Chapter 2: My Sweetheart's the Man in the Room
Like a great big top, the huge tent was filled with more men than she could count beyond the glare of the lights focused on the stage where she stood. It was the end of her second and final show of the evening and Miss Dixie Cousins smiled and waved into the bright spotlights as if she really wanted to be there.
In truth, Dixie wanted to be far, far away, someplace more civilized where she didn't constantly have to deflect the blatant verbal innuendos or fend off the attempted ham-handed groping of the multitude of uncouth scoundrels in Lon's Valleys. Even worse was the far more sophisticated but still-unwanted advances of the event organizer, San Francisco industrialist Lon Laney. The man seemed determined to get her out of her costume and into his bed. While she loved her corseted show-girl outfit with its exaggerated tail and the big feather boa, she would have much preferred to be sharing it with only one particular man rather than Laney or the crowd before her.
On catching her eye, the conductor nodded to her and then gave the cue. The band started playing the music of a wildly popular song that had come out a few months earlier. Singing loud enough to be heard throughout the tent, Dixie began:
"Ev'rybody has a sweetheart under the rose,
Ev'rybody loves a body, so the old song goes…"
The song started slowly but became more suggestive as it went along, and the men in the crowd became more enthused as she sang, with loud clapping, hoots, and hollers.
"My sweetheart's the man in the moon.
I'm going to marry him soon.
'Twould fill me with bliss just to give him one kiss…"
Of course, Dixie played up the words, blowing a kiss to the crowd and then more for the unmissed dozen that followed. She then hid coyly behind her boa when she sang the end of the first chorus:
"Then behind some dark cloud where no one is allowed
I'll make love to the man in the moon."
The giant tent, the top of tentmaker Lon Laney's product line, practically exploded with the wild cheers and clapping that followed. Many of the men on the front rows seemed to be offering themselves, quite suggestively or even worse, to Dixie on the stage, but, forcing her smile, she shook her head and waggled finger at them as the band played a refrain to let her catch her breath and to stretch out the show to the extent possible.
While Dixie took every opportunity she could to perform and improve her craft, she'd taken some jobs that had turned out to be downright dangerous. After more boyfriends and lovers than she could count over the years, she'd finally accepted that she had no interest in men other than the one that usually nestled between her breasts. While she didn't see him nearly as often as she wished, she kept her Brisco in her heart and over it in the gold locket that he'd given her a few months earlier.
Thinking of Brisco and wondering where he was, she missed the opening of the second verse so she winked at the conductor and made a round of the stage, shaking the tail of her costume and spinning the boa to more wild applause as the band played on through. By the time she made her way back around, she was able to start to sing at the correct point with the band's music.
The last chorus was the worst, but she braved on, singing:
"Last night while the stars brightly shone,
He told me through love's telephone…"
Oh, she thought as she continued on, if we only had one of those newfangled devices here so I could call him!
She closed the song with its final words:
"We are going to marry next June.
The wedding takes place in the moon.
A sweet little Venus, we'll fondle between us
When I wed my old man in the moon."
Some of the men familiar with song were singing along near the end and they substituted a much bawdier phrase for "A sweet little Venus," even making it difficult for Dixie to keep from laughing. Once again, the crowd went wild, leading to Dixie singing all but the first verse over again.
She was still bowing, waving, and doing the forced smile when Lon Laney walked out on the stage to join her. The man's arm was like a lasso as it snaked around her waist and pulled her close. Very close.
"The fabulous Miss Dixie Cousins! Let's hear it for the lovely little lady!"
Dixie's blood was almost boiling over the unwanted bodily attention and the insulting "compliment," but she'd had to deal with similar things many times before, so she stood and smiled and waved. And then she unexpectedly sneezed into her hastily crooked elbow.
"Oh! Excuse me!" she said as she patted her nose lightly. She followed with little cough. "I do believe I may be coming down with a cold."
"You poor dear!" exclaimed Laney. "Step right over there, honey, and I'll be with you in a few moments after I update our participants on tomorrow's agenda."
Dixie moved over where Laney had indicated and would have continued on toward the hotel and her room but two large men with very large guns and even larger muscles stood in the way. They both stood staring at her, blatantly undressing her in their minds. She gave a little smile before turning away with a quick swivel and thrust of her hip that would have almost certainly drawn their eyes.
Better there than elsewhere.
Lon Laney finished his address with his raised hands waving to the crowd as they cheered. Three quarters of the remaining participants would be eliminated in two rounds of games the next day, finally bringing the group down to the size where the poker tournament would change to one-on-one double elimination. The cheering went on for a while, even among the large number of participants who'd already been eliminated in the early rounds.
"Sweetheart, come over to my room and join me for a nightcap," said Laney as he grasped her elbow with more authority than Dixie preferred. "We'll put on that music doohickey, get comfortable, and dance—"
"Aa-choo!" sneezed Dixie again as her eyes watered. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Laney—"
"It's Lon. Remember?"
