Chapter 4
Aquiet lay over the Listwood saloon at that hour, the long room half dark, the sawdust on the floor still patterned from the broom, three or four men leaning on the bar without anything to say.
Hudson liked the polished glasses and the doubled light they threw back.
The look of a green-cloth table not yet sat at pleased him.
He liked, most of all, the feeling that the night was a long road that had not been walked yet, and that he, of all the men in town, was the only one who knew exactly how he was going to walk it.
He came through the swing doors with Carl behind him, slapping the dust off his hat against his thigh.
"I'll have a stew," he said to the barkeep. "And a shot of whatever's open. And a stew for him."
"I don't want a stew," Carl said.
"You want a stew."
“Hudson..?”
"Sit down, Carl."
They sat at a small table near the wall, where Carl preferred to be, with a view of the door and a view of the back.
Carl was a slight man with red whiskers and the careful posture of a person who had been thrown out of a window once.
He had been Hudson's friend since Tucson, and he was the last person in the territory who still bothered to give Hudson the kind of warning a friend gave a friend.
"You're not listening," Carl said.
“Of course I am."
“You’re not. You’re chewing.”
"I can do both."
"Hudson. Look at me."
Hudson met Carl's eyes. The color of wet slate, honest, without give. It was one of the reasons Hudson liked him, that honesty. It was also one of the reasons that, tonight, Hudson would rather not have had him in the room.
"The two you're sitting down with," Carl said. "The one on the left is Sheriff Overn's brother."
"So I heard."
"The one on the right is the county judge's son."
"I heard that, too.”
"Hudson, they don't play for money."
“Of course they play for money. I've watched."
"They play for the deed in your pocket. They play for whatever you signed your name to last. They play to put you in a corner of a paper you'll never crawl out of, and then they walk away with it whistling, and the sheriff smiles when you come asking."
"You're not the first to tell me."
"That's the part that worries me."
The stew came. Hudson lifted his spoon and ate. It was a poor stew, but he ate it. Food in his belly meant a steadier hand.
"Carl."
“Yeah?"
"How much do you have on you?"
"Enough to get me out of town."
"Then you've got enough to get me out of town too."
"I've got enough to get one of us out of town."
Hudson smiled, the smile that turned an argument into a joke. He used it now, gently.
"I'm not asking you to bail me," he said. "I'm asking you to sit with me for an hour."
"I won’t do it."
"An hour."
"I won't. I told you in the doorway. I'll tell you again.
I won't sit at the table you sit at tonight, Hudson, because I have a wife who'd like me back, and I have a horse I'd like to keep, and I have a head I'd like to keep on my shoulders.
" Carl pushed his stew toward the middle of the table.
"I came because you asked me to come this far. I came this far. I kept that promise."
Hudson looked at him a moment, and then he looked away. He drank the shot of whiskey in front of him and felt it warm a small, frozen place behind his breastbone.
"You're a good friend," he said.
"I know I am."
"That doesn't usually go with sitting at the wrong table."
"No, it doesn't."
"Sit a quarter hour. Then go."
"No, Hudson."
There was no heat in it. Carl's refusal was not a wall. It was the absence of a door. Hudson nodded once. He held out his hand. Carl shook it, and stood, and put on his hat, and walked out without turning back. Carl never turned back at a swinging door.
The bell over the door tinkled. The room kept its quiet.
Hudson waited a count of twenty, and then he turned and looked over his shoulder at the green-cloth table in the corner where the two men he was going to ruin tonight were sitting watching him already.
He stood. He carried his shot glass and a second one the bartender slid him without being asked, and he crossed the room slowly, not hurrying, and felt both sets of eyes track him across the floor.
"Gentlemen," he said.
"Mr. Ferris."
"Sit down, Mr. Ferris."
"You know my name?”
"We asked. We like to know who’s in the house.”
The sheriff's brother had a face like a closed envelope.
The judge's son had teeth that wanted to be a smile and were not.
Hudson took the empty chair. He set down his shot glass.
He took out his money and laid it on the green cloth with a slow, careful gesture, and he watched the two pairs of eyes across from him follow it down.
"My friend," he said to no one in particular, "thinks I shouldn't be sitting here."
"Your friend may be right," said the sheriff's brother. “But at this table we make our own choices. You’ve chosen to sit.”
Hudson offered his hand. Both men took it. Their grips were dry and brief.
The cards came out. The bartender lit a lamp at the back of the room, and the lamp's flame doubled in the polished glasses along the bar. Hudson ordered another whiskey. The barkeep brought him two. Hudson didn’t speak out about the mistake.
The pot in the middle of the table grew.
He put more money down. He put more down again.
He ordered another whiskey. The barkeep brought him two. He still said nothing.
By the second hour the pot had grown to a size that would have made Carl weep, the barkeep had brought two whiskeys for every one he ordered, and the game reached a moment that none of the players would return from.
Briefly, before each of them decided what he would do now, their eyes met across the table. Hudson had been here before. Before every great win, and every great loss, he’d felt this moment.
"All in," he said.