ST. LOUIS, 1872
HE HAD EXPECTED THE RIVER TO BE BIGGER, AFTER ALL HE’D HEARD OF it. But here where the ferry crossed the muddy waters, the Mississippi was hardly wider than the Savannah River back home in Georgia. It was a quarter of a mile across maybe, not much more, and flat as a fishpond. Yet for all its seeming calm, the Mississippi flowed swiftly southward, carrying a crowd of river commerce along its three-thousand mile run from Minnesota to New Orleans.
On the western bank of the river, midway on its course, the city of St. Louis rose in smoky splendor, the stacks of its factories thrusting up into the coal-gray haze that hung overhead. Along its crowded, cobblestoned levee, teamsters maneuvered delivery wagons, stevedores unloaded freight, mud clerks checked shipping lists, and roustabouts threw down gangplanks from riverboats moored so close together that they could have scraped paint from each other’s hulls. In the shadows of the Ead’s Bridge pier, a curious group had gathered to poke sticks at an old alligator, while nearby one man was beating another man with a spade so hard it looked like he might kill him.
The St. Louis riverfront was less of a grand entrance than a back door, flanked by those rows of factories and warehouses and the requisite saloons and gambling parlors along Levee Street. The city proper turned its face westward, toward the prairies and the wild frontier.
But it was no frontier town that Jameson and John Henry entered as they made their way from the river and Levee Street up the long hill of Market Street. Though St. Louis was less populous than Philadelphia, it was civilized enough to have horse-drawn streetcars on its graveled macadam roads and rows of tall brick business buildings and fine new hotels. On the south side of the city, where Jameson lived, the shops and restaurants gave way to homes and boarding houses, livery stables and schools. It was a comfortable city, like a big Atlanta, John Henry thought as they made their way to Fourth Street. At least, he thought so until Jameson knocked on the paneled door.
“Ja? Was wollen Sie?” A small gray-haired woman stood in the doorway and peered at them, her eyes appraising John Henry first before turning to Jameson. Then she let out a squeal of delight. “August! Liebchen!”
“Tante!” Jameson answered back as the woman’s arms were flung around him.
“Ich habe dich sehr vermisst, mein kleiner August!” the woman exclaimed. “Bleibst du diesmal hier? Dein Zimmer ist schon fertig.”
“Ja, Tante, ich bliebe jetzt fuer immer.”
Then the woman turned those appraising eyes back to John Henry.
“Und wen hast du hier mitgebracht?”
“Das ist ein Freund von meiner Schule aus Philadelphia. Er ist auch ein Doktor, John Henry Holliday. Ich hoffe du hast auch Platz fuer ihn.”
John Henry guessed that to be an introduction, and when Jameson gestured toward him he quickly pulled off his hat and swept it down into a bow. The woman smiled and curtsied, then to John Henry’s surprise, she flung her ample arms around him as well.
“Ach!” she exclaimed again, “jeder Freund von unserem August ist hier willkommen.” Then she nodded and said in heavily accented English: “Doctor, come in, come in. We are all family here,” and she pulled both young men into the house, baggage and all.
“Who is she?” John Henry whispered as the woman took their things and bustled away into an adjoining room. “What does she mean ‘we’re all family’?”
“She’s my mother’s cousin,” Jameson whispered back. “We all call her Tante—that’s German for Aunt—in respect for her age. She owns this house and takes in borders to help make ends meet.”
“German? But I thought you said your family was French. I thought you were born in New York City . . .”
“I was born in New York,” Jameson said defensively, “and my Father was born in France, as I said. But his parents were German, like my mother and her family. My full name is Auguste Jameson Fuches Junior, after my father. Everyone here calls me Auguste, like him.” Then he added in a lowered voice, out of his aunt’s hearing. “I only used Jameson in Philadelphia, because it seemed so much less . . .”
“German?” John Henry said, completing the unfinished thought, and Jameson’s fair face reddened right up to his pale-blonde hair.
“My family is still only one generation off the boat,” he explained apologetically, “and you know how those Philadelphians are about society and all. One has to have the right background to be considered really American . . .”
John Henry knew just what Jameson was talking about. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been called Johnny Reb, mostly in jest, but often by way of an insult, as well. But finding out that his friend was something less than he seemed still didn’t sit well with him. Being Southern was one thing, but being so close to foreign was something else again . . .
“Well, here in St. Louis, everyone is German!” Jameson said proudly. “There’s Prussians, and Saxons, and Bavarians—it’s the water they all come for. Not the muddy Mississippi, but the artesian water from caves under the river. Best beer-making water outside of Germany! And Tony Faust’s restaurant has some of the best beer in St. Louis. We’ll be having dinner there tonight with Dr. Judd to celebrate my graduation from dental school. Tante!” he called to the old woman. “Kannst du uns ein Bad einlassen?” Then he turned back to his friend. “We’ll have to wash off some of this road dirt before we meet with Dr. Judd. Though as you’ll see, our city water isn’t as pure as the artesian springs. As Mark Twain says, There’s an acre of soil in dilution in every tumblerful of St. Louis tap water.”
“And who is Mark Twain?” John Henry asked. “Another German relative?”
Jameson answered with a laugh. “He’s just a journalist who used to live here abouts. He’s got a sense of humor and a clever way of writing about things. Maybe you’ve heard of a book he wrote: The Innocents Abroad? It got some good reviews. But it seems to me that what he ought to write is river stories. That’s what he really knows.”
Tony Faust’s famous beer was supplied by the brewery of Eberhard Anhauser, a former soapmaker who won the beer business in a poker game and gave it to his son-in-law Adolphus Busch to manage. After several trips back to Germany looking for a good malt recipe, Adolphus had finally found one in the little village of Budweis. “The Beer of Kings” the Budweisers called their lager, but Adolphus turned the name around to “The King of Beers,” and it was making the family brewery a small fortune back home in St. Louis. But it was dentistry, not beer brewing, that Dr. Homer Judd wanted to discuss as he met his former student Jameson Fuches and young Dr. Holliday at Tony Faust’s restaurant that night.
Dr. Judd was a quietly serious sort of man, his eyes as solemn and gray as his neatly-trimmed gray goatee. He seemed bookishly brilliant but otherwise dull, as he and Jameson discussed the merits of higher dental education and how Dr. Judd had devised the Greek nomenclature that identified the surfaces of the thirty-two teeth in the adult mouth. For anyone other than a dentist, it would have been a deadly boring conversation, and even John Henry was only halfway listening. With a whole new city to explore, discussing dental terminology seemed like a shameful waste of time.
So when Dr. Judd mentioned that he’d spent some time in the California gold fields back in the rush of ‘49, walking away from a prosperous medical practice in Ohio to go off fortune hunting, John Henry was suddenly paying attention.
“Of course, packing up my medical office didn’t require much but a medical bag, as I had already bought a portable head-rest and Pocket Dental Office in case I should need to make house calls in Ohio.”
“A Pocket Dental Office?” John Henry questioned. He knew, of course, of the portable headrests which itinerant dentists used, attaching them to any convenient armchair to turn it into a dental surgery chair. But the other was something he hadn’t encountered.
“A tiny box,” Dr. Judd replied, “only as big as a daguerreotype case, holding a boned handle and attachable instruments: miniature-sized probes, lancets, carvers. There’s a company in Chicago that manufactures the cases, custom-fitted. I thought the traveling tools would come in handy when I reached California. If I didn’t make my fortune right away, I could practice a little medicine or dentistry on the miners in the gold camps. I soon discovered that a miner with a toothache and a little gold dust in his pocket would gladly part with some of the latter to relieve some of the former.”
“And did you make your fortune, Sir?”
