Dance with the Devil

by Victoria Wilcox

  It was the best answer John Henry had ever heard on the matter, though it made no sense at all. And that, somehow, was a kind of comfort. Maybe life didn’t have to make sense to be enjoyed. Maybe it was enough just to be living.

  “I hear they have hot springs over there in Cañon City, too,” John Henry said, thinking that a dip in a mineral bath might help to calm the cough that had come on him again in Dodge City.

  “They do, down on the banks of the Arkansas. There’s a nice hotel there, as well. Sheriff Masterson stayed there last visit we made for the Santa Fe. ‘Course, the rest of us made do with tents down in the Gorge close by the tracks. Nice weather for camping, though, being springtime and all. I’d trade this stuffy office for a tent in the canyon right now. Suppose someone’s got to guard the telegraph, though.”

  John Henry nodded, then had a thought. “Josh, you know how to operate this telegraph machine? I believe I would like to send a wire.”

  “You heard what Bat said: no messages in or out until he gives the order.”

  “This is a personal message, not railroad business. I don’t remember hearin’ Bat give any orders about that. Besides, seems like the Santa Fe owes us a free wire, at least, for keepin’ their right-of-way open for them.”

  Josh had to concede the point, and he took a paper and ink pen from the telegrapher’s desk. “It’ll take me a bit to figure the code, being rusty as I am, but I’ll give it a shot. Who’s it going to?”

  “Miss M.A. Holliday, Atlanta, Georgia. I believe my cousin would like to hear about the sea monsters.”

  They didn’t learn until later that the Denver & Rio Grande had taken back the depot at Colorado Springs and was intercepting telegraph messages, which made Josh Webb worry that it had been their wire that tipped off the D&RG to the Santa Fe’s position in Pueblo. But John Henry didn’t see as how that could be possible, his message to Mattie having been the very briefest of wires and nothing whatsoever to do with the railroads. And during the heat of the battle that followed, even Josh stopped worrying over the matter.

  The telegraph office was situated on the railroad platform at the north end of town, giving it a clear view back across the river and down Fourth Street toward the Victoria Hotel where the Denver & Rio Grande’s hired guns were gathering. Even without that view, John Henry would have known they were coming, the sound of them carrying back down to the telegraph office like thunder carried before a coming storm. There were more than fifty of them, crowding the street as they marched toward the roundhouse, rifles fixed with bayonets that glinted in the summer sun.

  John Henry took a stance at an open window, steadying his pistol hand on the window sill, while Josh positioned himself at the door, ready to bar the way.

  “Do you think we can take ‘em, Doc?” he asked as they cocked their pistols and took aim at the advancing army.

  “No, but we can give ‘em a little hell. You loaded up all around?”

  If the Denver & Rio Grande men had come on orderly, waiting for a shout of challenge and reply, there might have been something like a fair fight. That was the way a siege was supposed to be, John Henry knew from his school days studying ancient wars. But the men of the D&RG hadn’t been to the same school and came on like a mob, shoving their bayonetted rifles through the window glass and smashing their way into the telegraph office.

  John Henry got off one useless shot through the open window, then spun around to see Josh Webb take a rifle butt across the face.

  “Give way, Josh!” he cried. “Let ‘em have the wire!”

  Josh looked up, dazed and bloodied, and moaned as John Henry grabbed his arm, dragging him toward the back windows of the office.

  After all his dreams of heroism and glory, his first battle was ended almost before it began.

  The stand-off at the roundhouse didn’t last much longer than that one-shot battle at the telegraph office, only long enough for Bat Masterson to make a deal with the Denver & Rio Grande’s agent in Pueblo and turn the place over. It was a play that brought rumblings of a pay-off, though no one was bold enough to say such things right out in the open. Bat’s claim was that he was a peace officer first and a Santa Fe agent second and he didn’t want any casualties worse than Josh Webb’s bloodied mouth and broken teeth. Besides, word had come down the line that the rest of the rails had fallen to the D&RG, so there wasn’t much point in holding the roundhouse in Pueblo. The courts had ruled in favor of a shared right-of-way between the two railroad companies and that was a matter for negotiators, not hired guns.

