A Claim of Her Own (4 page)

Eva began to fuss and Swede scooped her up, unbuttoned her chemise, and offered her breast. How she longed for a more normal life and a real home. Could that even happen in Deadwood? She didn’t know anyone expecting to build a life for a family in this place. Most of the thousands of men in these hills had come to rape the land of its gold, and once that was done, they’d be gone. And unless one had arrived while Swede was on this last run, Mattie O’Keefe was the first lady in Deadwood. Oh, there was Aunt Lou Marchbanks over at the hotel, but Aunt Lou’s mahogany skin prevented anyone from thinking of her when they considered the realm of
ladyship.
No, Mattie O’Keefe was probably Deadwood’s official lady—and would likely be the first one to leave now that she knew her brother was dead.

What about you?
Swede harrumphed at the thought. Whatever she was, she didn’t think the word
lady
applied. Just the thought of Swede Jannike being invited to join a Ladies Aid Society or to have tea almost made her laugh. Or cry. She wasn’t sure which.
You must
stop such toughts. Dey profit you nothing.

Perhaps she would ask around in Sidney the next time she was there and learn what was involved in homesteading on the prairie down that way. What did it cost people to build those sod houses? She’d helped Garth plow once. Surely she could break sod. She and Freddie could build a house together. If the sod road ranches she’d visited were any indication, she would want a board roof. The dirt ones leaked. Or maybe they should settle where a person could build a proper house of logs. If Freddie felled the trees, she could strip bark. Yes, Swede decided. A log house would be better.

Or maybe they should live in a town where she could buy out another storekeeper. How much money would she need for that? And what town should she choose? Looking down into Eva’s sleeping face, Swede decided that yes, a town was the right choice. A town with families and a school and a
church.
How long had it been since she had set foot in a real church?

With a sigh of longing, Swede got up and retreated inside the tent, where she laid Eva in her cradle. Buttoning her chemise, she stepped back outside. The sky had cleared.
Good.
She was just settling her soup pot on the spider positioned over the fire when Freddie and Mattie O’Keefe returned.

She was an interesting girl, that one; a real beauty with very little to say about her past. Of course a young woman who kept a pistol tucked into the waist of her skirt wasn’t likely to want to talk about the past. Mattie probably didn’t realize Swede knew about the gun. She wore a little jacket most of the time and tied a beautiful paisley shawl about her when she didn’t wear the jacket. But Swede hadn’t survived in a man’s world alone by taking up with strangers and inviting them on the trail without becoming a student of people. She’d known about that pistol all along, and she’d even slept with the rifle she called Old Bess beside her for several nights on the trail. But as the days wore on Swede realized that Mattie O’Keefe was just what she seemed—a beautiful woman running from an unknown past toward a promise.

Eventually Swede put Old Bess back in its place just inside the first wagon. And now that the two of them had shared so many campfires, Swede was concerned for the young woman. After all, in a few days she would be gone back up the trail and Mattie O’Keefe would be on her own in Deadwood.
Heaven help her.

“You vill sleep in our camp tonight,” Swede said. “As you have seen, Deadvood is no place for a lone woman.”

“
You’re
alone.” Mattie glanced up at Freddie and then back at Swede. “Much of the time.”

Swede nodded. “Yah. And I am six feet tall and strong as an ox. And,” she said, nodding at Freddie, “in Deadvood I have my son.” She motioned for Mattie to sit by the fire.

“I’m not defenseless.” Mattie lifted her shawl to show the Colt at her waist.

“You are safer vit us,” Swede insisted as she dished up soup. Gunshots sounded somewhere off toward the Badlands part of town. Swede repeated, “You are safer here.”

Mattie relented. “Thank you. I’ll take the offer of a place to sleep. But I can’t eat right now.”

Swede glowered at her. “You have very big decisions tomorrow. You vill need your vits about you. So eat.”

“You aren’t old enough to be my mother,” Mattie chided.

“But I am big enough to be your father and strong enough to bully oxen into doing vat I say, so I am not likely to give up ven it comes to knowing vat is good for you for dis night.”

Mattie tasted the soup. “It’s good.”

“Thank you.” Freddie smiled.

“
You
made this?”

He nodded. “Antelope. Got him over by Gayville.”

“Freddie tracks and traps and shoots straight,” Swede explained. “And he is a good cook. He is good at many more tings people do not expect of him.”

“I’m not smart like some people,” Freddie explained.

Mattie shrugged. “But you
are
smart—just in a different way. I’d starve if I had to hunt my food.”

“I help Mor by staying here and hunting and working,” Freddie said, “and I watch over Mor’s town lot and live in the tent. It’s important.” He shook his head. “I don’t tag along on the trail like a baby.” He gulped down a last spoonful of soup before standing up. “More boxes to unload,” he said, and headed back toward the waiting wagons.

“You must talk to de mining district recorder tomorrow,” Swede said to Mattie as soon as Freddie was gone. “He vill know which claim is Dillon’s. You should be ready for some offers to buy.”

Freddie turned back around long enough to say, “I could help find Dillon’s claim.”

Swede smiled at him. “Do you know someone who vould help Miss O’Keefe vit de business dealings and not take advantage?”

Freddie chewed on his bottom lip while he thought. Finally, he nodded. “Mr. English. Tom.”

Swede was doubtful. “After how I treated him earlier, Mr. English vill be in no mood to help us.”

