CHAPTER VII—RANCE WINS OUT
Angel McCoy went straight back to the Eagle. There were men on the porch of the saloon, and he wondered at the number of them. Rather breathlessly he shoved his way into the place and looked around. There were at least thirty men in the saloon, and quite a number of them were crowded around the black-jack layout. There were no players at any of the other tables, because there were no dealers. The bartender was working at top speed.
Wonderingly Angel worked his way around to the black-jack table, and stopped against the wall. Old Rance McCoy and three other men were playing. Near the end of the table stood Chuckwalla Ike, puffing industriously on a frayed-out cigar, closely watching the dealer.
Old Rance was betting with hundred-dollar bills, and as Angel watched him he lost five in quick succession. In his left hand he clutched a huge roll of currency, from which he stripped off bill after bill.
“Let’s make it worth while,” said old Rance.
“Here’s five hundred.”
Angel watched the old man win the bet. The dealer’s eyes flashed quickly around the crowd, and he saw Angel.
“Let it ride,” said the old man. “Why don’t some of yuh buy into this game? I don’t want to hog all of it.”
Several of the cattlemen made small bets, as Angel moved around behind the dealer.
“There’s a hundred-dollar limit, gents,” said Angel easily.
Old Rance looked at Angel quizzically.
“Hundred dollars, eh?” he queried. “That’s too slow.”
“It’s shore too heavy for me,” laughed Jim Langley. “I’m limited to five-dollar bets myself. Rance is the only millionaire around here.”
Old Rance slowly pocketed the money, after throwing a hundred dollars on the table, and the deal went on. Angel backed away and went around to the stud-poker table, where he laid out the chips and broke open a new deck of cards. The table filled in a few moments. In the larger houses there is a dealer, who merely does the dealing and takes care of the rake-off for the house, but in a place like the Eagle the dealer takes an active part in the game, passing the buck each time to indicate which player is to be dealt to first.
There was no limit in the stud game. Chips ran according to color, from twenty-five cents to ten dollars. The cowboys played a cautious game. A forty-dollar pay check would not last long in a game of that kind unless the player either played in luck or used good judgment.
Old Rance won consistently. Hundred after hundred went to swell the roll of bills in his pocket. The rest of the players merely piked along, causing the dealer little concern. “Rance is a thousand to the good,” announced a cowboy, who had come from the black-jack layout to look at the poker game.
Angel bit the corner of his lip and blinked at his cards. He could ill afford to lose a thousand, and he knew the old man was on a betting spree. Ten minutes later the dealer came and spoke softly to him:
“Eighteen hundred to the bad, Angel; and I’m out of money.”
“Close the game,” said Angel harshly.
A poker-player drew out of the game, and old Rance took his place. He threw a hundred-dollar bill across to Angel.
“Table stakes, Angel?” he asked.
“Table stakes,” growled Angel, meaning that a player could bet only the amount of money in front of him.
The old man drew out his enormous roll of money and placed it beside his chips. Angel eyed the roll closely. There were thousands in that roll. He did not know that old Rance had drawn every cent of money he had on deposit in the bank; a total of seventy-five hundred.
Old Rance’s first open card was the ace of spades. He looked at it and laughed across the table at Angel. It was the best card in sight, and the old man threw ten yellow chips—one hundred dollars’ worth—into the pot.
The players promptly passed. None of them felt like taking a chance, even with only two cards dealt in each hand. Angel sneered openly and covered the bet. He realized that the old man was aiming the bet at him. Angel had a queen buried and a ten-spot in sight.
The next two cards showed a king for Rance and another ten for Angel.
“Pair of tens bet a hundred,” said Angel.
“Make it two hundred,” replied Rance, taking the money off his roll. Angel acquiesced, after considering another raise.
The next two cards showed another ace to Rance and a queen for Angel. This gave Rance two aces in sight and an ace in the hole, while Angel’s two tens and a queen in sight gave him queens and tens. Rance promptly bet a hundred dollars, and Angel just as promptly boosted it a hundred.
Rance grew thoughtful, and after due deliberation he raised the bet another hundred. Angel called. A gasp went up when Rance drew another ace, and Angel a ten.
“Three aces bets,” drawled Angel.
Old Rance made a motion as though to turn over his buried card, but hesitated and checked the bet. Angel bet two hundred dollars—twenty yellow chips.
Rance laughed softly, eying Angel’s three tens and the queen.
