The Gamble (I)

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Yes.”

  “Her money’s still downstairs, locked up in a desk drawer,” interjected Loretto.

  “Hmm...” The sheriff stood with feet planted wide, swiveling slowly, his small black eyes searching from beneath the brim of his brown Stetson.

  “Any ideas?”

  “One,” said Gandy. “Miz Downin’ and I have taken Willy Collinson under our wing, and his old man doesn’t like it much. He paid us each a visit, which I’m sure you heard about.”

  “The boot through the window?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Gandy related the story of what had transpired that day, while the sheriff surveyed the apartment, touching little, missing nothing. When he came to stand again before Agatha’s chair, he minced no words. “It strikes me that you’ve got plenty of folks riled up around this town over that temperance group you started. Do you think it could be one of them?”

  “I... I don’t know.”

  Gandy spoke up. “Once before one of them paid her a call.” He swung toward her. “Have you still got the note, Agatha?”

  “Yes, it’s in my top bureau door.” She rose and got it, then brought it back to the sheriff. Her fingers trembled as she handed it to him. “I found it tacked to my back door one night after a temperance meeting.”

  He took his time reading it, studying the paper long after he must have understood the brief warning it contained.

  “Do you mind if I take this?” he asked at last.

  “No, of course not.”

  He folded it, slipped it into his shirt pocket, and once more went on the prowl around the perimeter of the apartment, glancing closely at the mop boards, the furniture, the bedclothes, then checking behind her small heater stove. When he reached the door, he hooked it with a single finger and slowly swung it away from the wall.

  “I think I’ve found it.”

  Agatha’s pulse quickened. Gandy squeezed her shoulder. “What?” Gandy asked.

  With a jerk of his head, Cowdry advised Jack to move out of the way. Jack stepped in off the threshold and the sheriff closed the door without uttering a word. Into the dun paint on its backside was scratched:

  TEMPERUNCE BEWARE

  The sheriff appeared deceptively cool. Agatha and Gandy both knew that beneath his unruffled exterior a shrewd mind clicked.

  “Got any ideas?” he inquired.

  It could have been anyone—Mustard Smith, Angus Reed... any of the saloon owners of Proffitt. Or any of their libating regulars. The list was so long it dizzied Agatha to ponder it.

  Gandy stood close beside her. He saw her eyebrows take on an expression of dismay. She was shaken, he could tell. A woman alone with a dangerous enemy—she had good reason to be frightened. He was surprised at the burst of protectiveness he felt toward her.

  “Agatha?”

  She raised her pale green eyes. They still expressed fright.

  “It could be anybody,” she admitted in a reedy, trembling voice.

  Gandy turned to Cowdry. “She’s right. It could be Mustard Smith, Diddier, Reed, Dingo—any of them. About the only one it wouldn’t be is Jesus Garcia. I don’t think he can write English.”

  “I’ll have my deputy pass through the alley a time or two each night. Beyond that, there’s little I can do until I get some positive proof. So keep me informed of any peculiar doings, if you will.”

  Agatha assured him she would, and he bade them good-night. When he was gone, Gandy sent Jack and Dan downstairs with instructions to send Jubilee back up. Then he turned to Agatha.

  “Get whatever you’ll need for the night. You’re comin’ with me.”

  “Please, Scott, I... I wouldn’t feel right, intruding on Jubilee.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone. Now do as I say.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with my bed. I have one pillow left and—”

  “Very well. If you won’t fetch your things, I will.” He made a move toward her chifforobe. “Are they in here?” He began opening a door.

  “All right, if you insist. But if I think Jubilee has the slightest objection, I’m coming straight back here.”

  He grinned and stepped aside to let her fetch her nightgown and dressing gown. His eyes followed as she moved toward her bureau. But its top had been razed, and she searched sadly through the mess on the floor for her hairbrush and picked up a hairpin dish. The latter was broken. She fit the two pieces together and held them for a moment. Her face was sad.

  She looked up and their eyes met.

