The Gamble

  “Lord knows it’s not because I couldn’t...”

  She flipped the boa around Potts’s neck and sat on his lap with the heel of one white boot crossing her opposite knee. She slid the boa back and forth in time to the music.

  “It’s simply because I’m the laziest girl in town.”

  The men whooped and hollered while Potts grew ripe as an August watermelon. Ivory Culhane raised his voice. “Gentlemen, the gems of the prairie, Miss Pearl DeVine and Miss Ruby Waters!”

  From above, two vampish bodies slithered down the red satin rope. It twined around and between their legs—black fishnet stockings, high-heeled black boots—and along their skimpy costumes—black satin and sequins and scarcely enough material to make a corset. Hand below hand, Pearl and Ruby came down the rope while whistles and wolf calls drowned out their song. The nearest hands plucked them from the roof of the cage and deposited them on the edge of the green-topped table where they sat, leaning back against Potts’s legs, peering up at him provocatively. Behind him, Jubilee cradled the back of his head against her bosom and tickled his nose with the boa.

  “It’s not because we wouldn’t.

  It’s not because we shouldn’t.

  Lord knows it’s not because we couldn’t.

  It’s simply because we’re the laziest girls in town.”

  Watching, listening, Agatha was both repelled and mesmerized. So much skin! But so healthy and beautiful.

  “We’ll accomplish no more here tonight,” Drusilla Wilson announced, bringing Agatha to her senses. “We’ll move on to the next saloon.”

  Resisting the urge to look back over her shoulder, Agatha followed the others. At the Branding Iron Saloon they marched directly inside and signed up their first reformer, Jed Hull, who became frightened by the newspaper drawing of the Blackwell Island Asylum for Inebriates that Drusilla Wilson passed around.

  Angus Reed, the Scot who owned the Branding Iron, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Hull being shepherded out the door. He leaped over the bar and shouted, “Where the hell you going, Hull? Haven’t you got enough guts to stand up to a bunch of female do-gooders who belong at home breeding babies?” But he was too late. With a violent curse he swatted the bar with a wet towel.

  Inspired by their first success, the reformers marched on to the Cattlemen’s Crossing, where the price of drinks had been cut to twenty cents and had lured several hard-core imbibers away from the show being staged down at the Gilded Cage. The owner, an irascible former cowpuncher who went by the name of Dingo, suffered inflammatory rheumatism from drinking too much gyp water in his trail days. Though his stiff joints kept him from leaping over the bar as Reed had, they lent him a perpetual orneriness. He hobbled from behind his kegs and kicked Bessie Hottle smack in her bustle. “Git your ass outta my saloon and don’t come back!”

  Red to the ears, Bessie led the quick retreat.

  Next they invaded the Alamo, where Jennie Yoast and Addle Anderson encountered their husbands and more wrath from the owner, a half-breed Mexican named Jesus Garcia who cursed a string of Spanish epithets when he saw two of his best customers shamed in public and chased home by their wives.

  The next three saloon owners were too amused to object when the band of women descended upon them, singing “Lips That Touch Whiskey.” Slim Tucker laughed his guts out. Jim Starr offered each of the ladies a drink on the house. And Jeff Diddier swigged down a double shot of bourbon, backhanded his mouth dry, and joined in singing the last chorus of their song.

  At The Sugar Loaf Saloon, the owner, Mustard Smith, pulled a shotgun from behind the bar and gave them thirty seconds to clear out. It was rumored that Smith wore his full black beard to cover a scar that ran from ear to ear. The ladies didn’t stop to inquire if it were true. Everyone knew he’d ridden with B. B. Harlin’s gang, and three of them had been hanged from a railroad trestle. When Mustard ordered, “Clear out,” they cleared.

  At the Hoof and Horn they had little luck. The place was empty, having lost its few customers to the lively show across the street. The ladies said a simple prayer for the salvation of Heustis Dyar’s soul, then left peaceably. Behind them, Dyar stood with hands akimbo, eyes burning, chewing his cigar stub as if it were a piece of raw meat.

