Bandit's Embrace

Book 4: Hologram

by Georgina Gentry

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Historical Romance

Synopsis

TOO AROUSED TO RESIST When her scheming, jealous stepmother-to-be forced Amethyst Durango to enter a convent, the headstrong heiress swore she'd experience life to the fullest before being shut away. And when her violet eyes gazed upon the handsome Texas drifter at a sleepy stage stopover, Amethyst knew she'd found her mate. His sensual glance made her shiver with anticipation; his big calloused hands would electrify her with ecstasy. But when he galloped off afterwards without any promises to rescue her, the deceived senorita vowed she'd get back at the double-crosser—even if it meant never savoring his lying lips again! TOO LUCIOUS TO BE LAWFUL Rangy, rugged Bandit knew how to hold his cards, his liquor and his women, but when he first met the alluring Mexican maiden, he knew this was one gal he shouldn't touch! She was too young, too innocent, and too rich for a no-good mixed-blood cowboy like himself. Still, he couldn't stop his mouth from crushing hers any more than he could keep a stallion from a mare. And after he'd tasted and teased her, and pleasured and pleased her, it was too late to tell Amethyst he was on the run—and he could never again shelter her in his BANDIT'S EMBRACE.

Release date: May 16, 2014

Publisher: Splendor

Print pages: 453

Sample

Late April, 1873

She would trade her virginity to the most attractive man she chanced to meet in the coming two days if he would help her escape! Amethyst decided that as she studied the desolate Mexican landscape through the stagecoach window while darkness fell.

Si, that was just what she would do, even though it went against everything she’d been taught. Desperate situations called for desperate measures!

That decision made, Amethyst María Consuela Durango relaxed her small frame against the coach’s seat, smoothed her fine lilac and sphinx-gray batiste dress, and glared at the stout Mrs. Wentworth who took up the whole seat across from her.

“Young lady, I see that impudent spark in those violet eyes! If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll tell Mademoiselle Monique!” The two hairs in the mole on the tip of the governess’s nose wiggled when she spoke.

“Go right ahead!” Amethyst snapped, with a spirited shake of her head. The coach bounced, and her elegant hat went askew so that her ebony chignon cascaded loosely down her neck. “There’s nothing my father’s future bride could do to me that would be worse than being sent off to the Cloistered Sisters in that isolated abbey!”

“Mademoiselle thinks only of your own good,” the americano smiled a little too sweetly. “You’ve been allowed to run wild too long without the proper supervision a girl of such fine parentage should have. As your future stepmother, Mademoiselle—”

“Hopes to lock me away forever so she has full control over my foolish father’s ranch and fortune!” Amethyst glared at Monique’s employee.

“Tsk! Tsk!” Mrs. Wentworth pulled at the tight corset under her dour black dress. “How can you say such bad things about the lovely lady who is about to bring such happiness into a widower’s lonely life?”

“And so much money into her own!” Amethyst raged. Up until two months ago, life at the giant Durango ranch north of Monterrey had been quiet, uneventful. “My father is a silly old fool to be so smitten with a woman young enough to be my older sister.”

“And you’re no spring chicken!” The servant reminded her crisply. “Twenty-three, isn’t it? Why at that age, and still unmarried, you might as well consider becoming a nun after you finish your classes.”

“If Papa didn’t insist on honoring that stupid betrothal agreement, I’d be married by now! Certainly I knew young men who were interested, but Papa had given his word. And while I sit waiting for a man who will never come, I am in your ambitious employer’s way.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s plump jowls wiggled as she leaned back and smiled. She can afford to smile, Amethyst thought with annoyance, knowing that she would be headed back to Papa’s spacious hacienda after depositing her charge at the isolated abbey south of the Rio Grande River.

“Ambitious, is it?” The chaperone smirked. “No, my lady is just madly in love with your nice Papa.”

“My former companion, Miss Callie, was madly in love with Papa, and he never even noticed her.” It was true, Amethyst thought sadly.

