The Gamble Page 6

  “How can you smoke those disgusting things?”

  “Habit I learned on the riverboats. Kept my hands filled when I wasn’t playin’ cards.”

  “So you were thrown off the riverboats!”

  He laughed and his chair clunked down on all fours. “The ladies o’ your club been speculatin’ ‘bout me, have they?” He rose and his boot heels resounded with calculated laziness across the narrow landing until he stood before her at the top of the stairs.

  “Hardly. We have bigger fish to fry.”

  “Supposin’ I was, though. Supposin’ I was a big, bad gambler who knew every trick in the book. Man like that’d know how t’ handle a few old squawkin’ hens who set out t’ shut down his saloon, don’t ya think?”

  Fear quickened her blood. He stood ominously close, backing her up to the stairs. She had a dizzying sense of déjà vu, certain that in an instant she’d go tumbling down as she had long ago. Her muscles tensed as she anticipated the sharp blows, the scraped skin, the sickening disorientation of somersaulting from tread to tread. With one trembling hand she grasped the railing, knowing it would do little good should he decide to give her a shove. His eyes became red sparks as he drew on the cigar once more. The smell grew sickening, and her palms began to sweat.

  “Please,” she choked in a whisper, “don’t.”

  Immediately, he stepped back and took the cigar from his mouth. “Now wait a minute, Miz Downin’, you do me an injustice if you think I was entertainin’ thoughts of pushin’ you down those stairs. Why, I...”

  “You pushed me down once before.”

  “In the mud? I told you, that was an accident!”

  “So would this be, I’m sure. Anybody who’s seen me climb stairs knows I’m not too steady on them. But if you think threats will stop me, you’re dead wrong, Mr. Gandy. They only serve to refresh my zeal. Now, if you will kindly let me pass, sir, I’ll say good-night.”

  She sensed his reluctance to let her go thinking ill of him. Yet his belligerence radiated palpably. They stood nose to chest for ten crackling seconds. Then he stepped back. The sound of her solid step followed by the dragging one alternated across the landing. All the way to her door she kept expecting to be lifted by the scruff of her neck and thrown bodily down the stairs. When it didn’t happen she was surprised. She reached her door, slithered inside, closed and locked it. The shakes started immediately. She pressed her palms and forehead against the cool wood, wondering what she’d gotten into by allowing herself to be buffaloed into the presidency of an organization setting out to close down not only Scott Gandy, but ten others like him.

  Jubilee and her Gems arrived the following morning on the eleven-oh-five train. Three women with their looks couldn’t step off a coach without causing a stir.

  The one known as Pearl appeared to have been named for her skin. It was as pale and luminous as a perfect ocean pearl. Against it, her brown eyes appeared to take up a good quarter of her face. They were darkened with kohl, adding to their size. Her lips were tinted scarlet and flashed like a wine spill on white linen. But her delicate features were shown off to best advantage by the stand-up collar of her fuchsia traveling costume, which bared a goodly amount of her throat and fit like a banana skin. Her hair was the glossy brown of caramelized sugar, piled into a nosegay of curls high on her head, pitching her shepherdess hat provocatively forward.

  “Hiya, fellas!” she called from the train steps, and old Wilton Spivey set sparks off the trackside ballast churning to reach her first. He dropped the tongue of the baggage dray and leaped over two tracks, beat out Joe Jessup, who’d started from the opposite direction, and reached the foot of the train steps, panting. Wilton was toothless as a frog and balder than a brass doorknob, but Pearl didn’t care. She smiled down, cocked one wrist, and extended a hand.

  “Just what I was needin’. A big handsome man with lots of muscles. My name’s Pearl. What’s yours?”

  “Wiwton Thpivey, at your thervith, ma’am.” Wilt didn’t talk so good with those bare gums, but his eyes sparkled with lecherous delight.

  “Well, Wiwton, come on, honey. Don’t be shy.”

  Wilton lifted her down, revealing Ruby, behind her.

