introduced himself, then went right into telling
of last night’s event, carefully watching Miguel for any telltale
reactions to what he said.

Miguel sat quietly until Quint had finished.
“It is as you say. I talked to a young
vaquero
last night.
He said he was new in town. His boots drew my attention. I
mentioned that my cousin Chico had a pair very much like those. We
did not talk for long. A short time later, I went home, I must work
each day. Now you are telling me that afterwards the young
vaquero
was beaten and robbed of his boots? Such a
shame.”

“Tell me about your cousin’s boots,” Quint
said.

Miguel sighed. “Poor Chico, he was much
younger. He is my uncle Manuel’s child. Chico was, how you say,
wild.
He liked things that were bright and shiny but would
not wait and work as others do. He brought much unhappiness and
shame to his madré and my uncle.”