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Short Stories & Tall Tales
THE DEVIL, THE GAMBLER, AND THE GIRL
Charlie Steel
Jack Diamond had gambled in nearly every smoke-filled, liquor soaked saloon in the west. Jack was born an intelligent and handsome boy, and with his quick mind he could have become anything he desired---a teacher, a college professor, a doctor, an engineer, or any other desirable profession. As a child his instructors, as well as his parents had high hopes for the bright-eyed lad. But a darker side took over the youth’s God-given talents and by the time he was eighteen he had spent many a lantern lit night holding cards around crowded tables.
From Montana to Texas, from Oklahoma to California, he had made his living being slicker with cards than the average man. His fingers could feel and memorize the hidden faces with a sensitive consciousness all their own. And his quick mind could remember each card played, every combination, and thus the odds were increased to his side. But still, gambling was an iffy business at best, and when playing honestly, Lady Luck was a fickle companion. From time to time when the cards weren’t with him, he had used his skill to shuffle a winning hand. And sometimes, not often, he was called out for it. During these tense moments he would try his best to subdue the situation. Most times successfully, but not always. On more than one occasion it had ended with a derringer in hand and a dead adversary lying across green felt, scattered cards, and blood splattered greenbacks.
The endless procession of towns and saloons, late nights spent in smoke-filled rooms, with the stale smell of spittoons, tobacco, and alcohol, made the color of Jack’s face an unhealthy yellow pallor. His once clear eyes and smooth taut skin were beginning to pale and wrinkle. Hands, once steady and firm, began to tremor. Memories of countless games, and innumerable gunfights, and the faces of death, were eating at the clouded consciousness of the man. In bed, when sleep did come, there were nightmares.
The gambling became less successful. The elegant outfits he always wore faded with repeated use and became drab and threadbare. Jack was losing his touch and his nerve, deadly for any gambler. He was becoming weary of his profession and of life itself. He was without a friend in the entire world, a lost soul, all alone in a sea of humanity. Jack was well aware that his entire life had become nothing but a meaningless existence. Abhorring alcohol during his career, he now was turning to it for solace. It became his medication that allowed him fitful moments of sleep.
One late night, after breaking even at the card table, he made his way up to the single room in a run down hotel somewhere in a town in New Mexico. The name unknown to him, and if told, he would neither care nor be concerned. This particular night Jack was in a fit of remorse. The dead faces of the many innocents he had killed over a manipulated card game wavered in his consciousness---faces that he could not forget and that would not go away. Without awareness, he blurted out drunkenly his desperate thoughts.
“I’d sell my soul to the Devil for one night’s good sleep and to never remember another dead man’s face.”
The Indians who once inhabited the vast western deserts of New Mexico and the great mountains believed in the power of all things. Here was an ancient and mysterious land, never to be fully conquered by man. Mysteries still abounded, the magic of the country would always pervade human spirits. It was a vast and arid place full of wonder. When Jack Diamond finished speaking, a deadly silence occurred, followed by a terrific wind that came with a low moaning sigh. It increased to a howling rush that shook the hotel and the very room where Jack set his weary body down. For one second, upon the lumpy mattress, a flicker of recognition of the mysterious sound came to the mind of the man, and then was lost as Jack closed his eyes and slept.
There were no spectral images of gaping mouths and twisted figures, gasping out their last breaths. On this night, he saw no man in his death throes across a table of scattered cards. No faces haunted him of angry men who accused him of sleight of hand with colored pasteboards. The images of ghost white faces remembered in the late hours did not haunt him as they had for so many years. Nor did his mind and body wake him in the black of night for a sip of the fiery brew. For only liquor, a product more of the Devil’s making, could sooth his jangled nerves and remove the fevered thoughts that haunted him during the day, and drove him to sleepless madness at night.
This was the first night in years where other thoughts and dreams did not repeat themselves during the dark hours. Still, his consciousness remembered and regretted that he had turned away from the teachings of his parents. So long ago he had showed scholarly promise of becoming a man of great success. His teachers had told him, with his God given talents, he could pursue any number of worthy professions. Instead, he had taken the easy path, using his sharp mind to count cards, to cheat his fellow man, to turn to avarice in pursuit of a wastrel’s life.
