Beneath a Dakota Cross (16 page)

The young lady with the long, wavy black hair whisked snow off her cape and dress.

“I don't believe I know the young woman who tackled Robert,” Brazos inquired.

“Tackled him? I tackled him?” the lady huffed. “I thumped him from his saddle. He's the one who shamelessly threw me to the ground and rolled over on me like I was some dance hall darling. I've never been so . . .”

“Actually,” Louise announced, “after what we've been through in the last two days it's amazing we didn't shoot you two on sight.”

“Let me introduce you,” Thelma moved over next to the woman, using the same tone and expression as if she were at a ballroom in Austin. “Mr. Brazos Fortune, and his youngest son, Robert . . . I'd like for you to meet Miss Jamie Sue Milan from Des Moines, Iowa. She has been our companion the past two days and is a delightful and talented young woman.”

“Yes,” Louise concurred. “She reminds me so much of my daughter, Julie.”

“
The
Jamie Sue?” Brazos choked. “You are the famous Jamie Sue?”

A slight smile burst across the woman's smooth face for the first time. “Yes, how have you heard of me?”

“There's notices posted all over the Black Hills about you lookin' for your brother.”

The woman's brown eyes sparkled. “Do you know Vincent?”

“Actually . . . Miss . . . I don't know him . . . but, I, eh, well,” Brazos stammered. “A friend of mine had some dealin's with your brother.”

“Really! Oh, that's wonderful! Is he in good health?”

“I understand he's in better shape than . . . eh, than he looked at first glance. Anyway, this friend of mine is in Fort Pierre and will tell you all about your brother,” Brazos mumbled.

“Oh, this is so wonderful! I have an estate settlement I must discuss with my brother. He's never been interested in money, but I, at least, need his advice,” she gushed.

“Well, a fella like your brother . . . just might, you know, change over the years,” Brazos mumbled. “Could be that money means more to him nowadays.”

Dacee June slackened her grip on his neck as he let her feet slip down to the ground. “Daddy, I'm cold.”

He retrieved his hat and shoved it on his head. “I think there's enough brush around here for a fire. We'll get one going, then Robert and I will ride back for the wagon. I reckon these two saddle ponies can do a little drivin', if need be.”

“You aren't leaving me,” Dacee June insisted. “I'm going wherever you go.”

Robert fetched the guns, then secured the horses to some brush. “Dad, you guard the ladies and I'll go get the buckboard.”

“You'll need help. These two ponies won't be too anxious to be rigged.”

“I'll go with him,” Jamie Sue offered, still shaking snow out of her hair. “I've been around horses and jackasses all my life. Both the four-legged and two-legged varieties.”

“I would rather do it on my own,” Robert insisted.

Miss Milan tried to repin her hair. “You think I can't hitch a team?”

“I didn't say that.” Robert shook snow off some dead branches. “I think you should stay with the women and warm up by the . . .”

Jamie Sue marched straight at him, like a bulldog on the attack. “I'm perfectly capable of takin' care of myself without your advice.”

“Since you two seem to rile each other,” Brazos began, “maybe you should . . .”

“Rile each other? Rile would be considered a positive term compared to what I feel at the moment!” she huffed. “And I'm going to go help bring that wagon—that's settled. May I borrow your shotgun, Dacee June?”

“Oh, yes! My daddy will protect me now.” She handed the weapon to Miss Milan. “Are you scared the Indians will return?”

“No,” Jamie Sue said. “I want protection for the next time the sergeant decides he wants to throw me to the ground and wrestle.”

“Me? This is absurd. I am not taking her.” Robert stomped off to look for more firewood.

“You might need help,” Brazos called out. “Take her with you, but promise you won't shoot each other.”

“I'll make no such promise,” she raged.

“Well, you better both warm up . . . on the outside . . . before you ride off,” Brazos lectured. “We'll all need to dry off a little before we make a run for Fort Pierre. Where's your satchel, li'l sis? You didn't run away from home without some belongin's, did you?”

“I didn't run away from home.” When she looked up at him her nose was turned up even more than usual. “My home is with you, Daddy.”

