Card Shark
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2018 by aubie56

Historical Sex Story: Chapter 1 - Prince Albert (his mother had a sense of humor) was born in Texas at the time of the War and the Comanche wars. His grandfather taught him to play poker so well that he was a rich man by the time he was an adult. He played poker on ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean and wiped out a gang of pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. That led to being hired to protect shipping from pirates off the coast of China. He was so successful that he wound up owning 10% of a shipping company. 20 chapters.

Caution: This Historical Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Consensual   Crime   Historical   Rags To Riches   Western   Prostitution  

The blackguard simply folded at the waist as I continued to pump bullets into his gut. My Starr DA in .38 caliber may not have had the stopping power of a .44 revolver, but it could hold six bullets that could be pumped out in less than half the time that the common Colt single-action revolver could produce, even in the hand of the most skilled shootist.

My Starr DAs were conventional cap and ball revolvers that had been converted to use those wonderful .38 caliber metallic cartridges that had been introduced by Smith and Wesson only a year ago. I could swap out an empty cylinder for a full one in only 8-12 seconds. That, combined with carrying two of the double-action revolvers gave me more firepower than the average man could conceive of.

You may ask why I used the Navy version in .38 caliber instead of the Army version in .44 caliber, and the answer was simple. I wore my revolvers in shoulder holsters under my frock coat, and the fact that the weight of the lower caliber weapon was less than that of the .44 caliber revolver was very noticeable after several hours at the poker table.

Poker was my love, my avocation, and my profession. I have been a professional poker player for almost all of my adult life. My Grandpa taught me to play when I was barely old enough to hold five cards in my tiny little hands. He taught me everything he knew about the game, including how to cheat and how to spot cheaters. I started playing poker professionally at the age of 12, and I have never cheated in a single hand, though I admit that the temptation was there on occasion.

In my 10 years of playing poker, I have rarely been very low on funds. That was mostly because most men who thought they knew a lot about the game just had not put as much effort into learning all of the details of poker the way I have. I no longer have to calculate odds consciously as I did in my youth. Now, I simply know what my chances are the moment I see my hand and watch the other players draw their cards. I never carry less than $250 in gold and I often carry up to $1,000.

That’s why I need two guns. Too many people think that a poker player doesn’t know how to handle a gun, and I have spent a lot of my time showing them the error of their ways. I am an excellent shot up at to 10 yards in range, and I have never had a reason to shoot at a longer distance. The rapid fire of the double-action revolver and the six bullets it holds have served me very well.

Perhaps I should tell you more about myself. My mother had an overflowing romantic temperament, and that was why she named me Prince. Albert was my last name, and she felt that Prince Albert would make a fine name for her only son. I had six sisters, all older than me, so you can imagine the trials I had as a youngster. Not only that, my name earned me a lot of fights on the school yard and in town, so I grew into a boy who was experienced in taking care of himself and standing up to opposition.

I am of average size and weight, 5’-6” tall in my bare feet and weighing 139 pounds. My hair is light brown, some even call it a dark blond, and I have blue eyes. The rest of my features are “regular,” and some women have even called me handsome. I dress as a gentleman should, with a frock coat, a white shirt, and a cravat. My boots are always polished and they have a relatively low heel, since I ride a horse as little as possible.

I am armed at all times with my two Starr revolvers, a bowie knife in my left boot and a derringer in my right one. I am an adequate knife fighter, though, as any other sensible man, I much prefer to use my guns, and I have not yet had a need for my derringer, though I do keep it in firing condition at all times.

My Grandpa taught me poker because he said that plowing the soil or punching cattle should be jobs reserved for men with more brawn than brains. Since I appeared to be reasonably intelligent, he prepared me for the role of a poker professional. My father was killed in the War of Yankee Aggression, and that left Grandpa to be the only man of the family until I came along.

Grandpa supported the family by playing poker, of course, though I suspect that my mother may have worked as a prostitute at times when money was tight just after the end of the War. This was never discussed, and I am not sure where I might have picked up the idea, but that was life in the former Confederate States of America for several years.

As soon as he thought I was ready, I was almost 13 years old, Grandpa gave me $5 in silver and sent me to a saloon to try my hand at poker. For protection, I was carrying a very old and unreliable Colt Pocket Pistol, but it was something, and it did make me feel like a man.

