Friends and Enemies (21 page)

Robert could see through the thin gauze curtains into the living room as he walked up the Lincoln Street sidewalk in front of their house. Though it was well past everyone's bedtime, the gas lamps in every room were still lit. The trunks and cases were visible, still scattered around the room.

There was the noise of pots and pans rattling in the kitchen when he came in the front door. He could smell butter frying in an iron skillet.

“Anyone home?” he called out as he hung his hat on a peg and unfastened his holster.

“Daddy, you're late!” Veronica squealed as she dashed out of the kitchen.

“Sorry about that, darlin'.”

“Daddy, it's horrible,” Patricia added.

“What's so horrible now?” He threw an arm around each daughter. “It looks like our trunks arrived. Everything's here, isn't it?”

Patricia's small, soft fingers snuggled into his as she tugged him into the living room. “Not everything!”

Veronica hung on to the other hand. “Our goods are gone!”

“But there's your trunk,” Robert noted.

“They even took our diaries!” Veronica moaned.

Robert held up his hands. “Whoa . . . whoa . . .”

Jamie Sue appeared at the doorway. A white-frilled apron covered a wheat-gold sasheen dress.

“Nice dress, Mama,” he greeted.

“I thought I would never see it again.”

“Do you know what this talk is about?” he asked her.

“It's a great mystery, Mr. Robert Fortune, railway inspector. All of our trunks arrived. Only the girls' big trunk had a different padlock on it. When we took the hinges off the back we found all their belongings were missing.”

Robert strolled into the living room. “The trunk was empty?”

“No, that's part of the quandary. It was crammed full of money.”

“What?”

“She's right, Daddy,” Veronica whined. “All of our clothing and earthly possessions are missing, and it's full of brand new, dumb money!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The air in the hardware store was stuffy as Robert Fortune swung the tall oak-and-glass doors open. Somewhere to the east the sun had risen on the Dakota prairie. Its reflection could be seen on top of the tallest pines left standing on Forest Hill. But down below in Whitewood Gulch, the narrow streets of Deadwood crouched in shadows.

He strolled toward the woodstove. The stovepipe ascended upward like the shaft of an arrow until it pierced the fourteen-foot, soot-dusted ceiling. He recalled when there were no aisles or neatly arranged shelves . . . just the stove and goods littered across the floor.

Four men clustered near the stove. Two were elderly. All were older than he. Three carried his last name. One carried a bullet that had crippled him for ten years.

Robert tugged at his tie and unfastened the top button of his white shirt. “It's hot in here, Daddy,” he reported.

The gray-haired man with a big-brimmed, round, felt hat with Montana crease stared up with narrow, penetrating eyes. “These bones of mine haven't been warm since I left Texas,” Brazos drawled. “Ain't that right, Quiet Jim?”

The man in the wheelchair rubbed his neatly trimmed gray mustache and clean-shaven, narrow chin. “I don't know. . . . It was purdy warm the other day when the mill burned down.” A sly grin crept across the rugged man's narrow lips.

“There ain't nothin' hotter than a lumber mill fire,” Brazos added.

“Unless it was when the Nugget Dance Hall burned down the first time.” Quiet Jim's voice could barely be heard above the pop and snap of the fire.

“The Nugget radiated a lot of heat, even when it wasn't on fire,” Brazos roared.

“I got to say, you two are taking the burning of the lumber mill rather well.” Robert paused by the woodstove and warmed his hands, even though they were already sweating.

“Bobby, a man cain't cry too long. When me, Quiet Jim, and the boys rode into this gulch, there was nothin' but down trees, a couple tents and a one-room log cabin. Someday, it will all burn down and we'll just ride off. Won't we, Quiet Jim?”

“Your daddy's right. ‘The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away . . . blessed be the name of the Lord.'” Even when he merely spoke, Quiet Jim's melodic voice sounded like a tune.

“Yeah, but that's an expensive way to keep warm,” Robert said.

Todd broke open a crate of factory-made carriage bolts and sorted them into the bins. “I told Daddy he should take a vacation to some sandy beach and just lay in the sun until he's good and warm.”

Sam Fortune yanked off his hat and whacked his youngest brother on the backside. “Bobby's got a trunk of cash money Daddy can spend.”

Brazos pulled the green wool blanket over his shoulders as he huddled near the roaring woodstove. “What did you find out about that money, son?”

