The Road to Ratchet Creek (9 page)

“Your guests were sinning and a mite unrepentant, brother,” he said.

Spitting blood, Conway sat up. He saw Cole's attention distracted and began to jerk the Colt from his pocket. Before Calamity, or Cultus for that matter, could either give warning or make a move in the marshal's defense, John took a hand. After completing the repair of Calamity's carbine, he had replaced the bullets in the magazine and fed one into the breech. Springing to the little Winchester, he caught it up, thumbed forward the safety catch and shot from hip high. For all that, the bullet flung up splinters from the floor close to Conway's side and caused him to release the Colt's butt hurriedly so that it slid back into his pocket. Blurring the lever, John sent the empty cartridge case flicking into the air and filled the chamber with a loaded round.

Cole's Rogers & Spencer revolver twisted from the holster as he swung to face Conway. Fear crossed the drummer's face as he stared into the .44 muzzle of the gun and realized that its hammer was held back under Cole's thumb while the marshal's forefinger depressed the trigger.

“W—We were only having a friendly game!” Conway croaked.

“I just bet you were!” Calamity snapped, coiling the whip.

“How much did you lose, boy?” asked Cole, holstering his gun and stepping to the table.

“T-Three hundred and twenty dollars last time, marshal.”

“Marshal?”
repeated Conway, getting to his feet.

“That's the dismal truth, brother,” Cole told him. “If I was called to the church, I sure never heard it and a feller has to live. So I took on as U.S. marshal of Utah Territory.”

“There's no law against gambling here,” Conway pointed out.

“You're right enough about that,” admitted Cole, examining the cards. Then he cut the deck into three piles, gripping the cards at the upper end to do so. “You been doubling up, Johnny?”

“Yes, sir,” John replied.

“Then make your pick.”

“Y—You mean——?” John gasped, putting down the carbine.

“You started this thing, boy,” Cole replied. “Now finish it. Make your pick.”

Nobody spoke and John ran the tip of his tongue across his lips. On Calamity and Cole's intervention he hoped that the game might be called null and void, but that did not seem to be the case. Slowly he reached out his hand to touch the left side pile of cards.

“Th—This one,” he said and lifted it. “Jack of diamonds.”

“Take one for that poor sinner you cruelly abused, which same he was asking for, Calam,” Cole continued, nodding in the groaning Thorbold's direction.

Although puzzled at the marshal's attitude, Calamity did not argue. Unless she missed her guess, Cole knew exactly what he was doing and could be relied upon to save John from being swindled out of a large sum of money.

“That poor sinner, who got what he needed, takes the middle,” she announced and exposed the bottom card of the central pile. “Ain't he the lucky one, queen of clubs.”

“Which leaves you this one,” Cole told the scowling Conway. “Only it wouldn't be fair for you to have the bottom card. So I'll just cut it again.”

Watched by the others and ignoring Conway's angry glare, Cole split the pile; only he did so by gripping the cards in the center.

“Four of diamonds!” John whooped. “I've won!”

“It sure looks that way,” agreed Cole and looked at Conway. “Don't it now, brother?”

“He wins,” snarled the drummer.

“Are you headed for Ratchet Creek?”

“No, marshal. I'm leaving the stage at Shadloe and going South.”

“Forget it, brother. Aman with your talents'd do better back East.”

“Are you telling me to get out of the Territory?” Conway asked.

“Right out,” agreed Cole. “Like you said, gambling's legal—but the way you play's not gambling, now is it?”

“You mean he was cheating me?” John demanded.

“Let's say you didn't have much chance of winning, boy,” Cole replied.

“Why you——!” John began and reached toward the carbine.

“Leave it, son!” Cole ordered. “Mind what the Good Book says, whosoever sheds blood is plumb likely to get the other feller's kinfolk hunting him for evens.”

“You've won your money back, Johnny,” Calamity went on. “Call it straight and forget it.”

“Only remember it next time somebody asks you to play cards with them,” Cole continued.

