“No, a dealer,” Mary told the girl, whose hair was a dull washed-out yellow. “Dutch Annie—meet the Primrose.”
Annie smiled now, and her blue eyes did not look so old in the waxy face. “Nice to meetcha,” she said congenially. “Come on below when you’re ready, and I’ll show you the ropes.”
“Here you go,” Mary said, pulling a plum-pink satin dress trimmed in black from the clothespress. “There’s hose and slippers in the trunk. And do something with that haystack on your head,” she added before closing the door on Jessie.
Alone now, Jessie shed the dusty clothes, shedding her past life like a snake shedding its skin. In the new clothes she donned another personality. She took a seat before the dressing table and began to brush out the matted hair. She used the satiny rose pin perched in the low V of her gown to anchor her hair atop her head in a wreath of braids. A pot of rouge sat on the table, and she lightly touched the greasy pink cream to her suntanned cheeks. When she was ready to leave, she did not recognize herself in the mirror.
Slowly, hesitantly, she descended the stairs to the saloon below, her heart pounding in her ribcage like a blacksmith’s hammer. Gaze after gaze, like the rippling fall of dominoes, rose from the dice and cards on the tables to fix on the incredibly lovely apparition. Even old black Beauregard at the piano let his fingers fall silent on the keys.
In the sudden hush of the room she made her way to the cage. From inside came Dutch Annie’s voice, arguing. “My God, Dan, she's only a kid!”
And O'Rourke's voice: “So were you, too, Annie, when you first started.”
Jessie opened the door. O’Rourke and Dutch Annie stared at her in disbelief. Coming to his feet, O Rourke held out his hand to Jessie, and she placed her hand in the palm of his. “The Primrose has arrived,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers.
CHAPTER 32
"Hi ya, Rose!” a drunken voice called out.
“Hey, it’s the Primrose!”
More gamblers took up the call until the room almost reverberated with the shout: “It’s the Primrose! It’s the Primrose!” Old Beauregard launched into his nightly tribute to her, the Irish “The Rose of Tralee,” which was as true as any of the rumors that circulated about her, she thought as she passed by him and patted his arm in a fond gesture. If one could ignore the Mexican half of her ancestry.
It had been the same every night for six months when Jessie descended the staircase to work at the tables . . . the shouting, the ogling, the applause as she took her seat at one of the tables. Some nights she perched on the high stool behind the blackjack table, swiftly dealing the cards out and raking in the money for the house. Other nights she managed the roulette table, the monte table, and, on occasion, the fan-tan table.
But whatever table she presided over, it was always immediately crowded and stayed that way until she took the ten-o’clock break and then refilled with patrons once more on her return until the end of her shift at four in the morning.
It was not just the innocent beauty, childlike yet provocative, that intrigued the men. It was the education, the pseudonym, the mystery about her, the reserve that ran beneath the polite words she exchanged with each man who visited her table. It was because she knew each man by name and within a short period of time was familiar with each man’s tide-of-woe story; it was because she seemed to listen as if she really cared. Yet she never divulged a word about herself—and this captured their adoration just that much more.
She distributed her warm smiles impartially among the men. She listened to the old prospector, Tumbleweed, tell his story over and over about the strike he was going to make one day or Curly Bill lament that he was forced into a life of robbery because he had a dying mother to support.
The men tried to press money on her, but she would not take it. She had never wanted money. She wanted only one thing . . . one man. And without him, without Brig, nothing else held interest for her. The Crystal Palace was merely a means to an end, a way to earn a living until one day she had her revenge.
The four bagnio dance-hall girls who also worked the bars and sometimes the beds—if they were lucky and the miner was old or very drunk or both—at first watched the newcomer, the Primrose, with suspicion that bordered on jealousy. But the Primrose did nothing to fan their dislike.
She refused to take the tips the men tried to press on her at the gambling tables—leaving them to spend their tips at the bar on the women. And she never took a customer to bed, departing instead at half past four in the morning for the Russ House, chaperoned by the Palace’s patrons who were almost as formidable as the United States deputy marshal. Wyatt Earp.
