Easy Pickin's by Marcus Galloway

Author:Marcus Galloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Published: 2017-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was late, but not too late for poker. If there was one constant throughout every one of the states and territories of a wild, incredible land, it was that it was never too late for poker.

Whiteoak sat at a table nestled in the middle of the Dove Tail Saloon. To his immediate right was Byron, three beers in his stomach and a dwindling stack of chips in front of him. A thick fellow by the name of Sammy Owens sat to Whiteoak’s left. He had black hair, a thick beard and a paunch that came from eating too much of his aunt’s cooking. Dell North sat directly across from the professor, fiddling with his cards, nervously touching his money and dabbing at the sweat on his brow. Alan Weir sat between Dell and Byron, a quiet man with salt-and-pepper whiskers sprouting from a mostly friendly face.

“Who do you think that is?” Byron asked.

Whiteoak propped a single chip onto its edge with one finger while using the thumb on that same hand to set the chip to spinning. “Who are you talking about?”

“That man at the back of the room with his back to a wall. He looks like a gunfighter.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because he’s got his back to a wall and . . . well . . . he’s wearing a gun.”

Whiteoak let out a sigh and shook his head.

“What?” Byron said defensively. “I’ve never seen him around here before and he’s been glaring in this direction as if he’s set to kill everyone at this table. You don’t think he might be a gunman?”

“On the contrary. I think he is absolutely a gunman.”

“Then why the sigh?”

“Because he might as well be wearing a sign around his neck as he sits there trying to look like a bad man.” Giving his chip another spin, Whiteoak added, “It’s no wonder that so many men like him wind up dead so early in their careers.”

“Wanna know why I’m sighing?” Owens asked.

Whiteoak looked over to the dark-haired fellow and asked, “Why’s that, Sam?”

“Because there’ll be snow falling outside by the time Dell makes his damn bet.”

Dell, a large man whose clothes were so poorly tailored that he looked like he’d stuffed a lumpy mattress under his shirt, bobbled his head and continued to rearrange his chips. “Laugh all you want, mister. I’m about to take down one hell of a pot and I need to figure how much I can fleece you gentlemen for.”

“Is that a fact?” Alan grunted. “You’re gonna do all of that fleecing with two pair?”

Dell snapped his head toward Alan, causing multiple fatty chins around his neck to wiggle. “What makes you think you know what I’m holding?”

“You drew one card, missed your full boat, and now you’re trying to figure how to make the best of it,” Alan replied.

“Maybe I got my full house and am trying to figure out how much to bet.”

Alan raised his eyebrows as if entertaining the notion of playing along with the larger man’s serious tone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.