Friends and Enemies (19 page)

“How about some local investors. Perhaps just a loan, not a partnership. My preliminary opinion is that you need to have a bigger operation to make any money.”

She strolled back to the big outdoor table where Tio and Poco were slicing elk meat into an iron frying pan that was two feet wide. “We're gettin' by jist like we are.”

“Would you be happy if this is the way things are still going ten years from now?”

“All of us will be dead, if we keep up this pace. But it beats what we were doin' in Miles City.”

Robert put a foot up on a bench and brushed his dusty trousers. “At some point you two Raxton sisters have got to ask yourselves, Is this what the Lord wants me to do with my life?”

Miss Sandra jerked back as if stung by a bee. “What in the world does God have to do with this?”

“He made the gold . . .”

“I reckon I agree with you there.”

“And He made the Raxton sisters.”

Miss Sandra stiffened. “Where is this goin', Fortune?”

“If He made you and the gold, then He probably has a plan for both of them.” He pointed his finger at her. “It seems to me the secret of a successful life is finding out what those plans are.”

“Now you sound like a Methodist preacher,” she challenged.

“Baptist. Ponder it a while. If you think God wants you to haul that gold out of this mountain, you have to find some backers. But if He's in it, you will.”

“Are you tryin' to buy into our mine and sugarcoating it with religion?” she confronted.

“Nope. I don't have the funds. But I know people in Deadwood and Lead who might be interested. If you ever come to town, I'll introduce you to them.”

“We ain't dealin' with ol' George Hearst.”

“I don't know Mr. Hearst. He seems to be doing quite well with the Homestake.”

Miss Sandra Raxton stared back in the direction of Spruce Canyon. “Cable big buckets right off the side, huh?”

“It can be done,” he said. “I've seen them do it down in Arizona.”

“But it would be like runnin' two operations. How would we coordinate it?”

“With telephones. That's where brother Samuel comes in.”

“But . . . but with two camps, where would we live? Up here . . . or down there?” she pointed.

“Why you'd live in Denver, or San Francisco or Chicago, what with all the money you'd make,” Robert teased.

“Look at me, Mr. Fortune.”

Robert gave a quick look at Sandra Raxton, then back at the men chopping meat at the table.

“I said, look me up and down,” she demanded.

Robert's face flushed as he studied the tired weak eyes, long dirty nose, and filthy dark cotton dress that hung limp on the skinny frame of Sandra Raxton.

“Now,” she said, “can you honestly say that you can imagine me living in a fine house on the north side of Chicago?”

He cleared his throat. “Eh, no ma'am. I think you're right. That's a little far-fetched. But, Miss Sandra, I can imagine you living on a five-thousand-acre spread along the Yellowstone River just out of Miles City, Montana, with a stable full of long-legged racing horses and a big, new, two-story ranch house with a wrap-around veranda and a half-dozen servants ready to do any chore you gave them.”

Sandra Raxton's weak eyes slowly lit up. One lone tear braved the dirty cheek and plowed its way down to her upper lip. “You're right, Fortune. I can see myself in such a place. Do you reckon God would ever allow such a thing?”

“There's only one way to find out.”

Suddenly, her shoulders stiffened. “I should have shot you before you ever reached the mine.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Why?”

“Then I wouldn't have such pretty but impossible dreams in my head.”

“Well, you can't shoot me now,” he declared.

“And just why not? I can still go fetch my gun.”

“Yes, but shooting me wouldn't do any good. Because you're going to have that dream to haunt your mind whether I'm alive or dead.”

She took a deep breath. “I don't know whether to kiss you or curse you, Robert Fortune.”

He stepped back.

Sandra Raxton had such an explosive, unexpected laugh that Tio and Poco dropped their knives into the big black iron skillet. “Relax, Mr. Fortune,” she hooted. “I don't reckon I'm goin' to do either.”

“I'll have him hung!” Jamie Sue fumed as she stormed into the living room.

Her brown hair now in dual pigtails, Veronica danced over toward the entry hall. “Look, Mama, all the trunks are here!”

Jamie Sue tugged off her beige gloves. “No, I was wrong. He should be drawn, quartered, then diced and fed to ravens!”

