The Rancher's Daughter Read online

  Lainie grinned back at him. “You scared to lose to a girl?”

  The other men laughed. “Well, Storts? Are you?” one of them asked. The house ladies tittered and whispered among themselves.

  “Not at all,” the black-suited man said, chuckling. “You just have a seat, little lady, and we’ll see who loses.”

  Silas pulled over a chair for Lainie from another table, and two of the players made room for her across from Storts. She sat down and Silas took up his position standing behind her to watch the game. Immediately, two house ladies attached themselves to him, one on each arm. Instead of objecting and making a scene, he decided he’d do better to keep a close eye on them to make sure they weren’t signaling Lainie’s hand to the other players, a not-uncommon method of cheating. He also watched carefully as the dealer shuffled the cards and dealt them out.

  The dealer was indeed a professional. Though his movements were quick, they were precise and easy to follow. No player was being shorted or dealt extra cards by this man. After the deck of a hundred and five cards was dealt out in even hands among the six players, three cards were left over. Careful not to reveal what they were, the dealer set them aside face down. The extra cards made the game more interesting; there was no way of knowing whether any particular card was in another player’s hand or among the discards. Each player also had two additional cards beyond the sets of three used in the game, which made it even harder to guess which cards would come into play.

  Lainie picked up her hand and began grouping the cards into combinations of three. Silas knew what combinations he would play, but then he never won and Lainie always did. The house ladies at his side had their hands wrapped around his upper arms, so he knew they weren’t using hand signals to communicate what Lainie was doing. To keep them distracted from Lainie’s hand, he flexed his muscles a bit. One lady cooed, the other giggled, and they leaned in closer. Lainie, intent on her cards, gave no sign that she noticed.

  Once the cards were arranged, the other players placed their bets as separate piles of coins on the tray and the game began. The players laid their first combinations face down on the table. When everyone had placed their cards, they turned them over to reveal the combos. Lainie started out with her usual opening play, a fairly high combination; the Star Dragon, Moon Mage, and Fire Queen, in this case. In the next round, she dropped to a lower combination, then followed that with a middling combo, a high card dragged down by two lower cards; this time, the Moon Queen, Star Hunter, and Earth Priest. This pattern was intended to lull the other players into thinking she had already played her best cards.

  The game progressed, money was added to and taken from the wagers on the tray, cards in hands were rearranged after each round to adjust to the previous plays. In this high-stakes, full-rules game, the points won in each round were tallied with polished and faceted colored stones. After the first four rounds, Lainie wasn’t winning, but she also wasn’t furthest behind. Then, in the fifth and last round, she laid down three Mages: Sun, Fire, and Air. When all the cards were turned face up, the combination of three high-house cards of the same high rank proved to be unbeatable.

  The dealer totaled up the points; Lainie had won more than half of the money on the tray. Silas reckoned it was enough for new boots and a new set of clothes for each of them. But before he could suggest they leave, Lainie said, “I’m in for the next game.”

  Another game wouldn’t hurt anything, Silas decided. Or two; he knew her style of play well enough to know that she would probably lose this game on purpose, and he also knew better than to try to coax her away after an intentional loss. Besides, by her laughter and the excited color in her face, she was having more fun than she had had in a long time, and Silas was having almost as much fun watching her. As long as they didn’t draw too much attention to themselves, they should be fine.

  The dealer passed out the cards again. Though Lainie got a decent hand, she only put half of her winnings back on the tray. The lower wager would reduce her final take from this game and sent a signal that she wasn’t quite as comfortable playing as her initial win would suggest.

  During the second game, Lainie played her best cards in uniformly mediocre combinations. With each round, Silas could see the other players growing more complacent; she was only a woman, after all, and a young one at that, and her first win had clearly been luck. As he expected, she lost that round.

  With that loss out of the way, it was time for her to get serious. She made quick work of the next three games, and her pile of coins on the tray grew while most of the others shrank. Enthralled by her skillful play and the growing pile of coins, Silas forgot all about trying to put an early end to the evening.

