A Claim of Her Own (28 page)

Walking over to where the man lay motionless, Jonas bent down and cut the bag away from around his neck. It was heavy. Jonas smiled. Maybe his luck was turning after all. Just as he was tucking the bag into his vest pocket, the man roused.

He gasped and grabbed Jonas’s foot. “Keep gold . . . just . . . help me . . . please.” This time he coughed so hard he gagged.

Jonas jerked his foot away. He put his gun to the man’s head. No. The noise might draw attention. Easier to just knock him unconscious and get out of there.

C
HAPTER 15

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

Luke 23:34

F
reddie hunkered behind a shelf of rocks and peered down into the gulch. He’d seen some tracks over this way last week, and if he could get that buck, Aunt Lou would be so pleased. Freddie liked making Aunt Lou smile. He liked seeing Mattie smile, too, and she was doing more of it lately. She wasn’t so sad and she wasn’t afraid as much. She’d stopped carrying that pistol when she was up on her claim. He would tell her she should keep it in her pocket when she was in town minding Mor’s store.

Mor.
Tom was worried about her, and it made Freddie worry. He’d never worried before, but things were changing everywhere. The stage was bringing more people into town every day now. Normal people like storekeepers and women. Deadwood wasn’t going to be just miners and bad men anymore. But now—

Ah.
There
. Finally some morning light was beginning to filter into the gulch. Freddie stood up slowly, smiling when he saw that even in the moonlight he’d been right about the tracks. There they were, leading all the way down to the—
Whoa.
What was that?
Who
was that?

Ducking behind the rock again, Freddie listened carefully. Nothing but birdcalls broke the morning calm. He peered over the rim of the boulder and a chill went up his spine. Whoever it was down there wasn’t moving. He looked around again, then, satisfied that no one lingered in the gulch, he picked his way down to the still form.

“Hey, mister,” Freddie said. Crouching down he reached over to—
No need.
The stiffness told him that whoever—
Brady Sloan.
Freddie sat back and stared at the contorted face. Assuming Sloan must have been shot, he searched for evidence, but Sloan’s clothing, while filthy, was free of bloodstains.

Freddie looked back up the gulch. Brady had been up there somewhere and slid down here to the trail. You could tell that by the wide path of scattered rocks and the marks and tears in Sloan’s pants. Finally Freddie understood. Poor Brady Sloan had gotten drunk and taken a fall that killed him.

Freddie took a long time going over the campsite. From what he could read from the tracks, Sloan had been headed back to Deadwood from the direction of Blacktail. That didn’t make much sense, seeing as how he’d been headed south away from Deadwood the last time anyone had heard from him. And he’d been with two other men Aron trusted to keep Brady away from whiskey. But Freddie knew enough about people to know they didn’t always keep their promises. Brady Sloan had promised Aron Gallagher to get a fresh start. He’d promised he wouldn’t drink again. Aron was going to be sad. Bending low, Freddie shouldered a different kind of carcass than the one he had been hoping for and headed for town.

Justice barked his best puppy-defender bark and bounded out of the tent. Grabbing Bessie II, Mattie stepped to the doorway just in time to see the pup splash through the creek and paint the front of Aron’s pants with wet paw prints.

“Some watchdog,” he laughed as he pointed down at the pup’s wagging tail. He glanced at Bessie II and nodded. “But I see you have a backup.”

Mattie set the rifle down and stepped through the tent flap. “I was just about to make some flapjacks,” she said. “Care to join me?”

“Thanks, but Aunt Lou filled me up earlier.” He nodded up the gulch. “I’m headed to Elizabethtown to preach.”

“What about Deadwood?”

“Oh, I’ll bother Deadwood later in the day.”

“I didn’t know you did services in the other camps.”

“I haven’t until today.” He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking I should be willing to spread the net a little wider. But I’ve been resisting.”

