Dance with the Devil

by Victoria Wilcox

  The dentist, an Illinois man by the name of Fagaly, had a spare chair in his second-story room over a jeweler’s shop, but it was the jeweler, not the dentist, with whom John Henry struck up an interesting acquaintance. His name was Billy Leonard, a New Yorker who’d come west looking for adventure, but had so far only found steady work repairing watches in towns up and down the Santa Fe Trail.

  “Not the kind of excitement I was looking for,” Billy Leonard complained, “though at least I’ve made some money at it. And made myself a name of sorts. The paper down in Las Cruces did a write-up on me last month, said I do first class work. Which opinion I agree with.”

  Leonard wasn’t bragging, from what John Henry could see, for he did do fine work with watches, and could not only clean and repair the fixings, but make adjustments for heat, cold, and position as well. He’d even learned to put the same skills to use in the tooling of firearms, and had a nice little side business turning long-barreled Winchesters into carbines for saddle guns.

  “Different kind of clientele, of course, in the gun business,” was his understated comment. “When a man needs a Winchester retooled so’s he can carry it sidearm style, you don’t ask what he’s planning to do with it.”

  There was a wistfulness to the jeweler’s words, as though he were jealous of the adventures his creations were having while he repaired watches and set stones in ladies’ neck pendants. But in spite of his longing for some adventures of his own, Billy Leonard hardly seemed the adventurous type. He was a small, slightly built man, with neat little features and longish yellow hair that curled over his shirt collar when he worked. Some folks might even have called him dainty, and Kate went so far as to say that Billy Leonard would have made a better looking woman than most of the whores in Texas, but John Henry chalked up her comment to womanly jealousy. She was just envious that John Henry spent more time in the dental office than he did in their room over a saloon, and talked more to Billy Leonard than he did to her.

  Trouble was, now that he was feeling so much better, he was remembering what had made him want to strangle Kate back in Trinidad. Her meddling had almost gotten his friend Wyatt Earp killed, and no amount of gratitude for her nursing skills was washing that memory from his mind. So though he didn’t think he could throw her out, he found he was more cheerful in the company of the watchmaker from New York than the woman who had taken to calling herself Mrs. Holliday.

  Besides, Billy Leonard had a flattering interest in John Henry’s work, often coming up the stairs to the dental office to watch him drill away decay or pull a rotted tooth. It was the gold work that most interested him, however, since he used some of the same techniques in his jewelry making, creating a wax cast then filling it with the molten metal in the process called the Lost Wax Method. Billy had even thought of a way to turn the process into another adventure of sorts.

  “Seems like with this equipment handy, we could go into business melting down bullion.”

  “You mean gold bars?” John Henry asked. “And why would we want to do that?”

  “So’s they could be smuggled away after a robbery,” Leonard said reasonably. “Seems like it would be hard to hide gold bars, but easy to secret away jewelry or dental foils. Then when it’s safe and away from the law, you just melt it back down again into something more salable.”

  “You sound like you’ve given some thought to the matter, Billy. You plannin’ to turn outlaw sometime soon?”

  Leonard shrugged, a motion which made his yellow curls bounce around his too-pretty face, girl-like. “Not planning, exactly. More like daydreaming. From what I can see, it’s the outlaws who have most of the fun around here, and the rest of us who do the work. And it’s fun I was hoping to find when I came out from New York, not more of the same work I was doing before.”

  “It’s the outlaws who do most of the jail time, as well,” John Henry replied, “and get hung most often. Have you seen that gallows on the plaza down in Las Vegas? That’s not just for show, you know. That’s where they entertain stage robbers and the like—which is what I reckon you’re imaginin’ when you mention gold bars. Stage robbery’s rough business and not something I’d be interested in givin’ my life to. I’d rather play a safe hand and make my money at the gamblin’ tables. Let the robbers steal the booty. I’ll take my share when they wager it on a hand of cards.”

