Fort Revenge Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX - FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  Watch for

  Sweet Revenge

  “I wanna kill him.”

  Quentin leaned forward on his cot and said, “You realize that fella is the Gunsmith, right? You wanna go after the Gunsmith?”

  “Not by myself,” Crawford said.

  “Well,” Quentin said, “not with me.”

  “Why not? You’re good with a gun.”

  “I ain’t that good,” Quentin said. “Not Gunsmith good.”

  “Okay,” Crawford said, “so we get some other help.”

  “Like who?”

  “You know fellas who make their living with their guns,” Crawford said. “All we need is enough of them.”

  “And why would anybody else willingly go up against Adams?” Quentin said. “Just to back us?”

  “To make a name for themselves,” Crawford said. “Or maybe we pay them.”

  “With what?” Quentin asked. “We left all our money on that poker table.”

  “We get it back.”

  “From who?”

  “From Harvey,” Crawford said. “And we take whatever Adams has on him when we kill him.”

  “When we kill him? How about if we kill him?”

  “That, too,” Crawford said

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  THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

  Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him . . . the Gunsmith.

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  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

  FORT REVENGE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Robert J. Randisi.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54442-6

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  ONE

  When Clint entered the Straight Flush Saloon, he spotted the cheater immediately.

  The man was in the act of dealing a card from the bottom of the deck, and he wasn’t very good at hiding it. Clint wondered why no one else at the table had noticed.

  Or had they?

  He walked to the bar, ordered a beer, and looked around the busy saloon. There were other games going on besides poker—blackjack, faro, roulette—and a piano in the corner, which, at the moment, was not being played.

  There were girls working the room, bringing drinks to the man at the tables. Clint watched two other poker tables, but the games looked to be honest.

  That brought his attention back to the original table. He watched until the deal came back around to the same man again, and then he watched him once again deal from the bottom. Only he didn’t win the hand. Another man, seated directly across from the dealer, did.

  He continued to watch; each time the one man dealt, the other man won. They were working together. Now the question was, what should Clint do about it? He wasn’t part of the game, so it really wasn’t any of his business. On the other hand, why had no one else at the table noticed?

  Or had they?

  Sheriff Alec Bender entered the saloon, spotted Clint Adams at the bar. His information was correct: The Gunsmith had ridden into Cardiff, in Oklahoma Territory. The Gunsmith, in his town.

  He went down to the end of the bar. His badge was pinned to his shirt, out of sight beneath
his leather vest. He waved to the bartender and signaled for a beer. When he had his drink, he settled down to nurse it and watch Adams.

  Clint got himself a second beer and moseyed over to the poker table. He decided to watch a bit closer and see what happened.

  Jack Harvey looked at the cards in his hand. They were good. Too good. He’d been getting good cards all day, and losing with them.

  Harvey usually played in bigger games. He was dressed the part—in a dark suit and hat—but he’d simply been looking for a game that day. The stakes didn’t matter to him.

  This hand was a straight to the king, on the deal, dealt to him by Sam Crawford. The problem was, Crawford had probably dealt an even better hand to the man seated across from him, Quentin . . . something. Or Something Quentin. They called him Quent.

  “I fold,” Harvey said.

  “What?” Crawford asked.

  “Fold,” Harvey repeated, putting his cards facedown on the table.

  “But . . . we haven’t even drawn yet.”

  “I have a bad feelin’ about this hand,” Harvey said.

  Crawford stared at him until one of the other players called for his cards. Harvey watched the hand progress. Sure enough, Quent took the hand, would have beaten his straight with a flush.

  Harvey decided to wait for the deal to come back around to Crawford.

  Clint saw the one man fold, and the surprise in the face of the dealer. He had dealt the man a winning hand, and he’d folded it.

  He thought the man’s name was Harvey, but he didn’t know if it was his first or last name. But the man now knew he was being cheated.

  Something was going to happen, but it wouldn’t happen until the deal came back around to the bottom dealer.

  He grabbed a passing saloon girl and gave her his empty mug.

  “Another one?” she asked brightly.

  “Not right now.”

  She nodded and moved on.

  Clint turned his attention back to the game.

  Sheriff Bender wondered what Clint Adams was finding so interesting about that particular poker game. He recognized two of the players as townsmen, but the others weren’t. Three men, all strangers, sitting at the same poker table.

  Which one was the Gunsmith after?

  TWO

  Harvey won three hands in a row, and then the deal came back to Crawford.

  He dealt draw poker, like he always did.

  Harvey looked at the cards in his hand. A good hand, but not a pat hand. Three tens.

  He decided to play the hand.

  The players before him all passed the bet to him.

  “I open for ten,” he said.

  Clint watched.

  The game was not high stakes by any means. But the cheating man would not have been cheating in a higherstakes game, against better players.

  Against better players, he would have been dead a long time ago.

  He might still end up dead, depending on how the player named Harvey reacted.

  Clint watched him.

  Sheriff Bender sensed that something was about to happen.

  The lawman watched Clint Adams.

  Crawford thought this was the time to take Harvey. That last hand had been a fluke. Maybe he’d even dealt the cards wrong. But not this time. This time he knew he’d dealt the man three tens. He’d have to play that hand.

