the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) (9 page)
Read the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) Online
Authors: Louis - Hopalong 02 L'amour
Hopalong strolled aimlessly down the line between the two rows of stalls checking each, wondering if he would find a horse with a blaze on its face and side . . . The horse that he had seen among the riders heading toward the hold up. He quickly ascertained that no such horse was among those present. There might be other barns in town, or a hideout in the hills where horses could be kept. He turned and walked back across the sun-baked street toward the saloon.
Harris looked around at him. "Well, how about that game? Interested?"
"Sure am! Blind openers?"
"My game too." Poker heaved himself from his stool and ambled around the bar to an empty table. He dropped into a huge chair, obviously built for his own comfort, then turned slightly. "Any you boys want in?"
A surly-eyed black-haired man looked up. "Not with you, I don't! Your game's too fast for my blood!"
Poker Harris chuckled. "Plays a careful game, that one."
A narrow-faced man with a petulant, irritable mouth sauntered over. "Name's Troy.
I'll sit in."
Two others, a burly cowpuncher named Hankins, with broken, dirty nails and quick, hard eyes, and a tall, gray-haired man with dark eyes and smooth hands. "Blind openers?"
The gray-haired man smiled. "That can be rough."
Harris jerked a thumb toward the man. "Name's Drennan. Yours?"
"Red River Regan." Cassidy smijed. "Cut high for deal?" Harris asked casually. He glanced around the table, not to find if his suggestion was agreeable, but rather to place all his men and fix their positions in his memory. Red River Regan appeared to have a roll, and he was slated for a cleaning.
Suckers had been all too scarce lately.
"High or low, either one." Cassidy leaned back in his chair, apparently uninterested in the swiftly moving fingers of the saloonkeeper, who was shuffling the cards a bit. He shoved them toward Cassidy, who cut an eight. Drennan cut a six, Hankins and Troy both cut tens, and Poker Harris a king.
Harris shuffled the cards once more, slapped them down before Troy, who cut, and then he dealt. The game moved quietly along, and Hopalong found himself winning a few small pots. Drennan won, and Harris. Both Troy and Hankins were losers, with Troy growling at his ill luck. Hopalong's own very real ability with cards had been tapered to a fine point under the masterly training of Tex Ewalt, poker player extraordinary, and what Tex did not know, nobody knew. Recognizing at once that Harris, while handy with cards, was no Ewalt, Cassidy proceeded to play carefully and wait for a showdown. It came suddenly.
Both Drennan and Hankins had dropped out. Harris, Troy, and Hopalong had stayed.
Harris mopped his sweaty face with a handkerchief and stared at his cards, lifting his eyes in a casual glance across the table at Troy. As he did so his left thumb projected from the fist of his clenched left hand.
Hopalong caught the gesture from the tail of his eye and grinned inwardly. So this was it? They were going to keep raising? All right, he would stay with them. He glanced once more at his full house, queens and sixes. Harris shoved three blue chips into the center of the table. "Raise it thirty."
Hankins stared at Troy, then looked at Hopalong. Troy licked his lips. "See you, and up ten."
Hopalong studied his stack of chips and tossed four blues to the center. "Call," he said quietly.
His quick eye had caught a surreptitious signal from Harris to Troy. "Four kings,"
Harris said coolly, and slapped his stacked cards on the table, only the top card showing.
Troy's right hand shot out instantly to spread them, and Hopalong's left was faster.
Before Troy's hand could reach the cards, his own was there. He spread the hand with a swift gesture. Only four cards showed-and only three kings.
Troy's face turned ugly, and Poker Harris's eyes tightened. Hopalong only grinned.
"You must have dropped one, Harris. I only see three kings."
Harris craned his neck to see under the table, then ducked quickly and came up with a card. It was a trey. His face was red. "Mistake," he said. "I'd have sworn I had four kings."
Cassidy shrugged. "Forget it. We all make mistakes. Looks," he added innocently, "like my full house takes the pot?"
Troy had withdrawn his hand, and Cassidy coolly swept the chips toward him. That fourth king had been in Troy's hand, and had he spread the cards, he would have added it to those already there. It was an old trick, and one Ewalt had showed Cassidy in a bunkhouse years before.
