LITMIR.BIZ

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for a couple of years. The last place they had run into each other was Wichita.

      The hand was over as Bo came up to the table, and Johnny was raking in the pot. No surprise there. One of the players said in a tone of disgust, “I’m busted. Guess I’m out.” He scraped back his chair and stood up.

      Johnny stopped him and held out a chip. “No man leaves my table without enough money for a drink, my friend,” he said.

      The man hesitated, then said, “Thanks,” and took the chip. He headed for the bar to cash it in and get that drink.

      Bo said, “Some people say that’s what got Bill Hickok killed. He busted Jack McCall at cards, then tossed him a mercy chip like that the day before McCall came back into the Number Ten and shot him.”

      Three-Toed Johnny looked up and grinned. “Bo Creel! I didn’t see you come in.”

      Bo sort of doubted that. Johnny didn’t miss much.

      “It’s good to see you again, amigo,” the gambler went on.

      Bo gestured toward the empty chair. “You have room for another player?”

      “Most assuredly. Sit down.”

      “Wait just a damned minute,” a man on the other side of the table said. He was dressed in an expensive suit, but the big Stetson pushed back on his head, the seamed face of a man who spent most of his life outdoors, and the calluses on his hands all told Bo that he was a cattleman. The suit and the big ring on one of his fingers said he was probably a pretty successful one. So did the arrogant tone of his voice.

      “Is there a problem, Mr. Churchill?” Johnny asked. Bo could tell that the gambler was keeping his own voice deceptively mild.

      By using the hombre’s name, Johnny had also identified him for Bo. The upset man was Little Ed Churchill, the owner of one of the largest ranches in West Texas. Little Ed wasn’t little at all, but his pa Big Ed had been even bigger, Bo recalled, hence the name.

      “This fella’s a friend of yours,” Churchill said as he jerked a hand toward Bo. “You said as much yourself just now.”

      “And that’s a problem because…?”

      “How do the rest of us know that you and him aren’t about to run some sort of tomfoolery on us?”

      Johnny’s eyes hardened. “You mean you’re afraid we’ll cheat you?” he asked, and his soft tone was really deceptive now. Bo knew how angry Johnny was.

      Bo wasn’t too happy about being called a cheater himself.

      “I’ve seen you play, Fontana,” Churchill said. “You win a lot.”

      “It’s my job to win. But I do it by honest means.”

      So Johnny was using the last name Fontana now, Bo thought. Johnny had had half a dozen different last names at least. Bo wasn’t sure Johnny even remembered what name he’d been born with.

      “To tell you the truth,” Johnny went on, “I don’t need to cheat to beat you, Churchill. All I have to do is take advantage of your natural recklessness.”

      One of the other players rested both hands on the table, in plain sight, and said, “I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I came here for a friendly game, gentlemen, not a display of bravado. And certainly not for gunplay.”

      “Shut the hell up, Davidson,” Churchill snapped.

      The man called Davidson paled and sat up straighter. He was in his thirties, well dressed, with tightly curled brown hair and a mustache that curled up on the tips. As Davidson moved forward a little in his chair, Bo caught a glimpse of a gun holstered in a shoulder rig under the man’s left arm. Despite his town suit, Davidson looked tough enough to use the iron if he had to.

      “I can go find another game,” Bo suggested. He didn’t want to sit in on this particular one badly enough to cause a shootout. “I just thought I’d say hello to an old friend.”

      “There’s no need for that, Bo,” Johnny said. He gave Churchill a flat, level stare and went on. “Bo Creel is an honest man, and so am I. If you doubt either of those things, Churchill, maybe it’s you who had better find another game.”

      “I won’t be stampeded, damn it.” Churchill nodded toward the empty chair. “Sit down, Creel. But remember that I’ll be watching you.” He looked at Johnny. “Both of you.”

      “It’s going to be a distinct pleasure taking your money,” Johnny drawled.

      “Shut up and deal the cards.”

      Johnny shut up and dealt.

      CHAPTER 2

      Bo wasn’t sure what would have happened if he or Johnny had won the first hand after he sat down. Little Ed Churchill might have been more convinced than ever that he was being cheated.

      The man called Davidson was the one who raked in that pot, however. In fact, judging by the way what had been a fairly small pile of chips in front of Davidson when Bo sat down began to grow after that, the man’s luck appeared to have changed for the better.

      Davidson won three out of the next five hands, with Bo taking one and Johnny the other. Bo understood now what Johnny meant about Churchill being reckless. The man was a plunger when he had a decent hand and a poor bluffer when he didn’t. Bo wasn’t surprised that Churchill lost a considerable amount of money in a short period of time.

      The cattleman’s face was red to start with, and it flushed even more as he continued to lose. Bo felt trouble building. If not for the fact that he and Scratch needed money, he would have just as soon gotten up from the table and walked away.

      Scratch ambled over from the bar and stood there watching the game with a mug of beer in his hand. Churchill glanced at him and glared.

      “What two-bit melodrama did you come from?”

      Scratch’s easy grin didn’t hide the flash of anger in his eyes that Bo noted. “I’ll let that remark pass, friend,” the silver-haired Texan said. “I can see you’ve got troubles of your own.”

      “What the hell do you mean by that?”

      “Well, from what I’ve seen so far of your poker playin’, my hundred-and-four-year-old grandma could likely whip you at cards.”

      Churchill slapped his pasteboards facedown on the table and started to stand up. “Why, you grinning son of a—”

      “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” The booming, Teutonic tones of August Strittmayer filled the air as the saloon’s proprietor loomed over the table. “All the games in the Birdcage are friendly, nicht wahr?”

      “Don’t talk that damned Dutchy talk at me,” Churchill snapped. He settled back down in his chair, though. Strittmayer was an imposing figure, two yards tall and a yard wide in brown tweed, with a bald head and big, knobby fists.

      “Trouble here, Johnny?” Strittmayer asked.

      “Not really,” Johnny answered with a casual shrug. “Mr. Churchill is a bit of a poor loser, that’s all.”

      “No one leaves the Birdcage unhappy,” Strittmayer declared. “Why don’t you come over to the bar and have a drink with me before you go, Herr Churchill? I have some splendid twenty-year-old brandy that I would be pleased to share with you.”

      “Who said I was going anywhere? I’m staying right here, damn it, until I win back my money!”

      “I’m afraid we don’t have that much time,” Strittmayer said.

      Johnny added, “Yeah, we’d all grow old and die before then.”

      For a smart man, Johnny never had learned how to control his mouth, Bo thought. Churchill paled at the insult. He glared at Strittmayer and demanded, “Are you throwing me out, you damned Dutchman?”

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