Mrs. Wentworth clasped her fat hands together. “Why, Mademoiselle Monique’s been pining away in New Orleans, waiting for a man worthy of her background. Señor Durango goes there on business and meets her, invites her back to Mexico to visit, property chaperoned by me, of course. It’s a match made in heaven.”

“Or in a cashbox!” Amethyst snapped. “She’s rushing him into marriage before he has a chance to think clearly—”

“I realize you’re jealous of a new woman in Señor Durango’s life, but you’ll get over it,” the fat woman simpered. “Monique will be kind enough to send for you so you can attend the wedding—”

“Never!” Amethyst raged, turning her small ring over and over in her agitation. “Papa should have married Miss Callie.”

“Sure, and I can see how you sorrow for your old companion.” Mrs. Wentworth stroked a gray wisp back into the bun of hair at the back of her head. “And wasn’t it convenient that Mademoiselle Monique was there to comfort everyone when dear Miss Callie was taken by the dysentery so sudden-like a few weeks ago?”

Tears choked Amethyst. She twisted her small ring and remembered the shy, sweet spinster. Miss Callie, her American mother’s dearest friend, had come south as a companion when the elegant heiress had married the Mexican rancher. Then, when Mama had died, Miss Callie had devoted her life to raising a motherless child on a giant, isolated ranch.

It must have been lonely for Papa—Amethyst thought of him warmly—with Mama gone and the two older children dead of yellow fever. Amethyst realized Miss Callie, over the years, had grown to love her father but had been too shy and hesitant to show it. And just about the time Papa had finally seemed to notice Miss Callie, he’d made that trip to New Orleans, brought back Mademoiselle Monique. Then Miss Callie had come down with the dreaded dysentery only a few hours after a dinner in the French girl’s honor. Everyone felt lucky she’d been the only one to get it. .

The coach lurched again, throwing Amethyst back against the cushions. The roads in northern Mexico must be the world’s worst, she thought with annoyance, readjusting her hat. But Mrs. Wentworth had dozed off and never missed a beat in her snoring.

Day after tomorrow, they would reach their destination and Amethyst would be locked away forever, barring a miracle. Well, she hadn’t given up yet; Amethyst had too much of her mother’s blood in her. Would her mama’s relatives help her? she wondered. All that were left were distant cousins, and she didn’t even know their names. Certainly they wouldn’t want to get involved with a perfect stranger.

Santa María, I’m only twenty-three, she thought, that’s not really so old, though most girls my age are married and having families. Her best girlfriend had married three years ago and had left the isolated state of Coahuila, moving to Mexico City. Amethyst’s stubborn, honorable Papa had still refused to break his word to his old friend on the neighboring ranch. I’ve never really lived, much less been kissed or known a man’s passion, Amethyst thought regretfully.

High-class Spanish girls were too well protected and chaperoned for that. But she’d show them. And if she couldn’t outwit them, she’d not go like a meek lamb to the cage. Papa said she was too stubborn and willful like her dead mother. But Amethyst felt that was Monique’s view, that the red-haired woman was skillfully creating discord between father and daughter.

Miss Callie had been her tutor, teaching her English, mathematics, and logic when no one expected a wealthy girl from a good Spanish family to be able to do anything but sew and play the piano. Sometimes shy Miss Callie had laughed admiringly and said Amethyst was a lot like her mama, pretty and delicate, but also headstrong and stubborn.

She’d show them stubborn! Even though she’d never known her mother, Amethyst was sure she was more like that New York beauty than the proud Spanish grandees on her father’s side. She studied her small ring in the moonlight. It was the only thing she had of Mama’s now; all the other jewels were locked away in the hacienda safe. No doubt in a few weeks, the elegant French beauty would be wearing them.

