Cry of the Hawk

For the better part of the next two hours, the cards moved around the table. And the money moved between the last three of them left sitting at the table, in the center of the ring of onlookers who squinted down through the yellow, murky haze, a glow put to the tobacco smoke by the single oil lamp that hung just above their heads. Three remained. Wiser—sweating with more than the heat of this old summer night. An old soldier—who played his cards predictably as a barracks better, conservatively, and well. Jonah Hook—who now had all but a few of Wiser’s dollars on his side of the table.

“There, Jonah,” Wiser said, feeling a surge of confidence in the strength of his hand. A full house: kings and sevens. Boothog was certain, something in his gut telling him that his luck was about to take a turn for the better. A gambler who wins is a gambler who has to hang in there through a short run of bad luck and bad cards.

And Wiser knew he was truly a gambler.

“I’ll raise,” Hook replied, pushing more scrip to the center of the table.

Wiser watched the money come to the pot, then looked down at what he held in his hand. He studied what money he had left in front of him, next to his whiskey glass. It was as if Hook knew exactly how much it would take to wipe him out. And he suddenly hated the new man for it.

Wiser smiled, despising Hook. “Here you go, Jonah,” he said with a silver lilt to his voice. “I’ll match you—knowing that you don’t stand a chance of beating me.”

“That’s all you got, Major?”

He held his hands out, guarding his cards. “You see it, Jonah. I’m just going to have to win back some of that money you won from me. And this is the hand to do it on.”

Hook pursed his lips then took a swallow of whiskey from his glass. “I see. You figure you’ve got a hand good enough to beat me?”

“Let’s call and see. What do you say, Jonah?”

He wagged a hand. “Not so fast, Major. If you think you’ve got a good hand—I want you to know I’ve got a better hand. And I’m willing to see just how much a gambler you are. But—you’re out of money … so I guess you don’t really want to play for high stakes.”

Wiser leaned back in his seat, for a moment listening to the muttering of some of the spectators, soldiers and Danites both.

With a flair, he stood, pulling back the flaps of his rumpled coat to expose the two pistols. “You want my custom guns, don’t you? Had your eye on them, I know. They are fine specimens—”

“I got guns, Major. Don’t really need yours.”

“Then …” And he looked over himself, wondering what he could offer. He was growing a bit edgy, from the hours in the chair, enough whiskey to put a sharpness to everything, and from this hired man’s cocky attitude. “What is it you want me to wager?” His words no longer had that silver smoothness to them.

And that crooked smile Hook gave him made Wiser want to take the man’s thin, sinewy neck in both his hands right now and squeeze until the smile was gone and the eyes bugged out, tongue lolling, gasping for air—

“You ain’t got anything I really want. I s’pose the game’s over—”

“More money? Take my marker! When we get to Laramie to rendezvous with the colonel—I’ll honor my note.” He quickly turned to one of the men. “Get me paper and a pencil. I’ll write Mr. Hook my draft—”

“Don’t want any more of your money, Major. Told you. ’Sides, what can a man do with just so much money?”

Boothog slammed a flat palm down on the table, exasperated with the Southerner. He was thumping the clubfoot on the floor noisily, drumming in rhythm with his warning. “You’re trying to goad me, Jonah. And I won’t stand for goading from any man.”

Hook smiled back at the tongue-lashing, which vexed Wiser all the more.

“Few days back, you was telling me how much a gambler you was—how good you was too. Good at gambling in life too. I didn’t figure you’d buckle under and go belly up like this, Major. Just ’cause a man whipped you at cards.”

“You haven’t whipped me at cards, Hook!” he roared, wiping beads of sweat from his brow, swiping the finger off on his vest gone damp in the sticky, still air of the saloon.

Hook peered carefully at the table. “I don’t see you with any money left to call me. Appears I win this hand, and the whole game. It’s over.”

When the Confederate reached in with one long arm to rake back the pot, Wiser caught his wrist. “Hold it right there, Jonah,” he said quietly through his teeth, desperately trying to maintain control of himself and the situation.

“What’s that, Major?”

He started to choke on it. As much as he wanted to crack the man’s skull—it just might have to come to that later. But for now, in front of all these people … in front of these men he would one day command from the top—Lemuel Wiser would have to be just what he claimed he was: a gambler.

“Yes. I do have something you might be interested in, Jonah,” he said, releasing the Southerner’s wrist.

Wiser leaned back, smoothing his vest lapels. “You been a long time without a woman?”

Hook stared at him without expression. “Long time, Major. Why?”