Nickel Bay Nick by Dean Pitchford

“You’re
bored
?” He pulls off his magnifying spectacles and glares at me. “You are the featured player in one of the most intricate and longest-running mysteries in the history of espionage, and you’re
bored
?!”
    â€œI’m not really doing anything,” I mumble. “I don’t have white gloves, and I don’t really know how to use your tools. Or even what they’re for.”
    â€œThen you can tell me a story.”
    â€œA story?” I screw up my face. “What makes you think I can tell a story?”
    â€œBecause you’re a good liar, Sam.” Before I can object, he says, “You demonstrated that the night you fell from my roof and lied to your father on the phone.”
    I shift uncomfortably on my feet.
    â€œSo . . . tell me a story.”
    â€œWhat kind of story?”
    â€œI don’t care.” He shrugs. “Tell me about your heart operation.”
    â€œI was unconscious.”
    â€œOkay. Tell me a memory you have of your mother.”
    â€œShe left me and Dad right before I turned four, and now she’s remarried. End of story.” I fold my arms across my chest and squeeze my lips together. If he thinks he’s getting any more out of me, he’s mistaken.
    â€œOkay. Maybe not one of your own stories, then,” Mr. Wells says. “Tell me something about this town I don’t know.”
    I squint in thought before I answer. “You know how Nickel Bay got its name?” He shakes his head. “Okay. I’ll tell you that story,” I say, “but on one condition.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œYou tell me one.”
    He studies me before he nods. “It’s a deal.”
    So I begin.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    â€œMore than a hundred years ago, this area around the bay was called some Indian name that was so long that nobody could pronounce it. All there was at the water’s edge were a couple of wooden shacks owned by a fur trapper named Sly Guffson, who also happened to be a sneaky card-playing gambler. Any stranger passing through these parts, Mr. Guffson would challenge them to what he called”—with my fingers, I make air quotes—“‘a friendly game of cards.’ And he’d always win. Until the night he invited three travelers to ‘a friendly game of cards’ without knowing that one of them was a frontier preacher who also happened to be a card shark. His name was Phineas Wackburton.”
    Mr. Wells looks startled. “That was his real name?”
    â€œThat’s what the history books say.”
    Mr. Wells laughs and mutters, “Phineas Wackburton,” as he goes back to work.
    â€œMr. Wackburton started by letting the other three players win a few deals, but then he stepped up his game and started raking in the cash. When Sly Guffson realized that Mr. Wackburton knew as many dirty poker tricks as he did, he got madder and madder. After playing all night, Mr. Wackburton had stacks of coins in front of him, and the other three players were down to only a nickel apiece. Still, they all insisted on playing one final hand, and to do that, each guy had to toss a nickel into the pot. Four nickels, twenty cents total. Once the cards were dealt, the other two men folded, and that left the fur trader, Mr. Guffson, facing off against the preacher, Phineas Wackburton.
    â€œSeeing his opponent had no money left, Phineas pushed all his winnings into the center of the table, figuring that his bet would force Mr. Guffson to fold. But Guffson thought his hand was unbeatable. Plus, he was hopping mad and kinda drunk, so he did something pretty boneheaded. He wagered his land, his two wooden shacks and a little dock he had built out into the bay.”
    â€œHe bet everything he owned on a hand of poker?” Mr. Wells asks.
    â€œEverything. Except the mule that he rode out of town on after he lost.”
    Mr. Wells chuckles and continues