Adventure! RPG - One-Eyed Jacks and Sucide Kings

[Andrew Murphy]

[size:20]“One-Eyed Jacks and Suicide Kings”

Author’s note: This short story explains the circumstances which landed The Beginning and The End in Jameson’s possession and how they ended up gaining their names.

September 27th, 1916 – French Foreign Legion Outpost Outside Algiers

Jameson stared at his cards and the stack on money on the table in front of him. An ace high was hardly the hand to be holding considering the way that the other men had been betting. Jameson still had a good amount of their money however and felt that while it would be nice to win it would also be nice to keep all his teeth. With just three months to his seventeenth birthday he also felt that it might be good for his health to not beat these gents too badly at poker.

Jameson wrinkled his face and proclaimed, “Call,” throwing a twenty Franc bill upon the pile in the center of the table. The man to his left, a scrawny Frenchman from Normandy smiled and flopped his cards upon the table, showing a full house of queens over sevens.

“Damn, Pierre, how they hell do you pull those hands out of your arse?” a man with a Midwestern American accent asked as he threw his cards down in disgust.

“Ah cannot tell vous, ma friend. I guess zee lady luck smiles on zee French because vee are such good kissers!” Pierre responded scooping the pot towards him. “Ah believe it eez your deal François.”

The large Frenchman named François scooped up the cards from the various players and began to methodically shuffle the deck. Jameson stood up and walked to the small desk where various bottle of liquor were standing, “Anybody need another drink?” he asked as he poured himself a scotch. Sixteen or not he found that whiskey and its derivatives were the finest thing you could nurse while drinking and not show it.

The other five men places their orders with the young American who proceeded to pour the requisite drinks and bring them to the table, François was known for shuffling the deck very thoroughly, but he certainly took him time about it.

Jameson returned to the table with his scotch and the glass of port that Pierre had requested. He sat down between Jonesy, the other American in the group, and Pierre. Those left François to Pierre’s left and between François and Jonsey were Will, from Scotland, and Salaah, from Algeria itself.

Salaah was in the Legion simply to make enough money to eventually retire like a king in his own country. Jonesy, like Jameson, was far too young to serve in the Great War at this point but old enough to get into the Legion with the proper grafts. The two Americans were looking for the kind of romantic adventures that one could read about in the cheap novels of the time.

Pierre and François were patriots proud to serve their country in Africa, and prouder to have avoided the Great War altogether. Though they fought well and bravely neither ever proclaimed to have an interest in battle.

That left Will, he insisted that nobody call him William, let alone, make any references to the fact that he had the right to be call Sir in the formal way. Will was interested in trying his skills as a weapon smith. However in England he would have been strongly bound to service in the war due to his birthrights. Will had joined the Legion to get away from his duties, an act some thought cowardly and others intelligent. He had been attached to the small outpost only twelve days earlier and though the others knew about some of the specially modified weapons he had none was willing to ask to try any of them until they saw him use them in combat, and not die.

François began to deal the cards now, five to each man, “One-eyed Jacques and le roi de suicidé are wild ma friends,” he said as he tossed the cards toward them. One eyed Jacks and the Suicide King wild; François must be close to loosing all the money he can spare, Jameson thought to himself as he picked up his cards. He fanned the cards tightly and peered around the table watching the others for their reactions to their own cards. He noted that Will’s left eye twitched, his tell showing itself to Jameson, He must have a strong hand. Finally he looked back down at his cards and saw that he had the Jack of spades, one of the two one-eyed Jacks in the deck. He also had a pair of queens, a six, and a three. Three of a kind, I don’t care how much I’ve won so far I’m taking this pot as far as I can.

Jameson looked up from his cards as betting started. Salaah started the betting round as he usually did when he had nothing to speak of, with a five Franc note. Will raised the bet to twelve Francs, which got grumbles from the two Frenchmen and a sour look from Salaah. Jonesy was next and he called. The bet was twelve Francs to Jameson, he decided that a modest raise would be ok and brought the total bet to sixteen Francs. Will squinted his eyes and stared at Jameson while to the two Frenchmen called.

With the pot just under one hundred Francs François began to deal out cards to whomever wanted them. Salaah showed his ace and took four cards, which really meant that he wasn’t smart enough to simply fold. Will took two cards, and Jonesy three. Jameson ditched the six and the three and held the queens and the wild, taking two more cards from François. The two Frenchmen both took two cards and the six men settled into a quiet staring game.

