Ace High (Ben Blue Book 3) Read online

  ACE HIGH

  By Lou Bradshaw

  Ace High © 2014, L E Bradshaw

  No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the author, except for excerpts used for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction, and is a product of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictional except for references to well known historical figures. Some liberties may have been taken with regard to exact geographic features.

  This story is dedicated to the memory of my father, Carl (Braddy) Bradshaw.

  A man who never let the strongest storm wash away his sense of humor.

  Other books by Lou Bradshaw available from Amazon Kindle for Kindle and other devices.

  A FINE KETTLE OF FISH

  HICKORY JACK

  BLUE

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 1

  The pots were small and I was tired, tired of playing cards, tired of smelling the stale smoke and whiskey, and I was tired of sitting in the hard wooden chair. So I folded my cards and scooped up my winnings. I was just about to scoot my chair back when the fella directly across from me said, “Hold on there a minute, cowboy, I’m down about a hundred dollars, and it looks like you’re about that much ahead… Now where I come from, a man is usually given a chance to at least break even.”

  “I don’t know where you come from, mister, but it must not be anywhere that I’ve ever been. That’s a courtesy granted by the winner, unless of course it’s agreed on before the game begins. I don’t recall agreeing on anything like that, so I reckon that’s not the rule. But if you want to put up another hundred on one turn of the cards, then I’ll match it.” Having said that, I laid my Colt on the table and my right hand rested within a few inches of it.

  He was a big man with a weather worn face, and he was wearing rough range clothes, so I took him to be a rancher. Most cowhands can’t come up with the kind of money it takes to play at some of these tables. His manner had been rough and abrupt all evening long, but he played a fair hand, and I couldn’t see any reason to dislike a man simply because he was a jackass. I didn’t dislike him in the least… I just didn’t like him in the least either.

  He eyed the gun, and he eyed me. “Oh don’t worry about that.” I said. “That’s for whoever wants to shuffle and deal those cards to worry about.”

  Since there wasn’t anyone at the table willing to shuffle and deal, I picked up my winnings and stuffed them into my shirt pocket. Flipping my sixgun into its holster I said, “Mister, nobody likes to lose, but somebody’s got to.” Then I turned and headed for the door. With each step, I listened for the tell tale sound of a hammer being drawn back. All I heard was the jingle of my spurs and my heels on the rough pine floor. I felt that I had spent about as much time in this town as I cared to. So I went up to my room, packed my duffle, collected my horse, and bid fair-thee-well to the capital city of New Mexico.

  Having spent most of the winter in Santa Fe, I rode out with the first blush of spring. Santa Fe was a nice enough town, but easy living was making me lazy, fat, and careless. I was pretty good at being lazy, and the fat would come off soon enough, but careless was something that can break a man’s bankroll or get him killed. And I wasn’t one who relished being broke or dead. Cities are fine for visiting and having a good hoo-raw, but I couldn’t abide living very long in one.

  I’d played some cards, and I’d won some money. Then I’d played some more cards in a little better class of gambling house, and I’d won some more money. So then I played some cards in a couple of real dumps and lost some money. I didn’t know what that told me, other than my luck had deserted me. It was probably that I was so busy keeping the rats from nibbling at my boots, I just wasn’t paying attention to the business at hand.

  And a business was just what it was. I made my living with the pasteboards. For want of a better name for my profession, I was a gambler. Gambling isn’t something that you just wake up one morning and say to yourself, I don’t want to work very hard for a living, I think I’ll be a gambler. Well, maybe some have come by the calling that way, but they usually don’t last too long. They either wind up sweeping out saloons for drinks, or they wind up dead from lack of skill at making their own luck.

  A good card man or woman can make their own luck for a while. A really good card handler can make his own luck for a long while, but sooner or later there’s someone who has an eye that’s better than the dealer’s fingers. When that happens, there is one of two things that are likely to occur. One is to get a gun out quick, and the other is to die. I don’t try to make my own luck, and I’m still alive.

  Before I pulled out of Santa Fe, I had sent a five hundred dollar draft to my bank in Los Angeles. That wasn’t bad for a winter’s work. I still had my seed money stashed in a money belt. I started out with three hundred dollars cash nine years ago and a couple of hundred in the bank that was left to me by my father. I’ve been feeding that bank ever since and still had my original seed money.

  Max Bell’s the name and I come from a short line of gamblers. My father and my mother both shuffled the pasteboards on the pre-war riverboats. So, you might say that I came by it naturally.

  I had played cards from the City of Angeles clear up to Puget Sound and back, with a long stopover in San Francisco both coming and going. I spent several months on the riverboats up and down the Sacramento River. But now I wanted to see Denver City and maybe Cheyenne. I’ve spent the last five or six years knocking about in Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

  Preferring not to be seen as a gambler, I try not to skyline myself and stay just under the horizon. Most folks in a western saloon can spot a professional gambler without even trying. Those fellas seem to be wearing uniforms, whereas I sport a beat up Stetson, jeans, rundown boots with spurs, and a leather vest. For all intents and purposes, I look like any other puncher coming off the range. Nobody takes a second look when I set down at a table.

