Lonerider

Tales

SundanceHigh Water

Story by Lonerider.

The river ran high that spring, and so did the stakes on the Magnolia Star. She was a white paddle steamer with a gold stripe and a card room that never closed, and every gambler between the delta and the falls knew two things about her. The whiskey was honest. The game was not.
The Magnolia Star, a white paddle steamer lit up gold, churning upriver at sunset
Sundance came aboard at dusk with one bag, one vest the color of a ripe peach, and a grin that made strangers want to tell him things. He took the seat nobody wanted, the one with its back to the window, and bought in small.
Sundance strides up the gangplank with one bag and a wink, peach vest catching the sunset
The house game belonged to Augustus Pell. Pell owned the boat, the table and most of the men sitting at it. He dealt with soft white hands and a gold ring on his little finger, and he never seemed to lose the hand that mattered.
Sundance lost all evening. He lost cheerfully, the way a man loses when he has money to spare and nowhere to be. He laughed at Pell's stories. He asked about the boat. He watched the cards.
The card room at night: Augustus Pell deals with a gold ring on his finger while Sundance grins across the table
By midnight he knew the deck. Somebody had pricked the corners with a pin, tiny marks you could feel with a thumb if you knew where to feel. Pell's thumb always knew where to feel.
Close on Pell's ringed hand, his thumb resting on tiny pin pricks in a card's corner
So Sundance spent the small hours doing what he did best. Every time a card passed through his hands, his own thumb went to work. A prick here. A smoothed corner there. Nothing anybody could see. By three in the morning the deck still told Pell a story. It just wasn't true anymore.
In the small hours Sundance shuffles with a sly smile while the room dozes and Pell watches
The sky had gone gray when the last hand came. The room was down to four men and the smell of cold cigars. Sundance pushed everything he had into the middle of the table. The pot was too big for anybody to cover except the man who owned the boat.
Pell ran his thumb along his cards, then along the deck, and smiled for the first time all night. He covered the bet with the deed to the Magnolia Star.
At dawn the deed lies on a mountain of chips as Pell broods and Sundance winks
Sundance raised an eyebrow and waited.
Pell's thumb went to the deck one more time. Whatever it told him made the color leave his face. He looked at his own hand, a full house, queens over nines, and folded it face down like it had bitten him.
Sundance turned his cards over. A pair of twos.
Sundance shows a pair of twos while Pell clutches his head beside his folded hand
The room went very quiet. Pell's mouth opened and closed. There was nothing he could say that didn't start with a confession.
Sundance gathered the pot and the deed, tipped his hat to the table and walked out onto the deck as the sun came up over the water. At the next landing he handed the deed to the cook, who had lost a month's pay to Pell's table the week before, and stepped off onto the dock.
On the dock at sunrise, Sundance hands the deed to the boat's cook and walks on
He never played the cards. He played the man across from him.
Behind him, the Magnolia Star blew her whistle under new ownership, and Sundance went looking for the next sunrise.

He never played the cards. Heplayed the man across from him.

Sundance rides with the Legends. Meet the Legends

Moretales