Freddie insisted. “He shook my
hand
, Mor. He looked in my
eye
. And he treated me—”

“I know, I know. But dat does not mean—”

“And let me finish.” Freddie held up his hand with the index finger extended, like a child asking for permission to speak in school. “He said the best way to make money mining is to sell things to the rest of the fools who want to work in freezing cold water or burrow in the dirt. He said he figured that out on his claim over at Blacktail and he got enough out of it to set himself up in business.” Freddie looked at his mother with what Mattie could only think of as a cat-that-got-the-canary look. “So he knows all about mines but he don’t
want
one so he would tell Miss O’Keefe the truth and he treats me good and that means a lot.” Freddie’s face sobered. “You know how it is, Mor. People who treat
me
nice are nice to anybody. Even dogs.”

Swede looked away quickly. She cleared her throat, then nodded briskly. “All right then.” She glanced at Mattie. “Ve see Mr. English in de morning.”

Mattie woke with a start. Had she been dreaming?
No. You really
are in this awful place. And Dillon really is gone.
A dog barked somewhere. It was still dark out and oddly quiet except for the occasional rattling of spurs as someone picked their way toward the gambling houses and saloons at the lower end of town.

Maybe it was her imagination, but Mattie almost thought she could hear laughter and raucous voices and . . . a piano? She listened more carefully. Yes. There was music on the clear night air.
Well,
you didn’t think the piano Swede hauled up here was for a church, did
you?
She hadn’t let herself think about it very much when Swede said she had been paid top dollar to bring the first piano to Deadwood. The dance hall owner must have come for it while she and Freddie were at the cemetery. And someone must have tuned it. Whoever was playing it was good. Very good.

She wondered if the girl who’d been rescued from the mud this afternoon was up there right now, dancing or selling drinks to lonely miners. She wondered if the man who’d rescued her was up there, too, buying her drinks—or buying her. Just thinking about it made her shiver. She lay back down.

Someone came galloping into town, charging by only a few feet from the tent. There was gunfire and shouting, and Eva began to cry. In a flash Mattie snatched her Colt from beneath the edge of the pallet. She sat up, her heart racing. When nothing more happened, Swede began to hum softly. Eva stopped crying.

Freddie must have gotten up and checked outside. He spoke in low tones. “They went on up the street. I’m right here in the doorway. I’ll take care of you. It’s all right, Mor. You can go back to sleep now.”

After a few minutes, Mattie put her gun back under the edge of her pallet and lay back down. She had no doubt that sweet, simple, sixteen-year-old Freddie Jannike would protect his family or die trying. But he was wrong about one thing. Things were not all right. They were not all right at all.

Early the next morning Freddie escorted Mattie back up the street toward Deadwood Gulch, where a huge canvas tent pitched beside a babbling brook Freddie called City Creek proclaimed
Opening
soon—English Dry Goods
. When Freddie pulled back the tent flap and called for Tom, Mattie heard a pleasant voice answer, “Good morning, friend. Come right on in.”

English was standing behind a counter that was little more than a few rough-hewn boards spanning the space between two upended crates. From the stacks of similar boards and crates lined up along the far wall of the tent, it appeared he had plans for quite a number of counters and shelves.

It wasn’t until Freddie tied back the tent flap and morning light glinted off of Tom English’s hook that Mattie’s heart began to pound. As Freddie introduced her, she looked around, surveying the well-organized goods, telling herself to relax. The place smelled of freshly cut wood, spring grass, and pipe tobacco. The wiry man before her sported a neatly trimmed moustache above a warm smile. His dark eyes shone with kindness and intelligence. What with the gray flecks at his temples and the well-tailored brown pants and vest worn over the clean striped shirt, Mr. Tom English might have been a professor or a minister. And yet, Mattie recoiled from the hook. Embarrassed, she apologized.

English held it up. “Cannonball at Shiloh,” he said, shaking his head in mock dismay. “Ended all my dreams of being a gunslinger.” He smiled even as he flexed the long fingers of his left hand. “It took me about three years to teach leftie here to do what rightie used to do. And that was after I finally got it through my thick skull that rightie wasn’t
there
anymore.”

“I-I’m so sorry,” Mattie said again, scolding herself inwardly,
You
can’t go through life flinching every time you see a man with a hook.

“No need to apologize.” English gazed down at the hook. “It is a hideous thing.” He looked back at Mattie. “But it will do no harm, and I have learned to be grateful for it.”

Mattie could feel her cheeks growing warm. Glancing up at Freddie, she changed the subject. “Freddie says you’ve some experience with mining, and—” She paused, swallowed, and then in one long breath told him how she’d arrived only to learn that her brother was “. . . dead . . . and . . . you can imagine my quandary,” she said, and then her voice just trailed off because she couldn’t go on without breaking down.

Mr. English said what society demanded. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

Freddie spoke up. “I told Mattie what you said about wanting to make your money selling things to the rest of the fools while they work in freezing cold water or burrow in the dirt—”

English’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. “You did, did you?”

“That’s what you said.” Freddie nodded.

“I suppose I did.”

“And I told her you are honest and kind.”

“Well.” English patted Freddie on the shoulder. “Thank you for that. I couldn’t ask for a better endorsement.”

Mattie spoke up. “I was hoping you’d agree to be my adviser in matters concerning my brother’s claim. I need help locating it, and now that he’s . . . gone . . .” She cleared her throat. “I need advice. From someone who knows about prospecting and such.”