The Gamble (I)

by LaVyrle Spencer

  The only thing that marred his bliss was the fact that he could not tell her how he felt. How beautiful she looked. How he revered her, would do anything for her, give her anything it was in his power to give.

  They picnicked in the middle of the prairie amid the abundant blooms of late summer. Wild aster in pale violet, blazing stars in heliotrope, goldenrod in rich yellow. But no wildflower could ever match the beauty of Jubilee.

  While she spread the blanket and knelt to unpack their food, Marcus sat cross-legged in the grass and took up his banjo. Immediately, Willy pranced over and hugged his neck from behind.

  “Play somethin’ fast, Marcus!”

  He chose “Little Brown Jug,” and soon Willy took up skipping in a circle around Marcus, in rhythm with the tune. Jube stopped unpacking and looked up. She smiled and began clapping. Willy giggled and lifted his new brown boots higher with each step.

  She got up and stood close to Marcus, tapping one foot on the grass, dipping her shoulders as she clapped, laughing at Willy’s antics.

  “Hey, Willy, how ‘bout a dance?” she teased.

  Without missing a beat, he shouted, “Don’t know how!”

  “Aw, anybody can dance!”

  “Not me!”

  “You can, too—come on!”

  She caught his elbow with hers and swung him in a circle, singing:

  My wife and I lived all alone

  In a little log hut we called our own.

  She loved gin and I loved rum

  I tell you we had lots of fun.

  Ha! ha! ha! you and me,

  Little brown jug how I love thee

  Ha! ha! ha! you and me,

  Little brown jug how I love thee.

  Verse after verse she sang, with Willy joining in the chorus. Marcus picked up the tempo and laughed silently while the two joined hands and circled crazily until their heads hung back and Jube’s hat fell off.

  What a sight they made, carefree and exuberant, whirling and singing, then tumbling to the ground breathless and laughing. Willy fell to all fours, Jubilee to her back with an arm flung above her head.

  “Hoo! What a time! Willy, you’re some dancer!”

  Willy popped up, grinning, swiping his brow with one small hand. “Wait’ll I tell Gussie we was dancin’ and singin’!”

  Jube propped up on one palm, alarmed. “Willy, don’t you dare—unless you want to get Marcus and me in trouble! A temperance worker like Agatha would be real mad if she knew we’d taught you such a song! Promise you won’t tell!”

  The words of the song hadn’t fazed Willy. He was affected more by his thirst. “I want a sassparilly!” he demanded.

  Marcus tucked away his banjo in its case and they all ate the main part of their picnic while lounging in the thick yellow Indian grass, after which Willy sat nearby eating too much pie and drinking too much sarsaparilla.

  Braced on one elbow, Marcus gnawed on a drumstick and studied Jube at leisure. She sat so near that her skirts brushed his crossed ankles. She had let her hat lie where it fell, and its pin had pulled a piece of hair loose. The sun glanced off the drooping white strand as if it were spun of cobwebs. He imagined removing the remaining hairpins and letting it tumble to her shoulders, combing it with his fingers, burying his nose in it, then kissing her.

  Willy brought Marcus back down to earth. “Feel my belly.” He came waddling on his knees. “It’s hard as a rock.”

  Marcus felt. Jube felt. “You’re gonna get sick,” she warned.

  “Uh-uh.” Willy waggled his head in big, wide sweeps. “I never git sick.”

  “But you’d better not have any more pie for a while. Or any more sarsaparilla, either.”

  Willy flopped on the grass, puffing, belly up. “Whew!” His mouth gleamed with grease. His shirt had worked itself out of his pants, leaving an inch of bare stomach showing. The strings of his new boots had come untied. He didn’t care one bit. After several minutes a loud burp rumbled from him. Jube laughed, Marcus smiled, and Willy giggled.

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Excuse me,’” Jube reminded him.

  “’Scuse me.” Then he burped again, louder than before, adding an additional crack to the sound by forcing it. While everyone shook with laughter, Jubilee packed away the picnic articles.

