Chapter 1

July first, 1868, Abilene, Kansas

Arabella Mortenson was standing just outside the batwing doors of a saloon, closer than she’d ever been to such a den of iniquity in the thirty-one years she’d been alive. She was thankful for the full bonnet that hid most of her blushing face.

That she was driven to come that close to such a place was proof that her need was dire. She needed to get her husband out of that saloon. He had gone in to get a drink, but had stayed much too long for that simple pursuit. She knew that meant he was gambling again.

He’d been losing their money in games of chance for years. Before leaving for Kansas, they had lived in the house she’d inherited after her mother’s death. She’d had a garden and had been able to barter laundry services for some beef each week, so they’d had food and a roof over their heads. She had to provide the food for the table, because Frank gambled away all his wages unless, after being paid, he came home first. She had learned to tolerate a bottle of whiskey in the house because the bottle was sometimes enough to lure him home on payday, giving her the opportunity to lift a few dollars from his pockets before he’d be off to the saloon to gamble away the rest on cards.

Her first signal that something was terribly wrong had been when he started talking about going to the Kansas territory, where it was said land was available for free and a man could carve out a farm in the lush, fertile soil that lay under the prairie grass.

Arabella was well aware that Frank Mortenson was a lazy man. She’d married him at the tender age of fifteen and, in the sixteen years since, had done all the work that got done around their house ... unless she was abed because of one of her “accidents.” Frank had a mean streak in him too, particularly when he had been drinking and most certainly when he’d lost at cards or some other foolish game of chance. She often had to stay indoors until the bruises went away, so the neighbors wouldn’t see them. Once she’d been laid up for weeks while a bone knit enough that it could bear weight. The thought that Frank would be willing to work hard enough even to hook a team up to a plow was laughable to Arabella. She came from a farm family and she knew how hard it would be to start from scratch in soil that had never felt the bite of the plow. She assumed the homesteading idea must be the result of some alcohol fogged conversation he’d had with some worthless gambler.

Then one day he came home with a covered wagon. Almost frantically he’d told her to pack what would fit in the wagon, leaving room only for the two children, Becky and Frank Jr.

What Arabella was unaware of was that her husband had borrowed money ... a lot of money. When he’d lost it all and been unable to pay it back, he sold the house quick, getting the two horses and wagon as part of the deal. Then he’d run from his debts.

They’d picked up supplies along the way, including two oxen when he’d ruined the horses, driving them too fast and too far with too little rest, trying to put too much distance between them and the men he was sure were looking for him. And by the time they got to Abilene, Kansas two thirds of the pockets on his money belt were empty. Still, it might be enough for them to get a new start, if they were able to claim any land.

Upon pulling into the bustling town of Abilene, Frank had stopped the wagon in front of the saloon.

“I’m going to go get news,” he’d said. “You stay here.”

“We don’t have money to spend on whiskey, Frank Mortenson!” Arabella had protested. He’d answered her with a backhand to her right cheek.

“Don’t sass me, woman,” he’d snarled. “I’ve been putting up with your whining for weeks and a drink will clear my ears of it. You wait here, and don’t let your brats stray either.”

When he’d been gone for more than fifteen minutes, she’d known he was gambling with all they had left. She had to do something or they’d be penniless.

Thus she’d been driven to stand perilously close to the entrance of a place she would normally have crossed the street to avoid. And not only was she standing there ... she was actually thinking about going inside.

Aloysius Julian Hobbs was footloose, fancy-free, seventeen years old, and had money in his pocket. There were probably a couple hundred cowboys within a few days travel who were just like him ... except most of them didn’t have money in their pockets. Aloysius, who began calling himself “AJ” after the second time his name got him laughed at by a grizzled cowpoke, and he got into a fight as a result, had just finished helping drive three thousand head of cattle up the Chisholm trail. Once he and fifteen other cowboys had herded the longhorns into the stock pens at the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, he’d been paid off by the trail boss and cut loose.

He ambled down the dusty street, looking for a saloon where he might find a bath, a woman, and a meal consisting of something other than beef and beans, in that order. Not being the most patient of young men, he headed for the first one he saw. A wooden sign adorned with the faded image of a bull’s head hung over the doors.

A heavy Conestoga wagon that was loaded down with household goods and two kids was blocking his path. A girl, wearing a bonnet with a load of fluffy brown curls hanging below the cloth was sitting on the wagon seat. Idly, he estimated her age at about fourteen or fifteen. A younger boy was leaning out of the back, peering around.

AJ detoured around the wagon, wondering why anyone would want to haul all that stuff west and go through the pain and toil of trying to wrestle a living from the earth. He didn’t understand sodbusters.

As he mounted the boardwalk in front of the saloon, he saw a woman standing hesitantly at the batwing doors, peeking inside. Something about her drab gray dress and bonnet marked her in his mind as the mother of the kids in the wagon. He thought it was odd that a decent woman would be about to enter a saloon.

He forgot about the family as he stepped past the sodbuster woman and pushed through the swinging doors of the drinking establishment. Had someone asked him where he was, he wouldn’t have been able to name the place.

This is not to say he wasn’t aware of what was going on around him. But AJ automatically prioritized the information fed to his brain through his five senses. The name of the place just wasn’t important. What was important was that the noise level was all wrong for a place like this. There wasn’t enough of it.

