A Claim of Her Own (25 page)

“Now look what you’ve done,” Lyra scolded. “She’s a lady, Vina. She wouldn’t be caught dead in something one of our other girls would want.”

“Actually,” Mattie interrupted, “I was admiring the one with the blue trim.” She glanced at the other sister. “Although yours is definitely worthy of a Lady Liberty . . . it’s just not . . . me.”

Vina didn’t miss a beat. “Well, that’s fine,” she said. “I understand. Aren’t you the lady miner we’ve heard so much about?”

“Of course she is,” Lyra said. “Who else would she be? We’ve met every other female in town.” She smiled at Mattie. “We admire you immensely, Miss O’Keefe. Standing up for yourself in a man’s world and making a way for yourself up on the gulch.”

“Clearly I’m not the only female in Deadwood making a way for herself,” Mattie said, pointing at the storefront. “My congratulations. Opening your own business in this town takes courage.” She pointed toward Swede’s store. “Have you met Mrs. Jannike?”

“The bullwhackeress?” Lyra asked. When Mattie nodded, she said, “Not yet. We will today.” She waved toward her shop. “This is just a way to keep ourselves sane while our husbands entertain their own golden follies.”

“They have a claim?”

“Three,” Vina grumped. “All worthless. If it weren’t for this shop and the girls from the Badlands buying our wares, we’d all be starving.”

“Now, Vina,” Lyra scolded, “have a little faith in the boys.”

“I’ll have faith when I see some results.”

“Goodness me,” Lyra said, and made a face. “We’re going to drive away one of our first customers with all this squabbling.”

The sisters might squabble, but Mattie almost wondered if it was a sales tactic, for as they talked, they had expertly maneuvered her through the door of their shop.

Lyra reached for the lavender bonnet. “Here you are.” She pressed Mattie toward the mirror. “No charge to try it on,” she said with a smile.

At the same time as Lyra was enticing Mattie to try on a bonnet, Vina emerged from behind a dressing screen with a blue dress in hand. “They’d look lovely together. Won’t you at least try it on?”

Lyra joined in. “You’d be doing us a favor if you’d just wear it to the ball, and when you get complimented, tell everyone where it came from.” She glanced at her sister. “Promotion, Vina. Promotion by a beautiful live model.”

Vina didn’t miss a beat. “Please,” she wheedled, “wear our dress. We’ll give you a discount on the bonnet. And we extend credit.”

And so Mattie found herself standing behind the Berg sisters’ dressing screen in the corner of their tiny shop trying on the blue dress. As she pulled it over her head and the hem of the skirt cascaded to the floor, she couldn’t help but appreciate the softness of the cloth. It had been a long time since she’d had a proper dress. The skirt and waist she’d worn all the way from Kansas were nearly worn out. Maybe she
would
buy the dress. But when she stepped out from behind the screens and looked in the mirror her hand went to her waist. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “But I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” Lyra crooned. She stepped up behind and gazed at Mattie in the mirror. There’s a seam right here,” she said, indicating the side seam of the generously cut skirt. “I can easily insert a little pocket. Just the right size. And the line of the skirt is perfect to conceal it. No one will have any idea.” The woman smiled knowingly, and when she stepped back she patted her own skirt and in one easy move withdrew her own pocket pistol. “You see? If you like it well enough to buy it, you can. You’ll be safe as ever walking up the gulch dressed in a creation from the Berg sisters.” She chuckled.

Vina handed her the lavender bonnet. “It’s a lovely ensemble,” she said. When Mattie finally left the shop—dressed in her worn bonnet and old clothes—she had agreed to return in time to don the Berg sisters’ ensemble for the Independence Ball.

Aron Gallagher was the center of attention as he stood on the platform erected near the flagpole and read the Declaration of Independence. Hundreds of people were hanging on his every word. And from where she stood just outside Garth and Company’s front door, all Mattie could do was stare at his clean-shaven jaw and the way it had changed his looks. If she wasn’t mistaken he was wearing a new suit and a freshly pressed shirt.
Tarnation
, but he was a handsome man. And she didn’t want to notice. Didn’t want to think about how Bill said Gallagher could be trusted, how Aunt Lou admired him, how those blue-gray eyes twinkled when he laughed.

She retreated inside the store under the guise of checking to see if she could make more coffee or lemonade . . . or perhaps make another run to the hotel for something. But Gallagher’s voice rumbled after her.

“ ‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . .’ ” Mattie went to the window of the now empty store and looked out on the crowd. They were a motley collection of people, but every single one of them was standing with his eyes locked on Gallagher, who Mattie realized for the first time wasn’t
reading
the Declaration of Independence. He was reciting it. Like an actor on a stage. Like a
gifted
actor on stage. He gestured as he spoke and made eye contact with the crowd. And he
did
have a nice voice. Not a golden voice . . . but a nice one.

“ ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .’ ”

Whether it was the words themselves or the way they were delivered—or the man who delivered them—Mattie sensed a moment when the entire crowd stood as if suspended in time. They were hushed, soaking up Gallagher’s offering like parched soil welcoming the rain.

From where she stood inside the store, Mattie noticed something else about the audience. One of the women in attendance appeared to be particularly entranced by Aron Gallagher. Or was it the speech? She was young and had an abundance of blond hair twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. She was standing, her arms wrapped around herself, her lips slightly parted, her eyes fixed on Gallagher. The towheaded girl at her side was probably her sister. And the older woman who glanced around nervously and seemed bent on keeping the two girls within inches of her protective sphere had to be their mother. Apparently a
family
had come to Deadwood.

“ ‘. . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.’ ”

The second Gallagher had finished his recitation, a cheer went up from the crowd.

Gallagher mopped his brow and stepped down. He hadn’t taken three steps when he was surrounded by the three females Mattie had been watching. As the older girl smiled up into Gallagher’s face, Mattie turned away.
Lovely girl. All-fired lovely.

After the speeches ended, the crush of humanity in the streets got worse as the afternoon progressed, until finally Mattie began to have trouble getting back and forth to Aunt Lou’s kitchen to replenish the biscuit supply. Freddie began going instead, and Mattie stayed behind to work in the store with Swede while Tom served up roast pig out back. They ran out of lemonade and had to substitute water. No one seemed to mind. Most customers were quenching their thirst in other ways anyway.

The June 25 massacre at the Little Big Horn was the main topic of conversation among customers for most of the afternoon. Deadwood had received the news via the founder of Gayville, whose wife was Indian and had heard it from an Indian runner on his way to Spotted Tail Agency. It didn’t seem possible that the great General Custer and hundreds of troops could have been so thoroughly wiped out. Throughout the day men discussed and rehashed what was known and surmised what was unknown. Discussion of Indian battles led some of the old-timers to reminisce about other battles at places like Shiloh and Manassas, Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Mattie noted that Tom had nothing to say—even when the topic was Shiloh.

Late in the afternoon as she was helping him clean up around the fire pit out back, Mattie asked Tom if he agreed with everyone who seemed to assume the next logical place the Indians would try their hand at murder would be the Black Hills. As he and Mattie stepped inside, Tom spoke to Swede, who was standing by the stove heating water for coffee. “Mattie here’s been asking me about the situation with the Indians. I told her you should both sign that petition asking the government for protection.” He paused, waiting for Swede to turn around. When she did, he added, “And I think you should consider putting off your next freighting run until things quiet down a bit.”

“I vill sign de petition,” Swede said. “We need peace so dat more families will come. So ve can build a church and a school.” She paused. “But ve also need more of everyting before snows block de trail. I von’t have us going hungry all vinter because I vas a coward.” She turned back to the coffeepot. “I vill leave as planned.”

While Swede and Tom talked—or was it arguing?—Mattie went back to work behind the counter. She sold a surprising amount of ugly calico. She smiled to herself. How relieved Freddie would be that his mor wasn’t going to tack any of it to the walls upstairs. And she smiled, wondering how long it would be before Tom and Swede realized how much they cared for each other.

As daylight faded someone lighted the torches planted in the dirt along the street, the fiddler took up his bow, the pianist from the Bella Union sat down—several burly men had hauled the piano up the street earlier in the day—and with the sound of an arpeggio across the ivories, the music began. An odd assortment of couples crowded the dance floor, most of them male with one partner sporting the red armband that designated him as the one who followed while the other led. It didn’t matter to anyone, least of all the dancers. It was Independence Day, and nothing short of rigor mortis would have kept folks from celebrating.

The Berg sisters accompanied Mattie back into the fray once she’d changed into their blue dress. Mattie met timid Lydia Underwood, the mother of the young woman she’d noticed listening to Gallagher’s speech earlier, and wife of the proprietor of a new hardware store going up on a corner lot. Mrs. Underwood thought the store was much too close to “the other part of town” and expressed a litany of fears and concerns about Deadwood that began with the need for a decent church and ended with a sincere wish that “Mr. Underwood would see the light and sell his business before something horrible happens.”

Mrs. Underwood’s fears seemed to center around her daughters, and it wasn’t long before Mattie could see why she was worried. Blond-haired Kitty Underwood was lovely, flirtatious, and naïve in a city where naïveté could get a woman in serious trouble.

Mattie danced and reeled until she was almost as tired as she was after a day of prospecting. She’d almost forgotten how much she enjoyed dancing . . . and how nice it was to have a new dress. She couldn’t help but notice Kitty Underwood’s eyes grow large with surprise—and envy—when Wild Bill Hickok took off his hat and bowed, calling Mattie by her given name and asking for “the favor of a dance with the prettiest gal in town.”