{"id":2959,"date":"2013-04-24T17:18:59","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T21:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=2959"},"modified":"2026-07-29T11:58:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:58:47","slug":"the-gambler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=2959","title":{"rendered":"The Gambler (by faust)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary: <\/span>Most people thought Adam wasn\u2019t a gambler. They thought wrong.<\/p>\n

1,800 words, rated<\/span> K+<\/p>\n

My Story Index and reading order for the Art-Universe<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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<\/h2>\n

The Gambler<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

He would be the only passenger on the stage coach to Morris Flats, he\u2019d been told, and the coach would start in five minutes\u2014which left him just enough time to finish his coffee.<\/p>\n

Not that the coffee itself was something that he had great desire to drink at all, Adam thought as he stared into the almost black brew. Perhaps he shouldn\u2019t have rejected the dash of milk the stage coach manager\u2019s wife had offered\u2014note to self: listen to the staff, they know their supplies<\/em>\u2014but then he didn\u2019t really like coffee with milk. Never drank it that way. Come to think of it, no one, well, no man<\/em> he knew drank his coffee other than black.<\/p>\n

He took a sip, grimaced at the stale, bitter taste. Dang it, nasty stuff.<\/em> He had had better coffee on a cattle drive! \u2018course, he had. You can\u2019t survive a cattle drive without coffee. Men subsisted on coffee on a cattle drive, on coffee and beans, which both were easy to transport and easy to conserve\u2014other than milk, which was the reason no one took it along on a cattle drive: it wasted too quickly.<\/p>\n

Adam stirred the dark brown liquid in his mug, wondering how much stronger and staler it had to be to make the spoon actually stand in it.<\/p>\n

No milk on a cattle drive. It sounded insane, with all those cattle in easy reach. But those were beef cattle, not milk cows, and they would be nervous from the being pushed forward, from the lack of rest and normality<\/em>, and no cow hand worth a dime would risk getting close enough to one to milk it. No one would take up that<\/em> gamble.<\/p>\n

Most certainly not Adam. Of course not. He wasn\u2019t stupid, was he? He was also not… well<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Most people thought Adam wasn\u2019t a gambler. They thought wrong. He might not appear a gambler because he stayed clear off the gambling tables in saloons and he never bet on the outcome of fights, races, or other things he couldn\u2019t control. His brothers, however, knew better. Joe would readily tell you that Adam, indeed, was a gambling man\u2014only one who rarely lost.<\/p>\n

Joe had called it a gamble when Adam had not let Farmer Perkins go in exchange for the safety of his father, had accused him of gambling with his father\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

For Adam, it hadn\u2019t been a game of hazard but a rational calculation. Sam Bryant had been predictable. Too smart to commit a crime after he\u2019d realized that crimes didn\u2019t go unpunished anymore in Virginia City.<\/p>\n

Joe still said it had been a gamble. Adam said it had been a safe reckoning: he had counted on Sam Bryant\u2019s intelligence, on his cowardice, and on his calculating personality. He\u2019d been right in the end, but Joe hadn\u2019t forgiven him for a very long time all the same\u2014and Adam himself still woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, sweating and shaking, and utterly disturbed from a nightmare in which he\u2019d not been right, had miscalculated. But that was only at night. In the light of the day, Adam knew this \u201cgamble\u201d had been Pa\u2019s only chance to survive, that there had been only one possible outcome considering everything he\u2019d known of Sam Bryant.<\/p>\n

And that was the point: Adam gambled only when he knew the outcome, when he was in control, when he had all the facts, when he knew<\/em> he would win.<\/p>\n

The only time that hadn\u2019t worked out was as he\u2019d raced his new thoroughbred against Enos Milford\u2019s inconspicuous hack, freshly broken and ridden by Joe. Back then he\u2019d thought he had all the information he needed, but Joe had withheld certain important details from him\u2014like that pathetically puny and lightweight English saddle he would use or the fact that the black plain was the fastest horse Joe\u2019d ever seen\u2014and consequently, he\u2019d lost.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d not only lost the race then\u2014and a beautiful new hunting rifle\u2014but also the taste for gambling. He hadn\u2019t taken part in any games after that\u2014until he\u2019d been forced into a gamble by a man in a desert. No, not really forced. Tricked, as much as it hurt to admit it. He\u2019d been tricked. Had thought he could easily withstand whatever mad idea Kane would come up with next.<\/p>\n

It had been a gamble, yes, a bet: if he could be broken or not, if he could be driven to do something against his convictions or not. It had seemed like an easy win. Nothing and no one could make Adam break\u2014he\u2019d thought. What he hadn\u2019t realized was that he hadn\u2019t had all facts, all information, all details. What he hadn\u2019t realized was that he had no control over the game whatsoever. While he\u2019d tried to play after the rules\u2014those of society, of common sense, and of Kane\u2019s own invention\u2014his opponent had changed those rules randomly, just as he liked.<\/p>\n

Joe in his place, quicker in acting than in thinking anyway, would probably have killed his torturer days before Adam had even toyed with the thought. He would have declared it self-defense, and every court in the world would have followed that plea.<\/p>\n