  After the fourth game, one of the other players took his winnings and bowed out, followed by a second player after the fifth game, leaving only Lainie, Storts, and two other men at the table. Storts grinned around his cigar as a house lady clad in vivid purple satin caressed his shoulder. “Shall we continue?”

  Fewer players meant a longer and more challenging game. Lainie grinned back at him and said, “I’m in if you are.”

  The dealer dealt out the cards and set the one extra card aside, face down. When Lainie picked up her hand, Silas looked at the cards and fought to keep his reaction from showing on his face. She had drawn five of the seven Dragons, including Sun and Fire, the two highest. He put his arms around the house ladies’ waists to keep them from noticing Lainie’s draw. They giggled again and nuzzled up against his shoulders. No doubt Lainie would give him a hard time about it later, but he was willing to sacrifice himself for a good cause.

  Storts arranged his cards while doing a poor job of suppressing a wide smile. Silas wondered what he had to be so happy about. Then Storts tossed a large gold hundred-gilding coin onto the silver tray, to join the rest of his substantial wager. The conversation around the table died, then bloomed again in murmurs of surprise and speculation.

  “Well, little lady?” Storts asked Lainie.

  She left all of her previous winnings on the tray. “I’m all in.”

  The other two players took half of their winnings from their piles on the tray. Silas tried to calculate how much money was left as wagers. With Storts’s hundred-gilding piece, he guessed it must still be over three hundred gildings, as much he used to make in a good year of bounty hunting. And with five Dragons in her hand, Lainie would be nearly impossible to beat. If she won, their money worries, and a lot of their other problems, would be solved for a good long time. That much money would let them make a straight, quick shot to Piney Ridge without having to stop to look for work or to resupply. And then they could head west, as far away from Granadaia and the Mage Council as they could get. Maybe even –

  An idea he had had before but had hardly dared think about reared itself up in his mind. Maybe they could even go all the way across the plains to Amber Bay on the western coast. Surely Lainie would be safe from the Mage Council out there. Now that they likely knew about her, an untrained mage on the loose, and her illegal ability to suppress another mage’s power, that might be the only place where she would be safe.

  Silas did another check for mage power, focusing on Storts, the dealer, and his two house lady friends. Again, the search turned up nothing, not even an absence of life-force that would suggest a too-strong shield. Of course, any mage would be a fool to use magic to cheat at cards; if he was caught, it would only entitle him to be shot along with the standard hanging.

  The game began. Lainie started with only a medium-high combination on the first round, using her Star Dragon, then played another fairly high card with two low cards. Over the next few rounds, she stayed low with a couple of mediocre combinations. The two players who had taken money from the tray started putting it back in as their points added up.

  The game came down to the last few combinations. For the next to last round, Lainie played her Earth Dragon with the Earth Demon and Earth Death for a weak House combo. This led to a flurry of changed
bets as the other players tried to guess whether she was scraping the bottom of the barrel for combos that would get her any meaningful number of points at all or if she was holding back something big. Common wisdom held that, in a game where the hands included extra cards, you only played the Earth Death, the lowest card, if you were really desperate.

  For the last round, each player had five cards left in their hands to choose from. Lainie was still holding the Sun, Fire, and Moon Dragons, any of which, as far as the other players knew, could be held by any other player or be the discarded card. Silas kept his face absolutely straight as she selected her final combo. The players placed their last combinations face down on the table, then turned them over. Slowly, Lainie revealed her three high Dragons.

  The other two players groaned, but Storts smiled. “Now that’s an interesting three, little lady. Especially seeing as how I already played the Fire Dragon five rounds ago.”

  A heartbeat of shocked silence passed, then Lainie slammed her hands down on the table and stood up so abruptly she knocked her chair back. “What?”

