So he was free at last to return to Dallas and reopen his dental practice, pretending that he’d never been anything but a well-educated professional man with a run of bad luck. And Mattie and his father could be proud of him once more.
But Dallas didn’t seem inclined to forget his previous misfortunes there, and his inquiries for a partnership or even an available office space were met with polite disinterest, or worse. And when he turned to his other profession to support himself, he drew the attention of the ever-vigilant Dallas police, being arrested for gambling three times in his first three weeks back in the city. With all that vigilance, however, the Dallas County Court docket was so crowded with gambling cases that John Henry’s charges wouldn’t be heard for months. So while he waited to pay his fines and clear his record yet again, he decided to try his luck in someplace more friendly—like the town of Breckenridge, one-hundred miles to the west and celebrating its first birthday with fireworks and picnics and wide-open poker games.
He arrived in Breckenridge on the afternoon stage, took a room at the new Drake House Hotel, then dusted off his suitcoat and felt-brimmed hat and headed down Walker Street with Barney Ford’s gold-headed cane in hand, and looking downright dapper. He went unheeled, of course, not eager to break the Texas gun law after his previous trouble in Fort Griffin, and still so unnerved by that self-defense knifing in Denver that he didn’t dare carry the shoulder-holstered Hell-Bitch either. But Breckenridge was a tame enough town, by the looks of it, for a man with no enemies and nothing but cards on his mind.
There were a couple of saloons and gambling halls in town, the most convenient to the Drake House being the Court Saloon, which stood at the end of a bit of board sidewalk across from the County Courthouse lot, though there was no courthouse there yet. The lot was still just a mess of mesquite, as was most of the town, with official county business being conducted in a box-pine hall across from Marberry’s General Store and Veale’s Law and Land Office. But rustic as the place seemed, the saloons were as boisterous as any in Dallas with the influx of gamblers come for the town’s birthday celebration.
The Court Saloon had all the usual games going on that hot afternoon: poker, Faro, keno, Red and Black, High Dice, Over and Under Seven. John Henry ordered a whiskey at the bar, then joined in the crowd around the Faro layout as he waited for a seat at the poker table. After his time dealing Faro in Denver, he’d lost interest in being a mere player in the game. The real money, he knew, went to the banker and the gambling hall. The players only thought they were wagering on Lady Luck and had a chance of winning, a fantasy that a good dealer encouraged. The trick was to keep the players thinking they’d beat the system by dealing them just the right amount of wins to make it seem like they had. All in all, dealing Faro was far more interesting than playing Faro when it was done with skillful sophistication.
The Faro dealer at the Court Saloon was neither skillful nor sophisticated, as he kept turning every card for the house and driving away the players he should have been seducing into the game. He was either stupid or greedy, or both, and John Henry said as much to a gentleman standing beside him in the crowd.
“More likely greedy than stupid,” the man replied, “him being a Jew and all. Name’s Henry Kahn, a bad man around these parts.”
John Henry took a long look at the Faro dealer, trying to see any resemblance between the man and the elegant Emmanuel Kahn of Dallas, and couldn’t see anything aside from the sleek black hair and prominent nose. But all Jews had that profile, from what he’d seen, and that didn’t mean that this Kahn was related to the other one. He certainly didn’t have Emmanuel Kahn’s refinement or sense of style, as the gambler sat in a cloud of cigar smoke and crude language, swearing at the players for not betting high enough.
“Seems to me,” John Henry said, addressing the dealer, “that you’d do better to let them win a little, encouragin’ them to put down their money instead of badgerin’ them into it.”
“And what the hell business is it of yours?” Kahn asked, looking up in irritation.
“None. But it should be yours, if you play the game right. Give a little to get a lot was the way I learned the game when I was dealin’ in Denver.”
“Is that right? Then you can go the hell back to Denver. I’m banking this game, and I’ll play it anyway I want.”
“Suit yourself. But you’re a shame to the Hebrew nation if you don’t learn to deal Faro better than you’re doin’ right now.”
