Southern Son

by Victoria Wilcox

  “All right,” he said with a grin, “I’m in.”

  But Neil’s next words quickly ruined his golden dreams.

  “So now that I’ve raised the stakes, what do you have to offer? This is poker, after all. See my wager and raise it, or lose the pot and refill my bank.”

  “But I don’t have anything else! It’s all there already, all my money, along with my winnings.”

  “Come now!” Neil said incredulously. “You must have some other resources, a gentleman like yourself with such fine clothes, such fine manners. Surely you can come up with something? A bank draft, perhaps? I’d be willing to let you play on credit, for the chance of winning back some of my money. I’ve put my own property in, to show my good will. There must be something you can add.”

  But he had nothing to add to the pot, no bank account on which to draw a draft, no jewels or stashes of hidden coins. He had only the money he’d made working with Jameson, along with what was left of his dental school allowance, and it was all on the table already.

  Neil watched him, waiting, then said with a dramatic sigh, “Ah well! Such a shame! And it would have been so amusing to play against a real opponent for once. But at least there’s this . . .” And he stretched out his arm to sweep up the pot, all of John Henry’s winnings, all that was left of his own money he’d wagered away.

  “Wait!” he said quickly, putting up a hand to stop the looting. “There is something. I’ll gain an inheritance this summer when I turn twenty-one. I’ll see your wager with that.”

  “And who’s to say your inheritance is a match for my jewelry? My wager is there on the table for all to see. You’re wagering something you don’t even have yet. What proof is there that you really have an inheritance at all? What if turns out to be nothing but a mess of potage?”

  “It’s more than enough to match your baubles,” John Henry said proudly, his ire rising at the challenge, “it’s good Georgia land and some money as well . . .”

  “Land?” Hyram Neil cut in. “What sort of land?”

  “What difference does it make?” John Henry said haughtily, covering the fact that he wasn’t sure himself what his inheritance would bring him. All he really knew about it was that when he turned twenty-one he’d inherit some kind of McKey land, along with his share of the proceeds from the sale of the old Indian Creek Plantation. His mother had mentioned it once, saying something about a business house in Griffin, but John Henry had never thought much of it. In truth, he’d tried not to think of it at all, as the inheritance came down to him from his Grandfather McKey’s estate through his mother’s last will and testament, and thinking of it had only reminded him that she was dead.

  “Land,” Hyram Neil said with relish, a smile sliding across his cunning face. “Very well. Dealer, you may proceed.”

  Hyram Neil was no casual observer, hoping to win back some of his banking money. Hyram Neil was the slyest sporting man on the river, waiting like a gator in dark water to gobble up an arrogant country boy who thought he knew how to play cards. And from that deal on down, John Henry watched his winnings disappear before his very eyes.

  What luck he’d had before had turned—if luck it had ever been at all. More likely Neil’s dealer had been handing him winning cards so slickly that John Henry hadn’t even noticed. It was a game he’d never considered—letting an opponent win hand after hand to woo him into wagering more than he dared lose. In all his years of playing cards, he’d only thought of how he could beat the other players, not how he might get another player to lose. But he was losing sure enough now, and faster than he had earned that golden pot, he had lost his inheritance.

  “You look surprised,” Hyram Neil said as he collected the last of the pot and pulled out paper and ink pen. “You had to have known my reputation. Surely you didn’t think that Hyram G. Neil could be so easily bested. Sign here, please,” he said, and handed the pen across the table.

  “What’s this?” John Henry asked, his eyes too dazed by his stunningly swift demise to even read the words Neil had scrawled on the paper.

  “It’s a promissory note. Standard legality in this sort of business. You wagered your land and lost. This promises me the right to come and claim it.”

  “But you can’t!” John Henry exclaimed. “You can’t just come and take my land. It’s McKey land. It’ll always be McKey land!”

  “What it was doesn’t concern me. It’s mine now, wagered and won. Sign please.”

