Suzy lay in her bed, thinking about the game. If they could win one and two and there were at least ten players, her and Jack’s share would be about $150. They could leave right away for the West, but ten dollars is a lot of money, especially for a tournament of Bluff that was going to be chock full of professional gamblers, rounders, scoundrels and other ne’er do wells. Suzy and Jack, especially Jack, weren’t really in the same league as some of the folks they’d brushed up against recently. They were just cheating at cards and scamming the more well-off of society to get by and get them a stake, so they could go somewhere out West and settle. What if they lost? They’d be stuck in Independence, Nowhere with less opportunity to get Somewhere.
Suzy tossed and turned all night. By morning, she still didn’t know what she wanted to do. As she got up and wandered into the shared room, Jack was just coming in the door, looking much the worse for wear.
“You look terrible,” Suzy remarked. “Where have you been all night?”
Jack, looking a bit sheepish, shrugged. “Shannon and I went back out after we dropped you off. The plan was to discuss strategy for taking the game, but
after the second bottle of wine, we ended up at Janie’s, sharing another bottle of wine with Velvet and Darla Mae.”
Suzy rolled her eyes. She knew Jack occasionally visited the local whorehouse, but he was usually more discreet. Suzy suspected this new lack of discretion could be blamed on the influence of one Mr. Shannon O’Dell. Suzy was even more uncertain she liked Shannon all that much and felt her qualms about trusting him flare in the pit of her stomach.
“Well, we need to have a talk about this tournament. I really don’t have a good feeling about it nor him, Jack. If we lose, we’ll be right back where we were six months ago and we’ll have less opportunity to recoup our loss in a town the size of Independence. It’s not near big enough to let us play our games, nor are there as many rich pigeons to pluck. Have you thought about what we’ll do if we lose? I mean, really thought about it?”
“Shannon and I talked about it last night, for a long time. I just don’t see how we can lose. Between Shannon and me and you knowing whose bluffing and who’s not, how can we lose? Come on, Suzy! Last fair deal in the city. . . for us.” Jack grinned wickedly.
“You do realize 10 gold dollars is a fair chunk of our savings, Jack. I don’t like the idea of putting it all on one chance for a win. You not only have to get to the final game, you have to win it. And frankly, I’m not sure I trust Shannon O’Dell to not set you up for the fall while he skates away with all the money.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Suzy cut him off. “But, if you want to try for it, I’ll do all I can to help. Heaven knows, you’ve gone along with all my plans since we left Tennessee. We’re going to have to work really hard this week on our signals and such and make sure they’re as subtle as we can make them.”
And so they did.
Afternoons were spent in the common space of Jack and Suzy’s rooms. After a light supper, they rested and prepared themselves for the evening. Shannon still needed to win his stake for the game and Suzy wanted to try and build up their cash reserves, just in case. Before they left for Independence, they agreed to play separately the first three nights and then have two practice nights with the three of them working together, just as they would at the tournament. Suzy wanted to be able to concentrate and was nervous about being able to do so considering how the last time they had all played together had gone.
As it turned out, everything went well for all. Jack and Suzy ended up netting ten dollars. Shannon managed nearly eleven but had a tense moment when another player accused him of “dealing off”. But as it happened, it was early in the game, when Shannon was dealing straight and letting the cards fall as they would. Fortunately, the fellow didn’t try and back up his complaint with his pistol or a knife and another player diffused the situation, so the game went on.
The practice nights were fairly tolerable. They didn’t lose, but between Shannon and Jack together, they ended the night up by only fifty cents. The important thing had been to be clear on what was happening in the game. They had worked out a fairly elaborate set of signals with Suzy as the go-between, posing as Shannon’s buckskin-clad, pistol-packing, magnolia blossom girlfriend. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she’d agreed to go along with any plans they made. They made sure they went to some saloons they had never played before, as they didn’t want to run into anyone who would recognize Suzy, in particular, and wonder why she wasn’t playing. As the game played, Suzy would watch for tells and using her fingers on Shannon she would signal in code what the other players were telling her about the hands they held. It was similar to the finger code she and Jack had developed when they both played. They played the first few hands straight so Suzy would get a feel for who showed what as they played. Jack and Shannon would then start to deal crooked as their turn came around.
It was a little touch and go at the start, but by the second night, they were starting to work as a team. They pretty much evenly split the money from their three pigeons, which amounted to more than eighteen dollars. Since they knew they were heading out the next morning, they had decided ahead of time to clean out whomever they played that night.