“Up three hundred,” he said softly, as he deliberately peeled off more bills.
It was Angel’s turn to be thoughtful. He had a ten-full on queens. Those three aces worried him, but he was too deep in the pot to stop now. Slowly he counted off fifty of the yellow chips, fingering them softly. Then he shoved them into the center of the table.
“Up two hundred,” he said coldly.
Old Rance eyed Angel coldly, as he peeled off the amount of the raise and tossed it to the center. He counted off three hundred more and added it to the huge pile of money and yellow chips.
“Three hundred more?” asked Angel hoarsely.
Old Rance did not reply; he did not need to. Angel’s hand trembled as he counted out the required amount in chips.
“Just callin’ me?” queried Rance.
“Looks like it, don’t it?” growled Angel.
Old Rance turned over his fourth ace. He had won eighteen hundred dollars in one hand. Angel looked dumbly at him, as he returned the money to his roll, and stacked the piles of yellow chips. Old Rance had already won thirty-six hundred dollars from Angel. But the evening was young.
Angel spoke to the dealer, who stood behind him:
“Bring me some yellow chips.”
And when the man came with the chips he said to him:
“Open the black-jack game, Bud; it looks like a big night.”
Angel was game. He didn’t have enough cash to redeem those yellow chips. He had only had a trifle over three thousand in cash to start the evening play, and there was less than a thousand dollars of his money left in the bank. But Angel was a gambler, and he had no intention of letting the old man get away with all that money.
There was nothing spectacular about the next hand. Rance dropped out after the second card, and Jim Langley won the pot. But on the next hand old Rance called a five-dollar bet by Jess Fohl, and boosted it a hundred.
“Tryin’ to run everybody out?” queried Fohl.
“A runner ain’t got no business in this game, Jess.”
He looked straight at Angel, who flushed hotly and called the bet. The rest of the players dropped out. Fohl cursed over the loss of his money. He had a pair of sevens, back-to-back, and didn’t want to drop; but the hundred was more than he could stand.
In sight, Rance had a six, and Angel had a five. Angel reasoned that Rance must have a six in the hole, in order to raise the bet. Rance drew an ace, while Angel drew a nine. It cost Angel another hundred to draw, but he did not raise.
Angel drew a six the next time, and Rance drew a trey. It was Rance’s bet, but he checked it to Angel, who promptly bet a hundred, and Rance merely called the bet. The next two cards showed a nine to Rance and a four to Angel.
Neither player had a pair in sight.
“Ace, nine bets,” droned Angel, and Rance promptly bet the usual hundred dollars, and Angel passed. He turned over the ace he had buried, and shut his lips angrily when old Rance disclosed a deuce of clubs. Angel’s ace, nine, six, five would have beaten Rance’s ace, nine, six, trey.
“Of all the damned fool bettin’!” exclaimed Chuckwalla, who was still trying to smoke that frayed-out cigar. “Winnin’ over three hundred dollars on ace high.”
“Nerve,” corrected old Rance easily.
“Nerve!” sneered Angel. “You raised that first bet with a deuce in the hole and a six exposed. You’re crazy.”
“Just nerve,” said Rance coldly. “Somethin’ you ain’t got.”
“You think I ain’t?”
Old Rance leaned across the table, looking steadily at his son.
“How much nerve have yuh got, Angel?”
“I’ve got enough.”
“I wonder if yuh have. I’ve got about thirty-nine hundred of yore money right now, Angel. Have yuh got nerve enough to bet me another thirty-nine hundred that I don’t get the first ace off the deck?”
Angel stared at him, his eyes half-closed. Thirty-nine hundred more. Still, luck might be with him this time. It was a chance to win back all he’d lost.
“Neither of us will deal,” said Rance softly. “We’ll let Jim Langley deal to us, and we’ll cut to see who gets the first card.”
“All right,” said Angel, trying to make his voice sound calm.
Rance won the cut, and leaned back indifferently while Jim Langley shuffled the deck. Angel cut the cards first, and when Langley presented the cards to Rance, he waived the right to cut them.
“Are yuh all ready?” asked Langley nervously.
“Let ’em go,” said Angel.
“By God, an ace!” exploded Chuckwalla.
It was the first card off the deck—the ace of spades. Jim Langley slowly replaced the deck on the table and stepped back. Angel stared at the card, licked his dry lips, and finally shrugged his shoulders. Seventy-eight hundred dollars! He looked at his father, who was leaning one elbow on the table, calmly counting the yellow chips.
