Double or Nothing

By Clabe Polk

The Great Cuban Hurricane of 1910 stuck western Cuba, and then turned and struck Cuba a second time doing untold damage and killing hundreds.

Some said the storm was the work of the Devil. Some of the older folks said the Devil drove teams of demons with whips through the Cuban mountains clearing paths wherever they went.

But at the hurricane’s height, on October 18th, witnesses say a strange poker game was played in the bar of the Schultz House Hotel in Punta Rassa, Florida.

This is its story. Double or nothing, anyone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clabe Polk
• Release date: Oct 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463232873

Clabe Polk

CLABE POLK is into a second career as a writer of fiction. So far, he has written four novels, three novellas, several short stories, and has a couple of other novels in process. He is a lifelong reader with a great variety of life experience.With a background in biology and natural sciences, Mr. Polk has more than thirty-seven years in professional environmental protection program management and law enforcement.He lives in Powder Springs, Georgia with his wife, two daughters, and the family’s Cockapoo named Annie.

Book preview

Double or Nothing

by

Clabe R. Polk

Double or Nothing is fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or to any actual event is purely coincidental.

The Schultz Company hotel was a landmark at Punta Rassa in 1910 and endured the Great Cuban Hurricane of 1910 as it swept Florida. Otherwise, none of the events in this story actually occurred and none of the characters actually existed.

Copyright 2017(C) by Clabe R. Polk

This story may not be copied or reproduced in whole, or in part, or performed in any venue without the express written permission of the author.

Double or Nothing

Because it looped in the Gulf of Mexico hitting Cuba twice, doing untold damage and killing many Cubans some said the Great Cuban Hurricane of 1910 was the work of the Devil.

Some of the older people in the Cuban mountains say that the Devil drove teams of demons with whips clearing paths through the mountains wherever they went.

But eyewitnesses in Florida swear that the Devil, or at least his minions, was elsewhere that night.

As darkness fell, October 18, 1910, the howling easterly wind carrying an unsettling chill gusted in fits and starts driving rain through the night with the force of bullets, doubling, even uprooting, sable palms; fracturing and splintering stout pine limbs. Flattening mangroves down onto the exposed mud flats along the river shore, it shook prop-roots loose in the surrounding mud without river water to re-settle them. Some of them would be victims