Liberty Hill (Western Tide Series) (42 page)

Lucius did none of these things. He had thrown a punch and swung a knife over lesser offenses. But this was no small thing. This was not a trifle, or a frustration remedied by angry words or a blackened eye.

His money was gone. All of it. And Evelyn’s too. His purse was wasted, and that would not do.

It simply would not do.

Lucius fumbled desperately for one final bet. He found it, crumpled in his trouser pocket.

His and Evelyn’s tickets to California.

“Another hand,” he told the table.

Brock cocked an eyebrow.

“Have you got anything left to wager, Mr. Flynn?”

“I want another hand,” Lucius repeated. “Dealer, our cards, please.”

Brock smirked.

“You gotta buy in, mate,” he said.

Lucius looked frantically to those who had gathered to watch.

“The ante,” he said. “I just need the ante. I will repay you.”

They stared back at him, unmoving.

“For God’s sake, lads,” he cried, “have you not been entertained at my expense?”

All were silent.

Brock watched Lucius unblinkingly as Lucius pulled out his tickets and slammed them onto the table.

“There’s my goddamn ante,” he said. “And my final bet as well. Take it or leave it, Mr. Donnigan.”

Brock stroked his rough chin and studied his opponent. He had to admit he had wondered if Lucius would bet his passage, but Brock had not been entirely certain Lucius
possessed
tickets to California. Many men simply bought their passage from port to port as ships passed through. Just as Brock had done.

Lucius had just seen the ante and raised it considerably, without even knowing what his cards would be. He was desperate, of course, and desperation trumped all forms of sensibility when a man found himself clinging to naught but a whisper of hope. It had been Brock’s hope that he might bring Lucius this low. Indeed, Lucius was not merely low; he was breaking. And this was Brock’s opportunity to crush him completely.

“All right, mate.” Brock rifled through a stack of bank notes and tossed a few on the table. He figured the amount was comparable to whatever Lucius had paid for those tickets, plus a little extra. Why not? He was feeling lucky. No, he was feeling unstoppable.

Both Brock and Lucius held their breath while their cards were distributed.

Lucius should have known better, he knew this. But without any money, those tickets were next to worthless anyway. He and Evelyn would arrive in California and what then?
Walk
to the gold fields? Eat weeds and dirt? What were they supposed to
do
without money? And who knew when their damn ship to California would even arrive? They might very well die of starvation before then!

Lucius’ eyes were bloodshot. Maybe that was because he was forgetting to blink. He looked hard at his cards as he fanned them out.

Nothing. He had nothing.

He tried to think of what he could do with nothing. But that was just the problem. Lucius could not think at all. His brain was muddled. His instinct for survival had given rationality the boot. Lucius was alone with his terrified self, and he could not see an escape.

One trade was allowed, and Lucius didn’t have anything greater than a nine. Not a single face card! Could he trade
all
his cards? No, that was called a fold, and Lucius would
not
fold. To fold was to forfeit, to forfeit was to surrender, and Lucius would never surrender.

He held on to his four and five and slid the rest to the dealer. Every one of his movements was followed by Brock’s gaze.

That no good son of a-

“Mr. Donnigan?” the dealer asked. “Your trade?”

“I’ll stay,” Brock replied, never taking his eyes off Lucius.

He was trying to intimidate Lucius, but Lucius knew this. It was a waste of energy, really, because Lucius was far beyond being intimidated. He was treading the brink of insanity.

The dealer produced three cards for Lucius, and Lucius examined them, one by one.

An ace! Blessed mother of Jesus! And a five! The third card was rubbish, but that didn’t matter. He had a pair with an ace high. He stood a chance, however meager.

“All right, Donnigan,” he said. “Let’s get the truth out on the table, shall we?”

Brock smirked the infernal smirk that Lucius had come to loathe. Brock said nothing, but laid his cards face up on the table.

No royalty. That was a good sign.

The suits were all different. Also a good sign.

No wildcards. All right.

DAMN IT
.

Brock had two pairs. Not just one.
Two
.

It was done. It was over. Brock had won.

