The Gamble (I) (37 page)

The weather stayed gloomy and the streets turned into a quagmire. The stomach influenza went around and they all got it, one after another. Willy said Pearl called it the “Kansas quick-step,” which he found tremendously funny until it was his turn to suffer the malady. He made the worst patient Agatha could imagine, and with Violet home from work with the flu, too, Agatha was left both to see after the store and nurse Willy.

She herself caught it next, and though she recovered in time to be able to go to the polling place to pass out last-minute literature with the other W.C.T.U. members, she stayed at home instead, using the flu as an excuse.

November 2 was a bleak day. The sky was the color of tarnished silver and a cold wind blew out of the northwest, bringing beads of snow so fine they could only be felt, not seen. The cowboys were gone, the cattle pens empty. The ruts on the street had frozen into uneven knots that nearly shook apart the buckboards that came into town in a steady stream as outlying settlers came to vote. The saloons were closed. The sheriff’s office—acting as a voting poll—was the hub of activity.

Agatha avoided the windows, sitting in the lamplit recesses of her workroom shut away from the world. She tried not to think about the decision being made by the voters all across Kansas. She tried not to think of the four men from next door crossing the rutted street and walking along the opposite boardwalk to cast their votes, nor her longtime neighbor women, who even now stood in the stinging sleet encouraging the male voters—in their stead—to stamp out alcohol once and for all.

It was a long, restless night for many Kansans. Those in the apartments above Downing’s Millinery Shop and the Gilded Cage Saloon were no exception.

Nobody knew the exact time the news would tick along the telegraph wire the following day. Violet was back at work, but neither she nor Agatha could concentrate. They did little stitching and less talking. Mostly, they watched
the clock and listened to the lonely sound of its pendulum ticking.

When Scott opened the front door shortly before noon, Agatha was seated at her pigeonhole desk and Violet was dusting the glass shelves inside the trimming display.

Gandy’s eyes found Agatha immediately. Then he closed the door with deliberate slowness. But he remembered his manners and greeted Violet, who rose slowly to her feet.

“Mornin’, Miz Violet.”

For once she didn’t titter. “Good morning, Mr. Gandy.”

He crossed to stand beside Agatha, silent, grave, with his hat in one hand as if he were at a wake.

Her skin felt tight, even her scalp, and she found it difficult to breathe. She looked up into his solemn face and asked in a near whisper, “Which is it?”

“It passed,” he said, his voice low but steady.

Agatha gasped and touched her lips. “Oh, no!” She felt as if the blood had suddenly drained from her body.

“Kansas is dry.”

“It passed,” Violet uttered, but neither the man nor the woman at the desk seemed aware of her presence. Their gazes remained locked while Agatha’s face blanched.

“Oh, Scott.” Unconsciously, she reached toward him, resting her hand near the edge of the desk.

His gaze fluttered to it, but instead of taking it, he tapped his hat brim upon his open palm. Their eyes met again, hers distraught, his expressionless. “We’ll have some decisions to make... about Willy.”

She swallowed but felt as if a cork had plugged her throat. Yes, she tried to say, but the word refused to come out.

His eyes, with all expression carefully erased, leveled on hers. “Have you thought about it?”

She couldn’t stand it, analytically discussing an eventuality that would rip one of their hearts out. Covering her mouth, she turned her face to the wall, trying to control the tears that sprang to her eyes. Her throat worked spastically.

He glanced away because he could not bear to watch, and because his own heart was hammering as wrenchingly as he knew hers was.

Violet moved to the front window, holding the lace curtains aside, staring out absently. Somewhere in the store Moose chased a wooden spool along the floor. Outside, the sound of an impromptu victory” celebration had began. But at the pigeonhole desk a man and a woman agonized in silence.

“Well...” Scott said, then cleared his throat. He fit his hat on his head and took an inordinate amount of time trimming the brim. “We can talk about it another day.”

She nodded, facing the wall. He saw her chest palpitate, her shoulders begin to shake. Desolate himself, he wanted to reach out and comfort her, draw comfort in return. Ironic that he should be standing wishing such things about the woman who had fought actively to shut him down and had now succeeded. For a moment he strained toward her.

“Gussie...” he began, but his voice broke.

“Does W... Willy know?”

