The Gamble (I) (18 page)

“Bring him over here.”

He set the boy on the tiniest gateleg table he’d ever seen.

“If I could impose upon you one more time, it will be the last.” She handed him a white enamel pail. “Could you fill this for me?”

He hurried back downstairs and filled her water bucket from the barrel beneath the steps. As he headed back up with the weighty pail, he thought of Agatha instead of the boy. If it was that difficult for her to climb the stairs empty-handed, how did she manage it with a bucket of water?

When he returned Willy was calmer. The two of them were quietly talking. He set the bucket on a low stool beside her dry sink and turned to find Agatha wiping the boy’s lower eyelids with her thumbs. Gandy moved to stand beside them, looking down on the blond head and narrow shoulders. Willy was undeniably dirty. Hair, clothing, fingernails, neck—all could stand more than a bucket of cold water. Gandy’s eyes met Agatha’s and he saw she was thinking the same thing.

“Now, let’s take care of that bump on your head.” She turned and grabbed a cloth from a towel holder on the wall, slung it over her shoulder, and scooped a dipperful of water into a basin. The water sloshed close to the brim of the basin as she brought it to the table. Gandy stood by, feeling oversized and useless as she dipped and wrung and applied the cloth to Willy’s forehead.

The boy pulled back, whimpering.

“I know it hurts. I’ll be gentle.”

Gandy braced one palm on the table beside Willy and talked. “I remember once when I was about your size, maybe a little older. We had this river where I lived. The Tombigbee, it was called. My friend and I used to swim there durin’ the summer. That was down in Miz’sippi, and it gets mighty hot in Miz’sippi ‘round about July.” He accented the “Ju” in July. Agatha glanced up and smiled.
“So hot, in fact, that sometimes we wouldn’t wait t’ shuck off our britches. We’d jump in clothes and all. Time I’m talkin’ about, Cleavon and me—” He glanced at Agatha and told her, “Cleavon is Ivory’s real name.” He returned his attention to the boy. “Well, anyway, Cleavon and me went runnin’ down to that river full tilt. Head first in the water we goes, and sure enough, I hit a rock and put a goose egg on my forehead the size o’ your fist. Y’ got a fist, don’t y’?”

Willy proudly displayed one puny fist. He had stopped resisting Agatha and sat entranced. From the corner of his eye, Gandy saw her pick up the iodine. He rambled on.

“Knocked me out colder’n a clam, too. My friend Cleavon fished me out and went yellin’ for help. My father came down to the river himself and carried me back up to the house. We had this old dictator called Leatrice...” Agatha smiled at the name: Lee-att-riss. “She was black as an eight ball and shaped about the same, only much, much bigger. Leatrice scolded me. Told me I didn’t have a lick o’ sense in my head.

“Well, now, Willy, I figured I was smarter than her.” Agatha applied the iodine and Willy scarcely flinched. “After all,
I
went down to the river swimmin’ when it got up to a hundred degrees in July. Leatrice, she stayed in the hot kitchen.”

“How come?” Willy asked.

“How come Leatrice stayed in the kitchen?”

Willy nodded vigorously. Gandy’s eyes met Agatha’s briefly. Had she been for the North or South? he wondered. And fifteen years after the war, did it still matter to her, as it did to some?

“B’cause she worked for us. She was our cook.”

“Oh.” Willy was blessed with a child’s ignorance of overtones. He went on with undisguised interest. “What happened to your goose egg?”

Gandy laughed. “Leatrice put a foul-smellin’ marigold poultice on it and made me drink basswood tea for my headache.”

“Did it go away?”

Gandy laughed. “Most of it.” He leaned forward, touching a finger to his hairline. “Still carry a little scar right here to remind me never to dive into rivers without knowin’ what’s beneath the water. And my father had a swimmin’ pool dug after that, and that’s where I did my swimmin’ from then on.”

When he straightened, Agatha studied his hairline, searching for the scar.

His eyes roved in her direction. She dropped her glance.

In the lull, Willy asked, “It still hurt?”

“Nah. Don’t even remember it’s there most times. Yours’ll go away, too.”

Willy gingerly tested the bruise on his forehead and declared, “I’m hungry.”

If Agatha had had her way, she’d have had a pantry that was a child’s delight, filled with tasty treats to make him forget his bumps and scrapes. If she’d had her way, she’d have stuffed Willy until his belly popped. As it was, all she could offer was, “How about some rusks?”

