Yesterday's Magic (27 page)

Bella took a bite of the beef stew. It was
delicious. “But he never did come home?” she asked. She knew the
answer. Aunt Freida had told her. But she really wanted to hear the
details.

“No. Even after his first young wife left
him, he didn’t come home. He got married again within months.”

“They never reconciled?” Bella asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I actually think
my mother had forgiven my father by the time he died. But Jed never
did. He couldn’t get past what his leaving had done to my mother.
He couldn’t get past the fact that my father had become the subject
of ridicule.”

***

Jedidiah went straight to Hawkin’s Saloon
when he returned to town. It was busier than usual and he’d have
liked to credit that to the fact that the poor weather had kept
drinkers away for a day. However, he knew it had much more to do
with Toomay’s arrival in town.

More than one person had stopped by the
sheriff’s office earlier in the day to let him know that rumors
were flying about a big game. Now, as Jed looked around the smoky
room, he figured some had come to play, more had come to watch.

He’d come because big games generally meant
big trouble. Somebody would drink too much whiskey, lose too much
money, and get quarrelsome. Most times it ended there, before
anybody got hurt. Occasionally he or Bart would be required to haul
someone down to the jail and let them sleep it off. Jed wouldn’t
tolerate too much foolishness and everybody knew it.

But Toomay was a stranger and by nature,
strangers had to test the waters. Toomay, according to his trusted
friend Bat Masterson, wanted to do more than test—he wanted to
stir, spill, and poison the proverbial waters, leaving a path of
slime in his wake.

Jed had intended to visit Toomay this
afternoon, to let him know he wasn’t welcome in Mantosa, to
convince
him to catch tomorrow’s stage. However, Bella had
changed all that. She’d deliberately gone to the hotel to see
Toomay, of that Jed was confident. But he was unsure of whether she
and Toomay had ever met before. It certainly didn’t seem like it
but he couldn’t dismiss the odd connection he’d felt between the
two of them.

He’d given her plenty of opportunity to tell
him about her planned lunch with Toomay. But she hadn’t been
forthcoming about the information

None of it made sense. He hated that.

Jedidiah took a stool at the far end of the
counter, where he could see the door, and the entire room. He took
off his hat and his coat and pulled some coins out of his
pocket.

“What’s your pleasure, Sheriff?” Snake had
come out of the kitchen. Food wasn’t available in the saloon at
night. Men filled their bellies with drink.

“I’ll take a whiskey, Snake.” Jed looked
across the room. He saw Delilah, the red-head and two other women
who were known to entertain both downstairs and upstairs. “Looks
like everybody is working tonight?”

“Just trying to keep my customers happy.”

Snake wasn’t the only person in Mantosa who
employed prostitutes. But he was perhaps the only one who cared
about his girls, making sure they had plenty to eat, and a decent
place to live. “I hear there’s a big game tonight,” Jed said.

“I figured that’s why you were here,” Snake
said, his tone agreeable. He didn’t want his saloon damaged and he
knew it didn’t hurt to have a lawman present to discourage any
tempers from getting out of hand.

It was less than ten minutes later that two
men walked into the saloon. They weren’t from Mantosa but they
weren’t strangers either. Both lived in Shinoah. Over the years,
they’d spent a few nights playing cards at Hawkin’s Saloon. But it
had been at least six months since Jed had seen either of them.

He wasn’t happy to see them tonight. They
weren’t bad men. It was just that Lenny Rivers and Pete Mobley both
drank too much, talked too much, and whatever common sense God had
chosen to bless upon them, had long since been misplaced.

Jed took another sip of whiskey. It had the
makings of a long night. He waited until the men had picked a
table, shed their coats, and ordered their first drink. Then he
slid off his stool and walked to their table. He pulled out a chair
and sat down.

“Evening Lenny, Pete,” he said.

“Evening Sheriff,” they answered, in unison.
“We ain’t done nothing wrong,” Pete added.

