The third outlaw had time only to gape, then he flapped backwards with a bullet through his sternum.
Canon dropped from the slings and walked toward the moaning outlaw, gun ready. He took the holstered pistol, flung it away.
“I think I know who sent you,” Canon said, “but I want to make sure. Tell me the name.” The outlaw only groaned. “Look,” Canon said, “we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Your choice.” The outlaw said nothing, then screamed as Canon kicked him in the ribs.
“Give me the name, or I’ll shoot you,” Canon said.
“Go ahead, mister. Finish me off. I’m done for anyways.”
Canon shot the man in the leg. When the screams died to a whimper, Canon glared down at him. “I didn’t say I’d kill you, I said I’d shoot you,” Canon said. “Now tell me who hired you or I’ll shoot you again.” The outlaw quickly, whimperingly, complied, then again begged Canon to finish him.
“Well,” said Canon, “I guess you’d do the same thing for me.” The .50 roared.
Riding away, he wondered how things were at the plantation, now that the manor house was gone. If he knew his father—and Canon felt he knew Buck Canon better than anyone else, with the possible exception of Mountain Eagle—then Buck and the Eagle had not stood idly by and watched the Yankees burn it. Yet he was certain the two men most important in his life were alive. It would take more than a couple of Yankee regiments to stop those two.
Canon would like to have seen Mulberry once more, to have his memories made real again. He had thought himself so worldly then, before the war. Now he knew he had been an innocent twenty-three-year-old who leisured at hunting game and pursuing the belles around Montgomery.
But Canon had rarely boasted of his prowess or paramours as did many of the young bloods in Montgomery. For one thing, it was dangerous to do so. He had seen too many of his contemporaries shot, married or run out of town for their boasting. Rightly, too, he thought. He considered such actions beneath the dignity of a gentleman.
Life on the central Alabama plantation had been gentle and sweet. Many a pampered, powered pretty had fallen willing victim to Canon’s philistine physique, family wealth and the hint of cruelty that lurked in his gray eyes.
Canon considered the word. Gentleman. Gentle man. Strange that nearly every male in the South, high born or low, would cheerfully call for a duel to the death with anyone who disputed his right to be called a gentle man.
2
Canon prized his palomino, Hammer. The stallion stood eighteen hands tall at the withers. He was “much hoss” as old Buck Canon was wont to say, and Canon meant to have him on the spring day he first saw him. It was a warm Friday afternoon, the kind of day that made the twenty miles from Mulberry Manor to Montgomery a pleasure ride through white honeysuckle and apple blossom.
Hammer was tied to the hitching post outside Canon’s favorite Montgomery emporium, Hospitality House. Even as a two-year-old, Hammer dwarfed the horses hitched beside him. Canon, approaching his twenty-first birthday, found the present he wanted. He took one look and went in search of the owner.
The wiry Texan, Bill Kelley, would not even discuss selling the horse. After hours of coaxing by Canon, he finally agreed to play five-card stud poker for him, his two thousand dollars in chips representing the horse. They played for a day and a night, then Canon found the momentum and ultimately a club flush.
Hospitality House was well appointed. The gaming room chandelier lit the furthermost corners and set the brass and cut glass asparkle. The house drink, Planter’s Punch, was known statewide.
Kelley tried the punch as the two men chose a green baize table and called for cards. He pronounced the drink deserving of its excellent reputation. But poker, he declared, called for bourbon whiskey. He looked inquiringly at Canon, who nodded and then found himself in a drinking match as well as the toughest card game of his life. If Canon won, it would not be right for his genial companion ever to regret his own conviviality. By midnight, Canon was ahead on drinks but down a thousand dollars.
He had rarely been happier than when Kelley called a rest break and headed out back. Canon chose the front door, marveling at the man’s capacity for bourbon and branch water. But as the cool wind off the river began to thin the cobwebs thrumming in his head, Canon looked at the hitching post to which Hammer had been tied Friday. He’s mine!, thought Canon, suddenly certain he was going to win.
Close on the heels of that thought came another. It was a stern warning to himself that there is no such thing as a person drinking himself sober. Canon determined to open up a bit but at the same time to do nothing foolish. Poker was sometimes nothing more than pouncing on another’s mistake.
By daylight, Canon had won back his thousand and fifteen hundred more, thanks to an outside straight he drew against two pair showing. He refused to fall for the bluff that he was facing a full house. Kelley congratulated him good-naturedly.
By noon, word had gotten round about the game. Spectators were lined three deep around the table. Cigar smoke billowed about the players and each hand was played to applause for the winner. More and more often, it was for Canon.
After eighteen hours, Canon was up thirty-five hundred dollars and clearly owned the momentum. It was over soon after. Canon dealt the cards, one down and four up, with bets made after each new card was dealt. Canon held four clubs, Kelley had four hearts. Each man used a thumb to lift a corner of his hole card, peered at it. The fifth fleur-de-lis sat pat under Canon’s hand. He had hit the flush!
Canon showed calm, but his heart was racing. If Kelley had also hit his flush, Canon was in trouble. Kelley’s hand showed an ace up, which would outrank Canon’s hand. His was only to the queen. Kelley smiled as he pushed his remaining chips to the middle of the table.
“Fifteen hundred, Rabe,” he said.
A thin film of sweat gathered on Canon’s brow. He knew that, under strict rules of the game, he could raise the bet and that Kelley would not have enough chips to call. Kelley would have to withdraw his bet.
Canon slowly pushed his chips to the middle of the table. “Fifteen hundred, Bill. I call,” he said. The room, which had been filled with a low murmur, fell quiet. This was perhaps the deciding hand of the game. Should Canon lose, the momentum would shift in a big way.
Kelley grinned widely, grabbed the deck and slipped his cards into it.
“Broken hearts, son,” he said. “No flush, no pair, no nothing. If you have another puppy’s paw, you also got you a damned fine horse.”
Canon flipped over the fifth club, and Hospitality House went wild.
Later, after the crowd finished back slapping, hat throwing and drink buying, Canon walked Kelley to the Texan’s upstairs room.
“Why did you do it, Bill?” said Canon. Kelley looked at him quizzically.
“Don’t play dumb,” Canon continued. “I looked at the deck while everybody was buying you drinks. Canon pulled six cards from his pocket, spread them into a fan. “You not only held a heart flush to begin with, you threw one of them away and then drew another heart. You threw away a winning hand, then you folded a winning hand. Why, Bill?”
The big man blushed.
“I made up my mind at midnight that I wanted you to have the horse, Rabe. I’m getting on in years, you know, and I care more about that animal than most anything I’ve got, with the possible exception of the old lady that’s waiting for me back at the house.
“It’s just me and her and a few ranch hands. Apaches got my boy years ago. He’d be about the same age as you. So I decided last night to leave Hammer to you in my will. But it’s a long way to Dallas and mayhap a few more years before I pass on. A lot can happen.