  For his part, John Henry was glad to see the thing ended, as he felt somehow responsible for Josh’s damaged mouth. If he’d been backing up his partner instead of sighting his pistol, he might have sent that one shot into Josh Webb’s attacker instead of wild into the crowd. As it was, the least he could do was offer to fix Josh’s broken teeth for free—which, unfortunately, meant returning to Dodge instead of making a visit to the hot springs in Cañon City.

  “So what do you think about making my new teeth out of gold?” Josh asked as they took the Santa Fe special back to Kansas, his words whistling through the empty space in his mouth like the Kansas wind whistled across the prairie. “I’ve always fancied gold teeth.”

  “Gold’ll be fine,” John Henry said with a nod, “and not much pricier than porcelain. You’ll shine like a regular Midas.”

  Josh grinned at the thought, showing swollen gums and the bloodied space where his two front teeth had been. He’d been a mediocre looking man before; now he was downright homely.

  John Henry sighed and pulled a deck of cards from his vest pocket. “You up for a game of poker? Got a long ride ahead of us, yet, and nothin’ but this flat Kansas view for entertainment.”

  If Josh Webb wanted golden teeth, he could help to pay for them in poker winnings.

  Josh sported that new dental work around Dodge the way Bat Masterson sported his Sheriff ’s badge—flashing it every chance he got like a medal of honor. Even Wyatt noticed, commenting that Josh’s newfound vanity would be good for the dental business in Dodge, if the doctor planned to stay around.

  “Free advertising,” was the way Wyatt put it. “Not that there’s all that much business in Dodge anymore.”

  “So why do you stay?” John Henry asked as they passed a wet afternoon in the Long Branch Saloon. The rainy season had finally come to Kansas, settling the lung-choking dust and turning the dirt streets into a reeking mass of mud and liquefying cow manure. There were few places as unpleasant as a cowtown in a rainstorm, and John Henry was having thoughts of an early return to New Mexico.

  “Got a contract with the city fathers,” Wyatt replied. “Can’t leave until it runs out. Or until I find something worth breaking it for. As of yet, I haven’t found anything better. But I’m looking. I’m always looking.”

  “You are dedicated, Wyatt. As for myself, I plan to be on the inaugural train from Trinidad to Las Vegas, which happens to be arrivin’ there just in time for the Fourth of July festivities—Independence Day bringing the independence of a new mode of travel to the green meadows of New Mexico. A fortuitous time for the rails to be completed, don’t you think?”

  Wyatt let out a slow cloud of cigar smoke. “I think you think too much, Doc. But Las Vegas sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  Coming from Wyatt, it was as good as a guarantee.

  Chapter Sixteen

  LAS VEGAS, 1879

  HE HALF-EXPECTED KATE TO BE WAITING FOR HIM AT THE RAILROAD depot when the Santa Fe stopped in Otero on its way to Las Vegas. It was, after all, the first train to roll down the newly laid tracks that far into New Mexico, heading on to Santa Fe, and its arrival was met with noisy celebration at every town along the way. But there was no Kate in Otero, nor had anyone seen her since John Henry himself had left town. There was no Kate in Las Vegas either, though it seemed that everyone else in town had come to the new rail station to hear the Governor welcome the era of steam travel to the meadows of northern
New Mexico. But Kate Elder, who had called herself Mrs. Holliday in happier times, was gone as she said she would be.

  John Henry was surprised to find himself actually disappointed not to see her there. It would have been amusing to share the celebrating with someone who appreciated a party as much as Kate did, and there was plenty of partying going on in the two towns of Las Vegas: the quaint Spanish village that surrounded the plaza and slept under the watchful eye of the Nuestra Señora de Dolores, and the jumble of tent saloons and boarding houses a mile away across the Gallinas River where the newly laid tracks of the Santa Fe stretched out into the meadowland. The old village was being called Old Town, while the railroad settlement was called New Town, but other than sharing the official name of Las Vegas, the two towns had nothing much to do with each other.