It was clear that Pete hadn’t forgotten the
last time that he and Lenny had been in Mantosa. The men had been
drinking and Pete had gotten into an argument with another man,
accusing him of taking liberties with his fifteen-year-old
daughter. The man had denied it but Lenny had been eager to help
his friend and shots were fired. Fortunately, nobody had been hurt.
Once Jed got it sorted out, Pete admitted it was a case of mistaken
identity. Jed had locked the pair of them up for a couple days,
hoping to make an impression upon the two of them. He’d gotten to
know them pretty well.

Jed gave the pair a friendly smile. “What
brings you to town, Gentlemen?”

Lenny winked, like he was about to share a
big secret. “A little of this and a little of that,” he said.

Pete slapped the table, like his friend was
really clever.

Jed waited while Delilah set down a bottle of
whiskey and two clean glasses. He got nervous, however, when Pete
pulled money out of his pocket to pay for the drinks and there was
a whole wad of paper money.

“You expecting to spend all that on whiskey,
Pete?” Jed asked.

“This ain’t nothing,” Pete said, his tone
proud. “My pockets will be so full tonight that I’ll probably need
help carrying all my money home.”

Just as he’d thought. Rumor of a big game had
spread quickly. “Boys,” he said, “do yourselves and me a favor and
go home.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out enough money to
cover the whiskey. “Here. Let me buy that bottle from you.”

Lenny grabbed the bottle and held it tight to
his big stomach. “We ain’t leaving and you can’t make us.”

It was saying that kind of stuff that got
Lenny into trouble. Jed was just about to tell him that when the
doors swung open and Rantaan Toomay walked in.

He wasn’t wearing a coat, as if he couldn’t
bother with being concerned about the weather. He wore a white
shirt made out of some shiny material. It had ruffles at the neck.
His black trousers were pressed and his black boots looked new.

Damn. There was no time to deal with Pete and
Lenny now. Jed watched Toomay survey the room and then he took a
seat at an empty table, his back to the door.

Confident bastard.

Toomay pulled a deck of cards out of his
pants pocket. He tapped them on the table and Jed could feel the
general unrest in the saloon. Wymer, who sat at a far table, pushed
his drink to the side and stood up. He put on his coat. As he
passed Jed, he leaned down. “I think I’ve got some shit that needs
shoveling,” he said.

Wymer had always been a smart man.

Lenny and Pete pushed back their chairs. Jed
could smell their excitement, their anticipation. When they sat
down at Toomay’s table, Toomay gave each of them a nod. He never
stopped tapping his cards on the table.

The saloon doors swung open and Earl Bean,
looking neither left or right, walked directly to Toomay’s table.
Where the hell was his mother?

There was one chair left at the table. Toomay
looked up from his cards. His glance swept the room, settling on
Jed. Toomay nodded at the empty chair and raised an eyebrow in
silent inquiry.

Jed shifted on the stool, just enough so that
the star he wore on his vest was visible. When Toomay saw it, he
smiled, as if amused. Then he looked back at his cards and resumed
his shuffling.

The saloon was absolutely quiet. Seconds
ticked by. Then Jed heard the click of boot heels on the sidewalk
and the saloon door opened once again.

Yancy Tate walked in. He looked sober enough.
Of course, the night was still fairly young. He looked at the empty
chair, hesitated, then walked to a table at the other side of the
saloon.

Jed let out a breath.

Toomay continued to shuffle. It was another
few minutes before the saloon door opened again.

Ben Stroud—the man who had paid too much
attention to Bella and had held her too close. He swaggered in, his
chest out, his manner confident.

Christ Almighty. Could this night get any
worse?

Stroud stopped near Toomay’s chair and looked
down at the man. “So we meet again, Toomay?”

“Mr. Stroud. Please tell me that you’re going
to give me a chance to redeem myself, to earn back some of the
money you so gleefully took off my hands.”

It was the first time Jed had heard Toomay
speak, other than the brief conversation that the man had had with
Bella at the hotel. For some strange reason, the sound of Toomay’s
voice made the hairs on Jed’s arms stand up.

“I thought you were on your way to
California,” Stroud said.

“I’m taking the long route.” Toomay started
dealing the cards. At the empty spot, he dealt as if someone had
claimed the seat.

Stroud didn’t hesitate. He shrugged his coat
off, threw it across an empty chair, and sat down. He picked up his
cards. Lenny and Pete gave Stroud a quick nod. They no doubt knew
the man since they all came from the same parts.

