When she stepped off the stage and made the decision to stay in Deadwood, May had no idea how she would make a living. She had travelled half way across the country on a journey to meet her husband to be in California, but by the time she reached Deadwood she had decided that it was time she made her own decisions in life not just do whatever her father had planned for her.
Wandering down the main street she began to wonder if she had made the right decision after all. The town was barely more than a camp of log and canvas buildings. The streets were rutted dirt tracks, and she knew no-one save one of the passengers who had stopped in Deadwood on the same stage.
It took her a wile to wind up enough courage to walk into a building and ask simply whether they had any jobs. The building she stepped into was the Bella Union and the owner, Doc Starsmith asked whether she could dance. Well sure she could dance, she had learnt at finishing school but this place didn't look like it was the place for that kind of dancing. En route west she had stopped off at New York and visited a music hall, the idea had seemed scandalous at the time, but she had seen the women there dancing and was fascinated. Convinced that she could dance as well as them, she stepped onto the small stage in the Bella and as Doc played piano, she began to dance. Nervously at first but with growing confidence she found that she certainly could dance, and dance in a way that would entertain the customers of the Bella Union.
Doc Starsmith was satisfied, and happier when he found out she could play piano as well if not better than she could dance. He offered her a job, a dollar a day plus tips, meals and a roof over her head. She jumped at the opportunity, and began work that night.
