Texas Iron

Chapter Three

Evan McCall examined the cards on the table very carefully—not only his own, but everyone else’s. In addition, he remembered the cards that had already been folded. His excellent memory was just one of the things that made him such a good gambler.

That, and his patience.

He had been sitting in this game for four hours waiting for the right hand to come along, and this was it.

The man across from him was the only one at the table who was winning more than he. That man’s name was Luke Short. Also sitting at the table were Bat Masterson, Dick Stark, Jack Foxx and Carl Dekker. Of all the other men, Masterson was the only one who was even. Stark and Foxx were losing with grace, but Carl Dekker was losing and not liking it one bit.

Evan McCall had played poker with Short and Masterson before. This was the first time he’d played with the other three. He didn’t mind Stark and Foxx, but Dekker’s whining was getting on his nerves.

As for this hand, he and Short and Dekker were still in it. The others had folded and were watching the proceedings with great interest.

All six men had come to San Francisco for the express purpose of taking part in this game, which was now in its third day. The place was a hotel suite at the Alhambra Hotel. The management had supplied the suite at no cost, because it enjoyed having men of such caliber as guests.

Besides, whatever they won at poker some of them usually lost in the casino.

Evan sat back now and regarded his opponent’s cards. Dekker was still in the game with a pair of kings on the table. Short had tens, which Evan considered more of a threat than the other man’s kings. A third king had already been folded, while the other two tens were apparently still at large.

On the table directly in front of him he had a pair of threes. On the board he was low man, but he had that feeling.

“It’s your bet, Dekker,” Masterson said. He was the dealer.

“This is one hand I ain’t losin’,” Dekker said. He picked up some chips and tossed them into the pot. “Two hundred.” The next bet was Evan’s. They still had one more card to come, so Evan simply called.

“I raise two hundred,” Luke Short said.

“Ha!” Dekker said, “I call.”

Masterson looked at Evan, who said, “Call.”

“Comin’ out,” Masterson said, and dealt out the seventh card facedown.

“Your bet, Dekker.”

“Five hundred,” Dekker said, without hesitation.

All eyes turned to Evan. He took his time, looking at his hole cards even though he knew what they were.

“McCall?” Masterson said.

Evan wished that Short were betting before him, but he decided to go ahead and raise.

“I raise five hundred,” he said, tossing the chips into the pot.

“With threes?” Dekker asked, incredulous. “Even if you’ve got three of them—”

“Can we have a little less talk?” Luke Short asked.

Dekker glared at Short, but fell silent.

“It’s a thousand to you, Luke,” Masterson said.

“Call the thousand,” Short said, “and raise.”

“A thousand?” Dekker demanded.

“That’s the raise,” Short said.

Dekker, sweating profusely, examined the small stacks of chips in front of him. It was quite clear to everyone that he didn’t have the thousand.

“Dekker?” Masterson said.

“Gimme a minute!” Irritably, Dekker looked at his hole cards. “My credit—”

“No credit,” Masterson said.

“I can get the money—”

“We play with what we have in this room,” Masterson reminded him.

The only time any of them left the room was when they all took a break or suspended play for a rest period. At that time they were able to replenish their cash supply, if they had to. No one, however, left the room during the game. If they did, they were not allowed back.

“You know the rules, Dekker.”

“But I don’t have another thousand!”

Masterson looked away from him to Evan McCall.

“It’s your bet.”

“Wait a minute—” Dekker said, standing up.

“Dekker,” Masterson said, “either sit down or get out.”

Dekker glared and fumed, but finally sat down to watch the outcome of the hand.

Evan called and raised, and Short called. As it turned out, Short had tens full, and Evan had four threes—which he’d had through six cards. He hadn’t even needed the seventh.

“Gentlemen,” Masterson said, “I believe this is the end.”

“And what an end!” Dick Stark said.

“I don’t believe it,” Carl Dekker said. “Four threes!

That’s the third time you’ve had four of a kind—”

“Luck,” Evan said.

“That’s what you call it,” Dekker said.

“Don’t say something you’ll be sorry for, Dekker,”

Masterson said.

“I want a chance to get my money back.”

“The game is over,” Masterson said. He had been considered the host of this particular game. “Gentlemen, thank you all for coming. I suggest we go down to the bar for drinks.”

Dekker leaped to his feet and said, “I won’t drink with a—”

“Dekker!” Masterson snapped, cutting him off.

