Hate by Margaret P.

(With thanks to my betas Terri Derr and Suzanne Lyte) (2016)

Chapter 1 (Words: 1,833)

Johnny bit the cotton and admired his handiwork. His hiding gun fit snugly into its new home.

"You playin', kid, or you still mendin' your drawers?"

Johnny glanced over his shoulder. Moses Lloyd was undoing his rig at the living end of the bunkhouse while Bronco and Stevens, two of the cowboys they'd escorted back from the line shack, were pouring coffee.

"No money 'til pay day. I'm flat broke."

"You want to pace yourself, boyo. Too many wag-tails in one night will ruin you for when you find a real woman." Taking his seat, Lloyd tapped ash from his stogie into an old tin can and checked what he had in his pockets. "I owe you something for hoodwinking Old Lucifer's men last week. I'll stand you a couple of dollars. You can pay me back on Saturday."

"Yeah? Thanks." Sticking the needle back into the leather, Johnny rolled up his sewing kit and stashed it at the bottom of his saddlebag. He shimmied into his trousers, making sure his drawers didn't bunch. There wasn't much room to spare in calzoneras for underwear, but it sure beat chafing. He could feel the solid weight of the Philadelphia Deringer against his back as he tightened his belt. This would be a good test; see if anyone noticed. He sauntered over and grabbed a stool to sit on. "What we playing?"

"Poker. These two play like shit. Hope you know an ace from a jack."

"You wait, old man. I'm going to clean you out." Bronco picked up his cards and cupped them away from prying eyes.

Johnny checked his hand. He could already tell what Bronco's was like. Watching hundreds of games of poker and faro as a youngster had some advantages. Reading people and memorizing cards had become second nature. With luck, by the end of the evening, he'd be able to pay Lloyd back and win enough money to wet his whistle until the end of the week. Then when the boss coughed up another week's pay, he might really enjoy a sporting girl or two. In the meantime, he was happy. The gun he'd bought last pay day was stashed neatly in its pocket and no one at the table had caught on it was there.

An hour or so later he was on a winning streak. He'd given Lloyd his stake money back and was building a respectable stack of copper and silver on the table next to him.

"Make some room, gents." Caleb Poole hitched his rig to the hook next to his bunk and carried a chair over to the table. He placed it down backwards, then swung a leg over and planted himself on top, a huge grin on his face.

"What you so goddamned happy about?" Lloyd shuffled the pack and began to deal. "You and Kearney should've been back hours ago."

"There's a gambling man in town." The wrangler, Kearney, spat his tobacco on the floor and sat down too. "Right friendly."

"More important, I reckon he's over the hill." Poole sorted his cards and frowned. "Let me in the game with only two dollars, and I won two more right off. I would've cleaned him out if I could've stayed."

Leaning on one elbow, Johnny tossed a quarter into the pot. He smirked behind his hand. Yeah, right, a cardsharp who ain't no good at cards.

"He was a real gent about losing. Offered us both cigars. Said we could join his table anytime." Poole scratched his ribs as Bronco and then Kearney folded. "See you."

Stevens called too, and Lloyd did the same. "Holy shit, boyo. Leave some for the rest of us."

Johnny grinned. He picked up the coins from the middle of the table and started a new stack. "Beginner's luck." He'd have to slow down. Didn't want to get on the bad side of the man who decided if he rode in a dust bath kicked up by beeves or had a little fun outsmarting the other cattle baron's hired guns. This was the biggest range war Johnny had ever been part of. He'd kept his head down the first few weeks, but now he was getting into the swing of things. He learned one thing early: the owner of Oakridge ordered the regular hands around plenty, even though he had a foreman, but he didn't divvy up the chores to the gunhawks. That was Holy Moses's job.

Poole picked up his new cards. "We've a mind to go back to the Silver Dollar Saturday after we get our wages. You coming, kid?"

They were only playing for nickels and dimes. There'd be dollars on Saturday. Now he'd let the cat out of the bag that he could play, it couldn't do no harm. It could be a chance to win some real dinero. "Maybe."

"He'll come. They all will." Kearney waggled his eyebrows and showed off tobacco-stained teeth. "They'll want a look-see at that fancy doodad."

"I reckon." Poole snickered and began to scratch his whiskers. Something moved in the stubble. "The old speeler gave us a light see, and let me tell you that match safe of his weren't no ordinary box."

"Whooee, the picture on it would make a preacher horny. This fella and jezebel: butt naked and belly-bumping." Kearney grabbed his crotch and heehawed like a jackass. "Dang, if Saturday ain't a long way off."

Most of the men at the table laughed up a storm with Kearney, demanding more details and making crude comments. Johnny just stared at his cards. A banked-up fire flared deep down in his gut. Only one cardsharp owned a trinket like that.

