Dance with the Devil

by Victoria Wilcox

  There was a pause as though Lee were listening to a question, which he then readily answered.

  “That’s right, they came into some money after those days. Came from land, mostly. The Holliday boys—I’m talkin’ John Henry’s father and uncles now—were smart about the women they married. All of them married into families of some substance, at least as to bein’ landowners. And Henry Holliday—that’s John Henry’s father and a longtime friend of my own—and his brother John, they married best of all. Both of them wed planter’s daughters, so they got the slaves along with the land when it came time for the inheritances to be doled out. ‘Course they lost the slaves after the War, but they kept most of the land. Henry did, anyhow, and kept buyin’ up more when he relocated down toward the Florida border.”

  There was another pause, but whether for another question or for Lee to take a drink to wet his throat, John Henry couldn’t tell.

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s still plenty of that property left, even so. But the real money isn’t in property anymore, it’s in commodities. It’s his Uncle John, himself a Dr. Holliday, who’s the wealthy one now. He made the smart move to Atlanta just when it was boomin’ and settled himself and his businesses there. Bought an old general store and turned it profitable, then made some investments. The Holliday money now is in jewelry and silver and such things—easier to trade than land down in the swamps.”

  Another pause, a longer one this time.

  “Inheritance? Well, I suppose he does. There was quite something to it at one time between the land and the other properties. I’d say there’s plenty of inheritance left. Why do you ask?”

  John Henry couldn’t hear the answer, though he had stopped the foot-treadle that kept his dental drill smoking away and excused himself from his patient, near enough done to be dismissed for the day anyhow, and stepped into the barroom to see whom it was that Lee Smith was entertaining in such eager fashion.

  At first glance, he saw only Kate at Lee’s poker table, sitting beside him in all her satin and finery. No matter the time or the company, she always dressed like she was on her way to some fancy dress ball or an opening night on the stage, and this afternoon was no exception as she sat decorating the room and hanging on Lee’s every word. But it wasn’t Kate that Lee was addressing himself to, but one of the players in the poker game, a man with his back to the wall and his face toward the door, guarded. And though John Henry couldn’t see his face, he knew by the man’s hands who it was that was asking after his inheritance—they were gambler’s hands, decked out in jeweled rings and with a pearl-handled derringer resting beside them.

  It was Hoodoo Brown who was playing poker with Lee Smith that afternoon, and who was encouraging his talk of the Holliday family properties. And it seemed to John Henry, as he stood there taking in the sight and calculating the situation, that Hyram Neil had come back like the alligator in his dreams, sniffing around dark river water and looking for something to eat.

  “Oh, there he is now,’ Kate said, glancing up and seeing him listening, “the hero of our little drama. Why don’t you come join us, darling, and tell us if what Mr. Smith is saying here is true. I had no idea you had such fine family connections.”

  “My connections are tenuous, these days,” he replied with a cool he didn’t feel, “and my fine family is far away with nothin’ to do with my present circumstances.”

  It was then that Hoodoo Brown turned around, his dark-mustached face sporting a smile that glinted like the dark jewels on his gambling hands.

  “But it’s your past circumstances that interest me, Dr. Holliday. For I seem to recall a certain wager made by you with your family’s property back in Georgia as collateral. A wager you lost then left without honoring, though I remember quite clearly your signing a promissory note guaranteeing payment on the same. I wonder what your fine Georgia family would think about that? I wonder if they would be pleased to hear that their dear relation is both a bad gambler and a bad debtor, and that he still owes me what he promised: his inheritance.”

  His words had been spoken with such modulated tones that only those sharing his gaming table heard him. But that was sufficient.

  “Is this true, John Henry?” Lee Smith breathed out incredulously. “It’s one thing, followin’ in the family footsteps and ownin’ a drinkin’ saloon, but wagerin’ your family’s hard-earned wealth . . .” And for once, Lee Smith was beyond words.

  But Hyram Neil had enough to fill the stunned silence.

  “Oh, I assure you my words are every bit the truth. In fact, I’m sure I could produce that promissory note for you to take back to Georgia, if you’d like. Perhaps Dr. Holliday’s fine and upstanding family there would be better about honoring a debt than their dissembling relation has been.”

  “No –” John Henry said weakly, his voice revealing the dread Hoodoo’s words put into him. If that promissory note, signed by him one drunken night in a St. Louis saloon, should find its way back to Georgia, he’d lose whatever respect his family still had for him—and whatever affection Mattie still had for him, as well. If she ever came to know the truth of his circumstances. . .

  “No,” he said again, this time decisively. “I will make good on that debt myself, Mr. Neil. You don’t have to trouble my family.”

  Hoodoo looked at him a long appraising moment before speaking.

  “Well, then,” he said, “I accept your pledge, in spite of your past lack of fidelity. But how do you plan to repay the debt? Have you a large bank account from which to draw the money? Have you, yourself, the kind of property holdings your inheritance boasted?

  “He’s got this saloon,” Lee Smith put in unhelpfully. He didn’t need Hoodoo finding out how meager his assets really were, and decide to send the promissory note off to Georgia after all.