Willy nodded enthusiastically.

She found the dry cinnamon toast and left Willy sitting on the table edge with the entire tin.

“I wish I had a kitchen,” she told Gandy. “I’ve always wanted one.”

For the first time he took a good look at her lodgings. The apartment was half the size of his—and his seemed cramped. There was a stove, the dry sink, but no other signs of the domestic trappings necessary for cooking. Her furnishings were old and sturdy. A sampler hung on the wall, lace curtains on the windows. It was almost painfully neat.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Thirteen years. Since my father died. We lived in Colorado when he was alive. After he was gone, Mother wanted to make a new start, get away from bad memories. So we came here and she opened up the millinery shop. I’ve lived here ever since.”

“But you don’t like it?”

Her eyes met his. “Does anybody like what life doles out to them? It’s where I live. It’s where my work is. I
stay, just like hundreds of others.”

He’d always felt so free to come and go where he pleased, to pull up roots and plant them somewhere new. He couldn’t imagine staying in a place he disliked for so long. He himself didn’t think Proffitt was the Garden of Eden, but he intended to stay only long enough to make a killing. Then he’d move on.

While his gaze roved around her dwelling, hers rested on him. “Your collar is soiled.”

Gandy came away from his musings to realize she’d spoken to him.

“What?”

“I said, your collar is soiled.” He dropped his chin but he couldn’t see. “A little of Willy’s blood,” she clarified.

Gandy spied a tiny oval mirror above the dry sink and went to peer into it. He had to dip his knees to do so. He rubbed the collar.

“I could try to get it out with a little cold water.”

He turned. “Would you?”

No, she wanted to reply, sorry now that she’d made the offer. Whatever was she trying to prove, fussing over Gandy’s clothing? It was having the little boy here, and the man—almost as if the three of them were a family. She’d best not carry the pretext too far.

But she’d offered, and he was waiting. “Let me get some fresh water.” She took the washbasin to the dry sink and stopped before him. He stood directly in front of the doors. “Excuse me.” She glanced down.

“Oh... sorry.” He jumped and stepped back.

She poured the dirty water into a slop pail, closed the doors, and refilled the basin. When she turned to him with a damp cloth, their eyes met briefly, then flashed apart.

“Perhaps you should loosen your tie.”

“Oh... sure.” He gave it a yank, worked it free with a finger, whipped it off, then stood waiting.

“And the collar button.”

He freed it.

Her hands lifted and his chin shot up. Oddly enough, she sensed that he was as uncomfortable as she. She inserted the corner of a clean towel behind the collar and soaked it from
the front with a wet one. It was the first time in her life she had ever touched a man’s neck. It was warm and soft. The whiskers on the underside of his jaw grazed the back of her hand, sharp but not unpleasant—another first. His beard was inordinately heavy and black. He nearly always appeared to need a shave. The scent of his tobacco clung to his clothes. In lighter doses it became distinctly pleasant.

Gandy studied her stamped-tin ceiling.
What in hell’s name’re you doin’ here, boy? This woman is trouble. An hour ago she and her infernal “drys” were harassin’ your customers and tryin’ to get them to go home! Now you’re standin’ with your chin in the air, lettin’ her mollycoddle you.

“You know, it’s funny,” he commented, still studying her ceiling.

“What?”

“What we’re doin’ now, and what we were doin’ an hour ago.”

“I know.”

“I have mixed feelin’s about it.”

Her hands dropped and so did his chin. Their eyes met. Hers wavered away.

“So do I,” she admitted softly. Again she lifted her face and met his gaze. “This wasn’t exactly our choice, though, was it?”

He glanced at Willy, then back at her. “Not exactly.”

“And just because I’ve sponged your spiled collar doesn’t mean I’ve joined your camp.”

“You’ll be back with more ammunition.”

A tiny sting of regret coiled within Agatha as she answered, “Yes.”

“And I’ll keep sellin’ whiskey.”

“I know.”

While Willy sat on the table eating rusks, Agatha and Gandy stood looking at each other. They were enemies. Or were they? Most certainly they were not allies! Yet neither could deny, through some mysterious means, that they had become friends.

There was something on her mind that she simply had to say. She lay the wet cloths over the edge of the dry
sink, half turning from him. “I want you to know, I was embarrassed by what Evelyn Sowers did in your saloon tonight. She’s turning into a radical, and I’m not certain if I can stop her.” She swung around, revealing a troubled expression. “I’m not even sure if it’s my job to try to stop her. I didn’t ask to lead the W.C.T.U., you know. Drusilla Wilson finessed me into it.”

