Crows & Cards (21 page)

"Who am I to go against a man's vision," Chilly reasoned, amused-like. "Professor, bring us some used cards. I like a deck that's been limbered up some myself."

So the Professor ducked over behind the bar and brought out the satchel stuffed with the decks that Chilly and Goose spent their afternoons marking, and all I could do was stay curled up in the dark, praying for the best. What's more, the chief surprised everyone by grabbing the top deck in the bag and tossing it toward Chilly. He never even lifted it to his nose for a sniff.

"You're acting like a man who's had himself
some
vision," Chilly said, opening up the deck. "Would you like a shot of whiskey to help it along?"

"No whiskey." The princess didn't bother to ask her father about how to answer. "That's how you got the medicine bundle the first time. And no shuffling," she added. "Just deal 'em."

She spoke up extra loud on that last bit, as if talking to someone outside the room, which she was—me. The time had come to let loose some caws.

A twitchy silence grabbed hold of the parlor as Chilly let the cards fly, so there wasn't going to be any trouble over my being heard, provided I could find the strength to do what needed doing. What took care of that was dragging out the chief's leather pouch once again. The instant I touched it, a jolt shot up my arm to the back of my mouth, knocking loose a "caw-caw-caw" as high and crisp as any of the chief's.

Chilly stiffened up as if snakebit, not knowing whether the crow had come calling for him or the chief. The feverish red covering his cheeks flashed white, and he crimped the corner of the cards without even knowing it. Low and ghostly, he pleaded, "Not now. Not here."

Eyebrows went arching all over the place, but nobody but me, the chief, the princess, and maybe Goose, who was turning ten shades of pale himself, had any idea of what had grabbed hold of Chilly. But
we
knew he was afraid his luck had been shot through the heart. Growling low, he reached for his lucky pocket watch, to ward off whatever the crow was up to. And that's when everything he'd ever done wrong his whole life long caught up to him, 'cause of course all he found was an empty pocket.

When he realized his watch wasn't where he expected, his fingers brushed over his back pockets, side pockets, and hidden pockets. The quicker his hands dodged around, the farther I shrank from my peephole, until finally he lurched back from the table as if scalding water had been dumped on his lap. By then he was searching all over himself, kicking his chair away from the table to check the floor and bellowing for all he was worth, "Goose! A man can't gamble proper with all this noise. Do something!"

Right away Goose passed the buck by shouting, "Ho-John! You know we don't tolerate crows around here. Do your job and get rid of that blame thing!"

Men and chickens were bumping and stumbling backwards from the table fast as they could, not knowing what to make of Chilly's contortions. The only ones to hold their ground were the chief, who pulled the crown closer, and the princess, who kept a firm grip on her father's shoulder.

"Ho-John!" Goose screamed.

There wasn't any answer from Ho-John, except for the clanking of his chains as he left the kitchen to scare off the crow. The back door creaked open and woke the dogs, who commenced to yipping and baying the instant Ho-John laid into a skillet with a wooden spoon. After a minute or so of deafening bangs on that pan, Ho-John took a rest. Not the dogs.

"I can't concentrate with such a ruckus," Chilly declared loudly, still patting down his coat and pants pockets.

"Ho-John!" Goose shouted above the din.

A half minute later the dogs fell quiet without a yelp. Plenty of men believe a good swift kick is the best way to learn a hound some manners, but Ho-John put his faith in lullabies. As soon as the dogs hushed, you could hear him singing low and scratchy.

"Finally," Chilly muttered. To get ahold of himself, he crossed his chest three times and drained his whiskey. That settled him some, after a shudder. Sitting back down, he scanned the faces of the men hanging back from the table. They were as pasty faced and round eyed a bunch of rabbits as could be imagined. One loud clap could have sent 'em all scampering back to their burrows.

Well, Chilly may have been in a tight fix, but he was still Chilly Larpenteur, which meant he knew how to bluff when he had to. Scowling, he said to the room at large, "Ain't we putting on a show tonight?" Then he laughed and added with a wave of his hand, "Come on back, boys. I think a wasp or something crawled down my shirt, but I'm all right now. Raring to go. Hold on to your war bonnet, Chief, 'cause here they come."

After all that, Chilly didn't bother arguing about shuffling, nor did he even try to sneak something into the deck. He just launched into flinging cards as if someone had stomped on his toe. But he slowed down right fast. You see, the chief wasn't picking anything up, nor even letting the princess handle 'em. Laying his hands atop the pile, he hid what Chilly had dealt out from everyone including me. It appeared that the chief wasn't satisfied with any part of my plan and had ideas of his own about getting back his sacred bundle. I nearly wore my neck out, fast as I was shaking my head no, but there wasn't much I could do to stop him, other than caw again, and all of a sudden I felt too weak to manage it. About all I had the strength for was leaning closer to the peephole to see what came next.

"They won't bite," Chilly teased, 'cause he wanted the chief looking over those cards worse than anyone. Without that, the telegraph was a bust and he was high and dry, couldn't even read their markings, not with the chief's hands covering them.

"My father likes them where they are," the princess declared.

Hearing that made me feel as though I'd swallowed a tack.

"Ain't he planning on even giving them a sniff?" Chilly asked.

"No."

"I guess a man's entitled to lose any way he wants to," Chilly grunted, his good humor going threadbare fast.

