Render Unto God... Read online

  The man was Mortensen, a big, dour Swede. Or maybe Norwegian - he wouldn’t say when, having joined them at the table, Banks had enquired after his accent. Jackson had briefly made Mortensen’s acquaintance the day before. The... Scandinavian, owned The Frontier Store, a hardware shop. “If we have not got it, then means

  that you do not need it,” was pretty much Mortensen’s standard retort when faced with an order he could not deliver.

  “Well that’s three sides of the table covered,” said Banks. The chair opposite him begged for an occupant. “What say we have some fun with that preacher over there,” he said in a low tone whilst nodding towards a man sat in leather armchair nearby.

  “Preacher? You know him?” That was Mortensen.

  “No, never seen him before. This ain’t my town, friend. Just passing through.”

  “So,” asked Jackson, “How d’you know he’s a preacher?”

  “Young man!” said Banks, playfully slapping Jackson on the shoulder. “You aim to be a success as a newspaper correspondent? Well you had better sharpen your observational skills. His attire for a start.” Jackson looked and saw that the man was dressed as one would expect of a preacher, black frock coat, black boots, black Stetson. All in black.

  Now even though he was seated, this preacher was clearly a tall man. Slim, erect, he had a somber air about him and was minding his own as they say, drinking sarsaparilla no less, and drawing on his pipe. And yes, he was reading a Bible. Jackson had thought the suggestion had been meant as a private joke. But now it seemed Banks wanted to get some amusement by causing this preacher embarrassment at being asked to a gaming table.

  Banks called over to the man. “Hey preacher!” He waved the pack of cards again.

  Mortensen joined in. “Hey, Preacher Man! You want mix with some sinners and play some cards? No?”

  The Preacher glanced over, then looked back to his Bible. Jackson saw him place a strip of leather between the open pages of the book. The man then, with some deliberation, brought both front and back cover together, as if his hands were closing in prayer. Momentarily he paused, maybe in thought, then he placed the leather-bound volume into a deep inside pocket of his quarter-length coat. Rising slowly, pushing his chair back, the Preacher turned towards Banks’ table. Jackson felt the stranger’s eyes absorbing - and condemning - every detail of the scene before him. The Preacher walked over, slowly. At the table he merely nodded, before taking the place opposite Banks.

  If Banks was surprised, then he didn’t show it. “Name’s Banks, friend, Nathan Emerson Banks. Mr. Jackson Beauregard,” Banks nodded to Jackson, who in turn acknowledged the Preacher, “And this is Mr. Mortensen...”

  “Beauregard?” The Preacher’s pointed interruption made Jackson think he had caused some offence merely by being there. “An uncommon surname.”

  “Not uncommon in my family. Over half of us have it.” Jackson thought some light humor would help. It didn’t.

  “Would you be kin to a Bascourt-Beauregard?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Who is he? Friend of yours?”

  “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” said the Preacher looking Jackson dead in the eye.

  “Deuteronomy, I believe.”

  “So you know your Bible, Mr. Beauregard. Would that your namesake were as afeard of the Lord’s words as you.”

  “I know it sir, but I cannot in conscience say that I believe it, much less fear it. We do have that book in my family home back in Connecticut, as indeed we have works by Hume, Bentham and, dare I mention his name before you sir, Charles Darwin.” The Preacher ignored the explanation, preferring instead to pack some tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

  “Darwin, Hume, Bascourt... Whoever!” Banks was exasperated. “If any of those fine gentlemen are in this establishment maybe you could introduce me so that I could invite them to join me in a game of poker!

  For it seems I shall have to wait forever and a day for you three to put in the dollar required to play the first hand!”

  It was Banks who owned the deck and Banks who passed it around for inspection. It was new, clean, above board. And it was Banks who, during the game, sold them the idea of upping the stakes. But it was Jackson who eventually found himself out of pocket, and that by some 50 dollars. That was a deal of money to a tyro journalist. And many of those dollars, along with even more from the Scandinavian, were standing, in a pile, before Banks. Only the Preacher seemed to be capable of holding his own.

