The Independence Trail by Lyle Brandt & Ralph Compton

Author:Lyle Brandt & Ralph Compton [Brandt, Lyle & Compton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

Lubie, you ever seen that guy before?” Ardil McManus asked his fellow Comanchero, facing him across a table strewn with coins.

Grant stared a hole into the new arrival’s back, then answered, “Not that I can recollect.”

“How come you no ask either one of us?” asked José Calderón.

“Because he ain’t a Mex,” Ardil replied dismissively.

José sneered at him. “You think we couldn’t know a gringo?”

“We know you, cabrón,” Juanito said, making his brother laugh. “You gonna bet or check, pendejo?”

Peering at his cards through a whiskey haze, McManus said, “I’ll see your dime and raise a nickel. How’d that be, maricón?”

“Is fine with me,” Juanito said, and pushed five pennies out into the pot.

“That’s fifteen cents to you, José,” McManus said.

“I see you,” José answered as he tossed a nickel out.

“Lubie?” McManus prodded. “Are you staying in or folding?”

“I’ll stay for a nickel.” Once he’d pushed that over, Grant pulled one card from his hand and dropped it facedown on the table. “And I’ll take one card.”

“Trying to fill a straight or flush?” McManus goaded him.

“Never you mind.”

“One card it is,” said Ardis, skimming one across the table.

Lubie Grant retrieved it, blinked at what it showed him. “Raise another dime,” he said.

“I think you bluffing,” said Juanito, on Grant’s left, but then he folded anyway.

“Too rich for my blood,” Ardil told the table. “Dealer folds.”

“Chick-chick-chick,” José taunted him.

“Keep chirping birdman,” Ardis said. “I’d rather spend what I got left to get another poke upstairs.”

“Do the girls charge you extra?” asked Juanito.

“Maybe puts a sack over his head,” José chimed in.

“I’ll have you know that little Margarita calls me ‘raging bull.’”

Juanito blinked at him, feigning surprise, McManus thought. “She call you toro furioso?” he inquired.

“Naw,” Ardil replied. “It sounded more like culo gordo.”

Both brothers convulsed with laughter over that, and even Lubie Grant was smiling at him from across the poker table. “What?” Ardil demanded.

“Culo gordo means ‘fat ass,’” Juanito told him. “You should learn more Spanish, eh?”

McManus bolted to his feet with fists clenched. “Goddamn sons of bitches!” he exploded.

“Whoa, now!” Lubie Grant protested. “Let’s leave mothers outta this, Fat Ass.”

Ardil was going for his pistol when he saw Grant’s Colt Peacemaker—stolen off a dead man in Nogales eight months previously—pointed at his navel.

“Simmer down now, Ardil,” Lubie urged him. “If you need a beer to cool you off, I’ll stand you to it. Otherwise, I’ll want to see how fast you are.”

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