“You are playing even worse tonight than you did last night,” agrees Maddock, almost managing to look sympathetic as he rearranges his cards. “Didn’t actually think you meant it when you said you were looking forward to losing earlier.” He chuckles before tossing a few more bills in. “Did your business today at least go as you wanted?”
“Still too early to tell,” I say, even though, as a matter of fact,no, it had not gone as I wanted. I hadwantedto talk to Aiden, had even headed down to the stable after leaving the hotel with the intention of doing so, though I hadn’t been entirely sure what I was going to say when I got there. An unusual predicament for me, but I had kept walking because…because what I’dreallywanted was simply to see him in the daylight.
No quick glances. No shadows to hide in. I’d have liked to see him clearly, at least once. Just in case. Even if the idea of him seeing me the same way made my stomach turn.
I sneak another glance at Aiden, broad shoulders hunched up to his ears, and think about how I’d instead arrived this morning right in time to see him flying off on his mustang and had forced myself to fight off the impulse to follow him. Knowing after my conversation with Maddock that I needed to make a few preparations elsewhere while I still had the option to do so.
I’m too invested in this game due to the players. Less able to keep a clear head and therefore less able to keep up the mirage I’ve constructed. Something that I have a feeling Maddock has noticed, even if he can’t exactly put his finger on it yet.
He’s not quite as ignorant as some of them are, I’ll grant him that. But the greater risk is that he isfarmore entitled. And, like so many men who fancy themselves as gods, far more likely to interpret any disagreement as dissent. And to resort to violence when he does.
“Remind me what line of business you are in again?” Maddock asks, smiling at me as the hand progresses around the table. “Can’t recall how you said you made your living.”
“Transportation,” I reply, easily returning his insincere smile with one of my own. “Trains mainly.”
“Lucrative, is it?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Who is aboard.”
“Right,” he says, nodding as the corners of his mouth turn down into a frown. “Hate to see the wrong sort crowding in. Sure, they want things more accessible, but at what cost? I have a friend back in El Paso in the stagecoach business. Similar occupation to yours. And I’ve told him time and time again, he needs to just stop offering third-class tickets, but then he alwaysasks who would get out and push the coach when it gets stuck!” Maddock laughs, looking at his men who quickly laugh, too. Once again, at their own expense.
“Suppose he’s got me cornered there,” he continues. As if struck by a sudden surge of brilliance, he snaps his fingers, then points one in my direction. “You know, you really ought to get in on those luxury trains. Have you seen those? I’ve heard they’re really something fine. Wouldn’t have to worry about them getting stuck, would you? No need then to be dealing with—”
“You not plannin’ to play either, Maddock?” cuts in a gravelly voice, and given the way I’d been thinking of how satisfying it would be to slam Maddock’s head into the table, it’s a toss-up whether I or he is more narrowly spared when Charley, the oldest cowboy at our table and the only one not employed by Maddock, goes on to tell him that if heisplanning to play he’d “better hurry up and fuckin’ do something other than make mindless chatter.”
Maddock’s face scrunches, intensely offended by the interruption, but he does stop talking long enough to look at his cards and raise his wager. Wisely, I suppress my smile before I let my gaze and my awareness recenter on the one and only cowboy it has any sort of appetite for.
“He makes me nervous, too,” mutters a voice to my right as the game moves to the next man at the table, and I reluctantly turn my head from Aiden to Arty. The young man is also already out on this hand, playing even more terribly than I am tonight.
“Who? That one?” I ask, nodding my head in Charley’s direction as I keep my voice low so as not to embarrass him further. “I think his bark is worse than his bite, but better to be safe than—”
“No,” Arty says, his eyes flicking toward the bar. “That one.”
I barely manage to keep myself from tensing, not needing to look for myself to realize he must mean Aiden. I must havealready done plenty of that this evening forArtyto have picked up on it.
Apparently, I’m bluffing even worse than I thought. And certainly not by design.
“The last time I said a word to him he pulled a knife on me,” the young man continues and I frown, more bothered than I should be that I’m not the only one to have had that particular experience, even with the temporary distress. Typically, I’m not the jealous type, but Ididthink—
“Guess it’s better than him pulling his gun though,” Arty says, and I don’t bother disagreeing given that he’s already glancing around before lowering his voice. “I’ve heard he’s killedtwenty-onemen.”
My eyebrows rise. “So few?”
Rather than respond, Arty’s mouth drops open slightly, and I berate myself for the comment, knowing he’s easily spooked as it is. “Simply surprised people don’t say he’s killed more. Tall tales and all that.”
“Oh.” Arty looks visibly relieved. “Yeah, I suppose, but don’t you think—”
“Pretty sure I told you that you should be trying to learn something for the rest of the hand,” Maddock cuts in, the disapproval clearly meant for Arty though he still doesn’t deign to look at him. “You need to be watching, not talking.”
“Sorry, boss,” Arty mutters, staring down at the table with his posture remarkably similar to how Aiden’s currently is. “Won’t happen again.”
Maddock’s lip curls with satisfaction, and before he even starts talking again, I know he’s not done with his process of public humiliation. No matter that he’s scolding Arty for the same exact thing he had just been reprimanded for doing himself. What better way to recover his pride, as well as his position at the table, than at someone else’s expense? Especially the one leastlikely to put up a fight in return.
“All your prattling is probably the reason Cypress is so off his form tonight,” Maddock suggests, knowing as well as I do that he has nothing to do with it. “You’ve been distracting him.” He smiles. “Apologize.”