When we last left off, Amarillo Slim, Doyle Brunson, and Sailor Roberts were on their way to Mexico for a hunting vacation, and only once had they broken the pact they made before their trip: no gambling amongst themselves. I'll turn it over to Slim for the rest of the story:
Finally we arrived in Mexico and checked in to three different suites at the Chihuahua Hilton and made arrangements to catch the train at 10 a.m. the next day. Before we headed up to our rooms to clean up before dinner, I reiterated our pact: "Let's all make an agreement not to gamble among ourselves any more for the trip."
"Well, shoot," Sailor said, "I'm twenty-five hundred loser to that fat sonofagun. There ain't no agreement like that for me."
So, now Doyle chimed in – this is more of a rib on Sailor than anything else – and said, "That's right, we're not gonna bet no more among ourselves. Your twenty-five hundred's gone, you sucker."
But I calmed them turkeys down and we made an agreement that until the trip was over, we would not gamble with one another – period. I went up to my room to get ready for dinner and got held up on the phone for a while, and when Doyle and Sailor came to my room all ready to go, I hadn't even gotten started. So, I went in the bathroom to shave, and every now and then, I'd hear a click. I didn't think nothing of it, and then again, I'd hear a click. When I finished up, I walked out of the bathroom and Doyle and Sailor had my hunting cap layin' right up in the middle of the bed, and they were pitching pesos at it.
I didn't pay it no mind, and said, "All right, men, it's time to get some grub."
"Get some grub, your fanny," Doyle said. "Go eat yourself, you sonofagun; he's got me eight thousand loser pitching at that hat. I'm not ready to leave for nothin'."
Then Doyle collected himself a little bit and laid in on Sailor a little. "Naturally, this sonofagun wants to lose. He's got his mountain money back and he's about fifty-five hundred winner."
So, they were ribbing each other mercilessly, and Sailor said, "We'll just stay and pitch. I'll just bust your fat ass and we can put you on a bus back to Midland and me and Slim will go kill that jaguar."
"I thought we wasn't gonna gamble with one another," I said.
"Screw not gambling with one another," Doyle said. "I'm down eight grand to this sonofagun pitching pesos."
So, they pitched for a little while longer and Doyle got most of his money back, and finally we agreed to go. Then when we got to dinner, we took the oath once again – no more gambling among ourselves.
The next morning, we went down to the train station and I watched 'em put my station wagon on a flat car before I boarded the train. This was a real famous train ride; it started in Presidio, Texas; it went to Chihuahua, over to the Sierra Madre, and came out on the Baja California side at Los Moches. So, we were chugging along on the train, just making conversation, and I looked out the window and said, "Boy, let me tell you, this is real good grass."
"What do you mean, 'real good grass'?" Sailor asked.
"Well, look at it. It's up five, six inches high, and I know it's got a lot of protein because it catches the snow that melts off those mountains, and that's high in nitrate.
So, I was explaining why it was real good grass and Doyle said, "How many head would that run to a section?"
"I think that it would run at least forty cows to a section," I said.
This was before I owned my ranch, but I've always been around animals, and I had a pretty good idea how many cows a piece of land could support, judging from the quality of the grass. Sailor, on the other hand, didn't seem to think much of my ability to do so.
"You don't know a cow from a damn goat," Sailor said – and I knew what was coming.
"Well," I said, "I'll bet that it will carry forty cows."
Damnit!
Here I had gone to all that trouble establishing those rules and I was breaking them myself. But, hell, as far as I was concerned, if Sailor wanted to give away his money, I wasn't gonna stop him. And there was no reasoning with them boys, anyway, so the game was on.
We made a small bet, just $2,000, and now we needed to find somebody to tell us who was right. We walked down to the next car and found some men with cowboy hats who were having a whiskey breakfast. Figuring they were cattlemen, we all agreed that whatever they said went.
Since Doyle wasn't betting, he was designated to go ask 'em. He went up there all politelike – Doyle's a real gentleman and all – identified himself, and said that I was back there with him. Turned out the guys knew me; they were from Pecos, Texas. So, Doyle told them we had a wager on how many cows to a section that grass could hold. "I don't want to say what it is," said Doyle, "because knowing Slim, you might favor him or something. And I'm not gonna tell you what side of it he's got, but give us an honest opinion of how many cows you think will run to a section."
So, the first guy said, "It's a cinch they'll run fifty." Another man sitting there said, "Hell, if it was my country, I'd probably put between fifty-five and sixty head to a section."
Doyle came back and told us what those fine gents had said, and after Sailor paid me, he was really hot. So, chiggitty-chug-chiggity-chug, we started on a little bit of an incline, and you can tell that we were slowing a little. It was like a diesel truck, when it down-shifted, the smoke got black. And I said, "Boy, we're getting on a pretty good climb. As slow as this thing is going, I don't know whether it can climb them mountains or not."