“It's over, Johnny,” Calamity said gently.

“For me as well?” growled Conway.

“Not for you, brother,” Cole told him. “There's the matter of that table you busted. When you've paid Mrs. Janowska for it you can say it's all over and not before.”

“I
STILL DON'T KNOW HOW HE DID IT,”
J
OHN REMARKED
after Conway and Thorbold disappeared into their rooms under orders to stay put until morning. “It doesn't seem possible that he could cut the cards he wanted.”

“He couldn't,” admitted Cole. “Not to cut 'em and say he'd get one certain card. But he could get 'em close enough for what he needed. Take a look at the deck and see if you can find out how.”

John did as ordered, picking up the cards and studying them. At first he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Then he looked closer and ran his thumb and forefinger gently down the long edges of the deck. In years to come John would gain a reputation for being able to gauge minute mea
surements as accurately with his finger and thumb as most men could using a micrometer. Already the Browning “feather touch” had developed sufficiently to let him feel certain irregularities in the cards.

“The sides aren't even,” he said wonderingly.

“That's right, they're not,” agreed Cole. “Look at a few high cards.”

Selecting a ten, jack, queen and king, John examined them closely. “They're thinner in the middle than at the ends.”

“You've got real good eyes, boy,” complimented Cole. “Now look at some of the low cards.”

“These're cut down at the ends,” Johnny said after examining a deuce, three and four.

Which, while true enough, did not mean that the alterations could be seen easily. In fact Calamity studied the cards for a long time before confessing that she was unable to detect the trimmed-down sections.

“They're there, sister,” Cole told her. “This's what they call a deck of ‘belly-strippers' down South.”

“I've always heard them called ‘humps,'” Monique put in, having stood in the background.

“Say, thanks for telling us about those two jaspers,” Calamity remarked.

“I didn't want to see him lose all his money,” Monique replied. “Well, I'm going to bed.”

Waving away John's attempts to thank her, the
girl walked off to her room. Curiosity brought John's attention back to the cards.

“I may be dumb, but I still don't see how they work,” he said.

“Look,” Cole answered and gripped the cards in the center to cut them. “It's low, under eight.” He showed the three of clubs and replaced the cut section on the deck. Taking hold at the upper end, he raised another portion. “This time I've got a card over eight.”

When he made the test, John could see how the “humps” worked. By taking hold of the deck in the center, the banker's fingers closed on the extended edges of the low cards. Not until he gripped at the end of the deck would he come into contact with the higher denominations. By skilled manipulation of the betting, the banker could then arrange to build up his victim's confidence and be certain of winning in the end.

“But Conway let me keep doubling my bets,” Johnny pointed out.

“Which ought to have made you suspicious for a start,” Cole replied. “When you get old enough to go into saloons, Johnny, you'll see that every game the house runs has a limit. They'll only let you make your bets between two sums of money: twenty-five cents to twenty-five dollars, a dollar to seventy-five, or something. That stops you doubling up and up until luck comes your way and wins for you. Any time you get into a game and
they'll let you go on and on doubling up, it's crooked.”

“So that's how it's done,” John said. “He cuts the cards, then after we've made our bets splits his own pile to win or lose whichever suits the betting.”

“That's how it's done,” Cole agreed.

“Marshal!” called Janowska from the telegraph room. “It's Promontory.”

“I'll be right with you!” Cole replied. “Excuse me, folks.”

“You must reckon I'm a real fool, Calam,” John remarked as they watched the marshal follow the agent into the room.

“Nope, just young,” she told him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But don't let it worry you. Being young's a thing you'll grow out of in time.”

“But——.”

“Forget it!” Calamity insisted, then a thought struck her. “Hey, you used my carbine!”

“That feller looked mean and I didn't reckon you'd mind.”

“That's not what I meant. You know the fool thing busted on me back at the dip.”

“I fixed it for you.”

Taking up the little Winchester, Calamity worked its lever and watched the breechblock performing its normal function as smoothly as ever.