  The saloon would remain closed till evening. There was no rush to get back, so they sat listening to the buzz and hum of life around them.

  “Are clouds soft?” Willy inquired after a while, staring at the fluffy white patches overhead.

  “I don’t know.” Jubilee leaned back on both elbows to study them, too. “They sure look soft, don’t they?”

  “See that one?” Willy pointed. “Don’t it look like a white hen with a dirty belly?”

  “Mmmm...” She pondered it, letting her head hang back and the sun heat her face. A hairpin slipped and fell to the grass. “Maybe. Maybe like a teapot with a broken handle.”

  “Nuh-uh. It don’t, neither.”

  She lifted her head and nudged him with a toe. “Well, it does to me.”

  He giggled and scrambled onto all fours above her, clowning, looking for more attention, more teasing. “Looks like a hen.”

  “It’s a teapot.”

  “A hen.”

  “A teapot.” She flattened his nose with the tip of one finger. “To me it’s a teapot, Willy Collinson.”

  He plunked down across her torso and knocked her to her back, her head thumping Marcus’s hip. Instead of moving away, she lay back against him.

  “How come you’re so pretty an’ other ladies ain’t?” Willy inquired with a silly twist to his lips and eyebrows.

  “What a little flatterer you are. But how can I trust a boy who thinks a hen looks like a teapot?”

  Willy flipped over to stare at the sky again. He ended up with his head on her stomach. The proper cradle for her head seemed Marcus’s stomach, and he raised no objections when she settled more comfortably against it.

  They lay in the thick prairie grass squinting at the clouds, fit upon each other like three notched logs. The breeze fluttered above them, tipping fronds of wild side oats into and out of their range of vision. A monarch butterfly fluttered past and perched upon a brown-eyed Susan, where it sat fanning its wings. Somewhere in the hidden turf a prairie chicken added its staccato cluck to the buzz of katydids. The warm earth reached up to them from below; the hot sun baked them from above. Content, they lazed.

  Willy’s fingers relaxed; his palms opened. In time he began snoring softly.

  Marcus lay with his fingers locked behind his head, glorying in the weight of Jubilee’s head on his stomach, feeling his heart thumping steadily through his shoulder blades into the virgin soil, which seemed to return the beat in kind.

  He thought about reaching down, finding her throat with his fingertips... touching... just touching... nothing more.

  But before he could, he felt her head move. He lifted his own and found her watching him, flawless and peaceful, her cheek turned against his belly. Then she did the most incredible thing: she reached up and touched his throat with her fingertips, a touch as tentative as the fanning of the monarch’s wings.

  She smiled gently.

  And filled him with wonderment.

  And sent his heart rumbling like summer thunder.

  And raised a wild, reckless hope within him.

  Jube, he thought. Aw, Jube, the things I’d say to you if only I could. The things I’d do. But she was Scotty’s, wasn’t she? Marcus imagined a man like Scotty would know everything there was to know about how to kiss and please a woman. How ever would Jube find his own kiss appealing after knowing a man like that?

  So instead of kissing Jube, Marcus contented himself with a single consolation. He touched her hair lightly, felt for the first time the sun captured in its bounty and the silken texture against his fingers.

  Jube. Though his lips moved, no sound came forth.

  But she saw her name and said his in response. And though he co
uld hear perfectly clearly anything she chose to say, she, too, only mouthed the word.

  Marcus.

  And for today—for this one golden day—it was enough.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The day had been insufferably warm for September, hot and humid after two days of rain. Not a breath of wind stirred through the apartment. The sheets felt clammy and no matter how many times Gandy nudged Jube over, she sprawled back onto his half of the bed and edged her warm leg against him. His arm hurt and the damnable coyotes wouldn’t shut up. Yip-yip-yip. They’d been at it for more than an hour now.

  He nudged Jube’s leg away again. Facedown, arms up, she crooked the knee and pressed it against him again. Agitated, he shifted over.

