by David Orange
Jessica Patchett curled one card, then the other upwards, revealing a jack of diamonds and a four of clubs. She looked over at Claude Fontenot, one of the Gem Theater’s dealers, who returned an equally impassive gaze. Jessica pointed at the stacked cards resting on the green felt table. She then beckoned towards herself and said, “Card.” Claude, long faced with thinning black hair that matched the slender string tie nestled on his starched white shirt, dealt the requisite pasteboard, flipping it so that it rested face up on the table, revealing a three of diamonds, total of seven. Claude did not deal himself a third card, instead revealing a two of clubs and four of spades totaling six. As Claude had the lower total, he paid off Jessica’s wager.
Jessica’s long right leg splayed outwards, belying her intense concentration both on the game and her surroundings. The holstered Peacemaker thus always remained ready for immediate use, even as its mate remained out of sight on Jessica’s left hip. Tucked in a corner away from any cooling breezes, Jessica dabbed her brow with a faded red bandana. Sweat still ran down her neck and soiled her otherwise new blue checked gingham blouse, a reluctant concession to coming to town and erstwhile civilization. Unlike most women, she wore denim jeans, faded but intact, again a concession to her town visit. The brown riding boots, however, failed to entirely disguise the caked mud that hadn’t entirely brushed off.
Jessica looked around at the nearly empty Gem Theater. Over in another corner, half a dozen men engaged in Faro, their animated chatter almost desultory compared to the boisterous arguments that pervaded Nuttal and Mann’s No. 10 or its sister establishment, the Bella Union Theater, across the way. Indeed, Al Swearengen’s iron fist and sharp knife ensured that the Gem maintained a decorum sorely lacking in Deadwood, South Dakota’s other gaming halls. And that suited Jessica just fine. Likewise, the small, lowered table served a mute reminder that the game of Chemin de Fer was a quaint relic cast aside for the ubiquity of faro or the increasing popularity of poker.
Jessica knew well the adage of poker, ‘play the cards and not the man.’ The problem was that the men who played poker tended to settle arguments with knives and more commonly guns. She had heard that a few months before in Nuttal and Mann’s, someone had settled an argument by shooting a lawman in the back. As she recalled these and other gunfights, she felt darkness as the Taint once again gave her soul a strong tug. Which is why she preferred Chemin de Fer. Just her against the cards, with Claude as Banker following a strict set of rules. Jessica had learned the game back in Dodge City, Kansas from agents of Baron LaCroix’s Bayou Vermillion railroad who brought the game up from New Orleans. She recalled the poet’s words:
“The outlaws spilled the blood, across the Kansas plains back in the ’70’s.”
In Kansas, two states south and ten years past, the tensions simmered and boiled over without apparent provocation. And not just your regular outlaws, even the United States Cavalry all had their beefs and vendettas as once again, the poem’s lyrics reverberated through her head:
“But the heroes that we made, well, they were ruthless soldiers who’d kill for gold.”
Much to Jessica’s dismay, Deadwood, South Dakota reminded her all the more of Kansas than her more recent time in Gomorra, California.
Jessica’s memories returned to the present and the pair of cards resting in front of her. Playing by the well worn formula, she gradually won more than she lost, but still had a couple of dozen dollars to go before fully funding this trip’s grubstake.
Every now and then one or two other men, usually half-drunken cowpokes, would briefly join Jessica at the table. Just as quickly, however, they would abandon the game when they realized that bluffs and threats held no sway over the game. A flash of white caught her eye as a stocky blond haired man in a suit entered the Gem. “Farrow, no Farner,” Jessica thought to herself. She knew the man was important in Deadwood. Not the mayor, but definitely some sort of bigwig. After briefly talking with Delores “Dolly” Lassiter, the lead hostess, the man huffed and labored as he ascended the stairs to the upstairs bar.
Distracted, Jessica misplayed her next hand, asking for a card when she held a five and a two. She received a seven, reducing her total to four and thus losing to Claude’s total of six. Looking at her stack, Jessica realized she was still ten dollars short of paying off the remainder of her balance at the Big Horn Store as well as the livery fee for boarding her horse and mule. She had spent the better part of an hour at the table, but she resolved not to leave Deadwood owing money to anyone. She would not have the added material burden of carrying a credit balance hanging over her atop of the Taint her soul carried.
The clomping of heavy boots announced the arrival of a burly miner that Jessica did not recognize. This time, she maintained focus and managed to win that particular hand. Unlike the suited man before him, the miner did not address Dolly before climbing the stairs two or three steps at a time. Dolly came over to Jessica’s table and gestured up at the second floor alcove, before addressing her and Claude. “The boss is having a private meeting upstairs. Y’all gonna have to wrap it up in five.”
Jessica counted her stack and with dismay realized she remained several dollars shy of what she needed. Claude recognized Jessica’s doleful look at her stack. He addressed Dolly in his thick Creole accent. “Let ze mademoiselle play out ze last hand. Good luck for ze road and all zat.” Dolly gave a slow nod in reluctant assent.
