One-Eyed Queens: A Bart Maverel Stsory

By Phyllis Ann Karr

The little pueblo of Nuestra Señora del Desierto survived by being a stop on the stage line out west. Bart Maverel, looking as always to keep moving and keep playing poker, made the acquaintance of Count Czerknikowski, who has been to the pueblo before. Only the priest and nuns who run the place fear the Count is a vampire...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781479466658

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

ONE-EYED QUEENS, by Phyllis Ann Karr

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2022 by Phyllis Ann Karr.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

ONE-EYED QUEENS,

by Phyllis Ann Karr

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The poker in this story is not the twentieth-century variant known as Texas hold ’em.

Every once in a while, for the best and most altruistic of motives, you play to lose. Not that us Maverels indulge in altruism all that often. Anyway, the aim this time was to let Count Czerknikowski, who seemed to have some sense of honor, think he’d won a prized possession.

Czernikowski liked winning—I guess we all do—but as far as we could tell, he wanted to do it by playing fair, at least according to his own lights. Maybe even by courting danger. Why else keep coming back to places that had already had a fair taste of him (and he of them)? Places like Nuestra Señora del Desierto.

It was a vibrant mission, in the old Spanish time, he had told us in the stage coach that afternoon. Now it is reduced to one padre, two nuns, and perhaps half a dozen orphaned children. So, at least, upon my last visit.

I asked, When was that?

Last year, about this same time. The Count smiled. He was a tall, dark, thin man with a smile that seemed almost too friendly. It was my second visit there. This will be their third taste of me, and mine of them.

Dr. Houplander said, One priest, two nuns, and half a dozen orphans? How does the establishment survive at all?

Count Czernikowski turned his smile on the