Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [172]
As always, playing her fiddle that evening soothed her. Maybe she didn’t make anyone want to get up and dance — in fact her mournful tunes brought tears to the eyes of some of her audience. But when the hat had been passed round and come back to her, she counted up over thirty-five dollars, confirmation that she had a unique talent which would ensure she’d never starve.
It was a quiet night, and One Eye let them close up at one o’clock for there were few people around. The girls weren’t moving in until tomorrow, so Jack grabbed a bottle of whisky and said they should drown their sorrows.
‘I bet Theo cooked up this deal with One Eye some time ago, but didn’t have the brass neck to go through with it then,’ Jack said a little later as they sat up at either end of Beth’s bed, drinking, the comforter over their legs. ‘Then when he heard that geezer talking about Soapy Smith and you, he saw it as the perfect way out, without him looking like a complete cad.’
‘But that means he must have stopped caring about me ages ago,’ Beth said brokenly, yet more tears threatening to flow. ‘Why couldn’t he have admitted it?’
‘I doubt it was that. He was a gambler through and through,’ Jack reminded her. ‘I’d bet all he thought about was the money he’d have in his hand. All in all it must have been over eighty thousand with the takings and whatever was in the bank. That would set him up for a lot of big poker games. Or maybe he just saw that money as one huge win, and felt he had to quit while he was ahead.’
‘But I’ve been with him through thick and thin. He said he loved me and he knew I would have gone anywhere with him. So why didn’t he want to take me with him?’
‘I don’t know, Beth.’ Jack shook his head in bewilderment. ‘But look back at how things have been since we left Philadelphia. Sam and I always carried him. Granted, he did share when he had a win, but without us he would never have got across Canada, let alone reached here. Maybe he realized that, and it made him uncomfortable. Taking off with the loot might have made him feel free.’
‘To find some society woman who won’t embarrass him,’ she said bitterly. ‘Look what he was like in Montreal, always looking out for nobs to socialize with. He didn’t care that I had to work in a factory and live in a hovel. I bet he was delighted when I lost our baby and the doctor said I couldn’t have any more. That way he had no responsibilities. What a fool I’ve been!’
Jack reached out and took her hand, squeezing it in sympathy. But he didn’t protest and say she was wrong.
‘Well, I really hope he loses all that money in his next game,’ she said viciously. ‘When he’s down in the gutter with nothing I hope he’ll come crawling back to me. Then I’ll kick him in the face.’
They drank silently for some little while, both deep in bitter thoughts.
‘Was there something between you and Soapy?’ Jack asked later. ‘I know you did spend a night with him, but was there more to it than that?’
‘No, but there could have been.’ She sighed, then told Jack about how she’d met Soapy and had a drink with him on the last day in Skagway, and that it was he who took her down to Dyea later on his horse. ‘I liked him a lot, but as it turned out it was a very good job I didn’t pick him. There wasn’t that much difference between him and Theo, was there? Do you think it was true Soapy ordered someone to kill him?’
‘I think it might have been, but I doubt it was over you. I expect Theo stepped out of line. They were two of a kind, both cheats. I don’t mean just at cards or with women, but in everything. They used their charm to get people in their thrall, just so they could take advantage of them. Theo suckered me, that’s for sure, and what sticks in my craw is that I would have died for him.’
By mid-October, Dawson was a great deal quieter. Snow had fallen and the Yukon was frozen solid, used only by dog teams hauling supplies out to the goldmines or bringing in wood for fires.
The stampeders who’d arrived in June