They anted some more, and Curly passed the deal on to Longarm with a queen of spades nobody slapped because Curly couldn’t and the redhead didn’t because she caught herself just in time. Old Deacon, of course, had known all along it wouldn’t be a jack or the joker.
Then it was Longarm’s turn again, and he decided Fox Bancroft ought to quit while she was ahead. So he moved the card nobody else but old Deacon could read to the center of the table, flipped it over, and snatched back his hand lest the tensed redhead slap him as well as the jack he’d just dealt her.
As she raked in the considerable pot with a more girlish expression than he’d ever noticed on her pretty face before, old Deacon was staring at him thoughtfully. Longarm didn’t want to tell the slicker how he’d been slickered. So he just blew a smoke ring across the table at him.
They could all agree there were three jacks and that joker left to play, with the odds of one turning up better, or so Deacon wanted the other suckers in the game to assume.
Longarm didn’t argue. He still had one winning card at his disposal. He wasn’t sure what he’d wind up with if they dealt fresh again. Deacon had two left. The gal, like Longarm, had one. But if she dealt it, she’d be unable to slap it. So Longarm went along with the Deacon until the pot was getting scary again before he dealt Fox Bancroft another good card to slap before the old pro could come unstuck.
As the redhead gathered her second pot in a row, Longarm suggested they reshuffle and start fresh. Deacon smiled as if he was running for public office and said, “There’s still two jacks and a joker somewhere on the table, friend.”
Longarm tried to sound friendly as he calmly replied, “I know. You have two slappers and Miss Fox has one. But neither Curly nor me have spit. So how’s about being a sport and starting over?”
Deacon Knox got sort of pale, but didn’t stop smiling as he asked in a sober tone, “Are you saying you can read the backs of these cards, friend?”
Longarm smiled back at him and said, “Can’t you?” Then he turned to the goggle-eyed Fox Bancroft, her eyes staring at him jade-green, to say, “If you’ll allow me, ma’am, I’ll be proud to pick out the jack or joker you have in front of YOU.”
She stared down frozen as he turned over a jack. Deacon Knox laughed lightly and said, “Lucky guess,” as he started to restack the cards in front of him. Then he was staring down the muzzle of a Schofield .45 in a work-hardened female hand as Fox Bancroft quietly asked Longarm to put up or shut up.
Longarm reached across the table to turn over the remaining jack and joker as he stared past the ashen Deacon to warn the barkeep, “I thought you said you didn’t want any trouble in here.”
The barkeep straightened up and put both palms flat on the bar in front of him as Fox Bancroft stared soberly at Deacon and quietly purred, “You’ve been playing us false all this time with a marked deck, you poor dead son of a bitch.”
Longarm said, “I wish you wouldn’t kill him, ma’am. Fair is fair and he wasn’t suckering you with a marked deck. What happened was partly your own fault, and how’s he supposed to pay back all he won off you if you blow out his brains and wind up in jail?”
She flashed her jade eyes at Longarm, snapping, “Nobody is about to put this child in jail for shooting skunks out of season. What do you mean it was partly my fault? I wasn’t the one dealing marked cards and … Say, come to think of it, those are my cards! I wasn’t born yesterday, so I bought a fresh sealed deck off that barkeep and …”
Then she was on her feet, six-gun trained on the barkeep as she called out loud enough to mill a stampede, “How did you do that, God damn your eyes? I asked for a sealed deck and you said you were selling me a sealed deck, brand-new, you dirty card-marking rascal!”
Longarm leaned back in his seat, took a drag on his smoke, and calmly said, “It was a fresh sealed deck and nobody marked a single card, Miss Fox. Simmer down and I’ll explain whilst Deacon and yonder barkeep fetch all you paid for all the chips you lost from the till. You were fixing to do that, weren’t you, Deacon?”
The man in white linen rose with a gallant defeated smile to say he’d been about to suggest that very thing. The imperious armed and dangerous redhead sat back down beside Longarm, saying, “This had better be good.”
Longarm picked up two cards and placed them face down in front of her, saying, “This one’s a face card and this other one ain’t. I looked at them before I put them face down, of course. Can’t you see the different way the backs of the two cards read?”
She stared down hard and said, “No. They both have the same dumb flowers stuck in that same flowerpot. Am I missing something in the small lines of the black and white engraving?”
He said, “Nope. The bland line drawings on the backs of the cards are identical, printed from the same plates to show that same vase of flowers no matter what’s on the other side. Don’t you see it yet? Do you brand your fool calves on both sides, or upside down?”
She sniffed, “Don’t be silly, we naturally brand every calf on the near side and … Oh, Good Lord, I feel so stupid!”
“Well, you ought to,” said Longarm, not unkindly, as he explained, “Cards ain’t like calves. It doesn’t show when you turn a jack upside down because each jack has two heads. When professional gamblers buy fresh decks they buy cards with the backs as well as the fronts reversible. This brand, stocked by a place advertising itself as a serious card house, was never meant for anything more serious than kids playing for matches. Ladies who play whist at purely social gatherings have been known to read these so-called one-way cards. Old Deacon never had to mark them. He just had to make sure the jacks and joker alone were turned the opposite way from all the others in the deck. After that, he could tell in advance whether he was fixing to slap at a card or not. I thought it might be fun to pick out a slapper from my pile, reverse it some more, and give you a chance to beat him to the slap when we both caught him napping. I noticed he never tensed up to slap when he didn’t think there was a jack or joker fixing to be turned over.”
She laughed and said, “They were right about you.”
Deacon Knox came back to the table with a big stack of bills. He gravely placed them in front of her and said, “This is all the money Matt took in from the bunch of you this evening. I sure hope we can settle this misunderstanding quietly.”
She said, “It’s up to the Advertiser and Monitor whether they want to print my confession of stupidity or not.” Then she called, “Hey, Slats, get over here and let me give you back your money, you pouty thing!”
Then, as Longarm sat there smoking, Fox Bancroft divided the pile of wilted bills with as much skill and likely more honesty than your average banker might have managed.
As she did so, Deacon Knox was heard to plead, “Don’t put us out of business, Miss Fox! Your education ain’t cost you a thing, and where does it say you have to educate the rest of this wicked world?”
She coldly replied, “The Good Book. Thou shalt not steal or play with one-way decks. I just added that commandment because I doubt old Moses had anyone as sneaky as this lawman advising him about gents like you. I sure wish he’d been here the last time we rode in, you son of a bitch!”
Deacon said, “I want to make it up to you, pretty lady. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do!”
But Fox Bancroft said, “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to get out of town. That’s all you can do for anyone as pretty and rich as I am. I’m giving you to the end of this month to find a buyer for this place and-“
“But I don’t own this place!” the tinhorn shouted as the barkeep wailed, “Neither do I! We’re working for Mr. Remington Ramsay, the owner of this whole business block!”
Fox Bancroft said, “Good! I’ll settle with that hardware monger later. There’s a northbound combination coming through tomorrow morning. Be on it when it leaves and we’ll say no more about it.”