  Even the celebrations held in the two towns of Las Vegas reflected the differing characters of the two communities. In Old Town, the arrival of the railroad was heralded with a fancy dress ball and speeches at the Exchange Hotel on the Plaza. In New Town, the party was an all-night affair of gambling and other vices.

  John Henry didn’t have any trouble deciding where to do his celebrating. For although Close and Patterson’s Dance Hall, across from the new railroad depot, wasn’t nearly as elegant as the Exchange Hotel, it had the attraction of twenty-five regular dancing girls and a commitment to entertaining everybody in the best possible manner—or so said the painted sign hanging over the bar. And by the amount of entertaining the place did that night, it was clear that saloons and dance halls were going to be the boom business of New Town.

  John Henry had never owned or operated a saloon before, but the opportunity seemed too good to pass up. So within days of his arrival, he paid a call on the city fathers and arranged to lease three lots on Centre Street, the wide dirt avenue that led from the Santa Fe depot up toward the Gallinas River. And though the Holliday Saloon was nothing more than a big canvas tent with a floor of wood planks and a bar bill that boasted only beer and two brands of whiskey, it did well right from opening day.

  He liked to think that it was his gaming tables that made the place so popular, but he knew that some of his quick success was owed to the serving girl he’d hired to help the barkeep with the drinks. Her name was Flor, a little Mexican from Old Town with wide dark eyes and glossy black hair and such a following among the railroaders that she kept the saloon busy just serving her admirers. “The Señorita,” the customers called her, and began calling the saloon by the same name—which suited John Henry fine, as long as they kept coming in to buy his drinks and play at his tables.

  While Flor took care of the customers, John Henry ran the gambling games, banking Monte and keno and acting as his own police. Although New Town had its small police force, there wasn’t nearly enough law to keep the peace, so business owners had to do a little peacekeeping themselves—which John Henry took to mean that he was allowed to keep a pistol in his pocket. He was in good company, carrying a pistol or two, as even the Mayor of New Town packed a sidearm.

  The Mayor wasn’t really a mayor, just a sporting man who’d got himself elected Coroner for Precinct 29 of San Miguel County with jurisdiction over New Town and a tenuous authority over the local police, themselves mostly gamblers recently come to Las Vegas. They called the Mayor “Hoodoo Brown,” and told how he was formerly of the western gambling circuit and most recently of a ranch on the Jones Plummer cattle trail in Kansas—though no one ever mistook him for a rancher. He had only come to own the place by winning it in a poker game, and only kept it long enough to break it up and sell it off to land-hungry homesteaders. “Land speculating,” he called it, though others called it stealing, as Hoodoo was an expert card player and seldom lost on a wager of real estate. But John Henry had no reason to criticize the Mayor for using his skills to a profitable advantage; a man who could weasel a land deed out of a poker hand probably deserved to make a little money.

  John Henry knew the story of Hoodoo Brown by rumor only, not having met the man himself, though he had met a few of the Coroner’s hired guns: Chief of Police Joe Carson, Constable Jack Lyons, Deputies Bill Baker and “Mysterious Dave” Mather. Being sporting men like their boss, they had the best interests of New Town at heart and only interfered in the business of the saloons and gaming establishments when things got dangerous. And even then, they didn’t interfere all that much, as John Henry learned on one hot evening toward the end of July.

  He’d been doing well at the tables that day, taking in a good profit from his Monte bank and a neat percentage from the dice games as well, when Flor came to him complaining of personal trouble.

  “It’s mi novio, Señor, he wants me to go out with him.”

  “Well, tell him you can go when you’re done workin’,” he replied, not understanding why he should have to give permission for the tryst. What the girl did in her private time was none of his affair.

  “No, Señor, he wants me to go with him now, out of the saloon. I told him to go away until later, but he won’t go. He says if I don’t come out, he will come in and get me. And Señor, he is very drunk today and I am afraid of what he will do to me if he does come in here. He gets very bad when he is drunk, Señor.”

