Dance with the Devil

by Victoria Wilcox

“Hold on, Doc!” Hurricane Bill said quickly, “you know there’s no weapons allowed in here!”

  But John Henry laughed. “I’m not plannin’ to rob you fine gentlemen! I’d just like to ante into this game, if you’ll have me. I was only reachin’ for my money purse.” And as he pulled his hand from his vest, he opened it to show a wad of greenbacks. “How does two-hundred sound for starters? I think a healthy pot makes for a more interesting evenin’, don’t you? Five card draw, nothin’ wild, and no limit on the bets?”

  Then he tossed the bills onto the table and noted with satisfaction that even wealthy cattleman John Larn seemed impressed.

  “I hear you’re the best poker player in Texas, Dr. Holliday,” purred Lottie Deno, as John Henry settled himself between her and Hurricane. “Is that true?”

  “No Ma’am, I don’t believe that’s true. I reckon I’m the best poker player in the whole Wild West. Kate darlin’, why don’t you make yourself comfortable? This may be a long evenin’.”

  And by reply, Kate slowly dropped the lace shawl from her shoulders, showing off her figure in a low-cut satin dress, and letting the men have a good long look at her before taking a seat behind John Henry.

  “Hell, Holliday!” Curly Bill Brocious said, letting out a wolf whistle. “Your woman’s looking damn fine tonight!”

  “Keep your trousers on, Curly,” Hurricane Bill warned, “this is just poker tonight. Deal the cards, Lottie. I’m running out of time to beat you at this game.”

  “Oh, you’ll never beat me,” Lottie said with a smile. “I cheat, remember?”

  But though Lottie Deno claimed to be playing a crooked game, John Henry somehow kept coming up with good cards himself, like the straight flush and the full house he took an hour later. And if he hadn’t known better, he might have thought that Lottie was purposefully dealing him better hands than she was giving the other men who were soon played out of the game.

  “Although losing to you is always a pleasure,” Larn told Lottie as he bent to kiss her cheek after throwing in his last losing hand.

  “You’re a fool with your money, Larn,” Hurricane Bill complained. “If you want to give your winnings to a whore, you might as well get some whoring for it.”

  “I would, if I weren’t such a faithful married man,” Larn replied. “Not that you’d understand the concept of fidelity, Hurricane, being married to a whore yourself.”

  “Save your piety for the preacher. Everybody in the county knows you been sweet on Lottie Deno for years. I’ll bet your wife wondered why you laid out your flower garden in the shape of playing cards. Did you know about that, Lottie? He even put a queen of hearts in the middle, just for you.”

  And something almost like a blush ran over John Larn’s handsome face when Lottie smiled up at him.

  “Did you really, Sheriff? How very sentimental of you! I’ll have to think of you from now on whenever I play the red queen.”

  But Larn had quickly regained his composure and he glared at Hurricane Bill. “I should have let the Vigilance Committee have you last time they came looking around. Good night, Lottie. Mr. Martin and I have some ranching to do. Come along, Billy.”

  “Interesting man,” John Henry said when Larn and his bodyguards had left the saloon. “Do you reckon he really planted a flower garden in the shape of playing cards?”

  “Sure he did,” Lottie replied. “It’s famous in these parts. I rode out to take a look at it myself when he wasn’t around. There’s a queen of hearts in the middle of it, all right, though I didn’t know he put it there for me. But I’m not much of a flower lover. Flowers always die sooner or later.” Then she collected the scattered cards and ruffled them expertly, “So I guess this leaves just you and me now. Mind if I deal?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do, Miss Deno. The other gentlemen may not have noticed you palmin’ a card or two, but I did. If you were a man, I’d have had to shoot you for cheatin’. So why don’t we start this hand with a fresh deck, and let Miss Elder deal for us? Kate, open up that pack of playin’ cards I bought just today, will you?”

  “Now Doc,” Lottie said disappointedly, “you don’t really expect me to fall for that old game, do you? Even I’ve resealed a marked deck and pretended it was new!”

  “Have you indeed, Miss Deno? Then you’re a worse cheat than I thought you were.”

  “And I’d say that makes us two of a kind.”