That remark made Kahn pause in mid-deal, and he looked up at John Henry with angry black eyes. “You a Jew-hater?”
“Not at all. In fact, I have the greatest respect for the wanderin’ children of Israel. But one of their finest traits, it always seemed to me, was an innate understandin’ of finance and a natural ability to drive a hard bargain. Hagglin’ Hebrews—one of God’s most interestin’ creations.”
“What are you driving at?” Kahn asked. “’Cause I’m getting tired of this prattle of yours. I’ve got a game to deal.”
“Which is precisely my point. You’ve got the game, but you’re not dealin’. Any Faro dealer worth a copper knows you’ve got to let the bettors win a time or two. Looks to me like you’ve got the whole thing rigged for the bank, and these gentlemen are never going to see any increase for their hard-earned investments. Seems like a natural born Jew would understand that and give up a win from time to time to curry things along. The way you play, you’re either too greedy to be a Jew, or not greedy enough, and I’ll be damned if I can tell the difference.”
He wasn’t trying to be ugly, just informative, and his little speech pleased him so much that he smiled at the end of it, accepting the appreciative nods of the other gamblers. But Henry Kahn was not so pleased, and he shoved back from the layout, knocking the coppers awry.
“You take that back,” Kahn growled.
“I will not. I meant every word of it. You should consider it instructional.”
“I consider it an insult, and you’d better take it back, or . . .”
“Or what?” John Henry asked, having all confidence that in a well-policed place like the Court Saloon, the Faro dealer wasn’t likely to be armed. But Kahn didn’t need a gun. With a curse on his breath, he lunged forward and slapped John Henry hard across the face.
He hadn’t been slapped in years, not since his father had knocked him down and thrown him out of the house, and the old memory and the new pain swirled together into a sudden fury. In one unthinking move, John Henry grabbed his gold-headed cane and swung it hard against Henry Kahn’s head, knocking him to the floor.
He was surprised by the violence of his own emotions, and more surprised by the surge of satisfaction he felt. But the satisfaction didn’t last long, as Kahn pulled himself up from the floor and reached for the derringer he’d had concealed in his vest pocket.
It was the last thing John Henry saw before the world went black.
Dying. He heard the word from somewhere outside himself, and struggled against it. He wasn’t dying, not yet, just dead tired from the ride to Atlanta and back, riding hard to bring the Priest to save Uncle Rob’s soul. It was Uncle Rob who was dying, laid out in the parlor downstairs like a corpse already, cold and still as death, cold as the wind that blew against the broken window and came in through a hole in the roof. So cold outside, but so hot beneath the old quilts Mattie laid over him that he was sweating in spite of the chill.
“It’s all right, honey,” he heard her say. “It’s all right. Mattie’s here.” But there was something sad in her sweet voice, and when she leaned down to kiss him, a tear fell on his face.
“I love you, Mattie,” he murmured, “I love you.” And though he was too weak to do more than whisper the words, he knew that she was there, sitting close beside him and giving him the strength to get well. Then she put her hand on his face, cool and comforting, and brushed the perspiration-damp hair from his brow, and he slept again.
When the fever finally broke and he woke again, it wa
sn’t Mattie who was caring for him so tenderly, laying a cool hand on his forehead, but a woman he didn’t know. He moved his lips to ask who she was and found his throat too dry to make the sounds, then lost the thought as she turned toward the dark shadowed corner of the room and spoke words that made no sense to him.
“He’s coming around, Mr. Holliday,” she said, and John Henry’s eyes followed her gaze to the darkened corner where the dusk was beginning to gather itself into the form of a man.
Mr. Holliday, she had said? A confusion of ache and anger swept over him. His father, here in Texas? His father come to find him at last?
But it wasn’t Henry Holliday there in the shadows, only someone who bore a family resemblance to him.
“Hello, John Henry,” his cousin George Holliday said. “We thought we’d lost you. Welcome back to the world of the livin’.”
