discards
by greensilver

--

Buck Frobisher pretended to be a perfectly respectable upholder of the law, but the truth was, he was just a lying, cheating swindler who simply happened to wear a RCMP uniform. He had almost everyone fooled – particularly the women, of which there were several – but not Robert Fraser, absolutely not. Robert could see right through Frobisher, no matter how law-abiding or charming he was trying to act.

"I want to see the discard pile," Robert said, glaring at Frobisher over the swirl and flicker of their campfire.

"Not going to happen, Fraser." Frobisher pressed two thickly gloved hands around the cards, completely concealing them from view. "There's nothing in the rules about having to show you what I discarded."

That was true, however— "I'm declaring it a rule, right now."

Frobisher had any number of minutely varied kinds of self-satisfied smiles; the man was always pleased with himself for some reason – if there wasn't a reason handy, he'd invent one. This particular variation on that smile started slow and gained momentum, beginning in the lazy upward curl of his mouth and traveling up to the slow rise of his eyebrows toward the brim of his hat.

"You can't just declare a rule, Fraser. If we went around declaring our own rules all of the time—"

Robert heaved a loud, long-suffering sort of sigh. "Oh, can it, Buck. Just show me the damned cards, would you?"

"Sorry." Frobisher plucked off his Stetson and stashed the cards inside, along with all of his other less than honorable possessions: photos of his girls, carefully folded magazine pictures of other men's girls, an entire collection of the kind of love letters that almost made Robert blush when Frobisher read them aloud. "These cards are mine now, Fraser. Come to think of it, they were mine to begin with, but now—"

"Fine." Robert grabbed what remained of the deck. "I'll just find out which cards are missing, and then I'll know which cards you had by process of elimination."

When he bent his head to sort the cards into piles by suit, Frobisher tackled him with enough force that they both skidded off Robert's bedroll and into the snow.

"That's not how the game is played, Fraser." Frobisher sat on Robert's chest, making him sink another inch down into the snow. "I demand that you immediately relinquish possession of those cards to me, immediately."

"You said immediately twice, you idiot." Robert whacked him on the chest with a fistful of cards. "I'm not giving you the damned cards until I find out whether or not you were cheating, so get off me, before I—"

Frobisher grabbed Robert's hand, pried the cards out of his fingers, and jumped up, backing away. "You want to know what the cards are? You've got it, Fraser. Ace of diamonds—" He flicked a card into the snow. "Ten of hearts—" Another card disappeared. "Three of clubs—"

Robert staggered to his feet, pausing to brush the snow off his clothes before it could have a chance to melt. "Frobisher—"

"Six of hearts—"

"Buck—"

"Queen of spades—"

Frobisher must've known Robert was going to go tearing after him a second before Robert himself did, because he turned and ran just a hair before Robert started toward him.

"Six of diamonds," Frobisher shouted over his shoulder, tossing a card back at Robert as they ran. "Eight of clubs – queen of – oomph."

Frobisher tripped over what looked like a raised tree root and went facedown into the snow, giving Robert plenty of time to catch up with him.

When Robert rolled him over, Frobisher was laughing too hard to so much as wipe the snow off his own damned face, so Robert did it for him. "I don't see what's so—"

"The cards," Frobisher interrupted, waving an arm at the snow-covered forest around them. "The cards are what's funny, Fraser. If you want to find out what I had in my hand, you're going to have to wait until damned near July."

"I guess we'll be out here in July, then," Robert said, his voice a little sharper than he'd intended.

Frobisher pushed himself up onto his elbows, his smile fading around the edges. "I'm not a cheater, Robert."

Robert certainly knew the truth of that matter. "There are four photos in your Stetson, Frobisher—"

"That's different." Frobisher's smile was already returning, just as confident as it'd been before. "I've never lied to any of those girls, and in any case, I wouldn't cheat you."

That embarrassed Robert a little, though he couldn't rightly say why. "I don't—"

"I think I'm going to start calling you Rob," Frobisher announced, apropos of nothing.

"I don't like it," Robert said immediately, before he could fully register the absurdity of the unexpected turn the conversation had taken. "Sounds illegal."

"Bob, then."

Robert scowled at him. "Can you come up with something that isn't also a verb?"

Frobisher's smile widened into a particularly devious grin, and between that and the way his dark, messy hair was falling into his eyes, he looked more like a mischievous schoolboy than an officer of the law. "Bert?"

"Now you're just being ridiculous." Robert backed up a few paces, waiting for Frobisher to stand, but Frobisher just kept grinning up at him from the snow. Obviously Frobisher wasn't going to stand up until he got to say whatever it was that was on his mind, and Robert could almost see Frobisher getting pneumonia as he lay there. "What? What is it?"

"Oh, nothing, I just—" Frobisher lifted a hand to touch the brim of an imaginary hat. "I was just wondering if you could be trusted to help me find my hat, or if you'd find it first and help yourself to my possessions."

"I don't want your love letters, Buck." Robert hesitated for just a moment; he knew what Frobisher wanted to hear, but unless Frobisher had God's own luck, he couldn't possibly have not been cheating.

Then again, he trusted Frobisher on nearly every other count. Not with their coffee, because Frobisher could use up a month's supply on one tar-thick batch, and not with the wash, because Frobisher was occasionally inclined toward childish pranks with a reckless disregard for the actual life-or-death necessity of their clothes, and not with women, certainly not – but with everything else, everything that mattered. He had to.

"I don't want anything else in there, either," he said, slowly, reluctantly. "I trust you."

"Good." Frobisher sprang up out of the snow, shook himself all over like some kind of demented Malamute, and clapped Robert on the back. "My hat is back at the campfire, but it's nice to hear you say that."

All of that so Frobisher could make a joke? "Buck—"

Frobisher took off running toward camp, once again anticipating Robert's lunge before Robert even started moving.

At least there was no one around for miles; that thought was a much-needed salve to Robert's rather seriously wounded dignity. If two perfectly respectable upholders of the law happened to be chasing each other through the snow like a pair of particularly dim-witted puppies, well, at least no one else would ever see.

due South | Main | Feedback