The Stake on the Green Cloth

Len put forty dollars on the green cloth and kept thirty inside his coat. Ferris noticed the coat.

“It doesn’t cost anything to sit here,” he said, “but it costs something to be remembered.”

“I remember people who owed me money for free,” Ada said.

She sat opposite Len. Ferris had arranged the game in his saloon’s back room. He sold tickets to men waiting in the front room for news of each hand. They expected famous Len Harrow to beat the local players. Ada worked at the boardinghouse next door. She had joined the game because she played well. The boardinghouse owner had offered to sell her a share when she had saved enough.

Ferris occupied Len’s left. A cattle buyer sat between Ada and Len on the other side. There were four players. Each paid a dollar to enter a hand and received five cards. Each could exchange unwanted cards once. No one could raise a bet by more than two dollars, and no one could lose more than the money they had placed on the table. They had agreed those limits before starting.

Ada counted her thirty dollars twice, in stacks of five. Her thumb paused over each stack before moving to the next. Len watched the habit, then took out his own money. Cards were easier when people gave you something besides their faces to observe.

He wanted a large final win. He had spent twenty years being introduced as a man who never left a game poorer, usually by hosts hoping others would come to test him. His daughter knew about the nights omitted from those introductions. Once they had run a small eating house together. He had taken sixty dollars from its cashbox to recover a loss. He kept promising to repay her. He never did. At last she stopped letting him work behind the counter.

Tomorrow he meant to travel east. Tonight he meant to repay her.

At first, different players won each hand and collected the money bet on it. Len won twice, Ada three times. The cattle buyer lost twelve dollars, decided that was enough, and left while he still had most of his starting stake. Nobody prevented him. Len liked the man for this and wished he could have liked himself as easily.

Ferris kept smiling toward the open door. A boy carried news of each pot to the front room.

After an hour Len had sixty-eight dollars before him, in addition to the thirty in his coat. He could pay the debt and keep enough for travel. He also knew Ferris had promised a private fee if he would stay for a final, larger game in front of the crowd.

Ferris set a fresh packet of notes on the table.

“Last hand,” Ferris said. “Fifty dollars each to start. No limit on bets. Let’s give the crowd what they paid for.”

Ada’s thumb moved over the five-dollar stacks. There were only twenty-two dollars left before her.

“We agreed two-dollar raises,” she said.

“A lady with faith in her cards—”

“Can count.”

Len looked at the folded apron beneath her chair. Ada had brought the boardinghouse’s evening receipts to deposit after the game; Ferris had heard her tell the cattle buyer so. His eyes shifted toward the apron.

“You can borrow against tomorrow,” he said.

“Those aren’t mine.”

Len wanted to tell her to leave. He had advice ready, polished by years of offering it to people whose mistakes resembled his own at a safe distance.

“I could fold early,” he began.

Ada turned to him. “I didn’t ask you to lose for me.”

The front room grew quiet enough for chairs scraping to sound important. Ferris could still cancel the spectacle. He could call Len timid, which would cost Len the fee and leave Ferris an attractive story for the next game.

Len took the thirty dollars out of his coat and put it beside the money he had won.

“I owe my daughter sixty,” he said. “I came here trying to turn that into a grand farewell. You can tell them that.”

Ferris’s smile narrowed.

“I could win enough for both of us,” Len said. “I could also lose her money again. We play the limits we agreed.”

Ada drew her apron farther beneath her chair. “Or we don’t play.”

Ferris looked toward the door. The boy was still there, listening. The story had already become public.

He put the new notes away.

The three played one last hand under the old limits. Each put in a dollar. Ada dealt five cards to each player. No one added a bet before exchanging cards.

Len held two matching pairs. He exchanged his fifth card, hoping for another match. He did not get one. Ferris exchanged three cards. Ada kept all five. Either she already had a strong hand, or she wanted them to think she did.

Ferris made no bet. Ada put in two dollars. Len matched it. Ferris dropped out, letting his cards fall as though they had disappointed him personally.

Len could not know Ada’s cards until she showed them. He had paid two dollars to find out. He had resisted betting more just to make his own cards look stronger. Now their bets matched and Ferris was out. They had to show their hands.

“Show me,” he said.

Ada laid down five clubs. Five cards of one suit made a flush, which beat Len’s two pairs. She had been right to keep her cards and bet on them. Being famous had not given him a better hand.

She collected the seven dollars they had bet on that hand. It brought her savings closer to the boardinghouse share, not all the way. Ferris said the game could have been more memorable.

“It was fine from here,” Ada answered.

Len left with ninety-five dollars after the final hand. He placed sixty on his daughter’s counter. She counted it once and wrote PAID beside his name in a small book.

“There’s interest if you want it,” he said.

“I wanted it when the stove needed fixing.”

He kept his hands on the counter. “I know.”

“Do you?”

He had no answer that improved on leaving the money there.

After a while he asked whether she would consider reopening the eating house with him, somewhere smaller, where he could cook and she could keep the cashbox.

“No,” she said. “I have work I like.”

From the kitchen came the sound of a lid being set down. She fetched a plate of supper. There was a place at the end of the counter and another at a small table beside the window.

“I saved you some,” she said.

He carried it to the table. She returned to the kitchen without sitting down. Len ate while people passed outside on their way to hear Ferris’s version of the game.