Amethyst took a deep breath, and the delicate, sweet scent of her own perfume wafted from her warm skin. Forget-me-not. It had been Mama’s favorite flower, Miss Callie had said, the lavender blue violet with the slight fragrance. The small bloom and its perfume were Amethyst’s favorites, too. She studied the design of the ring. The tiny flower of purple amethyst stone wasn’t very valuable, but she was sentimental about the ring.

Thoughtfully, she took out her silk and lace kerchief, inhaled the slight, sweet scent of the wild flower as she wiped a film of dust from her porcelain white cheeks. Monique had said she was only going off to the abbey for proper upbringing. Amethyst shivered, running her finger around the lacy throat of her delicate batiste frock. Instead of expensive lilac and sphinx gray in the latest fashion of bustle and full petticoat, she imagined herself in the severe dress of the order. She wasn’t quite sure how the Frenchwoman would do it, but she sensed that Monique would see that Amethyst took the veil and never left the Cloistered Sisters again.

Amethyst gritted her teeth, stuck out her chin. Santa María! She would escape, run away . . . or at least share one night of passion with some fascinating man along the way. They might lock her up forever, but she would have that one thing she had been denied all these years while she’d waited for the man who’d never come to claim her. It was a daring decision for such a protected innocent.

Sí, if she met any appealing hombre in the next several days before the stage reached it’s destination, Amethyst intended to make him a gift of her virginity, to use that as a lure to get him to help her escape. What would happen after that, she had no idea.

Salty, warm tears ran down her small, delicate face as darkness fell over the northbound stage.

In a rowdy saloon in the town of Bandera, Texas, about a hundred and fifty miles above the Rio Grande, the blond gunslinger called Bandit adjusted his red satin sleeve garters and pulled a chair up to the poker table. “What’s the ante?” he drawled.

A florid rancher looked him over. “If you have to ask, reckon you can’t afford to play.”

That was true enough. Bandit grinned crookedly and tipped his Western hat back at a jaunty angle above his high cheekboned face. “Bandit’s my name and poker’s my game!” He threw a silver dollar onto the table.

Despite his arrogance, Bandit had just five silver dollars in his pocket and a bay gelding too worthless to shoot.

This crowd was a little rich for his blood. Besides that wealthy-looking rancher, there was the owner of the local cypress-shingle mill, and a well-dressed cattle buyer and a salesman, a drummer.

Bandit slid in between the drummer and the mill owner.

The drummer, who was wearing a derby, shuffled, and the florid rancher cut, handed the deck back to be dealt.

The cattle buyer fingered the diamond stickpin in his red cravat. “Bandit, huh? I reckon I’ve heard of you.”

“Bandit? You a thief?” The drummer started to laugh, as he dealt, then seemed to sense the change in Bandit’s mood and let his laughter trail off.

“I live by my wits and my gun,” Bandit said, his blue eyes cold, cocky. He picked up cards with his left hand. “It’s a nickname—because I hang my hat here in Bandera once in a while and ladies say I’m a thief of hearts.”

The red-faced rancher looked him over suspiciously. “Left-handed, huh? What’s your real name?

My father didn’t stay around to give me one, Bandit thought, but he only glared back. “Who in blue blazes is askin’? You ought to know that ain’t considered a polite question in this state!”

The rancher darkened with embarrassment. “Beg your pardon.”

Half the men in Texas were wanted for something, living under an assumed name. When a sheriff in another state was unable to find a man or serve a warrant, mostly he wrote G.T.T. across his papers. Gone to Texas.

The drummer looked up, adjusted his derby hat on his sweating forehead. “First time through here for me. I sell ribbon and notions. What’s this burg like?”

The mill owner twisted the tips of his mustache. “Like most Texas towns, I reckon, even though it’s in the hill country; hotter than a chili pepper and tougher than a whore’s heart!”

Bandit flinched at the remark; then remembered they didn’t know about his mother. The town of Gunpowder was a long way from here. He had a sudden memory of a small boy being chased by taunting, screaming children. . . .

