Cam Greeley didn’t look like a man who would own something like the Delta Jack. Instead he looked more like someone who would tend bar on the riverboat or possibly own a saloon somewhere. Mason had only met Greeley on a couple of occasions before that night. One was the first time he’d boarded the Jack and the second was when he happened to find himself on the riverboat during a holiday. It was either Christmas or New Year’s. Whatever the reason, Greeley had made an appearance to raise his glass in a toast, shake a few hands including Mason’s, and then leave for some other part of the boat.
“I’ll raise,” Greeley announced.
The current game had been going for a few hours by now, which was enough time for all the players to become comfortable with one another. Mason had always thought leaders of countries and heads of state should meet over a game of cards. A felt-covered table piled high with chips was a mighty good equalizer. There, all men were judged by their actions. That didn’t necessarily mean every hand was fair or that each game ran strictly by the agreed-upon rules. Some men relied on their skill at the game itself or the fine art of bending the rules to suit any given situation. Much like a politician, the most successful gambler used a combination of both to win the most important hands.
And then there was the element of luck. Only a fool was unaware of the role luck played in any given situation at or away from a card table. Luck was an element that was always in play in a gambling den, the bedroom, the battlefield, or any other spot where more than one element came together to create a result. Luck was always present and could never be controlled, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be swayed. That was where skill came into it.
If Mason thought about the vicious circle for too long, his head started to swim. But he had to think about it when he sat at a table. Otherwise he might become lost in the hopeless notion that he was adrift in a sea of random chance. By the time Greeley touched the mountain of chips in front of him again, the torrent inside Mason’s head had slowed to a more comfortable flow.
“Two hundred,” Greeley said before pushing in enough chips to make the pot right.
Dan was the sort of player who handed over too much of his game to luck. He had more than enough chips to cover the bet that had been posed to him, but not much more. Mason watched him from the corner of his eye while sliding one of his own chips around the tip of one finger. He guessed Dan was going to fold and all that remained was to see how long it would take. Of course, Mason was always ready to be surprised by something other than what he guessed would happen.
Surprises were good things. They kept life interesting. Dan gave him a small one when he called the bet.
“Two hundred to me?” Mason asked.
Greeley nodded.
Clint said, “That’s the bet, Abner.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. Possibly she thought it meant something when he repeated the amount of the bet as compared to the times when he’d simply acted. The truth of the matter was that Mason was well aware of when he spoke and what words he used before making his play. It was a very careful mixture of talking or not talking when he was either betting or folding, weak or strong. To anyone looking for a glimpse into what was going through Mason’s head or a tell to let them know what he might do, it was a trail that led nowhere.
Taking another second to make it look as though he was considering his options, Mason said, “Why not? I’ll call.”
“’Course you will,” Clint said. “Raise.”
Mason wasn’t exactly surprised by that, since Clint had proven to be the sort who liked to think he had folks figured out before he’d even met them. Still, he reacted as if he was taken at least slightly aback by the development.
“What do you say, Maggie?” Clint asked.
She drew a deep breath and tapped a finger against one stack of chips. Something about her seemed mildly annoyed, but that was most likely because Clint had been trying to get on her good side since the game started. “I don’t have much to say until you tell us how much you’re going to raise,” she replied.
The tactic was a ham-handed attempt to see if he might get some reaction from the player who was next in line to act. Since it didn’t work, Clint said, “Fair enough,” and slid one stack of chips forward. “Make it another three hundred.”
Of all the players at the table, Maggie was one of the tougher ones for Mason to read. He’d be doing her a disservice if he chalked that up to her gender alone. Women did have a knack for keeping their true intentions out of plain sight, but this one had yet to get rattled by turns of misfortune or even overly excited when things went her way. Mason found that to be more than just intriguing.
“Call,” she said. When she put her money in the pot, she did it without remorse or anticipation.
It was Greeley’s turn again. For a man sitting behind as many chips as he was to overthink a raise of that size would have been posturing. From what Mason had seen, he didn’t think Greeley was the sort who did much posturing. After taking a few seconds to weigh his odds, Greeley scratched his chin and pushed in enough chips to call the raise. Mason didn’t think the chin scratch hinted at much of anything, but he wasn’t about to write it off just yet.
The game they were playing was five-card stud. It was the last round of dealing and every bet had been called, which meant there was only one more card due to each player. Clint was the dealer this time around and he got busy flipping each player his last hope for a victory.