“Well I'll swan!” she said, picking up the ejected
bullet and slipping it through the loading slot in the side of the frame.

“I hoped you'd be pleased,” John told her.

Something in the boy's attitude drew Calamity's eyes to his face. Suddenly she realized that John's trouble with the drummers stemmed from the way she had treated him earlier. Having suffered the pangs of puppy-love herself, she could imagine how Johnny felt at her apparent indifference. In such a frame of mind he would be ripe to be plucked by the unscrupulous pair. And to top it all, he had put aside his personal feelings for long enough to repair the carbine, making a real fine job of it.

“Let's take a walk outside,” she suggested.

“Sure, Calam,” John replied eagerly. “Maybe I ought to put the money into the safe until morning before we go.”

“It'd be best. That's what I've done with mine.”

“
You
have?”

“Hell, yes,” lied Calamity. “What do you reckon they built it for?”

After John had crossed to the bar and spoken with Mrs. Janowska, going into the office with the woman, Calamity turned to look at Cole as he walked toward her.

“It's come, Calam,” he said.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Feller called Eli Ehart. He runs a trading post maybe twenty miles to the southwest of here.”

“What're you going to do?”

“Pay him a call,” Cole replied and a throb of controlled hatred filled his voice. “Show him the error of his ways.”

“Need any help?”

“You?”

“Naw!”
Calamity snorted. “Ole Yeller-hair Custer and the whole blasted 7th U.S. Cavalry.”

“I'd admire to have you along, singing the hymns for him and beating time with that whip,” Cole assured her. “Only they need a driver for the stage at least as far as Shadloe, comes morning.”

“Cultus can do it,” Calamity protested.

“And then who'll ride shotgun?”

“Reckon they'll need one?”

“Sister, happen they do, it'll be long gone too late to start remembering that they don't have one aboard.”

“And you're going after Ehart alone,” Calamity wailed. “You're a——.”

“Damned fool, Calam. It runs in the family, ask Cousin Mark. If I wasn't a fool, I wouldn't've become a lawman in the first place. Will you drive the stage?”

“If that's how you want it.”

“That's the way it has to be,” Cole stated. “Now I'm going to grab a meal and hit the hay. I've got a long ride tomorrow.”

“Men!” sighed Calmity as Cole left her. “There's
no living with 'em—but I'm damned if we can live without 'em either.”

Collecting her gear, she carried it to the room which she would be sharing with Monique and dumped it on the vacant bed. After telling Monique that she would tippy-toe in later, she left, joined John and suggested that they take a walk down to the corral.

Once outside the building, John found himself with a problem. He felt like a hunter who sought out a grizzly bear, faced it and suddenly realized that he did not know how to shoot. Back home he never bothered much about girls, other than avoiding them as much as possible at church socials and the like. There were always much better things to do in his scanty leisure time: hunting, fishing and other male pastimes shared with his brothers. To make the feeling worse, he believed that he was walking with a mature, sophisticated—not that he knew the word—woman of the world; one who had known many famous men and who most likely knew plenty about making love.

“How'd you like travelling, Johnny?” said Calmity, breaking into his train of thought.

“Fine!” he replied, the word popping out like a cork from a bottle.

“It's not much fun doing it alone, though,” she went on. “And not near as much fun as being at home.”

“Well not the same kind of fun anyways,” John admitted.

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

“Sure. My pappy's got three wives.”

John spoke defensively. Even at his early age he knew that the Mormons' belief in polygamy formed one of the chief causes of Gentile antagonism to his people.

“It's your folks' way,” Calamity replied tolerantly. “How do you kids get on with each other?”

“We don't see much of the older ones, but the rest of us get on. We work and play together just like kids in any family.”

Once started on the subject, John gave vent to the homesickness which gnawed at him. He told his companion about his father, the big, stern, yet kindly old man who had taught him all he knew.