  Ruby was a shapely young Negress with skin the color of creamed coffee. Her hair was straighter than any black woman’s hair Wilton Spivey had ever seen. It swept back from her left ear, straight up from her right, sleek as fast water on a black rock, ending in a curl like an inverted ocean breaker looping the edge of her high canary-yellow hat. She had magnificent upsweeping eyebrows, heavy-lidded black eyes, and lips as puffy as a pair of bee stings, painted a violent magenta. She rested eight knuckles on her cocked hips, gave a little jiggle that shimmied her tight yellow dress, and announced in a deep, rich contralto, “And I’m Ruby.”

  Joe Jessup gulped and uttered, “Holy smokes, if you ain’t!”

  When Ruby laughed it sounded like thunder building on a mountainside—deep, chesty, voluptuous.

  “What I s’posed t’ call you, honey?”

  “J... Joe J... Jessup.”

  “Well, J... Joe J... Jessup.” Ruby sidled down one step, leaned over till her breasts hovered only inches before his face. With one unearthly long nail she left a pale white line all the way from Joe’s ear to the center of his chin. “How ‘bout I call you J.J.?”

  “F... fine. R... ride to wherever you’re goin’, Miss Ruby?”

  “’Predate it, J.J. That’d be the Gilded Cage Saloon. Y’all know where that is?”

  “Sure do. Right th... this way.”

  By this time there were four others in queue, waiting their turns at the foot of the train steps.

  Above them, like an angel straight from the pearly gates, appeared Miss Jubilee Bright—as promised, the brightest gem of the prairie. If the others seemed suited to their names, Miss Jubilee seemed born to hers. She was—incredibly—white all over! Her hair was white, not the blue-white of Violet Parsons’s, but the blinding white of spun glass. It frothed high upon her head like a tempting ten-egg meringue. She was dressed, too, in unadulterated white, from the tip of her tall velvet hat with its trimming of egret feathers to the toes of her ankle-high kid boots. Her dress, like that of Pearl’s and Ruby’s, sported no bustle out back, but clung to her generous curves from shoulder to knee before flaring into walking pleats. It sported a diamond-shaped neckline revealing a tempting glimpse of cleavage, with a fake black mole placed low enough to draw any man’s eyes in its direction. Another mole dotted the left cheek of a face lovely enough to need no beauty marks. The startling almond eyes, the pouting lips, the pretty little nose could hold their own in any company. It truly was an angel’s face.

  She raised both arms and called, “Just call me Jube, boys!” And she leaned out with her arms still extended, allowing two cavaliers to grasp them and lower her to the ground. When she got there she left her arms around their shoulders, rubbing their muscles approvingly.

  “My, my, I do love my men strong... and polite,” she purred in a naturally kittenish voice. “I can tell we’re goin’ to get along ju-u-ust fine.” Simultaneously, she gave them each a clap. “So, who’m I hangin’ on to here?”

  “Mort Pokenny,” answered the man on her left.

  “Virgil Murray,” answered the man on her right.

  “Well, Mort, Virgil, I want you to meet our friend, Marcus Delahunt. Marcus plays the banjo for us. Meanest picker this side of N’awleans.”

  The last man off the train carried a banjo case and wore a straw panama with a wide black band. His boyish face wore a happy smile revealing one crooked tooth, which only added to his appeal. His blue eyes were set wide in a fair face framed by collie-blond hair. Not a particularly manly face, with its pink complexion and sparse blond whiskers, but one forgot that when viewing his open expression of apparent pleasure with the world. Standing with one long-fingered hand on the rail, the other gripping the banjo case, he smiled and nodded silently.

  “Marcus here can’t say a wor
d, but he can hear better than a sleeping dog, and he’s smarter than the rest of us all put together, so don’t ever let me catch you treating him like a dummy.”

  The men offered hellos, but immediately returned their interest to the women. “So what do you boys do for excitement around here?” asked Ruby.

  “Not much, ma’am. Been a little dull lately.”

  She laughed throatily. “Well, we’re gonna fix that, aren’t we, girls?”

  Jubilee scanned the train platform and inquired of Mort and Virgil, “You seen that rascal Gandy around these parts?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he’s—”

  “Enough of that ma’aming now, Virgil. Just call me Jubilee.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Jubilee. Scotty, he’s over’t the Gilded Cage.”