In the narrow, quiet, lonesome-looking room, Gandy suddenly became aware of how clearly the sounds of the music and voices filtered through the walls into her apartment. She opened her shop early in the morning. He supposed many mornings she opened it tired and grouchy, while he and the gang slept soundly on the other side of the wall.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the noise.”

She hadn’t expected him to say such a thing. Neither had she expected to hear herself answer as she did.

“And I’m sorry about Evelyn Sowers.”

It struck them both at once—they were smiling at each other.

Gandy recovered first. “I’d better get back. It’s busy down there and they need me.”

She glanced at the shadows thrown by the lantern light into the open neck of his shirt. “I couldn’t get all the blood out of your collar.”

He touched it and glanced down. “That’s all right. I’ll stop by my apartment and put on a clean one.”

Gandy glanced at the table. Willy was munching, scratching his head and swinging his crossed feet. Gandy spoke to Agatha in an undertone. “What are you goin’ t’ do with him? You can’t very well keep him here.”

“I’ll walk him home. I wish I didn’t have to, but...” She glanced at the boy, then back at Gandy. Her face saddened. “Oh, Gandy, he’s so little to be left alone that way.”

He reached out and squeezed her upper arm. “I know. It’s not our problem, though.”

“Isn’t it?”

Their eyes communicated for several long, intense seconds. He dropped his hand.

“I intend to ask Reverend Clarksdale to talk to Alvis Collinson,” she said.

“Do you think it’ll do any good?”

“I don’t know. Do you have a better idea?”

He didn’t. Furthermore, he didn’t want to become embroiled in Willy’s problems. He was no crusader. That was her forte. But he crossed to stand before the boy.

“You about full yet?”

Willy beamed and wagged his head no.

“Well bring one for the road. Agatha’s goin’ t’ walk you home.”

Willy stopped chewing. His face fell. He talked through a mouth full of rusks. “But I don’t wanna go home. I like it here.”

Gandy hardened his heart, handed Willy one rusk, put the cover on the tin, and lifted him from the edge of the table. “Maybe your pa is home by now. If he is, he’s probably worried about you.”

Fat chance,
he thought, meeting Agatha’s eyes, which reflected a similar thought.

They left the lantern glowing and walked out to the landing, all holding hands, with Willy forming a living link between Agatha and Gandy. She expected Gandy to leave them there and enter his apartment. Instead, he put his hands under Willy’s armpits. “Up you go!” He carried him down the stairs, patiently keeping pace beside Agatha. At the bottom he set Willy down and squatted before him. “Tell y’ what. Y’all come by and visit me some afternoon.” He swiveled on the balls of his feet and pointed with a long index finger. “See that window up there? That’s my office.”

Willy looked up and smiled. “Really?”

“Really. You ever seen cotton—I mean real cotton just the way it grows?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well, I got some up there. Y’all come visit and I’ll show it to y’.”

Impulsively, Willy flung his arms around Gandy’s neck and gave him an enormous hug. “I’m comin’ tomorrow!”

Gandy laughed and turned the boy toward Agatha. “Go on home now, and sleep tight.”

When Willy returned to Agatha, his hand reached for hers without hesitation. As she took it, her heart contracted, then felt an upsurge of happiness.

“Say good-night to Mr. Gandy.”

Willy turned, still holding her hand, and waved over his shoulder. “’Night, Mr. Gandy.”

“’Night, Willy.”

Gandy had a sudden thought. “Agatha, wait!”

She stopped. He held up a finger. “Just a minute.” He disappeared into the shadows beneath the steps and entered the rear door of the saloon. In only a moment he returned, stepping out into the moonlight. “All right,” he said quietly.

So Alvis Collinson was still inside. Instinctively, she tightened her fingers around the small hand she held.

“Good night, Gandy,” she said softly.

“G’night, Agatha.”

Wearing a troubled frown, the tall man with the black whiskers watched them walk away into the dark, holding hands.

Collinson’s house was a pigsty. It had a dirt floor and a rusting stove. Filthy dishes with spoiled food tainted the air. Soiled clothing lay wherever it had been dropped. Agatha had to close her mind to the condition of the bed into which she tucked Willy.