Chapter 1 – Melaleuca

I was in a tavern in Melaleuca when I found out Daddy’d died.

Some big Texan was trying to cheat me at poker. He had a king in one of his cuffs. He wasn’t bad—I missed him palming the king, and just barely caught him shifting to the sleeve.  But the cards love me. They keep no secrets from me—theirs, or other people’s.

The two jacks in his hand were happy to assassinate the hidden king as soon as he slipped it back onto the table. Without its buddy, the other king he’d drawn wouldn’t be a match for my queens-over-sixes, even with the jacks. I didn’t even have to ask those jacks to help—they volunteered.

So I’d raised ol’ Tex’s stakes about as far as I could without him slipping off the hook. I frowned and considered my own hand for a long moment before calling his last bet. Then I took a swig of rot-gut whiskey, my false ‘tell’ for the week.

The Longhorn smiled and I knew I had him. He cracked his knuckles theatrically and I saw him tease the king into his right palm and slip it into his face-down cards on the table as he swapped the seven of spades into his left, leaving five cards still on the table, but now a winning hand, he’d be sure. Because he assumed he ran the cards instead of the other way ‘round.

“Hoo-hoo,” he crowed as he showed his cards, “Kings over jacks means I’ve pretty much cleared you out, missy! You’re gonna hafta drop out of this game and leave it to men more suited to it…or come up with somethin’ else to bet with.”

He licked his lips and looked around the table for confirmation, but the other players didn’t join in. I cocked an eyebrow at him. Then Dusty Beckett snorted, elbowed the Texan and said, “Hey, uh, Andy, I think you counted heads a little wrong. That’s two jacks you got there, an’ a pair of sevens.”

Blue McCurdie and Amos Ashbee, the other two players at the table, laughed out loud. Ol’ Andy looked down at his hand, laid out on the table proud as could be.

Two sevens, two jacks, and a single king smiled back at him.

The big fellow turned kind of a funny color, and I could almost hear his mind churning like a mill-wheel.

“Th-that bitch cheated me,” he yelled.

Dusty and the other regulars burst out laughing, and even a few of the nearby tables busted up a bit.

“I don’t b’lieve you’ve played with Grace for long,” Amos drawled, “but she ain’t never needed to cheat. I seen her beat the lit’ral pants off me without never even tetchin’ the cards.”

I remembered that night, then—I get accused of cheating often enough that I came up with a way to prove my honesty beyond doubt. I’d had Blue handle my cards, then played—and won—from three feet away at another table.  I still had Amos’ pants.

‘Tex’ leapt up, swept his chair out from behind him, and grabbed at the pile of cash on the table. “Well I don’t know how—“

 I flicked out my bowie knife and thunked it down through his left sleeve, pinning it to the table. “I think I might.” The big Texan yanked loose, tearing the sleeve and leaving a few scraps of fabric and the missing king of diamonds stuck on my blade.

Blue and Dusty grabbed him then and wrestled him away. “How’d you do that?” he hollered over his shoulder, and then they tossed him through the saloon doors.

“Fairly,” I called. Then I yanked my knife out to free the dead king. 

Chapter 2 – The Rider

I bought drinks for the fellas, since the cheating longhorn had kicked theirs over in the fracas at the table. Since it was getting on towards sundown I sprung for a roast chicken too. We ate and I counted my winnings—about $70 in coins and nuggets of silver. Eyebrows went up all around the table when I stacked the last of the coins.

“Grace, I don’t reckon nuthin’s left’n Melaleuca worth th’ winnin’,” Amos allowed, his accent so thick it could catch flies. He smiled tiredly through his hay-broom of a moustache. “Uh ’magine yu’ll be movin’ on ‘fore long, ‘n Ah’ll never git th’ chaince t’ win back inny uh whut ah los’t’yuh.”

I tilted back my hat and sighed. “Might be,” I said. “Unless some more miners come to town who’ve traded their common sense for silver ore. If I keep playing with you boys, I’ll only win more clothes that’re too big for me and too odiferous for my horse!”