  She flapped one hand, affected a winning pout. “Isn’t that the way with a man—never there when you need him! Well, we’re going to need some strong arms. Got a little something that needs hauling over to Gandy’s saloon. You boys willing to give us a hand with it?”

  Six males tripped all over themselves, shouldering forward.

  “Where’s that wagon of yours, Mr. Jessup?”

  “Comin’ right up!”

  Jubilee gave a “come on” with one shoulder and led the troop toward the freight cars at the rear of the train. Already the doors were being rolled back. The freight master stood beside one, looking in, scratching his head.

  “Durnedest thing I ever seen,” he remarked. “What in tarnation they gonna do with a hunk of junk like that?”

  “Yoo-hoo!” Jubilee called, waving.

  The freight master glanced up and saw the crowd advancing.

  “Did it make it all right?”

  “It did,” he called back. “But what in tarnation you gonna do with it?”

  Jubilee, Pearl, Ruby, and all their eager escorts reached the open freight car. Jessup arrived with his wagon. Jube rested her hands on her hips and winked at the aging freight master. “Come on over to the Gilded Cage some night and find out, honey!” She turned to the others. “Gentlemen, let’s load this thing and get it over to Gandy’s!”

  Violet was minding the front of the store several minutes later when she looked out the window and shrieked. “Agatha! Agatha, come here!”

  Agatha lifted her head and called, “What is it, Violet?”

  “Come here!”

  Even before reaching the front room, Agatha heard banjo music from outside. It was a warm spring day; the shop door was propped open with a brick. “Look!” Violet gaped and pointed to the street beyond. Agatha came up quietly into the shadows behind her.

  Another delivery for the saloon next door. One glimpse told Agatha she should order Violet to close the door, but there was too much that appealed to her in the scene outside.

  Joe Jessup’s buckboard came up the street piled with a crowd of exuberant men, three gaudy ladies, and the most enormous birdcage Agatha had ever seen. Six feet high it stood, made of bright, shining gold that caught the noon sun and sent it shimmering. Suspended from its onion-shaped roof was a golden swing, and upon it perched a fancy lady dressed in pure white. Another, wearing heliotrope pink, sat on the tail of the wagon between Wilton Spivey and Virgil Murray, the three of them swinging their legs and swaying to the music. The third woman, looking like a bumblebee in her black skin and yellow clothes, sat on Joe Jessup’s lap as he drove the wagon. The banjo player stood just behind them, nodding from side to side in rhythm with the song. The wagon was packed with people crowded around the birdcage, and, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the wagon had attracted a trail of children and bright-eyed young fellows who’d left their desks and clerking stations to be part of the music and to ogle the women in the startling costumes. As they came down the street, the entire troupe was singing lustily.

  Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,

  Come out tonight, come out tonight,

  Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight

  And dance by the light of the moon.

  Agatha tried very hard to be critical. But she couldn’t. She was gripped instead by envy. Oh, to be young and attractive and unfettered by self-consciousness. To be able to ride down the street on a wagon at high noon, singing one’s heart out to the sky and laughing. Shouldn’t there be, in everyone’s life, at least one such reckless memory? But there was none in Agatha’s.

  This was as close as she’d ever come: tapping her hand against her thigh in rhythm with the music. When she realized what she was doing, she stopped.

  As the wagon drew abreast of her store, she got a closer look at the woman in white. She was the prettiest thing Agatha had ever seen. Delicate face with slanting eyes and cupid’s own smile. And she knew how to choose a good hat. She wore one of fashion’s current entries in the war between the high- and flat-crowned hats, the kind called “three stories and a basement.” It was exquisite: towering, but well balanced, and trimmed with expensive egret feathers. Even when the woman swang on her perch, the hat sat securely.

  “Look at that white hat,” she whispered.

  “Look at all of them,” replied Violet.

  “Good hats.”

  “The best.”

  “Their dresses, too.”

  “But look—no bustles, Agatha.”

  “No.” Agatha envied them for not having to hang fifteen pounds of metal on their rumps every morning.

  “But so much chest. Tt-tt.”

  “They’re fancy ladies, I’m sure.” The thought saddened Agatha. All that bright promise would grow to nothing. All their young beauty would grow faded before its time.

