The Rider

MARSHAL GARRETT

"Care to join us?" the Marshal said.

The Rider pulled up a chair. Around him, their fellow gamblers stared at the new arrival, but not the Marshal. Ira would not give the Rider the courtesy of meeting his eye. Earl and the others, in their varying states of inebriation, showed no such restraint.

He endured their glances, making himself comfortable in the chair opposite Marshal Garrett. "What's the game?" he said, his words clear, concise and sober. It set him apart from the other players.

"Dealer's choice," Earl said. He collected the cards, returned them to the deck, and placed it down in front of Ira.

"Five Card Draw," Marshal Garrett said, shuffling the playing cards.

The tension surrounding the table was palatable. Earl could not remain still, fidgeting with the brim of his hat. His lip stretched over his crooked teeth and made an irritable sucking sound. Ira tried to ignore it as he tried to ignore the Rider's stare. He could feel the heat of it burning a hole in him, but still he refused to tilt his chin up and meet it. He focused on the cards moving between his fingers.

"I'll sit in, if nobody has any objections" the Rider said.

Nobody argued. Nobody had the fortitude to do so.

"How much are you in for?" Earl asked.

"Give him fifty credits," Ira answered. "If he thinks fifty will suffice."

The Rider nodded. Earl looked to the Marshal, unsure of the Rider's confirmation. Affronted by Beckett's incompetence, Ira chewed on his lip and gestured for the cow herder to do as instructed.

Worn out, dusty poker chips slid across the table. They were mere wooden tokens with approximated values carved into their surface. Earl remained indecisive, muttering under his breath. The fool's counting, Ira thought, just as Earl Beckett paused again, to ensure his math was correct.

"Before we wither and die of old age, Mr Beckett," Marshal Garrett said, tethering the urge to roll his eyes.

"Yes sir." Earl ceased counting and deposited the pile in front of the Rider. His simple looking face twisted into a grimace and he gripped at his shoulder when he was through depositing the last of the poker chips.

"Earl here had a nasty fall earlier today," Marshal Garrett said, "Didn't you Earl?"

"I did at that," Earl replied. "Virgil Blaylock charged me down. Fell right across a table, and near wrenched my shoulder right off."

"Mr. Blaylock caused quite a commotion. I saw to him though, didn't I Earl?"

Earl's twisted grimace faltered and his meek voice replied, "You did, Marshal."

Marshal Garrett finished shuffling and set about dealing the other players their hands. His eyes drew up, locking on the Rider at last. He couldn't place him, and didn't figure him to be a member of Wyatt Fischer's famous band of outlaws, not at first glance anyhow. He'd seen the likeness of Fischer's associates before—Black Bill Clifton, the Mexican, the negro, young Bass Webb—and had envisioned every last one of them strung up by the neck, hanging from the gallows. He knew the reward they'd fetch, individually and collectively, and knew how he might spend the coin if he were the one to turn them over to meet their fate.

No, the Rider wasn't one of them. Which begged the question, what is his association with Fischer? Marshal Garrett considered the possibility the Rider intended to turn Fischer over himself, but if that was his plan, he would have been forthright with the Marshal from their first meeting. Ira continued to chew his bottom lip. The Rider had already tried to make a halfwit of him, lying about his arrival in Abilene. And then there was Mrs. Burrows, who'd sheltered them both and treated him like a dullard herself, concocting stories of shooting at rats when the truth was plain as day to see.