Dance with the Devil

by Victoria Wilcox

  Rock of ages, cleft for me,

  Let me hide myself in thee!

  Let the water and the blood

  From thy wounded side which flowed,

  Be of sin the double cure,

  Save from wrath and make me pure!

  According to one Sunday’s sermon, the number of sins a man might commit in his life could run to over two million possible digressions, surely more than any mortal being could atone for and numerical proof of the need for divine intervention. But John Henry had only committed a handful of sins, not counting his youthful follies, so surely God’s grace would be sufficient to cover his few real failings—including a murder he hadn’t meant to commit. And with that hope, he joined in reciting the Lord’s Prayer and sang the hymns with all the gusto of the good Christian he knew he should be. Texas was his new beginning, after all.

  In October, the North Texas Agricultural, Mechanical & Blood Stock Association Fair opened in a pretty grove of hardwood trees out past the tracks of the Texas & Pacific and the Houston & Central railways. Though the event was promoted as the “First Great State Fair of Texas,” and promised to bring a boom of business second only to the coming of the railroads, it looked more like a circus than business to John Henry. There was a livestock ring at the center of the fairgrounds and a circle of red-striped tents around that, and with the First Texas Artillery Corps firing off their big guns every time a prize was announced, and prize competitions in fifty categories, the air thundered with salutes all day long.

  At Dr. Seegar’s suggestion, John Henry had entered some of his dental school projects in the Scientific Exhibitions as advertising for their new partnership. A frontier town like Dallas rarely saw such fine work, so he easily won three blue ribbons and a cash prize of $15 for his display: a set of teeth in cast gold, a set of teeth in porcelain, and a denture made of carved ivory and vulcanized rubber. And along with the ribbons and the money, he won his own noisy cannon salute and the admiration of a pretty young girl.

  “Hello Dr. Holliday!” she called as she appeared, breathless and beaming, out of the crowd on the midway at the end of the awards ceremony.

  “Why, Lenora Seegar,” John Henry said, smiling down at Dr. Seegar’s daughter, “I didn’t expect to see you here today. Where’s your folks?”

  “Mother’s over there,” she said, pointing toward the Home Crafts tent. “We’ve entered some of our baked goods in the contest. Mother thinks my cobbler may take first prize. I made your favorite,” she added with a shy flutter of lashes, “’least the one you always say you like so well when you come for Sunday supper.”

  John Henry had stayed with the Seegars his first few days after arriving in Dallas before taking a boarding house room, and he still had supper there once a week, much to the delight of Lenora. She was thirteen-years old and too naïve to know how to hide her adolescent infatuation for her father’s young dental partner. But John Henry didn’t mind the attention, considering it an innocent form of flattery, and he always tried to treat her kindly.

  “Well, I bet you do take first place. You’re the best cook I know in Dallas.”

  She blushed at the compliment, and John Henry realized that she looked different somehow.

  “What is it you’ve done to yourself, Lenora? You look all grown up today.”

  “It must be my hair,” she said, putting her hand to the ringlets at the back of her head. “Mother let me wear it up for the fair. Do you like it?”

  “Very much. Shows off those pretty eyes of yours.”

  “Oh!” she said, and John Henry had to hold back a laugh. She was no older than he’d been when he first knew he loved Mattie, and the feeling had been so overwhelming he could hardly contain it. The carnival barker must have seen that same look on Lenora’s face, for he called out:

  “Win your sweetheart a prize, Sir? Lasso yourself one of these pretty celluloid dolls and it’s yours. Just toss this wooden hoop and ring a doll. It’s so simple, a child could do it.”

  “And how much to buy a hoop?”

  “A nickel, Sir, just a nickel and the prize is yours.”

  “Would you like me to win you a doll, Lenora?” John Henry asked, reaching for the change. “You pick the one you want and it’s yours.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, biting her lip, “I couldn’t . . .”

  “Why not? It’ll be a souvenir, somethin’ to remember the fair by.”

  “But isn’t tossin’ the ring a game of chance?”

