stcoat and washing and drying his hands, he thought about what was going on this cold, dark night. A gambler’s intuition was rumbling in his gut, telling him that all was not right. Whatever had been happening behind the scenes, he was being taken for a ride by experienced sharps. He was definitely out of his league.
Nathaniel peered more closely into the mirror, smoothed his gray mustache, brushed back his center-parted gray hair. Something niggled. He was, unhappily, reminded of an occurrence in 1832, some forty years earlier, during the heyday of riverboat gambling.
Four men, settled on a Mississippi steamboat, were engaged in the throes of a hot and heavy game of poker. Three were professional gamblers, playing a rigged setup. The fourth was a young man from Natchez, too naïve to be let out on his own. Shortly he had lost all his money. Distraught, he wandered up on deck, planning to throw himself over the side and let the river solve his problems.
Instead, he was rescued by a man who took pity on the situation in which this hapless traveler found himself trapped, and decided to do something about it. The stranger joined the card game. With a high stakes draw going on, he caught one of the “sharps” cheating, and pulled his knife.
“Show me your hand!” he yelled. “If it contains more than five cards, I shall kill you!”
It did. Six cards, in fact.
There was no murder done. Instead, the stranger took the $70,000 pot. He returned $50,000 to the man from Natchez, and kept the remaining $20,000 for himself.
Mightily relieved, yet shocked by the ferocity and cool courage of the stranger, the young traveler stammered, “Who the devil are you, anyway?”
As he tucked away his winnings, the stranger pushed back from the table and returned his knife to its sheath. “I, sir,” he said, “am James Bowie.”
Perhaps that was the problem. Something, somehow, had alerted Nathaniel to the possibility of his playing partners involved in a massive cheat, and he was the gullible victim.
It was absolutely essential, he mused, upon his return to the gaming room, that he remain alert. Thus far he had managed to persevere, by the skin of his teeth. But if he couldn’t recoup his losses, and walk away from the table with substantial winnings, he would never dare walk through the front door of his own home later on.
Another hour passed. Gradually the air filled with tension, as this one took the pot, or that one took it. Too rarely did Nathaniel. His markers mixed in with the chips that the other players were greedily eyeing.
He had ignored all his own rules throughout these games.
Recognize when the cards are against you, and when a hand isn’t worth playing.
Don’t stay in just because so much has already been bet on it.
No alcohol.
Stop when you’re overtired.
Pay attention.
Bluffing is not always a good thing, especially when the stakes are high.
And so on, and so on.
So here he was, watching his opponents for their betting patterns and any signs of shallow breathing or flushed complexions or too much blinking, listening for the sounds of sighs or hard swallows. Nothing. These were experts, and Nathaniel was finding himself bested.
“Wait just a minute, there, Mr. Woodson,” Nathaniel suddenly interrupted, slapping his palm down flat on the table. “You’ve marked the deck.”
“Oh, I hardly think so. You’re imagining things, sir. Let me just continue to deal.”
“Not at all. That’s called cheating in any language, and I’ll have no more of it.” Livid, Nathaniel surged to his feet. “You’ve been cheating all along, haven’t you?”
“Stolen? Cheating?” Woodson, a burly man in a gold embroidered vest, frowned. “Those are harsh words to be throwing around, Mr. Burton. It’s the same as calling all of us liars. Perhaps you would like to retract your accusations?”
“I won’t retract what’s true!” snapped Nathaniel. “I was blind not to have seen it earlier. What other tricks have you been pulling? Cards up your sleeve? Or under your belt?”
“Oh, calm down, Mr. Burton,” urged one of those off to the side, fanning his own cards. “No point in causing a disturbance. We wouldn’t want any trouble here.”
“No, I’ll just bet you wouldn’t. But, at this point, I just want all my money back. Simply return what you’ve stolen from me, and we can call it quits.”
“Now, now, this has just been a nice little game so far,” Subtle John Jones (or so he had been named) soothingly intervened. He reached out for an easy pat on the arm, meant to calm. It only further infuriated.
Standing erect over the table, with as much power and authority as he could muster, Nathaniel drew himself together. “I shall take my cash, my chips, and my chits from you now, sir, and then I shall take my leave.”