To say Frank liked playing poker was to say a horse liked galloping through a big open field, or—to keep the metaphor on theme—a dog liked gnawing on bones.
For Frank, poker was a whetstone. It sharpened his mind and honed his instincts, and if he won a bit of extra cash . . . well, the folks who played against him should just get better at the game.
Right now, Frank was in a high-stakes hand against Heck Hotfinger. Frank’s dad was sitting to his left, his back to the wall as he mulled over his own cards, and Jane was at the bar, next to Jack McCall. Frank tried to catch her eye, but she quickly looked away—back to the glass of whiskey in front of her. Whatever was troubling her, she didn’t want to talk about it.
The saloon door swung open and in walked Miss Mosey—the intriguing girl in the blue dress, followed closely by her chaperone, Mr. Frost. Frank didn’t know what to make of this girl. At first, he’d thought her wit and confidence charming, and George was right—she smelled wonderful, a mix of soap and gunpowder and daisies. Even from across the room, the scent tantalized him. But she didn’t fit neatly into any of the categories of people who usually sought him out. She was a girl, but not one of the flirtatious girls who found him before and after shows (the term groupie didn’t exist yet, dear reader, but it certainly didn’t apply to Annie). At no point in their conversation had she simpered or cooed. No, she’d said she was a better shot. That certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been challenged that way, but usually it came from men with something to prove.
What was this girl trying to prove? Frank didn’t know, but he was definitely interested in finding out.
The dealer cleared his throat. “Your turn, Butler.” By the man’s narrowed eyes, this wasn’t the first time he’d said it.
Frank yanked his mind back to the game. “Check.”
“Isn’t that the girl from the theater?” Bill said. “The one who wants a job?”
“I don’t know, I barely looked at her,” Frank said as airily as possible.
“Hmm. I thought you got a pretty good look.” The corner of Bill’s mouth turned up.
“Yeah, well, your eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”
The dealer turned to Hotfinger. “Action’s on you, Heck.”
“Reckon I already knowed that,” Heck grumbled. “Check.”
“Check,” Bill said.
Heck put his cards down on the table and pointed at Bill. “Hey, ain’t you Wild Bill Hickok?”
“Does that change your cards?” Bill asked.
Heck had been at the table with Bill for a good ten minutes and he’d just now noticed he was sitting across from the most famous gunslinger in the country? Maybe Heck needed to worry about his eyesight.
Frank glanced at his cards. One more round of betting left Frank and Heck heads-up. They were the two big stacks at the table. The rest of the players had dropped out. Everyone was waiting for Heck to make a move.
Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw Miss Mosey standing in the background, studying the game. When she noticed him noticing her, she flashed a smile and ventured closer to the table. “So, if you want to stay in, you have to ante,” she said under her breath.
Frank bit his lip to keep from smiling. What was it about this girl?
Wait, no, he was supposed to be playing the game. “Woooo,” he breathed, not loud enough for anyone else to hear. They’d laugh at him if they heard, but saying wooo always helped calm his nerves. (It was like Frank’s own personal form of meditation, which henceforth we will refer to as “the Wooo.”)
“All in,” Heck said around his snaggletooth. Heck shoved his whole pile of chips into the pot.
All in. If Frank made this call and he was wrong, he would lose all his money. It didn’t help that Miss Mosey was peering over his shoulder, studying the hand at play. Gosh, she smelled so darned good.
“I was thinking about our conversation earlier,” she said suddenly.
Frank jumped.
Miss Mosey went on as though she hadn’t noticed. “Perhaps your hesitation in hiring me might come from you doubting that I, a young lady of good standing, could be seriously interested in associating myself with show business, an occupation that can have, as I’m sure you’re aware, a rather lurid reputation.” She slipped into the empty seat beside him. “I can assure you that this isn’t a problem. For my mother, maybe, but not me. In any case, I honestly believe—and I’m nothing if not honest, Mr. Butler, which you’ll come to know about me—that I should join your posse. I’m a fast learner. For example, I just learned how to play poker as I was crossing the street. I may not be exactly good at it yet, but I know what I am good at, and I’m good at shooting.”
The dealer cleared his throat. “See here, miss. It’s not right to talk so much during a poker hand.”