I had some trouble getting into a game because the men figured that I was too young to know the courtesies of the poker table, but Grandpa had made sure that I knew all of that. Finally I did get into a game and played for just over two hours. At the end, I walked away with $13, so I did make my first entree into the world of professional poker a successful one.

The men might have objected to one so young walking away with so much of their money (20¢ a day was the current wage for a working man), but I was so courteous as I took their money that they did not think ill of me. I was even invited back for more playing whenever I was available. I could hardly wait to get home to tell Grandpa of my success!

Grandpa was very proud of me and sent me out the next evening to a different saloon with a bigger stake, $8 in silver this time. I returned with $19, and Grandpa considered retiring if I could keep up my winning streak. I had already made enough profit to feed us for the rest of the month!

As it turned out, my streak did continue, and I became the primary breadwinner for the family. This pleasant life continued for four years until the big Indian uprising in 1876. I was involved in several fights with the Comanches until that momentous occasion when our little town was attacked by a great mass of Comanches and wiped out. It turned out that I was the only survivor from my family.

I survived only because I had been slightly wounded in the head and knocked cold by the bullet as it struck my head. There was so much blood that the Comanches must of thought that I had already been scalped, so they did not bother with me. However, Grandpa, Ma, and four of my sisters were killed outright in the raid. My other two sisters were raped to death before the Comanches were satisfied.

Our house was built of adobe, and it was not burned significantly even though the Indians certainly tried to destroy it. I did not return to consciousness until the next day, and, by then, it was certainly too late to do anything for my family. It took me two days to bury all of them and search the house for any valuables that the Indians might have missed.

Fortunately, the Comanches were not interested in money or other such things, but they did take all of our horses and our one mule that Grandpa had for his carriage. They also took all of the guns and ammunition that they could find, so I was going to have to start over from scratch when it came to arming myself. I did find a total of $231.14 that the Indians did not want, so I did have something to start out with.

I did manage to struggle into town and found it in a horrendous mess. No one was around, and I searched through all of the buildings before I gave up. I looked in the most likely places and picked up another $117.42. Hell, by the standards of the day, I was rich. I also found some jerky to get by on, though I did have to scrape the dirt off of it before I could eat it.

Luckily for me, a railroad ran through the town, and I was able to hitch a ride on a train that came through the next day. The train was carrying soldiers headed for some fort, I’ve forgotten which one, and there was a surgeon on board who sewed up the big cut in my scalp that the bullet had made. He said that there was a crack in my skull, but no depression, so I should make a full recovery.

I was 15 years old and the Major wanted me to join up, but I used my head wound as an excuse to beg off. I had no interest in joining the Army, but I wished them luck in killing every Comanche that they could catch. I would have been happy to pull the trigger to shoot every Comanche that I could find, but I knew that the chances were too damned small that I would ever find the ones who had killed my family. I figured to let somebody else kill the Comanches while I moved on to somewhere without the bastards.

I rode the train all the way to Fort Worth. I figured that was a place big enough to have a few poker games that I could cash in on. Before looking for a game, I decided to dress the part. I visited a few stores and bought a frock coat, shinny pants, a white shirt, a cravat, a top hat, and some new boots. I really went whole hog for the clothes and paid a total of $27 for the outfit. That’s where I also bought my first converted Starr DA and the shoulder holster.

I had been going for the conventional Colt Navy conversion when the gunsmith convinced me to try out the Starr DA. It was love at first sight. The gunsmith also showed me how to cut the cross in the bullet nose so that it would expand when it hit flesh. That made the .38 almost as good as the .44 in the size hole it made, and the lighter weight was the clincher. He also showed me the advantages of the shoulder holster, and I walked out of his shop a very happy customer.

I stopped off at a saloon to look for a poker game. I looked like a dude in my new outfit, and that probably convinced some of the natives that I was an easy mark. Anyway, I walked away ahead by $47. I had hardly gotten out the door of the saloon when a sore looser showed up to demand his money back. Naturally, I refused his not so polite request, and he went for his gun.

