Sneaky Signal
(A quiet evening at Devil's Hole evolves into a possible change of occupations for the gang).
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Kid Curry sat studying the five cards he had fanned out in his hand. Lowering his hand no more than an inch, his eyes gazed out over the top of the cards first to his partner, then to the coins clustered in the center of the table. Picking up two coins from his own stack of money, Kid tossed them toward the center where they clinked against the other coins. He then closed the fan and set the cards face down in front of him on the table and turned his head to the player on his left.
Wheat Carlson sniffed, then rubbed his nose with the back of two fingers before fanning his own cards and drawing them close to hide them from view. "Ante's four bits?" he asked and dropped his eyes to the few coins to which he still claimed possession. He sniffed again and wiggled his mustached upper lip before tossing his cards face down on the table with an audible huff. "Fold."
Heyes turned to Kyle who was sitting on his left. Knowing Heyes was scrutinizing his every move, Kyle shifted nervously and straightened himself in his chair. He held his cards down low, nearly in his lap and took a low, slow chew of the wad of tobacco in his mouth, A small brown drop of tobacco juice oozed from the corner of his mouth and began to trickle down his chin and he used his tongue to catch it. "Ah," he said nervously as his eyes darted from his cards to the money on the table. He shoved two coins across the table. "I'm in."
"Preacher?" Heyes asked.
Preacher looked at his cards with a slight smile on his face. "Seek and ye shall find," he exclaimed. "I'm in." He then tossed his ante into the pot.
"So Heyes, you claim that just by watching us ante in, you know what kind of hands each of us has got. Prove it," Wheat said, certain that Heyes was about to expose himself as a fraud.
"Alright, Heyes replied. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna save the Kid for last, and I'll explain why when I get to him."
"By all means," Wheat replied.
"Wheat, I hate to tell you but you're an easy read. All that fidgeting and wiggling your soup strainer, that just tells me you're frustrated cause you got nothing to build on."
"That's true, Wheat," Kyle said in a slow drawl. I always know when you've got a sucker hand cause that mustache looks like it's trying to take flight."
Wheat glowered as he always prided himself in his poker skills.
"What about me, Heyes?" Kyle asked with an eager smile.
"You're a little tougher than Wheat. For one thing, that tobacco juice dripping down your chin is... distracting. You looked at your cards and then the table ante and I could see you were debating. That mean's your hand is pretty iffy."
Kyle nodded. "I had two fours, but nothing really to build on from there."
"How about Preacher?" Wheat asked.
"Preacher is tougher than he looks, and it's hard to tell if his talking is to deceive the other players or a proclamation of confidence, but the fact that he was quick to toss his ante in, makes me think he had some potential in his hand."
"I did," Preacher admitted and spread his cards out for all to see. "Three sevens."
"Now Kid and me play a lot of poker together so we can read each other pretty well. But Kid has got the best poker face I've ever seen and sometimes even I can't read it. So we came up with what we like to call our Sneaky Signal."
"Sneaky Signal?' Wheat asked dubiously.
Heyes nodded. "That's right. But it's not just one signal. It's a compilation of subtle signals. That's why it's so hard to detect. We use it a lot and have never been accused of cheating over it."
"Alright, Heyes. Let's hear it," Wheat snorted.
"Well, first off, Kid held his cards up high and fanned out, and he raised his eyes up over the top of the cards. Then he folded his cards, but not quite all together. If you notice, there's two cards with the corners protruding out ever so slight. Finally, he rested his hands on the table."
"Yeah, so?"
"Looking out over the top of the cards tells me he has at least the beginning of a high card hand. At least three cards are somewhere between a ten and an Ace. So, he's likely holding a ten, jack, queen, or a jack, queen, king, or a queen, king, ace. Now if he had looked at anyone else at the table, I'd say his low card was a ten or a jack, but the fact he looked at me, that tells me the low card is a queen."
Wheat shook his head. "That's still a long way from a straight, Heyes."
"Yep, it is, but he folded his cards and put his hands on the table, and left those two corners sticking out a tiny bit. That's telling me he has a couple of low cards as well, a two and a three, or a two and a four. Something of that nature."
Wheat leaned in toward the Kid to look at his cards, then turned his eyes across the table to Heyes as Kid laid his cards down face up for all to see; a two, a four, a queen, a king, and an ace.
"What did you say you called this system?" Wheat asked.
"It's our Sneaky Signal," Kid replied. "It let's the other one know how to bet."
"Alright, so Kid would likely trade the two low cards, then what? How does he let you know what's in his hand with no one suspecting he's telling you anything?"
"Obviously that information is relayed with what I do next, Wheat. "I fold if I don't get the high straight, and I wager big iffin I do."
"And nobody's ever caught you at that?" Wheat asked doubtfully.
"Well, Kid and me obviously won't be playing poker with the three of you no more, cause you would all spot us right off," Heyes explained.
Wheat grinned with what he was sure was a brilliant idea. "You know, if me and Kyle and Preacher was to get good at using your sneaky signal, we could make a killing at the poker tables in town every Saturday night. We could maybe finagle an invite to some of them high stakes games. You could teach your sneaky signal to the whole gang and we could all divvy up our winnings. We wouldn't hafta rob no banks or trains no more!" he exclaimed.
"Wheat, you know if you use the same tactics in every poker game, folks are gonna get wise to your scheme pretty fast," Kid told him.
"Are you tellin' me that you two have got more sneaky signals?"
"Wheat. You know as well as the rest of us that a really good poker player never lays all his cards out on the table," Heyes said with a sly wink to his partner.
"So spill the beans, Heyes. Tell us the rest of your sneaky signals," Kyle suggested.
"Maybe you and Wheat should just come up with your own sneaky signals, Kyle," Heyes suggested. "After all variety is the spice of life."
Tobacco stained teeth became visible to all at the table as Kyle smiled and nodded in agreement.
"I think that's a fine idea!
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Author's Note: Couldn't figure out how to post on the Forum (I'm computer challenged). Then life got in the way (and is taking it's time to resolve), and I completely forgot about this until I saw a post this evening.