“Oh, I didn’t know there were rules about that.”
Frank couldn’t help but smile. She did talk a lot, but he found he liked the sound of her voice. He turned his focus back to the cards. He had three sevens and a four and a two. Not the world’s best hand. (That would be a royal flush.) But three sevens was a strong hand, beaten only by a straight or a flush. Or a full house. Or four of a kind.
Okay, so there were five types of hands that could beat him.
“I’m buying in,” Miss Mosey announced.
Everyone at the table looked up from their cards.
Miss Mosey pulled some bills out of her pocketbook. Mr. Frost sat down beside her, and the dealer pushed Miss Mosey’s chips toward her.
“Thank you,” she said, as if someone at a dinner party had passed the potatoes. “Now, can you tell me what the different colors of chips mean?”
Frank tapped her chips. “These are ones. These are fives. They represent your money in the game.”
Her mouth twisted into a small frown. “Why don’t we use regular coins?”
“Because—” Well, Frank wasn’t rightly sure. “Because we use chips. That’s how the game is played. Why are you playing poker, anyway?”
“Because it’s the only way to get your attention.”
His heart picked up its pace. She wanted his attention.
For the job, he reminded himself.
“She’s persistent, that one,” Bill said. “I like that in a woman.”
“Oh, I know,” Frank said. “Your wife is maybe the most persistent woman I’ve ever met.” She had to be, to nab someone like Wild Bill Hickok.
Miss Mosey’s mouth dropped open. “Mr. Hickok, you’re married?”
He gave a slow nod. “For a few months now.”
“Congratulations.” She turned to Frank. “But I’m the most persistent woman you’ve ever met.”
Heck sighed loudly. “C’mon, Pistol Prince. Make your move. Even the women growed beards by now.”
“Call,” Frank said, not looking away from Miss Mosey.
“That’s a call,” the dealer said. “Turn ’em up, Heck.”
Heck turned his cards up.
“Two pair,” the dealer said.
Frank flipped his hand.
“Three of a kind. Mr. Butler wins.”
“That’s not fair!” Heck’s nostrils flared and his cheeks darkened. “The girl was distracting me.”
Miss Mosey frowned. “It wasn’t my intention to distract you, sir.”
“It don’t matter what your intention was. You did distract me. I think that hand shouldn’t count.”
“It counts,” Bill said evenly. “A good player doesn’t let himself get distracted.” He turned to Frank. “Does he, son?”
Heck scowled. “She distracted me on purpose. I say that’s cheatin’.”
Frank ignored him and gathered his chips. But he kept Heck’s hands in his peripheral vision, because when you wanted to stay alive at the end of a poker game, it all came down to hands. Specifically, the ability to see hands. So when Heck’s right hand twitched and then disappeared under the table, there was only one thing to know, and it was something Frank had learned from his dad: you draw or you die.
Frank drew. We could go into more detail than those two words: how his left hand flew to his holster and his thumbnail released the leather clip and his fingers clenched around the grip while his thumb simultaneously cocked the hammer and his arm whipped the gun out and drew a bead on Heck, but an explanation of that length would not convey the speed with which Frank drew.
In fact, as we were writing this explanation, Frank had already shot the gun out of Heck’s hand.
“I reckon you weren’t meaning to draw your piece,” Frank said.
Heck shook his head, in no position to argue.
“I thought so.” Frank twirled his six-shooter around his finger and then holstered it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bill slip one of his ivory-handled pistols back into its holster as well.
“That was an amazing draw,” Miss Mosey exclaimed. “Was that fast? I thought that was fast.”
Frank felt a warmth in his cheeks. “Wooo,” he murmured.
The game started up again (sans Heck this time, as he’d slunk off), and Frank soon learned that Miss Mosey, for all her boasting, was just plain terrible at poker.
“Check,” she said.
“You can’t check. You have to call or fold,” Frank said.
“Oh. What if I want to raise?”
Frank cocked his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You were about to fold.”
“Let her raise,” Bill said, because he liked winning money.
Frank sat back in his chair. Clearly Miss Mosey was going to do whatever Miss Mosey was going to do.
