Read Online The Adventures of Slim & Howdy by Bill Fitzhugh, Kix Brooks, Ronnie Dunn - Free Book Online Page A

fifty, real casual, just to see what would happen.
    The others checked their hole cards again, hoping they’d improved since the first time they’d looked. Whatever the strategies, one after the other, they all called the bet.
    Out in the bar, Slim finished his set with “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass,” which he imbued with more sexual innuendo than Buck Owens tended to. After a hearty round of applause and a few “Thanks a lots,” the room got quiet.
    While Slim took a moment to tune a string and find a new pick, some girl yelled out, “You can cut my grass any day!” The crowd laughed and hooted. High fives all around.
    Howdy could hear Slim chuckling into the microphone, that little half smirk no doubt on his face like he’d seen once or twice that night at Lucky’s. Slim leaned into the mike, mothering it like some old FM rock deejay and said, “I trim hedges too.”
    The girl yelled something about needing to get her stump ground, but the crowd was making too much noise for Howdy to hear the exact details.
    After the audience settled down, Slim said, “Here’s one I wrote. Hope you like it.”
    Howdy perked up at that. Finally going to hear an original tune. Based on the pacing of his set so far, Howdy expected a bust- ’em-up honky-tonker but instead he got a string of lonely notes in a minor key, enough to soften a hard heart. Slim repeated the line before moving into some bluesy changes that took advantage of his vocal range, singing about the hurt of a long-suffering woman who had talked till she was blue to a man who wouldn’t listen, a man who stood as living proof that some fools never learn.
    By now, Charlie Pepper had dealt the flop. Ten, king, king.
    Howdy stayed focused on Slim’s song. The chorus had a sweet hook and, as the tune progressed, Howdy tried to imagine how it would sound opening with notes from a piano instead of the picked guitar.
    Charlie said the bet was to Howdy, which brought him back from his role as imaginary record producer. Howdy looked at the flop. It gave him two pairs: kings and queens with a ten high. Not bad, unless somebody had a king in the hole. He looked around the table to see if anybody had a tell, but nobody looked like they were holding three kings. Howdy went with a modest bet, trying to flush the bluffs.
    Gutterball and Mack called him and it went around to Dempsey. Howdy couldn’t read Dempsey one bit. Just stared at you with those sour eyes, oddly distorted through the reading glasses. He couldn’t tell if the man was bluffing, but Howdy was feeling good about this one and thinking the higher the stakes, the bigger the rush, so he saw Dempsey’s bet and raised it to boot.
    Gutterball folded like a pup tent. But Mack, Dempsey, and Charlie Pepper all called.
    The turn was a beautiful thing if you were in Howdy’s seat. The queen of hearts made him think of the old Juice Newton song. And just like that Howdy was living in a full house. Queens over kings. It was all he could do to maintain his poker face. He hemmed and hawed for a minute, fingered his chips, feigning uncertainty, and finally threw in a hundred.
    Mack shook his head and folded. “Too rich for me,” he said.
    Dempsey took another shot of whiskey. Half the bottle was gone by now and it wasn’t as if the man was sharing with anybody. By this point, Howdy figured Dempsey was so drunk he couldn’t see through a ladder, but he didn’t act it. Odd.
    Dempsey squinted at Howdy for a minute, acting unsure about the bet. Finally, he tossed in a stack of chips. “I’ll see your hundred,” he said. Then he tossed in a bigger stack. “And raise you two.” He smiled and said, “Easy come, easy go.”
    Charlie Pepper folded, saying, “Easy go is right.”
    There was something about how Dempsey had said it, rubbed Howdy the wrong way. Or maybe it was the half sneer that came with it. Whatever it was, Howdy called Dempsey’s raise, which just about cleaned him out.
    The five of clubs was of no