Gambler's Magic Read online

  The calico dress she wore was about as unbecoming as any Elijah’d ever seen. He wondered if she’d gone out of her way to select the least flattering color and style she could find, or if the gown’s selection had been an unfortunate accident. It was brown, too, but the brown of her dress and the brown of her hair didn’t look good together. Combined, they made the brown of her eyes look like mud.

  Her complexion was pale. Sallow, actually. She looked skinny and sickly and altogether unappealing. Elijah, who liked most women a shade better than he liked most men, decided that if he’d met more women like Joy before this his opinion of the two sexes would undoubtedly be different.

  All that was beside the point. Although the prospect wasn’t very attractive, Elijah guessed he’d have to deal with her again. With a sigh, he lowered the chair legs to the floor, picked up his empty bowl, plate, and beer mug, and carted them to the counter. He figured he might get a lecture if he left them on the table. He was kind of surprised she hadn’t taken him to task for being free with the furniture when he’d tipped his chair back against the wall. On the other hand, it wasn’t her furniture, so maybe she didn’t care.

  “Here, ma’am. Thanks for the chow.”

  She looked up with a grimace. Elijah wasn’t surprised by that. Something else surprised him, however. He experienced a quick, sharp pang of pity for this unhappy woman. That surprised him. Hell, what did he care about her?

  McMurdo’s explanation for Joy’s sour disposition rolled through Elijah’s mind, though, and he wondered how life could have disappointed her so badly. After all, she wasn’t that old. Not nearly as old as he was, for instance. Elijah figured he had good reasons for his own disenchantment. How could such a relatively young female have come by hers?

  “Just put them down, please,” she said crisply. “I’m busy right now.”

  His pity evaporated in a flash of irritation. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, drawing the words out to annoy her. He set the dishes on the counter, making as much noise about it as he could. “A pleasure doing business with you, Miss Hardesty.” He had the satisfaction of seeing his barb hit home. Two bright patches of pink appeared on her pallid cheeks. He chalked up one for himself.

  Because he’d been on the trail for a long time, and because he had nothing better to do, Elijah turned away from Joy and perused the shelves of McMurdo’s mercantile establishment. He hadn’t been this far away from a big city in a long time and was curious to see how things went forward here in the territory.

  It was a well-stocked store for such an out-of-the-way place. He picked up a small, prettily decorated tin containing marzipan candies. Shoot. Now where had that old man come by these? The last time Elijah’d eaten marzipan had been when he lived in Maryland, before the war, a lifetime or three ago. He picked up the tin and weighed it in his palm. He did have a formidable sweet tooth. Maybe he’d just buy this candy and gobble it down.

  With a grin, he wondered if he should offer some to Joy, and decided that’s exactly what he should do. Maybe it’d sweeten her up, although he doubted it. At the very least, he expected a offer of candy from a sinner like him would disconcert her—maybe make her blush and stammer—and would be worth it for that.

  When he glanced at the counter, she still had her nose in her ledger. Elijah grinned. As it was the custom to barter for prices, he cleared his throat, anticipating a spirited exchange. “How much is this candy, ma’am?”

  Joy glanced up, still frowning. She looked like she didn’t appreciate Elijah interrupting her perusal of that ledger, which must be either extremely fascinating or extremely confusing.

  She squinted at the tin in Elijah’s hand. It appeared to him as though she didn’t want to look him in the eye. “I don’t know. Isn’t there a price marked on it? Mr. McMurdo generally marks his unusual items.”

  Blast. And here Elijah had been looking forward to a battle. He turned the tin over and peered at it from all angles. His humor returned when he saw no price. “Nope.”

  She heaved an aggrieved sigh. “Oh, all right. Let me ask Mr. McMurdo.” She slid off the high stool. Elijah guessed she was going to go looking for the proprietor of this establishment, and resented having to do so, when the old fellow himself walked through the door.

  “There he is. You can ask him yourself.” Joy climbed back up onto her stool.

  Elijah shook his head and muttered loud enough for her to hear, “Hard to come by good help out here, I reckon.” He gave Mac a grin to let him know he was teasing, although he really was irked by Joy’s hostile attitude.