She glanced at her cards again, blue eyes sparkling. “Do you have any twos?”
He stifled a smile. “This isn’t Go Fish.”
“Fine.” She tossed in some chips. “I bet . . . that many.”
“I call,” Frank said.
Bill folded.
“You know what doesn’t make sense?” Miss Mosey said as the rest of the players folded. “Why you won’t take me seriously about giving me a job.”
Frank pressed his lips together. It was time to be, ahem, frank with her. “I’m sorry, but you’re a girl, and our posse”—if air quotes had been invented at this time, he would have used them—“is not the place for ladies. It’s a hard life. We’re always on the move.”
“Calamity Jane’s a lady,” Miss Mosey said.
They both turned toward the bar, where Jane was in the middle of a belching contest with a large man. She was winning.
“Sure,” Frank said. At least Jane looked like she was feeling better.
Miss Mosey threw her cards into the muck. (In other words, she folded.) “I am the best sharpshooter you’ve ever seen.”
“That can’t be true, because I see myself in the mirror every day.”
She smiled sweetly. “Mr. Butler, I assure you that I’m good at anything I set my mind to.”
“Says the girl who just mucked her cards after she raised,” Frank said.
“Your poker rules don’t mean anything to me. But it doesn’t change the facts. I was born to be a sharpshooter.”
“You should listen to her,” said Mr. Frost. “That girl sitting next to you can shoot the wings off a fly. She’s a local heroine.”
Miss Mosey sat up straighter, if that were possible.
“That’s great, but we’ve got a full posse right now,” Frank said.
Miss Mosey studied her new hand, shifting her cards one by one as if she were alphabetizing them. Everyone at the table looked at her quizzically. But Frank smiled.
The dealer asked, “Cards?”
Without flinching, Miss Mosey said, “None. Thank you for asking.”
The quizzical looks intensified.
“I mean,” Miss Mosey said, “I don’t think I need any.”
Frank immediately bet, and everyone at the table called, including Miss Mosey, who raised. And when she did, she tightened the bow in her hair.
That was when Frank realized he could not read this girl.
He arched an eyebrow at her, but she held steady in her resolve.
He narrowed his eyes, and she had the nerve to wink.
“Uh . . . I fold?” Frank said, but it sounded like a question.
One by one, every other man at the table folded.
Miss Mosey turned up her cards. She had nothing.
“Beginner’s luck,” Bill said. “Even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes.”
Frank couldn’t believe it, the nerve.
“I’m a betting man.” Mr. Frost leaned forward. “I’m willing to give one hundred dollars to the winner of a shooting match between the Pistol Prince and Miss Mosey.”
Miss Mosey clapped, then seemed to think better about it and put her hands in her lap. “I could be interested in a competition,” she said demurely.
A hundred dollars. (A quick note from your narrators: $100 is quite a bit of money now, but back in 1876, it was even more. When you consider inflation, $100 was equivalent to about $2,400.)
This girl might be smart and charming and pretty—some might even say distractingly so—but she had another think coming if she thought she could best Frank Butler. He never referred to himself in the third person, but this was a special occasion. His reputation was on the line. Plus, Frank simply could not ignore a hundred dollars.
“I’m in,” he said, although it would be a shame to take Mr. Frost’s money. It felt like taking advantage. Frank wasn’t being conceited about that, either. He’d just never met anyone who could shoot as well as he could. Especially not a girl.
Jane wandered over. “Did I hear something about a bet?”
“I propose a match this Saturday,” Mr. Frost said.
Bill whistled. “I’m beginning to think you might be eating that hundred dollars.”
“Why would he eat a hunnerd dollars?” Jane asked.
Miss Mosey leaned toward him. She tapped the collar of his jacket. “Come Saturday, I will shoot the buttons off your shirt, and I’ll be a hundred dollars richer. And if I win, I get to join your posse.”
Frank glanced over at Bill, hoping for some help, but his dad gave him the old familiar “handle it yourself” look.
“No one actually agreed to those terms,” Frank said, but Miss Mosey was already gone.
Bill coughed. “She’s a spitfire, that one, and if it were only for the show, I’d say you should consider her. But as it is . . .”
“I know,” Frank murmured, staring after her.