Free The Pistoleer by James Carlos Blake Page A

like hell as fellas kept coming over to pay us off. When you win big, everything’s funny. We’d both nearly choke to death every time one or the other of us said, “With a minister’s horse!”
    We figured we’d go over to Towash and enjoy some of our winnings, but first we got Copperhead tended to. Wes gave a track boy two dollars to scrub and curry the horse. He wanted to be sure his daddy never suspected his own horse had been used as “an instrument of the soul’s perdition,” as Wes put it, imitating the Reverend’s tone and way with words and tickling me some more. We bought a bottle off a fella and shared it as the last few losers paid us and hurried off to bet on the next race.
    One of the fellas who lost money on Andy Jack was Jim Bradley. A track buzzard named Bobby Cue—one of those jaspers who fancied himself a big-time gambler but wasn’t and never would be—introduced him to Wes when they came over to pay off. Hell, I already knew Bradley—or rather knew of him. He was a big black-bearded stomper who’d as soon cut your throat as tell you the time of day. With him was a hard case named Hamp Davis, a tall honker with a mustache like a squirrel tail. It was common knowledge they were both wanted for murder back in Arkansas.
    They were all smiles and good buddy with Wes, paying off their bet and telling him what a damn fine horse he had. Wes stood there palavering with them like they were old pals and passing our bottle to them. When Bradley mentions a poker game they’re getting up, Wes was all ears. “It’s Judge Moore’s game,” Bradley tells him. “He asked me and Hamp here to sit down with him, but he prefers four hands. If you’re interested, I reckon he’d be proud to have you join us.”
    Judge Moore was a white-whiskered old gent who loved to gamble. He lived in a big two-story house on the Towash road, near a cotton gin within sight of the track. There was a stable and a grocery just this side of the gin, then the judge’s house, and then a little farther down the road, a wooden shed where they were holding the game. Wes asked how come they weren’t playing in the judge’s house, which was bound to be more comfortable, and Bradley laughed and said the judge didn’t think it looked right for a guardian of the law to have gambling going on in his own home.
    So Wes goes off with Bradley and Davis while I put our horses up in the stable. It was late in the day now, and getting colder. When I finally headed over to the shed, the sun was down and a wind had picked up and was pushing the trees around.
    Bradley wasn’t lying when he said the only ones in the game would be him and Davis and Wes and the judge, but he hadn’t mentioned the bunch of his friends gathered around in front of the grocery, drinking and carrying on. It was maybe seven or eight of them, and as I passed by on my way to the shed I glanced over and saw they were all armed.
    The shed was small and had a low narrow door, so you had to bend down and squeeze your way through. They were sitting on the floor and playing on an old horse blanket. Hamp Davis introduced me to the judge, and the old man nodded and went on puffing his big cigar. What with the cigar smoke and the black fumes from the two oil lamps hanging on opposite walls, the air in the little room was hazy as swamp mist and the walls were streaked with soot. It didn’t help the smell a bit that they’d all taken off their boots to be more comfortable and piled them in a corner—together with everybody’s gunbelts. I gave Wes a look, but he didn’t seem the least concerned that he was sitting unarmed among strangers and the biggest pile of money on the blanket was his.
    Cards never were my game, but nobody objected to me sitting down between Hamp and the judge and just watching. For the next hour or so the steadiest sounds in the room were the card shuffles, the bets and raises and calls, the hawking and spitting, farting and coughing. Jim Bradley cussed