  “I’m sorry, Gussie.” She looked as if she might cry again, so he said, “Let’s go,” and took her elbow. She stopped beside the lantern on the table and turned to scan the room that she always kept so fastidiously neat.

  “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t want you worryin’ about it tonight.” He tugged at her arm. “We’ll come over and help you clean it in the mornin’. Now douse the light.”

  She did, and darkness fell around them. They picked their way to the door, which Gandy closed as best he could before opening his hall door and letting her pass before him. “Jube’s is the last on the left.” The gilded cage was lowered and the trapdoor was open halfway down the hall. Through the hatch a cone of light lit the ceiling, bringing with it slow-moving curls of cigar smoke. The sound of the piano and banjo drifted up clearly. Agatha glimpsed the bar below as she shimmied past the opening. At Jube’s door she waited. Gandy opened it and stepped inside without any apparent compunction. He knew precisely where to find the lantern. Agatha heard the match strike. Then his face burst into view above the flaring wick. He replaced the chimney and came back to her.

  “Jube’ll be up in a minute. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well...” For the first time that night Agatha felt awkward with him. Neither of them knew quite what to say. She had never been escorted to a bedroom door before. He had never escorted a lady there and left her. “I’ll shut down a little early so the noise won’t keep you awake.”

  “Oh, no... please. Not on my account.”

  “Jube will be up as soon as she finishes this song.” He turned and disappeared before she could thank him.

  Jube’s room overlooked the street. The double front windows were open and the summer breeze billowed the white curtains inward like filled sails. Nothing was orderly, yet the disarray was soothing. Dancing costumes were draped over the edge of a brocaded dressing screen along with black net stockings and garters. The doors to the armoire were wide open. Inside hung Jube’s many white dresses. Beside it a dressing table was strewn with hair feathers, creams, lotions, and face paint of various kinds. Agatha couldn’t help smiling at the ashtray and a tin box of cigars, which looked so out of place among the otherwise feminine clutter. The bed was made of brass and had not been made up that morning.

  The door opened and Jube bustled in. “Agatha, Scotty just told me! My goodness, you must be in a state of nerves. Imagine someone breaking into your place that way. But don’t you worry about a thing. You’ll be sleeping right here with me tonight.” Her hug was swift and reassuring. Agatha suddenly found herself extremely happy to have Jube’s talkative company. It would have been terribly unnerving to spend the night in the mess next door, listening to each creak of the building, wondering if it were a footstep in the dark.

  “I really appreciate this, Jubilee.”

  “Oh, phooey! What’re friends for?” She dropped to the chaise and began releasing her shoe buttons with a hook. “Besides, my feet hurt tonight. I was glad to get off a little early. Scotty says he’ll kick the last customer out by midnight.”

  “I told him he didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but you can’t change Scotty’s mind when it’s made up. Might as well get ready for bed.”

  Agatha glanced around diffidently. Jube was already pulling the feathers from her hair, so Agatha followed suit with her hairpins
. To Agatha’s chagrin, Jubilee stood beside the chaise and stripped off her brief dancing costume, then glanced up to find Agatha standing uncertainly beside the bed.

  “You can use the screen if you’d like.”

  While Agatha undressed she heard Jubilee humming “A Bird in a Gilded Cage,” then lighting a cigar and clattering things around on her dressing table. The scented smoke drifted behind the screen and Agatha couldn’t help smiling. She recalled the day she’d first seen Jubilee arriving on the wagon. If someone had told her then that she’d end up spending the night sharing Jubilee’s room, she would have called him insane. Yet here she was.

  She stepped from behind the screen dressed in a high-necked nightgown and wrapper trimmed in plain white eyelet.

  And there was Jubilee. Standing before her dressing table mirror scratching her bare white belly and breasts, clad in nothing more than her pantaloons. The cigar was clamped between her teeth and she talked around it. “Damned corsets.” She scratched harder, leaving red tracks in her pale skin. “Isn’t it aggravating how they itch when you take ‘em off? While you ladies are campaigning for women’s rights, why don’t you campaign to get rid of corsets forever.” She held both plump breasts in her hands and pushed them high until the mole between them disappeared in her cleavage. “Imagine that.” She chuckled, as if she were in the room alone. “Walking down the street in a dress without boned corsets. Wouldn’t that be something now?”

