Smith's Monthly #12 Read online

  Copyright Information

  Smith’s Monthly Issue #12

  All Contents copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover and interior design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright © by Konradbak/Dreamstime.com and

  Softlightaa/Dreamstime.com

  “Introduction: One Year Old and Learning to Walk” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith

  “The War of Poker” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Alexei Zatsepin/Dreamstime.com

  “Butchered Whale on a Red Bedspread” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Artfotoss/Dreamstime.com

  The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Searead/Dreamstime.com

  “Who’s Holding Donna Now?” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Innervisionart/Dreamstime.com

  The Adventures of Hawk copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Wisconsinart/Dreamstime.com

  “The Waiting of the Wind: A Buckey the Space Pirate Story” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Dl1on/Dreamstime.com

  “Two Roads, No Choices” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Philcold/Dreamstime.com

  Avalanche Creek: A Thunder Mountain novel copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by customposterdesigns/Dreamstime.com

  Poems: “Heartburn,” and “Sotera” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, header design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, header illustration by Mariagrazia Orlandini/Dreamstime.com

  Smashwords Edition

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in the fiction in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Introduction: One Year Old and Learning to Walk

  The War of Poker: A Poker Boy Story

  Butchered Whale on a Red Bedspread

  The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy: Chapters 34-36

  Who’s Holding Donna Now?

  Heartburn

  The Adventures of Hawk: Chapters 34-36

  The Waiting of the Wind: A Buckey the Space Pirate Story

  Two Roads, No Choices

  Avalanche Creek: A Thunder Mountain Novel

  Sotera

  Full Table of Contents

  Smith’s Monthly

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  Introduction

  ONE YEAR OLD AND LEARNING TO WALK

  A CAKE, ONE candle, change diaper… the kid turns one.

  This issue marks the first full year of Smith’s Monthly.

  Twelve issues, one per month. I didn’t miss a month.

  Twelve completely original novels, one per issue.

  Two ongoing serial novels.

  One nonfiction golf/humor book.

  Twenty-five poems.

  And with the five stories in this issue, a total of 52 short stories.

  Who knew all that was even possible?

  One year down, firing onward. Who knows, soon this magazine will be walking.

  Most of my friends didn’t think this magazine was possible. Can’t honestly say as I blame them.

  In all of publishing history, I had never heard of this being done before either.

  Now granted, I got the idea from a ton of magazines through history with an author’s name on it, but usually the author only wrote a short novel for an issue or a short story or often didn’t even have anything in an issue.

  But never had an author filled an entire issue of a magazine month after month.

  And certainly not for an entire year.

  So next month starts the second year and I’m not stopping. I’m having way too much fun, to be honest. I am going for at least another dozen novels, more than fifty short stories, and who knows what else.

  Stay tuned. This party is just getting interesting.

  I want to say thanks right now for those who supported this project by subscribing or buying an issue in a bookstore or online. And also thanks to others who supported it with great comments on my ongoing blog series.

  Thank you, one and all. Without you all, I’d have tossed in the towel on this idea after a few months.

  But most of all I want to thank my wonderful wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She never once doubted I could do this, and still doesn’t doubt in the slightest that I can keep right on going, past this first birthday bash, even though she has lived with this now for a full year.

  She knows I’m crazy and still lives with me, encourages me, and is my biggest fan. How I got that lucky, I’ll never know.

  So I’m blowing out the single candle now.

  On to year two of Smith’s Monthly. I might be walking by the end of year two, but no bets on being potty trained.

  Dean Wesley Smith

  August 14, 2014,

  Lincoln City, Oregon

  Poker Boy somehow finds himself facing an imitation of his girlfriend, Patty Ledgerwood.

  Within a fraction of a second he somehow saves himself and maybe the world from another war.

  Or maybe he helps set up a new war in the future.

  THE WAR OF POKER

  A Poker Boy Story

  I WAS STARTING to figure out that if I wanted a new case or some problem to come up threatening the world and everything I knew, all I had to do was stand in the main lobby of the Las Vegas MGM Grand. Someone, some problem, somehow would find me.

  At the moment I really didn’t want a new case, but I had learned as a superhero that people needing help or problems needing solving didn’t happen when I wanted them to. Annoying, but true.

  But even though it might lead to the end of everything I knew, I often spent time in the MGM Grand lobby wearing my black leather coat and black Fedora-like hat that was my superhero uniform, leaning against the same marble pillar, waiting for my girlfriend and sidekick, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl, to get off work.

  That I stood there was common knowledge and also might have something to do with people and problems being able to find me. Superheroes are not normally regular in their schedules.