It was Hopalong's deal, and he gathered the cards clumsily toward him. He had already noted two aces among the discard, and he neatly swept them into a bottom stock as he gathered the cards together.
He riffled the cards, spotted another ace and, in a couple of passes in shuffling, added it to his bottom stock. Palming the three, he passed the deck to Harris for cutting, returned them to the bottom after the cut, and calmly dealt five hands, giving himself two of the aces in bottom deals.
Drennan promptly glanced at his cards and tossed them aside. Hankins stayed and tossed in a red chip. Troy upped it five, and then Poker Harris grinned over at Hopalong.
"Reckon we'll see how you like it, Red! I'll see that ten and lift her forty!"
Cassidy hesitated, studied his cards, then raised twenty more. Hankins folded and Troy raised, Harris raised again, and they made another round of the table. At the draw Harris took two cards and Troy and Cassidy three each. One of the three Hoppy dealt himself was the remaining ace from his bottom stock.
Troy promptly tossed two blue chips into the pot. Harris saw him and raised, and Hopalong sat back in his chair and grinned at them. His hard blue eyes were smiling over the ice that glinted in their depths. Drennan suddenly shifted his feet and looked anxiously at Poker Harris, but the big man was looking at Hopalong. Hankins sat silent, his big hands resting on the arms of his chair. Troy twisted nervously and glared at Hopalong for the delay.
Hankins's guns, Hopalong noted, were almost under the arms of his chair, which precluded a swift draw. Drennan wore no gun in sight, and it was a question whether he would declare himself in or not. If trouble showed, Troy would be the first to move. He was the sort to go off half-cocked. Harris was the tough one.
"Let's make it pot limit," Cassidy said, chuckling. "I like 'em bloody!"
Troy swore bitterly as Harris nodded assent, then threw in his hand and drew back slightly, leaving himself in position to cover Hopalong if trouble started.
Poker Harris studied the man across the table with ill-concealed curiosity. It was possible the man who called himself Red River Regan might have guessed their play on the last hand. If he had guessed it, he knew something about crooked cards. If it had been mere chance that his hand had beaten Troy to the spread, he might be just a lucky cowhand. While inclining to this view, Harris was uncertain, and uncertainty he definitely did not like. He did not like it in others, and he liked it even less in himself.
"Pot limit," he said, "can run into money. You got it?"
For answer Hopalong drew a thick roll of bills from his pocket and placed them beside his chips. "I'll cover any play you make, Harris," he said carelessly. "Make her as tough as you like."
"Lot of money for a cowhand," Harris suggested.
"I make good money." Hopalong grinned widely.
This Red River Regan had dealt the cards, but his handling of them had been clumsy, and if he was a gambler, he looked less like one than any man Harris had ever seen. So far he had played a fair game of draw, but nothing unusual. It was true that twice, when Harris had planned a kill, Cassidy had thrown in his hand and passed.
"No," Harris said, "no pot limit, but I'll bet you a flat five hundred over what's in the pot now that I got you beat."
"Call," Hopalong said, still smiling. He spread his cards as he spoke-four aces.
Three by bottom dealing and one by accident.
Poker Harris's eyes bulged. He came half out of his chair, the cords in his neck swelling. "Why, you mangy wolf!"
Troy's grab for a gun was wasted,. With a swift motion Hop-along had sprung back, knocking over his chair as his Colts leaped to his hands.
Troy's hand froze, and Harris stiffened where he stood. Cassidy smiled. "What's the matter? You got aces too?" He motioned with his guns. "Back up!"
Holstering his left-hand gun, he turned over Harris's hand, then chuckled. "Your aces came from a newer deck, Poker. You should use two decks equal so it won't show up." Calmly he began to pocket the money. "Sorry to spoil this game for you boys, but you started playin' rough. I just kept it up." He nodded toward his hand. "Four bullets. Don't make me use any more."