  A prickling sense of unease that Silas had only been half-aware of suddenly sharpened. Not magic, but something he had missed…

  Storts rifled through the combinations he had put down, and came up with another Fire Dragon. “See?”

  “You – You never played that!” Lainie said. “I would have – Everyone would have noticed!”

  “It’s right here in my pile of threes,” Storts said calmly.

  Silas identified the source of his unease; during this last game, the motions of Storts’s arms and hands had been almost imperceptibly broader than before. The movements might only have been a mannerism born of his confidence, but they could also have covered a bit of sleight of hand with the cards.

  “But – I never saw you play it!” Lainie protested. “That’s a fake card that you planted!”

  Dead quiet fell over the table, then spread to the rest of the saloon. Even the hammerbox fell silent. A revolver appeared in Storts’s hand, aimed at Lainie. “Are you accusing me of cheating, little lady?” His voice was cool and menacingly calm. “Because I could accuse you of the same thing. Where did your Fire Dragon come from after I already played mine?”

  Silas shook loose the house ladies and drew his own gun. So much for keeping a low profile; nobody insulted and threatened Lainie that way. “Care to repeat that?” he asked Storts, his own voice equally cold despite the fury burning inside him.

  “I have no dispute with you, friend,” Storts said. “Just with the lady here.”

  “I have a dispute with you when you draw a gun on my wife and accuse her of cheating.” They had given up on trying to hide their marriage after Fazar presumably let the secret out, and, under these circumstances, Lainie’s life might depend on her position as a married woman under her husband’s protection.

  “All right, then. Let’s see what the dealer thinks,” Storts said. Without lowering his gun, he handed the dealer his Fire Dragon, and Lainie turned hers over as well.

  The dealer grimaced slightly; it was as much as a man’s life was worth to try to make a judgment between two people who were accusing each other of cheating at cards. But making such judgments was part of the job for a professional dealer, and he was otherwise calm as he studied both cards. “They both look real to me,” he said. “Both look like the rest of the deck. Same colors in the printing, same amount of wear.”

  “Did you actually see him play that Fire Dragon?” Lainie asked.

  “Count my cards,” Storts said to one of the other players before the dealer could answer. He took back his Fire Dragon and replaced it in his stack of played combos. “Should be perfect sets of three, with no extras.”

  The man Storts had spoken to picked up the cards and counted them. “Twenty-four. Perfect sets of three, all right.”

  “But you didn’t see him play the Fire Dragon, did you?” Lainie demanded.

  “Can’t say, ma’am,” the man answered. “I was paying attention to my own cards.” But his gaze shifted away to the side.

  “Anyone?” Lainie pled. “Did anyone see him play that Fire Dragon?”

  The purple-clad house lady at Storts’s right shoulder raised a hand gloved in black lace. “I saw it. I was right here, watching his every move.”

  “You’re lying! He’s paying you to say that!”

  Storts’s eyes narrowed, and he kept his gun trained on Lainie. “Care to say that again, little lady?”

  “How stupid would I have to be, to cheat with a card that’s already been played?” Lainie shouted.

  Still keeping his own gun aimed at Storts, Silas said quietly to Lainie, “Come on, darlin’. It’s not worth it. Let’s get out of here before anyone gets hurt.”

  “But he cheated!”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” Silas said through gritted teeth. He didn’t know what position Storts held in this town; whatever it was, it was clear that no one was going to gainsay him no matter how blatant his cheating had been. That money would have solved a lot of their problems, but it wouldn’t do them any good if they got themselves killed over it. “Let’s go.” He put his arm around her shoulders. Her body was stiff with anger, but she let him lead her away from the table.

  “Little lady!” Storts called out.

  Lainie and Silas both turned to look at him. He had put his gun away and was grinning smugly around his cigar. Silas entertained a brief, tempting notion of shoving the cigar down Storts’s gullet.