When Jack awoke, he felt refreshed. It was the first time in years he had slept the night through without recurring nightmares. There was something unusual about the atmosphere of the room and there was a distinct sulfur odor. Jack rose up, and sitting at a chair was a darkly dressed man. Swarthy of appearance, the stranger was painfully slim. Dark skin stretched tightly over skull. His black hair came down on his broad forehead, and above each temple a tuft of hair stood up in a pointed fashion. Dark black eyes with a dancing yellow flash looked back intensely. Boney, long skeletal fingers held a deck of cards. The hands moved, the cards whirred in a deft and fancy shuffle.
“How about a game?” asked the dark stranger.
“Who are you?”
“A gambler, like yourself. I believe you made a wish. I came to fulfill it. Now, how about the card game? I don’t have much time, we’ll play one hand, and winner takes all.”
“I’m afraid I am short of funds,” said Jack.
“No matter. One game, your soul against---how did you put it? Oh yes--- for one night’s good sleep and to never remember another dead man’s face.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” asked Jack now rising from his bed, still fully dressed.
“I assure you it is not.”
A dark curtain covered a window, and Jack walked to it and drew it back to look out. Intense light beamed inwardly and the man waved his hand. Jack turned to see it. There was a loud snap of the boney fingers and the curtain by itself slammed together shutting out the light.
“If you don’t mind,” clipped the stern voice of the stranger. “We’ll dispense with that.”
Jack observed the intruder, and knew without doubt that he was being visited by a creature of supernatural abilities.
“I would not win against a man of your talents,” said Jack in surprising calmness.
“Come, Jack, at least try to play a good game. You and I both know very well that with the life you have led, I will have your soul anyway. What’s the difference if it is now or later?”
“If that is so, why play for it at this very moment?”
“I have my quota,” answered the dark stranger in a voice suddenly smooth and soothing. “And…well…there is always the chance that you could change…a slim chance, of course, but free-will has always been a delicate matter in dealing with human lives.”
“Why have you come? I mean…at this exact time?”
“You invited me, Jack. We…I…never come unless invited. Let us play. Your wish has been granted. For as long as you live you shall never have another nightmare and you will sleep like an infant without a conscience.”
“How long will that be?”
“Jack!” said the strange visitor soothing his voice for the benefit of his subject. “Jack! Is this the same man who fretted and wished for peace and death? Come now. There is no time to dally.”
“And if I refuse to play?”
“Look at yourself in the mirror, Jack.”
Jack turned to a framed glass, and as suggested, looked at his image. Behind him reflected in the mirror was the chair, table, and wall, but not the dark stranger.
“Ten years have melted off you in one night’s sleep,” purred the cadaverous man. “Your eyes are clearer and you even have a bit of color in your cheeks. Just think what a month of such rest could do for you.”
“Do I have a choice?” asked Jack, walking to the door, and now having regret for invoking the Devil’s name.
“No!” he shouted. “Step outside that door and I will visit upon you a thousand curses. Your death will be an agonizing one, I assure you!”
Reluctantly, Jack Diamond returned and sat on the edge of the bed. The mysterious man slid over a small table and chair, sat down, and began to shuffle. Cards whirred.
“Five card draw, is the game,” said the stranger in a devilish voice.
When the five cards lay before him, Jack raised them. He had two eights and two aces. Jack laid aside a deuce. Then came a scream of a female from the next room followed by crashing of furniture. Jack arose, derringer in hand.
“That is not your affair!” shouted the stranger, standing up and blocking the door to the hotel room.
“I haven’t yet lost all my decency!” said Jack, and he pushed the slim visitor aside.
The gambler felt sudden heat on his hands, and smoke actually billowed from the dark suit of the boney man. Again came the sulfur smell. Jack grabbed for the door knob and thrust open the door. He ran into the hallway and to the adjacent hotel room.
