A Claim of Her Own (19 page)

Gates shrugged. “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” he said. “Maybe they’ve been working the public roads. That stands for ‘representing work’ just as well.”

She’d forgotten about that. “What road would they be working?”

“Well, certain parties keep mining away the Deadwood-Gayville road looking for placer gold. There’s always work needed to keep that one passable. Maybe the boys’ claim wasn’t paying and they decided to work for grub.”

Gates was being polite, but it was obvious he didn’t know any more, or if he did, he wasn’t going to share it with her. Leaving his office, Mattie picked her way through mudholes and rivulets of running water to Swede’s store. She smiled the instant she was through the front door. The place was no longer an empty room. Tom had installed all the shelving and finished another counter since Sunday. He’d assembled the stove and was standing atop a ladder shoving a section of flue through a hole in the ceiling, where it would apparently pass through the upstairs hall and on up to the roof. Glancing up, Mattie could see the hole itself was bordered with metal flashing.

Tom paused in his maneuvering of the stovepipe long enough to glance down at her. “What brings Matt the Miner to town on such a day?”

“Rain,” Mattie replied. “Rain and gumbo, rain and boredom. And more rain. And I was hoping to talk to Brady Sloan.”

“I assume by the way you just said that, you’ve been disappointed.” After adding another section to the flue, Tom braced the stovepipe against the highest step of the ladder and began to climb down.

“You’d be right,” Mattie said. “And can I help with that?” She pointed up at the stovepipe.

“Well, I’ve a bit more work to do on this upstairs. Could you mind the store?”

“Glad to,” she said. “I hope Freddie isn’t out hunting in this weather. He’ll catch pneumonia.”

“Well, aren’t you just the little mother hen,” Tom teased. “No. In fact, he’ll probably be back before too long. I sent him to see if he could find Aron to help me finish this.” Just then Gallagher and Freddie stomped in. Greeting Mattie, Gallagher followed Tom upstairs while Freddie climbed the ladder and maneuvered the stovepipe as directed by the two men waiting upstairs to extend it up and through the roof.

While the men worked, Mattie went to stand behind the counter by the gold scales. She could hear Gallagher and Tom talking and laughing. How different they were from the McKays, who blustered and hollered and swore their way through most workdays. Thinking about it, Mattie realized she’d never heard Tom or Gallagher say a harsh word, much less a swear word. They had an easy kind of friendship in spite of the fact that Tom displayed no interest in the religion Gallagher seemed eager to share with everyone in Deadwood.

Mattie’s musings were interrupted by the arrival of several miners, more in search of a place to stay out of the rain than merchandise. She didn’t know them, and their reaction to a woman dressed in overalls made her feel more like a circus act than a storekeeper. But apparently they recognized her.

“You must be the one that shot Brady Sloan full of rock salt,” one said.

Mattie shrugged. “He’s lucky it was only salt.”

“Knocked him clean out of mining and into church from what I hear.” The man’s smile revealed a mouth crowded with crooked yellow teeth.

Mattie snorted. “The last time I saw him he was dead drunk in the middle of Main Street.”

“I heard about that, too,” the man said. He looked at his companion. “That preacher dragged him back to Doc’s and paid the bill. Bought Sloan a horse so he could go home.” He glanced outside. The rain had let up and the men headed back out the door.

Gallagher helped Brady Sloan leave town? Without so much as
telling me? Without so much as giving me a chance to—

“Got it!” Gallagher’s voice boomed from upstairs. Freddie climbed down the ladder as Tom and the preacher clomped back downstairs.

When Tom said something to Freddie about “seeing how she draws” and commenced to fiddling with the new stove, Mattie went to Gallagher. “So you bought Sloan a horse.” He nodded. “And he’s left town.” When he nodded again, she bit her lip to keep from swearing even as she glared at him. Finally she said, “You—you knew I wanted to talk to him. You knew that.”

“I did, but when a man wants to start fresh and he’s already fallen away once, when he’s ready to acknowledge his weakness, it’s best to make a way for him to do the thing he needs to do before he—”

Mattie held up her hand. “Save it,” she said. “Save it for some of your other churchgoing friends,
Reverend
.” She spat the title out as if it were a swear word. “I thought maybe, just maybe, you were—” She broke off. “Never mind.”

“There!” Tom English called out, and Mattie turned around to see the smile on his face as he looked down at the stove and then up toward the ceiling. “Draws fine.” He patted Freddie on the back. “Thank you for your help. You, too, Aron. How about that game of checkers now?”

“You’re on,” Gallagher said. “In just a minute—soon as I make us some coffee,” and with that he motioned for Mattie to follow him back into the combination storeroom-kitchen.

Mattie marched after him.

“A couple of good men I know were leaving town, and Brady was willing to go with them,” Gallagher said. “He was hanging by a slim thread of hope, and I wanted to help him get out of town before he let go. So I bought him a horse and gave him a little Testament and sent him on his way.”

“Well, now, isn’t that just so sweet of you,” Mattie snapped. She headed for the back door. “I’ll be seeing you.”

Gallagher’s arm placed across the doorframe kept her from opening it. “If you’ll let me finish, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll tell you how Brady reacted when I asked him what he was after up at your claim that night.”

Mattie dropped her hand from the door handle.

“That’s better. I know I told you I wouldn’t do it, but the situation changed. He needed to leave and there was an opportunity, but there wasn’t time to climb the gulch and retrieve you . . . so I asked him about that night and I believe what he told me.”