  And though John Henry had an impulse to tear the paper in two and throw it back in Hyram Neil’s cunning face and walk proudly from the saloon, he didn’t dare. Neil was waiting for his signature, one hand on the paper and the other on the pearl handle of the derringer that he placed beside him on the table. He meant what he said and he wanted what was his—what had been John Henry’s until this night.

  “Of course, this is a promissory note only,” Neil said as John Henry slowly took the pen in hand, dipped it in the ink well offered, and put his signature to the note. “You’ll send the actual deed as soon as you return home. And you said there was money in a bank in Georgia? You’ll send a bank draft for the money as well.”

  Home—it seemed far away now. Farther away than ever, since he had no money left to buy a train ticket. And even if he did, home would never be the same again, now that he had squandered his inheritance on a hand of cards.

  But Hyram Neil was smiling as he read the signature John Henry had written. “So you’re a doctor, are you? Well, that makes this even more entertaining. It isn’t often I get to ruin a professional man. But don’t look so glum. What’s a little land between sporting men? It’s the game that counts, the thrill of the win. I am thrilled at any rate. You’ll be thrilled again soon enough, once you’ve gotten back on your feet.”

  “And how am I supposed to get there?” John Henry said bitterly. “You just took everything I had—every penny and more. I don’t even have hack fare home, let alone enough to get to Georgia. It’s gonna be a long time before I can send you anything at all.”

  He hadn’t said it to gain any sympathy, and certainly expected none from a man so professional in his thievery. But Neil suddenly seemed to take a sympathetic turn, smiling again with his shark-white teeth.

  “I suppose you’re right. Your lack of funds could pose an obstacle to my collecting on the debt. I’ll tell you what: I’ll make you a loan of sorts, an advance from what you’ve so kindly gifted me with tonight. Say your original twenty-dollar ante? You can pay it back with the bank draft—and interest on the loan, of course.”

  “You’re loanin’ me my own money back?” John Henry asked incredulously.

  “No. I’m loaning you some of my money,” Neil corrected him. “Money I happen to have in a bank in Georgia, along with some land. My money,” he said again. “And you are in my debt.”

  He might as well have said in hell instead of debt, for that was where John Henry felt he had suddenly landed. This stuffy, smoky saloon reeking of rotting fish and the smell of the river was hell enough for him, and Hyram Neil could easily pass for the fallen angel of that dark world.

  But devil’s pay or not, John Henry put out his hand and took back his coin purse, now filled again with gold coins from the pile Hyram Neil had won. He had to eat, after all, and he had to get home again. And once there, he’d put this all to rights somehow. He had to put it all to rights.

  “Well, Dr. Holliday, it’s been a good night’s work. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Hyram Neil swept out of the saloon leaving John Henry to follow into the darkness alone. And standing in the dank night air, stars overhead and the river lapping against the cobbled levee, he could almost hear the Jamaican’s warning echoing in his memory:

  “Hoodoo, that man is, black magic. Good luck with that man be bad luck.”

  There was no laughter in the warning tonight.

  There was no more thought of courting Kate Fisher. Thinking of her at all only reminded him of the nightmare he’d stumbled into
, losing his land and his money—his whole inheritance all at once. And though he had no intention of making good on the debt, he was sure that Hyram Neil would try to hold him to it. His only hope lay in getting out of St. Louis fast, before Neil learned any more about him, for he couldn’t chance that the gambler would come looking for him, finding him at Jameson’s house and making threats, or worse. Tante’s fears of the Valkyries had been just so much German superstition. The real danger was a gambler cheated out of his due.

  But how to excuse himself on such brief notice? He didn’t dare tell Jameson and Tante that he had gone down to the levee and the disastrous results that had come of it. That would mean disgrace at the very least. Yet he had to have some reason for suddenly packing his bags and buying a train ticket home, so he settled on the plausible story that an elderly relative was ill and wanted him home immediately. And though he never said just who the relative was, Tante’s guess that it was his dear Oma, the way he dropped everything to run to her side, wasn’t too far from the truth. Though both of his grandmothers were already dead, it was his McKey grandparents’ fortune that had created his inheritance, and losing it was indeed the cause of his hurrying home.