Dr. Judd took a sip of his beer before answering. “I learned a fortune’s worth about the world,” he replied. “But no, I didn’t bring home any gold. Just a back worn from bending over a sluice run all day taking up panfuls of Sacramento River water. That and a heart disillusioned with the nature of mankind.”
“How is that, Dr. Judd?” Jameson asked.
“It was the greed of gold that drew me across the plains. Crossing the plains was an adventure in itself in those days, but for myself, as for so many thousands of others, it was the greed of the gold that made the trip seem worthwhile. Though somehow, personal greed is easy to justify. I needed the riches that California would bring, I told myself, so that I could establish a school where I could share my knowledge of medicine with others. I reasoned that my desire for gold was good, unlike the ugly greed I saw all around me there in the gold fields. The others only wanted the riches to buy themselves fine clothes, or fast horses, or more liquor than they already had. I didn’t see, at first, that we were all after the same thing: personal gratification. It matters little what the end of the journey brings, if the journey itself has been poorly made.”
He was silent for a moment, staring down into his foamy beer, and something made John Henry push for more.
“And how did your journey go, Dr. Judd?”
“Not well,” the doctor said quietly. “Not well at all.” Then he looked up and the sorrow in his solemn gray eyes sent a shiver through John Henry’s soul. “I shot a man there, in California. It was over nothing, of course; the right to a particularly profitable stretch of the river. We were all armed, as one is in frontier territory, and when I disputed the man’s claim, he pulled his weapon on me. I didn’t even think before reaching for my own. I didn’t expect it to go off, really, only to point it at him in my own defense. But I hadn’t understood that self-defense is also offense; that as soon as the weapon is drawn, the end is inevitable.”
“What do you mean?” Jameson asked, his pale face growing paler still in apprehension.
“I killed the man,” Dr. Judd said quietly. “I pulled the trigger and shot him through the heart. But there’s something somehow disconnected between the pull of a trigger and a bullet slamming into an enemy, as if the two actions aren’t really cause and effect. I shot in self-defense; I didn’t mean to shoot him down. I watched him fall and couldn’t believe what I had done. I still can’t believe it. And only because we were in the wilderness with no law at hand did I escape retribution. But I pay the price, nonetheless. I live everyday with that man’s death hanging on my soul.”
“But you had to pull on him, Sir,” John Henry said quickly. “That miner might have killed you . . .”
“Then the blood would have been on his hands, not mine. He died innocent, at least of my death. Pray you never have to live with a thing like that, young Dr. Holliday.”
Jameson was shaken by his preceptor’s confession and worried over it for days after, as if the Dr. Judd he had known before and the one he knew now were two different men entirely. But John Henry found the story daring. He’d have drawn his pistol too, under the circumstances, and likely have fired the shot as well. There wasn’t much sense in having a firearm for protection, after all, if one didn’t plan to use it. The real lesson of the story, in his opinion, was that a man had to choose his companions wisely and not find himself at odds over a mine claim.
But there wasn’t much time for the two young men to discuss the tale, as they saw to the patients in Jameson’s newly opened dental office. Tante had given up her parlor for his use and he’d turned the small space into an efficient operating arena, with an old dental chair positioned near the front windows to catch the sunlight and a long table to serve as a laboratory. A chair in the narrow downstairs hallway served as a waiting room, and as soon as Jameson hung out his shingle, that chair was rarely empty. The neighborhood was glad to have a local boy practicing dentistry, and it seemed like half of his Fourth Street neighbors had been nursing tooth-aches and broken teeth, just waiting for their own Dr. Fuches to return from Philadelphia. There was even enough work for John Henry to handle some cases, and for the first time in his life, he had some pocket money of his own, money his father knew nothing about and couldn’t control. It was fine feeling to be a young man of means in an exciting new city.
The spring was sultry, the sky hazy with humidity carried on the warm wind from New Orleans. Cyclone weather the locals called it, though there was not so much as a rain cloud in sight, and a little rain would have been a welcome relief, clearing the air and watering down the gravel and macadam streets that seemed dusty all the time. Even the horses that pulled the Fourth Street rail cars were dusty-maned, billowing brown clouds with every shake of their heads. John Henry wondered idly if the brick buildings that crowded the downtown streets got their distinctive ruddy-red color from the brickmaker’s clay, or from the cloud of dust that rose up so endlessly from the streets below and came into Tante’s parlor along with the patients.
When the two young dentists weren’t working, they took in the sights of St. Louis: restaurants and beer-gardens, steamboats plying the muddy waters of the Mississippi, horse-drawn rail cars and the new horse racing track on the outskirts of town. But the biggest amusement in St. Louis was the theater—because of the city’s favored location as the gateway to the west, every traveling show in the country passed through town, from P. T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum Menagerie billed as the “Greatest Show on Earth,” to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show starring the Indian fighter William Cody and a lot of shooting and roping and riding, along with real wild Indians.
But not everyone in St. Louis appreciated such extravaganzas. Jameson’s Tante did not approve of the theater, and did her best to stop her nephew and his friend from taking in a traveling equestrian show at the Comique Variety House the last afternoon in March.
“Ach! Full of lewdness!” she exclaimed. “You boys stay home tonight. I cook for you something special, ja? Apfelkuchen, maybe?”
“Whatever you cook is special, Tante,” Jameson said fondly. “But John Henry will only be here for a few weeks and he wants to see some entertainment before he goes. Don’t you want me to be a good host and show him a good time?”
“A good time is the Beergarten in the park on Sunday. You sing some, you drink some beer. You meet nice girls there, too. Good German girls who will make fine wives for you both. You go to the Beergarten for a good time, Auguste,” she said, calling him by his German name.
Jameson put his hands on her shoulders, smiling down into her motherly face. “Ja, Tante. We could meet nice German girls there. But John Henry isn’t German, so what good is the Beergarten to him?”
“But the Variety Theater!” she exclaimed. “Better you should go to the Opera House and see some Wagner. Even Verdi, that Italian. No varieties, with those dancing girls and lewd tales. Better you should stay home.”
“Now Tante, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were jealous! But don’t you worry, I’ll bet none of those dancing girls can cook like you! My vest is already getting tight since coming home to St. Louis. With your cooking, soon I’ll be so fat not even the Beergarten girls will want me!”
Tante laughed with pleasure at that, then her smile turned to a frown as she looked at John Henry, her matronly eyes sizing him up and down from sandy blonde hair to polished leather boots. “Ja, Auguste, you are getting nice and fat, like a good German man, but your friend . . .”
“I’ve always been a little lean,” John Henry said defensively, though he knew the old lady meant no harm.
“You look too thin to me, Dr. Holliday,” Tante said, addressing him formally as she always did. “And you cough too much in the night.”
“It’s the river air,” he replied quickly, uncomfortable with her sudden attention. “I’ll be fine once I’m back in Georgia.”
But Tante shook her head again. “You boys stay home. There is bad weather coming, I think, a storm maybe. And the Comique Theater is so far, eighteen blocks on the horse rail cars. Better you should stay close and go to the Beergarten around the corner. And this one,” she said, looking John Henry over once again and laying her hand on his arm, “I am afraid he will be carried away in the storm. You be careful,” she said, “you watch out for the Valkyrie.”
“Tante!” Jameson said with a laugh, “you have too much of the old country in you. Or too much Wagner, maybe! Now stop your worrying and start baking that Apfelkuchen for us. We’re only going for the matinee. We’ll be home again before you know it.”
“Valkyrie?” John Henry whispered as he reached for his hat and headed for the door. “What’s she talkin’ about?”
“It’s nothing. Just the old stories my family grew up on: legends of the Valkyries—lady spirits who ride the storm and carry away the souls of dead warriors. Richard Wagner wrote an opera about it. Haven’t you seen it?”