  “I hate to send a lady away destitute,” Storts said. “Here you go.” He took a single drina from the enormous pile of coins on the tray and flipped it towards Silas and Lainie. It landed on the floor at their feet.

  They both looked at the coin. It represented a significant portion of their remaining funds. But Silas couldn’t bring himself to stoop down, to abase himself in front of Storts, and pick it up. Lainie stood shaking with rage, her fists clenched. Then, her face flaming, she stooped down and snatched up the coin. With an exceedingly obscene gesture at Storts that Silas hadn’t even known she knew, she stalked out of the saloon. Silas followed her as Storts’s laughter rang out behind them.

  Outside the saloon, Lainie sank down on the edge of the wooden sidewalk and buried her head on her knees. Silas sat down beside her. He itched to have it out with Storts, but they had already drawn too much attention to themselves. Shooting a man who appeared to be one of the town’s most prominent citizens wouldn’t help matters. He wrapped his left arm around Lainie’s shaking shoulders, as much to keep his hand away from his gun as to comfort her.

  “Damn it.” Lainie’s voice was muffled, but Silas could hear the ragged edge to her words that meant she was crying. “He cheated! Everyone would have noticed if he’d played the Fire Dragon so early in the game! I would have noticed! How stupid does he think I am?”

  “I know he cheated, darlin’.” Silas’s heart ached for her humiliation and disappointment. “But settling things would be more trouble than it’s worth. At least we’ve got a room for tonight, unless you think I should try to get our money back.”

  “No.” She sniffled and wiped a forearm across her eyes. “I’m tired of sleeping on the ground.” A moment later she wiped her eyes again and went on, “With that much money, we could have found a place somewhere…”

  It was a foolish dream, thinking they could find a place where they could settle down and live peacefully; foolish but appealing, and maybe the hardest part of what had happened was that it had made the foolish dream look like it might be within reach. “Maybe,” was all he could say.

  “And I wanted to send a letter to my Pa,” she went on, “but I don’t think we have enough. I’m so stupid. I should have known he was up to something when he put down that big shiny gold piece.”

  “I should have known, too.” He had been so preoccupied with looking for magic at work and making sure the house ladies didn’t give Lainie’s cards away that he hadn’t even thought to watch the playe
rs for ordinary, commonplace cheating. He couldn’t believe he had been so careless.

  They sat there in the cold, dark evening, too dispirited to stand up and walk to the hotel. Being broke and hungry wasn’t new to Silas; it came with the territory when you were a mage hunter in the Wildings. Payment only came when you caught a rogue mage and sent him, or proof of his death, back to Granadaia. Depending on the hunting, you could be on the trail, or without any trail at all, for ninedays or even months. But there was always the prospect of a big payout ahead to keep you going.

  Now he didn’t even have that. When the people paying you sent an assassin after you, that made it unwise to continue your association with them. And to make things even worse, Lainie was destitute and homeless and in danger right along with him.

  Silas took a deep breath and shook himself. Just sitting here feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to fix anything. At least they had a bed for the night, and the horses were securely and comfortably stabled. No doubt, some loving and a good night’s sleep would make things look better in the morning. And they had enough provisions left for supper and breakfast, and three drinas and five for the meal after that, and maybe he could shoot a rabbit for their supper tomorrow night, and with any luck he’d find work before long…

  He was about to suggest to Lainie that they head over to the hotel when a footstep sounded on the wooden boards of the sidewalk behind him. They looked around to see Storts standing over them.

  “What in all the hells do you want, you sheepknocking son of a bitch?” Silas growled. “We got no more money for you to cheat us out of, and if you say one more wrong word to my wife I’ll shoot you and I don’t care who you are.”

  Storts grinned beneath his thin mustache. He was now wearing a fine, high-crowned black silk hat, but at least he didn’t have the cigar any more. “No hard feelings, I see,” he said. He walked around to stand in the street in front of Silas and Lainie. “As for saying another word to your wife, I do in fact have something to say to both of you.”