They left early the next morning without a word to Miz Boatwright, the owner of the rooming house. Suzy felt bad about that ‘cause Adeline Boatwright had been real good to them and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Suzy left her the ten for next month’s rent and hoped it’d be OK. Shannon scoffed at her concern. “You ain’t never gonna be rich, spending your money to pay for your guilt. No need to feel guilty gulling pigeons.” He laughed at the joke he made.
“Miz Boatwright’s a good woman who works a whole lot harder than any of us,” Suzy retorted hotly. “She’s NOT a pigeon. She’s just trying to get by like all of us and at least, she’s trying to do it honestly. Not by cheating people. So you can just keep right on not feeling guilty about what you do, Mr. O’Dell, but I will always try to help the folks what’s gotten a rough road in this life any way I can, whenever I can.”
They arrived in Independence ten days later and found a farmer outside of town who was willing to let them sleep in his barn for a small fee. The game was to start the next afternoon, so they spent part of the day wandering around the town, such as it was, wondering how the game came to be here of all places. Wherever they went and ask about the game or the town, they kept hearing about Colonel Preston Ransdall, who came out here after the war and opened a supply station to outfit people heading for the Western territories. Business had slowed because of sandbars that kept building up at the steamboat landing. Then the cholera epidemic that hit last year wiped out a large portion of the permanent residents. After that, most folks wanting to head West decided that Westport was a better jumping-off place as it saved eighteen days of travel off the trail and eliminated a river crossing. Colonel Ransdall needed to attract more folks to the area to keep the town viable and he fancied himself a better Bluff player than most that played on the riverboats that used to stop there. He was hoping that folks might decide to stick around after he’d win all their money and they couldn’t afford to leave. He’d laugh big and boisterous after he’d say that. This made some people in the town a little nervous, for some reason when he’d do that, but they weren’t really sure why.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Ain't No Winners In This Game - pt 3
“You’re right. I don’t like that one damn bit. We’ve got a pretty good scheme going here and we’ve been getting along just fine by ourselves. Why you want’en to bring anyone else close in to us?”
“Well, he’s already done that by spying on us for days. It’s either that or we keep looking over our shoulders wondering what he’s gonna pull. ‘Cause I know he’s gonna pull something on us. I can feel it, Jack. And anyway, I was gonna wait till a bit later to bring this up, but we’re gonna have to think about moving on soon, anyway.”
“What’er you talkin’ about? Movin’ on? Movin’ on to where? Why? We gotta a pretty good thing going on here, Sissy, why should we leave?”
Suzy sighed. Sometimes she forgot how naive Jack still was, even with all the conning people out of their money they did every day. Patiently, she explained, “That’s just it, Jack, we’ve about milked this cow dry. We can’t keep working the same areas, even in different guises. We risk one of our former pigeons overhearing us or recognizing us and exposing us. We really need to stop everything but Bluff playing, especially now that Shannon is onto us. We can rely on the Bluff games for a while, but we only cover expenses with those most weeks. If Shannon plays along with us, we’ll have to let him have his share of the pots as well or he may expose us. Now why don’t you run over to his place and invite him to come along with us?”
“Why don’t you?” Jack sulked. He always hated it when his sister was right and he knew she was right about this.
“Now Jack, you know it wouldn’t be proper for me to go running across to Mr. O’Dell’s room. We may be grifters but we can still try to maintain a certain level of respectability, even in our current circumstances. Now go on over and tell Mr. Shannon to stop by about nine o’clock and we’ll walk over to the The Smiling Cat together.”
The evening at the Smiling Cat, while not a total disaster, was not one of Jack or Suzy’s better evenings playing cards. Suzy found herself much more distracted by Shannon and those blue eyes than she would have expected, so she missed her opponent’s tells on several crucial hands. This put more money in the hands of the other players than she and Jack normally allowed.
Jack seemed to be having his own problems tracking the cards being played and without Suzy’s signals at the proper time, he lost some hands he should have won.
Shannon, on the other hand, was having a fine night. He wasn’t as distracted by Suzy as she was by him and he had long ago trained himself to show few tells that his opponents could pick up. That, coupled with the fact that he, also, could deal cards from anywhere in the deck virtually undetected made his evening quite a lucrative one.
Generally, Jack and Suzy would play until midnight or so. But tonight, Suzy called it quits shortly after eleven, when the table took a break. She and Jack normally arrived and left separately, so as to maintain the facade of mere acquaintances. They always agreed before hand where they would meet up when they left and Suzy was waiting in front of the Brickhouse Bar when Jack strolled up with Shannon. Suzy hadn’t expected Shannon to leave the game since he was doing so well, much less come with Jack to meet her. It also surprised her when Shannon offered to buy them a drink as a consolation for their rough evening.