  “I reckon so.”

  “Then father would never approve. He says all games of chance are gamblin’, and gamblin’ is a sin . . .”

  “A sin? Throwin’ a nickel hoop around a little doll? I don’t believe it!”

  “Oh, yes, he’s very firm about all forms of gamblin’. He says that little games of chance just lead to all kinds of other things, terrible things like card playin’ and horse racin’, and . . .”

  “And drinkin’?”

  “And drinkin’,” Lenora answered meekly. “Mother was a preacher’s daughter, you know, and Father promised him to always keep the Lord’s word about such things.”

  “Well, I consider gamblin’ a gentleman’s sport, and I happen to be very good at it.” Then he put the nickel in the barker’s hand and took the wooden hoop, giving it a light toss and watching with satisfaction as it settled down easily onto the prettiest of the painted dolls. “In addition to being a good dentist, I am also a fine aim. Now, do you want the prize or shall I find another girl to give it to?”

  He spoke sharply, though he wasn’t really angry at Lenora—it wasn’t her fault that Dr. Seegar had ridiculous views on gaming. But he hated to be criticized in public, and the doll was suddenly more than just a prize to him.

  “Well,” he said, pressing the point, “do you want it or not?”

  Lenora looked like she might start to cry, torn between her Father’s dictates and the power of her adolescent infatuation. But love got the better of her, and when John Henry held the doll out to her, she took it.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  For a moment, John Henry felt almost ashamed of himself for forcing Lenora to take the prize. It didn’t really mean all that much to him, anyhow, and it might bring trouble for her.

  “What’s that ring you always wear?” Lenora asked, interrupting his uncomfortable thoughts. “The one you’re always playing with? It’s so small, it hardly fits you. Did you have it as a child?”

  He held out his hand and the gold Irish Claddagh ring caught the light. He still wasn’t used to the feel of it on his little finger or the way it stuck halfway past his knuckle, and he did catch himself twisting at it from time to time.

  “It was a goin’ away gift from my cousin,” he said, remembering how Mattie had given it to him on their last day together. Two hands for friendship and a heart for love, she had said, describing the ancient symbols on her grandmother’s heirloom ring that would be a kind of promise between them. “I have never taken it off since.”

  “Then you must be very fond of her. Is she—beautiful?” Lenora asked, and John Henry looked at her quizzically.

  “How did you know it came from a woman?”

  “Well, it’s too tiny to be a man’s ring, and—there was somethin’ in your face, I guess.”

  Woman’s intuition, John Henry thought with amazement. Even though she was mostly a child still, Lenora seemed to have that same kind of insight that Mattie had always had, seeing into his heart somehow and knowing what he was feeling.

  “She is beautiful to me,” he answered. “I miss her very much.” And fighting back the lonely memory, he took Lenora’s hand in his. “Come on, I’ve got to get you back to your mother. She must be worried about you by now.”

  Lenora went willingly, her little hand soft in his, the doll held close against her. And for a few wistful moments, John Henry thought that if only Lenora were just a few years older they might be able to share company long enough for him to forget about Mattie for awhile.


  But he didn’t want to forget Mattie, not ever. The memory of her still shone as bright in his heart as that gold Claddagh ring, and he intended to be faithful to it.

  While he couldn’t fault Dr. Seegar for having conservative views on drinking, he didn’t think it fair that he should have to keep himself to such puritanical ways in regards to gambling. He’d been raised playing cards and considered gaming a proper gentleman’s pastime. Back in Atlanta, the biggest saloon and gambling house in the city had been owned by the Mayor, and the best men of Southern society spent their evenings there, discussing politics and the War they should have won. So with little else to fill his after-work hours in Dallas, a friendly game seemed a welcome and suitable entertainment for a Southern gentleman like himself.