George looked substantial enough, with the well-fed weight of happy marriage on him, but John Henry knew he had to be nothing more than another dream. George wasn’t in Texas. George was back home in Atlanta, tending to his father’s store and raising a houseful of Holliday kin.
But this dream didn’t fade and seemed determined to keep him awake.
“You almost bled to death, the doctor says, taking that shot so near to the belly. Lucky for you, the doctor in this town’s a poker player and happened to be in the saloon at the time.”
“I got shot?” he asked, the words coming out in a whisper. Then he remembered the derringer. “Kahn . . .”
“That’s what they called him. He left town before I got here, so I didn’t have the pleasure of meetin’ him myself. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect I’d be meetin’ you again this side of the Pearly Gates after that wire your landlady sent.”
“My landlady?” He was too dizzy, too breathless to follow the story.
“At the hotel, where you left your things. She found a letter from Mattie in your bag and telegraphed with the news that you were dyin’ and she didn’t know what to do about the body. Mattie came to us straightway, hopin’ we’d come along with her here. We made her stay home, of course. Collectin’ the dearly departed’s remains seems like men’s business, more like. If I’d have known you’d still be breathin’ when I got here, I’d have brought her along, after all, to do the nursin’. You’ve cost a bit in medical care.”
George’s practical little speech proved he was no dream after all, but raised more questions than it answered.
“Why you?” John Henry asked hoarsely, and meant, Why not my father ? Surely if the family thought he were dying, his father would have come . . .
“I got elected, that’s why, though Mary wasn’t too happy about it. We had a new baby last month, and she thought I ought to stay home with her and the boy. You heard we had a son this time?”
John Henry shook his head, and the room spun around him. He didn’t know if he knew that or not. Had Mattie mentioned it in her letters?
“Robert would have come, but he’s up in Virginia at a dental convention. So that left me. Lucky for us both, the Texas & Pacific goes straight through from Atlanta to Fort Worth now, so it didn’t take me too long.”
But still no explanation of why Henry Holliday hadn’t come himself, and John Henry forced out the painful words.
“Does my father know?”
George shrugged. “We wired him and he sent some money for a coffin. I reckon he was too tied up with business to get away just then. He’s Mayor of Valdosta now, you know.”
John Henry closed his eyes and let the dizziness lift him—away from the groaning pain in his side, away from the aching knowledge that his father didn’t care if he lived or died. All his struggles to become something, to somehow earn back Henry’s respect and affection, had been for nothing, after all.
“You sleep awhile, John Henry. You’ve got some healin’ to do before I take you home.”
He had some healing to do, all right, and it would take longer to mend than just the wound in his side. So in spite of George’s generosity in taking a room for them at the new Transcontinental Hotel in Fort Worth and staying with him three weeks while he got his strength back, in spite of an emotional letter from Mattie praising the Lord for his life and saying that she was praying for his safe return, he knew he couldn’t go home. Not now, maybe not ever. He still had his pride, after all, and until that was completely gone, he couldn’t go back to his father’s world knowing he wasn’t wanted there.
As for giving up the long anticipated reunion with Mattie, he laid that disappointment at his father’s door, as well.
He went back to Dallas intending to stay just long enough to answer the court cases against him—and ended up getting arrested again in yet another flush of the gambling district. But this time he didn’t even bother waiting around for the trial. He was done with Dallas and done with trying to be his father’s son.
There were other towns less judgmental of a man’s recreations, and where he could live the life of a sporting man without excuses. So he packed up his things and took the train back to Fort Worth and the stage from there to the banks of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, looking for a place with a little less constraining civilization—though on first sight, Fort Griffin looked to have become almost civilized itself. Gone were the rows of shacks along the wide muddy track called Griffin Avenue, their place taken over by two-storied saloons and false-fronted shops and stores. Gone were the buffalo hides drying in the putrefactioned air. For in the year since he’d last seen it, Fort Griffin had grown from buffalo town to cattle town and the premier outfitting point on the newly opened Western Cattle Trail from Brownsville to Dodge City.