Some might have found it odd to know how long it had been since Mason looked at any of the other players’ cards or even his own. Anyone who would have thought that, however, was most definitely not a professional gambler. Each person at that table had one down card and three faceup in front. It was a lot to take in and digest but was actually the least complicated part of the game. If it was just about the cards, figuring out what to do on each betting round would have been a simple matter of mathematics and statistics. Like any player who made a living at a poker table, Mason studied the other players much harder than the cards he or any of them had.
Now that the last cards were being dropped onto the table, it was not the time to look at them. Instead Mason watched each person’s reaction to the card as soon as the player saw what it was. Since the other players were doing the same thing, he had to pretend that he was looking at his cards so the others would actually take a gander at theirs. If there wasn’t so much money in the middle of the table, the entire charade would seem rather funny.
Mason had a pair of sevens showing in front of him and not much else. The card in his hand was a ten, which matched the ten of hearts that he’d just been given. Considering what else was out there, it wasn’t enough to get his blood pumping.
Maggie already had him beat with the set of deuces she had showing. Her fourth card was the nine of diamonds, which she barely looked at for half a second. She bet her deuces by opening with fifty dollars tossed into the middle.
Next in line was Greeley. While he didn’t have any pairs showing, all of his cards were clubs. Mason hoped against hope for some sort of reaction from him when that last card was dealt. No reaction would have most likely meant that his flush was already busted. Even the slightest twitch in the corner of one eye would have been enough to let Mason in on the victory dance the other man was doing in the back of his head. Greeley gave nothing away. From a man who’d risen to his level in the gambling profession, Mason wouldn’t have expected any less.
“Raise,” Greeley said as he pushed in another fifty.
Dan had two pairs: threes and sixes. Every card he’d gotten throughout the night, no matter what it was, had been regarded with the same amount of mild disdain. It wasn’t the most original tactic but was effective enough to keep his head above water thus far. He called the hundred-dollar bet without saying a word.
That left Mason with two options. He could fold a hand that was already beat by at least one other player or he could put the rest of the table to a test. “Two hundred more,” he said. When he put his money in the middle, Mason considered it an investment. If he got anything more than another look at what the other players would do, he’d consider it a bonus.
Clint didn’t have much of anything in front of him, but there were some interesting possibilities for his hold card to put something together. If he held an ace in his hand to match the one showing, he had nothing but a pair. If he had a queen to fill out a straight, he was in pretty good shape. So far that evening, he hadn’t seemed interested in doing much bluffing. That didn’t mean that Clint hadn’t bluffed. He could just be very good at it. So far, Mason couldn’t tell which it was and he watched carefully for anything that might sway his opinion one way or another.
“I suppose I should bump it again,” Clint said. Instead of matching his previous raise, he raised two hundred. Afterward, Mason detected a glimmer of something in his eye. It looked an awful lot like a man saying good-bye to a loved one.
When Maggie looked over at Clint, she didn’t seem very worried. Almost certainly, she’d caught sight of the same thing that Mason had. One by one, she studied the other men. Finally she let out a haggard sigh and tossed her card onto the pile of discards. “You all can fight for it,” she said. Now that she was out of it, Maggie allowed herself to relax. When she leaned back in her chair, she looked up and caught Mason staring at her.
She brushed a few stray wisps of hair from her face and kept her eyes on him.
As much as Mason wanted to keep her in his sight, he wasn’t about to be distracted in one of the oldest ways known to mankind.
“Raise,” Greeley announced in the same tone of voice he’d used when adding fifty dollars to the pot. This time, however, he shoved six hundred toward the middle of the table.
Having a rich man try to buy a pot wasn’t new. Having someone like Dan bump it up again without so much as a flinch, on the other hand, was enough to raise more than a few eyebrows.
“You sure you wanna do that?” Greeley asked.
Dan chuckled nervously. “Would you let me pull it back in if I said no?”
Greeley let that go without a word and shifted his gaze toward Mason.
“I’d like to take a stab at this,” Mason said. “But I’m guessing one of you would only try to steal the buttons from my suit.”
“You’re out, then?” Greeley asked impatiently.
Sliding his hold card away like a child refusing to eat what was left on his plate, Mason said, “That’s right.”
“Take it,” Clint groaned.
“That leaves me, does it?” Greeley said.
Dan shifted in his seat. “Unless there’s another player sitting here that I haven’t seen yet.”
“You make that full house?”
“Even if I didn’t,” Dan replied, “what I got beats the trash you’ve got on the table.”
“Depends on what I’m holding here,” Greeley said as he tapped the card that lay facedown in front of him.
“Yes,” Dan said calmly. “It most certainly does.”