Chapter 4

Just when I was feeling ready to take the tiger by the tail, wouldn’t you know, the shakes and the spasms of coughing descended on top of me like an affliction sent by the Lord Almighty.

Carmelita got flat out sick and tired of my problems after a couple of days of changing bed pans. She lit out for the border like a shot out of hell to find better pastures. My Kate stuck by my side and doctored me better than one of those battlefield nurses that were a whole sight better than the drunken doctors with a saw in one hand and a bottle of rotgut in the other.

This spell lasted long enough to put a scare in me that I would not be sitting at another card table or riding my Kate’s soothing flanks ever again. I made a solemn vow to cut back on the rotgut and to only have a single cigar after dinner like some self-respecting boring banker. I hoped my promise would last longer than the last one which was gone with the wind long before the next new moon.

I looked at the mirror in disbelief because my face was gaunt like some lost steer out in the foothills with no grass to eat or water to wet his tongue. Kate had shaved me and she did a fine job without a single scratch but it didn’t improve matters much, all things considered. At least I didn’t have the shakes anymore and I could palm my hideout derringer and a winning card with relative ease. She watched me like a mother hen making sure her little chick didn’t do anything too outrageous or risky.

I spent the entire morning cleaning both of my six-shooters and the Spencer carbine that I had taken a real shine to after it saved my life on the Santa Fe Trail. She helped out by carefully cleaning each bullet with a piece of her undies that was just perfect for the task. I had to smile thinking that some unlucky son of a bitch would be eating my slug wiped clean with Kate’s frilly panties, ending his worthless life with undeniable finality.

We went to the hotel eatery ordering steak and mashed potatoes.

My Kate took out her little sharp pointed blade and sliced and diced my steak for me. She knew my stamina was on the low side, after the unfortunate illness. Some of the other patrons looked at us with an air of distain and I wasn’t sure if it was because I looked like some prison escapee or the fact she was a known saloon girl.

I hadn’t even attempted to kiss Kate since coming out of my feverish sickness. I knew she didn’t mind much, because we were “mucho simpatico”, when it came to such tomfoolery.

Just as soon as we went through the inside swinging doors that connected the saloon to the hotel eatery, Kate headed off to scare up some income from a cowboy with cattle drive cash in his pockets burning a hole to be spend on something foolish. She was ready, willing and able to separate him from his coins with a smile and promise of things to come. Sometimes she delivered and sometimes she just scammed the poor fool and laughed about it in bed with me later that night.

The main card game was already in progress.

I saw the sheriff and the bank manager, Mister Hopper sitting next to each other and right across from them were a young gun-slick with tied down irons and a complete stranger wearing Indian-made buckskins that looked almost theatrical to me. I approached the table being careful to keep my back to the wall. They seemed ready to greet a fifth player, with the exception of the sheriff, who was unable to meet my eye, after his shoddy treatment of Kate, when he had her under his control in the small jail.

They were playing stud poker.

That was my favorite game with four or five players. It meant that all you had to do was size up the “bluffers” and keep a sharp eye out for the cheats with an ace up their sleeve for emergency reasons. I had done my fair share of cheating, but only in those situations when I used it to outdo some other cheat less skilled than I.

Kate had given me five hundred dollars as a bankroll for the evening’s play from my stash hidden in the mattress. She had some emergency funds for the possibility of a prime hand that had to be backed even when I was down to my last dollar. I hardly ever asked her for the back-up cash, because I knew it was the sure sign of a “loser” and I hated that role worse than anything else I could possibly imagine.

The slender gun slick was a sure enough card cheat but he was pretty good at it and I knew he didn’t really care if he won or lost. I didn’t thing that anyone else at the table was skilled enough to figure him out and that was a plus from my point of view because I surely didn’t want to get caught in any cross-fire.

A couple of floozy, round-heeled girls was working the card table for drinks by rubbing their hidden assets on the players. I didn’t see any harm in it, but the sheriff was a mite harsh on them with his careless fingers and nasty tongue. Granted they weren’t ladies by any stretch of the imagination, but there was no percentage in constantly reminding them of their lack of decent behavior. My Kate was taking some stumbling drunk cowhand up the stairs to a “private session” forcing me to smile at her greedy haste to get his money before he either drank it all up or gambled it away. I knew she figured it would do a lot more good inside her purse, than as profits for the house.