Amos frowned. Dusty laughed so hard that Blue had to slap his back for him to stop him coughing. Blue opened his mouth to say his piece, but a different sound, an auspicious one, filled the gap in the conversation instead: the drumroll of galloping hooves quickly eating the distance from the edge of town. Heads turned all over the saloon—a rider going that fast always carries a tale worth hearing, good or bad.

The piano player and several of the less dedicated drinkers funneled out the door. I scooped my earnings into my satchel and slipped it on under my coat. Dusty and the boys just sipped their drinks and waited—anyone coming that fast would likely be too thirsty to speak, so our seats would be just fine to hear the tale.

The piano man and his delegation from the saloon escorted in a tired, saddle-sore young man covered in dust and sweat. They led him to the bar and sat him down. The bartender poured him a big, watery mug of beer. “Here, son—swallow some of that road-grit you’re choking on and tell us what you’re in such a hurry for.”

The young rider took the mug and tilted it back in both hands, gulping and then gasping as the cool brew lubricated his throat. He mopped his brow with his bandana. “I-I been riding two days, since I left Pardo.”

“Riding hard, by the looks of your horse,” the piano player interrupted. “Near to falling over, if I—“

The young rider continued. “Got a message, and I’ve been on the trail ever since. Fort Halleck, then Arthur, then here.”

My skin prickled, and my mouth went dry. I turned my head slowly so I could see the messenger under the brim of my hat. Worn leathers, homespun shirt, and a hand-me-down rifle across his back—well-maintained but just a hunter’s weapon. If this kid was the Law, they weren’t trying real hard to bring me in.

But the lump of stone in my gut didn’t soften. “Hey, kid,” I called, “Who exactly is the message for?”

“Miss Grace Clayborn.”

I felt the weight of the whole saloon’s attention. “That’d be me,” I said, and held out my hand.

The messenger glanced around, following everyone’s eyes to their target. Then He fumbled open his satchel and pulled out a crumpled telegram. He smoothed it carefully before placing it in my hand.

–

TO MISS GRACE CLAYBORN FROM HOPE SPRINGS STATION

YOUR FATHER HAS PASSED STOP URGENT YOU RETURN HOME STOP SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES STOP YOUR SISTERS NEED YOU STOP

DELIVER TO PARDO STATION FIND CLAYBORN MONEY FOR MESSENGER TO FOLLOW STOP

–

The paper fluttered a little in my hand. The world was different—it no longer had William Clayborn in it.

—

In my room above the bar the next morning, I packed my ruck-sack full of clothes and sundries and checked my bedroll. Then I carefully pried loose the baseboard behind the bureau and pulled out my bankroll: eight hundred and forty dollars in a mix of bills, dollar coins, and mineral ore. I turned over the bag of nuggets in my hand, swallowing against the knot in my throat and blinking my eyes clear, then stuffed it all into a saddle pouch and slid the bureau back into place.

I picked up my pistol from the back of the chair and holstered it. Then I hefted my baggage over my shoulder and stepped into the hall. Dusty and Amos were waiting at the foot of the stairs, hats held against their chests. The rest of the staff and patrons made no pretense, staring at me as I descended. Out in the street I saw Blue walking my horse up from the stable for me, saddled and carrying bags I guessed were full of provisions, bless him.

Dusty reached out and warmly clasped my hand. “I s’pose we knew this was comin’,” he said. “Way you blew in here, I knew another wind would carry you on out.”

I nodded. “If you’re ever in Hope Springs, look me up.”

I turned to Amos, his hairy face drooping like a lonely hound’s. Solemnly, I took the top article of clothing from my ruck: a pair of faded blue Union trousers. “Stop scratchin’ your damn whiskers whenever you get a good draw, ya idjit,” I muttered, and handed him the pants.

A smile ruffled his moustache as he took them. “Safe road ‘n’ safe home t’yuh,” he replied.

We walked out onto the boards where Blue McCurdie was waiting with the horse. “Blue, I don’t suppose I can trust you to keep these two out of jail?”