  “But it’s cash I’ve got mostly,” he said quickly, “my winnings from all these poker games. The house takes a cut, as you know, and business has been brisk since the Santa Fe came to town.”

  Kate looked at him with raised brows, surely knowing his deceit. For though he always had money for the clothes and baubles she demanded, they were still living in a rented boarding house room and not in the more elaborate Exchange Hotel that she would have preferred. But she was ever an actress at heart, and said with dramatic flair:

  “Yes, Mr. Neil, business has done very well. Why, I recently returned from a little trip down to Santa Fe, inquiring after purchasing a theater company there. Doc has always wanted to buy me one for my own. Haven’t you darling?”

  The words came like sugared syrup out of her prettily painted lips, so sweet that John Henry almost believed them himself. And he could have kissed her right then for being clever enough to see a role and play it to his advantage.

  “Yes indeed, my sweet. I look forward to seein’ you on the stage again. But I think Santa Fe is too small an audience for your talents. Why don’t we try for San Francisco instead, just as soon as I clean out Mr. Neil here in a little poker game? Unless he thinks he’s game enough to beat me again and win back what he thinks I stole from him . . .”

  His only hope, as he could see it, to save himself from disgrace in the family—and in Mattie’s eyes—was to make Hyram Neil agree to another poker game and then to beat him at it. But would the alligator take the bait?

  “That’s a helluva deal,” Lee Smith put in, this time his comments coming with more welcome. “John Henry here’s quite a poker player. It would take a real sport to beat him at his own game.”

  Neil gave another one of his long appraising looks, as if measuring out a meal. “Well then,” he said again, “shall we call it my promissory note against the wagers in a friendly poker game? You win, I return the note to you. I win, I take everything you put up against me. Fair enough?”

  Fair didn’t even enter into it.

  Neil offered his own fresh deck for the game, which John Henry, of course, declined. He’d resealed too many marked decks himself to fall for such a common ruse. So, in th
e end, they sent out for a deck and a dealer from another saloon, taking equal chances—then John Henry shuffled and Neil cut, and they were both satisfied.

  They played a few small-stakes hands at first, getting a feel for the game and gathering a crowd, as well, and by the time the real contest began, the saloon was busier than it had ever been, and John Henry was making money on the drinks even before he made money on the cards. Though it wasn’t money he was after on this night, but a reckoning. He hadn’t understood, last time they’d played, the difference between playing the cards and playing the man, and Neil had taken him for everything he had and more. Now he understood that it didn’t really matter what hand a man was dealt, if he knew how to wager and raise and bluff his way around it. And in that, poker was much like life.

  There was something else that John Henry hadn’t known before: that every poker player gave himself away somehow, and all an opponent had to do was pay attention until he figured out the signs. Some men sucked in their breath when a bad card was drawn, some did the same thing for a good card. Some men chewed their cigar too eagerly, or blinked their eyes nervously, or got an itch on their nose when things were going well—or perhaps when things were going wrong. Some men sweated and dripped perspiration from their brow onto the baize when they were about to lose a hand and an important pot, while others sweated when they were about to win. But everyone had some response to the stress of the game, and the best players watched for those signs.

  Hyram Neil, however, seemed inscrutable. His black eyes glittered whether he was winning or losing, his face a stony calm no matter what the turn of the cards. Indeed, his whole person seemed in repose as he played, only his hands moving as he fanned or tucked the cards, as he fingered his jeweled rings.

  John Henry played with his own ring, the one Mattie had given to him as they’d stood together in the stained-glass light of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. It had become something of a talisman to him, a comfort when things got difficult. Even little Lenora Seegar had commented on it, noting that he played with it all the time, and asking where he got such a small ring, too small for a man’s hand. It had been nearly too tight to slip over his knuckle at first, but as the years had gone by, his fingers had grown thinner like the rest of him, and the ring slid around easily, turning circles as his thumb reached across his palm to play with it.

  When the final deal came, they were evenly paired, well-matched players, luck and skill working for both of them. “Five cards to you, Doc,” said the dealer, “and five to you, Mister Brown. Wagers, please.”

  John Henry picked up his cards and considered them: a pair of Queens and three small cards. It was an acceptable hand that could become three-of-a-kind or even two pair on a lucky draw, or stay a pair if the draw brought him nothing useful. But even a pair could win him the game, if he could figure out what Hyram Neil was thinking.

  Neil took his own cards, his face stony as always, his eyes sharp and shining as obsidian. And then came the wagers: Neil’s being another note, promising to relinquish all claim to John Henry’s inheritance property in the form of land or cash or any other conveyance; John Henry’s a collection of other valuables, with his pearl-handled revolver and his diamond stickpin, along with Kate’s derringer taken against her will from its hiding place in her lacey garter.

  “Wager with your own things!” she said angrily, as John Henry slid a hand under her satin skirts and reached along her thigh for the little revolver.

  “I am,” he said, retrieving the derringer and laying it down on top of the other items in the pot. “I believe it was my money that paid for this, like most everything you’re wearin’.”

  She stiffened to show her anger but didn’t argue, taking the reminder that if he did well at the gambling tables, she would do well herself. But Neil seemed unimpressed by the offering.

