turn at some uncertain danger.
“Don’t drop it,” Fallon said. “If you do I might think you’re going for a gun.”
Without turning his head, he said, “Teel, take the rear door. If he makes a
wrong move, kill him.”
He walked up slowly and said, “Well go inside, Card. Poker is your game, isn’t
it?”
Graham stared at him. “You want to play?”
“Yes … if we can call it play. Yes, I want to play.”
Wiley Pollock was there. Fallon saw him looking on, coolly interested.
“Pollock,” he said, “let me have your best offer, your final offer for the
claim.”
“Ten thousand dollars,” Pollock replied promptly. In cash, now.”
“Done,” Fallon replied.
“I don’t get it,” Graham was saying. “Why play now?”
Fallon felt cold and still inside. He felt the way he sometimes had before a gun
battle, but he felt something more. He felt hatred.
He knew neither man who had died, but he had seen them both come into town. They
were good men, solid men … and both had families.
“You owe those men something,” he said quietly, “and they have families. I am
going to win it for them.”
Card Graham laughed without humor. “Don’t be a fool, Fallon. You owe them
nothing. Stay out of this.”
He said it as a matter of course. What he wanted very much was what he was going
to get—Macon Fallon in a card game. He did not know Fallon, but he did not like
him.
Fallon followed Graham into the saloon and took a seat at a table with his back
to the wall. Card Graham sat down opposite him and took a deck of cards from a
box on the table. Graham drew high card, and the deal.
He shuffled the cards, Fallon cut, and Graham dealt. “We do not stop,” Fallon
said, “until one of us is broke, and if you go broke, you leave town.”
Graham did not reply. Cards were his game, cards were what he knew. He had
started playing in a Texas cow camp shortly after coming down from Ohio; he had
continued to play in cow camps for a year, then opened a game in a cow town. He
had picked up a little here, a little there. He had never played the riverboats,
never the big places in St Louis or Chicago or New York, but he was very sure of
himself.
They played, and Graham won. He won steadily for an hour, and he was playing a
fair game. He knew it, and Macon Fallon knew it.
Then the cards took a change, and they took the change while Graham was dealing.
Fallon found himself with good cards, decided it was not a set-up situation and
played it to win. Graham had a fair hand, thought Fallon was bluffing, and lost
almost a third of what he had won up to that moment.
Irritated, Graham played the next hand badly and won, but much less than he
should have with the cards he held. An hour later Fallon was winning steadily,
and Card Graham suggested drinks. Spike Maloon came around the bar with the
drinks on a tray and Macon Fallon glanced up, smiling faintly. He lifted a hand.
“Put the tray down on the next table,” he said quietly. “We can take our drinks
from there.”
There was silence in the room. Card Graham’s face paled slightly. “What’s that
mean?” His eyes were hot and eager.
A killer, Fallon thought. The man’s become a killer. He’s begging for a chance
to draw his gun.
“I’m superstitious,” Fallon said, “about trays. I don’t like trays near the
table while I’m playing.” He smiled into Graham’s eyes. “I know this is an
honest game, but sometimes a tray can have a cold deck under it.”
Graham wanted to say something, but he hesitated, and Macon Fallon knew why he
hesitated. There was a cold deck under that tray, and if he said anything Fallon
would suggest the tray be turned over.
“Forget it!” Graham said, shrugging. “Let’s play cards.”
Fallon was looking away from the table when he heard the faint whisper of a
bottom deal. The sliding of that bottom card off the end of the pack had a
faintly different sound, but he did not react. When he picked up his cards he
was holding three nines. He discarded two cards and was given two more, and one
of them was the other nine.
He folded his cards together and raised another two dollars. Graham seemed to be
studying his cards, which gave Fallon time to think.
Three nines was logical. It was the sort of hand a fairly careful card mechanic
might give, enough to make him raise, yet not too big. The fourth nine was not
logical.
Fallon studied Card Graham in his mind and decided the fourth nine was an
accident. The deck, he was sure, was not marked. The nines would be unlikely
marking in any event, for usually that was reserved for face cards, aces, and
tens—although complete marking had often been done. It was probable that Graham
figured the chance of his getting that extra nine was impossibly high … and it
was unlikely. Yet unlikely things were always happening in poker games.
Graham raised ten dollars, and Fallon upped it one hundred. Graham’s face was
unreadable, but Fallon had an idea Graham was pleased, for it must seem that
Fallon had taken the bait. Macon Fallon smiled inwardly—and grimly, for perhaps
he had. He was betting that the fourth nine was an accident. Graham saw his
raise and boosted it five hundred. At the showdown, Graham showed a full house,
queens and jacks, and Fallon spread out his four nines.
Carl Graham stared unbelievingly at the cards as Fallon raked in the money. His
tongue touched his lips, for he knew how great the odds were against Fallon’s
picking up that fourth nine on the draw. But Fallon had done it, and there was
no way it could have been rigged, because Fallon could not have known what cards
Graham would give him.
Fallon watched Graham with seemingly casual interest The fun was over. Card
Graham had been hurt where he liked it least—in his skill as a card mechanic.
From now on, it would be every man for himself.
Idly, Fallon gathered the cards, shuffled, pushed them over for Graham’s cut,
then dealt. Fallon was a good poker player, but few card sharps were, for they
were too busy building up a chance to cheat, or watching for that chance … and
they are depending on cheating to win, not on good poker playing. Yet a good
card mechanic need cheat only once in a game, if he chooses the right time.
Fallon bluffed on a small pair, but Graham was no longer sure, and would not go
along. Fallon was keenly aware of Graham’s problems. It takes time to get the
cards in place for a crooked deal, and it is easier when the game is stud and
some of the cards can be seen each time a hand is played, exposed on the table
and easy for the pick-up. At stud it is comparatively easy to follow the cards
one wants, separate and stock them for a bottom deal. In draw poker the
selection is limited by the number of cards that can be seen, for unless a cold
deck can be introduced into the game, the necessary cards must be located and
stocked.
Also, the fewer involved in the game the fewer the cards that can be seen.
Fallon wondered which ones Graham would select. His own elaborate appearance of
ease was deliberately calculated to infuriate the gambler.
The game seesawed back and forth. For a while others joined in, but the contest
was so obviously between the two men that they were glad to get out. Everybody
in Red Horse knew the game was on, and everybody knew it could only end in
trouble.
Spike Maloon sat or walked behind the bar and watched the progress of the game
with cynical eyes. They were eyes that had looked upon much that was evil,
little that was good, and upon many men who were hard, brutal men in their hours
of trial. More and more he found his eyes shifting to Macon Fallon. His own
future rode with Graham’s winning, but as the hours passed he saw that Graham
was playing a losing game. The cards were erratic, no long winning streaks
coming to either man, with Graham unable to control them as he wished. And even
when he could, Fallon seemed to pull away from every trap by instinct as much as
by card sense.
There was nothing Maloon could do. He had brought the cold deck to the table,
but Fallon had been ready for them, so he could only sit it out. Men came and
went; gradually as the night wore on they tired out and the crowd dwindled.