“There’s not a lot of opera back in Valdosta,” John Henry replied, “and not much of anything else either.”
The rain began even before they reached the theater, coming with a cold edge from out of the north. The wind that carried it was fitful, indecisive of which way it wanted to blow, so that the black umbrellas of the theater-goers were useless against it. Even the sky seemed undecided, changing color by the moment from blue to gray to mackerel green. But the inclement weather didn’t dampen the spirits of the audience, happy to pay thirty-five cents for a matinee ticket for the best varieties show in town.
The Comique Theater still had an air of elegance left over from its days as DeBar’s Opera House, with faded red velvet stage curtains and torn leather upholstered seats. But the mostly male audience didn’t seem to mind the tattered décor—all a good burlesque house really needed was a solid lineup of entertainment, and the Comique always offered that: song and dance men, clog dancers, trapeze performers, even ballets with plenty of dancing girls. And on this afternoon, the Comique hosted the opening of a touring show about a Russian prince and a spell-casting sorceress, with an actress named Kate Fisher and a horse named Wonder sharing top billing.
“And now,” the stage manager announced as the house lights faded and the gas lamps at the edge of the stage flickered into brilliance, “I give you Mazeppa!”
And there before them, painted on canvas but looking as real as imagination would allow, were the Steppe Mountains of Russia, home of the wild Tartar horsemen. In front of the mountains, stretching clear across the stage, lay a lake of some shimmering blue material, and in front of that, close to the gas lamps, stood a rocky cavern where two tethered horses grazed.
“Behold, the cavern of the Tartar prophetess Korella!” the stage manager went on, setting the scene for what would be played out in that fantastic setting. “‘Tis said that she awaits the return of Mazeppa, grandson of the ruling Khan, last of his line and rightful heir to the throne of Tartary. Although some say Mazeppa perished when an infant in the invasion of the Polish frontier, the prophetess believes that he escaped from death and dwells in slavery. How real her prophecy is will soon be seen, for Mazeppa is not dead, but held a slave in Poland, across the river. And for the crime of falling in love with the Polish princess, he has been stripped naked and tied to the back of his wild Tartar horse to wander ‘till death on the deserts of Tartary. Will he return alive to his homeland? Will he succeed to the throne of his ancestors before another usurps his birthright? The play will tell all!”
Then in a swirl of dark robes, the prophetess Korella appeared from her painted cavern, her stage voice carrying to the back of the rapt audience.
“Omens of woe!” she proclaimed. “On Poland the storm cloud driven by the hurricane—my brain is burning! Oh this night’s wild and wondrous visions! Warnings from the skies!”
John Henry sat entranced. He’d never seen anything like the play that unfolded before him with Tartar chiefs in furs and horned headdresses and the prophetess with her omens and incantations, all underscored by stage thunder and streaks of lightning made by blasts of gunpowder in a tin pan somewhere in the wings. The assembled cast gave out appropriate expressions of terror and the thunder rolled again, this time loud enough that the walls of the theater itself seemed to shake.
“How’d you reckon they make the thunder sound?” John Henry asked Jameson.
“Drums, I suppose,” Jameson whispered his reply. “Though I’ve never heard it done so effectively. Sounds like a real storm, doesn’t it? Now watch for the lightning,” he said. “Mazeppa is supposed to appear in the midst of the storm.” Then another flash of gunpowder drew their attention back to the stage, where Korella shrieked as the stage thunder rattled the walls of the Comique.
“He comes!” Korella cried, pointing her robed arm toward the painted Steppes. “He comes! I saw him in a hurricane of dust! He flies hither from the mountains bordering on Poland. He rides a wild horse which scours the desert like a tempest. He comes!”
There was another shriek of horror from the onstage cast, then the storm seemed to break loose in all its fury. Lightning flashed across the stage; thunder crashed and echoed through the theater, and in the midst of it all a wild horse came galloping onto the stage, a half-naked rider tied to its back. The horse, a gleaming black thoroughbred with a streak of a white blaze, dashed from curtain to backdrop, rearing and wheeling around, seeming to throw its captive rider at any moment to a brutal death. But the rider, all bare legs and streaming dark hair, somehow caught control of the wild animal, and in a breathtaking show of equestrian skill, wheeled the horse around to a stop, then pulled the animal to a stand on its hind legs.
“Set me free!” the captive rider cried. “Oh, release me! In mercy set me free!”
And in perfect timing with the horse rearing up once more, the thunder rolled again and lightning illuminated the entire stage. The cast of aides and vassals cowered at the amazing sight, and even the great Khan seemed overcome. Only Korella had the courage to speak.
“See the royal star on a chain around the rider’s neck,” the prophetess exclaimed. “The royal emblem of Tartary . . .”
“Can it be?” the Khan asked, stepping forward. “Can it be my own lost grandson, my own—Mazeppa!”
And with that the stage thunder roared again, like a living thing this time, and the audience exploded with applause. And yet the sound of the thunder grew louder still, its howling louder even than the ovation, louder than anything John Henry had ever heard inside a building.
“Sounds like a train comin’ through . . .” but before he could finish the thought, the doors of the theater were blown wide open by a blast of wet wind, and all at once the storm was everywhere.
“Cyclone!” someone hollered, and the wind whipped at the gaslights at the edge of the stage, blowing them out. But one lamp held onto its flame long enough to catch on the billowing velvet curtain, and in a moment the whole stage was on fire.
The actors screamed and pushed past each other for escape, and in the fiery light Mazeppa and his horse took one perfect leap off the front of the stage, flying over the orchestra pit and coming down hard in the main aisle of the theater. And it wasn’t until that blazing, fiery moment that John Henry finally saw the actor close enough to see that Mazeppa was no man at all, but a woman. And more than that, she was a woman in trouble, for her thoroughbred’s tail had caught fire and was running like it had a demon after it.
He didn’t even stop to wonder what would become of Jameson, as he shoved his way past the other theatergoers and pushed up the aisle heading straight into the wind, following after the actress. At the entrance door the rain hit him hard, slanting sideways from the green sky, and he had to hang onto the doorjamb to keep his balance. Before him on what had been the dusty streets of downtown St. Louis, all hell had broken loose along with everything else not securely fastened down. The dirty rain was whirling in every direction at once, flinging aside everything in its path—wagons, trolley cars, uprooted trees, shutters, glass window panes, a dog still tied to the post that should have kept it safe in some shaded yard.
“John Henry!” he heard Jameson shouting after him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He couldn’t have explained it to Jameson—he could hardly explain it to himself. But chasing after the actress had something to do with honor and gentlemanly gallantry—something his father had drilled into him long ago when he’d taught him that a man’s duty was to protect his womenfolk. Not that the actress was his, but she was a woman who needed help. And for the moment that seemed all that mattered.
He pulled his hat down low on his head, put one arm up against the wind-blown debris, and stepped out into the storm. Though the wind was lessening some, it was still so loud that it nearly drowned out the sound of the thunder, and the rain was coming down in sheets. If he were going to follow that wild horse through this maelstrom he would need a horse of his own, so he didn’t think twice about untying a saddled mount from the horse rack outside the theater and the horse seemed grateful to be at a run instead of tethered in the wild wind.
The actress was a good rider, all right. For even in the storm, dodging debris and jumping muddy potholes, she and her horse, Wonder, were a graceful pair. Though the animal’s fiery tail had gone to a smolder in the rain, it was still running wild enough to give John Henry a good race. If he hadn’t been such a well-trained horseman himself, he’d have lost them both in the wind and the rain. But he pulled his hat from his head and used it to whip the horse to a run, trailing the actress by a long city block.
