McElhanie bought one of the two white prostitutes hot beer and talked into her ear for most of a half hour. His tongue would reach out to lick her neck and she’d cringe. Then he made some kind of arrangement and followed her through a green velvet curtain and into a low-ceilinged crib not much wider than a bed and basin. He merely unbuttoned himself for her. And he was back before Bob and Bitter Creek Newcomb could find open chairs for faro.

Faro was the game in those days; you hardly see it any more. Thirteen spade cards were lacquered onto the tabletop and bets placed on any number of them. The banker would turn over on his left the top card of the deck, which was called soda. On his right he’d reveal the next card, and any match-up between it and the board lost the bet. The next card he’d place on soda, and bets on the spade card like it would win. Idiots could play the game, which no doubt led to its extinction.

At the cantina, the auction for banker went to a professional gambling man who called himself Fancy Jack. He had rings that glittered with glass on his thumbs and a red feather in a white hat. That was the only thing fancy about him. His fingernails were black-rimmed and his dark suit was white-stained with sweat. Bob and Newcomb sat down with him at last and he bothered them with questions as he dealt each pair of cards. “Did you vote in the last election?” he asked. “Ever ate fresh water clams?”

I sat with strangers at a corner table and got cleaned out in no time by a Mexican with teeth the colors of maize. He laughed out loud and slapped the dealing box every time he raked my money into his shirt. Whenever others lost he at least made sure to waggle a bit so that the silver coins would jangle.

I posted myself as lookout and stood at the bar feeling queasy at every glance toward the hundreds of guns in the place. Bob bought me a shot glass of whiskey and we jawed about the Remington Rolling-block .50 caliber rifle, also known as the Remington Buffalo Gun.

“Don’t you think that sweetheart packs a wallop,” I said. “I hear a miner in Creede, Colorado, got shot in the head with one while unscrewing a can of sardines and some of his hair floated as far as the assayer’s office in Pueblo.”

And Bob said, “These games are crooked. Nobody’s going to risk anything for this place. I’ve got a premonition about it.”

He left me with the shot glass he’d bought for himself and every fifteen minutes or so I’d take the meagerest sip.