  The old man chuckled. He seemed to do that a lot. Offhand, Elijah couldn’t think of two less likely folks to have found each other than Alexander McMurdo and Joy Hardesty.

  Joy, he noticed, had chosen not to react to his pointed comment about her rudeness. Her lips, however, looked like a couple of peaches that had been left out in the sun for too long and had wrinkled up. In fact, the whole picture Joy Hardesty resented was of something withered and lifeless. Elijah shuddered, the notion having reminded him of himself and unsettled him.

  “Noticed you had some of my favorite treats on your shelves, Mac. How much for this tin of marzipan?”

  The old man gave Elijah a broad smile. Now here, though he was a pleasant fellow. Nothing shrunken and tight and bitter about Alexander McMurdo. He looked like he was about a hundred and ninety years old, but he was spry for all that, and his eyes were as blue as the sky outside and as twinkly as stars. Elijah found himself liking McMurdo enormously. He liked McMurdo, in fact, about as much as he disliked Joy.

  “Great stuff, that,” Mac said, pointing at the tin with the stem of his black briar pipe. “Hard to come by out here, but you can have the tin for four bits, Mr. Perry.”

  “Call me Elijah, Mac,” he said, digging into his trouser’s pocket. He was about to hand the money to Mac, when he caught the look on the old man’s face, grinned, and turned to walk over to Joy. “Here, Miss Hardesty. Mr. McMurdo said four bits for the candy.”

  “I heard him.” She sounded as ungracious as she looked.

  Elijah held out the coin. Joy made a grab for it, but he palmed it and withdrew his hand. “You know, ma’am, pardon me for saying so, but for a Christian lady, you’re mighty rough on us poor sinners. Aren’t you afraid your meanness will turn us from the Lord’s light and prevent us from ever being saved? I can tell you here and now that if everybody who preaches God’s Word is as mean as you, I sure as good gracious don’t want anything to do with Him.”

  Her face, already pale, bleached of color, and she looked stricken. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to be rude, Mr. Perry.”

  Still holding the coin, Elijah propped an elbow on the counter and leaned towards her. She backed up, almost fell off her stool, grabbed the counter with both hands, and held on tight. “Sure you did, Miss Hardesty. You took one look at bad old me, and decided to teach me a lesson, ‘cause I’m such a wicked man.”

  “You would, of course, know yourself much better than I.”

  Elijah raised his eyebrows in appreciation. “That’s a good one, ma’am. That’s damned good.” He took note of her recoil at his language and grinned his most ironic grin. “But it won’t wash. You were as crusty as loaf of week-old bread before you even knew my name. I think you’re just mean through and through. You’re mean to the core and don’t like anything or anybody. Well, y’know what, ma’am?”

  Joy’s eyes had gone as round as billiard balls. She didn’t answer him, but clutched the counter as if her life depended on it. She looked scared. Which was a distinct improvement from her usual expression, in Elijah’s opinion.

  “I don’t like you, either.”

  He flipped the coin insolently, and watched it wink in the dusty sunbeams. Joy didn’t reach forward to catch it, but she watched, too, as it struck the counter, bounced, and rolled off onto the floor. Elijah heard it hit the ground, but didn’t bother to watch where it went. “Better fetch it quick, ma’am. Otherwise Mac might take i
t out of your wages, and I’m sure he’s as eager to see your backside as you are to get out of here.”

  With that, he turned and sauntered away from her, paused by the hat rack to pluck up his black hat and plop it onto his black hair, and left the store. Mac gave Joy a sympathetic smile, then he followed Elijah outside.

  Joy watched the two men go. Her insides were squeezing and pitching so badly, she feared for a moment she might be physically sick. After taking several deep breaths, she decided her luncheon was safe.

  She trembled all over when she braced herself with a hand on the counter and stooped to look for the coin. “Dreadful man,” she whispered into the stillness of the mercantile.

  Hatred stirreth up strife, Joy Hardesty. Your own behavior brought that man’s censure down upon you. I do believe you’re incapable of learning anything I try to teach you, Joy.