  She swung around and Agatha dropped her gaze. She had never seen a naked woman before, much less one who unabashedly displayed her breasts before another. Jube puffed on her cigar and crossed the room to the chaise. She leaned over, breasts hanging, and rifled through the accumulation of garments until she came up with her turquoise dressing gown. When she straightened to thread her arms through the sleeves, her rosy nipples seemed to flash like beacons in the room.

  Nonplussed, Agatha didn’t know where to look.

  Jube didn’t seem to notice. She carelessly looped her belt and exclaimed enthusiastically, “Why, Agatha, what marvelous hair you have! Could I brush it?”

  “B... brush it?” No woman had brushed Agatha’s hair since her mother died.

  “I’d love to. And it’ll relax you. Come on.” Jube set her cigar in the ashtray, snatched a brush from her dressing table, and patted the seat of the low bench before it. “Sit down.”

  Agatha couldn’t resist. She sat at Jubilee’s dressing table and allowed herself to be pampered. It felt wonderful. At the first sensation of the bristles massaging against her scalp, shivers crept up the back of her neck and arms. Her eyes closed.

  “Nobody’s combed my hair since my mother was alive. And I was a child then.”

  “It’s so nice and thick,” she praised. “Mine is too fine and straight. I always wished I had heavy hair like this. And you’re so lucky to have waves. I have to put mine in with the curling tongs.”

  “Isn’t it funny?” Agatha opened her eyes. “I always wished mine were lighter and straighter and blonder.”

  Jube stroked the full length of the tresses, from crown to shoulder blade. “Do you think anybody’s happy with what they got?”

  Agatha thought it a curious question, coming from a beautiful woman like Jubilee. Their eyes met in the mirror.

  “I don’t know. But everybody makes wishes, I suppose.”

  “What would you wish for if you could have anything in the world?”

  It had always seemed the most obvious thing in the world to Agatha. It stunned her to think Jubilee didn’t find it obvious at all. Her blond head was tipped to one side as she idly wielded the brush.

  “Two healthy hips and legs.”

  Jubilee’s response was not what Agatha had expected—no big-eyed look of dismay at having overlooked the obvious. Instead she seemed dreamy as she continued shaping and reshaping Agatha’s hair, observing, “Yes, I suppose so. But isn’t it funny? I never think of you as lame.”

  Jube’s words were such a surprise! Agatha had always been so sure everyone looked upon her with pity, yet somehow she truly believed Jube. There had never been anyone with whom she could share her intimate feelings, anyone who’d share theirs, so Agatha asked, “What would you wish for?”

  Jube set the brush down, drew the hair tight and high to the crown of Agatha’s head, and shaped it like a bird’s nest, holding it up with her hands. Only then did her gaze lift to Agatha’s again. Very softly she answered, “A mother to comb my hair sometimes. And a father who was married to her.”

  For a long moment the two women communicated with only their eyes. Then Agatha swung around. “Oh, Jubilee.” She took both of Jube’s hands and held them fondly. “Are we foolish, do you think, sitting here wishing for what we can never have?”

  “I don’t think so. What’s the harm in wishing?”

  “None, I suppose.” Agatha blinked rapidly, then made a soft sound in her throat—not quite a laugh. “It just occurred to me that a year ago one of my wishes might have been for a friend. And now I believe I’ve found several where I least expected to. Jubilee, I...” Agatha’s voice choked with emotion as she searched for the proper words to say how much she’d come to value the friendship of Jubilee, Scott, and the others. Her feelings for them had sneaked up on her unaware. Only now, when she needed them and they were there with helping hands extended, did she recognize the depth of their friendship. “I mean it when I say thank you for taking me in tonight. I’m so glad you’re here. I was very upset about what happened in my apartment, but I feel so much better now.”