They found an out of the way corner table in the Brickhouse and ordered their drinks. Shannon and Jack both found they had a taste for cheap wine and Suzy surprised Shannon by ordering a glass of their best whiskey straight up. As they drank, the talk turned to the night’s game.
“You both seemed to be a mite upset at how the cards fell tonight,” Shannon said, not offering any hint of his contribution to their problem, “Everybody has an off night now and again.”
“We don’t,” Jack said flatly, “Not how we play.”
Suzy kicked him under the table. She wasn’t ready to be sharing their particular Bluff strategies with Shannon quite yet, but it looked like she wasn’t being given any choice in the matter, as Jack went on.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d be dealin’ crooked? I woulda worked with ya, if I’d a’known you were pullin’ ‘em out at your leisure. It took me most the night to figure out it was you that was messin’ me up.”
Shannon was taken aback. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had caught onto how he was dealing. He’d gotten caught quite a bit at first, of course, until he had practiced on his fellow deck hands and refined his technique but that had been back before the war when he was working deckhand on various riverboats up and down the Mississippi, watching the gamblers at night.
“Well. . .uh. . .I. . .I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack,” Shannon said , trying to bluff his way out of it.
“Oh, come on, now, Shannon,” Jack cajoled. “I could tell, once I started looking for it. Back when ol' Henry was teaching Suzy and me to play, he also taught us how to spot cheaters. You was dealing them cards from the top, bottom and middle.”
Shannon had the good grace to blush lightly. “Well, why didn’t you turn me in? I was winning and you weren’t.”
“You came in on my introduction, Shannon. It wouldn’t looked too good, if I’d called you out after bringing you in. Them fellers would’ve beat the hell outta both of us, if we were lucky. Besides, why didn’t you turn me and Suzy in after you realized what we were up to?”
“I have no love for lawmen. Most of ‘em are dirtier than the folks they’re locking up. I have to say, I was impressed that two kids that had grown up with everything being done for them had adapted so well to life on the shadier side of the street. What made you stray from the good path?”
“We got some experience on the shadier side, as you call it, before the war,” Suzy cut in. “We were helping slaves escape North whenever we could. Jack and I didn’t abide keeping and owing other human beings. It didn’t seem right, seeing as how this country was founded on the principle that all men were supposed to be created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Once I got old enough and figured out what was going on, I decided to do what I could to see that those that wanted to flee had the opportunity. Jack made the same decision as me when he got to be of an age, as well. So we learned to lie and sneak around in service of others. We decided it was time
to lie and sneak in service of ourselves for a change. ‘Specially since we don’t have what you’d call any useful skills.”
“But you owned slaves,” Shannon replied. “How’d you reconcile that?”
“Those were are Daddy’s slaves, not ours,” Suzy explained. “We had no choice about that. But we treated everyone with respect and when we could, we helped more than a few disappear. Daddy was always fuming about his ‘ungrateful’ slaves running off from him, but we were very careful. Not only did nobody we helped ever get caught, but nobody, not even Daddy, suspected it was us that was helping,” she finished with a laugh.
“So who was this ole Henry that taught y’all to play cards and catch cheaters?”
“Oh, that was Daddy’s old waiting man and our mammy’s husband. He started off just showing us how to play to keep us amused, but we both kinda showed a talent for it, so’s he started teaching us more serious like when we got a little older. I seem to have a knack for catching people in a bluff or know when they’re holding a pretty good hand. Jack here has learned how to shuffle and deal pretty much any card he wants out of the deck. Between the two of us, we’ve managed to sort out some signals for each other that improve our chances of winning the hand.”
“I see,” Shannon said thoughtfully, scratching his chin, “I was debating whether I was gonna say anything to the both of you about this, but I reckon I will. I think if we work together, we could take it all.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked.
“The reason I got off in St. Louis and quit the riverboat gambling is to go and try my hand at this here big Bluff tournament in Independence, Kansas. Grand prize is a hundred gold dollars plus winner take all. Cost ten gold to buy in. I was gonna win my stake here in St. Louis before I head out. We’ll need to leave in five days if we want to make it in time.”
“I’m in,” Jack said immediately. “We’ll need to work out our signals with each other, so we can nail it. Are there other prizes?”
“Second spot gets fifty dollars. And of course, depending on the number of players, the winner gets the pot. Not a bad return on your money.”
“We’ll have to talk about it. Twenty is almost half of what we’ve saved to head west on,” Suzy said.
“Uh, well. . . yeah. . .about that. . .You’ll only need to come up with ten. Apparently, the man that’s running the thing got a problem with women playing cards. He don’t mind ‘em hanging about with their men and such, but he ain’t allowing no women nor coloreds to buy into the game.”
