A Claim of Her Own (16 page)

“Have you heard how Mr. Sloan is doing?” She was surprised at how often over the last couple of days she’d thought about that, alternately thinking she’d go into town herself and then talking herself out of it. After all, she’d acted in self-defense. But it still bothered her when she thought about Sloan’s suffering. She was glad Tom English had given her rock salt instead of something more lethal, and she wondered if she would ever actually be able to shoot anyone with her pocket pistol. Hopefully she would never have to find out. Hopefully the incident with Sloan would be sufficient to make whatever point needed to be made so that everyone left Matt the Miner alone.

“Yesterday when he was working on the store, Aron said Mr. Sloan will be all right. It took the doctor a long time to get all the salt out of him but once he did and washed him up he felt a lot better. He still has that big hurt where the wadding hit him and he’s moving really slow but he’ll be all right.”

Mattie nodded as Freddie turned to check for footprints. “Thank you again for staying up here until things settled down,” she said. Maybe she would give him whatever gold she found today as a way of saying thanks. And she’d tell him to get himself some candy.

But then she found her first pea-sized nugget.

I am going to be rich. It really is happening.
Mattie didn’t know if her hands trembled from the cold or from the excitement of finally finding her first nugget. It snowed off and on for another day and night after Freddie went back into Deadwood, but Mattie remained resolute, panning for gold several hours a day in spite of the cold and rejoicing in the discovery of more nuggets. She was finally seeing the possibilities of the claim.

She imagined digging test holes down to the bedrock and wondered if Freddie would be willing to help. If her luck held she’d be able to pay him. Then Freddie could buy his own candy and contribute to Swede’s savings without combing the hills for game. She would discuss it with Swede first, as soon as the freighters got back into town at the end of June. In the meantime, she was thrilled with her success. But still, her angst over Dillon’s missing gold would not die.

As she worked her claim, she remembered snippets of things Dillon had said in his letters. If only she’d kept them. But it was important for Jonas to believe Dillon was gone for good, so Mattie had paid the postmaster to keep her mail a secret, she’d never read Dillon’s letters at Jonas’s, and she’d destroyed each one as soon as she’d read it.

The claim is giving us more than I ever dreamed,
he’d written.
If
it keeps up we are going to be rich.
Alone on her claim, Mattie began to wake up in the middle of the night, transitioning from a dream about gold into a memory or a question.

What was it Brady Sloan had said?
“I only wanted to borrow . . .”
She could not put the suspicion to rest that Sloan had something to do with the disappearance of Dillon’s gold. She couldn’t let him get away with it. It was too bad Deadwood didn’t have a sheriff she could appeal to.

What about Aron Gallagher?
The night of the shooting, Gallagher had left her campfire on his way to talk to Sloan about his eternal soul. Maybe, Mattie thought, just maybe Sloan had confessed. And what if that confession included information about Dillon’s gold?

It was time to head back into town.

When Tom English said he could have Swede’s store finished in a matter of weeks, Mattie hadn’t believed him. But he’d done it. Swede’s once-empty lot now boasted a solid two-story building with merchandise displayed behind the windows and an
Open
sign hanging above the front door.

Stepping inside, Mattie surveyed the unfinished interior. Tom, wearing a sturdy shopkeeper’s apron while he sanded a substantial counter, waved hello even as he spoke to the two men watching him. “Swede will be back by the end of the month, and we’ll have everything you need. And yes, we will meet the competition’s price. Be sure to come down for opening day. Aunt Lou is overseeing an outdoor pig roast.”

“Free beer?” one of the men asked.

Tom stopped sanding. “Now, you know what Swede thinks of strong drink. But we’ll have cold lemonade, and there has been talk of
ice cream
.”

With a grumbling comment about teetotalers, the men nodded at Mattie and exited the store.

“Well, if it isn’t Matt the Miner,” Tom said. Taking one last swipe at the counter, he laid the sandpaper down and ran his hand along the grain, nodding with satisfaction. He patted the smooth surface. “I’ve been hoping to get everything varnished before Swede gets back. And I just might make it.” He motioned around the huge space. “Think Swede will be pleased?”

“She’ll be thrilled,” Mattie said. “It’s a fine store.”

“Glad to see you survived the snow up in the wilderness.”

“It wasn’t bad,” Mattie said. “The little stove in the tent does a good job of keeping things warm. Poor Freddie about froze out by the campfire, though.”

“I heard.”

“He seems to think it’s his sacred obligation to be my guard dog. I feel terrible about it. I didn’t even know it snowed until I opened the tent flap and there he was, shivering. I hope he doesn’t get sick.”

“Freddie’s as healthy as a horse and none the worse for wear.”

“Thank goodness.” Mattie opened the bag she’d carried into town and pulled out her wooden dust-catcher.

English took the lid off and whistled low. “Someone had a good week on the claim.”

“Can you tell me what it’s worth?”