  But standing and waiting and sometimes getting cases was worth it as long as the world didn’t end. I liked watching the crowds and watching Patty work. Her long brown hair, deep brown eyes, and wide smile always made me feel wonderful. To say I was in love would be an understatement.

  The only place I spent more time was in poker rooms. But except for the poker room at Spirit Winds casino in the mountains of Oregon near my doublewide trailer, I seldom played poker in the same casino. My job as Poker Boy, a superhero in the gambling universe, was to help those who needed help and take the money at poker tables from those who needed it taken because of their poor play.

  Sometimes the two parts of my job crossed and combined, but usually the money part just paid the expenses for the superhero part.

  Technically, since I was a superhero in the poker-playing niche of the universe, I should only be solving problems associated around poker and poker rooms. But over the last few years I had managed to gather a team of superheroes around me from different aspects of the world. As a team, we had become known for solving some of the stranger problems to come a
long, including saving the entire world from tiny bugs one day, stopping an alien invasion on another adventure, and saving Lady Luck herself yet another day.

  When the team got to work, things were never dull.

  Patty, who was part of that team, was still fifteen minutes away from getting off work when I sensed a problem coming toward me. I call that sense my “tingly-warning bell” superpower. Sometimes, but not always, I know when danger is approaching. It’s not the kind of power I can trust like Spider-Man trusts his “Spidey-Sense.” I often wished my power was that dependable. But when I feel that shiver and the tingle go down my spine like a drip of ice water, I have learned to pay attention. Danger is close by.

  Right at that moment a river of ice was flowing all over my spine and I shivered like someone had turned up the MGM Grand air-conditioning to the Arctic setting.

  I swung around to see the most beautiful woman I had ever seen walking toward me with a smile. She had long brown hair that seemed to just glow in the bright lights of the lobby, wide brown eyes, and a perfect smile. She wore the uniform of the MGM front desk crew and wore it better than anyone had a right to wear a simple white blouse and brown slacks.

  In fact, the woman walking toward me looked exactly like my girlfriend, Patty.

  I glanced around at the front desk wondering how I had managed to miss Patty leaving work.

  I hadn’t.

  Patty was still standing behind the desk working with a customer. Her hair was still tucked up tight on her head. She never let it down until she got off work.

  I spun back to the woman walking at me.

  It was Patty all right, walking toward me smiling, giving me that “look” with her big brown eyes that could melt every ounce of resistance I had toward anything.

  All I could do was stare.

  How could there be two Patty Ledgerwoods?

  The ice shivers running around on my back finally snapped me out of my shock and I stepped out of time, freezing everyone around me.

  The loud sounds of the nearby casino and people talking and background music all vanished instantly.

  I loved the ability to do that. I actually couldn’t stop time, but I could pull myself out of the flow of time and into an instant so that it appeared to me that time had stopped around me.

  I liked to think of it as me being in a bubble outside of time, but that wasn’t right exactly either.

  Around me kids were frozen in mid-scream, husbands were stopped in mid-look at another woman, bellhops were stopped with a bag halfway onto a cart.

  And there were no sounds.

  None.

  The superpower came in very, very handy and I had learned that when in doubt about anything, I should just get out of the flow of time and give myself some time to think.

  I turned toward the front desk again. My girlfriend, Patty, was frozen in mid-sentence behind the front desk of the MGM Grand hotel talking to a woman with a bored-looking husband in bright red shorts. I knew that was Patty. Everything about me could sense that was the woman I loved behind the counter.

  From the other direction, the woman who looked just like Patty was frozen in mid-stride about ten steps from where I stood. Her smile looked artificial when frozen like that.

  And every sense I had told me she was nothing but danger.

  Extreme danger.

  I went over and walked around her, studying every detail about her.

  She was an exact duplicate of Patty, right down to the tiny mole on her neck.

  Same height, same shape, everything.

  Creepy didn’t begin to describe what I was feeling and I quickly went back to my original position. My damn warning power kept making me shiver like I was fighting upwind through a cold snowstorm in nothing but a swimming suit.

  I needed help and I needed it now.

  As a superhero, I had learned a long time ago that there were many, many things in the world I did not understand. And with that learning I had lost all fear of just calling for help when there was something I flat didn’t understand.

  Right now I had no idea what was happening, but I knew it couldn’t be good. One Patty Ledgerwood was more than enough for me.

  I glanced at the ceiling and shouted “Stan! Need help!”

  I have no idea why I look up when I am calling out for Stan, the God of Poker and my immediate boss, but I always do, and he has never failed to show up at once.

  And this time was no exception.