  It was a reasonable little speech aimed at ridding Billy Leonard of his suicidal thoughts of throwing in with stage robbery. Suicidal because Billy’s own metal seemed to John Henry a lot like the gold they cast: bright and pretty, but soft enough to bend to a strong hand—which proved that Kate’s evaluation of him was entirely wrong. Billy might have made a better looking whore than half the working women in Texas, but he didn’t have anywhere near their strength of character from what John Henry could tell. And illegalities aside, successful outlawry seemed to demand a certain strength of character, at least.

  Kate was less interested in his views on the qualities of the criminal mind than thoughts of what she’d be wearing to a benefit party at Henry and Robinson’s Saloon and Dancehall. Just whom the benefit would be benefitting was never explained, but the highlight of the evening was to be a raffle for a violin—ten chances sold at $5 each. But though John Henry considered the wager a small price to pay for the chance of winning a violin, Kate found his expenditure extravagant.

  “That’s more money than you spent on this shawl of mine,” she pouted as she primped in front of a washstand mirror an hour before the party. “People will think you’re more concerned with winning a silly fiddle than in showing off your wife.”

  For all her years of struggle on the frontier and her selfless kindness in caring for John Henry in his illness, Kate was still a prima donna who demanded attention and fine things as signs of affection. The fact that she wasn’t his wife and not entitled to such things by marital vows didn’t seem to enter her mind.

  “I am more concerned with winning the violin than in showing you off,” he said honestly. “Whores get shown off. Wives are supposed to be sheltered from the lewd stares of society. And I fear that lewd stares are just what that dress is gonna gain you.”

  Kate’s laugh showed that she hadn’t taken on any wifely modesty when she borrowed his name for her own.

  “I hope I do get stared at! What’s the use of wearing all these corsets to shape my figure if no one notices? Might as well wear a fichu around my neck if there’s no gentlemen trying for a peek down my décolletage.”

  There was a time when Kate’s blatant worldliness would have charmed him, but with his renewed anger at her over the treachery with Wyatt, he could barely manage a sarcastic reply.

  “Might as well wear the fichu then, as there’s certainly no gentlemen here in Otero. Except for Billy Leonard, of course. He’s mannerly enough to be sufficiently shocked at your Rubenesque display.”

  “He’s more gentle than gentlemanly, looks like to me,” she said, turning away from the mirror with a haughty laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up tonight wearing a corset or two, himself. Which is another thing I’d think you have more concern for.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Your own reputation. They say you can tell a real gentleman by the company he keeps, and you’ve never been very good at picking the right kind of friends. First Wyatt and his pandering brothers, now that Nancy-boy Billy Leonard . . .”

  He could have slapped her hard right then, left her roughed face bruised and her mouth bloodied for making such insinuations, but his own gentlemanly upbringing kept him from it. If she were looking for a fight, he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, and his reply came in words as cold as hers were heated.

  “I dare say you’re right, my dear. But you’ve left one name off the short list of my friends: Miss Katherine Fisher Elder, the finest of all my base associations. You’ll certainly add somethin’ to my reputation tonight, goin’ on my arm in that obscene gown of yours. No one could mistake eith
er one of us for anything but what we are. Now powder yourself and put that derringer in your handbag. Henry and Robinson’s isn’t exactly the Planter’s Hotel in St. Louis.”

  He had expected his words to hurt her, but was still surprised at the sudden catch of emotion in her voice and the tears that sparked at her dark lashes.

  “And you’re not the man I fell in love with there! I don’t know why I even stay with you, you’ve changed so.”

  Her words allowed him no reply, since they were altogether too true. He was changed from the young man she had met there, having lost all delusion that his life was fair and his future bright. He wasn’t the man she had known in St. Louis, but then neither was she the girl he had courted there. They were, both of them, fallen angels, having lost any expectation of heaven on earth. But maybe, in that, they were better suited to one another now than they had been before.

