Lisa Plumley - The Honour-Bound Gambler

Unhappily distracted, Cade glanced down at the coin the boy brandished. It looked cleaner than all the rest of the urchin combined. From his grimy fingernails to his shabby shirt, the boy looked powerfully worse for wear. Unfortunately, he also looked a little like Judah. Maybe that’s why Cade stopped.

The boy grinned, revealing a smile that jabbed at Cade’s heart like a sterling-silver knuckle-duster. “Ain’t nothing finer than a fast game of craps, sir.” The boy, probably twelve years of age or a little more, extracted a pair of dice from his trouser pocket. With élan he shook them in his scrawny fist. “How ’bout we toss ’em over yonder, where it’s quiet?”

He nodded toward the nearest alleyway. Hesitating, Cade squinted up the main street toward the two-story brick house that was his destination. All Morrow Creek’s movers and shakers were expected to be at the benefit being held there tonight, during which the Territorial Benevolent Association Grand Fair would raise funds for a new public lending library.

“You got yer roulette, el Sapo, rondo, rouge et noir, faro, and vingt-et-un—” the boy rattled off the names of those popular games of chance the way most youngsters recited their ABCs “—but for a fast win and real excitement nothin’ beats craps, sir.”

Transferring his gaze to the child again, Cade noted the boy’s hollow cheeks and the dark smudges below his eyes. He saw the way the pint-size “sporting man” hunched his skinny shoulders against the autumn chill. He assessed the boy’s nimble movements even as he listened to more of the imp’s patter.

“If you roll those bones as ably as you talk,” Cade interrupted, “I’d be a fool to strike a wager with you.”

“You’d be a fool not to, you mean. It’s just a nickel.”

To a boy like that, a nickel was the difference between eating and going to bed hungry. Cade knew that more than most.

He also knew, with another proficient glance, that the dice the youngster jiggled were likely a pair of dispatchers—so named because they effectively “dispatched” their intended targets: suckers. Like all gambling men, Cade recognized the tools of a cheat. There was no other way to assure himself a square game.

Not that he ever expected to actually get one. Cade reckoned that every game he went up against was crooked one way or another. But if he ever wanted to find Whittier, he had to follow the gambling circuit. Tonight, at least a few of its members would be scouting for prospects—and showing off—at the Grand Fair. Once Cade made his way up the street to that big brick house, he’d have to do his best to impress them.

Winning was the only way to progress up the circuit—to make it to the high-stakes tables where men like Whittier wagered.

Not that throwing dice with this youngster would help Cade do that. He should have tried harder to go around him—regardless of the boy’s resemblance to Judah. Now it was too late.

When Cade glanced up again, wondering if he could sidestep the kid without taking too hard a punch to his conscience, the boy was shrewdly studying his watch chain. Doubtless he was envisioning the expensive gold Jürgensen timepiece—a particular favorite of professional gambling men—that dangled at its tail…and wondering if he could win it.

Seeing no other choice, Cade nodded. He ambled to the alleyway with the boy leading the way. They set their wager.

“I’m in a hurry.” Cade nodded. “Go on and roll.”

Smartly, the boy refused. “Let me see your nickel first.”

Obligingly, Cade produced a coin. On the verge of throwing it in their makeshift kitty, he frowned. “Tell you what,” he said in a tone of studied carelessness. “A nickel’s not much of a bet. I’ll put up my coat in this bargain, too.” He was happy to forfeit the damn thing if it would keep this urchin warm for the coming wintertime. That was the least his problematic conscience demanded. “Just to keep things interesting.”

“Yeah?” The boy jabbed up his chin. His eyes gleamed with wanting Cade’s warm coat, but his decidedly unchildlike sense of skepticism demanded more. “What do you want of mine, then?”

Cade thought about it. “I want those fine dice of yours.”

Reluctantly, the scamp examined his pair of clinkers. He’d probably been earning all the sustenance he had with them. He appeared disinclined to part with them. But the kid would be better off without those cheaters in his hands. They’d only get him in trouble. Nobody was likely to keep the boy from earning some much-needed money with fast gambling—and truthfully, Cade wasn’t inclined to try—but at least the practice could be made safer. With a keener pair of loaded or expertly shaved dice—like the pair Cade kept ready in his coat pocket, for instance—the boy’s subterfuge would be less detectable. All Cade had to do was slip them to the little sharper, easy as pie.

If the morals of helping a child to cheat were supposed to have bothered him, Cade guessed he was past repentance. Because this boy reminded him of his brother—of those hellacious orphan trains the two of them had been shoved onto and the hopes they’d had crushed for all those long-ago months—and he’d be damned if he’d let one small boy shiver for the sake of his own need for a heavenly reward.

Besides, the boy’s future marks weren’t any concern of Cade’s. Any man who would set out to purposely bilk a down-on-his-luck child at gambling deserved to lose a few coins. Cade wasn’t that man. But the boy didn’t know that and never would.

At the child’s continuing reluctance to strike a weightier wager, Cade heaved a sigh. “No deal? Fine. I’m late already.”

“Oh? You goin’ to Miss Benson’s gala benefit?”

“You stalling for time? It’s an easy bet. Yes or no?”

The boy toed the dirt. He eyed Cade’s coat. “Add in that nice watch of yours too, an’ you got yourself a good wager.”

Against all reason, Cade admired the boy’s pluck. “I won this watch in the biggest game of my life. It’s sentimental.”

“You sayin’ no? ’Cause I ain’t familiar with sentiment.”

If Cade had been a softer man, that admission would have broken his heart. As it was, he only sobered his expression, then shook his head. “You can’t have my watch.”

The boy shrugged. Appearing resigned, he shook his fistful of rigged dice. With elaborate showmanship, he yelled, “Hold on to yer britches then, sir! Here comes the first roll, gents!”

Too late, Cade realized they’d drawn a clump of onlookers. In the shadows cast by the setting sun, four strangers watched as the dice spewed from the boy’s hand, rolled on the ground, bounced theatrically from the nearest lumber wall, then stopped.

A five-spot and a one-spot winked up. Another roll, then.

Cannily, the boy let himself lose the first several throws. All the while, he kept up an animated pitch—a talk meant to reel in Cade and keep him wagering even after he began losing. Such tactics were all part of the game—a prelude to the inevitable swindle after which the boy would walk away victorious.

If a grown man had tried such tactics on Cade, he wouldn’t have been so patient. There was a reason he carried a derringer, two wicked blades and a surfeit of suspicion wherever he went.

As the alleyway grew darker and the dice rolled on, side bets sprung up among the spectators. Money rapidly changed hands; good-natured insults were traded along with the wagers. Cade wasn’t surprised. In the West, gambling was as common as breathing. After all, what was mining if not wagering that you’d find more gold than dirt in the nearby hills? Compared with wielding a pickax, pitching dice was hardly backbreaking.

As the dice rolled again, a sharp breeze whirled into the alleyway. The boy shivered. So did Cade. He’d upped the ante on their wager several times already. Now it was time to end this.