  He appeared next to me, also out of time. I had no idea how he could do that, jump right into my frozen moment in time and join me, but he had done it in the past so now was not the time to be asking him how. It seemed for the gods, time was a lot easier to deal with than for us mortals and superheroes.

  Stan had on a plain pair of brown slacks and a tan, open-collared dress shirt. His brown hair was perfectly combed as always and you could walk by him a hundred times and never notice him. He was a perfect master of disguise and blending in.

  He glanced at the woman who looked like Patty walking toward me, then frowned, something I hated when my boss and the God of Poker did it around me.

  “That’s not Patty,” I said. I pointed back at the main desk of the hotel. “That’s Patty.”

  “I know that,” he said, only glancing back at the real Patty. He eased toward the imitation Patty slowly and carefully, like trying to sneak up on a sleeping bear.

  He was clearly seeing something I was not seeing.

  After two steps, he stopped. “We need help. How long can you hold this field?”

  “Another half hour,” I said, checking in with how I was feeling holding the bubble with me and Stan out of the time stream. I had gotten pretty good at this super power.

  Suddenly I could feel that it was slipping.

  “Less,” I said, now straining to hold the field. “It’s slipping.”

  Stan nodded and focused for a moment.

  The field holding us out of time solidified again.

  “What caused that?” I asked, trying to catch my breath. It actually felt like I had just run a hundred-meter sprint.

  “She did,” he said, pointing at the imitation Patty.

  Suddenly I could feel the time bubble starting to slip again.

  Stan suddenly looked a little panicked and some beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he too struggled to hold the field.

  “She knows what we are doing,” Stan said.

  I didn’t want to know how he knew or how she could know unless she was some god. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I had frozen in time a god and she would be angry at me.

  Stan moaned and sweat started to run down his neck. I felt like the time bubble I was working to hold now weighed as much as a large truck. No chance I could hold it much longer and as a poker player, there was nothing on the planet more frightening to me than to see the God of Poker sweat and strain.

  Stan glanced up at the ceiling. “Burt! Laverne! Help!”

  Every ounce of energy I had was going to hold Stan and me out of time at that moment, or I would have just sat down stunned. Stan had just called for Burt, the God of Casino Operations and Lady Luck herself, the most powerful god I had ever met.

  Who or what was this Patty imitator and why had she scared me and Stan so much?

  Burt and Laverne appeared next to the now sweat-covered Stan. Burt wore a gray, three-piece silk business suit and his short stature made him look more like a mob boss than a major god. Laverne was dressed in a black pants suit with matching jacket and had her hair pulled back tight.

  “What is the…”

  Then she saw the Patty imitator and Lady Luck herself actually flushed.

  Suddenly the pressure was off holding the time bubble as both Burt and Lady Luck took over, giving Stan and me a rest.

  My rubbery knees wanted me to slump to the floor and give them a rest, but instead I managed to keep on my feet trying to catch my breath.

  “Who is that?” I managed to ask.

&n
bsp; “Morrígan,” Lady Luck said, walking over around the imitation Patty. “The Phantom Queen as she is often called. And why she is coming to you, Poker Boy, is a mystery.”

  Now I was officially and formally scared. When Laverne, Lady Luck herself, didn’t know something, I knew I was in deep trouble. So I didn’t ask the next question on my mind…Who was Morrígan?

  “I thought Morrígan was only a myth,” Stan said, looking very worried. “Right along with her sisters.”

  I still had no idea who Morrígan was.

  “Nope, all three are real,” Burt said, looking very worried. “Just not around much these days.”

  I am sure I looked worried as well, but that was because I had no idea what was going on and because they were all worried and they were far more powerful than I was.

  “After Atlantis,” Laverne said, “Morrígan pretty much stayed in the Alps and out of any of the world’s problems.”

  “I heard she was around for the two big wars,” Stan said. “After all, she is known as the Goddess of War.”

  Oh, wow, it was that Morrígan who stood there frozen looking like my girlfriend. When a very, very old god started pretending to be your girlfriend, things could not be going well.

  Laverne shook her head. “Both wars Morrígan stayed in Switzerland, neutral.”

  “What is she doing in Las Vegas?” Burt asked.

  And instant later Morrígan, still looking like Patty, moved and smiled at Laverne as she stepped into our frozen time bubble. “You could just ask me,” she said.

  “That’s why I brought you out of time,” Laverne said, her voice cold and as hard as I had ever heard Lady Luck sound.

  “Nice seeing you again as well,” Morrígan said to Laverne.

  She might look like Patty, but the voice was nothing like Patty’s at all. Patty had a softness to her voice. This imposter sounded harsh, with a coldness in every sentence.

  Laverne just stared at Morrígan and the stare was returned in kind. There was clearly no love lost between the two women.