Kid Barlow's Ace in the Hole

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Birds twittered in the oak trees as bees flew from dandelion to dandelion gathering pollen. It shore is one beautiful day, Jess thought as he shoved his hat to one side. Sweat plastered strings of dirty, brown hair against his wide forehead. Grinning at his son he pulled a ragged, red bandanna from the hip pocket of this threadbare jeans, and swiped it across his forehead.

Kid Barlow watched his bobber tread the clear, gentle flow of the Little Red River. I bet Heaven looks an awful lot like this. The boy heaved a contented sigh.

"Pa!” Kid hollered when his bobber plunged as if an anvil hung on the line. He jerked his pole up flinging the flopping trout onto the grass behind him.

“You shore enough did, Kid. Guess that brings us up to four for supper." Pa walked over, ruffled the boy’s crudely chopped-off, ebony hair, and fetched the catch. He put it on a stringer. “That ought to make Ma content.”

“You reckon anything'd make Ma satisfied?” Kid smiled at his Pa.

“Reckon not, Kid.” Anchoring the stringer with a sound, sharp stake, Pa put their catch back into the river. He looked at his happy son. “You got a smile that just lights up that face of yore's, Kid. You ought to use that thing more often.”

“I ain't got nothing to smile about, Pa, unless I's with you.”

“God gives us signs if we just watch fer them, son. This here purty day and them four fish in thirty minutes has to qualify as a good and righteous sign from God. That’s something to smile about. What do you think?”

“You're right, Pa. It's time fer my poker lessons. We gotta git ready...”


Ma Barlow peered through the small cabin’s back door. My ain’t he a poor lookin‘ specimen of a man. "Kid, git your lazy ass moving and git to hoeing that garden! You ain't got but two hours before you gotta be back at work. Damn! I curse the day I birthed you.” She shook a dark, weathered fist at her son. “No, no! Not like that." Ma sprinted across the dusty yard waving her broom and looking like a screeching banty hen. "Do I gotta show you ever thing?"

Kid, jolted from his memory, turned to see Ma advancing on him like the Rebel calvary charging into battle. Kid prepared to duck her broom. His left eye began to twitch.

"How many times I gotta show you how to weed? Or sweep a floor? Or anything else? Most boys would be proud to help their poor old ma.” She grabbed the hoe from Kid and hit him on the leg. He cowered away as much as he dared and rubbed where she had popped him.

Digging into the weeds with a fury and throwing the dust ever which way, Ma Barlow displayed the anger only a woman with a bit of Spanish heritage rightly owned. Pa always described Ma was one-quarter Spanish, one-quarter Injun, and seven-quarters banshee. “Like this! You see how I do this? You’re a good fer nothing, low-down, lazy….”

Kid shuffled a bit nearer. “Okay, Ma, I'll do better.” He made a tentative reach for the hoe before Ma could use it on his skinny five foot, five inch body again. Problem was although Ma was four inches shorter than Kid, she out-weighed him by a long shot. Her dark Injun eyes could bore a blister on his skin if she'd a mind to. Ma was small, but no one Kid knew wanted to tangle with her. She had a tornado-like anger that could suck the life out of a person.

“How's this, Ma? Better?”

“It better be. If you can't use the damn hoe, then sit down in the dust and use your stubby little fingers! I don't care how you git them weeds out, just have them out by the time you leave for the livery stable.”

“Yes'm.”

Ma stomped toward the house, stopped, and eyed him for a minute. “Don't forget, you ornery polecat, I know you gits paid tonight. You better bring all your money home. You got that? "Look at me, Kid." Ma whipped out the big Arkansas toothpick she carried sheathed under her skirt and waved it at Kid. The Bowie knife glistened in the bright sunlight. She began waving it at her son. "Don't you think I won't use this on you, if you try to hold out on me! You got that?"

“Yes'm, I got that.” Kid's eye twitched. God, when do you reckon You’ll send me that good and righteous sign to leave Hickory Creek and Ma? It’s already 1884, I'm nineteen, and James A. Arthur’s just won the Presidency. I don't want to be no President, I just needs to get away. Could you think about it a bit when you have time? Kid turned back to his weeding and slapped at a mosquito trying to dive-bomb the right cheek of his baby face.