  The city of Dallas didn’t agree with his opinion, however, having made gaming in a house of spirituous liquors a legal offense. A man could drink until he was senseless and gamble until he was flat broke, but he couldn’t do both in the same establishment without fear of being arrested—a ridiculous statute which most of the Main Street saloons got around by having one room for drinking and another room for gaming. But as the saloon patrons tended to drift from one room to another carrying drinks and poker chips along with them, the drinking and the gambling generally ran together and kept the local police busy and the police coffers full.

  There were other places where a man could play a few cards and have a few drinks without fear of being found out, as long as he didn’t mind lowering himself some. Down on the muddy banks of the Trinity was Frogtown, filled with brothel shacks and shanties, and south of the railroad tracks was the Negro tent city called Freedman’s Town where even the law didn’t bother to go. But John Henry was only looking for a little distraction, not a whole different kind of life, and he couldn’t imagine himself in such surroundings.

  So he kept his card playing to hands of solitaire or the occasional penny-ante poker game against the other residents of his boarding house, and spent his evenings writing letters to Mattie, telling her about his sailing voyage on the Gulf of Mexico, the crushed Oyster shell streets of Galveston Island, the sad circumstances of his Uncle Jonathan McKey’s cotton plantation, and his decision to settle in Dallas and go into partnership with Dr. Seegar. He told her about the Fair and his blue-ribbon winning display of dental work, his regular Sunday attendance at the First Methodist Church, and his occasional visits to the Dallas Temperance Union—not that she’d believe he’d turned temperance himself, but knowing that he was a man of the community would make her happy. He told her what a fine Southern town Dallas was, how there was a public outrage when a girlie show opened at the Variety Theater, and how the local fire brigade, good family men all, stood aside while the citizens of Dallas set fire to the place and joined in cheering as the theater burned to the ground. He even wrote to her about Belle Swink and the herds of pigs and cattle that crowded the dirt streets. But the one thing he didn’t tell her, could never tell her, was the real reason he had left home and couldn’t come back.

  Her own letters came regularly, nearly every week, though he walked to the post office at the Depot almost daily in case she’d sent something extra. He’d gotten to be such a regular visitor there, in fact, that he was on a first name basis with the postmaster and several of the railroad employees, and they liked to fool with him, telling him there was nothing for him when there really was. Then they’d pull out his anticipated letter and laugh at how he’d tuck it quickly into his coat pocket, waiting until he was alone to read it. He wasn’t about to share his love letters with railroad men, for to him, they were love letters, though Mattie said little that was romantic. It was the fact that she kept writing so regularly and the things she wrote about that proved her affection. In every letter she mentioned something they had done together in days past, reminding him of the special friendship they had shared. Then she’d go on about what was happening in Atlanta, chatting away as though he were there in the room with her and could hear her every word. And every letter would end with the same gentle question: would he be coming home again soon? Would he be back in time for Christmas? Oh, how she would love to have his company for this Christmas, especially. . .

  One year it would be, come Christmas, since Mattie’s father had died, taking ill with pneumonia in the middle of the coldest Georgia winter in memory. One year since John Henry had made a daring ride on icy roads, racing from Jonesboro to Atlanta to fetch the Catholic priest to give Uncle Rob his last rites. One year since he’d saved a man from Purgatory, only to find himself cast out of paradise and fighting perdition.

  Of course, he couldn’t go home, though there was nothing he would like better, and his own Christmas would be spent with the Seegars at their new brick house on Ross Avenue. He was grateful for the invitation as he had nowhere else to go for the holiday, though he suspected it was mostly Lenora’s idea. And when the day arrived and he found his favorite peach cobbler for dessert along with the traditional pumpkin pie, he made a point of thanking Lenora for her thoughtfulness and she smiled and blushed and said he was most truly welcomed. But though he did, indeed, feel welcome in the Seegars home, being there for Christmas only made him remember the things he was missing: his own home and his own family, his country, his kin. And Mattie, always Mattie.

  By the time the Christmas meal was done and the Christmas carols had been sung, John Henry was ready to be away from the Seegars’ fine new house that was filled with the old memories he’d carried in with him. But as he said his goodbyes and stepped out into the early December twilight, the winter chill of the prairie wind cut right through him, catching his breath and setting him off into a sudden fit of coughing.