Robert poured a cup of coffee, then backed away from the fire. “Southern Pacific Railroad traced it to San Diego. It seems our bags were in the freight room there for over a week until they figured out where they were to be shipped. They surmise someone who thought all the trunks were going into Tiajuana, Mexico, jammed that one full of money.”

“Brand-new money,” Todd added.

“Worthless money,” Sam declared.

“It ain't worth nothin'?” Quiet Jim stared at the bottom of his empty coffee cup.

Brazos stood, the blanket like a cape on his shoulders, then carried the coffeepot over and filled Quiet Jim's cup.

Robert rubbed his dark brown beard. “There isn't any such thing as the Republic of Lower California. At least, not yet. The treasury department and the war department were very curious, though. There have been rumors of privateers from the States wanting to take advantage of the political confusion in Mexico.”

“Do you mean someone from San Diego was, or is, planning on invading Baja, California, and declaring independence?” Todd questioned.

“That's exactly what our government wants to find out,” Robert said. “I've been down there. There isn't anything but rock, sand, sunshine, and a few nice beaches. Don't know who would want it.”

“Someone who's cold,” Brazos commented.

Sam Fortune was the only one wearing spurs. He rolled the rowels across the hardwood floor. “How much money was in that trunk?” he asked.

Robert pulled off his wool suit coat and laid it across a crate marked “pick handles.” “Little Frank stayed up past midnight counting it. There was somewhere close to a half-million dollars.”

Sam let out a loud whistle. “In that one trunk?”

“Some of the bills are quite large denominations.” Robert chewed on the coffee grounds before taking another sip of coffee. “They make our greenbacks look dull. There were purples and yellows and pinks in the big denominations.”

His suit coat off, his white sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Carty Toluca emerged from the back room. “Todd, I'm going down to the depot and load up that freight that came in from Chicago.”

“You need some help?” Todd asked.

Carty laughed. “I'll take one of the clerks. I wouldn't want to bother you old men!”

“Old men?” Todd hooted. “If Lil' Sis wouldn't pitch a fit, I'd turn you over my knee and bend a willow on your backside.”

“What's my Dacee June doin' today?” Brazos asked. “She hasn't come by to see me.”

“She's bakin' you a raisin pie and teaching the girls how to speak French,” Carty reported.

“French lessons? But two of them are still in diapers, and one can't walk yet,” Brazos challenged.

Carty shrugged as he trudged off toward the back room. “You know Dacee June.”

Robert glanced at his brothers . . . his father . . . then Quiet Jim. “Yep,” he mumbled, “that sounds like Lil' Sis.”

“What happens to the money now?” Sam probed. “You going to wallpaper with it?”

“We're shipping the whole works back to San Diego. The government wants to see if someone comes inquiring about it. They sent the girls five dollars to buy their old trunk.”

Quiet Jim took his hand and lifted his right leg back up on the footrest of the wheelchair. “Little Frank said the twins was missin' their belongin's.”

“Jamie Sue and the girls will be shopping for ready-mades to replace what they lost. They're excited about all new clothes, but there were some personal items that they're grieving over,” Robert said.

“You buy them all new things, Bobby, and I'll pay for it,” Brazos insisted.

“No you won't, Daddy Brazos,” Robert insisted. “I can provide for my family, and you've got to stop spoilin' those girls of mine. It's appalling the way you cotton to them.”

Brazos rubbed his drooping gray mustache. “I ain't got that many years left to spoil them.”

“Old man, you're tougher than a piece of old salmon pounded out and left for jerky,” Todd insisted. “You'll be here when the Homestake is played out and sheep are grazing on Sherman Avenue.”

“Besides, Daddy,” Robert added. “Some day you're going to meet Mama up there in heaven and she'll say, ‘Henry, it was shameful the way you spoiled Robert Paul's twins.'”

Brazos stared up at his youngest son. He rubbed his tongue slowly across chapped lips, then reached up and rubbed the corners of his eyes. “She will, won't she?”

“You know she will,” Robert insisted.

“Well, you boys know I've never really gotten over your sisters' deaths. I look at them girls of yours, Bobby, and it's like the Lord gave me a second chance. I hope the rest of the family understands that and don't take no offense.”

“It doesn't bother us,” Todd reported.

“Course,” Robert continued, “those two will have husbands some day that will be distressed something fierce.”

“Right now, I just can't look at them without smilin',” Brazos said.

“You wouldn't be smiling at them today. They were going at each other tooth and nail when I left home.”

“What are they scrapping over?” Brazos asked.