  At Ernst Bostmeier’s Saloon they signed up their second reformer of the night, one of the customers who frequented Ernst’s place because he served a free pickled egg with each glass of beer. As the ladies walked out the door with their saved soul in tow, the grumpy old German proprietor threw a pickled egg that missed Josephine Gill’s shoulder by a mere inch. “Dere’s more vere dat come from!” he bellowed in his thick German accent, shaking his fist. “Ent I only miss ven I vant to!”

  The remainder of the saloon visits proved uneventful. In each, the owners, bartenders, and clientele were merely amused by what they considered a pack of distempered old maids and errant housewives with not enough dirty socks to keep them at their scrub boards.

  It was well after eleven o’clock when Agatha climbed the stairs to her apartment. Downstairs the laughter and music still poured into the night. On the landing it was dark. Before she could unlock her door her fingertips brushed a paper hanging on it.

  Her heart lurched and she spun about, backing up against the door.

  Nobody was there.

  Chills crept up the backs of her arms. She held her breath, listening. The only sound came from the continuing revelry in the Gilded Cage.

  Quickly, she jerked the note free. A tack dropped to the landing floor and rolled away. She spared not even a moment to pick it up, but hurriedly unlocked the door and slipped inside.

  Somehow she knew even before the lamp was lit what she’d find.

  STAY OUT OF THE SALOONS IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

  It was printed in capital letters on a clean sheet of white paper. She hurried back to the door and locked it, tested the knob, then leaned against it with a sigh of relief. She scanned the narrow apartment—the bed and chifforobe were the only two places large enough to conceal a man. She stood stock-still, listening for breathing, rustling—any sound at all. The faraway chords from the piano and banjo covered any faint sounds the room might have held. She struggled to her knees, peered beneath the bed from across the room.

  Black shadows.

  Don’t be silly, Gussie, your door was locked.

  Nevertheless, her heart pounded. She inched closer until the lamplight revealed nothing but dust balls hiding under the bed. On her feet once more, she tiptoed to the chifforobe, paused with her fingers on the handle. Abruptly, she flung its doors wide, then wilted with relief.

  Only clothing.

  Who were you expecting, silly goose?

  She pulled down her window shades, both front and back, but the creepy feeling persisted while she undressed and retired.

  It could have been any of them. Angus Reed, who’d jumped over the bar and shouted angrily when they took away one of his customers. That rheumatic old cowboy, Dingo—people said his rheumatism made him ornery as a rabid skunk when it acted up. And how about Garcia? He was visibly upset to have two of his regulars carted home by their wives. Bostmeier, the German? Somehow she doubted it; in the dark she smiled at the memory of that pickled egg flying through the air. If Bostmeier wanted to threaten anyone, he’d do it in person. But what about Mustard Smith? Agatha shivered and pulled the covers tightly beneath her chin. She saw again the drooping batwing moustache, the full beard, the hooded eyes, and the crooked mouth. The shotgun. If it were true, if Smith had ridden with B. B. Harlin’s gang, if they had all been hanged, if he was the only one to have lived through it, what kind of malevolence might lurk in such a man?

  She considered all the others—Dyar, Tucker, Starr, Diddier, and the rest. She didn’t think any of them had taken the W.C.T.U. seriously.

  So what about Gandy? Lying on her back, she crossed her arms tightly over her breasts.

  Gandy?

  Yes, Gandy.

  Gandy, wit
h his dimples and his “Evenin’, ladies”?

  Exactly.

  But Gandy has no reason.

  He owns a saloon.

  The busiest one in town.

  For the moment.

  He’s too cocksure to resort to threats.

  What about at the top of the stairs last night?

  You don’t really think... he wasn’t going to...

  You thought so, didn’t you?

  But tonight he was so charming to all of us, and I could see he was upset when Alvis Collinson shoved Evelyn.

  A clever man.

  What are you saying?

  What are you saying?

  No. I refuse to believe it of Gandy.

  See, Agatha? See what ten gold pieces will do?

  The Gilded Cage closed at midnight. Dan Loretto went home. Marcus Delahunt polished the neck of his banjo, then tucked it away in its velvet-lined case. Ivory Culhane closed the key cover on the piano and Jack Hogg washed glasses. Pearl stretched, Ruby yawned, and Jubilee watched Gandy close and lock the full outer doors. When he turned, she smiled.

  Smiling, too, he weaved his way through the tables to her. “So what’s the smile for?”

