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  After signing, Chet fingered his tatty gray beard, avarice lending a beatific afterglow to his face. "Now. Them bags, Miz Stannert?"

  Inez returned to Lucy and pulled them out of her saddlebags along with a five-dollar gold piece. "For the assays Joe never did."

  "Hell, woman, keep it. Give it to Joe’s widder. Come sundown, I’m ten thousand dollars richer." Chet hefted the bags, tender as a mother with a babe.

  "A new stake, Chet? Anything you might sell at a later date?" Cooper’s easy voice seemed to jolt him back to the present.

  "Naw." Chet paused. "Just a piece-a-shit claim not worth spit."

  His gaze slitted back to Inez, sly.

  Ha! Piece-of-shit claim my foot. He’s holding aces and trying to pass it as a worthless hand.

  Chet’s little red eyes suddenly bloomed with light. "Hey, Mrs. Stannert. What’s it take to play in your high-falutin’ poker game?"

  "Take a bath," she retorted. "Get some decent clothes. Show up sober. And with cash. We don’t take credit."

  "Yeah, yeah, just like the whorehouses," he growled. "Okay, Mrs. Stannert. You and your fancy-pants players git ready for some real poker playin’." He hefted the bags again, his eyes gleaming brighter. "Tomorrow night."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  By ten o’clock Saturday night, Chet had not showed at the Silver Queen. At the poker table, Inez began to breathe easier.

  The saloon had buzzed all day with talk about Chet’s and the twins’ sudden wealth. How they’d bought drinks for the house here, gone on a buying spree there. The three seemed to be spending their new-found fortune as fast as they could.

  Some folks wondered aloud—but not too loud—if Harry had been played for a fool. Most kept their counsel. Time would tell if Harry had thrown away his thirty thousand or if he’d invested well.

  The evening progressed at a leisurely pace. Cooper, ever the gentleman, uttered not a word about the embarrassing mishap of the previous day. Evan was in quiet good humor, being top man so far that evening. Doc imbibed brandy at a rate directly proportional to his small but steady losses. Jed was absent. As for Harry…

  He certainly doesn’t act like he signed a check yesterday for thirty thousand dollars.

  She caught herself wondering if Sands might stop in at midnight.

  Her musings were interrupted by a ruckus outside the door. Useless poked his head around the corner, greasy hair plastered over his ears, eyes wide. "Ma’am, Chet Donnelly’s here and—"

  Useless was yanked from view from behind. A figure filled the doorway.

  "Howdy. Is this the high-rollin’, no-limit poker game?"

  Inez’s first thought was: Chet has a chin.

  His scraggly, to-the-navel beard was gone, replaced by a short-cropped grizzled fuzz. Gone, too, were the baggy corduroys, worn jacket, and shapeless hat. Instead, his enormous belly strained at the pearl buttons of a scarlet and gold waistcoat peeping out from under a formal, black evening suit the size of a small tent. A silk top hat perched atop hair cut short and pomaded to within an inch of its life. Of the original Chet Donnelly, only three things remained: bloodshot eyes, scarred leather gunbelt cinched tight under the swallow-tail jacket, and worn-out boots crammed on over the black dress pants.

  Except for boots and belt, he’d have done the opera crowd proud.

  "Lessee if I got it right. Bath. New clothes. Sober." He dug out a roll from his pocket and thumbed it with a snarky smile. "Money. And you’ve got an empty chair waitin’ for me."

  Inez took stock of the table. Cooper and Harry appeared bemused. Doc’s eyebrows were raised so high they disappeared into the wrinkled topology of his forehead. Evan sat frozen, cigar raised halfway to his mouth.

  She faced Chet. "This is a hard money game. Just like every other game in town. That means gold. Silver. No paper."

  "Hell’s bells, ma’am. That wasn’t what ya said yesterday. Money’s money. Asides, luggin’ double eagles in my pockets’d ruin these fancy duds." He patted the waistcoat and spoiled the sartorial effect with a loud burp.

  She faced her players, seething. "Gentlemen?"

  Harry and Cooper shrugged.

  Doc sighed. "I think the game just escalated beyond my means in any case."

  Evan, the only one to look doubtful, simply said, "Your call, Mrs. Stannert. It’s your game."