They all stared at Dekker, and then at Evan McCall. It was obvious that Dekker had been about to call McCall a cheater.

“Dekker, I think you’d better leave first,” Masterson said.

“And if I don’t?”

Masterson, not yet thirty, was the youngest man at the table, but was perhaps the most respected—and feared. He reached across the table with a gold-headed cane he’d taken to carrying when in San Francisco and tapped Dekker’s chest with it.

“I’ll have to make you.”

Dekker looked around the table, found no support from anyone, and then turned on his heel and left.

Masterson turned to Evan McCall and said, “I’d be careful if I was you. No tellin’ what a sore loser will do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Evan said. “Shall we go downstairs for those drinks?”

Evan McCall, Bat Masterson, Luke Short, and Dick Stark all repaired to the Alhambra bar for their choice ofdrinks. Evan and Stark chose beer, while Masterson and Short chose whiskey.

As they entered the bar they saw across the crowded room, through a haze of smoke, Carl Dekker seated at a table with three other men, who had the look of hard-cases. Dekker himself had the look of a sore loser who had been drowning his sorrows in drink. There was an empty bottle on the table, and another but half full. Even with four men sharing, Dekker had to be more than a little drunk.

“Maybe we should drink somewhere else,” Stark suggested.

“You all can drink elsewhere,” Masterson said, “but I have a room here, and I intend to go to it after a couple of drinks.”

“We’ll drink here,” Evan said, and that seemed to settle that.

The four men approached the bar and advised the bartender of their choices.

“Who was it that invited Dekker, anyway?” Dick Stark asked.

The other three exchanged glances, no one answering immediately.

“Bat?” Short said. “You were the host this time, weren’t you?”

“I can’t remember who recommended him,” Masterson said, “but I wouldn’t have allowed him in the game if the reference wasn’t a sound one.”

“Maybe you should try to remember who it was,” Short said, “and mark him down as a less than reliable reference for the future.”

“In the morning,” Masterson said, “when I’m not so tired, it’ll come to me.”

Masterson and Short each had a second whiskey and then bade the other two goodnight.

“When are you leaving?” Masterson asked Evan.

“In the morning, Bat.”

“See you next time, then,” Masterson said, extending his hand.

They shook hands all around and then Masterson and Short left the saloon.

“They almost look alike, don’t they?” Stark asked. “I mean, the way they dress, so fine and proper.”

“They dress alike, all right,” Evan said, “but that’s where the resemblance ends.”

Masterson was not yet thirty and clean shaven, while the older Luke Short had a fine mustache that he tended to expertly. Short was probably the better gambler, while Masterson’s talent with a gun was probably the finer of the two. Evan McCall was willing to bet that by the time Masterson reached Short’s age he would be the more famous.

“Another beer?” Stark asked.

“Why not?” Evan said.

“Masterson and Short are gone,” Dekker said. “Now you lily-livered cowards can take McCall.”

“You’re payin’ us enough to gun Evan McCall, Dekker,” one of the men said, “but not nearly enough to tangle with Bat Masterson and Luke Short.”

The others nodded their agreement.

“Well, they’re gone and McCall is there,” Dekker said, again.

“What about the other man?” another of the men asked.

“I doubt Stark even carries a gun,” Dekker said. “Come on, get it over with.”

“The man must have done you some grievous harm for you to want him dead this bad,” someone said.

“Just do it,” Dekker said, “and never mind my reasons.”

“You gonna take a hand?”

“I might,” Dekker muttered, glaring across the room at Evan McCall’s back, “by golly, I just might.”

Evan McCall was deep in conversation with Dick Stark about where their respective next stops would be, and he didn’t see the batwing doors open to admit a tall, somewhat weary traveler. He did, however, see the three men seated with Dekker rise to their feet—by looking into the mirror behind the bar.

“Stark, are you armed?”

“Why, no,” Stark replied, “why?”

“I suggest you step aside, then, before lead starts flyin’.”

“What?” Stark said, turning and looking behind him. “Oh!”

He saw the three men standing, fanning out across the room, as did others in the saloon. Suddenly people began to scatter, and any hope of taking McCall by surprise was gone.

“Get ’im!” Dekker shouted, standing.

The sound of gunfire filled the room, and gunsmoke mingled with the haze already caused by cigarette and cigar smoke to almost form a fog in the room.

Through the fog the principals fired their weapons, some in haste, and some with cold deliberation.