  He let Tante believe what she wanted to and tried to avoid Jameson’s questioning eyes. All he really cared about was taking the ferry across the Mississippi and getting on an eastbound train. And it wasn’t until the Vandalia Line Railroad had steamed its way from East St. Louis across Illinois and into Indiana that he began to relax a little, though not enough to stop looking over his shoulder. He had miles to go still, south through Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia and nearly to the Florida line, and he wouldn’t stop until he got there, not even to pay a visit on Mattie. For until he was buried back in south Georgia, far from the greedy reach of Hyram G. Neil, he wouldn’t feel safe again. But he only meant to stay home long enough to turn twenty-one and collect on his nearly-lost inheritance money. Then he’d move to Atlanta where he could open his own practice and be close to Mattie at the same time. And St. Louis, and Kate Fisher, would be forgotten forever.

  Chapter Eleven

  VALDOSTA, 1872

  HIS FATHER, HOWEVER, HAD OTHER PLANS FOR HIM.

  “I hope you’ve had your fill of big-city life,” Henry Holliday said over supper on John Henry’s first night home. “Time you got back down to the business of things, started pullin’ your weight around here. Dr. Frink has generously kept a position open for you. You’ll start tomorrow as his assistant until that diploma arrives and he can make you a partner. Rachel, pass the greens.”

  And that was the end of the conversation, if it could be called that. Henry didn’t say another word and Rachel sat silent as well, and the only sound at the table was the clatter of china and silver as the plates went around and were instantly refilled.

  It was all he could do to sit through the rest of supper without shouting out his feelings. He wasn’t the same boy who’d left home two years before, hot-headed and anxious to find something he couldn’t name, nor was he a struggling dental student dependent on his father’s continued good will. He was a man now, well-educated and well-traveled, and he knew what he wanted: freedom and space and some say-so in his own life. And he didn’t want to go into partnership with Dr. Frink.

  But until he came into his inheritance, arguing with his father wouldn’t do any good. So he kept his troubles to himself, then escaped to the quiet refuge of the front porch as soon as the last plates were passed and cleared away. And as he had been the year before, he was struck again by how empty the country nights were. There was no noise of horse-drawn cars on cobbled streets, no raucous piano music coming out of corner saloons or street vendors hawking their wares in a crowded market place. Looking across the yard toward dusty Savannah Avenue, he could hear nothing but the chirping of katydids in the trees and the stifled beating of his own restless heart.

  The creak of the door opening and closing behind him was startling in the silence, but Rachel’s voice was surprisingly soft, as if she didn’t dare disturb the darkness.

  “Mind if I stand here awhile?”

  “Suit yourself,” he answered, not bothering to glance her way. He didn’t have to look at her to know she was still wearing her white serving apron. She still smelled of cooking grease and cook stove smoke—homely smells that might have made him feel welcome, but only reminded him that he was home where he didn’t want to be.

  Rachel stood in silence for a while, then said: “Thea Morgan’s been asking after you.”

  “What’s she want? I fixed those bad teeth of hers last summer. She can go see Dr. Frink if she’s got more trouble.”

  “Well, I don’t ‘spect it’s tooth trouble she’s got. More like a sweet tooth, I reckon. Looks to me like she’s sweet on you, John Henry. Been that way, so I hear, ever since you sparked her last summer.”

  “Sparked her!” he said with a laugh. “I never sparked Thea Morgan! All I did was kiss her a little. And it wasn’t even all that much of a kiss, as I recall.”

  “It don’t take much of a kiss to get folks talkin’. But it’s good talk, mostly. The Morgans are well-thought of around here. And your Pa thinks it’s a good match. He’s been talkin’ it over with Mrs. Morgan . . .”

  “I am not gonna marry Thea Morgan!” he exclaimed, loud enough for all of Savannah Avenue to hear.