  "Congress passed the law resuming specie payments last January," Cooper pointed out. "Those notes are as good as gold at the bank."

  She deliberated, then finally addressed Chet. "Give your gunbelt to Useless. No weapons allowed in the room."

  While Chet fumbled with the buckle, Inez beckoned to Useless, who hovered by the door. "Have Abe bring me all the paper money we’ve got. I’ll not put up good gold against that many greenbacks, no matter what the government promises."

  Her attention returned to the table. "Gentlemen." She pulled out Jed’s empty chair. "We have a sixth."

  Chet bowed, catching his hat as it tumbled off. He passed behind her chair, the sharp minty scent of hair tonic trailing in his wake. Wonder what the barber doused him with. Hope it kills lice.

  Inez steeled herself to play cards with a madman. And Chet obliged her.

  He threw his money down as if he had the touch of Midas. He bet so high and often that, very soon, he was winning little beside the ante simply because no one would raise or call him. Doc, who had dropped out of the game entirely, watched by the sidebar, brandy close at hand.

  At the midnight break, Evan approached Inez. "I’m out. See you on the first Saturday of the new decade."

  It was Inez’s turn to deal.

  "Damn!" Chet looked at his cards, eyes bulging. "Ya call this a hand? A couple these here fifties oughta change my luck."

  Around the table, the players silently matched his bet.

  Chet shoved his cards toward Inez. "Five new ones."

  Inez exhaled hard.

  "Four’s the limit. Standard rules."

  "Hell, ma’am. A hunnert in the pot says I want five, I get five." He hooted. "Just joshin’. Two."

  Gritting her teeth, she sailed two cards his way. Cooper and Harry stood pat. She took two.

  When she saw what fate had dealt her, she knew:

  I’ve got him now.

  The door swung open, and the roar of the saloon thundered in with strains of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Inez turned with a smile. "Evening, Reverend Sands."

  He paused, halfway to the stove, and removed his hat. His returning smile warmed her to her toes. "Evening, Mrs. Stannert. Hope you don’t mind if I watch."

  "Not at all. Gentlemen?"

  Murmurs from around the table. Chet, chewing on his bottom lip, didn’t even look up from his hand. "Naw. Just no God-talk."

  "No God-talk." Sands saluted with his coffee mug.

  Inez nodded at Chet. "Your call."

  "Fifteen hunnert smackeroos."

  Cooper tossed his cards on the table. Harry followed with "I’ve contributed enough to your retirement, Donnelly."

  "Haw!" exulted Chet, on whom the sarcasm was lost. "Now you, Mrs. Stannert."

  Inez looked long and hard at Chet, then said, all sweetness, "Double it."

  She counted out fifties and pushed them into the center.

  "Now we’re playin’ poker!" Chet slammed the table with a hairy hand. The coffee sloshed in Inez’s cup. "Raise ya, ’nother thousand."

  "Up another thousand, Chet. You do have the money, don’t you?" She leaned over to retrieve the strongbox from the floor. As she did, Harry asked in a low voice, "Are you sure about this, Inez?"

  She covered her bet with a mix of paper and gold. The men looked at her as if she’d gone crazy. Except for Chet. Chet’s lower teeth were attempting to consume what was left of his mustache as he pondered his options.

  Inez said loud enough for all to hear, "I’ve no intention of contributing to Chet’s retirement. I guarantee, however, that he will be contributing handsomely to the saloon’s expansion fund."
/>   Her words had the desired effect. Chet dug into his pocket and extracted the now-slim roll of bills. He looked a trifle glum. "Aw, hell. I wanted to save somethin’ for Cat’s whores."

  "I don’t mean to cut into your fun, Chet." She tapped her chin in a show of deep thought. "I’m willing to accept an asset in place of the cash."

  He looked suspicious. "Asset?"

  Inez tore a sheet from the tablet she’d been using to keep tab of the winnings, and printed: "Your ‘piece-of-shit’ claim by Roaring Fork. The one you and Joe cut a deal on."

  She folded the paper and held it out to him.

  Chet snatched the note, scanned it, and crumpled it in a fist.

  He then turned and spat on the carpet before counting out his thousand. There were only a couple of bills left when he was done.

  "Lay down them cards."

  She did.

