Devil's Manhunt (Stories from the Golden Age) by L. Ron Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page B

trail herd.”
    “So there is,” said Johnny and picked up his hand.
    They played for a round before Johnny discovered abruptly that he was using a new deck. He found he was using it because it didn’t have creases on the aces where he had put them. He lost promptly, stud being a quick game, but one deal later, being Johnny’s, found them playing with another new deck.
    Bart’s abrupt shift from returned confidence to new alarm registered the shift. Johnny did not win very much but the deck stayed in for five deals until the bartender accidentally placed his tray on the momentarily idle cards.
    Johnny was playing with Bart’s deck once more.
    The lose was going to him then, steadily, and his chips dwindled, somebody lighted a kerosene lantern over the table and the shadows of it made the faces around that board appear longer and gaunter.
    The whiskey kept coming and Johnny’s chips kept going down. At last he gave Mike a private wink. Mike instantly drained off the remainder of his whiskey, crammed down the rest of his free lunch and stood a little straighter at the bar, twenty feet away.
    “Reckon,” said Johnny, “I’ll have to cash in for tonight, boys, it’s been a long day.”
    “Well, I hate to break up a good game,” said Bart.
    “Tell you what,” said Johnny, “I’ll cut you double or quits.”
    “Well, now, Mr. Johnny, I couldn’t do that. I reckon the best thing is just cash you in.”
    Johnny shrugged. He reached back for the poke and then managed to look most terribly astonished and mad. It was gone! The bartender!
    “My gold!” said Johnny. “I had it when I sat down here. I guess I’ll—”
    “Well, now, Mr. Johnny, don’t let that worry you. Seein’ that them blue chips was worth exactly one thousand apiece. I can always take a trail herd.”
    “One thousand!” said Johnny.
    “Why, you didn’t ask and I thought—”
    Johnny smiled. He pulled three packs of cards out of his lap and dropped them on the board. “I reckon, then, you’d maybe like to explain somethin’ else you forgot to mention, George. These here cards you use just plain read too easy—”
    “You accusin’ me of card cheatin’?” bellowed George.
    “Why, no,” said Sudden Johnny. “I meant to call you a dirty, lyin’ card cheat!”
    With a crash the kerosene light went out. The fragments and bits of flame splattered, Spanish Mike fired three more shots and put the main barroom in darkness.
    The table came up like a battering ram and slammed George into the wall. Johnny’s gun blazed and Bart’s man Tolliver curled into himself with a groan, three guns racketed at the spot where Johnny had been but Johnny wasn’t there.
    “Yeeeow!” he yelled to Spanish Mike.
    “Yowheee!” screamed Spanish Mike.
    “They’re out the back!” bawled Bart and hurriedly thundered after them.
    Sudden Johnny, like all good grandnephews of Beauregard, had his second line to fall back upon when his first one buckled; he might not have made it with the cards and he might have lost his poke, but there was no indecision now. He and Mike went at the warehouse flaps in a dive and Mike’s big fist wrenched off the lock.
    They plummeted down the steps and whirled to slam the doors back upon them. An instant later a body hit wood outside and somebody bawled for them to come out. Johnny shot cunningly by feel and there was a yowp of anguish immediately after.
    By the flash of the shot, Mike found the inner bar and placed it across. The doors strained up and Johnny fired again. Their assailants shot a dozen times into the door and tried to prize it open at a distance, using rails.
    Mike grunted with busyness; he was loading up the stairs with assorted crates and barrels, and so great was his strength and so rapidly did he work that the next shots fired from outside went into wood and tin.
    This big below-ground warehouse had been built long ago and it had been built well. It had served as defense against Indians and cyclones and