“For some reason, ladies don’t stay long with this show,” explained a riverboat gambler, straightening his maroon frock coat and shiny silk waistcoat. “And without a female taking the role, this here’s our first opportunity to stage The Settler’s Cabin this side of the Atlantic.”
Jessica recognised him as one of the gunslingers from the afternoon shootout, although then he had been dressed top to toe in black.
“Pardon me, ma’am, if I don’t show you myself.” With a grin, he flipped the deck in his hand so fast that the cards blurred one into the other. “I’m just about to have holes punched in my queen of diamonds and my ace of hearts, but see that Romany caravan?” He tilted his wide-brimmed hat in the direction of the horses’ compound, where the painted wagon nestled among a forest of tepees, chuck wagons, and the old Wells Fargo stagecoach. “That’s the properties cart, and that, ma’am, is where you’ll find your costumes.”
Behind them, the band started up with “I wish I was in Dixie...”
“Excuse me.”
Whistling “hurrah, hurrah...” under his breath, the cardsharp swaggered into the arena, where a painted backcloth of a Mississippi riverboat had been unfurled by the vaqueros during their final lap. Jessica imagined him double-dealing aces and queens round the gaming table, until Brodie McLintock exposed him as a cheat by shooting holes in the palmed cards.
Unhooking the stable doors on the caravan, she was puzzled why women didn’t stay long with the troupe. After all, they couldn’t all have the same motive as her...
Round, like a barrel, with oak-panelled walls inlaid with gold leaf, the caravan would have offered all the comforts of home, and then some, in its heyday. Sumptuous velvet curtains lined the lattice window, floral wallpaper covered the roof-frame, and, in the winter, a Queenie stove under the chimney would have kept it cosy and warm. Now, though, it was nothing more than a glorified storeroom, full of costumes and props, travel chests, and crates, all kept fresh with sprigs of lavender tied to the hooks.
Jessica could see its attraction. Dwarfed by buffalo-hide tents, with their painted symbols, smoke flaps, and birch stalks sticking out of the top, and alongside canvas-covered carts that forged routes across the Great Plains with such a heavy toll on human life, it made a striking contrast. Look at us, the whole collection screamed: luxury, exoticism, mystery, austerity, savagery, romance rolled into one. And you had to hand it to McLintock: Every inch of his show was choreographed to the last detail, right from the jammed rifle stock to the tomahawk poised to strike down the earl.
Rummaging among the six-shooters and hatchets, the rolled-up backcloths of desert scenes, and dolls, Jessica could hear first the gasps, then the applause, as McLintock’s shots rang out. Hauling out a checked cotton frock with its built-in camisole and apron, she buttoned herself into it. To say she was nervous about performing in front of thousands was an understatement. She had been hoping to find work of a more discreet nature. Typing. Clerking. Keeping the accounting records straight. And with the show newly arrived in London, she felt sure McLintock would have needed help with administrative issues. Instead, she was embroiled in dramatic reconstructions of a nation, life, and era that she knew nothing about. But — she swallowed. She was no novice when it came to acting. Not by any means...
Her palms left damp patches on the cotton where she’d smoothed her skirts. Pull yourself together, this won’t do, she told herself. You wanted a job, and now you have one, and a well-paid one at that. Just find yourself a hat, then go out there and be a brave, bold pioneer wife! Sifting through the exotic array of Indian tunics, sombreros, and saloon-girl feathers, she unearthed a poke bonnet with a wide front brim, pulled it into shape, then had a thought. Those dolls—?
Backtracking through the trunks, Jessica dug out a china beauty that had been wrapped in newspapers to protect it during the long transatlantic journey. A pioneer wife in jeopardy would jerk at the heartstrings. But a pioneer wife with a baby would have the audience biting their nails! In another chest she found a petticoat that could pass for a shawl. Pretty and pink, it was the perfect shade for biting nails to the quick. Out in the arena, the gambler had been run out of town, his palmed cards duly peppered with holes, and now a choir of Negroes was calming the audience down.
“Way down upon the Swanee River...”
Plenty of time before her call, and to calm her nerves, she flicked through the news. Dated July of last year, from a place called Birmingham, Alabama, the first paper was open at a review of the Extravaganza, when it had been playing there. The reviewer seemed particularly impressed with McLintock’s reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand, and also with the Sioux chasing a herd of real buffalo. Jessica supposed it would have been just too difficult transporting bison across the Atlantic.
“All the world is sad and dreary, everywhere I roam...”
The lament had reduced the audience to silence, and she could almost see the lumps in their throats. Just as McLintock had planned it. She turned the page. A boarding-house brawl that ended with one party sustaining a broken nose, the other two broken teeth. A fire in a warehouse that contained railroad equipment. The authorities strongly suspected arson, but remained thankful that no one was hurt. There was an account of a girl’s body found close to the river, listing her description, which, if anybody recognised, could they please contact the police, who suspected foul play. And, finally, the story of a guard who had interrupted a man robbing a jeweller’s, having seen him kneeling over the safe as he checked the rear window. Birmingham, Alabama, Jessica decided, must be quite a town.
With the choir shifting the mood once again, she leafed through the other reviews. The Boston Globe was equally effusive in its praise, ditto the Chicago Herald, as were editorials from as far afield as New York, Houston, and New Orleans.
“Oh, Susanna, don’t you cry for me—”
The audience clapped to the rhythm.
“—I come from Alabama, with my banjo on my knee.”
Jessica read on. Two women trampled by a runaway team of horses. An explosion on a ferry. One Mary Donaghy found strangled close to the docks, police were appealing for witnesses. And that was only Chicago! In Boston, a revolt by clam-diggers over harvesting rights, in which shots were fired and injuries sustained, while the seventeen-year-old daughter of a prominent surgeon had been found strangled in her home. According to the police report, she had been assaulted. And Texas was no less exciting. Escaping from the auction house, a steer tossed two men as it went on the rampage, a boilermaker was arrested, trying to cash stolen bond coupons, and two young girls were found dead with their throats cut, on waste ground outside—
“I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low,
I hear those gentle voices calling Old Black Joe.”
The song was Jessica’s cue. Dropping the papers, she hurriedly tied the bonnet ribbon under her chin, grabbed the baby, and ran to join the rest of the cast.
“Nervous?” a voice drawled in her ear.
He had changed back into buckskins and boots, which now jangled with spurs. Was there ever a moment when he was not the flamboyant showman, but just plain Brodie McLintock?
“Your manager has been coaching me all afternoon.” Ned Fenton might look like a butcher, but he had the flimflam of a snake-oil salesman and the determination of a Staffordshire bull terrier. “As a consequence, he has given me the confidence to play my part well.”