He paid little attention to the landmarks they were passing, keeping his eyes fixed on the horse and rider ahead of him, but he could tell they were heading southwesterly away from the heart of the city. Then the wind suddenly settled, the green sky above turning back to blue and the torrential rain changing to mist. Yet ahead of him the horse still ran hell-bent-for-leather, and as John Henry finally drew close enough to see clearly through the misty sky, he had a shock—the mount ahead of him was running not from fright, but because the rider was whipping it to a run. And more amazingly, through the growing quiet of the evening he heard that she was laughing.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” he said aloud, as he finally came head to head with her, her horse rearing to a sudden stop in front of a Ninth Street livery stable. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”
“Going for a ride!” she answered with a wild laugh.
“But you were in trouble,” he said, “the storm and all . . .”
The actress turned brilliant blue eyes on him and laughed again. “I like the storm!” she said, then she slid from her horse and led it into the livery.
John Henry bounded down from his own horse, grabbing the leather reins as he followed her into the brick stable building.
“But your mount was on fire . . .”
“That’s why I took him out in the rain.”
“But he kept on runnin’ wild . . .”
“He wasn’t running wild,” she said, turning back toward him, “he was running home. This is where I board him. He knew the way. And what business is it of yours?” Though she stood before him bedraggled, her long dark hair hanging limp and wet around the wreck of her scanty costume, there was something almost arrogant about her. “Well?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
He stared at her a moment longer, then he shrugged. “I just came in to dry off this horse. I guess we’ve both had a soakin’.”
And for once his sarcastic sense of humor didn’t go unappreciated. “You’re funny,” she said, her mouth curving into a smile. “I like that in a man.”
It wasn’t a comment he expected, unfamiliar as he was with being countered, and he hardly knew what to say next. But something about the arrogant way she stood there, looking up at him like she was really looking down, felt like a challenge to him.
“So now what?” he asked, feeling somehow that there was more.
“Now you tell me why you really followed after me.”
“I came to save you, like I said.”
She tossed her head, imperious, and drops of water flew from the dark strands. “Well, I don’t need saving. I’m not some damsel in distress who can’t mount a horse without a hand up. There’s no man who can ride better than me, storm or no.”
“I’ll give you that,” he nodded. “You gave me a race, and I’m better than most.”
“You’re not bad, for a horse thief,” she replied, glancing toward the quarter horse he still held by the reins. “And where did you steal this one?”
He could have lied to her, told her it was his own horse and demanded that she apologize for insulting his integrity. But he didn’t really care what she thought of him. She was only an actress after all and hardly worth the time he was taking to talk to her—though talking to her was stimulating.
“I found it in front of the theater. But I didn’t steal it, only borrowed it for a bit. I’ll be returnin’ it shortly.”
“Silas is going to be jealous,” she said, her voice softly accented with something exotic. “He doesn’t like anyone else sitting his favorite mount.”
“Who’s Silas?”
“The man whose horse you stole—he’s an admirer of mine. He comes to see all my shows, always sits in the same first row seat, always rides the same blood bay gelding, always makes the same advances when he comes to the backstage door. Sometimes I let him take me out for a ride after the matinee, so he can pretend we’re lovers.”
“And you’re not?”
She stared up at him again, haughtily. “I may be in the theater, but I have more refinement than that. Silas is handsome, but he’s not near smart enough, or rich enough, for me.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Besides, he’s married.”
“So why do you keep leadin’ him on?”
She shrugged her shoulders, turning away from him to hand her horse to a stable boy. “He flatters me. He buys me things. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s a lie,” John Henry said. “You’re as good as stealin’ from him, if you tease him that way.”
And once more, she gave him that arrogant, blue-eyed stare. “From one thief to another,” she said. “Why do you care what Silas thinks? I don’t.”
“So you’re heartless, then?”
“That’s not true. I am all heart. I’m just saving myself for the right man.”
“Sounds like you’re sellin’ yourself to the wrong man, more like.”
“Oh? And who are you to judge what’s right or wrong for me? I don’t even know your name.”
He paused a moment before answering, then said with a sarcastic shadow of a bow. “Dr. John Henry Holliday. And you’re Kate Fisher.”
“Doctor?” she said quickly, turning back to face him once more.
“At your service, Ma’am,” he said with an affected air. “Newly graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery.”
“Dr. Holliday,” she repeated, then looked him up and down appraisingly. “You do dress better than the usual varieties follower. What’s your background? Your accent sounds Southern.”
“And what business is that of yours?” he asked, mimicking her own earlier question.
Her reply shocked him. “I just like to know something about a man before I take him around to my room. You didn’t really follow me just to save me from the rain, I think.”
He had never met a woman like her before: arrogant, worldly, unapologetically greedy, and surprisingly self-righteous all at once. He smiled down at her, flattered by the offer, then drawled out an answer: “I wouldn’t want to make Silas jealous, sittin’ his favorite horse. Besides, he’ll be needin’ a ride home by now. Looks like the storm is about over.”
“Ah, a virtuous horse thief!” the actress said approvingly, as though he’d just passed some sort of test. Then she added with a smile, “Maybe you should come around and take me to supper sometime after rehearsal? The restaurant at the Planter’s Hotel is excellent.”
And looking into those challenging, captivating eyes, somehow he knew that the storm wasn’t over yet.
He could have gone on back to Fourth Street then, tried to explain to Jameson’s Tante how he’d left his friend in the middle of a cyclone and how he’d come to have a dinner engagement with a varieties actress, but he was too elated from it all to be done with the day just yet. So as long as he still had a horse under him, he thought he might as well take a ride around St. Louis to see what kind of damage the storm had done before having to face any more damage at home. But he’d no sooner rounded the corner of Ninth and Washington, headed back toward the theater, than he near collided with a man running toward him down the middle of the red-brick street.
“Thief!” the man shouted, his face registering relief and anger together. “Robber! Give me back my horse! I’ll have you arrested, or worse!”
Then the man looked from John Henry on the horse toward the Ninth Street Livery behind him, and his anger turned to suspicion.
“What is this?” the man said quickly. “Are you stealing my horse and my woman, too? What are you doing at Kate’s place?”
So this was Silas, Kate Fisher’s admirer: he was younger than John Henry would have thought for a would-be adulterer, not much older than himself. But just because the man was a cad didn’t mean John Henry couldn’t be a gentleman.
“I was just escortin’ a lady home,” he replied, looking down coolly from his height on the horse, taking advantage of the altitude. “And what are you doin’ here, Silas? Shouldn’t you be home seein’ if your wife is safe?”
If Silas was surprised that the stranger on his horse knew something about him, he didn’t show it. “I came to check on Kate. I saw her leave the theater, and figured she’d be heading home. I guess you beat me to it, thanks to my horse.”
“It was available,” was all John Henry offered by way of explanation. Then he made the mistake of dismounting, throwing the reins over to Silas. “But I’m done with her now. You can have her back.”
But Silas had already lost interest in his missing horse, and let the reins fall as he pulled back one meaty fist and threw it into John Henry’s jaw.
“That’s for stealing my horse,” Silas said, as he drew back again, “and this one’s for Kate.”
John Henry was dazed from the unexpected assault, but the taste of blood at the corner of his mouth brought out the Irish in him. Silas was a bigger man, but John Henry had always been fast. He dodged the blow and brought up his own clenched hand so swiftly that he caught Silas by surprise, landing the blow square in the bigger man’s eye. “And that one was for me,” he said with a smile.
Silas gasped and grabbed at his face, then swung around and flung his fist out, nearly catching John Henry again. The man seemed bent on destruction, keeping up the fight even with one eye bleeding and fast swelling closed. His blow unlanded, he curled his fist and flung it out again, though this time John Henry ducked neatly and then stepped out of the way.