Fort Griffin’s transformation from frontier hellhole to the rowdiest cowtown in Texas had come as a side benefit of the Kansas quarantine against Texas Longhorn cattle. The trouble was that the Longhorns carried a sickness that had the unfortunate effect of killing off the shorthorn cattle of the plains. All along the old Chisholm Trail, from the cattle ranches of south Texas to the railheads in Kansas, shorthorns died while Longhorns grew fat and healthy. So the legislature of Kansas placed a quarantine on the whole eastern side of the state, forcing the Texas cattle drovers to find another way to the railroad besides Wichita and Kansas City.
They found their way on the Western trail that led right past Fort Griffin toward Doan’s Station and north to Dodge City. In one spring month, more than 50,000 head of Texas cattle passed by Fort Griffin, herded up the trail by thousands of south Texas cowboys.
“’Tis the best thing that ever happened to business here,” red-haired Irishman Johnny Shaughnessey said, as he welcomed John Henry back with a drink at the shiny new bar of his newly repainted saloon. “The cowboys are carousers, but as it’s carousin’ I’m here to profit from, I don’t mind the disturbance. And what brings you back to the Flat? I thought maybe I’d seen the last of you after that little skirmish in the upstairs.”
“I reckon I’m here to profit from the cowboys too, by way of the poker cards. Unless you’re lookin’ for a Faro dealer. I got to be pretty handy with the layout up in Denver. I’d think about opening a dental office here if I weren’t still wary of the soldiers up at the Fort.”
“The soldiers aren’t so much of a problem as they used to be,” Shaughnessey said, “not since we got our own law in the County: Sheriff John Larn. A regular Robin Hood, he is, but he takes care of the folks around town.”
“A Robin Hood?”
“Aye, that’s right. Takes from the rich and gives to the poor, or rather he takes from the cattlemen and gives to his friends. ‘Course, his bein’ a cattleman too, you might call that rustlin’. But you won’t call it anything at all, if you know what’s good for you.”
“So aren’t you playing it chancey, telling me about this new Sheriff ’s philandering?”
“I figure tellin’ you is as safe as tellin’ the Priest,” Shaughnessey said, “if we had one in this God-forsaken place, seein’ as you’ve got your own secrets I’m holdin�
��, as well. We might as well be blood-brothers, you and me, for the trust we hold in each other.”
John Henry wasn’t sure whether he should be flattered or alarmed, but chose flattery.
“I appreciate your confidence, Shaughnessey. And I’d appreciate another shot of this Irish whiskey. You always could pick the liquor.”
“And the women, if you’ll recall. I’m thinkin’ of havin’ a sign painted to hang over the front door: Shaughnessey’s Saloon: Shacklesford’s Best Whores. What do you think about that?”
“I think it’s bound to get you a fine from the County Sheriff,” John Henry said with a laugh, “advertisin’ your business like that!”
But the laugh brought a pain from the still-healing wound in his side, making him catch his breath, and Shaughnessey gave him a worried look.
“Are you all right, then?”
“I’ve been better. I took a gunshot awhile back, and it still troubles me some. My misfortune for holdin’ to the gun law and not heelin’ myself properly while travelin’. A walkin’ cane isn’t much use when the other man’s carryin’ a derringer.”
“Pshaw! Texas gun law! Makin’ good men go unarmed when every outlaw’s got himself heeled to the teeth! That only gives bad men an unfair advantage in a fight.”
“So I noticed,” John Henry replied, and was going to add that he no longer held with the gun law since his altercation in Breckenridge, and had his own Colt’s revolver safely tucked into his pocket. But before he could get the thought out, the conversation was interrupted by a commotion from the second floor of the saloon where a woman’s shriek was followed by a man’s holler, then both voices joining together into a duet of obscenities.
It was such fine cussing that John Henry had to stop and listen and was disappointed when it ended as abruptly as it had begun, followed by something that sounded like bedsprings squeaking in the room overhead.
“That’s Katie Elder and her cowboy,” Shaughnessey said apologetically. “They get a little loud when they’re lovemakin’.”
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