“Not yet,” he answered throatily.

“You’d better g... go tell him.”

He watched her control her impending tears, feeling desolate. When he could stand it no longer, he swung away and hurried from the shop.

It was the first time ever that Violet recalled his leaving without saying a polite farewell to her. When the door closed, she dropped the curtain and stood in the gloom beside the window, feeling forlorn. That nice Mr. Gandy—how she hated to see him go. What excitement would be left in the miserable little town when the saloons closed?

She heard a sniffle and glanced around to see Agatha’s face turned toward the wall, a handkerchief covering her mouth and nose. Her shoulders shook.

Immediately, Violet moved to the desk. “My dear.” She touched her friend’s shoulder.

The younger woman swiveled suddenly in her chair and clasped the older one tightly, burying her face against Violet’s breast.

“Oh V... Violet,” she sobbed.

Violet held her firmly, patting her shoulder blades, whispering, “There... there...” She had never been a mother, but she could not have felt more maternal had
Agatha been her own daughter. “It will all work out.”

Agatha only shook her head against Violet’s lavender-scented dress. “N... no, it won’t. I’ve d... done the m... most unforgivable thing.”

“Why, don’t be silly, girl. You’ve done nothing unforgivable in your whole life.”

“Y... yes, I have. I’ve f... fallen in love w... with Scott G... Gandy.”

Violet’s eyes grew round and distressed as she looked down on Agatha’s hair. “Oh, dear!” she proclaimed. Then, again: “Oh, dear.” After some time she asked, “Does he know?”

Agatha shook her head. “Y... you heard wh... what he said about W... Willy. One of us w... will have to g... give him up.”

“Oh, dear.”

Violet’s blue-veined hand spread wide upon Agatha’s nutmeg-colored hair. But she didn’t believe in platitudes, so there was little she could say to comfort the woman whose broken heart caused her own to break a little.

Heustis Dyar worked his cigar back and forth across his blunt, yellow teeth. Six hours since the news had come in, but it wasn’t law yet! Not till they did the official paperwork and made it into a law! Till then—by God—he, for one, was going to make use of his time.

He filled his glass again and tipped it up. It warmed a path all the way to his gullet.

“What right they got?” a drunk at the bar demanded sloppily. “Ain’t we got rights, too?”

Dyar took another swallow and the question seemed to burn deep within him, along with the liquor. What right
did
they have to take away a man’s livelihood? He was an honest businessman trying to make a decent living. Did they know how many shots a man had to sell to earn enough for a horse? A saddle? A Stetson? He’d been patient, watching that millinery shop across the street where the drys had started the whole mess last spring. He’d been more than patient. He’d even been considerate enough to warn that damned gimp milliner who was responsible for all this.
Well, the warnings were done. She and her kind had howled and prayed and boo-hooed until they got their wish.

Jutting his jaw, Dyar bit the wax off the lower fringe of his red moustache. His eyes hardened and he stared out the small window at her darkened apartment.
What right, Agatha Downin’, you interferin’ bitch! What right!

Dyar slammed his glass down, gave an enormous belch, and said loudly enough so everybody could hear, “I’d like drinkin’ better if I didn’t have t’ stop t’ piss so often.”

Everyone at the bar chuckled, and Tom Reese refilled Heustis’s glass as he headed for the back door. Outside, giving up the pretense of having to use the outhouse, he veered off the path and skirted the string of buildings between his back door and the corner. In less than three minutes he was mounting Agatha’s back stairs.

Marcus had been the last one to get the flu, but when it hit him, it hit hard. Damned trots! He’d spent more time running out to the backyard privy than he did playing the banjo lately. And he hurt all over. Buttoning his britches and slipping his suspenders over his thin shoulders, he winced, then gingerly flattened a hand against his abdomen.

As he opened the privy door and stepped outside, he saw a movement at the top of the stairs. Quickly, he stopped the door from slamming, then flattened himself against the privy wall. Ignoring his painful stomach, he waited, gauging the exact moment when he’d make his move. He watched until the man at Agatha’s door gave a furtive glance over his shoulder, then bent again to the lock.

