The movie is set in the 1840s, but all of the playing cards seen have corner and edge indices (i.e. the value of the card printed at the corner(s) of the card): a feature not found on American decks before 1864.
There's no way the henchmen in the early ambush could have gotten ahead of the hero to try to kill him on the trail, when he left first on horseback at a fast pace.