His inclination was to make some smart remark, but knew that his voice would only give the man a better target. So he silently backed away, while Silas wiped at the blood that dripped from his battered eye and tried to get his bearings back.
Behind John Henry the horse stood untethered, waiting for a rider, and in one swift move he was mounted again, sliding the reins into his hands and kicking the animal into a run. He was only borrowing the horse again, he told himself, and would return it to Silas soon enough. For no matter what Miss Kate Fisher had called him, he was sure that he was no horse thief.
The cyclone had left a rubble of fallen chimneys and tree limbs and broken window glass, making for a slow ride through the darkening evening light. On every street corner, crowds had gathered in the dusk to share their stories of the storm, counting losses and blessing the fact that so little human damage had been done. The worst of the storm seemed to have blown right over St. Louis proper, across the Mississippi and on into Illinois, taking the smokestacks of the steamboat Henry G. Yeager with it along the way.
Intrigued, John Henry picked his way along Washington Avenue and down to the levee to see the damaged steamboat for himself. Sure enough, the twister had torn the massive stacks right off the boat deck and thrown them overboard like they were nothing more than match-sticks. The salvage activity wasn’t going well, what with the weight of the stacks and the swift current of the river, and the boatmen’s little poled rafts circled around the half-submerged smokestacks like so many minnows around a throw of bait. It would take daylight and a couple of good tugboats to pull those heavy smokestacks up from the sandy bottom of the swift-flowing Mississippi.
Farther down Levee Street, where the saloons and the bordellos faced the river, business was going on as usual, with scantily clad ladies leaning out of second-story windows, calling out their prices for the evening and barkeeps in the drinking rooms down below pouring drinks for the rivermen. It wasn’t a place for a gentleman, surely, and John Henry almost turned back toward Market Street and the ride home, but the hanging tavern sign above the Alligator Saloon intrigued him. Painted in garish tones, the sign depicted a sailor wrestling an alligator, and the alligator appeared to be winning. One drink in the place, he told himself as he tied the horse to a rack outside the saloon, one drink and maybe a quick hand of cards, and then he’d be on his way.
“Two bits for a stranger, mon,” a voice spoke out of the shadows of the saloon’s eaves, where a lanky colored man lounged. “Two bits for a riverman to buy hisself a drink, mon.” The accent was unusual, lilting and musical.
“Where are you from, boy?” John Henry asked, naturally assuming the superior tone he’d been taught to use with the house servants and field hands.
“I ain’t no boy, mon, never was. I be a free Negro from Jamaica, workin’ on this river. Workin’ hard enough, but not gettin’ paid near enough. You can spare two bits for a drink, for a friend from Jamaica?”
“I don’t remember us bein’ friends,” John Henry drawled. “And liquor is the last thing I’d buy for a darky. Get out of my way, boy, and let me about my business.”
But the Jamaican took no offense, letting out a musical laugh. “Business? You say you got business in dat place? Ain’t nobody got business in there, mon, ‘cept for Hoodoo. That place be full of his black magic. You only think you’ doin’ business when you in there. You be better off giving your money to me, and let a riverman buy hisself a drink.”
“Out of my way!” John Henry said angrily, and pushed past the man and into the musty darkness of the riverfront saloon, trying not to hear the Jamaican’s laughter from behind him.
Though afternoon was only half-over, the saloon was as dark as night, lit only by a few hanging oil lamps and wall-sconces of smoky candles. But the darkness didn’t seem to darken the spirits of the rivermen inside who were gathered noisily around a gaming table at the shadowy far end of the room. John Henry ordered a drink, then listened with growing interest. “Bets down!” a dealer cried, “Place your wagers for the second card turned, copper a bet to turn it around. And the lady shows her hand!” Then he slickly pulled a card from a silver dealer’s box.
There were cheers from the winning punters and curses from the losers, but the wagers went down again all around. And intent as John Henry was on the game, he barely noticed the smartly dressed sport who came to stand beside him, smoldering cigar in hand.
“You look a little out of place in this establishment,” the sporting man commented, as he tapped his cigar ash onto the oiled plank floor. “You look more like the society gentleman type than these river rats.”
“You look a little overdressed yourself,” John Henry replied, glancing at the man’s fancy brocade vest and sparkling finger rings, his black hair slicked back and glossy with macassar oil. He wasn’t a riverman, that was for sure.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” the man said with a mocking bow. “So what brings you into the Alligator Saloon?”
“Just a drink,” John Henry said, “and maybe a little game.” Then he nodded toward the noisy playing table. “That’s Faro, isn’t it?”
“The ubiquitous saloon standard,” the man replied. Then he added with something of a gleam in his eyes, “Have you never played it before?”
“Spanish Monte is my game,” John Henry said, not quite answering the question. “But I hear they’re somethin’ alike.”
“Well, Monte’s one thing,” the man said. “Faro is quite another. Any child can play a Monte hand. It takes grit to buck the tiger.”
“Buck the tiger?” he asked.
“Play the Faro odds, especially in this dive. The dealer’s as crooked as they come. Only the real sports can beat him. And as you can see, this saloon is sadly lacking of good sporting men.”
“Like yourself?” John Henry asked, a trace of sarcasm in his voice. The man was not only rude, but arrogant as well.
But the stranger just smiled. “I don’t have to play to win. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Hyram G. Neil, owner of this rat-hole, along with several other doggeries along the levee. All I have to do to win is find monied dupes like yourself and point them toward the table. The dealer takes care of the rest. So how would you like to try your hand?”
John Henry didn’t know whether to feel flattered that the man had recognized him as gentleman, or offended that he had called him a dupe. But mostly, he felt the sting of a challenge slapped across his face.
“I don’t mind tryin’,” he replied, “but I don’t much like losin’.”
“Win or lose, that all depends on you,” Hyram Neil said. “As long as you’ve got the cover charge you can learn all you like, wagering or not. One dollar, please.”
John Henry hesitated only a moment before reaching for his money purse and a silver dollar piece, tossing it to Neil who caught it neatly in mid-air.
“In God we trust,” the gambler said, reading the motto on the coin. “What a charming new sentiment the government has chosen to add to our coinage! But as for myself, I prefer to trust in Lady Luck. Have a good time, Sport!”
John Henry ignored Neil’s parting laughter as he turned his attention to the game. The layout table looked much like the ones he’d seen in Philadelphia: a long rectangle covered in green wool baize with a suit of Spades lacquered to it. The cards were laid out in two rows, left to right: Ace through Six on the lower row, Eight through King on the upper row, the Seven nudged in between. The players placed their bets on the layout then watched while the dealer slid the cards one at a time from a spring-loaded dealer box, the first card being deadwood, the second card taking the wagers. Bets placed on that card went to the house, bets placed on any other card went to the player. Coppering a bet meant that a penny was placed on top of another player’s wager, betting on the deadwood instead of the second card drawn.
The wagering rules of Faro were easy. Keeping track of which cards had already been drawn and which might still appear in the dealer box was a little more challenging, though the dealer’s case keeper kept a running record of the draws. The hard part of the game was guessing which card of those remaining would come up next, or next after that—especially since Hyram Neil had already proclaimed it a brace game. If the wagers ran too high on a particular card, the dealer would just play a little slight-of-hand to make sure that card didn’t appear as expected. So the real trick of the game was not just in wagering on the right cards, but in watching what the dealer was up to.
But John Henry had always been good at watching people, having learned as a child not to speak until spoken to and keeping a guileless look in his wide blue eyes. And on that night at the Alligator Saloon, his pretended inattention paid off. In spite of the crooked dealer, he came out having won enough to hire a boy to take Silas’ horse back home as well as pay his own street car fare back to Fourth Street.