  The wagon came to a stop before the saloon. Mort Pokenny opened the cage door and the woman in white stepped out. She stood with hands akimbo and shouted at the swinging doors. “Hey, Gandy, didn’t you send for three dancing girls from Natchez?”

  Gandy himself materialized, surrounded by his employees, all calling out greetings, reaching for the ladies, shaking hands over the side of the wagon with the banjo player. But Agatha watched only the woman in white, high on the wagon, and the man in black, below her. He hooked one boot on a wheel spoke and tilted his hat to the back of his head. In the middle of the melee they had eyes only for each other.

  “’Bout time you were gettin’ here, Jube.”

  “Got here as fast as I could. Took ‘em a month to build the damned cage, though.”

  “That all it’s been?” His dimples formed as he grinned.

  “You wouldn’t’ve missed old Jube, now, would y’?”

  Gandy threw back his head and laughed.

  “Never. Been too busy gettin’ the place set up.”

  Jubilee scanned the boardwalk. “Where’s that town full o’ cowboys you promised I could pick from?”

  “They’re comin’, Jube, they’re comin’.”

  Her gaze returned to Gandy and her eyes glittered with teasing and impatience. “You gonna stand there flappin’ all day, or help a lady dismount?” Without warning she launched herself over the side, flying through the air with feet and arms up, never doubting for a moment that a pair of strong arms would be there to catch her. They were. No sooner had Gandy caught her than they were kissing boldly, mindless of the hoots and whistles around them. She twined her arms around his shoulders and returned his kiss with total unconcern for the spectacle they were making. The kiss ended when his hat started slipping off. She snatched it off his head and they laughed into each other’s faces. She plopped the hat on his thick black hair and tilted it well forward.

  “Now put me down, you rebel dandy. I got others to greet, you know.”

  Looking on, Agatha felt a curious flutter within her stomach as Gandy’s black eyes lingered on the woman’s beautiful kohled ones and he held her a moment longer. Watching them, one could almost guess what fun they had alone together. Pleasant mischief radiated between them. Even their vocal exchange had been filled with it. How did women learn to act that way around men? In her whole life Agatha had never been in t
he same room with a man without feeling ill at ease. Nor had she carried on a conversation with one without groping for a topic. And, of course, to leap off the side of a wagon would be, for her, nothing short of a miracle.

  Gandy set Jubilee down and greeted the others.

  “Ruby, sweetheart, y’ knock my eyes out.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “And Pearl, you’re bound t’ break a few hearts in Proffitt, Kansas, before the season’s over.” She, too, got a kiss on the cheek. Next he clamped both hands on the banjo player’s shoulders and looked him square in the face. “Hello, Marcus. Good t’ see you again.” The man smiled. He made a strumming motion across his banjo and raised his eyebrows. “That’s right,” Gandy answered, “good for business. Y’all got the town stirred up already. They’ll be mashin’ the door down tonight.”

  Gandy turned back toward Jubilee, shrugging out of his jacket. “Here. Hang on to this for a minute.” He gave her a wink and Agatha watched the woman clasp the jacket to her breast and bury her nose in its collar. It seemed so intimate a motion that Agatha felt guilty witnessing it. She wondered how any woman could look so entranced by the smell of cigar smoke.

  “Let’s get it inside, boys.” Gandy leaped onto the wagon and with five others hefted the cage. She watched his black satin waistcoat pull taut across his shoulder blades, his forearms knot as he lifted the contraption. He wasn’t overly brawny, yet neither was he flimsy. But he had muscles in all the places a man was supposed to; enough to deal with an impulsive woman who came flying through the air into his arms, or a nettlesome one who organized a local temperance union. She recalled last night at the top of the stairs—had he thought about pushing her or not? Now in broad daylight, watching him work in the sun, he hardly seemed capable of malevolence. Perhaps it had been her imagination after all.

  The work gang inched the heavy cage off the wagon, up the boardwalk steps, and inside the saloon. The ladies and the loiterers followed, leaving the street to the children. Violet and Agatha retreated into the shop but could still hear the sound of happy chatter and occasional laughter.