Suzy looked away annoyed. She had been ready to cast her lot in with Shannon to see if they could sweep the game, but not being allowed to play made her want to skip it. She had gotten pretty used to being able to do as she pleased. Jack was willing to follow her lead on most things and they didn’t have anyone else trying to run their life for a change. Having someone tell her she couldn’t do something because she was a woman had always chafed and her new-found freedom had only increased that feeling.
“I’m sorry, Suzy,” Jack said softly. “I know hearing that makes you angry, but you would still be able to hang around the table and signal me and Shannon. It might even work better, ‘cause you could concentrate on the looking and not worry about the playing. Whatta you say, Sissy? Come on and do it with us.”
“I’m going to have to think about this,” Suzy said slowly. “We’ll talk again in the morning. Right now, I’m tired. Would you two gentlemen mind to walk me home?”
“Well, he’s already done that by spying on us for days. It’s either that or we keep looking over our shoulders wondering what he’s gonna pull. ‘Cause I know he’s gonna pull something on us. I can feel it, Jack. And anyway, I was gonna wait till a bit later to bring this up, but we’re gonna have to think about moving on soon, anyway.”
“What’er you talkin’ about? Movin’ on? Movin’ on to where? Why? We gotta a pretty good thing going on here, Sissy, why should we leave?”
Suzy sighed. Sometimes she forgot how naive Jack still was, even with all the conning people out of their money they did every day. Patiently, she explained, “That’s just it, Jack, we’ve about milked this cow dry. We can’t keep working the same areas, even in different guises. We risk one of our former pigeons overhearing us or recognizing us and exposing us. We really need to stop everything but Bluff playing, especially now that Shannon is onto us. We can rely on the Bluff games for a while, but we only cover expenses with those most weeks. If Shannon plays along with us, we’ll have to let him have his share of the pots as well or he may expose us. Now why don’t you run over to his place and invite him to come along with us?”
“Why don’t you?” Jack sulked. He always hated it when his sister was right and he knew she was right about this.
“Now Jack, you know it wouldn’t be proper for me to go running across to Mr. O’Dell’s room. We may be grifters but we can still try to maintain a certain level of respectability, even in our current circumstances. Now go on over and tell Mr. Shannon to stop by about nine o’clock and we’ll walk over to the The Smiling Cat together.”
The evening at the Smiling Cat, while not a total disaster, was not one of Jack or Suzy’s better evenings playing cards. Suzy found herself much more distracted by Shannon and those blue eyes than she would have expected, so she missed her opponent’s tells on several crucial hands. This put more money in the hands of the other players than she and Jack normally allowed.
Jack seemed to be having his own problems tracking the cards being played and without Suzy’s signals at the proper time, he lost some hands he should have won.
Shannon, on the other hand, was having a fine night. He wasn’t as distracted by Suzy as she was by him and he had long ago trained himself to show few tells that his opponents could pick up. That, coupled with the fact that he, also, could deal cards from anywhere in the deck virtually undetected made his evening quite a lucrative one.
Generally, Jack and Suzy would play until midnight or so. But tonight, Suzy called it quits shortly after eleven, when the table took a break. She and Jack normally arrived and left separately, so as to maintain the facade of mere acquaintances. They always agreed before hand where they would meet up when they left and Suzy was waiting in front of the Brickhouse Bar when Jack strolled up with Shannon. Suzy hadn’t expected Shannon to leave the game since he was doing so well, much less come with Jack to meet her. It also surprised her when Shannon offered to buy them a drink as a consolation for their rough evening.
They found an out of the way corner table in the Brickhouse and ordered their drinks. Shannon and Jack both found they had a taste for cheap wine and Suzy surprised Shannon by ordering a glass of their best whiskey straight up. As they drank, the talk turned to the night’s game.
“You both seemed to be a mite upset at how the cards fell tonight,” Shannon said, not offering any hint of his contribution to their problem, “Everybody has an off night now and again.”
“We don’t,” Jack said flatly, “Not how we play.”
Suzy kicked him under the table. She wasn’t ready to be sharing their particular Bluff strategies with Shannon quite yet, but it looked like she wasn’t being given any choice in the matter, as Jack went on.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d be dealin’ crooked? I woulda worked with ya, if I’d a’known you were pullin’ ‘em out at your leisure. It took me most the night to figure out it was you that was messin’ me up.”
Shannon was taken aback. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had caught onto how he was dealing. He’d gotten caught quite a bit at first, of course, until he had practiced on his fellow deck hands and refined his technique but that had been back before the war when he was working deckhand on various riverboats up and down the Mississippi, watching the gamblers at night.