The quiet was broken when Salaah announced, “Ten,” and tossed his money into the pot. Will quickly raised the bet to a total of thirty Francs, he obviously had a hot hand was hoping to get the most out of the pot. Jonesy sighed and threw down his cards with a frown.

Jameson, who had not even looked at his two new cards, now took a moment to look down at his hand. Another queen and the King of hearts, the suicide king, stared back at him. Five of a kind, I can’t believe this! He thought to himself, and then just as suddenly, they’ll kill me for this. Jameson raised the bet to a total of fifty Francs enough to make any one of them think that he must be bluffing.

Pierre and François quickly folded out cursing in French as they did so. Salaah hung his head and simply dropped his cards onto the tabletop. That left Will and Jameson to play heads up poker. Will looked down at the small pile of money in front of him and removed all but a twenty Franc note, raising the bet another forty Francs.

The pot was starting to get for out of hand; usually they seldom got above one hundred Francs and now Jameson was staring at a pot more than twice that. Jameson had to raise however because the others believed him to be bluffing and a call would show as him backing down. He raised the betting by another seventy Francs above Will’s last bet and placed all his remaining funds into the pot. Back off Will I don’t need to bankrupt you, he thought.

Will stared at Jameson in disbelief looking from his cards to Jameson to the pot over and over. Finally he put his last twenty Franc note into the pot. “That’s not enough Will, you know that,” Jonsey said, his voice quavering, he was nervous for the Englishman.

“I’m well aware of that, I’m hoping Jameson will accept an offer. If you win the pot I’ll let you choose one of my personal custom weapons to make up the pot. What do you say?” Will looked at Jameson, a twinkle in his eyes betrayed that he was sure he could win it. Jameson thought about it for a few moments before finally nodding. “Well what have you got then? I called you remember!” Will exclaimed.

Jameson sighed and laid his cards down on the table face up; queen, queen, queen, Jack of Spades (wild), and the King of hearts (wild); five queens. Everyone at the table save Will and Jameson gasped at the sight. Jameson simply sat there quietly, the look on his face said he was sorry to have the winning hand. Finally Will moved and placed his own hand face up; ace, ace, Jack of hearts (the remaining one-eyed Jack), eight, and eight; a full house.

“Well played old chap,” Will breathed as he sat down hard on his chair. A few moments later he said, “Well lets go see about the remainder of the pot I owe you.” He rose and walked of the room and headed toward the armory, which also served as his tool shop. Jameson and the others followed silently behind him not wanted to say anything at the risk of angering the Brit.

They arrived at the armory and Will turned the light on, “Anything one thing you see if yours,” he said and he flopped down into his work chair. Jameson spent the next ten minutes wandering about the room handling the many different weapons that Will had modified in one way or another since he joined the Legion two years earlier.

Not finding anything to his liking Jameson finally turned to Will, “There’s nothing here that suits my fancy, why don’t you just owe the money to me?”

“Because I’m a man of my word and we had a deal,” he hissed at Jameson. “I’m sorry, its just, I was certain I would win. Here, there is one more thing you haven’t seen. I just completed work on them.” Will walked over to a large trunk in the corner and opened it withdrawing a box of oak inlaid with rosewood. He walked over to Jameson and opened the lid. Within the box was lined with red silk that covered custom shaped cutouts for the contents. The contents themselves were amazing to look at; bright polished silver covered the barrel and body of two large Colt .45 “Peacemaker” revolvers. Their grips were inlaid with mahogany and polished to deep rich brown.

“They’re beautiful, but there’s no way I can accept these as payment, they must be worth two or even three times any of these other guns.” Jameson said as he lightly caressed the weapons. Despite his words his heart leapt out at the weapons. They were exactly like those he had always wanted, just like those that his mentor and foster father owned.

“Listen, Jameson, it’s obvious you do want these, and I insist that you take them to cover my debt.” Will closed the top of the box and latched the lid as he handed the package to Jameson, “They are yours, just promise that you’ll allow me to teach to how to properly maintain them.”

Jameson agreed and Will taught Jameson the finer points of gun care and eventually some of his techniques for weapon smithing, though nothing as advanced as what had gone into the construction of the two weapons.

Less than two days after the poker game a small group of nomadic raiders attacked the tiny outpost. Jameson the two weapons in hand killed eleven raiders and had a single bullet remaining within the cylinder of the left hand gun at the end of the battle. He named the right gun “The Beginning” and the left “The End” soon after as a reference to their performance that day.