“You got enough?” asked Angel hoarsely.
“Yeah,” said Rance. He stacked the chips and shoved them over to Angel, who mechanically counted them before placing them in the rack.
“Is this game goin’ ahead?” asked Langley.
“In a few minutes,” said Angel. He looked at his father, as he got to his feet.
“Come on and I’ll cash yuh in,” he said. The old man nodded and they went to the rear of the saloon, entering Angel’s private room.
Angel shut the door and leaned back against it, while the old man stood near the center, looking at him.
“You’re broke, eh?” said Rance coldly.
“Yeah, I’m broke,” admitted Angel. “I ain’t got enough money to keep my games open. I’ve got about nine hundred in the bank.”
“And you owe me about six thousand dollars,” said Rance.
“Yeah.”
Old Rance studied the face of his son for several moments.
“Yuh stole an ace the other day, Angel.”
“Well?” Angel did not deny it.
“Everybody knows it,” said Rance softly. “It ruined yore business. I brought the business back for yuh, and now yuh ain’t got enough money to keep it rollin’. Here!”
He drew out his roll of bills, stripped off the eighteen hundred he had won at the black-jack game, and gave it to the wondering Angel.
“Now,” said Rance coldly, “give me yore I.O.U. for the full seventy-eight hundred.”
Angel’s eyes brightened quickly.
“You mean you’ll take my I.O.U. for that——”
“I always was a fool,” said the old man bitterly. “Go ahead and write it out.”
Angel sat down at his table and quickly wrote out the I.O.U., which the old man accepted.
“Go back to yore games,” said old Rance. “And see if yuh can’t deal fair.”
They went back into the saloon and Angel opened the poker game again. Old Rance went to the bar with Chuckwalla, and had a drink. The old man had had several drinks before the game, and now he piled in several more. Chuckwalla held the smudging cigar in his gnarled fingers and tossed down drink after drink.
The black-jack game playing dwindled to nothing, and the dealer closed the game until some customers showed up. In the meantime he went across the street and up to the corner to the post-office.
Old Rance left the bar and went over to the poker table; not with any intention of playing again, but merely drawn by the fascination of the game. In a few minutes the dealer came back, handing Angel a letter as he came past the table. Angel glanced at the postmark on the letter. It was from Medicine Tree.
Jim Langley dropped out of the game and old Rance took his chair. He indicated with a shake of his head that he did not wish to play. Angel signaled to the dealer to take his place, and as soon as the substitution was made, he went over to the end of the bar, tore open the envelope, and began reading the letter.
Jim Parker closed his store at nine o’clock and went home. He had heard that Rance McCoy was bucking the game in the Eagle, plunging heavily on the black-jack game. But Parker was too tired to go over and see just what was going on.
Lila was in her room, which adjoined the Parkers’ bedroom, reading, when Jim Parker and his wife came up to bed, and she heard them discussing what Parker had heard.
“Oh, the Eagle is filled up, they tell me,” said Parker. “I didn’t go over. One of the boys said that old Rance had a roll of bills that would choke a horse, and he’s bettin’ ’em high. What Angel will do to him will be plenty.”
“Hasn’t Rance any sense at all?” queried Mrs. Parker.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Parker sleepily. “Maybe he don’t know that Angel is a crooked dealer. He wouldn’t expect his own son to steal from him, would he? I’m glad tomorrow is Sunday.”
“Somebody ought to warn old Rance,” said Mrs. Parker.
“Well, don’t try it, my dear. It’s none of our business. If he wants to go against a crooked deal—let him go.”
“How much money do you suppose he’ll lose, Jim?”
“Who—Rance? All he’s got. No, I’m not jokin’. Rance is a gambler, and he’ll bet as long as he’s got a cent.”
Lila got to her feet and picked up the pale blue shawl. She could go downstairs without passing the Parkers’ room; so she tiptoed softly down, let herself out through the front door, which was never kept locked, and went quickly out to the street.
It did not take her long to reach the Eagle Saloon. Some cowboys stared at her as she came into the lights, but she paid no attention to them. A cowboy was at the bar, singing a plaintive melody in a drunken tenor, and there was a babel of voices, the clatter of poker chips.
