When Tori rolled into Deadwood late in the afternoon, she was out of gas, down to her last twenty, and four hundred miles from home. She’d cut up all her plastic a year ago to get her finances out of the gutter. Calling home for help wasn’t worth the grief she’d have to take for getting herself into this mess. Her two options, as she saw it, were to sell her body or find a poker game with a twenty dollar buy-in. The second choice wouldn't be too difficult in a town with twenty-four casinos.

Tori had worked as a professional card dealer in her hometown in Montana to support her husband and their daughter after he went back to school for the third time. When he split for good, she promised herself never to set foot in a soul-sucking card room again.

Now, she tried to put that decision out of her mind as she walked around Deadwood, South Dakota, at dusk checking out casinos. The familiar smell of cigarette smoke, cheap booze, and sour nervous sweat hit her in the face every time she opened a door. God, she hated that smell. The gambling gods must be laughing—what were the odds, when she was running on empty, of pulling off the Interstate into mini-Las Vegas.

When she found the right table and the right stakes, she sat down and told her stomach to behave. She didn't want to get sucked back into this ugly life and she told herself she would play only long enough to make gas money. By nine o’clock she walked out with four twenties and a few ones stuffed into the pocket of her jeans. Out on the sidewalk, she took a deep breath of fresh mountain air and walked back to her car.

At the truckstop near the interstate, Tori paid for a shower before filling her Honda Civic with gas. She locked the door, stripped, and turned on the water. When it was hot, she laid the remaining bills side by side on the shower floor and stepped into the stall. As she washed the smoke out of her hair and the stench of fear off of her skin, Tori watched the soapy water slide off her toes and across her money. Poker was a useful skill, the thought, one she hoped she'd never had to use again.