  She shrugged and walked toward the bar with him. “It’s good to be back, that’s all. Hey, fellas, isn’t it good to be back together again?” Reaching Ivory, she gave him an impulsive hug. “Gosh, I never thought I’d miss everybody so much.”

  “Hey, how ‘bout me?” Jack Hogg put in.

  Jubilee leaned across the bar and hugged him, then gave him a peck on his cheek. “You, too, Jack.” She leaned both elbows on the varnished mahogany surface and propped up her chin. “So, how’s business been around here?”

  Gandy watched her and the others as they gathered around. Jack, Marcus, Ivory, Pearl, Ruby, and Jubilee—the only family he had. A bunch of loners who’d all been scarred in one way or another. Not all their scars showed, as Jack’s did, but they were there just the same. When he’d gathered them together after the explosion on the riverboat two years ago, something magical had happened; he had felt a oneness of spirit, a bond of friendship that filled the voids in all their lives. Superficialities mattered not a whit—skin color, relative facial beauty, or lack of it. What mattered was what each brought to the group as a whole. They’d been split up for a month while he got the Gilded Cage set up and operable. It had seemed twice that long.

  “I went down to New Orleans to visit the girls in a crib I used to work,” Pearl was saying.

  “As long as you weren’t tempted to stay,” Ivory remarked.

  “Uh-uh! Never again.” Everyone laughed. “You see the doc in Louisville, Jack?”

  “Sure did.” Jack removed his white apron and laid it across the bar. “Doc says it won’t be long I’ll be lookin’ as pretty as Scotty here.”

  Again they laughed. Ruby turned and looped an arm through Scotty’s. “What you want a face like that for? Look a little coluhless t’ me.”

  Jack’s scar grew brighter as he laughed again with the others.

  “So, where’d you go, Ruby?”

  “Went down t’ Waverley. Visit my mama’s grave.”

  Every glance shifted to Scotty. He revealed none of the emotions he felt. “How is it?”

  “Looks seedy. A few o’ the old ones still there, shiftin’ for theirselves, growin’ greens an’ livin’ in the cabins. Leatrice”—the strange name rhymed with mattress—“she still there, waitin’ for Lord knows what.”

  At the news, Gandy felt a stab of nostalgia, but he only inquired, “You give her a kiss for me?”

  “Mos’ suttenly did not. Y’all wanna kiss Leatrice, ya’ll go down an’ do it yourself.”

  He pondered momentarily, then replied, “Someday, maybe.”

  Jubilee stood near Marcus, half leaning against him. “Marcus and I saw about getting the cage made and picked up a couple jobs here and there playing and singing before we met the girls in Natchez. We did one place called the Silver Slipper.” She draped an elbow over Marcus’s shoulder and looked smug. “They wanted us to stay awful bad, didn’t they, Marcus? We drew crowds that filled the hat every night.”

  Marcus smiled, nodded, and made motions, as if counting out dollar bills. Everybody laughed.

  “Is this a bribe, you two?” Scotty inquired. “I already pay you more than you’re worth.”

  “What do you think, Marcus?” Jubilee lounged on Marcus’s shoulder while looking teasingly at Scott. “Should we go across the street and offer our talents to one of the saloons over there?”

  “Just try it,” Scotty replied, taking aim with a forefinger as if it were a gun, pointing it straight at Jubilee’s pretty pink nose.

  “What about you, Ivory?” Pearl asked.

  “I stuck with the boss. Had to get the piano hauled in here and tuned up, and plenty to do gettin’ the whole place set up. Had to help him pick out the picture for the wall.” Ivory raised one eyebrow and half turned toward the nude. “So what do you think of her?”

  The men smiled appreciatively. The women looked away and arched their eyebrows with a superior air.

  Pearl said, “With those thighs she doesn’t look like she could kick a hat off a kitchen chair, much less a man’s head, does she, Ruby?”

  “Pro’bly couldn’t sing a note, eithuh,” Ruby added.

  “Tsk-tsk,” Jubilee added. “And the poor thing certainly is running to fat.”

  When they trooped upstairs they were all in good spirits. Ivory and Jack retired to the first room on the left. Marcus took the next. Pearl and Ruby shared the one just beyond the gilded cage, which now occupied the dead center of the hall, where the new trapdoor had been cut. That left Jubilee and Scotty.

