Bakerville lies quiet, oblivious. Hell itself might be riding towards it, but it ain't arrived yet, and it seems the town is of a mind that it ought to get a good night's sleep ahead of the fight. But for the brave or the foolhardy, there's a pool of light on the corner opposite the store, and the noise of loud laughing and chairs turned over, of glasses being brought together. In the case of the latter, it's your own good guess whether they are brought together in toast or to be broken. Outside, across the street, the sheriff stands patient against a hitching post, whistling a tune to pass time.
But it's inside, and more precisely at a little table at the end of the bar, where he may soon be required. It's a miner, of course, blackened and barely intelligible, that sits out in the light for all to see. He's got a gap-toothed grin stretched out over his face and a glint in his eyes. It don't take a master poker player to see, he thinks he's got gold in that handful of cards. It don't take one, but anyway that's what he's got.
The man across the table, in the shadows, hangs back quiet against the wall. Beneath his chair one foot taps gently backward, undoing a trick latch on the case below. It moves slowly so the front of it won't drop too hard to the floor and be heard. Then it kicks back again, this time opening up a secret place inside the lid. Because keeping one's cool is alright, and having the sheriff right outside is alright, and having a good friend in the venerable keeper of this old saloon (and in her shotgun), that's alright too. It's just nothing beats having a little artillery of your own right close at hand. He's never had to take the Colt out and fire it. Doesn't mean tonight ain't the night.
The miner pushes his money forward, all of it, and lays out his cards. Three wise men and a pair of eights. The man in the shadows nods, because there's no contesting, that's a beautiful hand. He appreciates it like the connoisseurs back out East appreciate fine art. But the Miner thinks he's nodding because he's beat. He reaches out to scoop home the pot, laughing quiet to himself. Asking himself, maybe, what all those other men were talking about, what they could've possibly meant, when they told him this shill was tough.
A long white hand, all bones, stretches out of the dark and stops him.
He puts out his own cards at the curling edge of the baize he carries rolled up in the case. A five and an eight and a nine and a seven and a six. It don't sound like much but they all have those pretty red hearts on them. Put in order, they look pretty good.
The miner unfolds his hands, and sits back. But he doesn't move from the table. The card player doesn't reach either, and the money sits between them like live dynamite. Something of that old grin, though with none of its joy, returns to the miner's face. "Them's marked cards," he snarls.
And the player says blithely, "Well, alright." He picks up the five of hearts from amongst his own and plants his elbow on the table. The card is held up and slowly turned around and around between his fingers. "You tell me how that card's marked, and every last cent on the table is yours." He turns it and turns it. He suffers to have it snatched away and turned and turned in better like. And now, again, his foot is at work beneath the chair, moving the case forward, bringing the gun into easy reach. He can picture it – he'd drop down to avoid a blow, arm raised to protect himself if the table was overturned on him. Snatch the gun out of its straps and be back on his feet before a second fist could follow. He can picture it and his heart beats for the first time in about a week.
Just a flutter, just the once, but as close as he gets these days to a pulse.
It dies again when the miner throws the card back down and leaves his fight behind. It's the others, that group waiting for him. They've all been to this table at least once before. They've all accused these cards of being marked. They're already laughing at him, without him starting the same fight most of them have already lost. He lets it go.
The player gathers the deck and sinks back into his corner. One hand cuts and shuffles. It was only moments ago, but he finds he can't recall, not the tiniest detail, of how it felt to feel awake again. He never can, and it never does last long enough to be enjoyed. He sighs, and beneath his chair kicks shut the trick flap and the case lid again.
Glass rattles nearby. His ears prick, in case it's meant to be broken for him, but it's tumblers on a tray, being collected. He can tell without looking; there's a whisper of a skirt hem that trails along with it. There are steps too, and from their speed and size and daintiness, he doesn't raise his head to say, "Good evening, Miss Hooper." No reply. Now he looks up, finding her gathering his glass and the miner's, seeing her fine brown furrowed. He sits forward. Not much, just enough to see her better, and to be seen himself. "What's got you vexed?"
She flusters and ruffles and bustles until there are no more distractions to clean up. By then his gaze has gotten to her, and she mutters at him, "You ought be more careful about flaying the shirts off men's backs."
"Now, I don't know; an indecency trial might be worth it, if only to see the look on my brother's face-"
He laughs, silent, and she slaps his shaking shoulder. "Right before they hang you, which is only if you ain't been skinned already by these you see over my shoulder here."
But thugs don't scare him as they do the slip of a waitress. Why, they don't even quicken his blood these days. So he sighs, and says the very cruellest thing he can possibly imagine to say; "Ain't you kind, to think so highly of my skin."
The blush climbs fast out of Miss Hooper's neckline and does not stop until it reaches her hair, and even then it continues to deepen. She averts her eyes, and with a shaking fingertip taps one of the glasses on the tray. "Another, Mr Holmes?"
"Thank you kindly."
She patters away now. Good. Ain't that what she's for? Taking away empty glasses and bringing full ones, ain't that her job? Good. Let her go away. Let her leave him in peace, to wait for the next challenger stupid enough or drunk enough to forget all those who've come before. There'll be plenty of them. There always are. Ain't much else to do in a place like Bakerville. Let Miss Hooper go. She ought to patter right on and on and on to the next stagecoach headed anywhere but here.