Angel was back in the game again. She could see the back of Rance McCoy’s grizzled old head, his sombrero tilted forward to shield his eyes. The room was full of tobacco-smoke. Chuckwalla Ike saw her first. He blinked foolishly and stumbled toward her, trying to tell her to get out of there, but she eluded him and came in behind old Rance, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Angel was dealing, but halted quickly. Every one in the room was staring at her. Old Rance turned his head and looked up at her white face, a puzzled expression in his eyes.
“What do yuh want, Lila?” he asked.
“Don’t play against him,” she said hoarsely, pointing at Angel. “Please don’t. He admitted that he dealt crooked to you. He’s a cheat. He—he told me he did.”
The room was silent. Angel’s face flushed hotly and he surged to his feet, kicking back his chair.
“That’s a lie!” he hurled at her. “I never told yuh any such a thing. You get out of here! This is no place for you.”
Lila faced him defiantly.
“I came to tell Rance McCoy what you did to him, Angel. If he wants to play now—all right.”
“You came to warn him, eh?” sneered Angel. “Playin’ politics, are yuh? Tryin’ to get in good with the old man. Lemme tell yuh somethin’ about yourself. I just got a letter tonight. Yore father was a thief—a bank-robber! He was killed——”
Old Rance sprang out of his chair and leaned across the table toward Angel.
“Shut up, you dirty pup!” he gritted. “Give me that letter!”
“What if I won’t?” snapped Angel.
“Then I’ll take it off yore dead carcass.”
The old man had swayed sideways and his right elbow was bent slightly. The men behind Angel sagged aside quickly.
“It’s in yore coat pocket,” said Rance warningly.
Slowly Angel reached into his pocket, took out the letter, and flung it down in front of his father. Quickly the old man tore it into small pieces, flinging them aside with a flip of his wrist.
The men were staring at old Rance, wondering what it was all about. They did not know what Angel knew about Lila’s parentage, and as far as they were concerned, they thought Angel was accusing old Rance of being these things.
Old Rance reached back and took Lila by the arm.
“It’s all right,” he said brokenly. “Yuh can’t expect it to always work out jist right. C’mon, Lila.”
They walked out together, the crowd staring after them. Angel’s face was a little more white than usual as he dropped back into his chair, ready to resume the game. But the players cashed in their chips and went out, until no one remained in the place, except Angel, the other dealer, and the bartender.
Rance walked as far as the gate of the Parker home with Lila. Neither of them said anything until they reached the gate, when Lila said:
“Oh, I’m sorry it happened. I simply had to tell you. But I—I guess I forgot he was your own son.”
“That’s all right, Lila; it was thoughtful of yuh to even think of me.”
“But that letter——” faltered Lila. “What letter was it?”
“I dunno,” slowly. “Forget it.”
“But he—he said my father was a thief and a bank-robber.”
Old Rance was silent for several moments.
“I don’t reckon Angel got the truth of the matter,” he said softly. “You forget it, Lila. Goodnight.”
He turned and faded out in the darkness, going back to the main street. The bulk of the crowd had gone back to the Red Arrow, and there was much speculation regarding what had happened at the Eagle.
Old Chuckwalla Ike had gone back there with the crowd, and was drinking prodigious quantities of raw liquor. One of the men asked him what Angel had meant by telling the girl what he did. But Chuckwalla swore he didn’t know.
“Angel’s crazy,” he declared. “Allus been crazy. Never did have the sense that God gave geese in Ireland.”
“Well, he shore got trimmed,” declared Jim Langley. “Think of dealin’ first ace for five thousand! I figure old Rance won pretty close to eight thousand from Angel; and if Angel can pay him off, I’m an Eskimo in Florida.”
“Old Rance owns the Eagle right now,” stated another. “He shore paid Angel for his crooked dealin’.”
Old Chuckwalla got pretty drunk before he left the Red Arrow and went on a hunt for old Rance. The Eagle was dark. Chuckwalla managed to paw his way along the hitch-rack and to locate his horse. It was only after several tries that he was able to get into the saddle. Once he went all the way over the horse, but had presence of mind enough to cling to the reins.
“Shore gettin’ active in m’ old age,” he told himself as he tried to get his foot out of his hat. “Ain’t many men of my age that can leap plumb over a bronc in the dark.”
He finally got seated and rode out of town, swaying in his saddle, and trying to sing. It was about eleven o’clock when he reached the Circle Spade. By this time he was sober enough to unsaddle his horse, turn it loose in a corral, and go up to the ranch-house, where he went to bed. His horse had picked up a small stone in the frog of its right front foot, and was limping badly, but Chuckwalla didn’t know it.