And tension filled the room. That caught his attention instantly. He stopped in the darkened interior, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He also dropped his left hand to the pistol that was canted forward, butt first, set up for a cross draw, and took the leather loop off the hammer of the pistol. He had no idea what was causing the tension he felt, but it was his nature to be ready when he smelled trouble.

It didn’t take him long to find that trouble.

There was a card game going on at a table to his right, situated near the grimy windows through which the only light in the place was coming. The bartender wouldn’t light any lamps until dusk. No sense wasting precious oil.

There were four men seated at that table. Three were nondescript men wearing hats. Two wore vests on top of the store-bought shirts they favored. Another wore a leather shirt that was fringed and dirty. The last wore homespun, and AJ knew instantly that he was the sodbuster who the family outside belonged to. What he was doing in a saloon playing cards while his family waited outside was a puzzle. The tension he had felt was coming from the table, and was being transmitted by the small crowd of maybe a dozen men who were standing around watching the game.

Leather shirt was dealing and AJ saw immediately that he was dealing off the bottom of the deck. The cards he dealt from there went to the sodbuster. At first AJ thought he and the sodbuster were in cahoots, but as he watched it became clear that wasn’t the case. AJ saw the things he’d been taught to look for in the three men who were playing the sodbuster - cheating the sodbuster, actually. Just about all the money on the table was evenly spread in front of the three men. The sodbuster had six coins left in front of him and he was sweating. AJ could see it running down the back of his neck, below the badly chopped hair above his collar.

He was also sipping heavily at the whisky in the dirty glass to his right. While AJ watched, a saloon girl appeared at his shoulder, refilled the glass and faded back into the crowd. AJ knew she’d been told to do that by someone other than the sodbuster. Every saloon he’d ever been in was a pay as you drink kind of place. Since the sodbuster wasn’t paying, that meant somebody else was. When the farmer picked up his cards, AJ saw two queens and two threes. Leather shirt had dealt him two pair on purpose.

AJ shook his head and turned for the bar. If the sodbuster was stupid enough to get into a rigged game, then he would learn a hard lesson. AJ ordered whisky and savored the first few sips before knocking back the rest of the shot. He ordered another and was about to drink it too when the voices rose from behind him.

“You know that’s all I got. You done took the rest of my money from me. I need that money to make a go of things when I claim a homestead. You got to let me bet!” It was the sodbuster, who had been raised to the point that everything he had was in the pot.

One of the vested men replied. “I raised you, and if you cain’t see me then you got to fold. Them’s the rules of the game, mister.”

“I got things in the wagon worth money. Let me put that up!” cried the sodbuster. He was frantic. AJ got up and moved toward the table. He could see, over the sodbuster’s shoulder, that he had drawn another three. Holding a full house he was frantic to stay in the game.

Leather shirt looked out of the window, toward the wagon. “Don’t need no pots and pans.” He spat tobacco juice on the floor. “That’s a right purty girl up there on the seat, though. You could bet her if you want ter.” He spat again and cackled. The other two men laughed.

One of them leaned over and looked through the window, too. “She’s a right tasty looking girl, she is,” he said. “How’s about you add her to the pot, farmer man.”

The sodbuster was at once angry ... and greedy. AJ could see it in his posture. And he could almost hear the gears turning in the man’s head. He had a full house ... sure to win ... what could be the harm? He still didn’t know he’d been dealt that hand by design. If he he’d known that, he would also have known that somebody else had a better hand, and that the whole purpose of the game had been to take his money. All of his money. And now it looked like they wanted the girl, too.

“Don’t take that bet, mister,” AJ heard himself saying.

He hated that about himself. He had a tendency to talk first and think later. It got him into trouble pretty regularly.

Leather shirt looked up. “You shut yor trap, cowpoke. This ain’t none of yor affair.”

The sodbuster had turned around and looked to see who had warned him. AJ saw in his eyes what he saw in a lot of farmer’s eyes when they looked at a cowboy - derision. The man turned around. “You’re on,” he said. “My Becky and my last five dollars say I’ve got the winnin’ hand.”

Leather shirt grinned. “Lay em down.” One of the vests had folded earlier. The other one was still in and laid down a pair of jacks. The sodbuster threw down his full house with a yell and reached for the pile of money in the center of the table.

“Not so fast there, farmer man,” said leather shirt, with a mean grin. He flipped over his cards. There were four tens and an ace.

It was deathly quiet for three split seconds and then there was a wail of anguish, followed closely by three men laughing.

“Haul her in here, farmer man,” said one of the vests. “We got us some lovin’ to do!” He yelled over his shoulder. “Sydney? You still got a room free? Looks like we’ll be needing it for three or four hours.” His grin, when he turned back to the sodbuster, was malicious.

AJ glanced at the bartender, to see what he’d do. Without even looking up from the glass he was polishing with a dirty rag, the man called out, “Cost you three times as much, if you’re all gonna use her.”

The sodbuster was still staring at the cards. “No!” he shouted.

“A bet’s a bet, farmer man,” said the other vest. “Now git her in here. I’ve got an itch in my pants that needs scratchin’.”

“You were cheated, sodbuster.”

Again, AJ couldn’t believe the words came out of his mouth. He had no call to get involved in this mess. But he’d seen the girl out on the wagon, and she’d reminded him of his sister. He hadn’t seen his sister in four years, but he remembered her saucy disposition. If that girl out there had a saucy disposition, it would be gone in a very short time, most likely never to return, if these hard cases had their way with her.

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The Bad Bet

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