Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [167]
Beth had put on the new pink dress she’d planned to wear on Independence Day. She’d lost weight because she’d barely eaten anything since she got the letter about Molly, and she looked so peaky she’d even resorted to rouge on her cheeks.
She began to play a jig as soon as six men walked up to the bar.
They’d hired Will and Herbert, two men from Portland they’d got to know at Lake Bennett. They were desperate to raise the cash to get a boat home, and Theo had promised if they worked for two weeks for him, he’d buy their tickets and give them fifty dollars each too.
By the time Beth was on the third number, a goodly crowd had come in, and all at once she felt exhilarated because she was pulling people in to spend money in their place. She hoped Sam was looking down on them, thrilled that they’d finally reached their goal.
As the evening progressed, more and more people came in, until they were jammed up like tinned sardines. Theo was running a game of faro, a favourite in Dawson because it was fast, and gave the players a fighting chance.
Theo had bought the faro table from a steamship owner who was short of cash. Every card from ace to king was painted on it, and the players laid their chips on the card they wanted to bet on. The dealer lifted the top card off the deck; if the one beneath was one someone was betting on, he lost, but if it came up second, he won. If neither, he bet again.
On the wall behind Theo there was a rack which held the players’ pokes. Into the rack went a slip of paper charging the owner for the chips he bought. At the end of play, chips were balanced against slips, and the player’s poke was increased or decreased, according to whether he’d won or lost.
Gold, dust or nuggets, was the main currency in Dawson, and every shop, saloon or other business had scales to weigh it out. When Beth and the boys first got to Dawson they were all astounded by the casual way men tossed pokes containing hundreds of dollars worth of gold around, but they were used to it now.
While Theo was dealing at the faro table, Jack greeted customers, keeping an eye on the bar and on Will and Herbert. Later, Jack would take over at faro, leaving Theo to begin a poker game, and in between her fiddle sessions, Beth would keep her eye on things.
It was soon clear that they would require several more staff, just as they would need more supplies of drink and another entertainer to keep things going all night. But that first night they muddled through, all working flat out. The whisky ran out at four in the morning, but most of the customers stayed and drank anything available. Theo had a huge smile on his face because Sam Bonnifield, known as ‘Silent Sam’, the owner of the Bank Saloon and Gambling House on the corner of Front and King Streets, had come in to play faro. He got his nickname because he never said a word or smiled as he played. His luck was not in tonight and he was five hundred dollars down, yet he kept on playing.
At six in the morning, Theo finally closed the doors. He was too tired to count what they’d taken that night, but he reckoned it was close on 15,000 dollars. Enough to pay off the debts, restock with drink and get some furniture upstairs.
‘Later today I’ll buy you a big brass bed with a feather mattress,’ he said as he embraced Beth. ‘I promise you that you’ll never sleep on the ground ever again.’
The Golden Nugget soon became established as one of the most popular gambling saloons in Dawson. Theo used his charms to lure four girls to work there, paying them a small commission for every glass of champagne they managed to persuade men to buy for them. It wasn’t real champagne, but then very few people in Dawson knew what the real stuff tasted like. The girls added colour to the place as they teased and flirted with the men, and if they sold their bodies later to the highest bidder, no one was concerned.
Paradise Alley, behind Front Street, was where the real whores did their business, in a row of tents called