“I warn you!” shouted the slim dark man. “There will be consequences!”
Jack took hold of the door handle of the room from which the noise was obviously emanating. The knob would not turn, the mechanism was locked. With his shoulder, he slammed against the door, and it did not budge. The girl screamed again, and Jack thrust twice more, each time with increasing force. The jam, which held the metal lock and latch, broke, and the door swung inward. Two men were subduing a lady. One was tying her hands behind her, while the other was attempting to gag her mouth.
“That’s enough!” shouted Jack. “What’s going on here?”
“Muff, umph, umph,” mumbled the gagged woman.
“Untie her and remove that rag!” ordered Jack, holding the derringer on the ruffians.
The two strong men eyed their adversary warily.
“This is none of your affair!” shouted one of them angrily.
“I’m making it mine! Now untie her!”
One of the men reached inside his coat and a gun and shoulder holster were exposed. Jack shot and the bullet struck the man in the arm. He stopped reaching for the pistol and instead. held his hand to a dripping wound.
The other man pulled the gag from the lady’s mouth.
“They hired me,” said the woman. “They promised room and board if I would clerk. But after I moved in they told me I had to do more. I’ve haven’t sunk that low yet!”
“This hussy owes the boss money,” said the bully without the wound.
“I do not!” she protested.
Jack looked at the thugs. He could see from a lifetime of experience that these were toughs hired by the hotel owner to perform nefarious deeds. The woman in question was attractive, but like him, she had seen better times. She still held some of her good looks and figure despite her age. No doubt, she was in the same condition as him, desperate and low of funds.
“She owes money for food and the hotel room,” said the wounded man. “The boss will pay heck, Mister, if we don’t come with the dame or the money.”
“How much?” asked Jack.
“You mean, you would help this…”
“How much?”
“Thirty dollars!” blurted out the man holding his shoulder.
“Untie her,” said Jack, reaching in his rumpled coat, finding a leather wallet, and pulling nearly the last of his money from its folds. Jack selected three tens and held them out. The nearest tough grabbed for the cash.
“Mister!” shouted the wounded fellow. “Las Vegas, New Mexico, won’t be healthy for the two of you. You better clear out, or…”
“Just get going,” said Jack, still pointing the derringer at the two men.
They left the room and one of them slammed the door. It crashed against the broken jam, failed to latch, and swung open a few inches.
“Thank you,” said the woman, staring with grateful hazel eyes. “They lied to you. I worked downstairs at the hotel desk. This room came with the job. But thank you. Who knows what…”
“It’s alright,” said Jack. “But you and I better clear out of here. I don’t think it will be safe.”
There came a distinct sulfur smell, and then the door silently swerved open. There, before the woman and Jack, stood the skeletal man in black.
“Have you forgotten something?” purred the man in a menacing manner.
“No,” said Jack. “I haven’t forgotten. But for your information, Mister Mephistopheles, or whoever you are, I am not playing. In fact, I’ve given up cards for life.”
“Too late!” shouted the man.
“If it is,” said Jack. “The first move is up to you.”
“Who’s that?” asked the woman. “He looks and smells awful!”
“Pay him no mind,” said Jack. “As long as you live a clean life, you have nothing to fear from him!”
Jack put away his derringer and waited for the girl. He watched as she gathered a few items of clothing and placed them in a carpet bag. Jack went forward and shoved the man in black away from the entrance of the door. Upon contact, again there was the sense of heat on his hands and the sulfurous smell. The former gambler went to his room and got his packed valise. He came back for the attractive female and watched her as she cautiously stepped around the emaciated man. The woman and Jack, bags in hand, began to walk down the hotel hallway and towards the stairs.
“This isn’t the end of this!” shouted the gaunt character in black.
“It is, as far as I’m concerned,” said Jack. “She and I are going straight.”
There was a cursing exclamation, the exact meaning escaping the ears of man and woman. And when they came to the top of the stairs, they heard a loud cracking sound. When Jack and the lady turned, all that was visible where the dark stranger had stood, was a white wisp of smoke.
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