The fire was hot, explosive, and smoky. But no one complained. The March sisters sipped on hot water from a common shared cup, while Brazos drank boiled coffee and filtered the grounds with his teeth. Robert and Jamie Sue rode off on the two horses, squabbling over the merits of McClellan saddles. Above them, the storm clouds loitered but were now spaced by cold, blue sky.

Dacee June perched beside him, hanging on his arm, and mauling a piece of tough jerky. Brazos's carbine was propped up against his right leg. The March sisters sat on their duffles on the far side of the campfire.

“I want to hear this whole story, Dacee June,” he insisted.

“You mean, how I got clear up here to Dakota?”

“That's right.”

“It all started when I got the letter that you weren't coming home for Christmas. That's when it dawned on me that you could never come ‘home,' because we don't have a home anymore.”

“I meant that I wouldn't be coming to your Aunt Barbara's.”

“Yes, but that's not our home. Anyway, I cried myself to sleep for a couple nights and then that sheriff showed up looking for you.”

“What sheriff?”

“The Tarrant County sheriff,” Dacee June said.

“What did he want?”

“To apprehend you for resisting arrest in Fort Worth.”

“That's preposterous.”

“That's when I realized that my only home is with you, and you couldn't come back to Texas, so I should go to you, and since you thought I was all content at Aunt Barbara's you would never, ever ask me to come live with you. So I just up and decided on my own.” Dacee June sucked in a big, deep breath.

Brazos glanced across at the two middle-aged ladies. “And just where do the March sisters come into this picture?”

“I assure you, Brazos, we had nothing to do with her decision to leave Texas,” Louise informed him.

“Heavens no!” Thelma added. “We were in Kansas City at the time, on our way home from visiting our children, and we knew nothing about this. But when we saw Dacee June at the railroad station there . . .”

“Let the young lady tell the story,” Louise insisted.

“Yes, you're right.” Thelma folded her hands in her lap. “Go right ahead, dear.”

“I sold some of Mamma's jewelry and rode the stage to Dallas, then bought a train ticket to Kansas City,” she explained.

“They let you ride on a train by yourself?” Brazos searched for a pleasant way to spit the coffee grounds out of his mouth.

Dacee June rolled her round eyes, then stared at the lingering clouds. “I told them my daddy had died in Dakota Territory, and I was going north to bring the body home.”

“You told them what?” Brazos coughed the grounds into his gloved hand, then brushed them into the mud at his feet.

“Well, it worked.”

Brazos snatched the coffeepot off the flames and poured himself another cup. “It was a lie.”

“The Lord will forgive me. My heart was right,” she explained.

“You can imagine how surprised we were to find Dacee June at the train depot in Kansas City,” Louise broke in.

“Let Dacee June finish her story,” Thelma insisted.

Dacee June took a small stick and poked at the flames. “When I got to Kansas there was Mrs. Speaker and Mrs. Driver at the depot.”

“We were very glad to see her,” Louise interrupted. “There was this simply wretched banker from Baltimore who kept following Thelma all around the terminal!”

“He wasn't completely wretched . . .” Thelma mused.

“But he was annoying.”

“That's true. And I rather pity his two valets who had to tote all that baggage,” Thelma added.

Brazos felt his daughter's thin, warm hand brush his arm. He yanked off his glove and slipped his fingers into hers. “Now, young lady, just exactly what did you tell the March sisters when they asked where you were going?”

“I told them the truth.”

“Oh?”

“Mostly the truth,” Dacee June conceded. “I told them I had gotten a letter from you and that you were settled into the Black Hills and I was going up to be with you.”

“Settled?”

“Well, you said you wouldn't be back to Texas until next summer. That sounds like you settled in to me.”

“She has a point there, Brazos Fortune,” Louise lectured. “Heaven knows we didn't have any intention of telling someone else how to run his family. But after all, Sarah Ruth was our very dear friend . . .”

Thelma broke in at Louise's first breath, “So we decided that a young lady shouldn't have to travel alone . . .”

“And since we had no immediate plans . . .”

“We might as well take the stage with her to St. Joseph, and ride the steamboat up the river.” Thelma Speaker took a deep breath when she concluded.