  He’d have to.

  Sitting across from Crawford, his partner, Quentin Foxx, caught his signal that they were going to spring the trap.

  He was ready. He’d been ready for some time. They’d already been in this game—hell, this town—too damn long. It was time to get out.

  He flashed the signal back to Crawford that he was ready.

  “Cards?” Crawford asked.

  One player took two, Quentin took a single card. The next player took three, and Jack Harvey asked for two. The dealer, Crawford, took two.

  From his vantage point, Clint could only see the dealer’s cards. He’d held a king and queen of diamonds, and when he dealt himself three cards he got a three, five, and ace of diamonds. He now had an ace high flush. Clint wondered if the big switch here was that the dealer would be the one to wink, and not his partner.

  When it came time to show after some spirited raising and re-raising, that’s how it ended up. Crawford’s ace high flush beat Harvey’s three tens.

  The cards were spread on the table as Crawford started to rake the chips in.

  “Leave ’em,” Harvey said.

  “What?”

  “You dealt yourself three diamonds from the bottom, including the ace.”

  Crawford sat back.

  “You better be able to prove that.”

  “What I can prove,” Harvey said, “is that you wanted to make damn sure I didn’t get my fourth ten by accident, so it’s probably not in the deck. And if it’s not in the deck, it’s up your sleeve.”

  “You wanna see what’s up my sleeve?” Crawford asked.

  He flicked his wrist and as the two-shot derringer popped into his hand, Clint reached across his body with his left hand and pinned Crawford’s to the table. Then with his right he drew his gun and pointed it at Quentin as the man went for his gun. The saloon got very, very quiet.

  “What’s your name?” Clint asked one of the other men.

  “Bates.”

  “Mr. Bates, why don’t you reach up this gentleman’s other sleeve and see what’s there?”

  Bates moved slowly, reached up Crawford’s left sleeve, and came out with a ten of clubs. He dropped it on the table.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Sheriff Bender asked, coming up to the table.

  “A couple of cheaters, Sheriff,” Bates said.

  “Is that so?”

  “Look, Sheriff—” Crawford asked.

  “They’ve been cheating since I walked in, Sheriff,” Clint said. “I’m surprised no one else at the table saw it.”

  “I did,” Harvey said. “I was waitin’ for the right time.”

  The sheriff reached out and took the derringer from Crawford’s hand, then lifted Quentin’s gun from its holster.

  “I guess you gents better come along with me,” he said.

  Clint released Crawford’s hand as both men stood up and moved away from the table.

  “You need me, Sheriff?” Harvey asked.

  “Naw,” the sheriff said, “I got what I needed.”

  “And me?” Clint asked.

  “You can stay here, Mr. Adams,” Bender said. “I’ll come back and talk to you.”

  Crawford started to reach for the money on the table, but Harvey stopped him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of the money—especially since it’s mine.”

  The lawman walked both men out of the saloon, heading for the jail.

  “Guess I owe you a drink,” Harvey said to Clint, as he collected the money. “You saved my life.”

  “Twice!” Bates pointed out.

  “He’s right,” Harvey said. “Twice. Beer?”

  “Why not?”

  THREE

  “I was ready for Quentin to draw his gun,” Harvey said. “Crawford looked like he didn’t carry one.”

  “I spotted the sleeve gun when I got closer to the table,” Clint said.

  “And the cheating when you walked in?”

  “Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at dealing from the bottom.”

  “Good enough to fool the others at the table.”

  “They shouldn’t be playing poker, then.”

  “Apparently it’s their game,” Harvey said. “They usually play with others from town, but they were short. The other two were already here when I sat down. I saw that they were playing together, but like I said, I was waiting until I could prove it. You did it for me.”

  “You called him on it,” Clint said.

  “But you kept him from killing me,” Harvey said. “Why did you do that?”

  “Why not?” Clint asked. “I’m not going to stand by and watch a man
get killed—especially when he’s already been getting cheated. Just didn’t seem fair.”

  Harvey raised his beer mug. “Here’s to fair.”

  They both drank.

  “Same again?” the bartender asked.

  Harvey looked at Clint, who nodded and shrugged at the same time.

  “Same again,” Harvey said. He looked at Clint. “What brings the Gunsmith to Oklahoma Territory?”

  “Same thing that brings most men here,” Clint said. “Trouble.”

  “Indian trouble?”

  “Just trouble. I’m actually heading for Fort Smith, in Arkansas.”

  “Judge Parker?”

  “Actually,” Clint said, “a friend of mine who is one of Parker’s deputies, Heck Thomas, sent word that he needs my help. I’ll be meeting him there.”

  “I’m headed that way myself,” Harvey said. “Mind if I ride along with you?”

  “No offense,” Clint said, “but I prefer to travel alone unless I know the person really well. We only just met.”

  The bartender came over with two beers.

  “But I’ve already bought you two beers,” Harvey said. “How many does it take to become friends?”

  “A lot,” Clint said. “A hell of a lot.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can do about that.”

  They were on their fourth beer when Sheriff Bender came back in.

  “Looks like the law wants to talk to you,” Harvey said to Clint. “Lemme know if you change your mind about ridin’ together to Fort Smith.”