  “Well then,” John Henry said with a slow smile, “it appears we are at an impasse. Neither one of us can be trusted to play square. However are we going to finish this game? I don’t think I can let you just walk away with all that money of mine.” Lottie’s winnings were piled high on the table in front of her, cash and chips and several notes for credit at the local bank.

  “Why don’t we let this hand decide it?” Lottie said. “Your mistress can deal, and you can pretend not to notice if I palm a card. That way, we can both do a little cheating and still be playing fair with each other.”

  Kate opened the sealed deck of carefully marked cards and shuffled and dealt them as John Henry had taught her to: three jacks to him, his favorite hand, and a couple of high cards to Lottie. The high pair gave the competition a sense of security, but his three of a kind was enough to win most games and could turn into a full house or even four of a kind on a lucky draw. But though he knew that Kate had given Lottie a high pair, he didn’t know for sure what kind they were. Even when he cheated, he liked to have some element of chance left in the game. That was what made gambling a thrill, after all.

  But Lottie Deno was a cool player as she opened with that pairaces, John Henry figured, from the fact that she wagered so high. Unless she was bluffing, of course. It was hard to tell, her being a woman and not the kind of competition he was used to. He could read most men, but Lottie Deno seemed inscrutable, and maybe even unbeatable, until the wagering ended and he called.

  As Lottie laid her cards face up on the table, John Henry let out a whistle. She had two pair, all right, just as he’d thought, but what a two pair hand she had: Aces and eights and a queen kicker.

  “The Deadman’s Hand!” he said with admiration. “Wild Bill Hickok’s last play. I’m surprised you had the nerve to keep it, Lottie. They say no man has ever left that hand alive.”

  “But I’m not a man, as you may have noticed. And how about your own hand?”

  “It’s not as impressive,” he said, turning his cards over, “but it beats your two pair, anyhow: three-of-a kind jacks.”

  But Lottie smiled as if she were the real winner. “Well, at least I can say I lost to the best card player in the whole Wild West! Though I have a confession to make. Those chips of mine can’t be cashed in, not here in the saloon, at least. I’m afraid I’ve left my handbag at home tonight. Hurricane gave me the chips on credit, at Mr. Larn’s request.”

  “Then I suppose I can carry your credit, too,” John Henry said, “though I usually like to collect my winnin’s directly.”

  “But I’m not asking you to carry me,” Lottie said. “I’ve got the money at my house, if you’d just walk me down there. Do you mind loaning him out for a bit, Miss Elder? You know what my part of town is like, not safe for a woman walking alone.”

  “I suppose I don’t mind,” Kate replied, as she pulled the last of the cash into her velvet handbag. “Doc’s taught me how to use a knife as well as how to deal the cards. I ought to be able to get back to the hotel without losing all our money.” Then she stood and gave John Henry one long, lingering kiss. “Just don’t take too long, my love,” she said in that sultry Hungarian voice of hers. “You know how I hate to go to bed alone.”

  Lottie lived at the end of the main street of town, down by the banks of the Clear Fork of the Brazos where the prostitutes had their shanties, though her house was nicer than the rest. It was built of white-washed pickets, willow timbers laid side by side and bound together to make boards for the walls.

  “I’d never seen a willow picket house before I came to Fort
Griffin,” Lottie said, as she stood on the doorstep in the thin midnight light, her dyed red hair looking a little less garish in the darkness. “But it makes a nice, comfortable home, and I do like my customers to be comfortable. I suppose that’s why I do so well here. Men know they can always have a nice time at Lottie’s place.”

  “You said you had the money?” John Henry asked, feeling uncomfortably conspicuous standing on the front step of Lottie Deno’s brothel. He knew plenty of men who were regular customers at the houses of prostitution down by the river, but he’d never had the need to venture into that part of town before. Shaughnessey’s girls had always been happy to offer, and now that he had Kate for company, he didn’t need to go looking for amusement.

  “What I meant is, I can pay you what I owe you here,” Lottie replied. “But as I’m a little low on cash right now, I was hoping maybe you’d accept something in trade.”

  “In trade?”

  “I’m talking about a business transaction, Doc,” Lottie said coolly. “You come in and let me work off my debt. Prostitution is my business, after all. Why not let me give you some of what I sell in payment for my debt? I promise you’ll be satisfied with the arrangement.”