  Cooper murmured. Inez was gratified that he could look surprised. She glanced sideways at Harry and detected a smile lurking beneath his mustache. Doc leaned forward to see and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

  Chet examined the four aces and queen of diamonds peeking coyly from behind.

  He heaved to his feet.

  His chair toppled to the carpet with a thud.

  Harry and Cooper tensed visibly. Inez slid a hand into the pocket that held her gun.

  Chet kicked the chair out of his way and stalked out the door, slamming it hard. The framed Civil War print shivered on the wall.

  Reverend Sands walked forward and flipped over Chet’s cards.

  Inez realized that, sometime during the last exchange, the reverend had unobtrusively positioned himself against the wall behind the prospector.

  Chet’s abandoned hand showed a full house, kings and a pair of jacks.

  "No wonder he emptied his pockets," remarked Cooper.

  Harry looked at her with admiration. "Now that, Inez, is playing poker."

  She stacked the money neatly before her. "Like taking candy from a baby. Now, if I’d duped you, Harry, that would be playing poker. Gentlemen, any objections to breaking up the game early?"

  No one objected.

  Doc came over and clasped Inez’s hand. "Congratulations, my dear. I suppose after this, you’ll be leaving town. Surely you aren’t serious about the expansion. Why, with this windfall and a sale of your property—"

  Feeling flush with victory, Inez extracted her hand from Doc’s grasp. "The windfall belongs to the saloon’s partnership. And Abe and I have plans for the Silver Queen."

  She carried her winnings to the sideboard. "We may turn the upper level into a gentleman’s club and hire professional dealers. These private games would, of course, continue."

  While talking, she poured a generous brandy to celebrate.

  The first sip, golden and smooth, settled with a glow in her stomach. As she set down the snifter she noticed, with a flash of irritation, that Doc had been careless while helping himself. Puddles of brandy showed here and there on the polished wood.

  She lifted her stack of bills, exclaiming in annoyance. The bottom note was soaked. She pulled it off to examine the denomination. And blinked.

  The complex whorls and lines on the back of the fifty looked smeared and melting. As if…

  She stared at her fingertips, coated with ink.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  "Sweet Jesus," Inez said under her breath.

  On cue, Reverend Sands stood by her elbow. She clenched her hand into a fist to give herself time to think.

  "What’s this?" Reverend Sands picked up the discarded fifty. The ink smeared further, making the back of the bill nearly unreadable.

  His smile of congratulations disappeared. He turned the bill over to examine it further and straightened up, his stance changing subtly. When his eyes met hers, he seemed to be taking her measure anew. His deliberate gaze reminded her of a player trying to sniff out a bluff. "It’s counterfeit."

  "I can see that," retorted Inez. She lowered her eyes to the thick wad of paper money in her hand. That one and how many others?

  She felt ill.

  The reverend set the bogus fifty on a dry section of the sideboard. "You’d better have your bank look at those notes."

  "I wonder who passed this?" And if they did it on purpose. The term for deliberately passing counterfeit floated to consciousness, from long-ago bits of conversation between Mark and Abe. Shoving.

  "Could have been anyone."

  It could have even been me. The paper money she’d used for the game had come straight from the saloon’s safe.

  Harry, Cooper, and Doc clustered about her and Sands.

  "Coney money, hmmm?" Doc bent to view the worthless piece of paper. "Saw lots during the War. Inferior stuff, for the most part. You could usually spot it right off. That is, if it wasn’t handed to you in some poorly illuminated drinking establishment."

  "This one looked pretty good," said Sands.

  The note of authority in his voice caused Inez to turn and stare. As she did, she caught a glance, fleeting as a sigh, traded between him and Harry.

  Doc’s jowls creased upward in a sympathetic smile. "Coney floats around. Just bad luck, my dear, that it ended up with you."

  Inez nodded, mute. She wondered if she could pretend nothing had happened. Take it all to the bank on Monday. She locked up the money in the box, except for the wet counterfeit. "I must talk to Abe. Help yourselves, gentlemen. If you leave before I return, Merry Christmas. Remember, we won’t be playing again until the third of January."

  She moved through the crowded barroom, making an effort to smile and nod graciously at the congratulatory comments. It seemed everyone knew how she’d slipped the last of Chet’s fortune from him.

  Once at the bar, she beckoned to Abe.