Blue opened his mouth to answer, frowned, closed it, and shook his head with resignation.

We all exchanged handshakes again, and then I climbed into the saddle and headed back along the road to Hope Springs, just a few days too late.

Chapter 3 – The River

The trail down from Melaleuca wove back and forth in scribbles as it ducked around hills and along cliffsides. My horse kept up an easy, sure-footed pace, clopping on hard earth and clumping over soft. Patches of snow sheltered from the sun behind rocks and at the base of cliffs, but the first leaves and mountain grasses hazed the land in green.

Snow-melt ran off the mountains, swelling the small creek into a torrent. The falls I’d passed earlier still rumbled behind me, and I could hear the rising rush of another somewhere further down the path. I stared at the birds circling on the wind and watched the broad, green valley floor grow closer.

“Hold up,” a man called, stepping out of a stand of trees beside the path. He had his bandana cinched over his face and he casually waved a revolver in my direction. A man in a heavy duster stood from behind a boulder on the slope and pointed a Winchester at me. I reined in my horse and glanced back up the mountain. A younger fellow with a shotgun had paced out of the shrubs and cut off my retreat.

I held up my hands. “Fellas, let’s none of us be hasty.”

The man with the pistol laughed. “Well, well,” he said, and pulled down his bandana. A big Texan smirk lit the face of my previous night’s gambling partner, his sleeve still torn where I’d stabbed it. “If it ain’t the idiot who though I wouldn’t notice when I got cheated at cards!”

“I could say the same,” I muttered. 

Tex motioned his buddy with the Winchester out of cover. The man’s gun barrel drooped to the ground, but he kept a professional eye on me and stayed well out of reach. Tex might be an idiot, but he had at least one competent friend. 

“Well, Andy,” I said, affecting my most ladylike sarcastic tone, “I assume this is in regard to yesterday’s exchange of vulgarities where you called me a name I won’t repeat?”

Tex laughed. “Naaah, that’s just a fortunate happenstance. I was fixin’ to bankroll me another stake and hew-milly-yate you in front of God an’ everyone, but you saved me the trip!”

The money in my saddlebags hung a little heavier, thinking how Tex had earned it. I glared at him. “You’re a piece of work, Tex. You are a piece of work.”

Tex cackled and slapped his dirty pant-leg. “Oh, this country’s all bad road, little missy. If you were cut out to ride it, you wouldn’t be in this pickle to start.” He twirled his pistol nonchalantly on his finger. “But this here’s where I get mine.”

A smile tried to creep onto my face, but I killed it. “So Tex—you’re convinced I cheated you, aren’t you?”

Tex brayed his jackass laugh again and gestured to his buddies. “Sammy, Douglas—ain’t I told you how she slicked my cards? How she pulled that trick with the knife? Now she’s claimin’ that was fair?”

“Tell you what, Tex,” I interjected, “I have a bargain for you: all or nothing.”

Tex squinted. “You’re in a pretty weak bettin’ position, missy, if you ain’t noticed. What do you have that ain’t already mine to take?”

“At gunpoint, you can take anything I have—but you asked me last night if I had something else to bet,” I said. “If you beat me at cards, I’ll give it to you.”

Tex appraised me, licking his lips. I heard the young fellow with the shotgun whistle. The man with the Winchester frowned. “Andy, I don’t reckon—“

“Oh, I just bet you don’t, Douglas!” Tex spat back. “Shut up an’ let me have my fun!”

He turned back to me. “So if I win, your money’s mine?”

“Yep,” I drawled.

“And you won’t raise nothin’ with the Law?”

“I trust the cards,” I said. “If they’re against me, it’s a fair loss.”

“And,” Tex sneered, “You’ll ride back to Melaleuca and apologize to me in front of your no-account friends!”

Oh, Tex—what big dreams! “If that’s what you want.”

Tex grinned. “An’ how’re we gonna make sure this game is on the up-and-up?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” I said, “You’ll be sure because I won’t be playing you—your little buddy Sammy will.”

Tex’s eyes widened. “Hell, I can beat old Sammy in my sleep!”