  “Come, Kate,” he said, reaching out his hand in reconciliation. “Let’s not fuss with one another. You are fetching in that gown as always, and I shall have to fight off your admirers, even poor Billy Leonard should he be so foolish as to make advances on you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing you fight for me,” she said, sniffing back her tears, “like King Menelaus fighting for Helen of Troy.”

  “And starting the whole Trojan War by doing it!” John Henry said with a laugh. “Kate, you really are an actress still at heart, living for the dramatic moment. You should have never left the stage.”

  “I never would have left the stage, except for you,” she said with unexpected wistfulness. “I would have done anything for you, you know.”

  He believed that she very well might have gone to the gates of hell for him, if he’d wanted her to. It wasn’t her fault that he hadn’t wanted that kind of devotion from her. All he had ever really required of her was a warm bed and a comfortable companion. That would be enough, even now, if he could just forget what she had planned for Wyatt . . .

  There was a way to forget, if only for as long as it would take for her to remove all those corsets and petticoats and soothe him in the sweet perfume of her honey-colored skin, and he pulled her quickly into his arms.

  “Let’s not go off to the party just yet. The raffle’s not till late, anyhow, and that violin can wait awhile. Truth is, I don’t even know how to play one.”

  “Then why did you throw away all that money to win it?” she asked, as she pressed herself against the soft linen of his shirtfront.

  “Because I have always wanted to learn to play—another unfulfilled dream. Like the whole rest of my life.”

  “Who needs dreams, Doc?” she said, willing as always. “Who needs dreams when we have this?”

  It was forgetfulness for awhile, anyhow.

  The social at Henry and Robinson’s Dance Hall was like any saloon brawl: too many people crowded into the hot and airless room, too many hot tempers when the games didn’t go well, too many heated words that led to fights and threats of more fights. But luckily for Mr. Henry and Mr. Robinson, co-owners of the only dance hall in Otero, the town had a peace officer to keep things orderly, and one who knew all about saloon altercations. For the new marshal of Otero, New Mexico was the old rowdy from Fort Griffin, Texas, Hurricane Bill Martin.

  Hurricane had left his outlaw ways in Texas after being arrested in a barroom brawl and turning states’ evidence against his former employer, the cattle-thieving sheriff, John Larn. Hurricane Bill’s testimony turned the jury against Larn and led to the cattleman’s lynching in the Shackle-ford County jail—and convinced Bill that his own outlaw days were better over. With the likes of Pony Diehl and Johnny Ringo still on Larn’s side of the law, Hurricane Bill knew he’d be safer with a legal gun in his hand, just in case any of the old Fort Griffin gang came around looking for revenge. So Hurricane Bill left Texas and his famous past behind him, taking up the less dangerous vocation of town marshal of Otero.

  Though he may have left his outlawry behind, he still looked like the old Hurricane Bill with his long tangled hair and bearded face and the buffalo skin coat he wore regardless of the climate. The only thing lacking in his appearance was the constant companionship of his old cohort, Billy Brocious—which was no great loss to the Marshal’s new employers in Otero. Brocious had been a dangerous young man, and New Mexico was better off without him.

  Besides, Brocious would no doubt have balked at the kind of work his former mentor was doing now: keeping watch over the benefit social at the dance hall and calling out the roll of the dice for the coveted violin. What would have surprised Brocious more was learning that Hurricane Bill had wagered on the violin himself, buying his own five-dollar chance.

  The thought of Hurricane Bill taking up the fiddle and making music with those formerly murderous hands was enough to make John Henry hope the Marshal would win the raffle. It would make a good story to send home to Mattie, illustrating the influence of music in taming the wild beast, and he’d had precious little to write to her about of late. Since he hadn’t yet told her about how he took sick again in Trinidad, he couldn’t very well explain the miracle cure of the Montezuma Hot Springs or the life-or-death trek over the Raton Pass into New Mexico, and he certainly couldn’t say that it was his mistress, Kate Elder, who had taken him over the mountain and up to the springs and was wearing his patience thin with her needy demands. The tale of the ex-outlaw turned violinist would amuse Mattie, and maybe make up in some small way for all the things he couldn’t say.

