An audible gasp from the darkened gallery. Hennessey brought Tallman a fresh cup of coffee, his sixth of the night, and he took a breath and a sip.
The last card.
Gorman watched O’Dell take a quick, cursory look at his down card, which told Gorman that O’Dell had his full house, probably jacks and a pair of aces or eights.
Gorman bent his hole card up, looked at it, and let it snap back on the felt.
Brodie got a quick look at it. A three of diamonds.
A pair of threes! Brodie thought. What are his other two hole cards? Even if Eli had another three and a pair of jacks, O’Dell’s full house would beat Gorman’s. This was a hand Eli couldn’t bluff.
O’Dell did exactly as Gorman anticipated. He checked.
Either he had two pair and was hedging, or it was a sucker bet. He’d figure Gorman, with a straight, would bet. O’Dell would raise him and drive him out of the game.
O’Dell swept up his stash and counted the hundreds. Gorman’s expressionless eyes watched him. He had sixty-nine hundred dollars left.
He looked across the table at Gorman’s neatly stacked cash. Easy to count. Sixty-seven hundred dollars.
Gorman looked at him for a minute or more. O’Dell finally looked away, lit a cigarette.
Gorman bet a hundred dollars.
The bet reduced O’Dell’s stash to sixty-eight hundred, Gorman’s to sixty-six hundred.
The pot was sixty-six hundred, the maximum bet.
“Looks like you’re gonna get your beauty sleep early tonight, old man,” O’Dell sneered. “You think you can bluff me out with a little straight?” He counted out a fistful of hundreds and dropped them in the pot. “The limit: six thousand six hundred dollars.”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled.
Eli sat quietly for a moment. Then he counted out his last dollar and dropped sixty-six hundred dollars on top of O’Dell’s bet.
“I’ll just call,” Eli said. “If you’ve got that filly, let’s see it.”
O’Dell’s left eye twitched. He looked at Gorman but saw only the dead stare he had seen all night.
He turned his first two hole cards over. An ace and a jack.
“Jacks full,” he snarled. “Let’s see that little straight of yours.”
“Oh, I have the little straight,” Gorman said, and smiled for the first time during the evening.
Gorman turned his first two hole cards over.
An ace of diamonds, a five of diamonds.
O’Dell started to reach for the pot.
Gorman turned over his last card. A three of diamonds.
“But they’re all diamonds,” Gorman said. And he laughed. “A straight flush.”
O’Dell stopped and looked at the trey of diamonds with disbelief. He wiped his mouth with his hand. Beads of sweat gleamed from his forehead. He looked at Gorman with hate.
The gallery began to babble. Hennessey poured himself a double bourbon.
“You kike bastard,” he bellowed, grabbing his full house and throwing the cards at Eli. A couple hit Eli’s chest, the others fluttered to the floor.
Tallman slammed his hand on the table.
“This was a gentleman’s game. Act like one!” he ordered. “Ace-five straight flush is the winner.” He took O’Dell’s stack of deeds and placed them on top of Eli Gorman’s land titles. “Winner takes all.”
Eli stood up and raked nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars into his satchel.
O’Dell was left with two hundred dollars, only enough for an ante. He would be beat on the first up card. He was trembling with rage. The gallery was crowding around Gorman, slapping him on the back, congratulating him, thanking him for saving the valley.
O’Dell threw his suit jacket over his shoulder and propped his derby on the back of his head. He started toward the door and over his shoulder he yelled, “Hey, Gorman.”
Eli stared at him through the friends gathered around him.
“I just want you to know that I sold the six square blocks of Eureka to Arnie Riker this afternoon for a dollar. You got rid of me, I’m leaving tonight. But you’re gonna have Riker up your ass until the day you die.”
The celebrating was over, and Ben and Brodie had gone off to bed. Eli decided to have a final cigar and told Maddy he would be upstairs in a few minutes. He went out the back door, snipped the end off his stogie, and lit it. He heard Brodie’s voice down near the stable and followed it out to the paddock.
Brodie was feeding Cyclone an apple, telling the horse about the game.
“It was really somethin’ to see,” he said softly to the white horse.
The remark surprised Eli.
“Do you have something to tell me, Thomas?” he asked.
When Brodie didn’t answer, the old man went in. “I can read you like I can read a hand of cards. I can see it in your face.”
“See what?”
“A kind of admiration toward me I’ve never seen before.”
“Well, sure. You won the game.”
“Not just that.”
Brodie could not lie to Eli Gorman. He stuck his hands in his pockets and thought for a moment and said, “We was… were… there, Mr. Eli. Ben and me were hiding up in the loft.”
“What!” he snapped, his face clouding up.
“Ah, c’mon, sir, you think we could pass it up? We were behind you and we had the opera glasses. I saw every hand you played.” Brodie flashed his crooked smile. “You were really something, Mr. Eli.”
Eli glowered for a moment more, then the glower slowly turned to a smile. He nodded.
“I should have guessed,” he said. “Too good a show to miss, eh?”
“But I got one question,” Brodie said.
“What question is that?”
“On that last hand? Why did you only bet a hundred dollars?”
“Did you watch him? He’s a sloppy player. He never counted his money, he just piled it up. I’m a numbers man, Thomas. I knew after every hand where we both stood.
“The pot was sixty-four hundred dollars. I knew O’Dell had his full house already, he barely looked at his last card. And I had my straight flush. O’Dell had sixty-nine hundred, I had sixty-seven hundred. By betting a hundred dollars, it limited the pot to sixty-six hundred, which is what I had, so there was no way he could bet me out of the game. When I beat him, he had two hundred dollars left, just enough for an ante and one bet, so he was beat. Had I bet the limit, he could have raised me four hundred, and with only two hundred left, I couldn’t call the bet and he would have won.”
“I saw you throw in four winning hands during the night.”
“Actually five. So he pegged me for a poor bluffer. On that last hand, he figured me for a small straight and thought I was trying to bluff him out with a small bet when he checked. There’s no way he wasn’t going to bump my hundred-dollar bet and run me out of the game.”
Brodie shook his head. “You didn’t have your winning hand until the last card.”
“That’s right. If I hadn’t drawn that three of diamonds when he checked I would have checked, too. He would have won the hand, but I still would have had sixty-seven hundred dollars.
Eli ground out his cigar, started for the house, then stopped and turned back around. “Did you learn anything tonight, Thomas?”
“Oh yes, sir. I learned two things.”
“And what were they?”
“The art of the bluff,” Brodie answered. “And the luck of the draw.”
Writing the letters was the hardest part. He had already packed all his belongings in two saddlebags, which were under his bed. His entire fortune-four hundred dollars, most of it paper money-was in a cigar box tied with twine in the bottom of one of them. He had twenty gold eagles in the pocket of his only suit, blue serge, a bit shiny at the elbows. He put the pocket watch Eli had given him once, as a Hanukkah present, in his jacket pocket.
He sat down on the edge of his bed and reread the letters he had written to Mr. and Mrs. Gorman and to Ben. He had struggled over the words for two days, writing and rewriting. He was no poet and he knew it. In the end, the letter to the Gormans was simple and to the point. A thank-you note for all they had done for him. It was time for him to leave the sanctuary they had provided, leave their care and affection. Time to find his own way in the world. They would understand.