  "Inez." Abe came over, towel in one hand, brandy bottle and snifter in the other. "Heard you took the wind out of Chet’s sails and the money from his pocket. With a handful of aces, too. Wish I could of seen that." Abe began to pour her a drink. She grabbed his arm to stop him and leaned over the bar. "That’s the good news. We’re now about six thousand dollars richer. The bad news is, at least one greenback is bogus."

  She handed him the soggy bill.

  Abe set the brandy bottle down, overly careful, and took the fifty from her. "Coney? Passed durin’ the game?"

  She nodded.

  Abe examined the note, grim. "Damn. Wonder if some-one’s been shovin’ regular. All the money passin’ over the bar, we haven’t got time to check it."

  "This looked genuine. At least, until it was soaked in alcohol. We certainly can’t douse every bill that comes our way. Let’s talk more, before we make the Monday deposit." She surveyed the room. "Chet gone?"

  "Reckon so. He took a bottle of rotgut to dull the pain of losin’." Abe took the strongbox from her and slipped the counterfeit inside. "If the reverend’s walkin’ you home be sure he’s totin’ somethin’ more powerful than the Good Book. This’d be a bad time to bump into Chet."

  Inez returned to the card room to collect the empty glasses.

  Sands left off talking with Cooper and Harry when he saw Inez gathering the glassware. "I’ll walk you home when you’re ready." Commiseration tempered his smile. "Don’t let the phony money ruin your evening. Counterfeit circulates through boom towns, cities, any place where money flows freely. As Doc said, it was probably just a matter of time before it happened here."

  "Probably." Unconvinced.

  She carried the tray of glasses into the kitchen and paused, just inside the passage door. One lamp, turned low, hung by the back as a signal to befuddled customers. The back door was closed.

  Good.

  She had had visions of Chet lurking by the door to the alley, waiting for her. The lamp cast wavering shadows on the range, where the fry pan and oversized iron pot sat. The tin washtub filled the corner of the kitchen table, visible in the light pouring in from the saloon’s main room.

  She walked to the table and began stac
king glassware into the tub.

  The slice of light from the saloon narrowed and disappeared as the kitchen door swung shut behind her.

  "How’dja know?"

  Startled, she turned. Chet’s bulk separated from the shadows next to the closed passage door.

  Adrenaline pounded through her body. She carefully set a shot glass into the tub with her left hand and slid her right into her pocket. She pitched her voice calm, burying her fear. "How did I know what, Chet?"

  He moved forward, a shambling bear. "Joe and that piece-a-shit…How’dja know?"

  "Seven hundred ounces per ton is hardly a piece-of-shit claim." The words flew from her mouth before she could reconsider.

  Chet was quick on those enormous feet, suddenly only an arm’s length away. "Joe flap his gums afore he kicked the bucket? Naw. He said, keep it quiet ’til spring thaw."

  She didn’t want to pull the gun on him while he was thinking aloud. Besides, he stood at the wrong distance. If he were only closer. Or further away.

  "Lady Luck?" he ruminated. "Naw. She don’t talk to the likes of you. I got it." A ham-sized hand shot out and shoved her against the rear wall. The lamp above her head flickered. "Joe’s widder. Bet Joe told his old lady, she told you. Damn palaverin’ women."

  No one would hear her yell over the racket in the saloon. If she pulled her gun now…I’d never make it. Best keep him talking until he backs up or moves closer.

  "Is that what this is about?" She strove for a conversational tone. "You had a deal with Joe and now that he’s dead you don’t want to give the widow what’s legally hers?"

  "Haw!" A snarly laugh. "We shook, but he never coughed up the money. No money. No deal. And I got somethin’ else to tell you, Mrs. High-n-Mighty Stannert."

  He moved closer until his face filled her vision. Lit by the lamp above her head, he looked like a denizen of the underworld. She held her breath to avoid the bouquet of mint tonic and firewater that enveloped her.

  "I don’t like folks messin’ in my business. And. I. Don’t. Like. You."

  He grabbed her shoulder, pinning her to the wall. "Thought it’d be fun playin’ in your high-falutin’ poker game. Fun, haw. I been to funerals more fun. Everyone looked like they was bettin’ their last dollar. Hell, I don’t care about the money. More where that came from."