A Frontier Christmas

Ralph Walters stood on the depot platform, waiting for the train. He had a long trip in front of him—to Cheyenne by rail, then by stagecoach up to Rawhide Buttes, Wyoming. He was a traveling troubadour, someone who could play the guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, and drum. In one of his acts, he would pass himself off as a one-man band, and play the banjo, harmonica, and drum all at the same time. He was also a skilled magician.

Because entertainment was rare and much appreciated, especially in the small towns, he did a good business.

He was going to Rawhide Buttes to perform for a firemen's benefit show, and for the students in the Rawhide School. Schools didn't pay as much as some of the more adult venues, but he could almost always schedule a school in conjunction with his adult show, and that's what he had done in Rawhide Buttes.

He'd skipped breakfast and lunch because he wasn't hungry. It was probably a pretty good thing that he still wasn't very hungry. He had awakened with a sore throat and wasn't sure he would be able to swallow, anyway. Reaching up, he wrapped his hand around his throat and thought he felt some swelling there.

“Here she comes!” somebody shouted, and several people moved closer to the track.

Walters remained in place as the big engine came roaring into the station with steam gushing from the drive cylinders and glowing coals dripping from the firebox. The engineer was leaning on the windowsill of the cab, his jutting chin and hooked nose looking as if they were about to join. Brakes were applied, and the train came to a halt. It sat there with wisps of steam wreathing the drive wheels, the journals and gearboxes popping and snapping as they cooled.

“Board!” the conductor shouted.

Those who were about to make the trip rushed to climb onto the train.

This was old hat to Walters, who had made hundreds of trips on trains as he went from town to town.

The conductor recognized him, and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Walters, riding with us again, I see.”

“Yes, but only as far as Cheyenne. There I must take a coach.”

“Welcome aboard. I see that your regular seat hasn't been taken.”

“Good, thank you.” Walters moved down the aisle to the last seat on the left.

With a series of starts and jerks, the train resumed its journey a moment later.

Walters leaned his head back against the seat. He believed he might also be getting a fever.

When Smoke Jensen came back from town he had a letter from his friend Duff MacCallister. “Sally, I heard from Duff.” Smoke reached for a hot bear claw.

“Don't eat more than one. I'm doing this for the boys in the bunkhouse. What does Duff have to say?”

“I don't know I haven't opened it yet. I thought we would read it together.”

Sally smiled. “That was nice of you.” She put another tray of dough puffs into the oven.

“How many of those things are you making?”

“We have eight hands spending the entire winter with us, and you know very well that Cal and Pearlie could eat this entire tray by themselves.”

Smoke chuckled. “I guess you're right.” He opened the envelope and began to read, silently.

“Well, what does he say?”

“He has invited us to come to Chugwater to spend Christmas with him.”

“Christmas in Chugwater? That's very nice of him. I wonder why he invited us, though. You would think he would have invited someone like Falcon, or one of the other MacCallisters.”

Smoke nodded in agreement. “But he not only invited us, he invited Matt, too, since he's here to spend the holidays with us.”

“Well, be gentle when you turn Duff down. The poor man is so far away from his ancestral home, I'm sure that Christmas is a difficult time for him.”

Smoke's eyebrows rose. “Why would I turn him down? I'm the one who hinted that we would be receptive to an invitation in the first place.”

“What? Smoke, I thought we were going to New York for Christmas.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

Sally frowned. “Didn't we make that decision this past summer?”

“You said it had been a long time since you were in New York, and you'd like to go back for a visit sometime. That's not making a decision, that's talking about it. Besides, Matt and I have to be at Fort Russell, Wyoming, in December to sell our horses, so it just seems natural that, since we are going to be up there, anyway, that we drop in on Duff.”

“But, Smoke—”

“And didn't you just say that you thought Christmas might be a difficult time for him? Where is your compassion?”

Sally laughed. “I hate it when we are arguing and you use my own words on me.”

“Were we just arguing?”

“Of a sort, I suppose.”

Smoke smiled then reached for her. “Good. The best part of arguing is making up,” he said, pulling her to him.

At the moment, Matt Jensen was in Longmont's Saloon, watching a three-card game that Louis Longmont was playing with a traveling gambler named Sherman who had not given a first name.

