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 . . .
Southern Son Page 24