  That Jackson was a novice applied to his gambling as much as to his journalism. That’s not to say that he hadn’t played cards before, back in the parlors of the big houses of New England. There the similarities ended. He’d discovered that whilst on the Natchez, the riverboat that had taken him all the way from New Orleans to St Louis.

  So he was familiar with the game of Poker was Jackson. And he was familiar with losing at Poker too. But usually he had known why he had lost, and that ‘usually’ was because he was playing against better players. But not this time. Someone wasn’t playing ‘According to Hoyle’, as they say, and Jackson was sure that that someone was Banks.

  And now the big Scandinavian’s mood was turning foul. Jackson sensed that the game would soon be over, and possibly the table too, if Mortensen didn’t win back some of his dollars but quick.

  “Where’d you learn your cards, Preacher Man?” Banks had been trying to rile the taciturn opponent opposite for some time. Banks himself was riled because he hadn’t made a dent in the Preacher’s purse. “Strange for a Man of God to be so familiar with the ‘Vices of the Devil’ if I can put it that way.” And later, still trying to goad the man into making some kind of response, “Careful you don’t win much more, Preacher Man, else you won’t be able to pass through no eye of no needle! Ain’t that what the Good Book says about rich men? Eh, Preacher Man?”

  This preacher sat upright with his elbows away from the table, as if to do otherwise would be to display manners not befitting a gentleman. And there was more than a hint of the Southern Gentleman about him, both in voice and disposition. “The Good Lord has called upon me to build His House in the land of the heathen, and He has shown me that one way to finance the work is to take contributions from the very heathens He has sent me to save.” With that he laid his winning cards on the table and collected the pot once again.

  Jackson had been trying to fathom the Preacher. Less New Testament redemption and more Old Testament retribution? Grey hair touching the collar of a black frock coat, he had maybe 30 years’ seniority on Jackson. Wearing a large black hat, shading his eyes, narrow, piercing. Then there was his nose, hard, aquiline, underlined with a trim moustache. Finally, Jackson had had time to consider the Preacher’s long, slender hands, roughened over the years, but strangely elegant. They were educated hands for sure, but as likely to know how to handle a pick axe if need be, or maybe even a rifle, as a book or a Bible.

  “Where’d you get your money from, Preacher Man?” This was Banks yet again. “You don’t seem to be a poor itinerant, now do you? You using charitable hand-outs at the gambling tables? Maybe you’ll be tryin’ a-whoring next, what with that stack you’ve won from us!” Banks was trying everything he could to throw the Preacher.

  “The Good Lord provideth, usually. But in my case he causeth the sinner to provideth for me.”

  “So you build a church in Indian Territory yes?” queried Mortensen, tossing in his dead hand. “I doubt if the Good Lord would want heathen Indians in Paradise. They’d steal all the harps and rape the Angels.” The laugh he made after this was a bitter one. Then: “I used to run a store up in Laramie and I know what they are like.” But for the first time that afternoon he seemed genuinely interested in something other than his bad luck. “You Lutheran?”

  “I said Heathen not Injun,” replied the Preacher in a voice flatly without interest. Ignoring the second question he leant back into his seat while the cards were gathered, and proceeded to relight his clay pipe. He t
ook a few satisfactory puffs. Didn’t even look at Mortensen.

  Jackson had been looking for a pattern in the game for some time, searching for a tell-tale sign that would confirm his feeling that something was wrong. And now he felt he had it. He’d noticed that when Banks had the deal he became a much more successful player. More successful that is, than himself and Mortensen.

  The men took a short break while Mortensen called for a half bottle of bourbon. But this, like his first, was not for sharing. Jackson ordered another beer, even though earlier ones had not been cold enough to truly satisfy his thirst. Banks did the same and the Preacher called for a glass of milk. Even Banks didn’t feel it appropriate to ask why.

  Jackson pulled his tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket along with his papers. “Smoke?” he said, proffering the pack around the table.

  “Mighty decent of you, young man,” said Banks. “Cigarettes are a rare pleasure, a rare pleasure indeed,” he said, drawing deeply on the weed. Rare enough that if anyone around that table were to have a supply it was not a surprise that it was the man from back East. The matches he replaced in his waistcoat once he’d lit the cigarettes. “You staying in Abilene long?”

