Doc - Mary Doria Russell [165]
“Not me,” Doc gasped, still game. Wiping his mouth, he turned back to the table, white-faced and blue-lipped. “Evenin’s hardly begun …”
Kate poured him another drink. Doc drained the glass she offered. Somewhat recovered, the dentist dealt. Two down, two up.
“Another three for Mr. Wright. Not much to look at, but sometimes a pair of threes is all you need. Well, now!” he cried breathlessly when a second ace appeared in front of Eli. “Fortune continues to smile on Captain Grier! You are a lucky man, sir. And … a queen,” he said, staring. “No help for the dealer’s nine.”
Another round of bets. The last down cards distributed. Eli peeled up a corner of his and sat back in his chair. “Your grand. Fifteen hundred more,” he told Bob Wright.
Doc folded, his face neutral when he remarked, “Too rich for me.” Almost half of what he’d brought in was gone, with a little over two grand left.
“All in,” Bob Wright said, pushing his chips to the center of the table. “Let’s see what you have, Eli.”
What Eli had should’ve been enough.
All night long he’d won and won and won. For crissakes, Bob was only showing a pair of threes. My God, who wouldn’t have gone all in with aces full of kings?
“Four of a kind,” Bob said, laying out a second pair of threes with a jack.
“Peach of a hand,” Doc murmured, while Kate laughed and laughed and laughed.
Bob Wright rose and looked down at Elijah Garrett Grier. “That’s eighty-two hundred and change you owe me, Grier. Call it eight even,” he said, his voice hard, his eyes harder. “I want the cash by noon, you contemptible sonofabitch.”
“And what was our little side bet?” Kate asked Grier airily. “Oh! I remember now! I spend a night with the winner, and you?” Taking Bob’s arm, Kate purred, “You owe me two grand.”
“Kate, darlin’, you go on along with Bob and celebrate, now,” Doc urged, his voice thready. “I have a little business to do with the captain.”
Drunk, sick, and nearly as stunned as Eli Grier, John Henry Holliday watched the couple leave. After a time, he cleared his throat and remarked, “Well, now. That was unexpected.” Eyes unfocused, it took him a while to work it out. “Only three of us,” he said to no one in particular.
Maybe Bob didn’t know before, Eli was thinking, but he sure as hell knows now. Jesus, I’m in trouble … He looked at Holliday. “I—I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“Three players. Pattern changed.” Holliday poured himself another shot and tossed it back. “Ten grand,” he said then, staring at Eli with something like sympathy. “Lotta money. Haven’t got it, have you.”
It was not a question. Eli didn’t bother to reply.
“If you will be so kind as to help me to my feet,” Doc said softly, “perhaps we can both salvage some of our night’s work, sir. You have a horse that I would like … to buy.”
Raising Blind
The days were noticeably shorter now. This one would be agreeably warm and windless. Half past six, and the pale early-autumn sun began its rise toward a clear, high sky that few in Dodge City were in a position to appreciate; the drovers had passed out a couple of hours ago and the citizens were still home, getting dressed and eating breakfast.
Their long shadows snaking westward along Front Street, two men walked toward the resurrected Elephant Barn, its unweathered lumber still the color of fresh-cut corn bread in the morning light. They had said little since leaving the Lone Star.
Eli named a price.
Holliday countered.
“She’s in foal,” Eli objected.
“You’re in trouble,” Doc replied. “Twenty-one sixty, firm.”
It was a strange number. Probably all the dentist had left, and no more than Roxana was worth. Given the sudden shift in his circumstances, Eli was already thinking about other things. How to phrase a vague telegram to his sister, for example, and how much she might be willing to wire him for an “emergency,” and where he could get the rest. He had no intention of paying off the hooker, but even minus that two grand …
No matter how he figured it, he’d never scrape the money