The rancher picked up his cards. “You know what they say: ‘Texas is great for men and dogs but hell on women and horses.’” His eyes gleamed as he looked at the drummer in the natty, back-East suit. “And Injuns! Why nobody’s safe in their beds! South of here, them Lipans, Kickapoos, and Mescalero Apaches are raiding into Texas with the blessing of the Mexican government!”

The drummer wiped sweat from his nervous face. “Is that right? Dangerous, is it?”

The others laughed, but Bandit growled, “Damnit! Are we gonna play or not?” He reached unconsciously to touch the beaded, cougar-claw necklace he wore hidden under his shirt. If his blond, Czech grandmother hadn’t been raped by an Apache, maybe his half-breed mother wouldn’t have ended up . . . He signaled a passing waiter, grabbed a mug off his tray. The beer was not cool, but he was thirsty enough that it tasted good and he gulped it down.

He looked at his cards. Two deuces, a trey, six, ten. Nothin’ to brag about.

The drummer looked around the circle inquiringly. “You open?” he asked the rancher on his left.

The man scowled. “I pass.”

The cattle dealer fingered his diamond stickpin. “I open with a dollar.”

The shingle mill owner clinked his dollar out onto the table.

Bandit threw his dollar out as nonchalantly as if he had a pokeful. “Same here.”

The drummer’s dollar clinked as he tossed it on top of the others out in the center of the table.

“How many cards?” The dealer asked, looking around the circle. Bandit watched the men make their decisions, take cards. He’d survived all these years by studying other people, reading faces.

He signaled with two fingers.

“The Bandit from Bandera takes two,” said the dealer. He dealt them, dealt himself one.

Bandit studied his hand. Three of a kind, but deuces; not much of a hand. He might have to do some tall bluffing tonight or not eat tomorrow. Luck hadn’t ridden with him lately.

Still, he grinned with easy arrogance, tipped his chair back on two legs. His cocky self-assurance often made other men unsure of themselves, made them hesitate in his presence. If they only knew what insecurities lay hid behind his easy grin, Bandit thought ruefully, looking around the noisy, crowded interior.

The piano banged away off-key just a few feet from the table: De Camptown ladies sing dis song, Doo-Dah! Doo-dah! De Camptown race-track five miles long–Oh! doo-dah day! . . .

One of the painted women leaning on the old piano yelled, “Hey, Bandit, why don’t you come play us a tune?”

He waved her away. “Sorry, honey, got serious business here takin’ these gentlemen’s money. Maybe later . . .”

Tonight he felt a whole lot older than his twenty-five years, and it dawned on him that he’d spent his whole life in this smoky, sleazy atmosphere. He was sick of saloons, endless poker tables, and painted women who sold themselves a dozen times a night. Come to think of it, those were the only women he’d ever really known.

Bandit studied the sudden gleam in the cattle buyer’s eyes, saw the slight smirk on the drummer’s mouth. They might both hold better cards than he did, but nobody could play poker like the Bandit. He’d bluffed his way through life; that made him a natural at poker.

“Well, hombres, I hope you brought plenty of money, ‘cause tonight ol’ Bandit’s feelin’ lucky!” He reached into his vest for his good-luck medallion, laid it on the scarred table next to his beer mug.

“Still cost you a dollar, gentlemen.” The cattle buyer’s dollar clinked into the center of the table, followed by the mill owner’s.

“It’s your bet, Bandit.” The cattle buyer sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “You puttin’ that little gold coin in the pot?”

“Hell no!” Bandit grinned with easy charm. “That’s my lucky piece!” He nodded toward the little drummer who ran his tongue over his lower lip in eager anticipation while studying his cards. “You, sir, are not going to remember Bandera kindly!” And he threw a silver dollar out onto the table.

The shingle mill owner looked a little worried. “You must have one helluva hand, Bandit! One time I was in a card game up in San Angeto—”

“Ain’t that where that army payroll from Fort Concho got stolen last week?” the rancher interrupted, then sipped his whiskey.

