Blackjack Chapter Two

 The Ballad of Blackjack

By

Travis Naughton

Chapter Two

Before he could do anything to avenge the causes of his unrelenting heartache, the haggard gambler folks called Blackjack had to do something about his excruciating headache. Taking a blow to the temple from his namesake blackjack (a small but heavy hand-held weapon made of lead or sand wrapped in a leather sheath) would kill most people, but our Blackjack, a widower who had lost his will to live years ago, would not be put out of his misery that easily. He'd learned the hard way that he was not an easy man to kill. 

Blackjack, born Alan Keller, had been living with unimaginable pain ever since his family was brutally murdered in their home in Kansas City on July 4, 1876. When his wife Olivia and eight-year-old daughter Sarah died at the hands of a drifter who had followed the family home from the river town’s Independence Day reveries, the man known as Alan Keller ceased to exist. A broken man consumed by grief and a thirst for alcohol and revenge took his place.

The pain from the recent wound to his head paled in comparison to the pain he felt when he woke up in old Doc Porter’s office on July 8, 1876. He had been shot twice in the chest at point-blank range by the same six-shooter that had been used to put a pair of bullets through the hearts of his beloved Olivia and Sarah on that fateful night. When he finally regained consciousness after two surgeries and four nights of fever-induced nightmares, Doc Porter told him he was lucky to be alive. 

“A collapsed lung and a shattered rib nearly caused you to bleed out, young man, but luckily we were able to patch you up and save your life,” Doc told his patient.

He did not feel lucky when Doc broke the news about his wife and daughter. Far from it. The only things he felt from that moment on were an all-consuming desire for revenge and an overwhelming eagerness to join his family in the next life.

As soon as he was able to stand, the recovering patient bid farewell to his doctor and staggered into the first saloon he saw. He spent the next few days trying as hard as anyone ever had to drink himself to death. After a good scolding from the good doctor, he decided to put off his own demise for a while and instead focus all of his energy on tracking down the Devil who had taken everything he had ever loved from him.

Charles Morgan, editor of the Kansas City Courier, was shattered by the deaths of his daughter and granddaughter. In his agony, he offered his revolver to his son-in-law and begged him to hunt down the man who killed them. 

“I would light out right now and do it myself if I were a few years younger, Alan,” Charles pleaded to his daughter’s widower. “Please, son. Take it. Avenge my girls.”

“Charles, you know I swore to never pick up a gun again after the war. I want that scum dead as much as you do, but I won’t shoot anyone ever again.”

“Then take this,” Charles said as he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk. “It’s called a blackjack.”

Turning the heavy object over in his hand, the younger man asked, “How do you use it?”

“You strike with it. A blackjack is great for kneecapping someone during a fight or smashing a man’s trigger finger into a thousand little pieces. One good shot to the base of the skull can kill a man.”

“A blackjack, eh? I like it.”

“Then go and use it well, Alan. Your job at the paper will be waiting for you when you get back.”

“Charles, I’m not planning on coming back. Alan Keller died with his wife and child that night.” He paused for a moment as an idea took root in his mind. “Call me Blackjack from now on.”

  “Alright then. Godspeed to you, Blackjack.”

Three years later, almost to the day, Blackjack wound up on the wrong end of his own weapon, the result of letting his guard down while in a drunken haze. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he told himself. The Heartbreak Bandit who had relieved him of his watch, cash, and coin pouch the previous night had also taken the only photograph he owned of his wife and daughter, and Blackjack knew that he would have to get sober and stay sober long enough to track down the conniving thief and to finish the job he set out to do in his father-in-law’s office. 

But first he needed some headache powder, a hot breakfast, and some transportation. And to acquire those things, he would need money. Despite the red-headed woman’s best efforts, Blackjack was not quite destitute. He’d accumulated a sizeable stack of winnings as a semi-professional gambler, and one day while he was trying to figure out the best way to safeguard his stash, he had the clever idea to swap out the lead in his blackjack for an equal measure of 24 carat gold. 

The thought of cracking the skull of the woman who unknowingly tossed aside a pound of solid gold while absconding with about twenty dollars in cash and the photo of his family brought a sadistic smile to Blackjack’s parched lips. 

(Read Chapter Three of “The Ballad of Blackjack” next week.)