The Pistoleer by James Carlos Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

poker, if I say so myself, but even after sitting in on many a hand with Wes I never did learn to read his game. In stud and draw both, he played fast and loose. I couldn’t believe some of the reckless hands I saw him play. He’d see a whopping big raise to stay in a hand, and then call for four cards. He’d raise you twenty dollars on a pair of treys. I never knew anybody so ready to draw to an inside straight—or to fill so many.
    I won’t ever forget the night he filled two of them on Frank Polk. Simp had introduced them earlier that same day and they’d taken a shine to each other, partly because they were both wanted by the Yankee army, just like Simp. I liked Frank all right, and had hired him on, but he was near as crazy as Simp in a lot of ways, another fella you had to tread lightly with. He was a big-chested, black-bearded rascal who’d shot and wounded two soldiers in a fight in Dallas a few weeks earlier and was naturally claiming self-defense. But the word on Frank was that he’d also pulled a few robberies here and there in North Texas and had killed a store clerk in one of them. The word was, the clerk had been unarmed. But that was just the word, which is wrong about as often as it’s not.
    Anyhow, on this particular night I’m talking about, me and Frank and Wes and Terry Threefingers and Joel Knapp were in the Tall Hat playing stud and drinking straight whiskey—all except Terry, who was drinking Grizzly Milk, a mix of whiskey and milk and sugar, because his stomach had been ailing him lately. None of the pots was big enough to talk about till an hour into the game when suddenly we were looking at one of about two hundred dollars. Wes drew to a straight and got it to take the hand, and Frank cussed and beat his fist on the table. He was about half drunk by then and had been losing heavy, and he was steamed because he’d been holding kings up over tens and had thought sure the hand was his. Wes smiled at him and said, “Tough one to lose, Frank. But hell, ain’t they all?”
    Except that he was fairly red-eyed himself, you never would of known Wes had put down at least as much whiskey as Frank had. Wes could drink. I don’t remember whiskey ever tangling his tongue or making him do the hard-wind walk.
    Frank wouldn’t even look at him, he was so steamed. He growled at me, “Your deal, Newman—so deal the damn things.”
    Half an hour later Wes did it again. He filled a straight flush to beat Frank’s full house of aces over jacks and took in nearly three hundred dollars.
    “Goddamnit!” Frank yells. He shoves his chair back from the table with a loud scrape and puts his hand on the butt of his gun. Looking hard at Wes, he says, “I have never seen such goddamn luck of the draw in all my whole life.” His face and voice were just full of accusation.
    Things got quiet downright quick. Wes kept his eyes on Frank and his right hand was out of sight under the table as he pulled in the pot with his left. “Well, Frank,” he says, “I hope you keep on seeing it for as long as I’m sitting here.”
    When you’re at the table at a time like that, you want to get away from it as quick and as far as you can, but you’re afraid any move you make might set things off like a spark to powder, so you sit still as a stone and hope for the best. All around us the barflies were scooting for cover. I’d seen Wes shoot those Colts of his a few times by then and I knew he was a deadeye, but I hadn’t seen him fast-draw. I’d heard he was quick as a snake. Frank was a damn good shot too, but only fair on the draw—but he had a nerve of flint and wasn’t afraid of the devil himself. The thing is, whenever a pair of fellas got into it with only three feet of space between them, they almost always both got hit for sure and usually both got killed.
    Just then I see past Wes to where Simp’s coming in the back door from taking a piss outside, his rifle in the crook of his arm. I can see he catches wise