Turnback Creek (Widowmaker) Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the café.”
    “Did they see you?” Eli asked.
    “No,” Bailey said. “I got across the street before they come out. I bet two.”
    He tossed in two matchsticks, and both Eli and Hoke called his bet.
    “How many cards?” Eli asked.
    “Two,” Bailey said.
    Hoke took three, and so did the dealer.
    “So, what do we do?” Bailey asked. “It ain’t just a washed-up marshal anymore.”
    Hoke had a matchstick in his mouth, which he kept shifting from corner to corner. All three men were in their thirties and from behind, according to height and build, might have been related. It was only when you looked at their faces—Hoke handsome, Eli homely, and Robert downright ugly—that you realized they weren’t.
    “Locke’s a little past it, dontcha think?” Hoke asked.
    “I heard somethin’ about him and Doc Holliday in South Texas,” Eli said, “afore Doc died.”
    “Well,” Hoke said, “he ain’t got Doc Holliday now, has he?”
    “I bet five,” Bailey said.
    “Still,” Eli said. “Hoke?”
    “I raise five.”
    “I call,” Eli said.
    “Call,” Bailey said.
    Hoke showed his cards. Three queens.
    “Shit,” Bailey said, dropping the three tens he’d been dealt onto the table.
    “Damn,” Eli said, tossing his two pair.
    Hoke raked in his matchsticks, took the wet one from his mouth, dropped it onto the floor, and replaced it with one of the new ones.
    “We’re gonna run outta matchsticks you keep doin’ that,” Eli said to him.
    “We’ll have plenty of money to get more when this is all over,” Hoke said.
    “We got money now,” Bailey groused.
    “We can’t touch it yet,” Hoke said. “I told you when we took that first payroll that there would be more.”
    “I still think it’s crazy to stay around and try again,” Bailey said.
    “You’re free to take off, Bob,” Eli said.
    “Yeah, without my cut of the first job,” Bailey said. “You’d like that. You get my cut of the first one and the second one.”
    “If you’re not gonna leave, shut yer mouth and deal,” Hoke said.
    Bailey shuffled and dealt out cards. “But what’re we gonna do about Locke?” he asked without picking up his cards.
    Hoke let his cards lie, too. “Look,” he said, “the second payroll’s gonna be two or three times the size of the first one, maybe more. There’s enough money to go around.”
    “Meanin’ what?” Eli asked.
    “Meanin’ we can get a couple of more men if you fellas are afraid of a washed-up lawman and an over-the-hill gunman.”
    “Over the hill or not,” Eli said, “he’s still the Widow-maker.”
    Bailey frowned. “I thought the gun was called the Widowmaker.”
    “Either way,” Eli said, “don’t make much difference. It’s still him.” He looked at Hoke. “I say we get at least two more men.”
    Hoke looked at Bailey. “What about you?”
    “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
    Hoke picked up his cards and looked at them, then folded them into a pile in his hands. Bailey looked at his, followed by Eli.
    “I open for two,” Eli said.
    “I raise five,” Hoke said.
    “Yer bluffin’,” Bailey said. “I call the seven.”
    “I call, too,” Eli said.
    “How many cards, Eli?” Bailey asked.
    “Just one,” Eli said. “Got me a good hand.”
    Bailey dealt Eli his cards, then looked at Hoke.
    “I’ll play these.”
    “A pat hand?” Bailey asked.
    “That’s what I’ve got,” Hoke said. He had no expression on his face for the other two men to read.
    “Damn,” Bailey said. “I’ll take three.”
    “I check to the raiser,” Eli said.
    “Thought you had a good hand?” Hoke asked.
    “Not as good as a pat hand.”
    “He’s bluffin’,” Bailey said.
    “I bet twenty,” Hoke said, pushing twenty lucifers into the pot.
    Bailey bit his lip, looked at his cards, and said, “I’ll call.”
    “Me, too,” Eli said. “Let’s see ’em.”
    Hoke put down four deuces, and an ace.
    “Four of a kind?” Bailey said. “Shee-it.” He tossed his