Only Dan O'Rourke did not seem to fall beneath her spell. But then he never fell beneath any woman’s spell. And, of course, he knew something about the young girl who dealt the cards. If nothing else, he knew her first name—-and he knew she was running.
Running from herself, most likely, he figured as he watched her agile fingers riffle the cards before distributing them to the five men who were lucky enough to possess the chairs at her table. One day, he knew, she would want to leave, but before that day came he would know her story . . . and her weakness. And perhaps he would bind her to the Crystal Palace.
He came up to stand behind her now. Her fingers flittered over the deck again with rapid dexterity. The house had twenty, and Jessie leaned over to rake in the silver pieces and ’dobe dollars. When she straightened, Dan’s fingers toyed with the loose tendril of hair at her nape. “How’s it going, doll?”
She pulled away a fraction of an inch. “As usual,” she murmured. Dan withdrew his hand. He would not force his attentions on her, though as her employer he would not have been doing anything out of the ordinary. But he suspected Jessie would give her notice as easily as she had appeared, no doubt to seek employment at one of the other saloons.
Word was out that Earp, a part owner in the Oriental Bar, had appealed to her to come to work for him. Evidently she had demurred, as Dan knew she would. As long as she was free to come and go, he knew she would remain at the Crystal Palace.
He leaned over her shoulder and said in a low voice, “Rose, tomorrow’s your day off. How about dining out with me and then taking in the acts at the Bird Cage Theater? Lotta Crabtree’s playing there.”
Jessie glanced up at Dan, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. But the dandy’s face was guileless. True, for six months she had been nowhere but back and forth between the Russ House and the Crystal Palace. And Dan had yet to make a dishonorable pass at her. "All right,” she said slowly.
“I save it for special occasions,” Dutch Annie said, holding up for Jessie to admire the black beaded and laced two-piece dress with the white lace around the low, square neckline.
“Yeah,” Mary said from the dressing table, “like two minutes before she strips for bed.”
Annie shot the older woman a venomous look and said, “Go on, take it. Rose. With your golden good looks, you’ll set the men on their heads.”
The evening dress had an enormous bustle and a long train, and when Jessie looked in the mirror, she had to admit it was stunning. “You’ll need gloves,” Mary said in a simulated bored voice and began to rummage in her trunk. "This oughtta do it.” She produced a pair of long black silk gloves that had to have at least twenty buttons on each arm.
A tawdry, aging woman with henna-dyed hair who went by the nickname of Salome draped a sable boa around Jessie’s shoulders. "From the good old days, dearie,” she said in a nostalgic voice. "When gold ran like water in California.”
“All you’re lacking is a hat,” said Belle, an ample woman with frizzed bangs. She sat a large leghorn with a black ostrich feather at a tilt on Jessie’s head.
The four dance-hall girls stepped back to look at their creation, satisfied smiles settling on their faces. Jessie said, "You four look like fairy godmothers, and I feel like Cinderella.”
“Just make sure you come back the same way you leave, Cinderella,” Mary said dryly. “A vi
rgin.”
The evening was far more exciting than any of the times Jessie had visited Tucson. Tombstone had plenty of money to spend— and spent it in these boom times. The men at the Maison Doree would have looked at home in a metropolitan club. The women in attendance kept abreast of the styles and the fashion edicts of the Rue de la Paix as set forth in the Tombstone Epitaph.
The Maison Doree's owner, a portly man with a triple chin who went by the name of Julius Caesar, smiled and bowed as he welcomed Dan and Jessie into Tombstone’s most prestigious restaurant. "What epicurean delights do you have to offer tonight, Julius?" Dan asked.
The rubicund little man rubbed his hands unctuously. "The quail on toast is magnificent, Mr. O'Rourke.”
And it was, she thought. French wine from Guaymas in a silver iced champagne bucket was followed by ripe strawberries and cream and a demitasse of pousse café while Dan regaled her with stories of the town's wildness and even spoke a little of his own life.