  “You mean sleep with one of your girls and forget the money?” he said in surprise.

  “Not one of my girls, Doc,” Lottie said with a friendly smile. “Spend the night with me, and call my poker debt even.”

  But when he hesitated, she put her hand on his arm and looked up into his face. “What’s the matter, Doc? You’re not married to that Elder woman, are you?”

  And John Henry thought of Kate, back in their hotel room counting up his gambling winnings and drinking the liquor his gambling money bought. Then he touched the gold Claddagh ring on his little finger, and he said softly:

  “No, I’m not married to Kate.”

  “Well then, will you accept my payment?”

  And when Lottie smiled and reached her hand out to his, he took it, and followed her inside.

  It was the sound of screaming down by the river that woke him in the early hours of the dawn, long after he and Lottie had finished settling her gambling debt. She’d been as good as her word about paying off to his satisfaction, and he was deep asleep in her comfortable bed when the noise began, a terrified wailing that sounded more animal than human.

  “What the hell?” he said, rolling over and reaching for his revolver on the night stand, his reflexes amazingly quick for a man who hadn’t had much rest.

  “A hanging, I expect,” Lottie replied, as she pulled the sheet around her nakedness and climbed out of bed, peering through the curtain at the window. “The vigilantes like to leave us a man for breakfast every morning, strung up in the trees there by the river. They’re hanging the wrong men, though, if you ask me, just poor cowboys. It’s John Larn who deserves to be strangled. He’s the one who’s behind it all.”

  “I thought Larn was a friend of yours,” John Henry said, rolling back over and laying his pistol down.

  “I’m friends with any man who loses a game of poker to me.”

  “And what about me? I beat you.”

  “Oh, you only thought you beat me, Doc. I still had an Ace up my sleeve, if I’d wanted to play it.”

  “You mean you let me win?” he asked, puzzled. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Well, honey,” she said, lying back down beside him and running her hand over the fair hair on his bare chest. “I figured that was the only way I’d ever get you into my bed. I took a liking to you the minute you walked into that saloon last night. And why shouldn’t I have some fun myself from time to time?”

  “You are a bad woman, Lottie Deno!”

  “I know I am,” she replied, “but at least I’m good at being bad!”

  “You are that,” he agreed, remembering how much he’d enjoyed collecting on that debt. “It’s a shame we’ve settled up already.”

  “We can always cut the cards again. I’ve got time for another quick go ‘round, if you’re feeling ready to ante up.”

  And if he hadn’t started into a fit of morning coughing just then, he might have taken her up on the offer. But it was a few minutes before he could even catch his breath, and by then, Lottie was looking more concerned than amorous.

  “That’s a bad cough, Doc. Have you seen a doctor about it?”

  “Sure, I’ve seen a doctor. He told me to try a dryer climate. So I went to the Staked Plains and dried out.”

  “You’ve got the consumption? That’s a shame, Doc, that’s a real shame. I’ll probably die of some social disease myself, if I don’t die in childbirth first. Though I’ve done fine in that department so far.”

  “You have children?” he asked in surprise, though the news shouldn’t have startled him too much. Prostitutes were always getting pregnant by their customers and having babies who would never know their fathers. The west was littered with illegitimate children and their working-girl mothers. But he didn’t picture Lottie Deno being in that situation. “So where are they?”

  “Far away from here, you can bet. No baby of mine is ever going to know what his mother does for a living. That’s why I work as hard as I do, so I can have enough to send to them and something left over for me, as well. So now you know my secret, Doc. Do you still think I’m a bad woman?”

  “No,” he replied, suddenly seeing Lottie in a softer kind of light. “I think you’re a real nice woman. No wonder John Larn has such a fancy for you.”

  “John Larn . . .” she said on a sigh, sitting up and shaking out her tangled red hair. “He did come to me once, right after I moved here. I think he’d had a big row with his wife, and figured he was losing her anyway. We had a good time together, that once. It might have even been his baby boy I had awhile later—he was a real pretty baby. But there’s no telling, working the line the way I do. I like to think that maybe he was John Larn’s, though. The queen of hearts,” she said wistfully, “what do you think of that?”