The drummer nodded, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Yes sirree bob! I just come from up there and there’s talk of nothin’ else. More than that, the commanding officer’s sweet old mother just happened to be on the street. The robbers knocked her down, grabbed her necklace as they ran.”

“She okay?” The rancher sipped his whiskey.

“Dead as a squashed toadl” The drummer warmed to his story with evident relish. “Her skull cracked against a hitching block. They do say the army has vowed to comb every inch of Texas ’til they find them fellas!”

Bandit felt outraged. That was the kind of mother he’d always wanted—loving, respectable. When his old lady had been drunk, she’d beat her little boy. . . .

“What’s it gonna be, gents?” Bandit smirked.

The rancher scowled. “I fold.”

The cattle buyer’s eyes gleamed, signaling that he thought he had a good hand. “I’ll play and raise you a dollar.” Two cartwheels clinked onto the table.

The mill owner hesitated, tossed his cards in.

“Bandit, two dollars to stay in,” the drummer said.

Bandit yawned as if he held the world’s best hand, threw in the last two dollars he had in this world.

The cattle buyer hesitated. “For a dollar, I’ll see you.”

Bandit spread his cards before him and laughed. “Three deuces.”

The cattle buyer scowled darkly. “That beats my openers.” He threw his hand in.

“Me, too.” The drummer wiped his face, threw in his cards.

With a sigh of relief, Bandit raked the pot in, stacked the silver dollars up in front of him. At least he would eat tomorrow. He never looked any further than that.

While the cards were shuffled, cut, dealt again, Bandit looked around the smoky, noisy saloon. The girl by the piano smiled again. Women. Whores. All one and the same. He suddenly felt alone in the world although he was surrounded by a raucous crowd.

They played another hand. Now Lady Luck was riding with Bandit. He raised one arrogant eyebrow as he laid his cards out. “There you are, gents, straight flush! Read ’em and weep!”

He raked the pot in, grinned as he stuck a slender cigarillo between even, white teeth, then struck a match on the sole of his boot. Tomorrow, he’d buy a better horse, drift on as aimless as a tumbleweed, the way he’d been doing ever since his mother’s suicide.

The evening was growing a little long in the tooth when the deck came around to Bandit to shuffle, just as four men walked into the saloon. Bandit, accustomed to reading people, looked up and felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Three of the men elbowed their way through the throngs of cowboys and parlor girls, past Bandit and to the bar behind him. He glanced at them, sizing them up—a big one in an old Union blue jacket; a short, stocky one with a beard, wearing Confederate gray; an aging, boozy gunfighter with shaky hands.

But the fourth one, the leader, looked around with cold blue eyes and swaggered over to the poker table. “This a closed game or can anyone sit in?”

The light-haired man’s voice was almost a challenge, and Bandit studied him, caught the insolence in his tone, the way he wore his gun tied down and strapped low on his left hip. Could this man be ? . . .

Bandit paused in shuffling the deck, nodded agreeably. “Sure thing, stranger, your money’s good as any, I reckon.” The drummer, seated to his left, cut the cards, then Bandit dealt as the newcomer dragged up a chair between the rancher and the cattle buyer. That put him almost directly across from Bandit.

They played a couple of hands and then it was the newcomer’s turn to deal. “Dealer’s choice?”

“I reckon,” Bandit nodded agreeably. The big, blond hombre looked mean enough to take on a rattlesnake and give it first bite.

“The dealer allows as how he prefers five-card stud.”

Bandit felt a shiver pass through his wide shoulders. Five-card stud is a hard game to cheat at but a real challenge, and is preferred by professional cardsharps. He’d have to watch this hombre.

There would be a fight before they put the night to bed. He decided it would be a Mexican standoff with this one since they were about the same height and size. But the newcomer was one tough customer, Bandit decided, even though he looked a year or so younger than himself. He noted that the stranger had a fine coating of trail dust on his clothes.

Bandit tipped his hat back, smirked agreeably. “You look like you been rode hard and put up wet, fella.”