Stroud took the first two hands, Earl Bean
the third, and Toomay the fourth. All the pots were relatively
equal so there weren’t any big winners. People in the saloon lost
interest and went back to their conversations. The piano player
started up, singing off-tune like usual. Glasses clinked and chairs
squeaked as men shuffled in and out.

It was just another night at Hawkin’s
Saloon.

But it wasn’t. Jed knew it, could feel it in
his bones. When Earl Bean took the fifth hand, Jed hoped that it
might be enough to discourage Lenny and Pete but neither seemed
inclined to move from the chairs. In fact, both were hunkered over
their cards and sweat ran from Lenny’s brow down the side of his
face. When Toomay ordered a bottle of whiskey, Pete gratefully
accepted a refill. He and Lenny had already finished off their
bottle.

Jed sat at the bar and sipped his own
whiskey. He watched Toomay’s hands and his eyes and saw no evidence
that the man was cheating or getting signals from elsewhere in the
room. In fact, he didn’t seem to be a particularly adept card
player, making it easy for Jed to believe that it was probably not
just Stroud who’d relieved Toomay of some money over the years.

All hopes of getting Pete and Lenny out of
the game diminished when Pete won both the sixth and the seventh
hands and Lenny the eighth. They both had another drink to
celebrate and Jed knew it would take a mule team to drag the men
away from the table.

It was Stroud’s turn to deal and when Lenny
picked up his cards, Jed could see the man sit up a little
straighter in his chair. It was most always that way when a man had
had too much to drink—he became less able to hide his reaction to
the deal. Jed figured he either had a hell of a good hand or a hell
of a poor one. When it came time to discard and ask the dealer for
cards, both Pete and Lenny stood on their hand. Stroud took three
cards, Toomay the same, Earl Bean asked for four of his five to be
replaced.

Toomay and Earl Bean folded early. “I’ll bet
it all,” Lenny said, pushing his pile of money toward the center of
the table.

Pete looked at his cards again. Then at his
money. Very deliberately, he matched what Lenny had put it. It left
him with just a few coins. Both men turned toward Stroud.

From Jed’s perspective, it was pretty clear
that both Lenny and Pete had good hands. Neither one of them had
bluffed worth a damn all night and it wasn’t likely they were going
to start now. Whiskey didn’t generally have that affect on men.

He’d played enough draw poker in his railroad
days to know that the likelihood that three of the five players all
had good hands was slim. Given that, he expected Stroud to throw
his cards in. Either Lenny or Pete would win and in either case,
it’d probably be fine because knowing the two as well as he did,
they’d probably split it up later anyway.

Stroud put his cards on the table and reached
for his money. Jed thought the man was calling it a night. However,
when he pushed three of the four stacks of coins into the center,
Jed felt the cloying sense of dread that had hovered all night
suddenly spring up and threaten to choke him.

Something was very, very wrong.

Jed caught movement out of the corner of his
eye. Yancy had sat up straighter in his chair. His eyes were on
Toomay’s table but just for an instant he looked up and met Jed’s
gaze. It was obvious that Yancy could feel it too.

Lenny was squirming in his chair. He
hurriedly turned over his cards. Full house, aces and eights.
Dead man’s hand
. That’s what it had been
known as since Wild Bill Hickok, holding the very same hand, had
gotten killed in Deadwood a year earlier.

On most nights, it would be a winner.

Pete could hardly get to his cards fast
enough. In fact he rushed so that four flipped over and one stayed
hidden. It didn’t matter. What showed was enough. Four nines.

Lenny’s eye started to twitch but Jed didn’t
think most people noticed. Every eye in the place was on Stroud. He
flipped his cards over, one by one. Ten of spades, jack of spades,
queen of spades—
oh, shit
—king of spades, ace of spades. A
royal flush. On
any
night, it was a winner.

The only sound in the room was Lenny’s
breathing. Heavy. Labored. He was staring at Pete, who was looking
down at his cards. Fresh sweat had popped out on Lenny’s brow and
he’d run his hands through his hair so many times that he looked
like a wild man.