  John Henry sighed and called to the barkeep to take over his Monte bank. Flor was right in what she said of her beau; Mike Gordon had already gained a reputation around New Town as a drunk and a brute and John Henry was bewildered as to what the girl saw in him. Still, a lady’s request for protection couldn’t go unanswered, and he pulled the pistol from his pocket, rolling the chamber to count the cartridges. One shot into the night sky would probably be enough to scare Mike Gordon away and let Flor get back to work serving drinks.

  Mike Gordon was out in the street, as Flor had said, standing with wobbly legs and hanging onto a half-emptied whiskey bottle as though the liquor could steady him. He was also singing, though the sound was something more like a hound howling at the moon, and attracting an appreciative audience around him. A drunk was always good entertainment, even in a town with more than its fair share of them.

  “Hey, Mike Gordon!” John Henry called out cheerily, and the man turned toward him unsteadily.

  “Who’s calling my name?” Mike asked, his words sliding together like slippery stones in river mud.

  “Your lady-friend’s employer. I’m gonna have to ask you to move on and take your singin’ elsewhere, as Flor has work to do.”

  “Flor?” Mike Gordon asked, then he laughed. “You mean Flower! My little flower!” and he launched into another refrain of whatever it was he was trying to sing.

  “He doesn’t sound so dangerous to me,” John Henry said to Flor, who had stepped out of the tent saloon and into the street behind him. “He seems to be in fine enough spirits.”

  “Fine for now, Señor,” she whispered, keeping herself hidden behind him, “fine until you tell him I am not going with him.”

  “Well sung, Mike!” John Henry said with a smile, “but I must ask you again to move on. Your performance is distractin’ Flor, and as I said, she has work to do.”

  “She has work to do, all right,” Mike said, taking a break from his singing to swig at the whiskey bottle, “and I’m it. Come on out, little Flower, and give me something to sing about!”

  “She’s not goin’ with you, Mike,” John Henry replied reasonably, “but I’m sure a fine gent like yourself can procure other company to keep yourself occupied until she’s through workin’. The way I hear it, half the whores in New Town have been askin’ after you.”

  “They have?” the idea seemed as implausible to Mike Gordon as it really was, for to John Henry’s knowledge, there wasn’t anyone asking after Mike Gordon, except maybe the Magistrate when he did some real disturbing of the peace.

  “That’s right, Mike. In fact, there’s some ladies down at Close and Patterson’s right now, askin’ for you. If I were you, I’d remove myself from Centre Street straight-away and get down to Railroad Avenue. A gentlema
n shouldn’t keep a passel of whores waitin’.”

  Mike Gordon pondered a moment, then took a final swig of the whiskey.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said, wiping his mustache, then running the same whiskey-wet hand through his greasy hair. “Better go find me them whores while they’re willing and able. But you tell Flor I’ll be back for her, y’hear? Wouldn’t want my little sweetheart to think I forgot about her.”

  It was laughable, almost, how little sense one had to make to reason with a drunk, but when John Henry turned back toward the saloon, his laughter stopped before it could start. Flor was still standing behind him, and there were tears in her eyes.

  “You see?” she said in a shaking voice. “You see how mean he can be?”

  “But he didn’t do anything to you. I sent him off to the dance hall. You’ll be safe enough until he finishes with the women there . . .”

  It was only then that he understood what she meant. It wasn’t only in the supposed beatings that Mike Gordon was a brute, but in his well-known chasing after other women, as well. Yet somehow, John Henry hadn’t expected the little Mexican girl to have the same feelings a real lady might have over such things. Was it possible that the girl was a lady at heart? Or were all women more the same than he had ever imagined? And following behind that thought was another memory: Kate’s tears the day he had left for the Royal Gorge war.

  “We’re wasting good gamblin’ time with this nonsense,” he said in irritation, and Flor obediently sniffed back her tears.

  “Si, Señor,” she said with a hurried curtsy as she hustled back into the tent saloon.

  John Henry watched the canvas door fall back into place behind her. If Flor weren’t so good at bringing in customers, he’d fire her and hire another barkeep to help out, instead, and be done worrying about women entirely.