  While the Preacher was shuffling the cards and Mortensen counting his money - or to be more accurate, counting his losses - Jackson was happy to spend a few minutes in idle conversation, even if it was with a man he suspected of underhand play. “Only arrived a couple of days back, but I am looking to be headed out tomorrow, next day at the latest.”

  “Don’t you like it here?” Banks turned to Mortensen, “You wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, Mortensen, ain’t that the case?”

  Jackson picked up his cards. The Seven of Diamonds, a red Queen, and the Three of Spades. He folded. “I’m looking to interview Wild Bill Hickok.”

  “Hickok? That sounds interesting, indeed it does.” But Banks was more interested in the fact that both Mortensen and the Preacher were still in the game. The more so as by now he was holding a pair of Jacks and two Nines. “The Legendary Wild Bill Hickok. What do you think of that, Mortensen? Jackson here is going to see the famous Lawman.”

  “I hear,” continued Jackson, “that Hickok is Marshall over in Hays. That’s some 120 miles west of here. I aim to be headed there tomorrow.”

  “What you going to say to him?” Banks’ interest was peaking now, but his attention was focused on his fifth card, the Trey of Spades. Disappointing. But the Two Pair could be enough, and a sizeable pot had built up due to him raising the stakes whilst conversing with Jackson. Banks had long ago recognized Mortensen as being a poor player. That he was still in would only add to the winnings. The Preacher though...

  The Preacher’s lay won the pot. Mortensen threw his cards down, rather petulantly thought Jackson. “Three Kings. Damn!”

  Banks tried to sound nonchalant, but the hint of bitterness was there. “Three Wise Men eh?” Looking at the pot that the Preacher was pulling across the table towards himself, “They seem to have brought you gold.”

  The game continued, Mortensen’s deal, Jackson’s pot, but there were scant pickings from it. Still, he was warming to his theme, “I aim to do what no one else has, I aim to separate the fiction from the facts surrounding Hickok.”

  “So you are going to print the facts about the Wild West eh? Mr. Beauregard?” Jackson nodded his questioner an acknowledgement. It was a rare attempt at conversation from the Preacher.

  “Yes sir, Indeed I am! A good journalist will always focus on the facts.”

  “Well I think the need to make money will wise you up sooner or later.”

  But the only facts that concerned Jackson at that moment was whether the trio of eights he’d just been dealt was enough to keep him in the round. Nine times out of ten that would be good enough. But was this the ten? The hand had been dealt by Banks. If the pattern of the afternoon was anything to go by, he would be best advised to fold.

  “What sort of gambler are you, sir?” The Preacher’s question allowed Jackson to defer his decision. He turned to the source of the interruption.

  “A good one by the look of this, Preacher Man,” said Banks glancing down at his winnings. Jackson’s head now turned to his right. “Are you trying to imply that this is just...” Banks waved his right hand over his pile of cash, “...luck?”

  “No sir, not luck.” Jackson’s head now turned to his left. “All I am asking is: what type of gambler are you? Are you a risk taker sir? Or do you only bet on certainties? How do you weigh up the odds?”

  Given that until now the Preacher had barely strung two sentences together, Jackson realized that these were not idle questions. The salesman, however, was oblivious to this and casually replied, “I rely on my own judgement sir, undoubtedly. In my view, there’s no such thing as good luck. Bad luck, sure. But good judgement outweighs good luck every time. I weigh up the odds and weigh up the risks in particular, before I cast my bet. Always ask yourself, ‘What is the worst thing that could happen?’”

  Jackson had noticed something Mortensen and Banks missed: The Preacher had yet to touch the cards Banks had dealt him.

  “Let’s say,” the Preacher again, “Let’s just say that some fool was to bet all his money that he could name a card without looking at it, what would you say?”

  “I’d say that the man was indeed a fool.”