The pale blue eyes frowned back at him. “It’s a long way from where we been. Thinking about maybe going over to hoorah San Antone or go south of the border before we head back to the Territory.”

Bandit had a gut feeling the stranger had been marking high cards with his finger nail as they played, but he wasn’t sure enough to make an issue of it or call for a new deck.

He watched the newcomer’s hands as the man shuffled, handed the cards to the cattle buyer to cut, and took the deck back to deal. Bandit knew immediately he was dealing with a cheat when he saw the way the stranger held the deck as he began to deal. The man held the cards in his right hand, dealing with his left. But he held them in that particular way a cheat uses, three fingers down the long side of the deck, his forefinger on the outside corner.

Sooner or later, he’s gonna deal seconds, Bandit thought, and then what will I do? Bandit studied every detail about the pistolero seated across from him as he checked his hole card—the queen of spades. The next card, thrown face up for him, was a queen of hearts.

Love and death. Were the cards some kind of omen? He hoped suddenly that he wouldn’t be prodded into drawing against this hombre. Bandit was fast but if the other man was the Oklahoma Kid, as he suspected, he didn’t stand a chance.

The Kid glanced around the table at everyone’s upturned card. He had the ten of spades himself. “High card bets.” He nodded to Bandit, who threw in a dollar.

The drummer checked his hole card again, whistled under his breath.

The Kid gave the little man the same look Bandit had seen in a rattlesnake’s eyes just before it struck. “You make me nervous, mister, stop that whistlin’ before I shove them cardboards down your gullet”

“Meant no harm.” The little man gulped and his hands shook noticeably. “I . . . I fold.” He threw his cards onto the discard heap.

Bandit frowned, decided not to mix in. Since he had been a starved orphan at the age of twelve, nobody but Mona had looked out for him and he’d looked out for nobody. Still, the bullying of the little salesman bothered him. “Take it easy,” he drawled softly. “There’s a time for fightin’ and women, but right now, let’s just play poker.”

The stranger threw back his head and laughed, sipped his whiskey. “You have to be the most sassy bastard I crossed trails with since Hector was a pup!”

Bandit flinched at the word. Bastard, the kids had screamed, bastard!

The rancher, the mill owner, and the cattle buyer all checked their hole cards again before betting. That meant they, like the drummer didn’t have much, Bandit thought. When a man has a good hole card, he remembers what it is, doesn’t have to keep checking. Strange, the Kid never looked at his hole card, almost as if he’d known what it was he’d dealt.

He grinned at Bandit as though challenging him, threw a dollar into the pot, dealt a third round of cards faceup. “Deuce, trey, eight to the Bandit, then, jack, a king of spades to me.”

Bandit listened and watched the Kid’s hands. The Kid called out the cards, he knew, to cover that sound. Cards being dealt from the top of the deck have a particular sound. Seconds being dealt have just a slightly different sound that only a real expert can hear.

The Kid’s dealing seconds, Bandit thought, looking down at the cards spread on the table before him. Two eights now, that queen of hearts and the queen of spades in the hole unseen. That gave him two pair; an average hand. Bandit glanced over at the three toughs lounging against the bar. If he accused the Kid of cheating, he was going to have to shoot it out with all four, and the Kid had a bad reputation.

He looked at the Kid’s cards: a ten, king, jack, all spades and whatever he had in the hole.

The others hesitated, threw in their cards. Now it was just Bandit and the Kid playing. The two bet. Bandit’s mouth went dry. The others leaned back in their chairs and watched. Their expressions told him they didn’t have any idea the Kid was cheating.

Bandit might balance on the fence with the law sometimes, but he would never stoop to cheating at cards. Some of his past was a little shady—a cow or two that wore someone else’s brand had followed him off—but he scorned a card cheat. He was dead certain the Oklahoma Kid had not only been marking high cards with his thumbnail, but had been dealing seconds, maybe even slipping extra cards into the deck.