No tickets meant no California. No California meant no gold. No gold meant nothing. Lucius and Evelyn had nothing. And
nothing
meant staying in this wretched city. Indefinitely.

Red with rage, Lucius thoughtlessly flung his cards across the room.

Brock tisked.

“Aw, Lucius, you would spare me a victor’s gloat by not showing your cards? Bad form, my friend.”

“I want it back, Donnigan!” Lucius shouted. “I
will
get it back.”

 “You see,” Brock chuckled, “that’s your problem, Flynn. You leave nothing to the imagination. You’re not only predictable, you tell everyone just what it is you intend to do. You can try to get your money and your passage back, but you’ve got nothing left to gamble.”

The others joined him in his mockery of Lucius, and if there was one thing Lucius hated more than anything, it was being mocked. Laughed at. Ridiculed.

There was too much time lost in the seconds it took to fetch one’s knife and cross the distance to one’s opponent. Too many things could happen, not the least of which being the escape of said opponent. Brock could evade a knife. His eyes were sharp, betraying his sobriety. He had ordered one beer that afternoon, and it sat untouched before him.

Lucius did not possess the wherewithal to wield a knife. He was too slow. And drunk. Oh yes, he knew he was drunk.

Such a fool. He was such a damned fool.

He considered his options. There were some things he knew he could
not
do. He could not return to camp. He could not face the others. Not like this. Not innocent Josephine, tragic Adele, honest Samuel, helpless Bartholomew. And not Evelyn. Oh God, especially not Evelyn. What would he tell her?

He had spent a lot of time around Americans lately, and he knew what one of them would say.

“Prepare to be here for the long haul, honey.”

But, no. No! Evelyn would kill him. He had done the unthinkable. Committed the unforgivable sin. Even if he killed himself first, she would track down his body and cause it some other sort of mutilation. He would be the dead man, but she would be the ghost who haunted him.

He needed options. Options! Think, Lucius.

The knife was out, and a punch would not do enough damage to that mammoth of a man who was Brock Donnigan.

So what could a fool like Lucius do?

A fool could cause a distraction, snatch the money, and run. A fool could hang his head and walk out the door. A fool could burst into tears, or hang himself, or tie a stone around his feet and jump into the sea. Evelyn would not find him there.

But a fool could also pull the trigger of a gun.

This sudden burst of clarity brought a smile to Lucius’ lips.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.

Brock had anticipated many manners of attempted revenge, all of which were brash and violent. They would be failed attempts, of course. One could not expect a hopeless boy like Lucius to succeed against a brute like Brock.  Still, conversation took him completely off guard.

“Oh?” was all he could think to reply.

“I’ve got some promises to keep,” Lucius began. “I told you I would get my money back.”

The first thing to do was negotiate. Hold a trial, of sorts. Take back the upper hand by giving
Brock
options. He could return the money, or rather call it forfeit.

This was Option Number One.

“Good luck with that” Brock scoffed. “Oh, forgive me. You haven’t got any luck left, have you?”

Lucius scowled. He didn’t really expect Brock to go for that anyway. Not that he would even have a choice in the end.

“I also said I would kill you,” Lucius continued, teeth clenched.

Option Number Two.

“Ah, yes. That you did, but I seem to recall a certain clause about Evelyn.”

You touch her, you speak to her, you so much as look at her like that again, and I promise I will kill you.

All right. Perhaps Lucius had not added, “you win her money in a game of poker”. But how could he have foreseen this happening? The bottom line was the offense, and Brock had clearly overstepped his boundaries.

“You’ve crossed the line,” Lucius told him. “That’s Evelyn’s money you took.”

“It’s Evelyn’s money you lost.”

Back to Option Number One.

“Then take my portion, but return what is hers. It’s what a gentleman would do.”

Brock shook his head and shrugged.

“Yes, but neither one of us is looking at a gentleman, mate. You spent Evelyn’s money same as I will.”

“Then be the better man!”

Brock laughed again. Lucius was one of his more amusing victims.

“You know I already am. Evelyn can have her money as soon as she realizes this, and comes to be with me.”

The bastard! To clean Lucius out, then dangle Evelyn under his very nose! She was not Brock’s to dangle! Lucius felt his body begin to tremble as rage consumed him.