  “I’m not sayin’ you are,” Rachel replied calmly, “but it wouldn’t do you no harm to go on up and pay her a visit. Folks’ll be expectin’ the Major’s son to make a showin’, anyhow. He’s been tellin’ everybody how you’re comin’ home and goin’ in with Dr. Frink . . .”

  “Well, I’m not goin’ in with Dr. Frink,” John Henry said hotly, “so he can stop tellin’ the whole town that I am. And I’ve got better plans for myself than Thea Morgan! I’m aimin’ to marry my cousin Mattie . . .”

  He hadn’t planned on saying all that, of course. But Rachel had got him so riled that it just seemed to come out on its own. And once out, there was no taking it back.

  “Oh, John Henry!” she said in a hushed voice, “you mustn’t even think such things! Why, your Pa’d never let you marry that cousin of yours, if you was to ask the rest of your life. He don’t approve of in-marryin’. Says it’s bad for the bloodlines, like when cows breed too long in the same lot.”

  If Rachel had been a man he would have hauled back and hit her. How dare she compare the sweet love he shared with Mattie to something as base as animal husbandry? But it wasn’t her comparison, after all, but Henry’s. So he kept his temper under control and his hands clenched tight against his sides.

  “I will pretend you didn’t say that, Rachel.”

  “Pretendin’ don’t make it so,” she said, undaunted by his cool reply. “That’s the way he thinks, and you ain’t changin’ it. So you’d best start lookin’ around elsewhere for a wife. If Thea Morgan don’t please you, there’s other girls around town.”

  “I told you, I am not goin’ in with Dr. Frink. And I am not stayin’ here in this town, either. As soon as I come into my inheritance I’ll be leavin’ here for good and goin’ to Atlanta.”

  She looked at him quizzically. “And how’s your inheritance gonna make you free as a bird?”

  “Why, I reckon I’ll use what’s in the bank to pay my way, set up my own dental practice.” It sounded perfectly reasonable, but Rachel’s laughing reply was disconcerting.

  “What’s left in the bank won’t pay your way out to Cat Creek! Don’t you know your Pa had to use that money up sending you to dental school?”

  “What are you talkin’ about? That was my money, from my mother . . .”

  “And you got it, one way or another. Your Pa was trustee. The bank didn’t fuss with him over it. ‘Course there’s still the land left, whatever good that’ll do you. You don’t seem to like farmin’ much. And you know those McKey relatives of yours won’t ever let you sell it off. So looks to me like you’re stuck right here, inheritance or no. ‘Cause your Pa’s only payin�
�� for you if you stay put. If you leave here, he won’t give you nothin’, that’s what he says. And you know he means what he says.”

  He had never liked Rachel less than he did at that moment, though she wasn’t to blame for any of it. But after all his worries about getting out of St. Louis before Hyram Neil found him, it was maddening to find that his inheritance had turned out to be nothing but a mess of potage after all.

  There was little choice but to do what his father had determined. Henry had things all arranged with Dr. Frink and had even paid money to have a second dental chair brought in and a second cuspidor installed in the dentist’s Patterson Street office. Under other circumstances, John Henry should have been grateful—having a partnership ready-made was a blessing for a new dentist just starting out. Instead, all he felt was trapped and angry.

  Valdosta had never seemed more provincial than it did that summer. Even the people seemed provincial, though they’d all come from somewhere else originally and should have been more interested in things outside their own little county. But news from the outside barely caused a ripple, even when it was something as thrilling as a photographic wonder reported in the Savannah Daily News.

  “Would you look at that,” John Henry said, as the headline grabbed his attention away from the rest of the mail. “A movin’ picture!”

  “What’s that?” the postmaster asked, reading over his shoulder.

  “It says right here: “The president of the Central Pacific Railroad, Mr. Leland Stanford, has asked a photographer to prove that all four feet of a running horse are off the ground at the same time at some point in the animal’s stride. The photographer, Englishman Edward Muybridge, has done so by taking a sequence of photographs showing a horse running. When viewed in rapid succession, the photographs show the horse’s motion, and prove Mr. Stanford’s claim. Science once again amazes.”