“He didn't always like my work though,” John admitted. “I was ten when I whomped up my first gun. Made it out of the barrel of an old gun, some wire and odd bits I found around the shop. Used a piece of old plank for a butt. Man, that was some gun. How it never blew up in my face, I'll never know. Know how we got it to fire, me not knowing how to make a trigger and hammer mechanism?”

“No,” smiled Calamity.

“Brother Matt and me took a can with some bits of burning coke along, lit a twig from it and touched off the powder through a vent hole in the breech. First time we got a chance to use it, we
nailed some dusting prairie chickens. That night Ma told pappy how we come by them and he asked to look at the gun. When I showed it to him, he looked kinda proud and sad. All he said was, ‘It's lucky you put that shield round the vent or the flash'd come out and hit you in the face.' Trouble was I knew I could've done better. Next morning I took that gun to bits and threw 'em away.”

“And never tried again?” asked Calamity.

“Shucks, yes. I made another gun, a good one, for Brother Matt later on. He still uses it.”

“You like working with guns, don't you?”

“I sure do. There're so many things can be done to make them better. I'd sure like to try.”

“Such as?” Calamity inquired, impressed by his enthusiasm.

“I don't know. Look at the Winchester, there must be a way it can be made to take the big bullets. There's something else I've been thinking about.”

“What's that?”

“You know when you fire off a gun, the way the gas'll make leaves or grass blow if the muzzle's near them?”

“I've seen it,” Calamity admitted.

“I keep thinking there ought to be some way that gas could be used,” John said soberly. “It's a fool notion I've got.”

“A lot of folks had fool notions that paid off,” Calamity reminded him. She took his hand, feel
ing him jump a little. “You're a nice boy, John Moses Browning. A real nice boy.”

“I think you're swell too, Calam,” he replied huskily.

“Why?” asked Calamity.

“Well, you—I—you——.”

“Because I wear men's clothes, cuss like a thirty year cavalry sergeant, handle a whip and drive a wagon?” she suggested as John spluttered to a halt.

“Yes'm,” he agreed, wondering how she guessed.

“Those're damned poor reasons for liking a
gal
,” Calamity said.

“Maybe, but——.”

“Now listen to me, Johnny,” Calamity interrupted firmly. “First off, I'm not a nice gal to know. Don't argue. I do things other gals don't, but that cuts two ways. A lot of gals do things that I can't.”

“Aw, that's not——,” John began.

“Oh yes it is,” she corrected. “Right now you think I'm something real special. Only at the bottom you
know
that you couldn't take a gal like me back to home with you.”

“My folks would like you,” John protested.

“Maybe, but not as one of the family. Your maw'd reckon I was a bad female with designs on her lil boy—And afore you puff up, you'll still be her lil boy when you're growed up and raising a
family of your own. That's how mothers are with their sons.”

Although John tried to protest, he knew at the bottom of his heart that Calamity spoke the truth. Try as he might, he could not picture the girl, dressed and acting in such a manner, fitting into the staid life of Ogden or being accepted by the town's female population.

“You could be right, Calam,” he admitted.

“How old are you, Johnny?”

“Sixteen—nearly.”

“And I'm rising twenty,” Calamity exaggerated.

This was a point which John had been feeling all the time, nagging deep down behind his thoughts of the girl as the future Mrs. John Moses Browning.

“Oh!” was all he said.

“One of these days, Johnny,” Calamity went on, “you'll meet a real nice girl your own age, and who your maw'll like. Then you'll start wondering ‘What the hell did I ever see in that ornery ole Calamity Jane?'”

“I'll never think that, Calam,” John promised. “You'll always be something real special to m——.”

The sound of a soft cough came to their ears. Spinning around, Calamity twisted her right hand palm-out to slide the Colt from its holster and her left hand thrust John into the side of the corral where he would be less visible.

“It's only me, sister,” said Cole's voice. “Saw
somebody moving down here and figured to look in on 'em.”

“It's only Johnny and me, come down for a breath of fresh air,” the girl replied, twirling her gun back into its holster. “We're going back now.” A faint grin twisted her face. “When you get to my age, you can't stand all these late nights.”