As Dolly turned her back and returned to the bar, Claude gave Jessica a broad wink as his thin lips also broke into a wisp of a smile. In contrast with his usual one or two dollar Banker’s wager, Claude now anted a full five dollars. Jessica stifled a gulp as her intuition told her to follow the dealer’s lead as she matched the hefty wager. Claude dealt the quartet of cards – one to Jessica, one to himself, another to Jessica, and the final card again to himself. Now Jessica did gasp as she turned the cards and saw an eight of spades nestled against a queen of hearts staring back at her. She managed to keep her composure as she flipped the cards and said ‘Natural.’ Claude maintained his ghost of a smile as he paid off Jessica’s winning wager. Jessica stood up and gave a half bow as she tipped Claude a silver dollar. Likewise on her way out, she also gave Dolly a dollar coin.
Jessica paused by the batwing doors to begin acclimating her eyes to the bright midday sun. After a moment, she stepped outside and again paused underneath the canopied boardwalk. She then crossed diagonally across the Main and Wall Street intersection to Nye’s Opera House. Even bypassing Nuttal & Mann’s, she still felt her Taint’s pull. Years of caution and experience had taught Jessica to remain in the shade and thus put the sun in other’s eyes. Holsters bobbing up and down to her loping gait helped clear a path around her, but Jessica’s caution stretched out the several hundred yards to about a ten minute walk before she arrived at the Big Horn Store.
Once inside the cluttered general store, Jessica spent about an hour sorting, stacking, and eventually paying for the next month’s worth of supplies and provisions. She then headed across the empty lot to Carmichael’s Livery, where she paid the eponymous Michael for tending to her mule Domingo and the roan Clancy. Once again back to the Big Horn to commence loading up her purchases and then not a moment too soon head back to the ranch. Deadwood, like any other town and its peoples irritated Jessica and she could not wait to get back to the steady rhythm of ranching.
A clattering of hooves indicated another group exiting the stable with their steeds. Jessica looked up from her loading and saw a pair of hats; black gambler’s hat adorned with silver conchos and a brown fedora. In between the headwear, a tousled mop of brown hair towered above the other pair.
“Allie Hensman.” Jessica gave an inadvertent start as her eyes moved across the row, briefly scanning, but ultimately failing to recognize the bareheaded man whose muscles bulged from a pair of worn overalls. Her gaze ended up at the fedora adorned man at the end of the group. Her Taint roared to life, and blood surged, pounding her skull. The recognition and hatred proved mutual as she and Jonah Essex simultaneously screamed “You!”
Hands reached downward, Jessica for her Peacemakers and Jonah for his trusty cards. The lighter pasteboards won and flew out of their tuckbox, following Jonah’s hand in an arcing circle. Jessica found her right side blocked by the otherwise trusty Domingo. With pure honed reflex, however, Jessica’s left hand skinned that side’s gun and fired off two shots just as Jonah’s defensive phalanx settled into place. The bullets tore through the five of spades and seven of hearts, the cards fluttering backwards before coming to light upon the ground. The remaining cards buckled concave before they shimmered and returned to their original defensive alignment.
Jessica heard, rather than felt, a bullet pierce her left shoulder. She felt, rather than heard, the crack of bone. Again, Jessica heard, rather than felt, the whizzing bullet leave her that sent a cavalcade of splinters outward as it thudded into the beam supporting the Big Horn’s awning.
As her gun dropped to the boardwalk, Jessica felt warm blood down her arm and soaking her sleeve. Gritting her teeth in resolve, she pivoted to bring her other Peacemaker to bear on Allie Hensman. As she lined up her pistol with Allie’s torso, Jessica’s concentration broke as she heard a furious roar and a blur of motion as the muscular henchman hefted and emptied a water trough, before hurling it across the street. Jessica barely had time to duck aside before the trough shattered the beam that until now had supported the store’s awning.
The awning shifted downward, but otherwise held. Once more Jessica had a clear view across the street. She heard Allie scream “You traitor!” while wisps of smoke curled upwards as the Outlaw fan-fired her handgun. A quartet of bullets fusilladed into the woodwork behind Jessica, but another once again found its mark as she realized she had been hit yet again, this time in her right thigh. Staggered, Jessica dropped to one knee. An old mantra repeated itself. “It’s not the first shot that wins gunfights, but the last.” For her, most of the time, the initial and final shots were one and the same. Not so this time, but Jessica nevertheless vowed to have the final say in this lopsided duel. Focusing solely upon her adversary, Jessica squeezed off the one final shot she knew that she had in her. Her patience rewarded her as Allie Hensman instantly sprawled prone, dead as the dirt that greeted her arrival upon the dusty street. Jessica staggered to her feet, reaching for the now shattered beam for support. She gingerly pushed off, but as she started to cross the lot, the awning finally gave way, collapsing on top of the wounded gunslinger. The last thing Jessica saw before the darkness enveloped her was Jonah Essex cowering behind his sorcerous shield.