  Her mother’s voice, as clear as a bell, sounded the judgment, and Joy knew Elijah Perry had been right about her. She’d been rude to him—and for no better reason than that he was the sort of man her mother had cautioned her about. Yet her mother had also been very firm in her opinion that one must show sinners their way was not God’s way, and that they should cease their wickedness and follow another path.

  Joy sighed heavily. Another failure to add to her long, long list. If the ghost of Jacob Marley were to visit Joy, her chain of failures would be every bit as long as Marley’s chain of miserly actions.

  Her mother would have known how to deal with Elijah Perry, Joy thought dismally. Her mother had never been at a loss for anything. She’d always known what was right and what was wrong. Never had a moment’s doubt sullied her mother’s righteous thinking. She’d never shirked in her duty to her fellows, either. A powerful woman, Joy’s father had called her. And he’d been right.

  Unfortunately, her mother wasn’t here to guide her. And without her mother’s hand at her back, pushing her onto the proper path at every turning and scolding her for every misstep, Joy didn’t know what to do or how to behave. She felt stuck, as if she were mired in quicksand.

  Inertia. I do believe your middle name should have been inertia, Joy Hardesty.

  She couldn’t find the coin. She searched and searched and searched, and it continued to elude her. It seemed typical of her life that so insignificant an item as a piece of gold should elude her in this persistent way. After searching for ten solid minutes, frustration, physical weakness, and a feeling of hopelessness overcame her determination. Joy sat on the floor behind the counter, leaned back against the wall, and cried.

  She knew her mother, who didn’t have a weak bone in her body, would have looked on her with scorn and called her a pitiful specimen. She chalked up the way the dust motes in the air seemed to sparkle around her to her own imperfection of mind and spirit, and wished she could simply die now and get it over with.

  # # #

  Elijah stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Cooper.”

  The man to whom Mac had just introduced him shook Elijah’s hand. “Likewise.”

  Curtis Cooper, according to Mac, was a hand on the nearby Blackworth ranch. Also according to Mac, the ranch was run by a woman, Susan Blackworth, who had built it up from ruin after her husband had met with an untimely death. From Mac’s sparkly expression and meaningful wink, Elijah got the impression Mrs. Blackworth might be able to enlighten the world about her husband’s demise should she ever care to do so. Elijah thought dryly that this territory seemed to be a magnet for unpleasant females.

  Cooper had come to town with a couple of other cowboys, and had stopped by Mac’s wagon yard to purchase some rope and lumber. Mac introduced all of them to Elijah.

  Later Elijah was never quite able to figure out why he and those other three men had decided to set up a poker game in Mac’s mercantile establishment, but he did know that it had seemed a perfectly logical thing to do at the time. He was pretty sure Mac had encouraged them, too, although he couldn’t figure that out, either. If he ran a nice business like Mac’s, Elijah was sure he’d not want a bunch of rough men with guns on their hips gambling in it while drinking beer.

  Mac evidently didn’t mind at all. In fact, he helped set out the table and chairs, smiling like an imp the whole time. He was an interesting fellow, Mac was. Elijah couldn’t help but like him. He had a soft Scottish burr that treated the language more kindly than most of the twangs Elijah had heard since he’d left Maryland.

  “And you can ask Joy here when you need refills,” Mac said merrily, gesturing to his employee, who glared at the commotion from behind the counter.

  She looked as mean as a snake. “You mean she’ll condescend to serve a fellow beer if he gets dry?” Elijah scratched his head in a gesture he hoped conveyed doubt. The woman was getting to him. Whatever malevolence she radiated was starting to make his shoulder blades itch, and he wanted never to have to see her again. He couldn’t, therefore, understand the urge marching side by side with the one about never seeing her again, which was to grab and kiss her, wrestle her to a nearby mattress, and make love to her until he’d conquered her sourness forever and replaced it with—joy.

  He was just nuts, was all. Joy Hardesty was a disagreeable bit of goods, and that was that.

