"So, will ye be callin' or foldin'?" Sam said with a harsh voice, thick with mountain accent. He shifted slightly on his seat and looked intently at his opponent across the table. The man looked like someone straight out of San Francisco instead of the seedy saloon in Darkwood March. His black hair was cut clean and short though almost all of it hidden underneath a small, wide-brimmed hat. His chin and cheeks were shaved clean but he had a groomed moustache on his upper lip. His eyes were gray and hard as rock. The man was wearing a suit as gray as his eyes and he stared intently at his cards. At the sound of the other man's words he raised his eyes towards Sam sitting across from him.
Sam was almost the exact opposite of his opponent. He had dirty, messy dark hair which fell onto his shoulders in a tangle. The stubble on his cheeks and chin was of the same color but his eyes were even darker. He was wearing a striped, old dress shirt, now stained with blood, grease and whatever else and buckskin leggings. He was also wearing a duster even though they were indoors. Sam's cards were laid face down on the table but he had glass full of whisky in his right hand.
The clean cut man looked quickly to his left and then to his right. The other two players were a local trademaster George Mitchum and a wanderer whose name no one knew but they had already folded so they were of no consequence. A crowd had gathered around the table for the pot had grown surprisingly large for a small saloon like the one in Darkwood March. There were the whores of the saloonkeeper Kip Ramins, the general store owner Timothy Garrett, some of the prospectors from the nearby hills, more than a few wanderers coming from the north on their way to either San Francisco or Carson City. He even spotted the local sheriff eyeing the game while holding a conversation with an upper class woman.
Sam downed the whisky in his glass and slammed the glass on the table. "Come on, we haven't all day." He grabbed the bottle on the table and poured himself another drink. The clean cut man just stared at him. Sam shifted nervously in his seat.
"The civilized fellow is playing Sam. He is gonna lose", came a murmur from the crowd. Sam quickly turned towards the whispering and gave them an evil stare. The sounds were cut short. Sam was well known for his temper in Darkwood March. There was an incident some six months back when he had run into a border argument with a neighbouring title-holder, Edward Fiddlemarch. The supposed border ran along a small stream coming down from the hills and Fiddlemarch had claimed it as his own after discovering silver in it when getting water for his coffee. When Sam had heard about it, he came acalling to Fiddlemarch's cabin with an axe. The incident left Fiddlemarch without three of his fingers and his cabin without a door. Another time a wanderer only known as Lucky-Jack had been a little bit too lucky to Sam's mind and had been shot dead in where he sat. As it turned out, the man's luck was due to his ability to cheat in cards so Sam was only fined for killing the man.
"I'spose that you fold with all that silence", Sam said and made a grab for the money in the table.
"Hold it", came a command as sharp as a razor. Sam's hand stopped right over the money and he turned to look at the clean cut man. The man was gazing right back at him. "I call", he said. Sam retreated his hand slowly while his face turned into a scowl. He drank the whisky in his glass slowly and settled it calmly down.
"Fine, Mr. Cisco." Sam turned his cards face up. He had two pairs, kings and fives. Sam reached for the whisky bottle and poured himself a third drink and drank it as soon as he had put the bottle down. "Well, how is it, Mr. Cisco?"
"I believe you won't be liking this", came the calm answer and the clean cut laid down his hand. Aces over eights complemented with the jack of diamonds. Shouts and murmur erupted from the crowd. Some even applauded the clean cut. "How do you like that hand, mister prospector?" he asked.
The chair fell down when Sam stood up fast. In a fluid continuing motion he threw back his duster and went for the six-shooter holstered at his right thigh.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you", came the sharp voice again. The clean cut man had also stood up and he had a revolver leveled at Sam in his right hand. The revolver was a thing of beauty with ivory handles with ornate decorations and the metal was shining like it had just come from the factory. "I won fair and square. There is no pretense under which to take my money", he said.
Sam had frozen where he stood. His hand was just inches away from his gun, already open and ready to grasp but he was too late. The clean cut had been inhumanly fast. He had expected this, Sam thought. He came here just to trap me. He must have cheated.
"He is right, Sam", came the nervous and tired voice of the sheriff. "He won the hand fair and square, the pot is his."
"Bullshit", Sam spat. "He was here to trick me. You saw how fast he was. No one can't be that fast unless he knows what is to happen."