“We couldn't find the key, Mama.” Patricia circled the green wardrobe trunk that was taller than she was. Her hair, too, now hung in pigtails.

“I've heard of stupid men, but he is the stupidest in the entire world.” Jamie Sue unpinned her straw hat and tossed it on the small table near the door.

Veronica tugged on her arm. “Every one of our trunks and cases is here. Isn't that marvelous, Mama? Not one piece was lost.”

Jamie Sue stared at her reflection in the mirror. Dark hair pinned back, wide-set blue eyes, narrow cheeks, large mouth, pale skin . . . except for the blush of fury. “It's fiction,” she blurted out to the image in the mirror. “Fiction stories are make-believe. Unreal. False. All fiction writers are liars. Everyone knows that!”
Lord, I have never been so unjustly accused and felt so helpless. He is not being reasonable. I don't know how to deal with people who refuse to listen to reason. Besides that . . . my mouth is too wide and my lips too full.

“Mama, can we have the key and unlock the wardrobes?” Patricia pulled at her other arm. A small gold locket dangled at the end of a thin gold chain, resting on the crocheted lace yoke of her dress.

Jamie Sue stomped into the kitchen, squatted down next to the stove, and stuck several small sticks of wood into the dying embers of the firebox. She faced the back door and waved a stick of kindling as if lecturing an exceedingly naughty student. “Mr. Hawthorne Miller, I would advise you never . . . ever show up in Deadwood!” she declared. “You will justly suffer the consequences your actions deserve!”

Veronica now hung on her mother's arm. “Who's Hawthorne Miller?” she quizzed.

Patricia pulled a pigtail across her face and chewed on the end of it. “Is he the man that writes those dime novels?”

Jamie Sue took a deep breath and patted Veronica's head. “He's a man who is equaled in stupidity only by one named Riagan Moraine.”

“Mama, don't pat me on the head,” Veronica whined.

Patricia scooted up on the other side of Jamie Sue. “You can pat me on the head, Mama. What did Eachan's father do?”

Jamie Sue's lip curled as if she had bitten into a rancid walnut. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“That's all you've been talking about since you came in the house,” Veronica whined.

Jamie Sue klunked the teapot over on the barely warm stove. She stared at her twins, her arms clenched across her chest. “Girls, tell me something. When you read a novel, do you think it's true . . . or make believe?”

Patricia raised her hand. “It's all made up,” she blurted out. “That's what a story is about.”

Veronica rocked up on the toes of her shoes. “Except maybe the book about Uncle Todd. It was true. Mostly. Sort of. Wasn't it?”

“Why did you ask us that?” Patricia quizzed.

Jamie Sue turned back toward the teapot. She took a long, slow breath through her nostrils, then let it out very slowly through her mouth. She could feel her shoulders and forehead relax. “I shouldn't talk about it. I need to wait until your father gets home.”

“Is it something naughty?” Patricia murmured.

Jamie Sue stared into her daughter's bright, penetrating glare. “Naughty?”

“Sometimes you won't tell us something because it's naughty, and you wait and tell Daddy,” Patricia declared. “You tell him the naughty things you won't tell us.”

Jamie Sue put her hands on her hips, which felt wider than she remembered. “I most certainly do not! Who told you that?”

Patricia stared down at her shoes. “Eh . . . 'Nica.”

“I did not,” Veronica protested. “I did not! I merely said, perhaps that's what Mama does. It was just speculation. Amber said that her mother won't talk about naughty things except to Uncle Sammy, and I merely said that perhaps Mama and Daddy did the same. That's all.”

Jamie Sue stormed around the kitchen. “This definitely isn't naughty. I'm just very, very grieved, and I don't know what to do about it. I wish your father were home right now.”

“So do I,” Veronica said. “Maybe he knows where the key to our trunk is.”

“Can't you even tell us about it?” Patricia prodded.

Jamie Sue laced her fingers. “You'll hear about it soon enough, I expect. Mr. Moraine, and apparently some others in this town, have the opinion that all the Fortunes hate the Irish.”

“Hate the Irish?” Patricia yelped. “What's he talking about? Aunt Abby is Irish, and so is Amber, and I think she's the most beautiful girl in the world. And little Garrett is half Irish.”