  “I think you’re a queen, all right, Lottie,” he said, pulling her back to him. But before he could do more than hold her close, the bedroom door flew open. Kate was standing in the doorway, her face wild with anger and the Hell-Bitch in her upraised hand.

  “Come away from her!” she said in a fury. “Come away, or I’ll cut her open!”

  “Why, Kate, whatever are you doing with that blade?” John Henry asked in surprise, though he was less startled by the weapon than by Kate’s sudden appearance in Lottie Deno’s brothel.

  “How could you do this?” she demanded. “You know she’s Shaughnessey’s woman. I thought Shaughnessey was your friend!”

  “Shaughnessey knows what I do for a living,” Lottie said, pulling the sheet back around her. “It’s none of his business who I do it with.”

  “We were just settlin’ our gambling debt,” John Henry explained. “Miss Deno got herself in a little deeper than she planned.”

  “Oh, I think it’s you that got in deep, Doc!” Lottie said with a bawdy laugh, and Kate screamed and rushed at her.

  “Whore! I’ll kill you!”

  But when she raised her hand to strike at Lottie, John Henry grabbed his revolver and leveled it at her.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Kate. This isn’t worth dyin’ over.” And when he cocked the pistol with a click of the hammer, Kate froze in her steps.

  “Would you really kill me?”

  “Not if you behave yourself and give me that knife. Come now, Kate. You can’t beat a bullet, can you?”

  And slowly, Kate’s arm fell back to her side, the huge knife clattering onto the wooden floor.

  “I thought you said you weren’t married, Doc,” Lottie commented, as she slid off the bed and pulled on a dressing gown. “But she sure looks like a jealous wife to me.”

  “Why don’t you give us a moment here alone?” he asked her.

  “Sure, Doc. Just don’t let her kill you in my house, all right? I’ve got customers coming in pretty soon.”
>
  “There now, Kate,” John Henry said evenly, after Lottie had closed the door. “It’s all over now. Shaughnessey doesn’t ever need to know . . .”

  But Kate turned to him with sudden tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t care about Shaughnessey!” she cried. “I care about you! How could you do this? How could you do this to me?”

  “This had nothing to do with you. I was just collectin’ on a gambling debt, like I said . . .”

  “But why this way? Don’t I give you what you need? Aren’t I a good enough lover to you? Why did you have to go to someone else’s bed?” Then she sat down beside him and said with surprising passion: “Love me, Doc! Make love to me!”

  “I’m tired,” he said, turning away from her and reaching for his clothes. “I want to go home.”

  But Kate was already unfastening the buttons on the bodice of her dress, and she reached for his hands and pulled him toward her.

  “Love me!” she said hungrily. “I need you to love me!”

  And feeling the softness of her skin under his fingers, John Henry felt the urgency rising up in himself.

  “Kate,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t want to do this here. Not in Lottie’s bed . . .”

  But Kate was laughing as she lay down and pulled him to her.

  “Yes, in Lottie’s bed!” she said. “I want you to remember me in Lottie’s bed! I want you to remember me . . .”

  And after they had finished making love and had walked back to their hotel through the early morning quiet of Fort Griffin Flat, Kate was as cool and calm as if nothing had ever happened at all.

  A man for breakfast, Lottie had called the vigilante lynchings down by the banks of the Clear Fork. There weren’t enough sturdy trees for hangings anywhere else in that dry cattle country, so the pecans along the riverbank became a kind of public gallows for the Vigilance Committee. And though it wasn’t every morning, there were still so many bodies swinging from those shady branches that Fort Griffin was getting a reputation as a hanging town.

  But in spite of the vigilante’s efforts, the cattle rustling in Shackleford County went on, drawing in more and more cowboy drifters looking for a way to make a fast dollar. The local law couldn’t seem to do anything to stop the rustling either, as newly appointed Sheriff Bill Cruger had his hands full just keeping the gambling dens of Fort Griffin under control. Whenever the cowboys got bored out on the range, they came in to run the town, gambling away their wages and shooting up the saloons. John Henry even saw Johnny Ringo in town a time or two with his friends from Hurricane Bill’s gang. But Ringo always seemed more interested in getting drunk than in looking up the woman he’d spent a few weeks with at Shaughnessey’s Saloon.