Midnight

Prologue – A Run of Bad Luck

It was pitch black outside, but that's what you usually expected at midnight. The only people out at this time of the night were drunks or gamblers, and he certainly wasn't a drunk. That left only one choice. He was standing outside of the Moonlight Saloon in Craigstown, a little hamlet about fifty miles from nowhere, getting ready to light a cigar. Life had not been easy the past few days, and he was glad it was almost time to move on to the next town.

He struck the match up against his boot heel and the light from the flame was the only thing you could see up and down the whole street. Oh, there was plenty of light inside the Moonlight Saloon, just not out here on the street. All the respectable folk in town were long since in bed, and it was just the useless ilk that was still awake.

That's pretty much what he felt like right now, useless ilk. He'd been on a losing streak that never seemed to end, and it was beyond depressing. He'd been through rough patches before, but this one had gone on for days, perhaps weeks. Nothing went his way. If he had a straight, somebody had a bigger one. Two pair in his hands? The man to his left had three of a kind. He held four kings last night and got beaten by four aces. And he knew it was an honest game, because he'd dealt the cards himself. It all started when he turned down that pretty little thing back in Delmont – the little lady named Bessie Dupree who wanted him to – do what? What had she asked him to do for her? Right now he could hardly remember. But nothing seemed to go right after he told her, with a tip of the hat, "No, ma'am, I'm not a bounty hunter. I don't chase down men for money, no matter what they've done that was reprehensible."

That's when everything started to go wrong. He couldn't win at poker. His hotel room was robbed. The sheriff tried to arrest him for 'lookin' like a criminal.' His horse threw a shoe on the way here and he'd had to walk in almost five miles. And worst of all – Dandy Jim Buckley had scammed him out of almost two-thousand dollars. And everything bad that had happened started after his answer to Bessie was 'no.'

Maybe that was the problem. He lit his cigar and gave it some more thought. He wasn't superstitious, just cautious. There was something very odd about the story Bessie told him, and that's what had put him off in the first place. Odd and not quite the whole truth. His instincts told him that, and they'd never failed him before. Why would you try to hire a gambler to chase down a wanted criminal? The problem was, as he saw it, his instincts were telling him right now that he wasn't going to realize an end to this mess until he went back to Delmont and made things right with Miss Bessie. Even if he didn't want to.

Still, his head argued against retracing his steps. He just had a feeling . . . . . . he reached in his pocket for his wallet, the one with his name engraved on the outside flap. It held a twenty dollar gold certificate. Twenty dollars. That was enough to get him started. Or was it? Under normal circumstances, yes, it was. The way he'd been going the last few days, he might as well light his cigar with it. He sighed. That settled it, then. He was going back to Delmont. To hear Miss Bessie's story one more time. And this time he would accept her offer. Whether he liked it or not.

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