that Longarm didn’t care for one little bit. And then there was the question of what the man was doing in Mason County just when the outlaw gang was running wild. It was, Longarm thought, about time he and the stranger had a little talk.
Longarm made a meal out of steak, mashed potatoes, squash, and green beans. Even though it was late in the season, the vegetable gardens of the area seemed to be productive. He paid his score with a silver dollar, and then walked next door to the Elite. He came in through the double doors and stood for a moment looking around. The place was fuller than usual, and the buzz of talk was at a higher level. He glanced toward a table in a back corner. He could see that the game he liked had already started. From where he stood he counted heads. Including the casually arrogant stranger named Austin Davis, there were five players. He wasn’t surprised that there was a seat open since it was the highest-priced game in the saloon, dollar ante, pot limit on the bets.
He got a double whiskey at the bar and then made his way through the smoke and the drinkers to the table. The available seat was almost against the back wall. As Longarm came up, the man named Austin Davis looked up from his cards and nodded toward the chair. “There’s your seat. I told the boys you’d be along and I know that deputy U.S. marshals always like to sit with their backs to the back wall.”
Longarm gave him an amused glance and sat down, sipping at his whiskey as he did. He glanced over at Davis. The man was something of a dresser, in a casual way. He wore a soft black leather vest, a black flat-crowned hat, and a white silk shirt open at the collar. He couldn’t see them, but Longarm knew that he most likely had on tan twill pants and that his boots would be shined to a gloss. Davis wore a gunbelt the way a professional or anyone who needed to get at his weapon in a hurry wore it. He also wore a cut-away holster. It wasn’t much good at keeping a gun in place if you got to rolling around on the floor, but it made getting a gun out faster a hell of a lot easier.
Longarm nodded at Davis. “I take it, Mister Davis, that you have nothing on your conscience that would cause you to take such precautionary steps as to where you sat?”
Davis said to the dealer, “Take two.” He pitched two cards into the discard pile, received the two in return, and shuffled them around in his hand. He finally looked at his cards, easing the new cards into his view slowly and carefully behind his shielding hands. In answer to Longarm’s question he said, “You might be making a presumption there, Marshal. Let’s just say I ain’t done nothing around here in the last day or two that would cause me to be extra careful.” He counted some bills off his stack and threw them in the middle of the table, where there were already several bills. “Bet twenty dollars.”
The man to Davis’s left protested. “Hell, we playin’ pot limit. They ain’t but five dollars in the damn pot.”
“Oh!” Davis said. He gave Longarm a slight smile as he pulled back fifteen dollars. “Sorry, gentlemen. Guess I got excited.”
Longarm shook his head. It was one of the oldest tricks in poker.
Austin Davis had known how much he could bet and that he would be called to pull back money. But it would stick in the other players’ minds that he had, obviously, a hand that he’d been eager to bet twenty dollars on. It was what was known as a delayed bluff. His real bluff would come on the next bet. Longarm wished he was in the hand. He was almost certain that Davis probably had very little. He’d kept three cards, but Longarm was pretty sure that was only for effect. He might have a pair of jacks or such, and had held a third card for a kicker to make it seem like he had three of a kind. As Longarm waited for the next deal and watched the play, his palms fairly itched. He wished to hell he was in the hand, even with nothing more than a pair of kings. He felt damn sure it would beat whatever Austin Davis had.
The man who had opened bet a cautious five dollars after all the players had taken their cards. As always they were playing dealer’s choice, and the dealer had dealt a hand of five-card draw, jacks or better to open.
Austin Davis called the five-dollar bet and raised twenty dollars. The man to his left, Amos Goustwhite, immediately folded. The Goustwhites, Longarm knew, were one of the six or seven largest families around the county. He knew the man was kin to Bodenheimer, but he wasn’t sure how.
He watched the play. The next player along the table hesitated, looked at his cards, and folded. Only the opener, a man Longarm didn’t know, gave the raise thought. He looked at his cards, and then he looked at the pot, and then he looked at Austin Davis.
Davis watched him with amused eyes, then said, “Jump in there. It’s only recreation.”
The man frowned. He picked up a twenty-dollar bill, hesitated, looked at Austin Davis again, and then slammed the money in the middle of the pot. He said, “Dammit, I know you are bluffing. You are trying to buy this pot and I ain’t letting you.” He showed his hand. “I opened with a pair of queens and I caught a pair of jacks. Beat two pair if you can.”
Austin Davis shook his head. “Well, Orville, them is mighty nice cards. Very pretty. And big! I mean they got paint all over them. I can’t match that.”
The man he’d called Orville said, “What in hell have you got, dammit?”
Davis gave him an amused look. “Mine are small, but I got several of them.” He showed his hand. “Three sixes.”
“Sonofabitch!” the man said, and slammed his hand down on the table. “I thought fer sure you was fakin’.”
As he raked in the pot Austin looked over at Longarm and said, “What about you, Marshal? Did you think I was bluffing?”
Longarm gave him a look. He was an arrogant son of a bitch, all right. In spite of that, Longarm felt he could like the man if only he could finally beat him at poker. Davis was trimly built, one of those men, Longarm thought, who were a hell of a lot stronger than you’d thought once you got hold of them. He was handsome, Longarm reckoned, in a way that women found pleasing. Longarm just considered the man a little too well ordered in his dress and his features. A little dirt, Longarm thought, would look well on the man.
He didn’t answer Davis directly, just yawned and said, “I wasn’t really paying any attention.”
Davis laughed lightly. “I’m sure you weren’t, Marshal. No, I wouldn’t think you were a man who paid much attention to what went on around you.”
To cover his irritation Longarm reached in his pocket and came out with his money. He counted off a hundred dollars, put that on the table in front of him, and put the rest of his roll back in his pocket. He could see that Davis had been doing well, but surprisingly, it was Amos Goustwhite who seemed to have the biggest pile in front of him. It looked to be over a hundred dollars, which was a pretty good stake for anyone else but Austin Davis.