For a first evening at the Faro tables, it was a promising beginning. Even Hyram Neil thought so, giving him a grudging congratulations as midnight drew near and he declined another game. “Though it’s probably just beginner’s luck,” Neil commented. “Next time around maybe you’ll leave me a little more in the bank.”
So John Henry was feeling smug by the time he stepped out of the saloon and into the bright night. The storm had blown away the haze that had hung over the city for the past week, and the air was so clear that the river reflected the stars above like a silvery rippled mirror. What a day he’d had, and what a night! Why, if a passing steamboat had moored up to the levy just then to take on passengers he might have hopped aboard and wagered himself all the way to New Orleans. Or maybe, he’d take his winnings and make his way back to Ninth Street to pay a visit on the actress Kate Fisher . . .
The Jamaican’s laugh broke his pleasant musings.
“So you won something tonight, mon? So you think you be a winner, ‘cause you leave that place with coins in your pocket?”
“You still standin’ around, boy?” John Henry said, irritated at being confronted by the riverman again. “I’m still not buyin’ you a drink.”
“No, mon, I ain’t after nothin’ from you now. You got Hoodoo money now, and that be bad luck for you and me both if I drink what it buys.”
“What are you talkin’ about? What the hell is ‘hoodoo’?”
“Ah, mon, hoodoo be black magic. I seen it before, in Jamaica. And that man in there, he be hoodoo too, he be bad luck, mon.”
John Henry laughed derisively. “You mean Hyram Neil? He’s not hoodoo—he’s not even all that much of a gambler. I beat his dealer nearly every turn. I reckon he’s been good luck for me.”
“Good luck with that man be bad luck. Hoodoo, he is. Bad medicine.”
He’d had enough of the riverman’s superstitious talk and just to buy his quiet, John Henry threw him a coin after all.
“There’s your drink, boy. Now move aside and let me pass.”
The man did as he was told, stepping back into the shadows. But as John Henry swept past, he heard a clink as the coin hit the cobbles of the levee, and he felt a shiver run over him. Though he knew the Jamaican’s talk was nothing but ignorant superstition, he’d been raised on such superstitions himself. And for a moment, he felt like he was back in a Georgia piney wood, where haints and bogeymen peered at him from out of the green darkness.
The Jamaican’s laugh followed him home like a haunting.
It was no wonder that he had bad dreams that night, after all he’d been through. For if the cyclone and the drinking and the Jamaican’s strange superstitions weren’t enough, he’d come home to find Jameson worriedly waiting up for him and Tante sure that the Valkyries had carried him off. He made what apologies he could, considering how he’d rudely run off and left his friend to fend for himself in the midst of the storm, then pled a headache and went quickly to bed. But he found it hard to fall asleep and when he finally nodded off in the early hours of the morning, his sleep was nothing but a series of nightmares, one after the other.
The dreams were as stormy as the evening before had been. One moment he was an actor on a gaslit stage, riding a wild-spirited horse, and the next moment he was the horse itself, racing through darkening clouds. There was a raven-haired girl somewhere ahead, beckoning to him, but a dark man stood between them, laughing like the Jamaican and shuffling an endless deck of cards. And while John Henry’s dreaming-self watched, the card-player turned into an alligator, its monstrous mouth opened to devour him. And then, most disturbing of all, the girl became an alligator too.
But the most troubling part of the dreams was that Mattie was nowhere in them. Since he’d left Georgia, almost every dream that he remembered had her sweet presence somewhere in it. In this troubled nightmare night, there was no sweet Mattie to calm him or chase away the darkness.
He awoke more tired than he had been when he fell asleep, and in no mood to deal with Jameson’s chastisements.
“It’s not your town, of course, so you don’t have to worry so much about your reputation,” Jameson said as they prepared to open the dental office for the day. “But if word were to get out that my houseguest was a sporting man . . .”
He didn’t look at John Henry as he spoke, but went about the business of pulling up window shades and hanging out the sign that read Auguste Fuches, Zahnarzt.
“I don’t see how word could get out,” John Henry replied, concentrating his own vision on laying out a tray of instruments, “unless you spread it. You’re the only one who knows I spent last evening down on the levee.” He’d been careful not to share that information with Jameson’s superstitious Tante, letting the old woman think he had indeed been carried off by her Valkyries and gotten lost in the storm—and strangely, that had seemed to satisfy her. But to Jameson, he’d been obliged to tell all.
“You took a mighty big chance, John Henry, gambling against Hyram Neil. He’s famous around here, and not in a good way. Everybody knows he’s the slickest gambler on the river . . .”
“Not all that slick,” John Henry commented. “His dealer does all the playin’, and I beat him every turn without hardly tryin’. Wait till I give him some real card playin’ . . .”
“You’re not thinking of going back to the levee!”
“Thinkin’ about it and plannin’ on it,” John Henry shot back. “I can’t afford not to play another game or two. Besides, it’s gonna take some cash to treat Miss Fisher to dinner at the Planter’s Hotel. I hear they’ve got a fine eatin’ establishment there . . .”
Jameson turned blue eyes on him, aghast. “What are you talking about? You can’t really mean to take that woman up on her offer! Gambling in public is bad enough, but escorting an actress? She’s not nearly your equal, nor your station . . .”
“That’s funny, comin’ from you,” John Henry said with a rush of irritation.
“What do you mean?”
“Pretendin’ to be French to fit in better in Philadelphia. I reckon bein’ German was beneath your station, back then.”
Jameson’s jaw tightened but he held his words back, and when the jangle of bells at the door signaled the arrival of the first of the day’s patients, the conversation was forced to an end.
He hadn’t meant to say such hard words to Jameson, didn’t even know he’d been thinking them. But he hated being told what to do—especially when he knew that his friend was right. Kate Fisher wasn’t equal to his station in life. But he wasn’t marrying her, wasn’t even courting her, really, so what harm could come from his having a little supper with her? He had to eat, after all, and might as well do it in pleasant company.
As for his apology to Jameson, he was already planning the right words to say. His mother would have been ashamed of how cruelly he’d spoken, and she would have agreed that an actress wasn’t lady enough for a gentleman like himself.
The Planter’s Hotel had somehow escaped any damage from the storm, which was a wonder as the building filled a whole city block. Though its neighbors had lost roofs and chimneys, its four stories of white-washed brick facade and rows of arched windows only sparkled all the more after being washed by the rain. The interior sparkled as well, lit by flickering gaslights that reflected off the gilded cherubs on the grand staircase, the gilded picture frames on the papered walls, the gilded chairs set around gilded tables in the main salon. It wasn’t surprising that the 1870’s were being called The Gilded Age, with stylish establishments like the Planter’s putting a superficial layer of gold on everything, making even ordinary objects seem ostentatious. And with all its glitter and gold, the Planter’s seemed a perfect setting for a supper engagement with the dramatic Kate Fisher.
She’d accepted John Henry’s invitation to dine, but declined his offer to collect her from the theater at the end of her rehearsal—preferring, he supposed, to make her own grand entrance with him as her waiting audience. Although he’d never known an actress before, he knew his Shakespeare from school well enough to understand that all the world was a stage and all the men and women merely players. So he played his own part, arriving early at the Planter’s, then taking a seat in the dining room until Kate Fisher was ready to make her appearance.
In the center of the room, surrounded by tables covered in white linen and set with fine china and shining silverplate, stood a rosewood grand piano where a pianist played music for the diners. But John Henry was only half-listening until the pianist started into a song that captured his attention and brought a swirl of memories to his mind. Dream of Love, it was called, the song he and Mattie had first danced to, long ago in Georgia . . .
“It’s lovely,” a voice said, interrupting his thoughts, and he looked up into the captivating eyes of Kate Fisher. “Franz Liszt is one of my favorite composers,” she said with a smile.