“But Douglas, you’re going to deal,” I said. Douglas frowned and squinted at me. “I trust the cards a damn sight further than I trust ol’ Tex here—he’s a highway robber, a coward, a liar, and a cheat. And worse’n that, he’s a bad cheat. I want someone else watching him when he plays.”

Tex roared and went red in the face, but Douglas grabbed his pistol hand as it went up. “C’mon, Andy, you said before—she cheated you, and we both know horses that play better poker than Sammy. Don’t let her get’cher goat.”

Sammy covered me while I climbed slowly off my horse, and then we all followed Tex a little ways off the path to a cut tree-stump. “Now, Sammy, you’re just gonna draw when I say draw and stand when I say stand, got it?”

Sammy looked to Tex, who nodded. “Play how she tells you—can’t make you any worse,” Tex snickered.

Douglas produced a well-worn deck of cards, full of trail grease, cookfire smoke, and character and put them down on the stump. In my mind, I introduced myself. These were Douglas’ cards, and I could tell they liked him. They didn’t think too highly of Tex—Douglas played carefully and won often, whereas Tex cheated even when he didn’t have to.

Any gambler can tell you that cards can be vindictive, and I doubted Tex would ever draw a naturally hot hand from this deck again. But I formed my request in my mind. The cards were skeptical until I explained why I wanted the hands I did, but then the air of satisfaction in the sound of Douglas’ riffle-shuffle was so clear I couldn’t believe nobody else could hear it.

Tex motioned for me to kneel down opposite of Douglas. I knelt well out of reach of the stump.

“Five-card, single draw,” Tex said, and reached out to cut the deck.

“Don’t you touch them, Tex—you and I are both accused of cheating. Douglas cuts and deals,” I said.

Tex glowered at me, but he nodded to Douglas, who cut the cards. I closed my eyes.

I heard cards hit the wood stump with a familiar rustle and slap. Tex’s cards squirmed a little as he picked them up: nine of diamonds and a nine, ten, jack, and queen of spades. Oh, Tex, don’t we feel lucky?

Sam lifted his cards, but I already knew: they were garbage but for a pair of twos. “Stand, Sam,” I said, and smiled when I heard him fidget.

“But, um…” he stuttered.

“Be more of a man than your boss and stand, Sam. I trust the cards,” I said.

“Uh…s-stand,” said Sam.

Tex’s breathing sped up and he fingered the cards indelicately, running his thumb around those diamonds, gripping the spades.

“A real card-sharp trusts her luck and plays the table, Tex—that’s what cheaters like you don’t understand,” I muttered.

Tex ground his teeth and snorted. I heard a card hit the table and felt the red nine there, laughing. “I’ll take one card, Douglas.”

I felt the deck shift in my mind as Douglas drew off the top. Then I heard the cards laugh, and Tex’s breath caught in his throat for a moment as he saw a five of clubs.

“Something wrong, Tex? Change your mind about that draw, did you?”

Tex leapt to his feet. “Shut up! Sammy, flop your cards.”

“But Andy—“

“I said show yer damn hand,” Tex snarled, and I heard his pistol cock. “That bitch gimmicked ‘em somehow ta make me look the fool—she gimmicked you a great hand and put garbage in mine, is what, you see?” Tex’s voice climbed to a whine.

I opened my eyes. “Show him our hand, Sam—I trust you.”

Sam dropped his hand on the stump: a pair of twos and an unsuited three, five, and seven.

“W-what did you get, Andy?” Sam asked.

Thunderclouds flashed across Tex’s face. He grabbed poor Sam by his neckerchief and slung him around the stump, cracking his head on the rocky ground. “What I got was screwed, and it’s ‘cuz of you and that witchy whore!”

Sam shielded his face with shaking hands as Tex’s pistol hand rose, making ready to whip down on his head. Douglas glanced between me and his two compatriots. I caught his eye and flipped Tex’s discard. “Your boss is a lousy poker player—that’s the start and the end of it.”

