Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 19 of 60

Eduardo slept hard after the tea house and dreamed of the card the white-haired woman had turned over. The figure with the staff kept walking. In the dream the figure had his own face, and the road behind him was full of doors he had already closed. He woke before the alarm with the taste of ginger still in his mouth. He made coffee and stood on the porch to drink it. A truck slowed at his gate. He knew the truck before he saw the driver. Danny from the old days. Danny who used to front him buy-ins and take a cut when the night went well. "Heard you were back," Danny said through the open window. He did not get out. "Heard you were broke." "I'm working," Eduardo said. "Hauling sacks for the old man." Danny laughed. "I've got a room Thursday. Small table. Clean players. You sit two hours, you clear a month of that feed-store money. I'll stake you." Eduardo held the mug with both hands. He felt the pull under his ribs, quick and familiar, like a hand he used to shake without thinking. "No," he said. "Think about it." "I said no." Danny tapped the door. "I'll swing by tomorrow. You'll think different by then." He drove off slow enough to make the offer feel patient. Eduardo sat on the top step and looked at his house. The roof still sagged over the front room. One window was boarded where the glass had not come in yet. The rail he was rebuilding leaned against the post, half-nailed. A month of feed-store money would not fix any of it fast. Danny's room would. He thought of Kiersten at the school gate. Her hand taking the letter. Her back when she walked away. She had carried his weight for years and set it down at a cost he would never see the bottom of. If he sat at Danny's table tomorrow, everything she paid for was paid for nothing. He went inside and got the ledger. He wrote the date and Danny's name. Under it he wrote: offered a stake. Refused. Then he wrote the four rules from the vision, in order, and signed his name under the fourth. The next morning Danny's truck came up the road. Eduardo was already on the porch with the ledger open on his knee. He stood before Danny could roll the window down. "Don't stop here again," Eduardo said. "I'm not a table for you. I'm not a favor. If you pull in tomorrow I'll walk to the sheriff and tell him what rooms you're running." Danny's face went flat. "That's a hard way to talk to a friend." "You were never a friend." Danny held his eyes a moment, then spat out the window and drove off. The dust settled. Eduardo went inside, picked up the hammer, and started on the rail.