“You just let us know if there’s going to be trouble,” she said.
“I think you’ll know the moment anything starts,” Caleb replied. “I haven’t been attracting trouble of the quiet variety lately.” He felt a pat on his shoulder, and then Sarah moved away to check on some other tables.
“Ben Mays came by to ask what went on at your saloon,” Orville said as if Sarah hadn’t even stopped by the table. “He listened to plenty of stories and found plenty of witnesses to tell them. That was enough to clear you of them charges.”
“That’s because I didn’t murder Loco Mike. He was going to kill Doc, so I shot him down.”
“And that’s what I told Ben Mays.”
“But you weren’t even there when that part happened,” Caleb pointed out. Orville shrugged. “Even so, I was the only one in that card game that wasn’t directly involved in the shooting. My testimony held plenty of weight, just like Dr. Holliday said it would. The only thing is that I think I deserve some compensation for what I did.”
“Since you weren’t there when the last shot was fired, for all you know, you were lying to a Texas Ranger,” Caleb pointed out. “Putting that aside, what you told Ben Mays was the truth. However you cut it, you don’t deserve much more than my thanks.”
Pulling in another breath, Orville straightened in his chair and looked over to both his nephews. Seeing that fat man and the humpback somehow gave the miner enough courage to put some grit into his voice. “If that’s how you feel, then I can go over right now and tell Ben Mays the truth.
“I can also tell him about how Dr. Holliday set it up so you were shown in a real good light so you could escape. Then I can tell him how Dr. Holliday and that other one meant to cheat me out of my mining claims. That dentist friend of yours is becoming more known for his drinking and gambling than pulling teeth, so I don’t think Mays will have any trouble believing what I tell him. In fact, I think he was disappointed that he didn’t hear as much the first time around.”
Even though Caleb tried to avoid the law when he could, he knew Ben Mays well enough to know that Orville wasn’t just spitting out idle threats. The Texas Ranger might not have had it out for him, but he would have preferred to have a definite culprit to Mike Abel’s shooting rather than admit to locking up the wrong man. Texas Rangers were known for plenty of things. Admitting they were wrong wasn’t exactly one of them.
“So you’re blackmailing me?” Caleb asked. “I mean, we might as well just put all the cards on the table here.”
“It’s a fair exchange. If I didn’t say what I did, you probably wouldn’t be out of that cell.”
“Probably. But you could be wrong.”
“I could. Care to try your luck?”
Caleb fought back the urge to jump across that table and make the old miner sorry for even starting this conversation. Instead, he lifted his mug and took a sip of the Alhambra’s house brew. To add insult to injury, that beer was at least twice as good as the stuff Hank whipped up to serve at the Busted Flush.
“What kind of compensation are you talking about?” Caleb asked.
“I want twenty percent of the house take on the games you run, including the high-stakes games that come through there when professional gamblers come to town.”
“My place isn’t on the gambling circuit. If I was, I’d be in a lot better shape than I am right now. Take a look around,” Caleb said while holding up his hands to indicate the plush surroundings of the Alhambra. “This is the type of place that’s on the circuit.”
“I play enough cards in the Flush to know that some big names come through there every now and then. There have been a few games I seen with more money in one pot than I’ll ever see in a lifetime of sifting through dirt.”
“Those are the exceptions. Not the rule.”
“Well, even if you get one big game a year, I think a share of it would do wonders for me and my kin.”
Caleb gritted his teeth and took another sip of beer. Even though he knew he was being gouged, he also knew that the miner wasn’t completely misinformed. Orville was about to get his lifeblood drained out of him by Virgil Ellis. And, being a businessman himself, Caleb couldn’t exactly fault the old man for grabbing onto an opportunity when it presented itself. The man did, after all, play a big part of getting Caleb out of that damned cell.
Then again, the more he thought about the miner’s deal, the better that cell seemed.
“Tell you what,” Caleb said. “You did go a long way in helping to clear my name. And though I had no part of you getting cheated, I did hear something mentioned along those lines taking place in my saloon. So how about I pay you a reward for damages done?”
Despite the wariness in Caleb’s voice, his words did seem to have an impact upon the old miner.
Before Orville could confer with his nephews, Caleb added, “How about something to the tune of . . . a hundred dollars?”
It didn’t take a skilled poker player to notice the hungry flinch in the corner of Orville’s eye. There was a bit of a tremor in the miner’s voice when he said, “I don’t know. I mean . . . the deal was for—”
“All right,” Caleb interrupted. Letting out a defeated sigh, he dug his fingers through his roughly cut hair and brought himself a little closer to the real amount he was willing to pay to get this miner and his family out of his sight. “How about three hundred? And that’s going to set me back for quite a while.”
“Three hundred?”
“I can’t make it much more than that, Orville. I’ve got to eat, too, you know.”
Now that he had something else to think about, Orville didn’t bother looking over to either of his nephews. On either side of him, Kyle and Jim fretted and let out dissatisfied grunts like a couple of kids who weren’t getting enough attention.
Caleb’s fingers worked their way over the top of his scalp as he watched every move Orville made. He could feel the old man coming around to his way of thinking and with every second that passed, Caleb felt the ache in his temples start to recede. The Busted Flush wasn’t much, but it was all he had. He’d built the place from the ground up and seen it flourish, and in a town like Dallas, that was no small accomplishment.
“It’s a good deal,” Caleb said. “Taking any more than that, I’d be better off sitting in that cell. At least that way I’d have a roof over my head.”
When Caleb saw the contemplative look on the miner’s face, he actually felt some hope take root inside of him. The fact that Orville was considering what he heard and seeing the sense in Caleb’s words spoke volumes. It showed that folks might not be as greedy as Caleb had assumed. Perhaps a man could listen to something else besides his own love of money.
“Fork over what we asked for,” Kyle grunted, completely shattering what little goodwill might have been festering inside Caleb’s heart. “You’re just trying to sweet-talk us, and we ain’t gonna listen no more.”
Orville looked over to the fat man. “Kyle, maybe we should—”
“No!” Jim spat. “Kyle’s right. This here is our show, and we make the decisions. Ain’t no way this cheatin’ bartender is gonna run things. He needs to listen to us, and that’s all there is to it.”
Caleb didn’t need to study the old man any longer. He could already see the battle was lost.
“You hear that, Injun?” Kyle asked with the smuggest of grins on his face. “It ain’t your place to name the price. It’s your place to pay up or face the law. My bet is that if Ben Mays and the rangers don’t string you up for running a crooked place like that shit hole of yours, the town law will. What do you think of that?”
At that moment, Caleb’s first impulse was to slam both Kyle and Jim face-first into the table. Although Orville wasn’t high on Caleb’s list, the fact that the miner was willing to roll over and not do anything to stop his two asshole nephews from spouting off said plenty about the old man.
Just as Caleb was about to give in and let his fists do what they were aching to do, he looked around and spotted another familiar face. Standing at the end of the bar closest to the front door, taking casual interest in the conversation at Caleb’s table, was one of the local deputies.
The town law might not have had as wide a jurisdiction as the Texas Rangers, but they could make Caleb’s life just as miserable. Now, it made a little more sense why Kyle was trying so desperately to push Caleb over the edge.
“You want me to throw a punch right here in front of that deputy?” Caleb asked. “Then you’re shit out of luck. You want a piece of my saloon? You’ll have to come and get it. You want the reward I offered? Say yes right now, and we can be done.”
Caleb waited for a few moments before standing up. He took his beer and finished it in one long swig. When