He had been having an inordinate run of luck since he came to town, so much luck that Longmont was convinced Sherman was helping his odds with a little card manipulation.

Sherman didn't know that Longmont wasn't just a saloon owner. He was also an exceptionally skilled gambler. Practically a magician with cards.

The game they were playing was a simple game, not too unlike the game of finding the pea under the shell. In this case, Sherman had to find the ace after watching Longmont shift the cards around in front of him. Sherman had tried his luck three times, and every time he had lost.

Another patron engaged the saloon owner in conversation. It wasn't idle conversation. It was a setup. The patron was a secret partner, sometimes letting Sherman know by coded signals what cards the mark was holding. In this case, his only purpose was to divert Longmont's attention.

With his opponent's attention shifted, Sherman reached across the table and put a small, barely noticeable, crease on one corner of the ace. Longmont could switch the cards around any way he wanted. Sherman wouldn't even attempt to follow him. He would simply select the card with the creased corner.

“You going to play cards, or are you going to talk all day?” Sherman asked.

Longmont turned back to the table. “Why, I'm going to play cards, Mr. Sherman,” Longmont said, smiling easily.

“Only, this time, let's bet some real money,” Sherman suggested. He put ten twenty-dollar gold pieces on the table.

“That's a pretty steep bet for a little friendly game like this, isn't it?”

“You own the saloon. Surely you can afford it.”

Longmont smiled. “Oh, I can afford it.”

As he put his own money on the table matching the bet, Sherman took one last look at the creased card. So far, Longmont hadn't noticed it. How could he? It was so subtle a crease that it was barely discernible, even to Sherman, and he was the one who put it there.

Longmont picked up the three cards and began shuffling them around. Sherman looked over at his partner and nodded. Longmont put the cards down on the table, then began moving them around, in and out, over and under with such lightning speed that the cards were nearly a blur. When he stopped, the three cards lay in front of him, waiting for Sherman to pick the ace.

Smiling confidently, Sherman reached across the table to make his selection . . . then suddenly froze in mid-motion. The smile left his face. His hand hung suspended over the table as he stared at the three cards with a sickly expression on his face.

“Hard to pick out the ace when they all look alike, isn't it,
mon ami
?” Longmont asked.

“Yeah,” Sherman said with a weak response. He had been had. Somehow Longmont had not only picked up on the card with the tiny crease, he had duplicated that crease on the other two cards, doing it so perfectly that Sherman had no idea which was the one he had marked.

“Are you going to pick a card or not?”

Sherman turned up a card. It was a queen. “Damn!”

“Maybe this isn't your game,” Longmont suggested as he pulled back the money from the center of the table.

“I don't believe the ace is even on the table.”

“Oh, it's on the table, all right.” Longmont reached for one of the cards.

“Wait a minute. I'll turn it over,” Sherman said. “For all I know you have an ace palmed. You can make it appear anywhere you want.”

“All right. You turn it over.”

Sherman reached for the card Longmont had started for and flipped it over. It was the ace. “Damn,” he said again.

“Actually, I can make an ace appear anywhere I want.” Longmont picked up a new deck of cards, shuffled them, then spread them all out, facedown, on the table. “Here's the ace of diamonds,” he said, turning it up. “The ace of clubs, the ace of hearts, and the ace of spades.”

“What? How the hell did you do that?”

“Here are the four kings,” Longmont added, pulling them from the spread-out deck. “Here are the queens, and here are the jacks.”

“I . . .”

“You have run into someone who was not only able to catch you, but is a hell of a lot better at it than you,” Matt said.

The others gathered around the table to watch laughed.

“I tell you what, Mr. Sherman,” Longmont said, sliding ten of the twenty-dollar gold pieces back across the table. “Take your money, but leave my saloon and don't come back. When my customers play cards in here, they have a right to expect an honest game.”

Sherman stared at the money for a moment, then he reached for it. “A man has to make a living.”

“Yes, and most of my customers do that by the sweat of their brow, not by sitting at a table, cheating others.”

Sherman nodded.

“And take your partner with you,” Longmont added, looking at the man who had attempted to divert his attention earlier. “You can have one last drink, then both of you go.”

“Thanks anyway, but we aren't thirsty.” With a glance toward his partner, Sherman started toward the door.

“Oh, and
Joyeux Noël
,” Longmont called as the two men left.