“Well. . .uh. . .I. . .I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack,” Shannon said , trying to bluff his way out of it.
“Oh, come on, now, Shannon,” Jack cajoled. “I could tell, once I started looking for it. Back when ol' Henry was teaching Suzy and me to play, he also taught us how to spot cheaters. You was dealing them cards from the top, bottom and middle.”
Shannon had the good grace to blush lightly. “Well, why didn’t you turn me in? I was winning and you weren’t.”
“You came in on my introduction, Shannon. It wouldn’t looked too good, if I’d called you out after bringing you in. Them fellers would’ve beat the hell outta both of us, if we were lucky. Besides, why didn’t you turn me and Suzy in after you realized what we were up to?”
“I have no love for lawmen. Most of ‘em are dirtier than the folks they’re locking up. I have to say, I was impressed that two kids that had grown up with everything being done for them had adapted so well to life on the shadier side of the street. What made you stray from the good path?”
“We got some experience on the shadier side, as you call it, before the war,” Suzy cut in. “We were helping slaves escape North whenever we could. Jack and I didn’t abide keeping and owing other human beings. It didn’t seem right, seeing as how this country was founded on the principle that all men were supposed to be created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Once I got old enough and figured out what was going on, I decided to do what I could to see that those that wanted to flee had the opportunity. Jack made the same decision as me when he got to be of an age, as well. So we learned to lie and sneak around in service of others. We decided it was time
to lie and sneak in service of ourselves for a change. ‘Specially since we don’t have what you’d call any useful skills.”
“But you owned slaves,” Shannon replied. “How’d you reconcile that?”
“Those were are Daddy’s slaves, not ours,” Suzy explained. “We had no choice about that. But we treated everyone with respect and when we could, we helped more than a few disappear. Daddy was always fuming about his ‘ungrateful’ slaves running off from him, but we were very careful. Not only did nobody we helped ever get caught, but nobody, not even Daddy, suspected it was us that was helping,” she finished with a laugh.
“So who was this ole Henry that taught y’all to play cards and catch cheaters?”
“Oh, that was Daddy’s old waiting man and our mammy’s husband. He started off just showing us how to play to keep us amused, but we both kinda showed a talent for it, so’s he started teaching us more serious like when we got a little older. I seem to have a knack for catching people in a bluff or know when they’re holding a pretty good hand. Jack here has learned how to shuffle and deal pretty much any card he wants out of the deck. Between the two of us, we’ve managed to sort out some signals for each other that improve our chances of winning the hand.”
“I see,” Shannon said thoughtfully, scratching his chin, “I was debating whether I was gonna say anything to the both of you about this, but I reckon I will. I think if we work together, we could take it all.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked.
“The reason I got off in St. Louis and quit the riverboat gambling is to go and try my hand at this here big Bluff tournament in Independence, Kansas. Grand prize is a hundred gold dollars plus winner take all. Cost ten gold to buy in. I was gonna win my stake here in St. Louis before I head out. We’ll need to leave in five days if we want to make it in time.”
“I’m in,” Jack said immediately. “We’ll need to work out our signals with each other, so we can nail it. Are there other prizes?”
“Second spot gets fifty dollars. And of course, depending on the number of players, the winner gets the pot. Not a bad return on your money.”
“We’ll have to talk about it. Twenty is almost half of what we’ve saved to head west on,” Suzy said.
“Uh, well. . . yeah. . .about that. . .You’ll only need to come up with ten. Apparently, the man that’s running the thing got a problem with women playing cards. He don’t mind ‘em hanging about with their men and such, but he ain’t allowing no women nor coloreds to buy into the game.”
Suzy looked away annoyed. She had been ready to cast her lot in with Shannon to see if they could sweep the game, but not being allowed to play made her want to skip it. She had gotten pretty used to being able to do as she pleased. Jack was willing to follow her lead on most things and they didn’t have anyone else trying to run their life for a change. Having someone tell her she couldn’t do something because she was a woman had always chafed and her new-found freedom had only increased that feeling.
“I’m sorry, Suzy,” Jack said softly. “I know hearing that makes you angry, but you would still be able to hang around the table and signal me and Shannon. It might even work better, ‘cause you could concentrate on the looking and not worry about the playing. Whatta you say, Sissy? Come on and do it with us.”
“I’m going to have to think about this,” Suzy said slowly. “We’ll talk again in the morning. Right now, I’m tired. Would you two gentlemen mind to walk me home?”