  The Preacher pushed back in his chair slightly, just enough to allow him to cross his left leg over his right thigh. He stuck a match on the heel of his boot and proceeded to relight his pipe, encouraging the flame in the bowl by drawing slow on the stem. Real slow. Banks looked nervously at Jackson. And then at Mortensen. He tried to laugh, but the Preacher interrupted him. “You’d take the sucker’s money.”

  “Yes siree, I sure as hell would take the sucker’s money.” Banks tried laughing again. Mortensen joined in. Jackson watched.

  The Preacher pushed all his dollar bills and coin into the center of the table. The laughing stopped. Leaning across he extended the long, bony index finger of his right hand and, looking the salesman clear in the eye, pointed at one of the cards lying face down before him. “My money sir, says that that card sir, is the Queen of Hearts.”

  Throw a stone into a pond and the ripples will be strongest where the impact occurs. As they spread out they weaken. The Preacher’s challenge sure caused some big ripples. Those standing near Banks’ table had a powerful sense something was happening. And a few sitting slightly further away thought maybe something was up. And three or four people further back still, turned their heads. But over by the bar no one noticed a thing. No one but McGilligan that is, and it was his job to notice things, being the barman on duty that afternoon. A big tree of an Irishman, maybe 50 years of age, with a shining bald head, framed by a luxurious pair of sideburns. He had huge hands that, when curled into fists, would break jaws. But when those fists opened up they would display surprisingly dexterous fingers, gentle enough not to break fine wine glasses of the sort that he was at that moment polishing. Holding a white cleaning cloth, McGilligan raised the glass up to the light and admired his handiwork. Then he bent down behind the counter to place the glass out of harm’s way. When he reappeared, he was still holding the cloth. But the glass had been replaced by a shillelagh.

  “Preacher Man.” The salesman’s voice had an edge to it now, an edge that hadn’t been heard by the players before. “Preacher Man, you had better stick to saving souls rather than start playing tricks at a Goddamn card table.”

  “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely. But he that perverteth his ways shall be...” the Preacher paused, “known. Proverbs 10:9.” He pointed again: “Queen of Hearts.”

  The Preacher’s voice remained steady and reasonable. “All I am saying, is that the card in front of me, and him, and him and,” here his finger, which had been drawing a circle around the table, levelled at the salesman, “dealt by you... is the Queen of Hearts. And I’m prepared to back my call by staking my ‘fortune’ here,” he wave
d his hand, mimicking Banks’ earlier gesture, “against a single dollar from you. Tell me, tell our friends here, why this is a risk that isn’t worth the taking.” Banks could see, could feel even, the Preacher’s eyes, drilling into him from beneath the wide brim of his hat.

  “Sounds good to me.” This the storekeeper. “What say you friend?” This to Jackson.

  “The odds are in your favor Mr. Banks,” said Jackson to the by now heavily perspiring, and increasingly angry, salesman. “You stand to make well over, let me see...” He quickly assessed the cash in front of the Preacher, “more ‘n 150 dollars.” Jackson acted the innocent, which to be frank, wasn’t difficult. “Tell me... just what is the risk here?”

  “I’m being accused of being a chiseler!” Banks glared at Jackson, before turning his attention across to the Preacher. “If you weren’t a man of the cloth you’d be in the street by now.” Turning back to Jackson, “If you think it is such a good bet let me see you pick it up!” Sensing that Jackson was siding with the Preacher, the salesman needed an ally but quick. He turned to Mortensen. “You’re too smart to fall for this!” He felt he could browbeat the storekeeper into turning against the Preacher. “Don’t you smell a large, stinking rat?” he continued, mollifying his tone specifically for the Scandinavian. “Why do you think he is making this bet? He tells us he’s a Preacher, that he’s a ‘Man of God’.” And here he leered back towards the Preacher and raised his voice again, raised it so that all around could hear: “Tell me, tell us all, what’s a ‘Man of God’ doing a-gambling? And in a two-bit stinking hole of a place like this, too? Huh? Got anything to say about that have you Preacher Man? Ain’t preachers ‘sposed to be tending the sick an’ orphans an’ widders an’ such?”

  “The Good Lord mixed with tax collectors, and prostitutes, and lepers.” He paused before adding, “Queen… of... Hearts.”