I had not had much practice with my new gun and shoulder holster, but the combination made up for that in the added speed it gave me in drawing my revolver and in getting off the first shot. I put the bullet in my attacker’s chest and managed to hit his heart. In any case, he was dead by the time he hit the ground.

I was just looking around for the deputy marshal when he showed up. He congratulated me in ridding Fort Worth of one of their less valuable citizens. This galoot had killed two other men for similar reasons, but this was the first time there had been witnesses to confirm that he had been in the wrong. The marshal had me take whatever I wanted from the body, but asked for two-bits for burial costs. I had gotten more than that of value in loot, so I had no trouble in acceding to the deputy marshal’s request in the best of good graces.

I spent the next four days in Fort Worth, but word soon got around about my skill at poker. There was no question that I needed to move on, but I had earned almost $300 in those four days, so I had no qualms about hopping a train for New Orleans. That illustrious city had a reputation for rich poker games, and I was anxious to give the place a try.

I caught a train headed in that direction, but I planned to stop off at every likely looking place for at least one poker session. I figured that I needed around $2,000 as a stake to break into the level of poker I was looking for in New Orleans. That meant that I was going to need to hit around 10-20 poker games to accumulate the additional $1,500 to go with what I already had.

My first stop was in a little town with the grandiose name of Gold City. Do not let the name fool you—it was named after a man by the name of Horace Gold, and it had hopes of growing into a major cotton distribution point. Gold City did have four saloons, which attested to the ambitions of the city fathers. It also had The Cotton Center Gentleman’s Club. That was the place where the action was when it came to poker. The only way for a poker pro to gain entrance was to be sponsored by a club member. Therefore, I had to make myself known as a poker player of some merit.

No honest-to-God dyed-in-the-wool poker player was ever going to admit that he was not the best player in the world. Therefore, I had to attract the attention of one of the club members who wanted to show off by beating me. The most likely way to do this was to win big in one or more poker games in the regular town saloons. I had no qualms about taking all of the money that I could get from one of the cotton barons because those men had more money than they could possibly spend, even if their wives had free run of New York City.

I picked a saloon to start with somewhat arbitrarily and went in. It was mid-afternoon, and there was only one poker game in progress. It had only four people playing at the time, so I was welcomed in as fresh meat. Of course, I was wearing my good clothes, so I was marked as having some money available to lose. I wondered if the poker professional running the game or the three other players salivated more at the prospect of eating me alive, but they had only a small chance of doing that!

To my surprise, this was not a penny-ante game. There was a $1 ante and no limit on the betting. I was surprised at this, but I could afford to play for a while. At least, now I knew why there were so few players at the table. I lost $5 with the first couple of hands, but it was easy to get into the flow of this game because the saloon was quiet, and there were no distractions.

By the fifth hand, I was $20 ahead and had recovered my original losses. None of these men, including the pro, were as good as they thought they were, and that made them sitting ducks for me. Grandpa would probably have had kittens if he could have taken my place!

Anyway, the game continued, and I had won $115 by supper time. The other players were beginning to wish that they had never let me sit in, and I was just hitting my stride. We played for another hour, and the three amateurs all quit with the excuse that they had to go home for supper or their wives would give them Hell. I think, more likely, they were going to catch Hell because of all of the money they had lost. By this time, I was showing a $463 profit. The pro commented, “Mr. Albert, if I did not know better, I would swear that you were cheating. I ain’t never lost so much money so fast as I did this afternoon! The consolation was in watchin’ the way you played. Where in Hell did you learn the art so well?”

“I thank you for the compliment. My grandpa taught me how to play as soon as I could hold and read the cards. He was one sharp player, and one of his axioms was that a good player never had to cheat. I ain’t never cheated in my life, and I do not expect ever to need to.

“Mr. Jackson, do you want me to stay away from your games in the future? I do not want to give you a hard time.”

“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Albert. I do appreciate it. Yes, I think that would do me a lot of good if you just stayed away from my table. You are a gentleman to make that offer, and it pains me to have to take you up on it.”

I had already made as much money as I thought that I would get from Gold City, but I did decide to hang around a little longer in hope of making the big score at that there private club. Maybe word of today’s winnings would be enough to git me invited, but I was going to hit another saloon after supper just in case my reputation needed some padding.

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