  It was a half-mile walk back to town, and even the trolley mule Belle Swink was taking Christmas night off and wasn’t around to offer him a ride, and the exercise left him wheezing, with his heart racing like it would never slow down. Damn Texas cold! he swore to himself. And wishing that he had more than a sip of whiskey left in the bottle tucked under his bed pillow, he stood in the dusky darkness considering. If he went back to his boarding house now, his coughing would surely disturb his landlady who was entertaining some family of her own. If he stopped into one of the nearby saloons just to buy a quick drink, someone might see him and pass the word to Dr. Seegar and cause him trouble with his employer.

  Then he laughed at the thought. Who would see him in a saloon on Christmas night, anyhow? All the fine folk in Dallas were home by now, the members of the Methodist Church and even the Catholics and the Jews all safe and warm around their hearths. Only sports would be in a saloon on a night like this: gamblers, drinkers, men who didn’t have families around to care about them.

  Like himself.

  He turned his collar to the wind and headed toward Main Street where the saloons stayed open all night long.

  Only the few downtown streets of Dallas were lit by gas, with the rest of the town being so dark one had to carry a lantern to see by. But against the winter darkness, the dim lights of Main Street seemed like a blaze, and he felt cheerier already just walking under their yellow glow.

  His cheer continued as he pushed open the swinging doors of the Senate Saloon and was greeted by a fragrant cloud of cigar smoke and the lively music of an upright piano. And all at once, he felt at home, with the cigar smoke and the music mixing together to bring back bittersweet memories: his father, smelling of tobacco every night after supper, his mother laying graceful hands on the piano keys. And with those memories, he was home at last for Christmas, if only for an evening in a Dallas saloon.

  It was only for one night, he reminded himself, as he found an empty seat at a poker table and joined in the game. Just one night of whiskey and poker, and once it was over he’d be back again to his proper and professional self. He was a dentist, after all, with a reputation to uphold, and not really a gambler like the other men at the table that Christmas night. But they were good company, easy with the wagers and a raucous joke, and happy to m
ake John Henry feel like part of their society. It was a pleasure playing with them, and almost made him forget that he’d been melancholy just a few hours before.

  But once the evening was over and he’d walked back to his boarding house in the thin light before dawn, the melancholy came flooding back. It wasn’t the start of a whiskey hangover coming on, though he would surely have one of those in the morning. It was something more powerful than liquor that he was lacking: it was the comfort and the camaraderie of the saloon, the elation of putting down wagers and picking up winnings. It was the games that he needed to keep his loneliness at bay, and he had to find a way to keep playing.

  Chapter Three

  DALLAS, 1874

  EAGLE FORD WAS SIX MILES WEST OF DALLAS, ACROSS THE TRINITY River and out into the prairie where the unfinished roadbed of the Texas & Pacific Rail Line ran out. The town had one cheap hotel, two good saloons, no police to speak of, and was both close enough and far enough away for a young man who wanted to do a little gaming and not have word get back to Dallas. He could hire a horse for a pleasant Saturday ride across the Trinity and be back in time for a good night’s rest before Church the next day.

  But once he’d made the trip a few times, John Henry reckoned that an afternoon in Eagle Ford was hardly worth the expense and effort of getting there. If he were going to have a chance of turning a real profit at the poker table, he’d need to invest a little more time along with his money. So he started spending his Saturday evenings there as well, and as Saturday evening games led to Saturday night games, he started staying over to save himself a trip home in the dark. He was only being cautious, as the Trinity River crossing could be dangerous at night with the riffraff of Frogtown lurking in the shadows of the railroad bridge and who knew what kind of criminals waiting to waylay a traveler. And as long as he was staying over Saturday nights, he might as well take in a Sunday morning game, too, before heading out of town, praying in his heart while his hands were busy with the paperboards. He was likely doing the Dallas First Methodist Church a favor anyhow, freeing up a seat in their crowded chapel.