“Of course.” He paused. “But you can trust the bank, you know. They’ll weigh it before you deposit it and give you a receipt so you have proof of exactly how much you put in the safe.”

Mattie shook her head. “I just need to learn how to estimate weight and value so I can keep my own accounting.” She pointed at the dust-catcher. “Those flakes are bigger than anything I’ve taken in at the store.”

Crossing to the opposite side of the store, Tom emptied the gold onto one side of the scale sitting atop another counter and began to set weights on the empty pan. Presently he looked up, smiling. “Well, Miss O’Keefe, at seventeen dollars an ounce you’re looking at about forty-five dollars. Which is very good work for an inexperienced miner.”

She couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“Wages around here average a couple of dollars a day for everyone but skilled miners. So if you had a paying job, you’d be looking at maybe thirty dollars every couple of weeks. You’re way ahead mining. Assuming, of course, there’s more gold to be had on Mattie’s Claim.” He opened a drawer and pulled out the same soft leather drawstring bag she used when she worked in the store. “Even if you want to keep using Freddie’s dust-catcher, you should still have insurance in case the lid he carved comes off. You can put the whole thing in here.”

“What do I owe you?” Mattie asked as she put the bag around her neck.

“Another beautiful smile,” Tom said, pouring her gold back into the wooden dust-catcher and handing it over.

Mattie tucked the leather bag inside her chemise before asking, “Is there any chance you’d know where Aron Gallagher is?”

“I haven’t seen him this morning. He’s been staying pretty close to Doc Reeves’s recently. I think he’s hoping to reel in a lost lamb.”

“
Thievin’ varmint
is more like it,” Mattie said. When Tom didn’t comment she continued, “I’m grateful I had that shotgun, by the way.”

“Do you need more rock salt?”

Mattie shook her head. “I doubt anyone’s going to try that again.”

Tom smiled. “You’ve got a point there. But just the same—”

A group of miners came in the front door. They were laughing and joking and cursing about something one of them had just said, but the minute they caught sight of Mattie all speech stopped. One of the younger ones nudged the one standing next to him and muttered something under his breath. “Ma’am,” they all said, and took off their hats and stood to one side of the door.

Mattie nodded and, with a glance at Tom, left the store. She hesitated just outside the front door.
Forty-five dollars.
For hours and hours of backbreaking work. Once again, Dillon’s letters came to mind. As did the reminder of her nightly earnings in Abilene.

She glanced up the street toward the Badlands. At a dollar a dance she could easily bring in several hundred dollars in three weeks. Of course she’d have to put up with being pawed and—
No
. With a little shiver, she put the thought out of her mind.

She stepped into the street and headed for the Grand Central Hotel. Aunt Lou would be busy in the kitchen. Maybe she would want some help. Aron Gallagher would likely show up there before the end of the day, and with a belly full of Aunt Lou’s cooking, maybe he’d be more inclined to talk about Brady Sloan.

A few days out of Sidney, the lone stranger who’d been traveling alongside the freighters invited himself to join the men sitting around Swede’s campfire. She’d noticed him before, but he’d spent his time around other campfires, and she was fine with that. There was something about him that made her uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with the hook that had at some point in the past replaced the man’s left hand. No, it was something else. Something less tangible. As she watched him, Swede realized the man never looked relaxed astride his fine bay gelding, but Swede didn’t think it had anything to do with his ability as a rider.

The horse was spirited, but the stranger didn’t seem to have any particular trouble controlling him. Still, he rode leaning slightly forward, as if by doing so he could make them all go faster. Swede would not have been surprised if the stranger had simply kicked his horse to a gallop and disappeared into the distance one day. That would have been foolish, but fools were not in short supply out here in the West.

Today, as the bullwhackers all the way down the freight line shouted to their teams to stop for their midday break, the stranger dismounted and walked with Red toward Swede’s campfire.

The closer Tallent got, the louder Eva babbled and the more energy she put into her latest little “up-down” routine while she grasped the edge of her cradle. As for the pup, he positioned himself between Swede’s wagon and the approaching men and began to bark. It was odd behavior. The pup had never barked at Tallent.

“Shoosh,” Swede hollered, even as she bent down to swoop the pup into her arms. He lay quietly, except for a barely perceptible growl as he watched Tallent and the stranger head to the wagon. When Tallent picked Eva up, the stranger said something to Eva and chucked her under the chin. She smiled at him but leaned into Red in a sudden and uncharacteristic bout of shyness.

When the puppy began to wriggle to be put down, Swede set him alongside Eva’s cradle in the wagon. Immediately he raised up on his haunches and, bracing his front paws against the wagon-box sides, barked again. It took more than a little scolding to settle him.

Finally, Tallent introduced the stranger as Mr. James Saddler. Swede was obliged to invite him to share the midday meal around her campfire. It was her turn and she was not about to be openly rude to a man just because the puppy didn’t seem to like him and she didn’t like the way he sat a horse.