It's not quite that Holmes is still watching her, only that he can see her reflection in the dark of the window. She has missed a glass on a table near the door, and performs half a pretty pirouette to pick it up. That next step afterward is meant to turn her around. It doesn't do it quick enough, and brings her spinning into someone just arriving. The reflection isn't too clear, but a gentleman of some sort – he brings up one hand to steady her rattled tray. When the other hand doesn't appear at all, Holmes knows; that hand is on top of a cane, no doubt pushing down hard, supporting a bad leg shocked to shaking by the collision. He takes the briefest, most casual glance and confirms, none of this showing on the man's face. Maybe an extra line to the forehead, a tightening at the jaw, but that's all, and Miss Hooper sees nothing but the smile he puts on for her.
This man, who is the farrier at the livery stables, is obviously a fool. Smile at a woman when all you want to do is cuss every word in the tongue at her, that's a fool's work.
Still, when he hitches up at the bar and tips his hat to Holmes, Holmes tips his hat back. And when Miss Hooper comes back with his drink, her eyes are on the farrier when she says, "Maybe you oughta try drinking with somebody sometime."
It's the very cruellest thing she can think to say to him.
Holmes decides to try it, this foolish business of smiling when you want to do anything but. He forces it on and studies her while he knocks away the amber belt and begins to roll up his baize for the evening. "Why, Miss Hooper," and he lets that semblance of happiness colour his words so that the sound of them is the same discordant music as the glasses and the bottles and the laughter and the feet in here, "and here was me thinking you were a respectable sort."
She turns an even more alarming shade of red than before and does it twice as fast. He picks up his case and leaves her fuming, stamping her foot in that shadowy corner. Let the farrier comfort her. Isn't that what makes those smiles worthwhile? Yes, Holmes thinks and resolves himself to believe it, he has done them a favour this night.
Not feeling like a man who has done a favour at all, he steps out into the stifling night. Without so much as a breeze to lift it, a fine drift of red dust has settled everywhere, gets in everywhere, can't be gotten out of everywhere. Long term residents are accustomed to it. They seem hardly to notice this pernicious invasion. Holmes notices. It bothers him. With the tip of his finger he brushes it out of the creases at the sides of his nose.
There's no one but the Sheriff around to see him.
He tries to get away with the tipping of his hat again. He puts his head down and makes his walk purposeful, determined. Yes, sir, he tries to say, straight home with me. After all, as well as the law know not to venture inside of Hudson's, Holmes knows not to try plying his trade outside of it. The drunks and forty-niners and the ones that think they're smart, those are all fair game. The Sheriff allows that. But if Holmes were to start fleecing the true citizens, well, that'd be the tale of a whole other horse.
He hasn't gotten far when the clatter of the Sheriff's too-large, too-bright spurs catches up and falls into step. They're for show, the spurs. They're a mark of importance and wealth. Holmes has never seen them put to use on a horse. He couldn't give words to why, but he respects that.
"Why is it," he begins, "you always feel the need to walk me home?"
The Sheriff stops whistling and laughs, a deep rumbling chuckle that comes out of places further south, out of dark, wet land full of mosquitoes. "It's the French blood," he replies. "Gives a man an instinct, to know where the trouble's going to be."
"I'm flattered." Where two ways part, Holmes tries to turn out of town. Down that road, up a wooden stairwell on a side street, up to his own rooms. Isn't that what's wanted here? But the Sheriff stands resolutely in his way, facing the other direction. Holmes glances back, over his shoulder. Up a slight incline so it catches all that moonlight, white-painted and just glowing like it thinks it's the Kingdom of Heaven itself, the church sits square and harsh right where he can see. He tosses his head from side to side, making a big show of the decision that was made in an eyeblink. "Ah, it's a nice idea, Lestrade, but don't you think it's a little late to go visiting? Maybe I'll call on him in the morning, after his early services."
The Sheriff's arm winds against his, just tight and for just long enough to turn him around, to start the two of them amiably side by side up the hill. "You are a considerate fellow, Mr Holmes. But really, no need to worry! The pastor has asked to see you tonight. He asked me to watch out for you special, and to send you his way. He asked me, too, to see that you reached him safely."
They continue on, another four or five steps, before Holmes shakes his head. He doesn't stop walking, but turns on his heel and makes sure he's travelling in a direction he likes.
Lestrade stops dead behind him. From the way it colours his words, from having so recently heard the same tone on his own voice, Holmes knows he's grinning ear to ear, "Now where is it you think you are going, hm?"
"Could be the pastor wants to see me. I don't want to see the pastor."
Another step or two. Maybe that's that. Maybe he's getting away. And yes, there'll be a price and tomorrow morning he'll pay it, but right now, maybe he's getting away. But the Sheriff calls out, "Tell me, what sort of winnings are you carrying in that case of yours? I don't mean to pry. I only thought, it would truly be a pity if some low creature were to go back into that bar and talk up loud, how much it might be. Gives me the feeling something just terrible might befall you, no?"
One more time, Holmes turns. The words, You wouldn't, get as far as his lips before they almost make him laugh. With a grimace, he closes that gap between them again and goes further, stalking past Lestrade with the case tucked safe under his arm. "Tell me, Sheriff, is it the French blood makes you a corrupt sum'bitch too?"