"I was born during the potato famine,” he said as he lit up the after-dinner cheroot. “My parents were terribly poor and did any kind of demeaning labor in order to survive. As I learned to do. Any kind of labor but work in the mines. You won't find the superstitious Irishmen going in those black holes.”
After dinner they took a cab to the Bird Cage Theater. There was a bar at the front of the Bird Cage, but it was the theater behind it that was packed. Wooden benches filled the lower floor of the theater, and a horseshoe of curtained boxes flanked the upper walls. At the front the glare of kerosene-lamp footlights illuminated a vaudeville performer cutting capers on the stage.
Jessie, sipping on a mint julep, checked her playbill and found that it was Tommy Rosa, King of Comedians and Laugh Makers . . . to be followed by Professor King in His Wonderful Suspension Wire Act. In between performances, beautifully painted ladies in scanty costumes sang touching ballads of home and mother on the stage and then hurried to the boxes, where, by their voluptuous charms and soft graces, they swelled the receipts of the downstairs bar and received a rake-off on every bottle of beer they persuaded their admirers to buy.
Dan’s box was on the same side as the boxes of Doc Holliday, the Earp brothers, and Bat Masterson. Opposite, the boxes were filled with Earp’s enemies—the Cochise County sheriff, Johnny Behan, and his men. The story went, Dan said, that every night the two factions faced each other with grim eyes—and that one day soon there was certain to be an eruption of gunplay.
In another box Russian Bill swaggered and postured. Remarkably handsome, with yellow hair that tumbled about his shoulders, he dressed in cowboy regalia, complete in every detail from white sugarloaf sombrero to high-heeled boots with immense spurs. “It’s rumored that the man’s actually a Russian prince,” Dan told her. “Of course, no one can prove it one way or another, but it is known that he has been paying twenty-five dollars every night for his box over the last year and a half.”
In between acts, Jessie took delight in studying the people. She could spot the professional gamblers at a glance by their immaculate clothes—their silk shirts, dandy crutch sticks, and headlight diamonds. At first she had classified Dan as one of those who succumbed to the fascination of faro, for over the months she noted that his diamond pin disappeared at intervals, as did he for two or three days at a time. But she never once saw him touch cards or dice.
“Having fun, Flora?” he asked warmly, taking her hand in his when the lights were turned up between acts.
“Very much, Dan.” She let him squeeze her fingertips, then withdrew her hand.
“We’ll do it again,” he said, louder now that the crowd began to applaud Lotta Crabtree’s appearance.
Jessie leaned forward to study the beautiful redheaded woman with the tiny figure. Lotta had a charisma that came through on her simpler songs like “The Pink Lady” and “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage,” which was written about the fallen angels who serviced the boxes, or cages, at the Bird Cage Theater. The song was very popular now in the States. But it was when Lotta began to dance her famous—or infamous, depending on the viewpoint—“can-can” that she took the theater by storm.
When the tasseled red velvet curtain closed on the last performance, the benches were moved against the walls, and the crowd began to dance “until the sun peaks over the Dragoons,” Dan said. Not everyone danced. Jessie noticed some of the couples from the boxes entering the small hatch door under the stage.
“If the beds beneath the stage could speak." Dan said, following her gaze, "the Epitaph would be chocked with scandals.” He raked a brow. “Want to see what’s going on?”
She laughed. “I’m sure whatever happens is not much different from what goes on upstairs at your place.”
He leaned across the small candlelit table and kissed her cheek. “That's what I like about you. Flora. Your innocence. Let’s get you back to the Russ House before I decide to drag you below the stage.”
When the barouche halted before the boardinghouse, Dan drew her into his arms and kissed her—a soft, searching kiss. “You really should leave Tombstone and go back wherever you ran away from,” he said huskily before he released her and instructed the driver to go on.
CHAPTER 33
Dan’s hand went to his flower-brocaded vest to withdraw the watch fob. “It’s about time for you to go off duty, isn’t it?”
Jessie handed over the deck with a small smile. “I’m ready, Dan. Tonight seems longer than usual.”