“She will never be with you!” he screamed.

Negotiations had failed, as he knew they would. Perhaps he had even hoped for that. At least this way, Brock would be out of his life for good.

Lucius reached into his belt, felt the steel of his pistol as it had warmed to the same temperature of his body.

The heat of it nearly burned him.  Brock was not the only one who had kept a secret weapon hidden for just the opportune moment.

Brock watched with sudden comprehension as Lucius reached beneath the table to produce his weapon. Finally! Lucius was doing the predictable thing. The Australian might have made a movement if his instincts warned him of danger. He had been at the opposite end of a barrel before, had felt the adrenaline of staring death in the eye. But this was no life-threatening surprise. This was to be expected. Lucius was drunk. Lucius was angry. And Lucius could not hold onto a deck of cards.

Brock was actually excited to see how this would end.

He gazed on with amusement as Lucius’ hand disappeared, then lifted up and up as the gun continued to ascend past its intended position. Lucius’ fingers fumbled to such an obnoxious degree that they successfully managed to fling the weapon over his shoulder. Everyone in the room held their breath as the gun flew through the air, then fell to the floor with a metallic thud.

There was a corporate gasp as the crowd waited for the blast that did not come.

Bloody hell. Lucius couldn’t even shoot someone.

He shook his head and sighed a great sigh, slumping a little lower in his chair. Options One and Two had failed him. He might as well accept defeat.

Which was Option Number Three.

The brief moment of stillness suddenly exploded into chaos.

“He’s got a gun!” someone shouted, followed by a series of blithering idiots who repeated the same exclamation.

Lucius rolled his eyes. Of course he had a gun. Everyone had a gun. But with all the commotion, one would think such a thing was a novelty around here.

“Oy!” the bartender exclaimed. “I’ll not have anyone shooting in my saloon, gentlemen! Someone pick up that weapon and bring it here.”

The pistol was promptly confiscated and given to the bartender, who tucked it out of sight.

Lucius watched with contradicting emotions as his weapon disappeared: violation, as this was
his
gun they were reprimanding; fear, as he was now defenseless; and apathy, as he had been stripped of everything anyway. 

Then Brock Donnigan stood to his feet, and Lucius suddenly forgot all about the gun.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, mate,” he told Lucius, looming over the smaller man like a tower of wrath.

Was he serious? He just stole Lucius’ fortune and he thought
Lucius
had a lot of nerve?

Lucius might have had a verbal reply if Brock didn’t move so quickly. Brock swiftly closed the distance between them, grabbed a handful of Lucius’ hair, and shoved his face into the side of the table.

It should have hurt, but if Lucius had any luck left, it was this: his face was numb from all the drinking.

* * *

Down the narrow, black hall, a yellow light burned from behind a shabby curtained entrance, where Evelyn could clearly see the shape of a woman through the tatters. Mr. Dupont thrust the fabric aside, revealing the female entity with more clarity. She was an unsettling vision of indecency, standing unashamed in her undergarments, her slight shoulders slumped into sagging breasts, a narrow chest that bloomed into a round and unsightly belly. At her hips, she grew narrow again, giving her the appearance of a ginger root.

“This is Cherie,” Mr. Dupont said, “my wife. She’s going to make you look presentable.”

The woman stared at Evelyn with eyes smeared in black coal, her lips a thin, red stretch of twine, the false color bleeding into the cracks of her middle-aged skin.

“I heard you on the piano,” Cherie said. “You were splendid. I am so glad to meet you.”

“Her name is Evelyn,” Mr. Dupont added.

Cherie’s twine lips turned up in a grin that seemed out of place.

“Evelyn,” she repeated, lingering on the name. “I am so happy you are here.”

Evelyn did not know if she could return the sentiment.

“Thank you,” was all she offered in reply.

Cherie looked at her with the same unsettling expression Evelyn had seen on Mr. Dupont’s face. She could not put a finger on it before the wine, and she most certainly could not define it now.

She felt overly suspicious. And for what reason? Mr. Dupont was going to feed her veal and let her play his piano. Cherie was going to make her pretty. She should enjoy this.