Douglas squinted at me for a moment longer, then jerked his head towards my horse, rose to his feet, and started towards where Tex was laying into poor Sammy.

I stood and ran—knowing when to leave the table is a prime survival skill. I leapt onto my horse and we skinned out down the trail at nearly a gallop, kicking stones loose to scatter in the brown-white roaring stream below. Branches slapped me hard as we scooted inside on each curve. Over my galloping horse and heartbeat, over the sound of falling water, I heard the blast of a shotgun, but I was well below them and out of sight.

At the switchback I slowed and looked up the cliffs but I couldn’t see anything but my own dust trail fading in the mist. I urged my horse on.

We clattered past the lower falls, rounding the edge of the pool below them, and the trail ahead opened out for a level stretch. As I flicked the reins, gore exploded from my horse’s neck and its limbs dropped out from under it, slamming us both to the gravel. We slid off the edge of the trail and tumbled through the mist as I tried to launch myself from the saddle. An instant before we hit the ice-cold torrent, I heard the Winchester’s report echoing from high up the hillside.  

—

The cold water clawed the air from my lungs before I even felt the agony of it on my skin. I kicked towards daylight, but my legs were tangled in something—stirrups, saddlebags, didn’t matter what—and the horse’s dead weight slung me around into dark and stone and slime. My palms saved my skull from caving in on something huge that cut the stream in two, battered numb and shedding most of their skin in the process.

My horse struck a boulder and the water blasted me up over it. In that brief moment of roaring daylight I grabbed a lungful of mostly air, and then the next wave buried me, the water growling—stones, mud, and branches grinding together, chewing each other up. I squeezed my arms around my head and tumbled along, bouncing off boulders. Blow after blow stiffened my limbs, and my eyes burned with grit and gravel. Something caught my hair, swinging me ‘round, and then the tangle around my legs jerked me loose, snapped me like a sheet. My face hit something hard and I heard a chime in my head and tasted stars in blackness—

—

My aching head woke me to tell me how badly I’d hurt my back. I reached up to rub them both, but the blood dripping from my palms got in my eyes. I blinked it away and looked around. The world was topsy-turvy—the water had stretched me out on a boulder, feet uphill, arms hanging into the calm flow. I rolled onto my side. The stream here was broad and slower, and I was on an island of stones in the middle of it. The low, grassy, springtime banks felt miles away, and there was a horse grazing on the nearer one.

I was halfway crouched when I remembered the fall and the dead weight on my ankles—that was not my horse.

I dropped back onto my boulder and blinked grime and splinters out of my eyes. Downstream, a horse’s broken body, still wearing my saddle, flopped in the current, tangled in roots at the water’s edge, and a big man with a dented Texas cattleman’s hat pawed through my saddlebags. The blue lightning of fury filled my shivering frame and I felt the steel come back into my spine.

I reached for my gun, but my belt was gone. I fumbled for my derringer, but my boot was missing too. So I slid my hand into my jacket.

The cards were there—they always are. I cradled the deck in my right hand and turned the soggy top card with my thumb. The five of clubs. So be it.

I gritted my chattering teeth and focused my mind, then slid into the current. Clubs are wood, I thought, and I floated a little easier.

Wood is sturdy. Wood is strong. Wood fears no cold or water. The chill fell away into abstraction, and I felt my muscles ease a trifle. Like a catfish, I swam through the silt in silence to the bank. Then I gripped the reeds with strong, sure fingers. Tex hunkered over my dead horse just a few feet from me. Trees stand tall, I thought, and raised myself carefully out of the water, gripping my deck in my bloody palm.

“Tex.”

The Longhorn jerked around, grabbing for the Winchester at his side.

Clubs hurt.

Fingers knotted like iron roots around the stone of the deck, I swung my fist.

WHAM.

“I…”

WHAM.

“…never…”

WHAM.

“…cheat…”

WHAM.

“…at cards.”

Thud.

Tex lay on the ground, his scalp split, his hands shaking, staring at me like I was some plainsman’s nightmare, a ghost-bear or wendigo.

Good.

WHAM.