Johnny folded with a queen high straight. "I need to take a piss."

He got up from the table and went out back. The outhouse was clear across the yard. Too far for the way he was feeling so he watered the tree behind the barn instead.

"Damn!" Johnny smashed his hand against the rough bark of the tree and then sucked the heel of it. He'd been doing okay. He didn't need this now. But was it him?

When he came back in, he went over to the stove in the corner and poured a mug of coffee. Poole and Kearney were still yammering.

"Mighty big fella for a cardsharp." Kearney was dealing. He was making a real chore of it. Hell, the pack was near new when they started; the way he was handling them cards Johnny would soon be able to tell what was what from the creases on the back. "Don't talk American. Probably got that doodad from wherever he comes from. I ain't seen nothin' like it in these parts afore."

"Dresses like a Mississippi gambler. He's like Lloyd, I reckon; been here awhile."

"Did you see the iron on his hip?"

"Yep, but I betcha he don't know how to use it. Fellas like him are all show."

Johnny sipped his coffee. Poole was a fool. How he ever stayed alive as a gunhawk was a mystery.

The more Johnny heard though, the more certain he became. It had to be his man. It had to be.

He returned to the table, but a strange thrumming filled his head, making it difficult for him to follow play. When he tossed out the wrong card, he decided to call it quits.

Lying on his bed, staring up at the bunk above, he tried to slow down his thoughts. He breathed in and out and in again. Was it him? Was he ready? Would there be another chance?

The others were snoring well before he fell asleep. He didn't need a blanket. The fire inside him was roaring.

He was still warm with it when the first rays of sunlight filtered through the grime and cobwebs on the bunkhouse windows. In his dreams he'd made up his mind; he needed to know for sure if the cardsharp in Santa Fe was his gambler. Creeping outside with boots, rig and saddlebags in hand, he helped himself to food and ammunition from the ranch stores and was long gone by the time the sun topped the hills.

Santa Fe was dead when he rode in. The town didn't start hustling until after ten, but that was all right. It gave him time for some breakfast and more thinking. He changed some of his small coins for dollars at the eating house and scavenged a few empty tin cans from the barrel out back. Then he asked around a little. He was ready and in position by noon. If the gambler was true to form he'd put in an appearance at the saloon for a late breakfast and an afternoon's sport.

Sure enough as Johnny watched from the stagecoach office opposite, a tall man in a black suit, string tie and satin waistcoat crossed the street from the hotel to the Silver Dollar saloon. His silver cufflinks glinted in the sunlight against a starched white shirt as he tipped his hat to a couple of ladies of the line jawing by the hitching rail outside. One of them followed him in.

The son-of-a-bitch hadn't changed much. Not as mountainous as Johnny remembered him, but heck, Johnny had grown some. The gambler was greyer, maybe. He still dressed all high-falutin'—those boots must have set him back a fortune. And what was with that pearl handled piece on his hip? Shit, that dunderhead Poole needed to open his eyes. No cardsharp past his prime could afford a rig like that, and he wouldn't wear it that low slung if he didn't know how to use it. He'd have a Deringer in his pocket and a knife in his boot, and that particular cardsharp sure as hell didn't just use the knife for scraping dirt out from under his nails. Johnny had seen the bastard stab a man's hand clean through just because the loud-mouth cowboy had tried to take back his money.

Johnny slipped out of the doorway as the batwings of the saloon swung shut. He'd seen enough. Poole and Kearney reckoned the gambler would be here until Saturday at least. It seemed likely. Throw out bait to the cowpunchers, pen-pushers and ten-dollar-a-day men during the week, and then relieve them of their wages on Saturday. Move on quick if there was any trouble or do it all again the following pay day if things stayed quiet. Johnny knew how the rattlesnake worked.

He also knew that one ruckus and the gambler could up-root and leave town without notice. Johnny might not get another chance.

He made camp by a creek a mile east of town and wasted no time getting down to business. His pinto gazed at him with steady brown eyes as he walked back from setting up targets: tin cans, rocks and pieces of broken branch.

Johnny rubbed the horse's ears and offered him a handful of oats from his saddle bag. "It's all right, Pícaro. Might get a little noisy, but I'm just practising."

He practised hard for three days, straight shooting and on the move, every which way. He even practised shooting with the Deringer—not that he expected to need it for this, but you never knew. The fire in his belly burned hot. At night he dreamed, and in the morning the embers burst back into flame as soon as he awoke. The devil's face looked back at him from every target. He thought of nothing else.

Was he good enough? Only a fool or a pistolero at the top of his game did what Johnny was aiming to do. But he'd made a promise and he figured to keep it.

Do or die, he'd only get one chance.