Monday, March 5, 2007
Ain't no Winners in This Game - pt 2
Shannon had been watching the fair and beautiful Suzy for several days. He first ran across her and her companion as they collected for Civil War widows and orphans as he arrived off a riverboat up from Memphis. He was initially drawn in by her familiarity but couldn’t place where he had seen her before. He hung around the waterfront, discreetly mingling with the bustling crowd, until Suzy and the man with her packed it up for the day. He followed them at a safe distance as they made their way across St. Louis to a more worn-out area than their clothing would have suggested they lived. He watched as they entered a large, ramshackle house and waited until he saw lanterns lit in the upstairs rooms. He then strode across the street to inquire about the room they had for rent.
After following Suzy and Jack around St. Louis for several days watching them operate their different swindles on the unsuspecting populace, he finally saw Suzy without any of her disguises. It instantly clicked, she was the young woman from the farm his regiment had spent two days camped near sometime in the second year of the war. He remembered a young boy there, too, and wondered if the young man with her was the same boy.
He also remembered playing a little Bluff with her, the boy and some of the other men from his regiment. He and the other men got quite tight on some homemade whiskey the girl had brought out. After that things got real fuzzy. He does remember, however, that for the next several days after they left the farm things went very badly for them. It was as if those damn bluecoats had known exactly where they were and what they were going to do. He wondered if somehow the girl had been involved in that. But that was over and done with. Now, he just wanted to figure out if he could somehow turn some of their rackets to his benefit. He also needed to remember her name.
For several days, Suzy had noticed the same man hanging around wherever she and Jack ended up working that day’s game. It was beginning to unnerve her, not only because she was constantly seeing him, but she had the feeling that she knew him from somewhere. It was his eyes. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen and she was sure she had seen them somewhere before. One afternoon as they were winding up that day’s work in peddling fake mining shares, she asked Jack, “Have you noticed that feller over there, Jack? I’ve seen him hanging ‘round now for several days. Do you recognize him?”
Jack looked in Shannon’s direction and squinted, “Yeah, I’ve noticed him, too. He’s starting to make me a little nervous. Hope he’s not the law. But, naw, he don’t look familiar to me. Uh-oh, here he comes.”
Shannon, realizing his stalking had finally been noticed, sauntered over to Jack and Suzy. He still couldn’t remember their names but he had recalled that their daddy had been referred to as “Massa Clay” by the old colored man that had still been living on the farm. “Miss Clay, Mr. Clay,” he said, taking a chance that it was the brother, “what a surprise to run into you here. I’m sure you were wondering who I was just hanging around for several days, but I was only trying to remember where I knew you from and your names. I only just this moment, recalled the where and the who. Since I know no one in St. Louis, I was hoping to introduce myself to some familiar faces. My name is Shannon O’Dell. My regiment stayed near your farm during the war and you and your father were most kind to all of us. How is your father?”
Suzy, who had been prepared to assert that he was mistaken, suddenly remembered the face surrounding those blue eyes. She remembered him through the firelight as they had played Bluff that night. He always seemed to be staring at her whenever she looked his way. Staring intently, that is, until the liquor started to take effect and those blue eyes started to glaze. Between the whiskey and the infusion of Mammy’s hemp resin tea that Suzy added to the whiskey, the men playing cards became very relaxed and talkative. With proper, yet subtle, questioning and deference on Suzy’s part, she managed to draw out the entire regiment’s movements and plans for the next several weeks. That had ended up getting the farm some much needed food and supplies from the Union regiment that came through only a few days later.
So she guessed she’d better own up and she and Jack could sort out later what the implications of Shannon’s arrival on the scene might be. “Well, how do you do, Mr. O’Dell, surrah? I do remember you at our farm. That was a fine game of Bluff we played that evening. Do you remember my brother, Jack?”
“I wondered if this was the young lad all growed up. . .and please, call me Shannon. I must confess, however, that I have forgotten your first name.”
“It was Suzanna, but I go by Suzy now. And I’m using my mother’s name now,
Prescott. Jack is now Jack Straw. When we decided to leave everything behind, that included the Clay family name.”
“I imagine yer Daddy wern’t pleased to hear that.”
“Our father was killed by a Union soldier not too long after your regiment passed through,” Suzy replied.
“My condolences, Miss Clay, um, uh, Miss Prescott. How difficult that must have made everything for you.”
“We managed to get by, but after the war ended, we didn’t really feel like staying in the area. It took us a while to plan it, but we decided to come to St. Louis and see if we wanted to stay here or move on west. We really need to be getting back to our room now to freshen up for the evening. It was nice to make your acquaintance again, Mr. O’Dell. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again.” Suzy said, not with complete dread.
“Oh, I’ll just walk along with y’all. It just so happens while I was trying to figure out where I knew you from, I followed you back to your rooms and happened upon the house across the street with a room they were willing to let to me. Very fortunate, I’d say.”