  But Hurricane didn’t win the roll of the dice and neither did John Henry, the violin going instead to a local lawyer who actually did know how to play and spent the rest of the evening serenading the gamblers and their ladies. It was, all in all, the most civilized evening John Henry had spent in a long time. But it wasn’t enough to convince him to make Otero a real home, and when news came the next morning from Dodge City, he quickly sold his half-interest in Dr. Fagaly’s dental office and packed up his things again.

  “I don’t understand why you have to go,” Kate complained as John Henry folded his shirts into his valise on top of the trousers and stockings and undershirts already there.

  “Because Bat Masterson needs my help, that’s why. You should be pleased that Bat’s even askin’ for me, considering the low opinion he used to hold of us.”

  “Who cares what Bat Masterson thinks of us?” she said with a toss of her head. “He’s little better than a muleskinner still himself. Besides, it’s the railroad that’s offering to pay, not Bat, himself. And what do you owe the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, anyway?”

  “Nothin’, but I’m happy to take what they’re offerin’ to get the job done: $3 a day plus room and board.”

  “Three dollars seems like mighty little recompense for you to travel all the way back to Kansas just to play shotgun guard on the train.”

  “You’re missin’ the point entirely, Kate. I won’t be guardin’ the train, I’ll be guardin’ the rails while the Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande wait for the court to decide which line gets the right of way through the Royal Gorge. It’s all right there in the newspaper. You can study up on it while I’m gone.”

  “Why should I care which line gets the right of way? Let them both lay rail and stop this legal bickering. A train’s a train, as far as I’m concerned.”

  John Henry sighed and tried to explain the situation.

  “The Royal Gorge isn’t wide enough for two sets of tracks, so only one company can have passage through from Colorado City to the mine country. Which means that only one company will make a profit off the ore that gets shipped out. A monopoly like that could force one or the other railroad out of business—which should matter a great deal to you, as the Santa Fe is comin’ down into New Mexico and the Denver & Rio Grande is not. If the Santa Fe loses that mining money, she might have to stop building down this-away from Colorado and you’d be back to ridin’ in stage coaches and buckboards again.”

  “I can ride in a buckboard all right, if I have to. I still
don’t see what the railroad needs you for. There’s plenty of pistoleers up in Dodge City to hold the line.”

  “There are, and they’re all goin’ up to the Colorado to help Bat keep things orderly. He’s got his hands overfull just now being county sheriff and agent for the Santa Fe both, and he can use a few extra guns. Last time the courts ruled and gave the Santa Fe a thirty-year lease on the rails, there was some real shooting involved. Bat’s hopin’ to avoid that this time, while keepin’ the Denver & Rio Grande away while the court reconsiders the decision. It’s as simple as that, Kate. And I’m goin’ along for the ride.”

  He knew, of course, that it wasn’t really an explanation of the situation that Kate was asking for. She could read as well as any woman, and the whole story was laid out in black and white on the pages of the Otero Optic, including Bat Masterson’s invitation to all able-bodied shooters to join in his little army. What she really wanted was an invitation to come along, and he was determined not to give her one. Besides the fact that railroad work wasn’t proper labor for women, he just plain didn’t want her company on the trip. Since taking ill in Trinidad and the journey into New Mexico that followed, he’d had precious little time to himself without Kate watching his every move and making some judgmental comment upon it. He wouldn’t have wanted that much togetherness with a wife; with a mistress it was beyond irritating.

  And there was that other matter, as well—the hard feelings he still harbored over her plotting against Wyatt. Taking her back with him to Dodge would be uncomfortable in the extreme, even if Wyatt knew nothing about her ill-laid plans. Having her and Wyatt both in the same city would make John Henry feel like he was caught in the crossfire of a fight that wasn’t quite over yet.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you’re away?” Kate asked when the invitation to accompany him wasn’t forthcoming. “There’s not much entertainment in Otero.”