  My daddy had been a riverboat gambler and a gentleman by birth, so his idea of a gambler’s appearance was far different from mine. From the time I was old enough to rope a steer that was what I wanted to do. I’d been doing it for one outfit or another out there in the valley, so I knew the other side of life. Pa didn’t especially want me to take up his profession, but he never told me not to. In fact, he had been teaching me the ways of the trade since I was five.

  Pa was an educated aristocratic man, and he always had books, wherever we were. If we were traveling light, he’d forgo something that most folks would call a necessity to make room for a favorite book. I was reading and speaking French and English, and I had a handle on Latin by the time I was ten. A handle on Latin was all I ever had; I just never felt comfortable with it.

  I reckon I could still speak some pretty ragged French if the need ever came up, and I speak Spanish out of necessity, but I really feel most comfortable speaking the language of the common man. Most of the people I encounter on a daily basis have had little or no schooling, and many can barely write their own name. But they are the ones that are building this country. They are the ones who plant the seed or brand the calf, t
hey are the ones who dig out the ore or lay down the track. Whatever the country may be in years to come, they are the ones who are giving it a chance to grow and survive.

  I rode into Las Vegas, a little town in northern New Mexico about four days after leaving Santa Fe. It was mid day and I was looking for a cold beer and some food. The beer wasn’t cold, but the food was tasty and filling at the first cantina I came to. A man doesn’t have to drink cold beer, but a man should enjoy his food. So I decided to stick around for a couple of days. Checking into the hotel got me a queer look from the clerk. His first comment was to let me know that a room was six bits a night in advance.

  “Do you always collect in advance?” I asked.

  “Well no,” he answered, “but you don’t look like you’ve got six bits…. We run a respectable place here, and we don’t cater to no riff-raff.”

  I pulled the coins out of my jeans and said, “I’ll flip you for the room… I win, and I sleep free… you win, and I’ll pay a dollar and a half for the night. You call it.”

  Before he could think about it he said, “Heads.”

  I showed him the coin and it was tails, and turned the book around to put my name in it. I signed it and handed him six bits. “Mister, I pulled a little trick on you. I won’t tell you how I did it, but let’s just say I rushed you. You didn’t have time to contemplate.” He smiled and handed me the key.

  Actually, I had caught the coin and could feel the surface with my thumb and knew it was tails down, so when I slapped it on my wrist, I flipped it to tails up. It was an easy trick and just a little bit of slight of hand. He was happy that he didn’t lose his money and I made a new friend. When it was all said and done, he would remember that I was an honest man. It wasn’t much, but in my line of work, it helps to have someone who could put in a good word for you among the locals.

  After stabling my horse, I checked out the saloons. There were three of them, and they all looked pretty much the same. There were an equal number of cantinas, but the pots would be smaller, and I would be the outsider. I didn’t know the politics of this area, so I wouldn’t press myself into another culture without being invited. Of course, tomorrow, I’d have my frijoles and beef in the same cantina that fed me earlier today… but not tonight.

  I settled on the Plugged Nickel Saloon, simply by chance. There was a game going on back in a corner, so I sauntered over to watch for a while. It was pretty much penny anti, and mostly long time friends just playing for the fun of it. I was standing off a few yards, not wanting anyone to be bothered by my presence. A young lady was serving their drinks and I gave her more study than the card game.

  Have you ever had the feeling that someone had moved up behind you? You didn’t hear a thing and there was no reason to believe that there was anyone there, but you were sure of it. My instinct was to shift my beer to my left hand and rest my right thumb on my gunbelt. That’s when I heard, “You’re not going to shoot me are you, cowboy?”

  The voice was soft and sweet, and there was a world of confidence in the tone… She knew I wouldn’t shoot her.

  “Izzy, you ought to know better than to sneak up on a fella that way.” I turned and looked into the pretty eyes and lovely face of Isadora Rallins, an old friend and one time lover from my days in Nevada.

  “Max Bell, you handsome devil. I was hopin’ you’d show up sometime because I’ve been planning to shoot you for runnin’ out on me back in Carson City.”

  “Now, Izzy, you knew I wasn’t much good… even back then. I told you up front that I didn’t know how long I’d be around. But when you started talking about partnering up, well I just got the ramblin’ fever.”

  “If you weren’t so damned good lookin’, I’d go right back behind the bar and get my gun. But that’d be an awful waste of manhood.”

  I stood for a few seconds and just absorbed her… She was a sweet slice of birthday cake with all that icing piled high. She came just about nose high to my six foot frame, which would make her about five foot six. She had big beautiful dark eyes that could send you into a fit of dizziness just looking into them. Her dark brown hair was long and thick. It looked as if it never needed more than a brush to bring it right back to what it was supposed to look like. We had known each other quite well back in Nevada, and I don’t recall that she ever looked undone…. I’ve known more than a few ladies, and I know what undone looks like.