"How fast you think we are going?" Sailor asked.
Now, this wasn't deliberate, but I just said, "I don't know exactly, but I can guess closer to how fast we're going than you can."
"You can't guess closer than me," said Doyle.
"You all are not betting with yourself," said Sailor. "We're all three gonna guess how fast the train's going."
Well, shoot, at this point I had already broken the pact and decided to get in on it, too, and we each posted $1,000 to guess how fast the train was going – closest without going over the speed would be the winner. Then it came up again: How were we gonna prove it?
We agreed that we would take the conductor's word for it. So, we all wrote down our guesses and Doyle went and got the conductor, and he came back to our train car. "On this part of the train," he said, in real good English, "we don't have a speedometer; it would be just a guess with me."
So, we asked him if there was any way of being certain, and he said that up by the engine there was a speedometer. The only problem was that he'd have to climb over a coal car to get to it. Now, at that time, one dollar was 12.5 pesos, so a hundred pesos was eight bucks – it stayed that way forever before they had that devaluation. But I knew that wasn't enough to get this man to climb over a coal car to check the speedometer, so we each gave him a hundred pesos and he was tickled to death. He went up there, and when he came back and told us the speed, Doyle was two thousand dollars richer.
Boy, Sailor was really hotter than a pistol now, and he said, "Cows to a section, how fast the train's going – you all are the two luckiest sonofaguns in the world. Anything that requires any skill, I could beat you at."
So, chiggitty-chug-chiggity-chug, maybe an hour and a half later, you could feel it in your ears, it was just like being in an airplane, we were obviously changing altitudes. So, I said, "I don't know about you all, but my ears are popping something fierce. We are really getting high."
Well, Doyle agreed, but good old Sailor said, "High, your ass. Don't either one of you do no drugs. You all don't know what high is."
"Well, yeah," Doyle said, "I have a better idea about high, not being on drugs, than you do. You smoke the damn stuff and everything, and that's the only high you know." Unfortunately, what Doyle said was true. Sailor was the only one of us who ever messed with drugs.
"By golly," I said. "Let's all bet." Then I caught myself, and said, "No, we've agreed not to bet, and the last thing we need is any more dissension."
By some miracle, Doyle and Sailor let it go, and about a minute later, we went by San Blas, the little old town where I was gonna kill that jaguar, and I was sitting on the seat facing forward, with Doyle and Sailor facing me, looking the other way. And as the train slowed up, I looked up and there was a little depot, and it had the elevation posted on it. Every train station in America – and the world, I guess – has got the elevation posted on it. So, just real casual, I said, "Damn that agreement. I tell you, I don't think either one of you knows how high it is."
Here it went. Sailor instigated it, 'cause he was losing. "I can guess closer to how high this sonofagun is than you all can."
Now, I already knew how high we were; I'd seen it. So, I said, "By gosh, let's shoot it on up. You all keep wanting to gamble and gamble among ourselves; let's just get this over with. I'll bust both of you and we'll quit this gambling till we get back home."
So, we made a pretty sizable wager, about five thousand each, and then guessed the elevation. But the same thing came up: How were we gonna know?
Now, believe me, Doyle is a sharp boy, and he said, "Well, damn, if we could get 'em to back the train up, we wouldn't have to ask anybody. There's gotta be a depot not too far back where we just stopped to unload the passengers."
Naturally, I wanted to do it – that little plan was going to make me a lot of money. By this time, everybody on the train knew we were gambling on everything, and we were having a real party doing it – buying drinks for the other passengers and swapping stories. So, when we asked he conductor, who was our buddy by now, if he would stop the train and back on up, three hundred pesos later, he did just that – and no one on the train cared a lick. In fact, we weren't but a half-mile out of town, and it seemed like everybody on the train had a bet on it, too.
So, the conductor started backing up the train, and me, Doyle, and Sailor just sat there looking. And as we were moving backward and about to approach the depot, it dawned on Doyle that I had already seen the sign when we went by it the first time, and the minute it did, boy, you should have seen the look on that sonofagun's face!
I was still facing forward and just sort of looking over my shoulder. Then, he saw the sign, and said, "Oh, my god, Sailor, look what we've done! Oh, my god, Sailor!"
"What the hell is it?" Sailor said.
"Slim," Doyle said, "you dirty sonofagun."
Boy, did he and Sailor cuss me out but good for that one – while I collected their ten thousand!
Now, there was a trip where three friends weren't gonna gamble with one another!
Greg Dinkin is the co-author of Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People, which will be published by HarperCollins in May 2003. He is also the author of The Poker MBA (see the ad in this issue), www.thepokermba.com, and can be reached at greg@ventureliterary.com.