"You ever see William Montana or Doc Hollywood or Johnny Ringo? Those guys are fast as lightning. I am sluggish as a buffalo compared to them. But I guess you don't see lots of gunmen back here in Darkwood March", the clean cut said. "What shall we do, Mr. Sam? It is your call."
"Don't do it, Sam. He'll blow you away", the sheriff shouted.
Sam stared intently at the clean cut man. Neither diverted their eyes for a minute and no one else said anything. They hardly dared to take a breath. Then he made his decision. His hand grabbed the revolver and yanked it out of its holster but the clean cut squeezed the trigger of his gun twice. A cloud of red exploded from Sam's chest where the two bullets hit. He took a couple of steps back due to the force of the impacts. He looked shocked while still gazing at the man. The gun dropped from his limp hand to the floor. His mouth hung slackly open. The clean cut still kept his gun leveled at him and was ready to fire more but Sam wasn't a threat anymore. He fell down on his back and fresh blood red marks stained his already dirty shirt. The clean cut walked around the table.
"No one better touch that money", he said without lifting his gaze from Sam. He looked at the glazing eyes of Sam. After a while he bent down to pick up his revolver and walked back to his seat. The clean cut laid Sam's pistol on the table and holstered his own. The crowd looked on with shock.
"'Twas a clean shoot, sheriff", Kip Ramins, the saloon owner, said. "You, we all saws it."
"Indeed it was", the sheriff proclaimed quietly. "Someone go get the doc McAllister", he said more loudly.
All the while, the clean cut was collecting his money from the table without paying attention to the crowd surrounding him. When a shadow fell upon the last of the money, he lifted his eyes and looked at Sam towering above him. Red froth was on his lips and the front of his shirt was all red and sticky. The clean cut took a quick step back and the pistol quickly appeared on his arm again but he didn't shoot.
"You...'ll... regret this...", came the sluggish voice from Sam's mouth. The clean cut's pistol roared once and twice again. Two more holes appeared in Sam's chest and he took a couple of steps back. Then he just stood there, staring at the clean cut man who stared back at Sam, but not with the firm, gray eyes anymore. He looked taken back. He hadn't expected Sam to rise again.
Suddenly a ferocious, animal roar left Sam's throat and in one fierce motion he bent his knees and lunged at the clean cut man. But even as he bent his knees, a sudden change overtook him. He grew in height and bulk, hair was sprouting all over him where skin was shown, his hands and fingers elongated into claws and the scowl on his face showed his teeth, especially his canine teeth, growing larger and more animal-like. When the bullets hit him in mid-air, he was no longer Sam the prospector but a wolf walking on two legs. As the wolf-man and the clean cut man hit the ground, the wolf-man's teeth were already on the man's jugular and a second afterwards, it had been torn off. Blood sprayed all over the two and the thing's snout looked like it had been dipped into a barrel full of the stuff.
When the wolf-man stood up from the floor, the crowd had already fleed the saloon except for the sheriff, who had his rifle pointed at the wolf-man. He fired twice and hit the abomination on the shoulder but it didn't even flinch. It rushed the sheriff who finally panicked and tried to flee but it was too late. The wolf-man tore him apart like yesterday's newspaper.
"Dear lord, what is that thing?" came a startled shout from the saloon door. The wolf-man turned to look and saw an old, balding man in an almost equally old black suit without a jacket. In his right hand he had a large black bag. The wolf-man turned and jumped through a rear window of the saloon and disappeared into the night.
Epilogue:
Sol Ervine woke up in a pool of his own sweat. Those dreams again. Won't they ever stop? He had had nightmares of ferocious things chasing him through the woods since he was a little boy in his father's home. He had never seen one of them in his dreams but he knew they were evil and frightening and after his life. And he always woke when they were just about to catch him. His wife, Alma, groaned in her sleep at his side. Sol turned to her and drew back her hair to reveal her slightly pudgy face. She hadn't been the fairest of the maids in her village but definitely the sweetest. Sol fell into thoughts and images of his boyhood. A howl of a wolf soon startled him back into reality. A chill went through him.
"What are you doing up, sweetheart?" came a woman's quiet voice. The howl must've woken Alma up.
"Did you hear it? There must be a pack nearby", Sol exclaimed hurriedly.
"Go back to sleep. We have to get up early in the morning." Her hand grasped his and pulled at it. Sol moved closer to her wife, put his arms around her and went back to sleep.
(finished in one night (some three hours) in 28.10.05)