"Of course. It's just that I think it best that I go—ACHOO!—get some rest before this cold gets worse so I'll still be able to perform tomorrow. We wouldn't want all of these guys without any entertainment, would—Achoo!—we?"
"Aaah, no. Of course not." Laney glanced back at one of his guards and pointed to the group of "ladies" now making their way among the crowd after Dixie's rousing warm-up. Laney made almost a quarter of his total profit on the venture off the backs—or other attributes—of the women, but he flashed two fingers, figuring that wouldn't cut his profit that much. One of the guards moved away to go pick before all of the prettier women were taken, and the other approached with Dixie's cloak.
Dixie sneezed several more times as they crossed the street to the big, prefab hotel, and then up the stairs to her room. Outside the door, Laney, who'd been holding more than he should during their walk, made to kiss her but Dixie sneezed again and deftly stepped into her room with a quick "Goodnight! Achoo!"
Once inside, she quickly locked the door as she leaned against it and sighed.
That was entirely too close. That man is an octopus!
Stepping to her window, Dixie looked out into the darkness at the temporary town that was Lon's Valleys. Settled at the intersection of two valleys converging on an alpine-like lake a few miles off the main rail line, it was a pretty place in daytime if one didn't look too closely for all of the cruelty that it concealed. She couldn't see much tonight with clouds covering the sky, obscuring the moon and the stars.
She pulled the curtain, kicked off her shoes, and threw her cloak and boa on her four poster bed before unhooking and peeling off her hose. Each of the posts was topped by a large pineapple, long a symbol of welcome and hospitality in her native south and beyond.
There's only one person I'd welcome here at the moment, she thought as she draped her hose over one of the pineapples.
Looking at the steaming tub of water—one of the perks of her contract—she finally smiled. This was one of the major benefits of her work, where she could slide in and attempt to wash away some of the stress and sliminess that seemed to too often accompany it. Dixie closed her eyes and, imagining that it was Brisco's hand, ran her hand over her shoulder and chest with a soft caress before she began to unfasten the hooks of her corset. Free of the garment, she tossed it on the bed, too, and started to step into the tub before seeing her locket on the nearby bureau.
She opened the locket to see her man. Brisco wore his hat while looking over his right shoulder at the camera. He'd held his pistol in his left hand with the barrel rested against his shoulder while giving a perturbed look. She didn't know why he hadn't shaved before having the picture taken—or if he'd even had it taken; it almost looked unposed—but the little photograph was an almost constant reminder of her man and the love she'd slowly grown to have for him since their first confrontation over a year before.
Propping the locket up so she could see the little photograph of him from the tub, she slowly stepped into it. The liquid heat seemed to cling to her calves and legs as she lowered herself deeper into the water. There was a sharp intake of breath just before reaching her waist, but then Dixie smiled as she slowly continued her descent. She leaned against the back of the cast iron tub and sank down a bit more until the luxurious warmth came to just above the tops of her breasts.
Dixie gave a long sigh. "Ahhh, Brisco. My sweet Brisco. How I wish you were here."
She started to close her eyes to relax in the soothing water but a sound suddenly caused her to start. Frightened, she looked down at the base of the bed where she saw two sets of fingers curl against the bottom of the rail. There was a scooting sound as a dark head wearing a tan hat came sliding out from under it.
Turning his face toward her, Brisco asked, "You called?"
Author's Note:
Thank you for reading. Any responses or feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Dixie's song featured in this chapter is "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon," written and composed by songwriter and vaudeville performer James Thornton (1861-1938). It was released to the public in 1892. The song is in the public domain with the words taken without restriction (so it does not violate FanFiction's terms & conditions) from The New York Public Library's digital collection:
Digitalcollections dot nypl dot org/items/510d47dd-f30d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
The song references "Love's Telephone," showing that the device, invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, had started to make serious inroads into popular culture as well as more homes in areas outside of the country's larger cities.
The song itself was recorded for the phonograph (invented by Thomas Edison in 1877) by Elisabeth "Bonnie" Cox Thornton, James Thornton's wife and a popular singer in her own right. A drawing of her image was recorded on the cover of the sheet music for the song.
Pineapples became the symbol for hospitality because they were so rare and hard to obtain in the American Colonies and in Europe. A cut pineapple at a meal showed that the hostess would spare no expense to honor her guests. Less affluent hosts would sometimes even rent a pineapple by the day to symbolize their hospitality without actually cutting it. Pineapples eventually came to adorn bedposts (which, when going beyond the traditional guest bed, may seem rather odd in a supposedly prudish society), entrance posts and gates, and, later, welcome mats.
The photograph as described in Dixie's locket is the primary advertising photo used for the series and the DVD box set.