Charles West - Lawless Prairie

With the definite feeling that he had stepped up into a level of society that he had never experienced before, Clell Ballenger was content. Leaving Maggie’s room afterward, he went upstairs to dress, where he found Yancey waiting for him. “Ain’t you gonna dip your wick?” Ballenger asked.

“Done done it,” Yancey said with a grin. “Been waitin’ for you for half an hour.”

Ballenger chuckled. “I swear, you could make do with a knothole in a wooden fence.”

“If it ain’t an ugly fence,” Yancey replied matter-of-factly.

“Partner, I could get used to this. I ain’t ever been tended to like I was tonight,” Ballenger said as he pulled on the same dirty clothes he had ridden in with. “I’m thinkin’ I’m ’bout ready to find us a card game.”

“That’s just what I was thinkin’,” Yancey said.

They walked past the stable toward a newly built frame building, the lumber no doubt milled at the sawmill at the edge of the cluster of shacks and tents. “How ’bout walkin’ on the downwind side of me?” Yancey requested. “You smell like one of them French trollops.”

“It oughta blow offa me in this wind,” Ballenger said, already regretting the dousing he had received. “There won’t be none of that next time. That’s for damn sure.”

They stepped up on the small stoop and Yancey opened the door wide. A plank-topped bar ran across the upper end of the room with three tables near the opposite wall, although there was plenty of space for more. The establishment could not have been there very long. New buildings like this one would most likely be appearing more frequently since most of the Indians were now on reservations or had fled to the north.

Walking with the air of one who had recently struck it rich, Ballenger strode up to the bar and addressed the bartender. “Gimme a bottle of the best you got, and don’t try to slip any of that cheap stuff in a different bottle by me.”

Like most men who met Ballenger the first time, the bartender knew right away that he didn’t want any trouble with him or the wiry, sly-looking man with him. Still, he had a reputation to protect, so he responded in kind. “Mister, I don’t sell cheap or watered-down stock here. I stand behind the whiskey I sell.”

Ballenger responded with a faint smile, amused that the man had gotten his hackles up. “Well, good,” he said, “then we won’t have no trouble, will we?” He was in a good mood, having decided he was going to hang around the little settlement for a spell. “Who are the three gents settin’ at the back table?”

The bartender put a bottle on the bar with two glasses. “The one facin’ this way is Tom Pullen, owns the sawmill. The other two, I don’t know. They’re just passin’ through on their way to Bozeman.”

“Looks to me like we got us enough to have a little game, partner,” Ballenger said to Yancey. “You got a new deck of cards?” he directed back at the bartender.

When Clell pulled out a roll of bills to pay, the bartender’s eyes suddenly opened wide. “Yes, sir, gentlemen,” he said. “I think they were just wishin’ they had a couple more players.” He slapped an unopened deck of cards on the counter and escorted the two strangers to the table. “Tom,” he said to the sawmill operator, “these two gents are lookin’ for a friendly little game of cards.”

“That a fact?” Tom replied. “Well, I was just talking to these two fellows about that very thing. Set yourselves down.”

While Ballenger and Yancey pulled a couple of chairs over, Pullen glanced at the bartender, who nodded slowly and cut his eyes over toward Clell. Understanding, Pullen nodded back and started to make introductions.

Yancey cut him short. “We don’t need to know nobody’s name. Just deal the cards and let’s play some poker.”

“There’s a real poker player,” Pullen said, laughing. “All right, then, let’s cut for deal.”

Ballenger watched the sawmill owner and the way he shuffled the cards. He’d be the one to watch, he decided. The other two were a surly pair, drifters. Clell had ridden with many a man just like them. They most likely didn’t have enough money to stay in the game long.

They started out with a dollar limit, and the first half dozen hands went along quiet enough. One of the drifters won a hand, Clell and Yancey won a couple, and Pullen won one. Pullen suggested they up the limit to five dollars and everyone agreed. After a few more hands with Clell and Yancey both doing all right, one of the drifters, a stocky cur of a man, became dark and brooding as he saw his money rapidly disappearing. He folded for the second hand in a row and sat sulking, his eyes fixed on Ballenger, who had just raised. Glancing at his partner across the table, he quirked one corner of his mouth in a surly smile. Then he began to sniff, exaggerating the act like a dog on the scent of something wild. He sniffed in Pullen’s direction; then he sniffed in Ballenger’s direction, sticking his nose close up to Ballenger’s face. Across from him, Yancey sat back holding his cards close to his vest, a huge smile spreading across his narrow face, anticipating the fun about to begin.

“Damn if I don’t believe it must be the time of month for one of you ladies,” the drifter drawled. “Which one of you sweet things is it?”

“I reckon it’s me,” Ballenger said evenly. He put his cards facedown on the table while the drifter smirked spitefully. In the next instant, the drifter’s cheek was split from the corner of his eye to the point of his chin, the result of Ballenger’s pistol barrel laid forcefully against the side of his head. He went sprawling from his chair with the big man on top of him before he hit the floor. Again and again Ballenger hammered the hapless man with the butt of his pistol until the drifter finally lay still.

The other drifter started to get up when his partner was first struck, but sat back down when Yancey stuck a gun in his ribs. “Clell gets riled easy,” Yancey said. “You’d best keep your seat.”

Ballenger got up from the unconscious man, and glaring at the other drifter, advised, “You better drag his sorry ass outta here while I’m still in a good mood.” As the battered man’s partner struggled to pull him out of the saloon, Pullen started to rake his money from the table, only to receive a menacing stare from the angry man. “Hold on there a minute,” he commanded. “Let’s see them cards.” Pullen turned over two pair, kings and nines. Ballenger turned his cards faceup. “Three fives,” he said, and started to rake the money.

“Wait just a minute,” Yancey said, and turned over a low straight. Smiling with gratification, he pulled the pot over to him.

“Why, you low-down snake in the grass,” Ballenger snarled. “You was layin’ back all the time, lettin’ us do the bettin’.”

“Well, gentlemen, it’s gettin’ late,” Pullen blurted nervously. “I expect I’d best be gettin’ home.” He glanced at an equally nervous bartender. “I think I’ll use the back door, Jake. It’s closer to my horse.”

“Sure you don’t wanna hang around?” Ballenger asked. “We could play some three-man poker.”

“Thank you just the same, but I expect my wife’s wonderin’ where I am.” He grabbed his coat and hurried out the back.

“We’ll most likely be around for a few days,” Ballenger called after him. He then turned to Yancey. “Grab that there bottle. I reckon we might as well go, too.”

Yancey, having seen a fair share of barroom fights, picked up the bottle. “You reckon one of them jaspers is waitin’ outside with a rifle?”

“I would,” Ballenger replied with certainty, “if it was the other way around. I expect it’d be a good idea if one of us went out the back.”