I felt the rider’s gloved hand come down on my shoulder — quick and heavy. I didn’t need to be told to stop walking, and neither did the horse.

He gave me a small sideways nod, and I looked and listened.

At first, all I could hear was that midnight tumbleweed wind, scouring the desert foothills off in the distance. That whine, like the old echoes of a mournful steam engine, drifted across the broken rocks and crippled brush, carrying the dust of thousands of dry lonely years.

But then I thought I caught a newer sound, a sound not born from wind and rock. Tiny tinkles at the very edge of hearing, so that you never knew whether you’d really heard something, or misheard something, or just made the whole thing up in your head. The best casinos accepting usa players couldn’t settle it for me.

Just a little bit louder now, enough to seem like there was really something out there…something real, or at least as real as anything in the fantastic expanse. Something with regularity, even rhythm —  a tinkling that fell somewhere between the far-off noise of a circus and the semi0tuned rattling of hollow bones.

Just a little louder, and it was obvious, though still quieter than the dusty wind. What we were hearing was the tinny patter of a stand-up piano. Maybe even a player piano, because there was something inhuman about the notes or the tempo. I would have paid any amount of money to be at one of them online casinos that take paypal instead.

I couldn’t see the expression on the rider’s face, but his back stiffened slightly as if it was the very last thing on earth that he’d wanted to hear.

“I hope Empire Hold’em can wait for you, son,” he said, deep and low.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling like a little kid despite my years and years of hard livin’.

“The Dry Lake Saloon is open for business,” he said.