Without another word, Chilly scooped up his cards and got busy admiring them. Any other day he would have held his hand tight to his chest and sighted 'em up by squinting down his nose. But not now. Today he fanned his cards so that the gents behind him could study his hand as if they were playing it. I'm bound to think that Chilly sort of invited their attention to create a little diversion, 'cause while everyone was craning to see what he held in his left hand, his right hand was busy dipping down his boot and up his sleeves for hold-out cards that he slipped on top of the deck, smooth as silk.

"Cards?" Chilly sounded pleasant as Sunday dinner.

"We'll play these," the princess stated.

"You can have some new ones if you want 'em," Chilly offered, all generous. "I wouldn't want these gents to think I was taking advantage of you."

"My father's happy with these."

Chilly raised his eyebrows some at that, straining to act amused, but it was a fainthearted job. You could tell he was more than half sunk by my caws and his missing watch. Any satisfaction I'd taken from his predicament was dwindling fast—not that I felt sorry for helping to put him in such a tight spot, but just that it didn't seem smart to gloat on it. We weren't out of the woods yet.

"Pleased you like 'em," Chilly huffed. "I'm not quite so fond of mine. But I think three new ones ought to do me fine."

Discarding three, he dealt himself the cards he'd sneaked atop the deck.

I opened my mouth to try cawing again, but nothing came out, not even when I squeezed the chief's pouch. What made me so mute? Maybe the way Chilly flashed a look at my peephole that could have sizzled bacon. Desperate, I lifted the leather pouch up to my ear, thinking it might tell me what to do. I had the right idea there; the pouch did try to tell me something. But whatever was inside that bag spoke Indian, which I couldn't understand a word of. I shook it some, to try and wake it up, and pleaded with it silent-like to switch over to English, but that didn't get me anywhere. To block out the jabbering, I tucked it away again. And all the while, Chilly was sliding his new cards into his hand and fanning them apart. One of the gawkers behind him whistled low in appreciation of what handsome additions they were. I felt a bead of sweat trickling down my armpit.

By rights, the chief should have shown his hand first. As the dealer, Chilly should have gone last, but he must have still been rattled by my cawing 'cause he couldn't be bothered to wait. With a coarse laugh, he announced, "Sorry, Chief." And he spread his cards face-up on the table, which meant he couldn't go making any changes to them once the chief showed his. At least I'd helped the chief out that much. Though if you'd asked me, I would have said it was an outstanding case of too little, too late.

Chilly had packed his hand with three kings on top of a pair of eights, which made for a full house. Those three kings were some of his favorite royalty, as a matter of fact. I'd seen them come visiting Chilly's hand a half-dozen times this past week alone. He leaned across the table to collect the chief's crown, cackling all the way. I nearly called out "No" to stop him, but someone else beat me to it.

"Wait!"

That was the princess. Chilly hung up, maybe expecting to hear her beg for another chance, but that's not what he got. What he saw next reddened his face brighter than a blacksmithy's forge could have managed. When the chief lifted his hands, the princess gave his cards a flip, revealing four aces.

And a joker.

The joker was a wild card, so it counted as an ace too, making five aces.

I'm not entirely sure a royal flush would have whipped such a crowd of aces. Maybe the only hand strong enough to do that would have six aces in it, and even Chilly Larpenteur hadn't figured out a way to slip that many into a game of five-card.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A
BAG OF MARBLES WOULD HAVE BEEN
more talkative than the men around that table. Goose kept pawing at his bloodshot eyes as if he couldn't trust what he was seeing, and the Professor wore a skinny, sideways smirk that said he was enjoying himself for the first time in weeks. As for Chilly, he appeared to have just discovered the sky was falling. He couldn't get a word out.

What we'd seen didn't make sense, not unless the chief had somehow or other cheated. Or had even more powers than he'd told me about. Or ... well, that pretty much covered it, but at the moment I was feeling too giddy to care which way he'd done it. So long as Chilly got his just deserts, I was well satisfied. If the chief had the power to turn deuces into aces, so be it. And if he was cheating, then let a lightning bolt blast me to ash for trying to help him, 'cause, well, I'd cast my lot and was sticking to it, even as Chilly's watch ticked away like a second heart above my own.

The chief's hands groped across the table toward his sacred bundle. Once his fingers found it, he picked the bundle up careful as a sleeping baby and set it down next to the crown. Wrapping up his prizes took the chief a bit, and all the while he was fumbling with them, Chilly's cheeks were glowing like a chimney fire, his knuckles pressing down so hard on the table that they looked about to burst.

But not till the chief started to stand as if to leave did Chilly find something to say. "Where in tarnation do you think you're headed?"

He sounded off his feed but still a force to be reckoned with.

"Home," the princess told him.

"Not yet, you're not," Chilly declared. "Goose, Professor, help the chief back down."

Goose and the Professor stepped forward, more than a little sheepish about having to bully a blind old Indian and a young girl, but the princess and her father eased down all on their own, looking proud but mighty outnumbered. I covered Chilly's watch with one hand and the chief's pouch with the other, trying to keep both quiet.

Then Chilly stroked his goatee some and sized up the chief for a longish spell, during which the chief held himself straight and speechless. Everyone else in those parts might as well have been cut from wax—me included. After a while, Chilly leaned back to chuckle.