The Gamble (I) (8 page)

“Marcus here can’t say a word, 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 the 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.

“So that was Jubilee and the Gems.”

“Such lovely names... Jubilee. Ruby. Pearl.”

Agatha thought all three names sounded concocted, but she reserved her opinion. “So, he’s brought in calico queens after all.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Violet, they were wearing kohl on their eyes, and carmine on their lips, and their chests were showing.”

“Yes,” Violet uttered disappointedly, “I suppose you’re right.” Suddenly, she brightened. “But, oh, my!” She sighed, a rapt expression on her face. “Wasn’t that something the way Mr. Gandy kissed the one named Jubilee?”

“Doesn’t it seem a bit shameless to you, right out there on the street?”

“Well, perhaps a bit. But I’m still jealous.”

Agatha laughed and experienced a shaft of appreciation for Violet. The woman was so forthright. And earthy in her own way. How was it she’d never found a young swain to kiss her in the middle of a street in springtime? “Come.” Agatha held out an arm in invitation. “Let’s get to work. That’ll take our minds off it.”

But within five minutes the sound of hammering and sawing became so distracting they found themselves gazing time and again at the wall.

“Now what do you suppose they’re doing that’s making all that racket?”

“I don’t know.” Violet’s eyes sparkled. “Would you like me to go take a peek?”

“Certainly not!”

“But aren’t you curious?”

“Maybe I am, but you know what curiosity got the cat.”

Violet drooped in resignation. “Honestly, Agatha, sometimes you’re no fun at all.”

Their thimbles pushed in unison.

Push, pull. Push, pull.

It was as bad as the clock at bedtime, Agatha thought.

Push, pull. Two old maids, stitching their lives away. No! One old maid and one not-so-old maid!

The sound of footsteps in the front room interrupted her musings.

“Hullo?” It was Gandy again.

Violet dropped her thimble, pressed a hand to her heart, and went pink as a baby shoat. “Oh, my sakes!” she whispered.

“Go see what he wants this time.”

But before Violet could move, Gandy stepped through the lavender curtains, hatless, jacketless, and slightly breathless, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He stood before them with feet widespread, his hands on his waist. “Got a rush job for you, Miz Downin’.”

Agatha raised one eyebrow and let her gaze drop from his black tumbled hair to the toes of his polished boots.

“Something in a rose bengaline, perhaps? Should go well with your dark hair.”

He laughed and ran eight fingers through his hair, leaving it standing in attractive rills. “We’ll save that for Jube. What I need is much simpler. A big drawstring sack—doesn’t matter what color or what material. Somethin’ big enough to cover up a six-foot birdcage. But I need it by tonight.”

Agatha lay aside her work with strained patience. “I’m a milliner, Mr. Gandy, not a dressmaker.”

“But you have all those bolts o’ cloth out there.” He thumbed toward the front. “They’re for sale, aren’t they?”

“Not for birdcage covers.”

“Why not?”

“And not to saloon owners.”

“My money’s good. And I pay well.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gandy. Try Mr. Halorhan. He handles yard goods.”

“The cloth won’t do me any good without someone t’ sew it.”

“Even if I were willing, it could never be done by evening.”

“Why not? It’s a simple enough job.”

“It would be if I had a sewing machine, but, as you see, I don’t.”

She glanced to the advertisement for a Singer hanging on the wall. His eyes followed.

“How many hands would it take to have it done in...”—he withdrew a gold stem-winder from his vest pocket—“five hours?”

“I told you, I don’t do work for saloon owners.”

He put the watch away and frowned at her. “You’re one stubborn wench, Miz Downin’.”

Wench? The word brought a swift flag of color to her cheeks and she supposed she, too, now looked like a shoat. Never in her life had she been called a wench. It was disconcerting to find that it made her feel giddy. But she quickly picked up her work again. He studied her for a full ten seconds, scowled a while, then pivoted and shouldered through the velvet curtains, leaving them swaying.