“Eachan Moraine.”

“You mean all Fortunes don't hate the Irish?” Todd chided.

Sammy continued to roll his spurs on the wooden floor. “We're all a lovable lot, except for ol' Ted Fortune.”

“That worthless Hawthorne Miller,” Brazos mumbled. “Why in the world does he lie, then try to make it sound like us? If that man walked through the door . . .”

“I reckon you'd pull that Sharps .50 caliber off the wall over your bed,” Quiet Jim suggested.

Brazos let the blanket slip off his shoulders. “I believe I'm warmin' up to the task already!”

“Now, Daddy, what does the Bible say about how to respond when we're wrongfully accused?” Robert pressed.

“‘For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully . . .'” Samuel recited.

“And,” Robert continued, “‘if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.'”

Brazos looked over at Quiet Jim and both men grinned. “What's a man to do when the boys go oratin' Bible verses at you?”

“It's Sarah Ruth's fault,” Quiet Jim added. “All those days you were out chasin' wild cattle over south Texas, she lined them up and made them memorize Scripture.”

Brazos shuffled over to the coffeepot. “The worst part is, they're right, of course.”

Samuel stood and straightened his coat. “Maybe I'll find out soon enough. I need to line up a crew to install a line out to the Broken Boulder, so I thought I'd check with the Irishmen again.”

Todd tossed the last of the carriage bolts into the wooden bin. “Pinch-Nose Pete's dead, you know.”

“What do you mean, dead? I thought he just went down to Hot Springs to sit in the mineral baths?” Sam replied.

Todd stood on the bench and reached up to adjust the gas lantern. “Nope. Ol' Billy Walston came through here last Tuesday and said that . . .”

“What's Billy peddlin' now?” Brazos quizzed.

“Watches, mostly,” Todd reported. “Anyway, Ol' Billy said Pinch-Nose Pete showed up in Cheyenne a few weeks ago spendin' and braggin' about how much money he could make in Deadwood. It wasn't three days before he was robbed and shot dead out behind the Baltimore Club.”

Samuel set his cup down and shook his head. “When he was sober, he was a good man. He surely kept that Irish crew workin' when they hit tough goin' in the canyon. But he didn't make enough wages off that job to whoop it up in Custer City, let alone Cheyenne.”

Quiet Jim cleared his throat. “Talkin' about havin' money is as dangerous as actually havin' it.”

Samuel shoved his cup back on the shelf and headed to the door. “I'll just see if I can find any Irishmen to work for me. Maybe one of them wants to be crew boss.”

“I've got to head out too,” Robert declared. “I've got a trunk of money to ship back to San Diego.”

“You guardin' it yourself?” Brazos asked.

“Nothin' valuable to guard. We'll just toss it in the baggage car with the rest. But it is my turn to ride. It will give me a chance to catch up reading those Pinkerton Reports.”

Robert reached the door, then turned back to his oldest brother. “If that chartered accountant, Byron Chambers, shows up today, introduce him to the ol' men at the woodstove and tell him I'll be back by tomorrow.”

Todd walked with him out onto the shadow-blanketed boardwalk. “How's he going to get here? You brought back his carriage.”

Robert tipped his hat at a tall lady who crossed the dirt street near them. “The Raxton sisters have a freight wagon. I reckon one of the Mexican cooks will bring him in.”

Todd looped his thumbs in his vest pocket. “You really think the Broken Boulder is worth something?”

“Look at the ore and the assay. It's been years since they found something that good near the surface.”

Todd lowered his voice. “Are you going to talk to Raigan Moraine about that Hawthorne Miller novel?”

“Yep. I hope he's sober.”

“Does he drink?”

“I don't know . . . but I hope he's sober. Jamie Sue has decided never to speak to him again. Todd, you figure there will ever be a time when there are too many Fortunes in Deadwood?”

“Never.”

“Mama, did you know that Eachan quit workin' with me and Quint at the racetrack?” Little Frank shouted as he burst in through the back door.

“Was he mad at you?”

“Nope. He just said his daddy wouldn't let him work with us 'cause we were a bad influence. I don't think I've ever been a bad influence on anyone before, except maybe that one time I talked 'Nica and Tricia into sellin' spoiled meat to old Sonora Zeke. But Daddy whipped the bad influence right out of me.”

“You are not a bad influence. At least, I trust you aren't. Your father's going to talk to Mr. Moraine and get it all cleared up. How is your work coming?”