  The rest of the package was everything that any man who was a man could want. She looked good… really good. She was decked out more like a wanton schoolmarm than gambling hall gal. She was wearing a white silk blouse that came up to her throat, but was open in front to show just enough of the flesh beneath. Her long, well made hip clinging skirt was a dark blue with a split up the side showing a smooth calf and ankle. Her outfit was almost prudish in a sinful way.

  She was a gambling woman, and I don’t know what else she might be doing. Being a first rate card handler, I would say that she probably didn’t need any other source of income, but that’s none of my business. After all, my own mother was a riverboat gambler.

  We sat for a while and talked about what had happened since my sudden departure from Nevada. She was so heartbroken when I left her, she married a mine owner within two weeks of my adios. He was a man who had all his luck strike him at once. He struck a rich vein on a Monday and married a beautiful woman on Thursday. But his luck turned on him just as quick because he fell down a mine shaft, and was killed on Saturday. Izzy always looked good in black. Too bad I wasn’t there to comfort her in her grief.

  “You stayin’ at the hotel?” She asked. And I acknowledged that I was. “Well you might as well check out in the morning. I’ve got rooms upstairs nicer than the ones at the hotel, and one of them adjoins mine. I’ll just move Deloris to another room.”

  “What about the boss? Won’t he mind if you go movin’ folks around like that?”

  “You don’t understand, Max, I am the boss. I own this place lock, stock, and beer barrel. My late husband left me with a tolerable amount of assets, so wherever I want to put a special customer is where he goes. Besides, you’d be good for business. Them boys get tired of playin’ for nickels and dimes. Come Saturday night, there’ll be some real money on those tables.”

  “Well,” I said, “if that’s the case, then let me go and get cleaned up a little and I’ll back later.”

  As I headed for the door she called, “Max, it sure is good to see your face again… you good looking devil.” I blew her a kiss and went through the batwings.

  I went back to the hotel to find out if there was a bath house in town. I surely was a dusty critter, and a good soaking was what I longed for. The hotel man told me that there was a tub and a stove for heating water, if I was of a notion, out back in a shed. The bath was free, but the firewood for the stove, the soap, and the towels was fifty cents. I didn’t understand the point of all that, but I needed a bath.

  Later, after the cleaning up and the scraping off of several days’ worth of whiskers, I went to the diner on the main street for supper. It was a café that I must have been in its like a thousand and one times. It had the same menu and the same tables as all the others, but the food was good and the waitress was pretty and friendly.

  With a full belly and a well scrubbed hide, I went back to the Plugged Nickel and Isadora. The barman said she wouldn’t be down for another hour or so. It seemed that she liked to take a couple of hours to herself in the late afternoon. I can’t say that I blamed her for that. Late nights and long days could wear a person down. No one was playing anything at that time, so I took a walk down to the Painted Wagon.

  There was a small game going on there, so I sat in and threw coins into the pot without too many of them coming back at me. After a little while it all turned around and the coins started coming home. After about an hour and a half, I was all of two dollars ahead, so I called it quits.

  When I got back to the Plugged Nickel, Izzy was sitting at the bar talking to a gent who looked t
o be a rancher. I smiled and touched my hat brim but didn’t intrude. I didn’t know if she was working or just being friendly. I wasn’t sure what her involvement with the business was other than she owned it. She could be strictly management or she could be a working girl manager. It really didn’t matter, it was her business. I noted that she had changed her outfit. It was a bit more styled for the evening crowd and late night players. But it still carried that same mix of naughty being nice and nice being naughty. She pulled it off well.

  There were several games in progress, so I looked on for a while and finally sat in on one when a chair came open. It was a two bit anti and a minimum of two bits to raise. If a fella used some common sense, he could make a good living playing these stakes. That is if he was playing with the right kind of crowd. Having a poker face is one thing, and few people have em, but being able to control the rest of your body is just as important. Twitchy hands, face touching, feet shuffling, and any number of nervous habits can be dead giveaways. I usually make it a practice to start out slow and take everything into consideration. The first four or five hands, were just feeding the table with an anti and a few calls at most, until I had a handle on my companions’ little foibles. After that, I was in the game.

  Playing cards in small town games, a man must be patient and must not win too much or too often. You learn to laugh at the jokes and say the right thing when you take a pot, and never ever get cocky. If you’ve got a big shot in the crowd, play to his ego. If he wins a pot congratulate him. Give his self importance a boost. Tell him how he sure had you fooled. When you win a pot, owe it all to dumb luck. Make yourself small.

  I made myself small enough to come out about ten dollars ahead in two hours. I pulled out with the excuse of needing to visit the little house out back. By the time I got back, someone had filled my vacated chair. That was enough for one night.

  I was standing at the bar nursing a beer, when Izzy approached me from behind. “Hi there, cowboy. You come here often?”