Besieged: Stories from the Iron Druid Chronicles(40)

I’d describe these men for you, except that I don’t remember their names. I was simply using them as a source of focused greed, hoping it would draw the demon to this particular building.

I slung them a fabricated story about my claim’s location, how I’d stumbled across it by accident, how there was so much more gold just lying around, no tunnels to be dug or anything, and I was sure it was the same all through that stretch of mountains, and they ate it up. They kept drinking. They were practically unconscious after an hour, but I was fine, because I kept breaking down the alcohol internally to prevent getting drunk. I didn’t have to fight them, and I gradually got the attention of everyone in the place, because word quickly spread throughout the hall, courtesy of the whiskey server, that I had found quite the strike somewhere and was rolling in it. Buying a round for everyone also got me some attention.

Leaving my would-be assailants behind in a drunken stupor, barely able to sit up, I performed what might be called an amateur mosey toward the roulette table. I took some time to understand the game and to chat, then I began placing bets. And cheating.

Not for any personal gain, of course: It was merely to attract my target. I would lose some but win a bit more so that, over time, I was amassing more and more money and others were riding along, placing their side bets.

“Time-out,” Granuaile said. “How did you cheat?”

“Whenever I wanted a sure win, I bound the surface of the roulette ball to the number I’d chosen, just long enough for it to stay in its little slot.”

“They never caught on?”

“I’d lose enough that they didn’t suspect. And I kept buying drinks and giving wads of money away to others, who would promptly lose it. The house was doing fine. I was winning enough to basically stay even with what I’d brought in. In the meantime, the atmosphere of greed kept rising.”

<Yeah, but what was the food like?> my hound asked.

“I was just getting to that, Oberon,” I said.

I took a break for dinner; the U.S. Exchange provided some sliced beef in a sugary barbecue sauce, pinto beans in the same glaze, and a mountain of cornbread. It allowed me time to tell some jokes and ingratiate myself with the staff. I couldn’t finish my meal—the portion was huge—so I asked if they might have a hound who’d enjoy it.

“We surely do,” said the bartender, who gave his name as Perkins and informed me that he was also the proprietor. He had curled his mustache with wax on the tips and had a cleft chin jutting out beneath it.

“What breed?”

“Standard poodle. The tall ones, you know, not the miniature kind.”

“Name?”

“Felicity, because our meeting was felicitous. Found her out on the Oregon Trail; she was near starved to death. She’d lost her people, and I’d lost mine, and we kept each other going.”

“Sorry to hear about your troubles,” I said. “I don’t suppose I could say hi to Felicity? I haven’t seen a dog for a long time. Maybe she’ll bring me enough luck to maintain a winning streak.”

He grinned at me. “Sure, why not. I’ll have Lucy take you back.”

Lucy was one of the women serving whiskey, and at Perkins’ request she took me back into the kitchen past the cook, where the poodle was bedded down. Felicity had a fine curly white coat and looked well fed. Her tail thumped the bed a couple of times and then she rose to say hello. She got some scritches and beef from me, and I learned from her that she thought Perkins was much nicer than most humans she’d met. That was good to know.

? ? ?

<Did she pee on the ones who weren’t nice to her?>

“What? Oberon, no.”

<Did you ask her?>

“It’s not something I would think to ask.”

<Well, I’ll give you one extra star for finally including a poodle and feeding her but then subtract it for pandering to me. So you’re still at one star.>

“It’s not pandering! Felicity still has a part to play in this. I said at the start there would be vintage poodles. Would you just let me finish?”

Granuaile did a poor job of stifling a laugh when she heard me protest the pandering charge.

<All right, go on,> Oberon said, all high and mighty as if he were doing me a favor.

When I returned to the saloon, I hoped that the mood would have noticeably shifted and my quarry would have appeared. A scan of the hall’s auras revealed nothing unusual, so it was back to work. I gambled and caroused and laughed. I got asked about my sword a lot and why I wore gloves. They were lucky, I said, and left it at that.

Gambling halls back then didn’t have closing times as long as there was money to be made. And since there was quite a bit of money changing hands—I was making sure of it—Perkins didn’t go to bed at a sensible hour. He had someone come in to take over but he stayed on, keeping an eye on things. There were several fights that broke out at the poker tables, but I kept everything cooking along nicely at the roulette table. Like the king in Hamlet, I took my rouse and kept wassail. But even with breaking down the alcohol and taking breaks every so often, I was getting tired and thinking about giving up. It was long past midnight—three A.M., if I’m not mistaken—before something shifted in the air.

A man with a slight beer gut strode into the hall then, wide-brimmed hat pulled low, his full dark beard kept trimmed, and a slim cigar smoldering at one corner of his mouth. Two guns hung low at his hips, and he had pointy steel-toed boots that were meant to be seen as much as worn; he wasn’t a working cowboy or a miner. He was something else.