A little too fortunate, Suzy thought nervously.
Later, in their rooms, Suzy and Jack discussed this disquieting turn of events.
“It was bound to happen,” Jack said. “Somebody who recognized one of us was bound to come through St. Louis sooner or later. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of them righteous Manchester busybodies who’d want to ask all kinds of questions about what we were doing here.”
Suzy frowned. “Not that I’m complaining, but don’t you think it odd, that Shannon followed us around for three or four days and never turned us in to the law. He didn’t hide himself to us when we was working our marks, but I sure didn’t notice him when he followed us. He had to know we were pulling scams right from the start. He saw us in our disguises. That worries me mightly. He’s up to something. We need to watch him very carefully. And,” she paused, “you’re not going to like this, but I think the best way to keep an eye on him is to invite him to join us tonight at the card game. We need to get to know Mr. O’Dell a little better.”
“You’re right. I don’t like that one damn bit. We’ve got a pretty good scheme going here and we’ve been getting along just fine by ourselves. Why you want’en to bring anyone else close in to us?”
“Well, he’s already done that by spying on us for days. It’s either that or we keep looking over our shoulders wondering what he’s gonna pull. ‘Cause I know he’s gonna pull something on us. I can feel it, Jack. And anyway, I was gonna wait till a bit later to bring this up, but we’re gonna have to think about moving on soon, anyway.”
“What’er you talkin’ about? Movin’ on? Movin’ on to where? Why? We gotta a pretty good thing going on here, Sissy, why should we leave?”
Suzy sighed. Sometimes she forgot how naive Jack still was, even with all the conning people out of their money they did every day. Patiently, she explained, “That’s just it, Jack, we’ve about milked this cow dry. We can’t keep working the same areas, even in different guises. We risk one of our former pigeons overhearing us or recognizing us and exposing us. We really need to stop everything but Bluff playing, especially now that Shannon is onto us. We can rely on the Bluff games for a while, but we only cover expenses with those most weeks. If Shannon plays along with us, we’ll have to let him have his share of the pots as well or he may expose us. Now why don’t you run over to his place and invite him to come along with us?”
“Why don’t you?” Jack sulked. He always hated it when his sister was right and he knew she was right about this.
“Now Jack, you know it wouldn’t be proper for me to go running across to Mr. O’Dell’s room. We may be grifters but we can still try to maintain a certain level of respectability, even in our current circumstances. Now go on over and tell Mr. Shannon to stop by about nine o’clock and we’ll walk over to the The Smiling Cat together.”
After following Suzy and Jack around St. Louis for several days watching them operate their different swindles on the unsuspecting populace, he finally saw Suzy without any of her disguises. It instantly clicked, she was the young woman from the farm his regiment had spent two days camped near sometime in the second year of the war. He remembered a young boy there, too, and wondered if the young man with her was the same boy.
He also remembered playing a little Bluff with her, the boy and some of the other men from his regiment. He and the other men got quite tight on some homemade whiskey the girl had brought out. After that things got real fuzzy. He does remember, however, that for the next several days after they left the farm things went very badly for them. It was as if those damn bluecoats had known exactly where they were and what they were going to do. He wondered if somehow the girl had been involved in that. But that was over and done with. Now, he just wanted to figure out if he could somehow turn some of their rackets to his benefit. He also needed to remember her name.
For several days, Suzy had noticed the same man hanging around wherever she and Jack ended up working that day’s game. It was beginning to unnerve her, not only because she was constantly seeing him, but she had the feeling that she knew him from somewhere. It was his eyes. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen and she was sure she had seen them somewhere before. One afternoon as they were winding up that day’s work in peddling fake mining shares, she asked Jack, “Have you noticed that feller over there, Jack? I’ve seen him hanging ‘round now for several days. Do you recognize him?”
Jack looked in Shannon’s direction and squinted, “Yeah, I’ve noticed him, too. He’s starting to make me a little nervous. Hope he’s not the law. But, naw, he don’t look familiar to me. Uh-oh, here he comes.”
Shannon, realizing his stalking had finally been noticed, sauntered over to Jack and Suzy. He still couldn’t remember their names but he had recalled that their daddy had been referred to as “Massa Clay” by the old colored man that had still been living on the farm. “Miss Clay, Mr. Clay,” he said, taking a chance that it was the brother, “what a surprise to run into you here. I’m sure you were wondering who I was just hanging around for several days, but I was only trying to remember where I knew you from and your names. I only just this moment, recalled the where and the who. Since I know no one in St. Louis, I was hoping to introduce myself to some familiar faces. My name is Shannon O’Dell. My regiment stayed near your farm during the war and you and your father were most kind to all of us. How is your father?”
