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      To John, with all my love,

      now and forever.

       Chapter One

       Morrow Creek, northern Arizona Territory October 1884

      “A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.”

       —William Bolitho

      From the moment he saw the boy, dirty faced and shabbily dressed, Cade Foster knew he was in trouble. Darting a glance at the middling horse, wagon and foot traffic surrounding him in the territorial backwater he’d arrived at this afternoon, Cade frowned. He stepped sideways, intent on making a detour.

      The little sharper moved in the same direction. “Wanna try your luck, mister? I got me a nickel says I’m luckier than you.”

      Unhappily distracted, Cade glanced down at the coin the boy brandished. It looked cleaner than all the rest of the urchin combined. From his grimy fingernails to his shabby shirt, the boy looked powerfully worse for wear. Unfortunately, he also looked a little like Judah. Maybe that’s why Cade stopped.

      The boy grinned, revealing a smile that jabbed at Cade’s heart like a sterling-silver knuckle-duster. “Ain’t nothing finer than a fast game of craps, sir.” The boy, probably twelve years of age or a little more, extracted a pair of dice from his trouser pocket. With élan he shook them in his scrawny fist. “How ’bout we toss ’em over yonder, where it’s quiet?”

      He nodded toward the nearest alleyway. Hesitating, Cade squinted up the main street toward the two-story brick house that was his destination. All Morrow Creek’s movers and shakers were expected to be at the benefit being held there tonight, during which the Territorial Benevolent Association Grand Fair would raise funds for a new public lending library.

      “You got yer roulette, el Sapo, rondo, rouge et noir, faro, and vingt-et-un—” the boy rattled off the names of those popular games of chance the way most youngsters recited their ABCs “—but for a fast win and real excitement nothin’ beats craps, sir.”

      Transferring his gaze to the child again, Cade noted the boy’s hollow cheeks and the dark smudges below his eyes. He saw the way the pint-size “sporting man” hunched his skinny shoulders against the autumn chill. He assessed the boy’s nimble movements even as he listened to more of the imp’s patter.

      “If you roll those bones as ably as you talk,” Cade interrupted, “I’d be a fool to strike a wager with you.”

      “You’d be a fool not to, you mean. It’s just a nickel.”

      To a boy like that, a nickel was the difference between eating and going to bed hungry. Cade knew that more than most.

      He also knew, with another proficient glance, that the dice the youngster jiggled were likely a pair of dispatchers—so named because