Wagered

He sat on a splintered stump, wedged between the dingy old theater house and the miner’s hall, as the night pressed in upon him. A cold, starless sky stretched wide above, and flakes of snow, as fat and clumsy as errant thoughts, drifted down onto his overheated face. Crowded rooms packed with sweaty, yelling men tended to get hot. He didn’t mind. The cold, you see, was a friend to a man who had worked as he had tonight—a brief respite, like a silent apology from a world for all its grimy business.

His right hand gripped twenty silver coins—a rather generous sum for an evening’s work. It had been a good night, one of those rare ones when fortune decides to give you a tip of the hat. Not that he was one to rely on luck. Luck was a mule, good for kicking a man when he least expected it. No, this wasn’t about chance. Tonight’s winnings were the fruit of careful observation, shrewd calculation, and knowing the brutal sport of boxing inside and out.

He wasn’t much of a betting man. Not really. But he knew the game. He watched the fighters square off, studied their angles, the tension in their muscles before they threw a punch. Every bet he placed tonight hit its mark—not by sheer fortune but by the precision he once used to pick the best sailors for a crew. His eyes had always been good for reading men.

A revolver, heavy and cold, rested in his coat pocket. He pulled it out, examined it with a distracted affection, then slipped it back. It was no more than a precaution, an old habit from his days on the docks of Cambridge, not much use in a place like this, but still, a man never knew when he might need it.

As the snow kissed his skin, his thoughts turned to his wife and daughters. They were waiting for him in the small room above the saloon. It was dark and cramped but warm, or so he hoped. He had crossed the country from Cambridge to this godforsaken town, looking for work in the mines. And for tonight, at least, he felt he had made real progress. There was money in his pocket, more than he had in months. Tomorrow, he thought, tomorrow would be better.

He brushed snow from his coat, wincing as his fingers traced the torn fabric. With a sigh, he tucked the silver coins into his pocket and stood, his joints creaking as he rose. His boots crunched through the fresh snow, heading toward the faint light of the saloon. In his mind, he saw his wife, her anxious face at the window, waiting. She would kiss him—bless her—and take a few coins to buy something decent to eat. Bread, maybe eggs, some meat. Anything better than the thin potato soup that had kept them alive for days.

As he neared the saloon, something caught his eye—two men–big, mean-looking, standing in the snow outside, shouting angrily at each other. Their faces twisted with a rage that came easy to men with nothing left to lose. He kept his head down, but their heated words reached him as he passed.

“Hell no, he did not bet on himself!” one of the men barked.

“You calling me a liar?” the other shot back.

The first man turned toward him. “Hey, you!” he called, voice thick with threat. “How ‘bout you settle this?”

He stopped, eyeing the pair warily. The first man, taller than the other, squinted at him. “You’re the one who was betting on the matches tonight, right? Cleaned up on every one. by betting on yourself?”

The second man stepped closer, his breath visible in the cold. “Ain’t heard of such a thing.”

A smirk tugged at his lips. “Sometimes a man’s got to bet on himself before anyone else does.”

Without another word, he turned and walked into the night. The snowflakes clinging to his coat, fleeting and weightless as the life he had left behind.