Suzy, who had been prepared to assert that he was mistaken, suddenly remembered the face surrounding those blue eyes. She remembered him through the firelight as they had played Bluff that night. He always seemed to be staring at her whenever she looked his way. Staring intently, that is, until the liquor started to take effect and those blue eyes started to glaze. Between the whiskey and the infusion of Mammy’s hemp resin tea that Suzy added to the whiskey, the men playing cards became very relaxed and talkative. With proper, yet subtle, questioning and deference on Suzy’s part, she managed to draw out the entire regiment’s movements and plans for the next several weeks. That had ended up getting the farm some much needed food and supplies from the Union regiment that came through only a few days later.
So she guessed she’d better own up and she and Jack could sort out later what the implications of Shannon’s arrival on the scene might be. “Well, how do you do, Mr. O’Dell, surrah? I do remember you at our farm. That was a fine game of Bluff we played that evening. Do you remember my brother, Jack?”
“I wondered if this was the young lad all growed up. . .and please, call me Shannon. I must confess, however, that I have forgotten your first name.”
“It was Suzanna, but I go by Suzy now. And I’m using my mother’s name now,
Prescott. Jack is now Jack Straw. When we decided to leave everything behind, that included the Clay family name.”
“I imagine yer Daddy wern’t pleased to hear that.”
“Our father was killed by a Union soldier not too long after your regiment passed through,” Suzy replied.
“My condolences, Miss Clay, um, uh, Miss Prescott. How difficult that must have made everything for you.”
“We managed to get by, but after the war ended, we didn’t really feel like staying in the area. It took us a while to plan it, but we decided to come to St. Louis and see if we wanted to stay here or move on west. We really need to be getting back to our room now to freshen up for the evening. It was nice to make your acquaintance again, Mr. O’Dell. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again.” Suzy said, not with complete dread.
“Oh, I’ll just walk along with y’all. It just so happens while I was trying to figure out where I knew you from, I followed you back to your rooms and happened upon the house across the street with a room they were willing to let to me. Very fortunate, I’d say.”
A little too fortunate, Suzy thought nervously.
Later, in their rooms, Suzy and Jack discussed this disquieting turn of events.
“It was bound to happen,” Jack said. “Somebody who recognized one of us was bound to come through St. Louis sooner or later. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of them righteous Manchester busybodies who’d want to ask all kinds of questions about what we were doing here.”
Suzy frowned. “Not that I’m complaining, but don’t you think it odd, that Shannon followed us around for three or four days and never turned us in to the law. He didn’t hide himself to us when we was working our marks, but I sure didn’t notice him when he followed us. He had to know we were pulling scams right from the start. He saw us in our disguises. That worries me mightly. He’s up to something. We need to watch him very carefully. And,” she paused, “you’re not going to like this, but I think the best way to keep an eye on him is to invite him to join us tonight at the card game. We need to get to know Mr. O’Dell a little better.”
“You’re right. I don’t like that one damn bit. We’ve got a pretty good scheme going here and we’ve been getting along just fine by ourselves. Why you want’en to bring anyone else close in to us?”
“Well, he’s already done that by spying on us for days. It’s either that or we keep looking over our shoulders wondering what he’s gonna pull. ‘Cause I know he’s gonna pull something on us. I can feel it, Jack. And anyway, I was gonna wait till a bit later to bring this up, but we’re gonna have to think about moving on soon, anyway.”
“What’er you talkin’ about? Movin’ on? Movin’ on to where? Why? We gotta a pretty good thing going on here, Sissy, why should we leave?”
Suzy sighed. Sometimes she forgot how naive Jack still was, even with all the conning people out of their money they did every day. Patiently, she explained, “That’s just it, Jack, we’ve about milked this cow dry. We can’t keep working the same areas, even in different guises. We risk one of our former pigeons overhearing us or recognizing us and exposing us. We really need to stop everything but Bluff playing, especially now that Shannon is onto us. We can rely on the Bluff games for a while, but we only cover expenses with those most weeks. If Shannon plays along with us, we’ll have to let him have his share of the pots as well or he may expose us. Now why don’t you run over to his place and invite him to come along with us?”
“Why don’t you?” Jack sulked. He always hated it when his sister was right and he knew she was right about this.
“Now Jack, you know it wouldn’t be proper for me to go running across to Mr. O’Dell’s room. We may be grifters but we can still try to maintain a certain level of respectability, even in our current circumstances. Now go on over and tell Mr. Shannon to stop by about nine o’clock and we’ll walk over to the The Smiling Cat together.”
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