  Jube leaned down and pressed her cheek to Agatha’s. “Good. Then why not jump into bed? It sounds like the rest are corning up now, so you should be able to get some sleep. Then Scotty says in the morning we’ll all pitch in and clean up your place.” Jube flicked the coverlet back, then patted the sheets with her palm. “Come on, now.”

  Agatha complied willingly. She plumped the pillow, then sat against it, raising her arms to do her last routine chore of the day.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Braiding my hair.”

  “Why?”

  “I always braid it at bedtime.”

  “But why?”

  Agatha tried to think of a good reason but could come up with none. “My mother taught me that’s what a lady does with her hair at night.”

  “But then you have to he on the lumpy braid. That doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  Agatha laughed. She’d never analyzed it before, but Jube was right.

  “That’s the last thing I’d do with my hair at night—twist it up in kinks.”

  “Well, what would you do, then?”

  “Do? Why, nothing. Sleep with it free.” She ran the brush through her own hair, hung her head back, and shook it. “It’s heavenly.”

  “Very well...” Agatha began combing out the half-formed braid with her fingers. “I will.”

  Still brushing her hair, Jubilee wandered to the dressing table and clamped her cigar between her teeth, puffing while she brushed. “Does the cigar bother you?”

  “Not at all.” Agatha found it was true. She had come to enjoy the aroma immensely from being around Gandy.

  “It relaxes me... you know?” Jube explained. “After I finish dancin’ I’m all keyed up. Sometimes it’s hard to get to sleep right away.” Jube crooked the thin, black cigar in her finger, walked around the foot of the bed and sat down, leaning against the brass footrail with the ashtray on her lap, still brushing her white-blond hair.

  Somebody knocked on the door. “Hello. It’s us.” Pearl and Ruby came in without waiting for permission. “We heard the bad news. Don’t you worry now. It’ll probably never happen again.”

  They came in turns to press their cheeks to Agatha’s and wish her good-night.

  “If Jube gets t’ snorin’, y’all come in with me.”

  When they were gone, another knock sounded.

  “Yes?” Jube called.

  “It’s Jack and Ivory.”


  “Well, come on in—everybody else has.”

  Agatha scarcely had time to draw the bedclothes to her neck before the two appeared.

  “You calmed down now, Miss Downing?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, thank you. Jube brushed my hair and it made me forget all my troubles.”

  “Jube’s good with a brush, that’s for sure,” remarked Ivory.

  Jube had brushed Ivory’s hair? Before she had time to imagine such a sight, he said, “Well, g’night, Miz Downin’. See y’all in the mornin’.”

  “Good night, Ivory.”

  “’Night, then,” Jack added.

  “Good night, Jack.”

  Just before the door closed Jack stuck his head back in. “Here comes somebody else.”

  He disappeared and Marcus came to take his place, bearing a steaming cup. His smile told Agatha it was for her.

  “Oh, Marcus, how thoughtful.” She reached for the cup. “Mmm... tea. Thank you, Marcus. It’s exactly what I need.”

  He beamed, then made motions as if stirring in sugar and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “No, thank you. Without is fine.” She sipped and nodded approvingly. “Perfect.”

  He folded his hands beneath one ear and closed his eyes, as if sleeping.

  “Yes, I’ll sleep wonderfully after this. Thank you again, Marcus.”

  At the door he waved. She waved back. The door closed behind him.

  Agatha’s heart felt full to bursting, warmed by so much more than the tea. She wondered if perhaps she had stated her wish too quickly; perhaps what she wanted more than anything else was to keep this feeling forever, this wondrous familial feeling.

  In companionable silence, she sipped and Jubilee smoked.

  After some time Agatha remarked, “How thoughtful of Marcus.”

  Jube’s face softened. She stopped puffing and watched the smoke rise. “He’s sweet, isn’t he? He’s always doing something kind for someone. Marcus is about the kindest man I’ve ever known. Whenever I’m sick he brings me tea with honey and brandy. And once he gave me a back rub. That was heavenly.”

  “It bothered me at first that he couldn’t talk,” Agatha confided, “but I soon found out he can get his point across better than most people with voices.”