“Fifth card comin’ up,” the Kid said loudly over the piano music, the whirl of the roulette wheel in the background.

He dealt Bandit another eight, himself an ace of spades, and then grinned triumphantly. But it was Bandit’s soul that sang suddenly. Bandit had a trio of eights, and his two queens—full house.

Now the only thing that beats a full house is a royal flush or a straight flush. Bandit knew by looking at the Kid’s upturned cards that he was trying for a royal flush of spades. But to do that, he needed the queen to complete it. And the queen of spades was Bandit’s hole card.

Bandit picked up his lucky piece, turned it over in his fingers, put it back in his vest, waited. Now just what was the Oklahoma Kid doing this far from the Territory? Maybe no one else had seen the “Wanted” posters. At least, no one else seemed to recognize that identifying mark or realize who this desperado was.

The Kid’s cold eyes smiled arrogantly, knowingly, as if he sensed that Bandit had recognized him, might even be proud of the fact. He caught Bandit’s gaze through the hazy smoke, and leered slowly as if in challenge. His pale, hard eyes reflected pinpoints of light from the giant wagonwheel chandelier overhead.

Bandit shrugged. He was no bounty hunter and the sheriff was out of town. All Bandit wanted was a little relaxation, a friendly game of poker. He had the best hand and he knew it.

“Three eights bet.” The Kid grinned without mirth. “You know, Tex, I been watchin’ you all evening; I like your style. How would you like to join up with us?”

Bandit shook his head, threw in five silver dollars. “Name’s Bandit. No sale. I’m a loner, always have been.”

A little warmth came into the ice-blue eyes across from him. “Me, too, Bandit. I was raised by an old renegade up in the Territory, but he’s dead. Before that. . . .” His voice trailed off and-he looked puzzled, shook his head. “I think we’d make good saddle pards. You got no folks?”

“No.” But Bandit thought, I’m what Westerns call a woods colt. My mother was a saloon whore. I don’t even know which one of her customers sired me.

“I heard of you, Bandit,” the other said. “I hear you’re faster’n chain lightning with a link snapped. Faster’n anybody but the Oklahoma Kid.”

Bandit gave him a level look. “Maybe faster’n him, too. Never had to draw against him. You gonna play or talk?”

The Kid grinned. “With this hand? I’ll bet!”

Bandit smiled back, said nothing. The Kid was bluffing. He couldn’t make a winning hand without the queen of spades and Bandit had it.

One of the trio at the bar behind Bandit guffawed. “If you really want to play for high stakes, boss, bet that pinto stud! Anybody’d play for him!”

The Kid shook his head. “Hell, no! That’s the finest stallion in the whole West, maybe in the world! I only owned him a couple of months myself. I call you and raise you all I got on me.” He reached in his vest, threw a handful of new twenty-dollar gold pieces onto the table along with a broken strand of pink and purple beads. “These pearls is supposed to be worth a couple of hundred dollars.”

The rancher, watching, whistled low. The other men’s eyes widened. People began to gather around the table. The stranger had to have the queen in the hole to bet so much.

“Never saw beads like that before,” the drummer said.

“Them beads? . . .” The mill owner didn’t finish his question.

Bandit looked at the beads a long moment. He knew this state like his own scarred kuckles. There were only a few places in the world where freshwater pearls came in shades of pink and purple. And one of them was the Concho River running though San Angelo. In his mind, he saw a sweet old lady, her skull crashing against a hitching block as a robber pushed her, tore away her necklace.

He leaned on his elbows, looked into the Kid’s eyes without blinking. “I haven’t got that much.” He silently counted the pile of silver before him. “Will you take my marker?”

The Kid grinned as he tipped his chair back on two legs, the big chandelier reflecting off his whiskey glass. “Nope.” He shook his head.

“I got a bay gelding I can bet.” Bandit had the winning cards, he knew it. He wasn’t going to be bluffed out of this pot, but he couldn’t cover the bet.

“That hunk of buzzard bait I saw at the hitching r