  She stepped into her room and lit a lamp, while he lounged against the doorframe.

  “It’s a nice room, Scotty. Thanks.”

  He only shrugged.

  She flung her white boa over a pink oval-backed settee. “A window. A view of the street.” She moved to the front of the room, leaned both palms on the sill, and looked down at the row of coal-oil lights. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the man in the doorway. “I like it.”

  He nodded. It was good just looking at her. She was a strikingly beautiful woman and he’d missed her.

  “Whew!” She swung around, hands to the ceiling, flexing her shoulders. “What a long day.” She plucked the feather from her hair, discarded it, and picked up a buttonhook. Dropping to the pink settee, she held it out to him. “Help me with my shoes, Scotty?” Her voice was quiet.

  For several seconds he didn’t move. Their eyes exchanged messages. Unhurriedly, he pulled his shoulder away from the doorframe and crossed the room to go down on one knee before her. He cradled her white boot against his groin and unhurriedly freed the buttons. Without looking up, he asked, “So how’d things go in Natchez? You meet anybody who struck your fancy?”

  She studied his thick black hair. “No. Did you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “No sweet young Kansas thing, fresh from her mama’s arms?”

  He pulled off one boot, dropped it, and looked up, grinning. “Nope.”

  He took her other boot against him and began applying the hook. She watched his familiar dark hands perform the personal task. In the lamplight the ring flashed brightly against his dusky skin.

  “No pining Kansas widow who’s been alone since the war?”

  His dimples formed as he looked up into her familiar almond eyes and spoke lazily.

  “Kansas widows don’t cotton to Johnny-reb gamblin’ men who open up saloons in their towns.”

  She threaded her fingers through the hair over his right ear. “Well, gosh-a-mighty, if we aren’t two of a kind. Natchez mamas don’t turn their sons loose to no soiled dove-turned-dancer, either.”

  He dropped the second boot, kissed her toes, and rubbed them with his thumb. “I missed you, Jube.”

  “I missed you, too, you no-count gamblin’ man.”

  “Wanna come t’ my
room?”

  “Just try to keep me away.”

  Rising, he held out a hand. He led her past a tapestried screen, snagging her turquoise dressing gown from over the top of it and flinging it over his shoulder. “Bring the lantern. You won’t be needin’ it in here tonight.”

  In the blackness at the other end of the hall a door remained slightly ajar. From his own dark room Marcus watched the lantern light splash the hall. Through the bars of the gilded cage he saw Scotty lead Jube by the hand to his doorway. Her hair shone so brightly it seemed as if it alone could have lit their way. Her white dress and bare arms appeared ethereal as she padded silently behind Scotty. What would it be like to take her hand? Walk her barefoot to bed? Remove the pins from that snow-bright hair and feel it spill into his hands?

  Since the first time he’d seen her, Marcus had wondered. During the past month, while they’d traveled alone together, there were times when Jubilee had touched him. But she touched anyone and everyone without compunction. A touch didn’t mean to Jube what it meant to Marcus. Tonight by the bar she’d draped her arm over his shoulder. But she never suspected what happened inside him when her hand took his elbow or she adjusted his lapel, or—most of all—when she kissed his cheek.

  She kissed all their cheeks whenever the spirit moved her. She’d kissed Jack’s only thirty minutes ago. They all knew it was Jube’s way.

  But nobody knew the hidden torment of Marcus Delahunt.

  Often he had to touch her to get her attention, so he knew what her skin felt like. Sometimes when she’d turn to watch him communicate some silent message, he’d have to remind himself to make the motions. To look into Jube’s eyes, those stunning pale brown windows of her soul, was to lose his own. How often he’d longed to tell her how beautiful he thought she was. Locked in perpetual voicelessness, he could only think it. Often he played it to her on his banjo. But all she heard were musical notes.

  Down the hall Scotty’s door closed. Marcus pictured him taking the white dress from Jube’s body, laying her across his bed, murmuring love words to her, telling her the thousand things Marcus himself wanted to say. He wondered if sound made a feeling when it rose from one’s throat. He wondered what laughter felt like when it was more than the shaking of one’s chest, and what it was like to whisper.