Veronica tilted her head and licked her thin, pale lips. “I certainly don't hate Eachan! Why would anyone say that about us?”

Jamie Sue paused her pacing and rested her hands on the back of a straight-back wooden chair. “There's a new Hawthorne Miller book called
Ambush on St. Patrick's Day
in which U.S. Marshal Ted Fortune single-handedly puts down an Irish miner's strike in the Black Hills.”

“Who's Ted Fortune?” Patricia asked.

Jamie Sue brushed the hair back out of her eyes. “He's a fictional character that Miller made up. He has nothing to do with any of us. Besides, I'm not at all sure that putting down a miner's strike is always evil.”

Patricia fussed with her white lace yoke collar. “Ted Fortune sounds a lot like Todd Fortune.”

“That's the point. Miller tried to piggyback on the Fortune name and succeeded in alienating all the Irish in the Black Hills.” Jamie Sue plucked up a tin plate from the counter and used it to fan herself.

“Does Mr. Moraine believe the story in the dime novel and think that Ted Fortune is a relative of ours?” Veronica questioned.

“Yes, he does.”

“That's silly,” Patricia said. “I hope you told him so.”

“I tried to reason with him . . . but . . . but . . . he is an unreasonable man. He thinks Little Frank missed a baseball on purpose so that it would break his kitchen window . . . and he refuses for me to let someone from the hardware come fix it because he won't do business with Fortunes!” Jamie Sue bit her lip, then tried to brush back tears from the corner of her eyes. “It just isn't fair!”

Patricia stroked her mother's arm. “We'll just have to trust the Lord through all this. As soon as they get to know us, they will find out differently.”

Jamie Sue stared at her daughter, then ran her hands along Patricia's pigtail.
Is this my little girl who's telling me to relax and trust the Lord? That's easy for her to say. . . . She doesn't have the constant burden of . . . I guess that's the point, isn't it?

“Yes,” Patricia added, chewing on her lip, “'Nica and I never, ever hated anyone Irish.”

Veronica danced up and down on the heels of her shoes. “Except Moira Fionne, and that's only because she padded the front of her dress and pretended she was fifteen.”

Jamie Sue surveyed the fleeting eyes of her daughters. “Moira did what?”

“Oh . . . nothing.” Veronica pulled her mother back to the living room. “Look, Mama . . . all of our trunks!”

Jamie Sue stared at the living room stacked with boxes, trunks, valises, and wardrobes. “Yes! Oh, girls, this is an exciting day. Forgive me for going on about those other things. And don't you dare tell Eachan about any of this. It is a misunderstanding we must clear up. I just wish I could clear it up today.”

“We want to open our trunk, Mama. But we couldn't find a key that fits,” Veronica said.

“They're all on that nail by the back door.”
Lord, I just can't allow the confrontation with Mr. Moraine to dominate my every thought. I have other things to do . . . children to take care of. Supper to cook. Trunks to unpack. A gallows to build.

“We tried all those, but they didn't fit our trunk,” Patricia explained.

“It must be there,” Jamie Sue said.

“The keys opened all the cases and trunks except ours,” Veronica added. “And it's the most important one . . . to us anyway.”

Jamie Sue approached the huge, faded green steamer trunk and sorted through the half-dozen keys. “This is it. See, I have it tagged V&P.”

“We tried that one, Mama,” Patricia explained.

“This is certainly it. You just slide it in this way and . . .” The large key did not slip into the slot of the shiny steel padlock. “Well, perhaps it goes . . .” Still she couldn't even get the key in the lock. “Do you suppose I mislabeled it?”

“We tried them all, Mama,” Veronica announced. “Does Daddy have the key to our trunk?”

“I don't think so. He might have the key to your hearts, but not your trunk.” Jamie Sue fussed with the other keys, but none fit. “This is rather odd. Is it your trunk?”

“Of course it is. See the picture I drew of a paint horse? Well it sort of looks like a horse. And look what 'Nica wrote: ‘Wanted Pen Pal: write to Veronica Fortune, Deadwood, South Dakota.'”

“You did what? You put your name on a trunk?”

Veronica folded her arms across the top of her head. “Yes, but no one has written to me.”