Troy was livid with fury, Poker Harris big, utterly contained, only his eyes showing the rage that consumed him. Hankins, whose hands had dropped only to realize the futility of attempting a draw from his position, held his place. Only Drennan seemed unmoved and somewhat curious.
"Enjoyed the game," Hopalong said quietly. "Now you boys sit quiet while I leave."
"Wait a minute!" Harris had relaxed in his chair. "Why leave? Strikes me you're an hombre knows his way around. You handle your guns faster than any man I ever saw-except one. Want a job?"
Hopalong gestured at the money. "With all that? You crazy?"
"That's chicken feed. There's plenty around here."
"Boss-" Troy started to protest.
"Shut up!" Harris replied irritably. "I can us!? a man like you."
Red River Regan shrugged. "I'll always talk business."
"Then find yourself a bunk over there. No hard feelin's. Stick around until mornin' and we'll make medicine."
"Sure." Hopalong coolly bolstered his gun.
Troy's eyes were ugly. "I'll kill you!" he said. "You don't size up right to me!"
"Any time you're ready," Cassidy said quietly, "just go to it!"
Troy's hands were trembling on the verge of a draw, and Hopalong knew it. He had seen such men, men driven by such a lust to kill that nothing mattered.
"Troy!" Harris swore at him. "Don't be a blame fool! Cut it out!"
Troy spat viciously, then wheeled and walked from the room, Cassidy stared after him, then shrugged. But his face was thoughtful.
Hopalong suspected that neither he nor his money would make it through the night, and now he wanted nothing so much as to get away . . . but without trouble. He turned to Harris. "See you tomorrow, then," he said. 'I'll see my horse is all right, then turn in."
When he went out the door he faded abruptly to the right and into the shadows. Someone was moving in the livery-stable door, but it was not Troy. Dropping from the porch in front of the saloon, he hiked across the street. A big man passed him almost in the door, a man who looked very familiar. Hopalong did not see the man turn to stare after him, but went into the stall and hurriedly slapped the saddle on the white gelding, then the bridle.
He walked the horse to the door and had him there as the big man turned to go into the saloon. That big man had stopped for several minutes on the steps, looking back, trying to make up his mind whether he had been recognized or not. At this stage of the game Dan Dusark did not want to be recognized. He opened the door and walked in.
"Howdy, Harris," he said, shoving his hat back on his head. He looked at Poker Harris.
"What was he doin' here?" He jerked his head in the direction of the livery stable.
"Why, you know him?" Harris stared hard at Dusark.
"Know him?" Dusark exploded. "Of course I know him! That's the new segundo on the Rockin' R. That's Hopalong Cassidy."
"What!" Poker Harris's face went livid, then a dark fury of blood. "Did you say Hopalong Cassidy?"
Hankins swore and grabbed for his guns. Two other men went out of the door behind him, and Harris jerked a shotgun from under the bar. They rushed to the bunkhouse, and only their own men snored there. They rushed to the stable, but the white horse was gone!
Harris shouted and raved, but Dusark lighted a smoke. "No use to get excited," he said calmly. "He's gone, and if you know anythin' about him you couldn't find him out there tonight with a search warrant, believe you me!"
Walking his horse down the canyon while Dusark was talking to Harris, Hopalong swung into the saddle and rode swiftly out into the valley below. He did not turn northwest toward the Rockin' R, but southwest toward the stagecoach route. It was as good a time as any to look around the scene of the holdup. His visit to Corn Patch had netted him little beyond his winnings, yet he did know the sort of men to be found there and what might be expected of them.
Poker Harris was shrewd, capable, and dangerous. Troy was vicious as a sidewinder, erratic, and not to be trusted under any circumstances, but he was also a man whose own viciousness would defeat him. Hankins was tough-next to Harris the toughest of the lot. And Drennan-Drennan was an uncertainty. Of the others who had been around he knew little beyond what their presence in the place indicated. They were outlaws, drifters, cowhands gone bad, and the raw material of hell in the borning.
If the three moving forces in the Seven Pines country were tied together, there was as yet no indication of it that he could see. The Gores wanted the Rockin' R range, the rustlers wanted cattle, and the gang that pulled the stage holdup wanted-and had-gold.