But Adam…Adam had tried to prove something. He wasn\u2019t sure anymore as to what it was that he\u2019d tried to prove\u2014the superiority of rationality, perhaps? Because that it had been: a fight between madness and reason, nothing else. And he\u2019d almost lost.<\/p>\n

It hadn\u2019t bothered him to be forced to eat with his fingers while Kane had made a show of using cutlery and a napkin. Heck, he\u2019d eaten with his fingers before: when you were hungry and had food but no spoon, as it would happen occasionally when you worked on the pastures, you didn\u2019t think twice. It hadn\u2019t bothered him either to be forced to work hard, hour by hour, day by day, without rest, without proper nourishment or even proper water rations. He was used to hard work, and he did know how it was to go without food or enough water.<\/p>\n

It hadn\u2019t even bothered him to be treated like…livestock. It had disgusted him, yes, and he would have preferred to have it differently, but it hadn\u2019t actually rattled him. Kane had just been a madman, an idiot, a manipulator\u2014and not even a very good one\u2014he hadn\u2019t been able to get into him, to scratch at his core, to really disturb him.<\/p>\n

What had<\/em> bothered him was that he had had no control. That he had had no means of doing what he\u2019d usually do in a situation like that: simply walk away. He had got to endure Kane because he couldn\u2019t rationalize with him. Too late, Adam had realized that everything he\u2019d thought to know\u2014about Kane, about fairness, about the way people interacted with another\u2014had been turned on its head.<\/p>\n

Adam\u2019s most prominent strength, his rationality, had been made powerless by the simple fact that Kane was far beyond sanity. By trying to make reason of what happened between him and Kane, Adam had debilitated himself. His greatest strength had turned out to be also his greatest weakness.<\/p>\n

In the end, Adam suspected, he\u2019d nearly lost not against Kane but against himself. He\u2019d lunged at Kane and tried to throttle him, frustrated by his own limitations, by the fact that what had guided him safely through his life had woefully failed him in the madman\u2019s realm. What had saved him had been the madman himself. \u201cI win,\u201d Kane had said, and that had been the most rational thing he\u2019d uttered ever since Adam had met him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI win,\u201d he had said, and he\u2019d been right. He had been about to win. Madness had been about to win.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t have let that happen. Not when it would have cost him his integrity. And so he\u2019d fought fire with fire, and let madness take over. Another kind of madness, but madness nonetheless: after he had released Kane he\u2019d destroyed the weapon they\u2019d fought for, had shared with him what little water there had been left, and had finally constructed a travois for his tormentor when Kane had collapsed. He\u2019d tried to rescue the man who\u2019d wanted to destroy him.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019d won.<\/p>\n

Even though in the end he had not been able to save Kane, he had won. Had won and come out of it stronger than ever in some kind of Darwinian evidence. Physically, he\u2019d been at his limit when his family had eventually found him stumbling through the desert pulling the travois with Kane, who\u2019d succumbed to the heat long ago. Adam had been malnourished and dehydrated almost to the point of causing lasting damage in his organs, and it had taken him weeks to get a clean bill of health from Dr. Martin.<\/p>\n

Mentally, he\u2019d healed much faster. Oh, there were side effects: bad dreams, a certain uneasiness in mines, the special precaution he took in always having enough filled canteens with him. The fact that he had to wash any grime from his hands as soon as he entered the house. Twice.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019d won. Had won against Kane and against himself, and had won a new awareness: that reason would always be his strongest weapon, but never again the only. And that sometimes he wouldn\u2019t be able to get anywhere if he relied on reason\u2014and that he would have to let go of reason then and find other ways.<\/p>\n

Hearing the driver cry out for his only passenger, Adam downed the rest of the too bitter, too stale coffee, shuddered, and left the station house to enter the waiting carriage. He made himself as comfortable as possible on the hard seat, pulled his hat down over his face and was lulled into sleep by the monotonous joggling of the coach within minutes.<\/p>\n

And while the coach was making mile after mile towards its destination, in the hills at the outskirts of Morris Flats, some Mexican highwaymen prepared to rob the stage, unaware that close by, a man in a tin armor was watching them, ready to defend the helpless passengers of whatever coach those blackguards<\/em> planned to assault.<\/p>\n

When the raid happened, Adam was rescued by the armored knight who called himself \u201cKing Arthur\u201d and to whom Adam readily referred as \u201cSire.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a game. It took Adam a moment to accept it, but it was a game, from beginning to end. A game, insanity\u2014and Adam enjoyed every second of it.<\/p>\n

And the coffee in Sheriff Munsey\u2019s jail was just excellent.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Though this be madness, yet there is method in \u2019t.\u00a0 ~Shakespeare, Hamlet<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*** fin***<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.\u00a0 The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise.\u00a0 No copyright infringement is intended.<\/em><\/p>\n

My Story Index<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/form>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people thought Adam wasn\u2019t a gambler. They thought wrong.<\/p>\n

1,800 words, rated K+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1005,23,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adam-cartwright","category-drama","category-challenges","wpcat-1005-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/coming-soon-5.jpg?fit=768%2C576&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}