Night of Shadows

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Book: Read Night of Shadows for Free Online
Authors: Marilyn Haddrill, Doris Holmes
out to see what she had. But each time she exposed a card,
it was an ace or a king. The last card was a four.
    By now, Michael had distributed the
matchsticks he had dumped from a box fished from his pocket. Melinda tossed one
out to indicate her bet. He did the same. He scratched the stubble of his beard
as he examined his hand.
    "How many cards do you
need?" he asked, 
    "Just one."
    "One!  Is that all? I need
three."
    He peeled several more off the
deck. She picked up her one, which gave her a full house — aces over kings.
When she looked up and saw his penetrating stare, she molded her face into an
implacable expression. His face showed nothing. She ran a fingernail over her
cards as he arranged his.
    "Well?" he asked finally.
"Now what's your bet?"
    Melinda smugly shoved all her
matchsticks out into the center of the table.
    "Are you sure you want to do
that?" he asked.
    "You play it your way and I'll
play it mine."
    She gave him a superior smile. He
smiled back.
    Then in one quick motion he pushed
out his matches. "Whatcha got?"
    She triumphantly laid down her
cards, one at a time for effect, and reached out for the matchsticks. He placed
his hand down on hers.
    "Not so fast, Missy. That's a
good hand, all right. But it don't beat four-of-a-kind."
    He slapped his four deuces on the
table, threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Am I good, or what?
Here, I'll loan you some of my loot."
    He shoved half the matches her way.
Then he proceeded to beat her at every hand. Each time, he gleefully raked in
the matchsticks as if they were real money.
    "Well," she finally
informed him. "I'm just not playing anymore." She put down her latest
hand. "Besides, I think you're cheating."
    "Cheating? No one would have
to cheat to beat you."
    He looked wounded as he gathered up
the cards, and stood to put them away. "If you have to be such a spoil
sport, I'm going back out to check on the horse. He's better company than you,
anyway."
    Michael stayed gone for a long
time. Finally, Melinda could hear him as he paced back and forth on what she
presumed was the porch outside, where he must have been protected from the weather.
Lightning zinged outside, causing her to jump. Apparently he preferred even the
storm to her company.
    She sighed, then reached over to
examine some ancient Western magazines stacked on the table at her elbow. She
tried to become absorbed in a classic frontier adventure story, but it was hard
to read by lantern light. Exhaustion finally overcame her. She stumbled off the
sofa and back to the bed, where she crawled in and drifted off to sleep.
    Much later, she awakened to a
different sound — a silence. Rain no longer pelted the roof. Good, she thought.
Maybe the floodwater would recede, and she could leave this place.
    A few minutes later, she was
dumbfounded to hear the roar of a low-flying airplane that seemed to be
just overhead. Her heart lifted with hope. Maybe there was a nearby landing
strip where a plane could touch down. Maybe there was a way out of here other
than overland.
    In the inky darkness, she was dimly
aware that the outside door opened and then closed. Then she heard the sound of
a motor starting up and a vehicle leaving. Odd. Where would Michael be going?
Where could he go?
    She must have dozed off. Later in
the night, she again was awakened — this time by the grinding of gears as a
vehicle came to a halt right outside. The door creaked open. The dark, tip-toeing
man outlined against the red coals of the fireplace was Michael.
    She pretended to be asleep as she
watched him silently pull off his boots, and place them carefully on the floor.
He stretched out on the sofa, and before long began to snore. She was too tired
to dwell on the mystery. Tomorrow would be time enough to question him.
    The next morning, she was aroused
by the bright sunlight pouring through the window. The smell of coffee brought
her fully awake. She took a deep, appreciative breath as Michael approached
with a cup in

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