Evan McCall produced his cutdown Colt .45 from a shoulder rig and did his firing calmly. He was facing four men, and his goal was to do as best he could before their lead took him to the floor.

His first shot drilled one man through the heart after that man’s hastily fired shots went wild. As the man fell Evan turned to fire again, but before he could, a second man—who had also fired wildly—was felled by a bullet. Before Evan McCall knew what was happening, the third man fell in quick order. To Evan’s mind, the rapid succession of unerring shots could only have beenfired by a handful of men, one of whom was his own brother, Sam.

He looked toward the batwing doors and saw Sam standing there, a grin on his face.

“There’s one left, brother,” Sam said, holstering his shotgun.

Evan gave his brother a nod and then turned his attention to Carl Dekker.

“By God, Dekker, draw your gun!”

Dekker, who’d had his coat thrown back so that he could reach his weapon, had been so surprised by the turn of events that he had not been able to draw.

He wet his lips. “McCall—”

“Draw your weapon or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

“You can’t,” Dekker said. “There’s too many witnesses who’ll say I didn’t have my gun out.”

“And there are enough witnesses who know that you and your friend tried to backshoot me,” Evan said.

“They’ll stand behind my story. Which is it to be? Will you die like a man, or a coward?”

Dekker’s eyes darted about the room, searching for salvation. When he saw that none was coming he looked back at Evan McCall.

“Damn you, McCall!” he shouted, and went for his gun.

Evan McCall fired once, the bullet striking Carl Dekker on the bridge of the nose. Dekker’s jaw went slack, his hand fell to his side, and he keeled over backward.

Evan shoved his gun back into his shoulder rig and walked over to where his brother was standing.

“Much obliged, Sam.”

“Anytime, brother.”

Before they could exchange another word the doors swung open to admit a hoard of blue-coated policemen.

The officer in charge surveyed the damage before speaking.

“Who killed these men?” he demanded.

“We did, Officer.” Evan told the truth because there was no hope of denying it—and no reason to.

The officer, tall, barrel chested, in his forties, gave them a stern stare and said, “You’ll both turn your weapons over to me and accompany me to jail.”

“Jail?” Sam McCall said. “These men tried to back-shoot my brother.”

“You and you brother are still standing, my friend,” the officer said loudly. “Until I can get the whole story, you two are the only ones I can take to jail—and by God, that’s where you’re going!”

Suddenly the other officers surrounded the brothers, giving them barely enough elbowroom. Sam and Evan McCall exchanged a helpless glance before turning their weapons over to the policeman.

At the jail they were given separate cells, but it was a simple enough thing to move the pallets over to the common set of bars and talk.

“We shouldn’t be here too long,” Evan said. “Enough people saw what happened.”

Sam nodded.

“So tell me, brother,” Evan said, “how did you happen to be in the right place at the right time?”

Sam stared at his younger brother through the bars for a moment, forming the words in his mind before he spoke them.

“Ma and Pa are dead.”

“What?”

Sam took the telegram from his shirt pocket and handed it through the bars. He studied his brother while Evan read it.

He hadn’t seen Evan in a couple of years, not since their paths had last crossed in New Orleans. Evan was five years younger, but Sam was still struck by how muchyounger than that he looked. He seemed closer to Jubal’s twenty-four years than his own forty-three. At thirty-eight Evan McCall had none of the gray that streaked Sam’s own dark hair. He was clean shaven, whereas Sam wore a heavy mustache that completely obscured his upper lip. Sam had always thought that while Evan and Jubal actually looked like brothers, he did not share very many of their attributes. He was larger and heavier, and his facial bone structure was that of their father rather than their mother. Sam had a strong, squared jaw and high cheekbones, while Evan and Jubal had their mother’s finer features. Evan and Jubal also had their mother’s blue eyes, while Sam’s were a muddy brown.

After Evan had read the telegram several times he turned those blue eyes on Sam and said, “It doesn’t say how it happened.”

“I know.”

“Have you sent a telegram to find out?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, brother,” Sam said, taking the telegram back, “you and I and Jubal are going to Vengeance Creek to find out for ourselves.”

“Jubal?” There was no argument from Evan. He had already decided that he was going to go find out what happened. It pleased him that he wouldn’t be going alone.

“Do you know where he is?”

“All we got to do is find trouble,” Sam said, “and we’ll find brother Jubal.”