A hush came over the saloon as Jebediah Hancock rose from his seat. He scowled at me across the card table. “You callin’ me a cheater, Sheriff?”
“Looks like.”
People scrambled away from nearby tables.
“Take it back.”
I smiled. “Nope.”
He went for his gun.
My hand flew faster.
Crouching over his dying body, I pulled a bloodstained ace from inside his shirt.
Between ragged gasps he asked, “How’d you… know?”
I glanced back to where his full house lay spread out on the green felt, and leaned in to whisper, “‘Cause those ain’t the cards I dealt you.”
Born in England, Jon Gibbs now lives in New Jersey, USA. An active member of both the Garden State Horror Writers and the Monmouth Creative Writing Group, he is the founder of the New Jersey Authors’ Network . He can usually be found hunched over the laptop in his kitchen. One day he hopes to figure out how to switch it on.