“Which was—?”

“That he was so drunk he thought he was at his own tent. That all he was thinking about was falling into his bedroll and he had no intention of making trouble for anyone.”

Mattie glowered. “And did he seem drunk to you that night?”

“Well, no,” Gallagher said. The dimple in his cheek showed, although he managed not to smile as he continued, “But then a barrelful of rock salt would likely blow the liquor right out of any man.” He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to take my word for any of this.” He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a smudged envelope. “I’ve been carrying this around since he left, waiting until I saw you.” He handed her the envelope.

Mattie opened it and read.
I am sory for what I done. I wuz drunk.
I didn’t mean no harm and I don’t blame you for shooting. Keep that rifle
handy so you are ready in case innyone bothers you. I am sory.

“Well,” Mattie said, and cleared her throat. She looked toward the front of the store. “I guess I owe you—and Sloan—an apology.”

“I should have brought the note up to you,” Gallagher said.

Mattie shrugged. “Can’t blame you for not wanting to climb the gulch in this weather.” She finally met his gaze just as Freddie’s voice sounded from the doorway.

“Are we playing checkers or not?”

“You are,” Mattie said abruptly and, stuffing Sloan’s note in her pocket, nudged past Gallagher toward the huge stove dominating what would soon be Swede’s kitchen at one end of the storeroom. She shooed Gallagher out without looking at him. “Go. I’ll make your coffee before I leave for my claim.” As soon as Gallagher and Freddie had retreated to the checkerboard, she looked around the room, noticing for the first time that Tom English’s organizational abilities were evident here, too. He’d stacked three boxes on their sides to create a kitchen cupboard. He’d even hung an advertising calendar over the small kitchen table. The place was becoming downright cozy.

Laughter rang out from the front room as the men settled in. Something about that sound made Mattie think of Dillon. Swiping at the threatening tears, she considered how Swede and Freddie and little Eva were going to have themselves a nice home here in Deadwood—what with this new store and the sleeping quarters upstairs and with friends like Tom English and Aron Gallagher helping run the store and coming by to play checkers. She was glad for them all. So glad she almost cried. Again.

Back up at her claim, Mattie woke the next morning as suddenly as if a rooster had flown into her tent and crowed. For a moment she lay with her eyes closed thinking she’d probably only dreamed that the rain had stopped. And then when she realized it wasn’t a dream, she waited, expecting that the silence wouldn’t last for long. False hopes had been raised several times over the past week, when clouds split to show a strip of blue sky, only to gather again and pour down rain with a vengeance. She got out of bed, full of hope, and by noon the sky was a startling shade of blue, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing.

With the lifting of her spirits, Mattie decided it was time to make the tent her own. With Freddie’s help she’d hauled a few empty boxes up to the claim, and with a little work she could make some sense of the jumble of things inside the tent. While she’d managed to keep her bedding mostly dry, thanks to the way Dillon had created his bed—building a wooden frame and tacking a tarp to it as a liner before adding a straw-filled tick and other bedding—everything still smelled musty. She began to haul things outside, spreading blankets and comforters and towels on the rocks and bushes bordering the claim. She dragged all the paraphernalia in Dillon’s supply box outside and, using the closed box as a workbench, hammered some empty cracker boxes together to create a cupboard like the one Tom had built for Swede.

She hauled pail after pail of water from the creek and scrubbed surfaces that hadn’t seen a scrub brush probably since Dillon moved onto the claim. And then, in a burst of enthusiasm, she decided to haul the bed frame out, too. It wouldn’t hurt to rinse off the rubber liner and air out the straw tick. Getting it outside took some doing, but she managed and, leaning the frame against a tree, went to work rinsing the tarp. While it dried she went back inside. That’s when she saw the round stove lid resting on the dirt beneath where the cot had been.

Reaching for the handle that had come with the camp stove, she knelt down and, inserting it into the notches in the lid, slid it over to reveal . . . a hole filled with water. But not only water. Five small bottles nestled against one another at the bottom. She reached for the clear one first. Dillon had melted what looked to be candle wax around the cork, and it had worked to keep the flakes of gold inside dry. With a little shiver, Mattie set the clear bottle down and pulled out the others—one green, two blue, one amber—each one heavy, each one sealed with wax, each one full. Gold dust. Gold flakes. Gold nuggets. Her heart pounding, Mattie sat back on the damp earth.

Dillon. Oh . . . Dillon.

By evening Mattie had rearranged everything in her tent except the location of the bed. Sleeping over the cache was an excellent idea. Besides that, the cot was positioned to give her a clear shot at anyone who dared intrude. Did anyone suspect the cache beneath Dillon’s bed frame? She would have to be more careful than ever. Careful to keep the Colt with her and careful to keep Bessie II not far away. Maybe she should reconsider loading the shotgun with something besides rock salt.

Mattie had contemplated all of this while she moved her newly scrubbed belongings back into the tent. The cracker box cupboard fit fine just to the left of the tent flap, where Dillon had kept his supply box. She shoved that all the way to the far back corner, where the top of it could serve as a dressing table or a desk. She would buy a mirror on her next trip into town and ask Swede to bring her some books on the next supply run. Then she’d be prepared to stay on the claim the next time it stormed. Maybe even through the winter if she could get Freddie to cut and stack a mountain of firewood.