When Marcus moved, he moved like a greyhound—full out, loping, taking the stairs two at a time, armed with nothing but anger. Dyar swung on the balls of his feet with the knife in his hand, but his reaction time was slowed by all the liquor he’d consumed, and his balance was precarious. Marcus flew across the landing, throwing his body into the attack. He kicked Dyar in the chest with both feet and heard the knife clatter to the decking. Never in his life had Marcus wished so badly for a voice. Not to yell for help, but to bellow in fury.
You bastard, Dyar!

Lily-livered son-of-a-bitch! Preying on defenseless women in the middle of the night!

Though Dyar outweighed Marcus by a good seventy-five pounds, Marcus had
right
on his side, and the advantages of surprise and sobriety. When Dyar got to his feet, Marcus threw a punch that snapped his red head back so hard the neck joints popped. Rebounding, Dyer caught Marcus in his sore gut, doubling him over, then followed with a solid clout on his skull. Rage burst inside the mute man. Glorious, undiluted rage. The roar he could not release transformed itself into tensile power. He picked himself up, lowered his head, and charged like a bull. He caught Dyar in the belly and neatly flipped him backward over the railing. The big man’s scream was brief, silenced when he hit the hard-packed earth below.

Agatha’s key grated in the lock at the same moment Ivory and Jack came running out their door. Marcus sat cross-legged in the center of the landing, rocking and cradling his right hand against his stomach, wishing he could moan. Everybody else babbled at once.

“Marcus, what happened?”

“Who screamed?”

“Are you hurt?”

Others came out the apartment door.

“What’s going on out here?”

“Marcus! Oh, Marcus!”

“Who’s that layin’ down there?”

Scott and Ivory ran down the steps and called back up, “It’s Heustis Dyar!”

“He must have been trying to break into my apartment,” Agatha elaborated. “I heard the scuffle, then the scream, and by the time I got out here Marcus was sitting in the middle of the floor.”

Willy awoke and came out the downstairs door to squat beside Scott.

“He the one who’s been pesterin’ Gussie?”

“Looks like it, sprout.”

“Good enough for him,” the boy pronounced.

“Is Agatha all right?” Scott asked Ivory.

“She seemed to be.”

On the landing above, Jube bent over Marcus, sympathizing.

For a moment he forgot the pain in his hand and concentrated on the feel of her silky robe brushing his shoulder, the sleepy, warm smell of her. If the hand was broken, it was a small enough price to pay for the consolation of having Jube fussing over him.

Agatha, also in a dressing gown, knelt on his opposite side. “Marcus, you
caught
him!” The one she’d have thought least likely to take on a man the size of Dyar, yet he’d done it and come out the victor.

He tried for a shrug, but the pain reverberated down his arm and he drew in a hiss through clamped teeth.

“You’ve hurt your hand?”

He nodded.

Jack found the knife and held it up.

Jubilee’s soft palm ran down Marcus’s arm. “Oh, Marcus, you might have been killed.”

Though he delighted in Jube’s nearness and attention, he realized Dyar still lay in the alley. He swung his worried eyes to the railing, gesturing with his head—what about Dyar?

Ruby called down, “How is Dyar?”

Scott answered from below, “Alive, but pretty well mashed up. We’ll need t’ call the doc again.”

“And the sheriff, too,” Jack added, still studying the knife.

“No-count redneck scum,” muttered Ruby, then joined forces with the women who were lavishing Marcus with attention. They helped him to his feet, led him inside, lit lanterns, and checked the extent of the damage.

It turned out Marcus had broken a bone in his right hand. When Doc Johnson had secured a woodblock inside the palm and wrapped it in place with gauze, Marcus gamely displayed his agile left hand, fingering the frets of an invisible banjo—
At least it’s not my chording hand,
his baleful expression said.

“Heustis Dyar will be wishing all he had was a broken picking hand,” Doc Johnson noted wryly as Sheriff Cowdry carted Dyar off to jail.

As a thank-you, Agatha promised Marcus a free custom-made garment of his choice, as soon as he felt chipper enough to come downstairs and be fitted.

In his room, Marcus got a good-night kiss from Jube—a light brush on his lips that startled him, but before he could react, she said good-night and slipped out.

Scott, tucking Willy back into bed, had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling when Willy declared, “I heard most of it. Old Heustis sounded like fireworks comin’ down before he went
splat?”