  “Come now! A derringer? I can buy my own pocket pistols. I don’t need to steal your lady’s protection.”

  “So what did you have in mind?”

  Neil took a glance around the crowded saloon that looked more prosperous this night than it usually was. “How about the deed to your place here?”

  “You want me to put my property up against my own property?” John Henry asked, incredulous. There was no end to the man’s bravado.

  “Not yours anymore,” Neil replied. “Your inheritance is legally mine now, remember? So it’s your property against mine, for now, at least. After this hand, it will all be mine.”

  Such confidence would have cowed him, times past, but watching Hyram Neil fan his cards, John Henry wasn’t cowed at all, for he suddenly knew how to beat the alligator. As he played with the Irish ring on his little finger, mindlessly twisting at it, so Neil played with his own finger rings, caressing the diamonds and the emeralds whenever he had a good hand of cards—and leaving them alone when he did not. And the fact that Neil wasn’t playing with his rings, stroking them with satisfaction as he did on a good hand, showed that the dealer hadn’t dealt him well.

  “Wagers, gentlemen?” the dealer asked.

  “Kate, write me a note for the saloon,” John Henry said. Then he added with a purposefully heavy sigh: “I reckon it’s not all that much of a prize, anyhow . . .” as if he really thought he might be losing it. All part of the show, the play of the game.

  Neil nodded, acknowledging the wager, and the dealer stacked the deck on the baize, cutting it halfway and separating the cards into draw and deadwood.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “how many cards would you like?”

  “I’ll take three, please,” said Neil, dropping his unwanted cards onto the deadwood and slipping the newly dealt ones into his hand without a flicker of expression.

  “And I’ll take two,” John Henry said, keeping his own face as emotionless as Neil’s. He’d wagered on his two Queens, hoping for three of a kind or maybe another pair at least on the draw, but got nothing useful. And though he didn’t let his disappointment show, he caught himself reaching thumb to little finger for the comfort of Mattie’s ring—caught himself and stopped. If he were watching for Neil’s giveaway, then Neil was surely watching him, as well.

  Across the table from him, Neil was still stony-faced, still not toying with his jeweled finger rings. And John Henry knew, through his own years of poker playing and his stint as a Denver card dealer, what was going on in Hyram Neil’s mind: should he fold now, give up the pot and its promised land and money? Should he raise the stakes, bluffing and hoping that John Henry would get nervous and fold instead? And if he did raise, how much did he want to risk, if John Henry had a better hand?

  He wasn’t surprised when Neil said at last, “I believe I’m all in,” and opened his money purse to sweeten the pot, one last ploy to frighten his opponent.

  John Henry had nothing much left to wager but his dental equipment, and he told Kate to write another promissory note. He was going to win big or lose big, one or the other, and he was gentleman enough to allow Hyram Neil the same opportunity. So with everything on the table, he said coolly, “I call.”

  The dealer nodded. “Show your cards please, Mr. Brown.”

  Neil’s always expressionless face didn’t quiver as he laid out his hand: a pair of fives and nothing much more, easily bested by the pair of Queens that John Henry showed.

  “Well, I believe it’s congratulations, Dr. Holliday,” Hyram Neil said smoothly, as though he’d given up pocket change in a parlor game instead of losing what he’d been wanting for years. Then he turned to Kate, taking her hand and raising it to his lips and said, “It’s been an enchanting evening.”

  Although he’d beaten Hyram Neil at last and put his troubles behind him, John Henry still spent a couple of sleepless nights battling bad dreams. This time, the alligator was slinking along in the dark water at the edge of the levee, watching him and waiting for one misstep, mouth open and ready to bite.

  Kate, who said his sleeplessness was disturbing her own rest, took to sleeping in her dressing room, w
hich meant that he was alone when a visitor came knocking early one morning. He groaned and slid out of bed, standing shakily and not bothering to draw on his dressing gown before answering the door.

  Josh Webb was back in town and standing in the doorway, hat in hand and looking uncomfortable. “We got trouble, Doc,” he said in a hushed voice, as if someone might be listening.

  “What is it now?” John Henry asked wearily. “Stage robbers again?”

  Josh shook his homely head. “Stage robbers would be better,” he said. “It’s the rails this time, Doc, like you said it would be. The robbers held up the southbound Santa Fe. Took a payroll bag from the mailcar—$5,000.”

  John Henry let out a whistle. “Well, Josh, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you. Who do you suppose did it?”

  “It’s not who I suppose. This time it’s who I know. I finally figured out that riddle you gave me, but that don’t make it any easier. Remember you told me to find some Jamaican luck and I’d find the robber-chief? Well, I was down at Close and Patterson’s the other night when a trainload of travelers comes in. Rich folks from the east, I reckon, talking about their adventures. And the last place they visited was the islands past Cuba. It’s magic out there, they said, full of mysterious doing and voodoo. But they didn’t say voodoo exactly. It was hoodoo they called it, bad luck and such. Well, my ears picked up at that, remembering what you told me. It’s Hoodoo Brown that’s behind the robberies, isn’t it? The robber-chief is Hoodoo Brown, the Mayor of Las Vegas as he calls himself.”