“You know of Liszt?” John Henry asked in surprise, quickly standing to offer her a chair.
“Liszt is from Hungary, like me,” she replied. “You’re surprised I’d recognize fine music? Did you think I was so common?”
But as she settled herself across the table from him, John Henry couldn’t help thinking that there was nothing at all common about her. Though he’d expected that she would seem somehow coarse here in the elegance of the Planter’s Hotel, an actress only playing the part of a lady, Kate Fisher seemed surprisingly at home, as though she were bred to such places. She seemed, indeed, an altogether different creature from the one he’d tried to rescue on the night of the storm a week before.
Now, instead of a mane of damp hair and a bedraggled boy’s costume, she wore a gown of wine-colored silk trimmed in wine velvet at the high collar and tightly-fitted cuffs, and fastened modestly from neck to waist with buttons carved with tiny flowers. From her earlobes hung golden earrings that caught the lamp light, swaying and sparkling as she spoke. Her skin was the color of golden honey, her eyes a startling blue beneath dusky brows, her dark hair swept up at the back of her head and balancing a nose as proud as the Roman goddesses he’d read about in school. But if her looks made him think of Latin verses and Greek dramas, her voice was even more intriguing, rich and seductive with a trace of something foreign.
“It’s the Hungarian,” she explained as they ordered and ate the expensive fare of the Planter’s House dining room: brook trout and oysters, asparagus soup and sweet breads, fancy sugar cakes. “But I’ve lost most of my accent, traveling around on the theater circuit. You pick up a little accent here and a little there, and soon you sound like everyone—or no one, depending on the role.”
“Fisher doesn’t sound Hungarian to me,” he commented, though he wasn’t sure just what a Hungarian name would sound like.
“I was born Mary Katharina Haroney. Americans couldn’t pronounce it properly, so I took Fisher as my stage name. A serious actress needs a name people can remember.”
“And is that what you aim to be, a legitimate theater actress?” He was well aware that the varieties theater was not the same as serious stage acting, though it was wildly more popular.
“It’s what I’ve always wanted, ever since I was a child in Budapest. The theater was the center of the cultural world there and actors were considered the elite. Not like here. America is so puritanical still. Theater people are scorned in polite society. My own family are Magyars, the ruling class of Hungary before the Austrian invasion. We were the privileged people, my father one of the leading doctors in the city. I grew up visiting the theaters and the art museums, walking through the gardens of the old royal palace . . .”
“A palace,” John Henry said, imagining the wealth and power of royalty. That accounted for what he’d taken as haughtiness, no doubt.
“But things changed when the Austrians came. My father decided the American frontier would have better opportunities for him so he bought land up the Mississippi, in Davenport. The city was just being settled then, and booming in spite of the War.”
“And does he come to visit you here when you’re performing?”
“He doesn’t know anything of it,” she said quickly. “But why talk about me? Tell me of yourself, Dr. Holliday.”
The swift change in her caught him off-guard, and he found himself telling her more than he might otherwise have done, recounting his life growing up as the son of a Confederate officer.
“A little Rebel!” Kate said with a laugh that made her golden earbobs dance in the gaslight. “And what of your mother?”
His words came out in measured tones. “My mother died when I was just turned fifteen.”
And again there was a sudden change in her, as though she had dropped her acting mask, and a look of pity—or sympathy—came into her eyes. “I am so very sorry . . .” she said softly, and reached out across the table to lay her hand on his.
It was such a simple, human gesture, that he almost told her more—about how lonely he’d been when his mother had died, about how his father’s sudden remarriage had shattered his childish faith. But before he could bring himself to speak, the actress in her returned and so did the laugh. Quicksilver she was, mercurial. “And now here we both are, on our own in this wonderful, dirty city! Tell me, what brought you to St. Louis? Did you tire of the fallen South?”
“I had a classmate in dental school from St. Louis; he invited me to visit him here for the spring. I’ve been helpin’ him in his dental office.”
“And how do you find St. Louis?”
“I find it very entertaining,” he said honestly. “Horse races, melodramas, cyclones—women who masquerade as men. I reckon I don’t know when I’ve been so entertained.”
“And are you being entertained now?” she asked, leaning her chin on her hand and staring at him with dazzling blue eyes. And again her gaze struck him as it had when they first met, like a jolt of something electric that seemed to pass across the table between them.
“I am indeed, Miss Fisher.”
He was so entertained, in fact, that the evening seemed to slip away too soon, as they talked and laughed and shared stories of her travels and his life in Philadelphia, of her dreams of fame and fortune, of his plans for a brilliant professional career. And before he was ready for it to end, the evening was over.
“Well then, Dr. Holliday,” she said, gathering her beaded purse and her gloves, “I do thank you for a most enjoyable supper. I’ll see myself home, if you don’t mind. I’ll be out riding most of the day tomorrow, training with my horse, and I’ll need my rest.”
It was such a ladylike statement, and so out of character with the taunting way she’d parted with him at their last meeting, that he almost laughed. Instead, he gave a polite bow from waist and said:
“I hope you’ll do me the honor of allowin’ me to call a cab for you?” Then he offered her his arm as they walked from the dining room to the door of the hotel, looking like as fine a couple as ever graced the Planter’s Hotel.
He hailed a horse-drawn buggy, paid the driver, and gave instructions on where the lady should be delivered, then stood and watched her ride away. It had all been so proper—polite conversation over a perfectly served supper, the lady dressed like one of society’s best, and himself acting the gentleman at all times. Yet there had been a sense of something between them that went past politeness, and left him feeling unsettled and unsatisfied—and hungry for more.
He didn’t have to do much sleuthing to discover when she went riding, and where. A tip to the livery man at the Ninth Street stable where she boarded her horse got him all the information he needed, as well as a hired horse for himself. So on the next fine afternoon, he rode out to the empty fields a mile past town where the stable boy said she liked to ride. The place was called Forest Park, a tall stand of trees around a natural spring that watered hundreds of acres of grass. There was talk around town of turning the undeveloped tract into a fancy new neighborhood, but for now it was just empty, rolling countryside perfect for riding.
He saw her as soon as he came through the tree line, running her horse in the clearing ahead. And though he should have called to her as soon as he dismounted to let her know she was no longer alone, he couldn’t bring himself to break the magic of the moment. For the proper Victorian woman with whom he’d shared supper was gone and the wild gypsy-girl he’d met in the storm had returned. This was no dainty gentlewoman, riding sidesaddle with dainty fingers on the reins. Kate Fisher rode astride like a man, her skirts pulled up to show shapely legs, her strong hands guiding the horse through its paces. And as she rode, she laughed, throwing back her head until her raven hair came loose around her.
As she finished the exercise, leading her horse to water at the spring, John Henry stepped out of the shadows and applauded.
“Bravo, Miss Fisher! A fine show, indeed. And a fine day for a ride, as well.”
He had thought only fleetingly of what her reaction might be to his sudden appearance at her training session: surprise, perhaps, or even pleasure at seeing him again. But as always, her response was unexpected.
“Is it?” she asked lightly. “I thought you liked riding in the rain.”
Her flippant reply put him off for a moment, but having gone to all the trouble to hire a horse and follow her here, he would not be so easily dissuaded.
“I like watchin’ you ride,” he replied honestly, as he led his horse to the spring beside hers.
“And where did you get this one?” she said, nodding to his hired horse. “Is he stolen like the last one?” Again the sarcastic tone, but he was equal to it.
“Unfortunately not. I had to pay good money to hire him for the day. I figured it was worth it, for the show.”
She raised her dark brows. “And you paid this good money just to come watch me ride?”