  Things weren’t good between himself and Jube. Something had gone sour, but he wasn’t sure what. She slept in his room less often, and when they made love he had the feeling she didn’t always want to. They’d done so earlier in the night, but when he’d asked her if something was wrong, she’d answered, “It’s just the heat, and I’m tired.”

  “You wanna forget it, Jube? We don’t have to.”

  “No... no, it’s all right,” she’d answered too quickly. Then when he’d reached for her, she’d gone on: “I just wish sometime we could do it when it wasn’t one o’clock in the morning and I wasn’t all tired out from dancing.”

  But it never used to matter whether it was one o’clock in the morning or one o’clock in the afternoon. Jube was ready. And enthusiastic.

  Lying beside her now, Scott wondered if it was something he’d done. Something he hadn’t done. Maybe she wanted to get married, was waiting for him to bring it up. He turned to study her in the dark. Her naked limbs were as pale as the sheets upon which she lay. Even her white-blond hair was indistinguishable from the bedding. She had blended into his life just as completely as her paleness blended with the sheets. It was a comfortable relationship, but not one he wanted permanently. Marry Jube? No, he didn’t think so. The thought of marriage should bring a wild rush of eagerness, as when he’d been engaged to Delia. But it didn’t. There were two different kinds of love, and the one he felt for Jube simply was not the marrying kind.

  She rolled over and jostled his arm, sending a twinge of pain to his shoulder.

  He sat up and found his trousers in the dark, slipped them on, buttoned all but the top fly button, then padded into the sitting room. Fumbling for his humidor in the dark, he found a cigar and a match, then left the apartment.

  When he opened the landing door, a movement in the opposite corner startled him.

  “Gussie, is that you?”

  Agatha straightened in her chair and drew her wrapper together at her throat.

  “Yes. I... I couldn’t sleep, it was so hot.”

  He came out and quietly closed the door. “I couldn’t either.”

  She wrapped one bare foot around the other and tried to hide them beneath her robe.

  “You mind if I join you?” he asked.

  “No, of course not. It’s your landing, too.” She noted that he, too, was barefoot, and shirtless. He crossed to the top of the stairs and stood with his legs spread wide, gazing out across the prairie. His skin appeared pale against the dark night sky. Overhead, stars twinkled, but the moon was too new to add much brightness.

  “Damned coyotes. Once they start in, they don’t know when t’ stop.”

  “I’ve rather been enjoying them. They’ve been keeping me company.”

  He looked back over his shoulder. She sat on a hard kitchen chair, angled in the corner, holding her wrapper at the throat, the picture of threatened propriety. He compared her to Jube, sprawled naked in the bed he’d left. The comparison was almost laughable, yet he didn’t feel like laughing. He felt troubled.

  “You look so different with your hair down.” More approachable. He wondered what she’d do if he walked over and touched it. Her hair had always attracted him, rich and lustrous as it was. She dropped her chin and reached up self-consciously, as if to hide the unrestrained mass.

  “I... I should have braided it. I usually—” She bit off the words, realizing she’d been about to reveal a very personal bedtime habit, and that it was hardly a proper subject for conversation between a barefoot man and woman at three o’clock in the morning. “When I stayed with Jubilee she told me hair needs to relax sometimes, so I... well...”

  “There’s no need t’ get nervous, Agatha. It was only an observation.” To Agatha’s relief he dropped the subject and asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “No, not at all.”

  He ambled to the opposite side of the landing and sat on the railing with his back against the wall, one knee drawn up, the other foot on the floor. He struck the match on the narrow board beneath him, and when he cupped it, his face flared orange for a moment. He shook out the match, tossed it to the ground below, then took a deep drag.

  “Isn’t it funny?” she commented. “I used to despise the smell of cigar smoke, but I’ve grown to enjoy it.”

  He chuckled, leaned his head back. “Yes, that’s how it is with most wicked things—they rather grow on you.” As he puffed on the cheroot the scent drifted to her—acrid but pleasingly masculine. The coyotes yapped in the distance and she forgot to be self-conscious with him.

