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.”