“It’s the heat. Get yourself a glass of scotch. It’ll cool you off.” But, of course, he knew she would not get anything to drink from the bar. She never did. Instead she brought a jar filled with sarsaparilla by Nellie Cashman.
Jessie made her way to the cage and kicked off her satin slippers, laying her head against the back of the scrolled chair while she slowly fanned herself.
At that moment she could think of a hundred places she would rather have been. Even the excitement of the Bird Cage Theater was beginning to pale now. Dan had taken her back several times to see such acts as Fatima’s Little Egypt, the Famous Human Flies, and a group of minstrel players. But there was a void in her that no amount of entertainment could fill. Nothing could drive the thoughts of Brig from her mind for long.
Tonight was no different. She willed her treacherous thoughts to other things . . . to the man who sat at the fan-tan table earlier that evening. A Chinese, she guessed, although, with the exception of the slanted eyes and the saffron-colored skin, he certainly did not resemble the other Chinese.
In lieu of the long pigtail, the queue, his ebony hair was scissored off neatly about the nape. In place of the loose, quilted cotton jacket and trousers, he wore the canvas dungarees of a miner and a clean plaid shirt. But what was so unusual was the Oriental’s build. Admittedly he was on the slender side, but he was tall—as tall as Brig, yet with muscles that twisted about the arms, bulging the veins of the forearms. And then he did not cross the Crystal Palace Saloon in that trotting walk typical of the Chinese coolie, but rather his long legs seemed to eat up the board floor.
For a few minutes she had been fascinated by the Oriental, by his deft movements with the cards, by the stone-like countenance that revealed nothing. A true poker face, she would have said of the slitted eyes and immobile lips. He was the first person—of all the strange, assorted men and women who drifted in and out of the Crystal Palace—to hold her interest for any length of time. But even then the apathy that had its hold on her like a boa constrictor tightened, and her mind had gone blank to all but the colors and numbers on the cards.
Listlessly she tossed her fan on the desk and picked up the Epitaph. Her eyes inattentively scanned “Death's Doings,” which occupied more than half the paper’s columns. The door opened behind her, but she only half heard the amplification in the noise from the outer room as her gaze moved over, then swept back to one small column headlined “Godwin—Roget Wedding.”
The paper began to rattle in her hands as she read about Brig’s
marriage to Fanny two weeks earlier which “united two great families," John Clum, the editor, wrote.
Two arms encircled her and took hold of her hands. “Whatever you read,” Dan said from behind, “sure has ruffled the Primrose for a change.”
Her fingers gripped the paper in a monumental effort to halt the shaking. “It's nothing. Just all the deaths. You get tired of reading about such depressing things." She folded the newspaper meticulously and laid it on the desk. “Guess I'd better be getting back to my station.”
Dan took her arms and turned her toward him. His gambler’s keen eyes searched her face, but she had learned after six months to wear the dealer’s impassive facade. Her seventeenth birthday had come and gone, but she felt eons older now. “Are you sure everything’s all right, Flora?”
“Sure,” she said and brushed past him, anxious to escape his scrutiny.
In the outer room the smoke-cloud haze and the din of noise— Beauregard’s piano music, the whoops of the flirtatious dancing girls on stage, and the bark of the dealers—served to cover her flustered state. But her hands did not as easily conceal the earthquake that rumbled and surged and cracked her interior. She half expected fissures to erupt on her surface so that she looked like a china doll that had been dropped.
Twice in a row she misdealt the cards. Another time she forgot to rake in the house’s winnings. Most of the players were too far gone in drink to notice the mistakes, but once she looked up to find the Oriental sitting directly before her, his oblique eyes studying her with the unwavering gaze of the fox.
This shook her even more. She signaled to the lookout for a replacement, and a small baldheaded man threaded through the crowd to take her place behind the table. Unheeding of the friendly calls the men made as she passed, she groped her way to the bar. “Give me something, please, Ollie,” she told the bewhiskered bartender. “Anything.”
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