  Joy’s frown got meaner, and McMurdo laughed. “Sure she’ll serve ye beer, laddie. She’s a good girl, Joy.”

  “Is she.”

  Joy flounced into the back room with her ledger, ignoring Elijah so thoroughly, he knew he’d got her goat. He was surprised when a feeling of guilt overshadowed his satisfaction. When she returned, she bore paper, pen, and ink with her. She plopped these items on the counter and resumed her seat on the stool behind it, as if daring anyone to ask her to do anything. Elijah guessed she was going to write a letter or two.

  She didn’t say a word, but he felt her disapproval from where he sat shuffling cards. It pulsed in the air around him and made him shift his shoulders and twitch his legs more than once. He was a little puzzled that the other men didn’t feel it. Or maybe they did. He didn’t ask.

  There was no reason for it, but Elijah found himself glancing at her quite often as the poker game progressed. He didn’t care what she was doing or why she was doing it. She was nothing to him but a pain in the neck and a rude bitch.

  He got the impression she used that counter for the same reason she used her spiteful tongue—to keep people away. The notion didn’t make him appreciate her to any greater degree. She was a dried-up, prune-faced old maid, was Joy Hardesty. Elijah decided he was glad she’d be waiting on them tonight. She’d hate it, and that made him happy.

  Once during the evening, Elijah looked around to see where Mac was, but the proprietor of the store had evidently retired for the night. Seemed strange to Elijah. He’d want to keep an eye on things if this were his place, especially if there were four gambling gents being waited on by one single female. Not that any man would ever even think of doing anything untoward to Joy Hardesty, but still . . .

  He didn’t let himself worry about it.

  # # #

  When Joy got back to Auburn, she’d never complain about anything again as long as she lived. She vowed it on her mother’s sainted memory. Once or twice in the several hours following the commencement of that ghastly poker game in Mr. McMurdo’s front room, she wondered if she’d last out the night, much less ever see Auburn again.

  She shouldn’t be here. If God hadn’t decided to punish her for her bloodless nature, she wouldn’t be. She’d be in South America with the Reverend Mr. Hezekiah P. Thrash, saving souls. Sometimes Joy wondered why God’s lessons had to be so very hard.

  God has a plan for us all, Joy, and don’t you ever forget it. It’s not up to you to question God’s intentions. It’s up to you to fulfill them.

  Yes, Mother.

  She guessed this was God’s test of her mettle. And, of course, she was failing again. For one thing, she should have refused to wait on those awful men while they were gambling and drinking. Her mother would,
very politely, have declined the duty. Joy had been so astonished when Mr. McMurdo asked her, she hadn’t been able to think fast enough to come up with a polite objection.

  Such shilly-shallying is typical of your slovenly nature, Joy Hardesty.

  Yes, Mother.

  Yet McMurdo had asked her to do it, and he was her employer. Besides, no matter how much she deplored his sinful character, she owed him a good deal. He’d nursed her through her dreadful illness. She’d very nearly died, according to him, and she had no reason not to believe him even though she didn’t want to. It always confused her when sinners did good deeds and behaved like Christians.

  His kindness shouldn’t make any difference, however, and Joy knew it. No matter how benevolent a bad man seemed to be on the surface, iniquity was iniquity, and she should take no part in it. She knew the devil tempted people with soft words and presented quandaries as trials by which to temper the steel of their faith. Look at Job, for heaven’s sake. Her mother had taught her that the truly worthy among God’s creatures saw past surface goodness to the rotten cores underneath, and soundly rejected the lures of the world, no matter how benevolently offered.

  On the other hand, Alexander McMurdo had been unrelentingly kind to her, no matter how mean she was to him.

  That was neither here nor there. A sinner was a sinner, and she shouldn’t allow a sinner’s charm to beguile her.

  Yet, this was her job.

  That shouldn’t matter. She should refuse to serve these men the devil’s brew. She should avoid them as the transgressors they were.

  But Mr. McMurdo was paying her to serve them.

  But if she waited on them, serving them intoxicating liquors and knowing what they were, she was no better than Judas, who had accepted thirty pieces of silver to betray our Lord.