  “Willy tells me you taught him to play five-card stud.”

  Scott laughed and expelled another cloud of smoke. “Why, that little tattletale.”

  “Scott, really...” Her tone became indulgently scolding. “Five-card stud. To a five-year-old?”

  “Hey, the sprout is smart for a five-year-old.”

  “And I’m sure he grows smarter by the day, taking up with you.”

  “He’ll do all right, as long as he’s got you t’ keep him on the straight and narrow after I fill his impressionable young mind with all my nasty habits.”

  She had never met a man who could make her forgive his transgressions quite as readily as Scott Gandy could. She was smiling as she asked, “And how can you explain the fact that he’s been breaking into choruses of ‘Little Brown Jug’ lately?”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He pointed at her with the coal of his cigar. “You’re not gonna pin that one on me. Ask Jube and Marcus about that.”

  “I will,” she promised, a touch of humor in her voice.

  “And while you’re at it, ask the sprout why I taught him five-card stud.”

  “Why don’t you save me some time and tell me yourself?”

  She watched the coal of his cigar brighten while he considered the matter silently. Then at length he confessed, “We had a single game for high stakes and he lost.”

  “And?”

  He grinned. “And he had t’ accompany me t’ the Cowboys’ Rest for a bath.”

  Now it was Agatha’s turn to laugh. The sound was soft and feminine, and he realized how few times he’d heard it. Southern women laughed like that—his mother had laughed like that, with a breathy sigh at the end, and so had Delia.

  “You’re resourceful, Scott Gandy, I’ll say that for you.”

  He removed the cigar from his mouth, draped an elbow over a knee, and drawled, “Why, thank you, Miz Downin’.”

  “And entertaining enough that I find myself grateful Alvis Collinson didn’t manage to do you in.”

  He studied the coal of his cigar in the dark, then rolled his head toward her. “I remember something about that night. I remember openin’ my eyes and you were kneelin’ beside me, touchin’ my face.” The only movement on the balcony was the rising coil of smoke. Even the coyotes had stilled, and in the silence her eyes met his and held. “You called me ‘dear.’ “

  Her heart tripped in a light, quick cadence. She felt her cheeks grow warm but was unable to turn away from his scrutiny. Did he know what happened inside her each time she looked at him? Did he know what a picture he made—lounging on that railing, his head angled her way, his arm draped lazily over the knee, his bare feet and chest compelling in the st
arlight, the line of his black trousers accenting his masculine pose? If he knew, he’d probably run as fast as he could, back inside to Jubilee.

  “I was very frightened, Scott.”

  “It just struck me as curious—you bein’ a temperance worker and me bein’ a saloon owner.”

  “Don’t oversimplify. You’re much more than a saloon owner to me, and I believe I’m much more than a temperance worker to you. By some odd twist of fate I think we’ve become friends.”

  “I do, too,” he replied quietly. “So how can you go off to the governor’s tea and talk about prohibition?”

  She felt as if he’d tossed cold water in her face. She’d known the time would come when they’d have to talk about it further, but she hadn’t been prepared for it tonight.

  “Scott, you don’t really think I want to shut down the Gilded Cage, do you? It would mean I’d lose you and Jubilee and Pearl and Ruby and Marcus and... well, all of you. And you’ve all become my friends—I thought you understood that. It’s an unfortunate circumstance that if prohibition closes down the others, it’ll close you down, too. Please understand.”

  He jumped off the rail and started pacing agitatedly. “I don’t! Dammit! I don’t.” Close to her chair he stopped, gesturing with the cigar. “Why you? I mean, why not let those other women fight for the cause?” He waved an arm at the rest of the world. “At least they have reason—some of ‘em. Their lives have been affected by liquor.”

  She wasn’t sure she could make herself tell it; after all, she’d held it inside since she was nine years old. Not even when Annie Macintosh had wailed out her pitiful story had Agatha been able to force herself to follow suit. The hurt was too immense. She had carried it too long, guarded it too closely to share it easily.