“Actually, I was hopin’ we might ride out together. Borrowin’ Silas’ horse reminded me how much I’ve missed ridin’. I didn’t get the opportunity very often in Philadelphia.”
“And you think you can keep up with me? Wonder is no hired horse, you know.”
“And you’re no Tartar Prince,” he said, letting his gaze travel down to her immodestly bared legs. “I’m surprised your audiences ever believe you’re a man.”
“They know I’m not a man. They don’t come for the prince. It’s the naked lady they want to see. I’m not naked though, the costume just makes me look that way—it’s flesh colored skin tights. But the audience wants to believe that I’ve left my clothes off, so that’s what they see.”
“Well, I can’t blame them for wantin’ to believe, but it’s a shame that’s all they see. For my own self, I find the equestrienne even more interestin’ than the actress. I never did see a woman ride the way you do.”
Kate smiled at that, and he had the feeling that he had again passed some sort of unspoken test. She was challenging all right, and not just when she was outrunning him on a horse. Even talking to her seemed like a horse race of sorts, the way she made him jump through hoops.
“Well?” she said as she slung the reins over her animal’s head and stepped up into the stirrups. “Shall we give that hired nag of yours a try? I’ll give you a run for your money.”
“I reckon you will, Miss Fisher.”
She took off like something was on fire again, and it was all John Henry could do to keep up with her. And once again, she had the clear advantage over him. She knew these green fields well—where the hills fell away unexpectedly, where the spring broke through the grass into rivulets that the horses had to take at a jump. But though she could surely have outrun him and lost herself in the trees, she gave him enough slack to let him stay close behind. And when she finally crested a last hill and reined up near the tree line, she was breathless and laughing.
“You’re not bad, for a horse thief!” she said, taunting him.
“I told you, I’m no horse thief. But if I had somethin’ worth runnin’ for, I’d make this mount put your Wonder to shame.”
“Is that so?” she asked as their horses drew close, saddle leather creaking together. Then unexpectedly, she leaned across her saddle, smiled, and kissed him quickly on the lips. “That’s something to run for,” she said, “if you can catch me!”
And with that she was off again, her dark hair streaming down her back, her riding crop slicing the air as she whipped her horse to a run with John Henry fast after her. There was no slack in her race this time. She ran full-out, as she had that night of the storm. But John Henry wasn’t about to lose to a woman—especially this woman. He leaned down into his horse, one hand on the reins and one slapping at its haunches. And hired mount that it was, it rode well.
He caught up to her at the far reach of the meadows where the grass gave way to trees again. And maybe it was the way she slid gracefully from her horse and gazed up at him with that gypsy fire in her eyes, or maybe it was just the exhilaration of the race, but before he could even think what he was doing he had swept her into his arms.
“I am no horse thief . . .” he said, bending his head to hers.
“Yes, you are a thief,” she whispered as his kisses found her lips, “for you are stealing my heart . . .”
And though he had never meant for it to happen, the flirtation had become a romance.
They met together often in the weeks that followed, sometimes riding out in the park, sometimes sharing a late supper after her rehearsals at the theater ended, though Jameson quietly disapproved of the relationship. Seeing a variety show had been daring enough; courting a varieties actress would be scandalous in his close-knit German community. But John Henry wasn’t German and didn’t much care what Jameson’s neighbors might think, for he found Kate Fisher to be good company, more world-wise than her twenty-two years, and full of interesting conversation. Besides, their romance would be fleeting, for come the month of May she’d be leaving on tour with Mazeppa and he’d be heading back home to Georgia—and Mattie. Kate Fisher was, after all, nothing more than a diversion along his way.
Truth was, he couldn’t afford a long-term romance, with the hotel suppers he had to buy and the horses he had to hire and what was left of his school allowance and his money from Jameson’s office running out fast. So before long he found himself back down at the levee and Hyram Neil’s Alligator Saloon where he was certain to find a Faro game going. It would be a brace game, of course, but he figured he could beat the dealer as he had his first night there, and wager his small savings into something more.
Hyram Neil had other plans for him, however, as John Henry discovered when he stepped into the saloon and found the gambler holding court at a corner table. As before, Neil was elegant in a snow-white shirt and brocade vest, a gaudy stickpin in his silk tie and even gaudier gold rings on his well-manicured fingers. It was the classic sporting man’s garb, fancy duds that could be put in soak at the pawnbrokers if the gambling ran thin.
“Ah, the gentleman returns!” Hyram Neil said with a smile. “Back so soon? I thought you made out pretty well last time—long enough to hold you for a while, at least.”
The voice was sarcastic, though the white-toothed smile looked welcoming enough.
“I’ve had some expenses lately,” John Henry said with a shrug. “I thought I’d try my hand at pickin’ up a little cash if there’s room at the Faro layout.”
“There’s always room at Faro, for the dupes. But a gent like yourself shouldn’t waste his time playing children’s games.”
“So what do you suggest?” John Henry replied warily, though his pride was already rising to the gambler’s challenge.
“Poker,” Hyram Neil said. “And not penny ante. It’ll take twenty dollars to get into the game tonight. Are you good for it?”
Again the feeling of wariness came over him. Anteing up twenty dollars would mean dipping into his ticket home money, but he was sure to win that back and more once the game got started. It was only poker, after all, a game he’d been playing for years. So he pushed the wariness away and answered easily, “I’m good for the twenty.”
And with no more thought of caution, he reached into his money purse and pulled out two gold eagles, dropping them easily onto the green baize of the poker table.
“And you’re in,” Neil said with that same slick smile. “Gentlemen?” he said to the crowd of rivermen and drunkards who inhabited the place—other than John Henry, hardly gentlemen at all—“shall we begin?”
And so started the most profitable evening of cards that John Henry had ever played, with a dealer playing for the house and Hyram Neil sitting off to the side, watching with casual interest while he fingered the rings on his bejeweled hands. Jewels won in other profitable games, perhaps, when his own luck was running.
But luck was against Hyram Neil and his Alligator Saloon on this night, as his dealer gave up winning hand after winning hand to John Henry, the draws bringing him ever better cards. He opened with a small pair that became three of a kind and brought him the first pot, then went on to a straight and then a full house, as the other players wagered and raised, then raised again, bluffing until they had to show or fold, leaving him the winnings. And when he picked up his cards and found the beginnings of a royal straight and only two players besides himself left in the game, he went all in and won the biggest pot of all.
“Well played!” Hyram Neil said admiringly as John Henry reached out to gather his winnings, enough to wine and dine Kate Fisher and her whole theater company along with her. “It’s a pleasure to watch a man who knows his cards the way you do, driving all the other players out of the game, very nearly breaking the bank.”
“Nearly?” John Henry said, pausing over the pile of poker chips and coins and looking up at Neil. If he’d nearly broken the bank, how hard would it be to break the bank entirely?
“We have to keep something back to reinvest, of course. That’s the business, and a good thing you’re out of partners. We couldn’t afford you much longer. But maybe, just this once . . .” He leaned closer, his black eyes glittering in the lamplight.
“Just this once, what?” John Henry asked warily.
Neil smiled. “Because you are such a fine player and such a pleasure to watch, not like these stupid rivermen, I believe I’ll sweeten that pot with something of my own and let you keep playing a little longer, going against the house.” Then he pulled off two of his finger rings and dropped them onto the pile of John Henry’s winnings, shining like pirate booty in the lamplight.
He had no reason to believe the jewels weren’t real, and if they were—he was suddenly facing the possibility of winning more money than he had ever had at one time. Enough money to entertain Kate Fisher for as long as he’d like, and to outfit his own dental office as well. Enough money to be a man of means, independent of his father or anyone else. And all he had to do was play a few more lucky hands of cards. How could he resist such an offer?
“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.