“I thought you would be in Fort Pierre,” Dacee June added.

Louise Driver fiddled with the high lace collar on her heavy, dark dress. “We decided to just come up to Dakota, have a nice little ­supper with you and your daughter, then return downriver. It seemed like quite an adventure.”

“Which it certainly has been. My goodness,” Thelma continued, “I never dreamed that there were fifty men for every woman in Fort Pierre.”

“One hundred to one . . .” Louise corrected.

“We certainly would have visited here sooner!” Thelma chuckled, then turned to Dacee June. “I was just kidding, dear.”

“When I got to Fort Pierre and couldn't find you,” Dacee June continued, “we thought we'd ride out and meet you coming in.”

Brazos stretched out his long legs, to work off a cramp. “But what if I wasn't on the trail?”

“Then I just thought I'd join up with some others going to the Black Hills and surprise you,” she announced.

“You certainly surprised me, all right. You just rented a buckboard and took off across the prairie?”

“Heavens no!” Thelma gasped. “It's much more complicated than that.”

Louise reached over and patted her sister's knee. “Now, dear, let Dacee June continue.”

“Well, Daddy, I thought the March sisters were going back to Texas when we got to Fort Pierre, so I . . .”

“So you bought a shotgun and camping gear.” Brazos tossed a couple more wet branches onto the fire.

Dacee June dropped her chin to her chest. “You aren't mad at me for trading away the jewelry, are you?”

He reached over and hugged her. “At the moment, I'm extremely happy . . . but I reserve the right to give you a whippin' after it all sinks in.”

“Oh, my . . . I do trust you'll be gentle with her!” Thelma gasped.

“Daddy doesn't ever whip me!” Dacee June grinned.

“Well, this might be the first!” he warned.

She hugged his neck, kissed him on the lips, then sat back down, wrinkling her nose. “He threatens a lot, but he's pretty easy to see through. My mamma taught me that.”

He waved an ungloved finger at her. “You still haven't explained how you got out on the prairie.”

“I asked at the livery stable if they rented rigs that go to the Black Hills.”

“What did they say?” he quizzed.

“They laughed and said no one could take a rig to the Black Hills, and they weren't about to rent one to some fool kid.”

“Good for them.”

“Daddy!” Dacee June groaned.

“Go on, then what happened?”

“The lady I bought the bedroll and tent from knew of a group of men who were going into the hills and said I should talk to them about traveling with them. But by the time I found someone who knew them, they had already left. That's when I ran across Mr. Jamison.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Luke John Jamison,” Dacee June said.

“Who's he?”

“A scoundrel, that's who he is!” Thelma retorted.

“Now, dear, he did leave us the rig and the shotgun,” Louise reminded her.

Brazos sat straight up, his hand reaching for his carbine. “He did what?”

“Well,” Dacee June said, “Mr. Luke John Jamison, which is probably not his real name at all, overheard me ask about a carriage and said he would drive me out on the prairie to catch up with that party going to the Black Hills.”

“For a price, no doubt,” Brazos mused.

“Ten dollars,” she reported.

“Ten dollars! Where did you get ten dollars?”

“The ruby brooch,” Dacee June said.

Brazos glanced over at the thoughtful-looking Louise Driver and a pensive Thelma Speaker. “That doesn't account for the March sisters.”

“When we heard that Dacee June was coming out on the prairie with some man, we decided to ride along,” Thelma explained. “We didn't think it right for her to be alone.”

Brazos gazed through the thick, white smoke drifting from the fire. “I owe you ladies thanks for looking after my girl.”

“Actually,” Louise shrugged, “she sort of looked after us.”

“What?”

“First . . .” Dacee June said, “let me catch up. Mr. Jamison seemed happy that the March sisters were going along, and when Miss Milan heard that we were going, she insisted on coming too, because she's looking for her brother.”

“So this man Jamison had a wagonload of ladies for ten dollars apiece?” he probed.

“Yes. We went north to the Cheyenne River to avoid the troops patrolling the main trail, so he said, and then turned south. He said we'd cut their trail that way, and if we didn't, it meant we were ahead of them. Anyway, we pulled into an outcrop of rocks . . .”