“Well, if you want to procrastinate,” Mattie said, “you’re welcome to my terrible coffee while I mix up my breakfast.” She pointed to the coffeepot on the campfire.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be right out.” Mattie ducked back inside to mix her batter. In the past two weeks of prospecting she’d had plenty of time to ponder the things Aron had talked about that night at the ball. To think about what Wild Bill had said about him. And to consider Aunt Lou’s opinion. While she was no closer to understanding Aron’s religion, Mattie had decided to believe Wild Bill and Aunt Lou and to stop worrying over Aron’s past and his knowledge of hers. Which made some things easier . . . but did nothing to explain just why her hands were trembling this morning with Aron standing there at the open tent flap drinking coffee and watching her mix flapjack batter.

She’d just poured three dollar-sized flapjacks on the hot griddle positioned over the campfire when Justice let out a yelp and darted down the gulch. “That’s Freddie headed this way,” she said. “I thought he was hunting for Aunt Lou.” She frowned. “He’s in an awful hurry.” She set the bowl of batter down. “Something’s wrong.”

“I-I came for Aron,” Freddie gasped as soon as he was within earshot. He bent over to catch his breath. “It’s Brady. Brady Sloan. I found him. I was hunting over toward Blacktail. There was a track of a big buck and I thought I could get him for Aunt Lou and—”

Aron put his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “It’s all right now. Just calm down. What about Brady?”

Freddie gulped. “He’s dead. I found him this morning. I brought him back to the doc’s.” He shuddered.

“Dead how?” Mattie asked.

“He was up high and I guess he fell and hit his head.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Aron. He musta got drunk again.”

Mattie glanced at Aron, surprised to see him blinking away tears. Justice padded over and nuzzled at his hand. When he didn’t react, the pup went to the other hand, nuzzling first and then licking. Finally Aron bent down to pet him, swiping tears away with the back of his hand before standing back up.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “guess I’ll be making funeral arrangements instead of preaching in Elizabethtown today.”

Mattie didn’t have any kind thoughts for Brady Sloan, but for Aron’s sake she felt bad. “Did he have any family hereabouts?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about his partner?” She nodded toward the claim above her.

“No one’s seen anything of him since before you arrived in the gulch.” Aron’s voice wobbled as he said, “Poor Brady.” He took a deep breath. “It won’t be much of a funeral, I expect, but I’ll do one anyway.”

“I’ll help,” Freddie said.

Their kindness surprised her. Sloan might have claimed to get religion, but obviously it hadn’t taken. She would have expected Aron to resent being duped into paying Sloan’s doctor bills and buying him a horse, only to have this happen.

“I think I know what you’re thinking,” Aron said to her, his voice gentle. “I’m just trying to do unto others, if you know what I mean.”

Mattie shook her head. “Honestly, no. I don’t understand why you’d be in any hurry to pay your respects to someone who did nothing to earn it.”

“Like I said, because the Bible says I should do to others what I’d like them to do to me. Maybe he’s got family somewhere. In any case, I’ll always think of him as
my
brother in the spiritual sense, and I’d be grateful if someone took care of my brother if I wasn’t around to do it. Even if it only meant a proper burial.”

Mattie rattled around her claim for most of the afternoon after Aron and Freddie left, trying to understand the preacher’s obvious grief over a drunk, who as far as she was concerned might not have been bent on stealing her gold but had certainly stolen a horse and money from Aron Gallagher. And yet Aron was paying for a funeral.

As she thought back over the things they’d discussed the night of the Independence Ball, Mattie went inside and took Dillon’s Bible out of his supply box. It was well used, although Mattie couldn’t remember ever seeing Dillon read a Bible. No matter. She wanted to read about the man on the cross next to Jesus. The one Aron seemed to relate to. That story would be in one of those first New Testament books. She didn't know much about the Bible, but the poker playing preacher had made her curious enough to learn how things were set up. Old Testament. New Testament. The Jewish people. The Christians. The part about Jesus dying would be in the new part.

She started with Matthew and read about both criminals insulting Jesus. When she realized that the next book was about Jesus’ life, too, she read it through. Again, both criminals insulted Jesus. Instead of reading all of Luke, she skipped to the end. There it was. The change of heart that resulted in a promise of Paradise. Mattie read the account over and over again. She wondered if Aron had really done all that much blaspheming in his day—enough to identify with the two men crucified alongside Christ. And she wondered what it was about Jesus on the cross that had spoken so loudly to that one thief, when so many other people around him that day just kept hurling insults. And what about the Roman soldier who said, “Truly this man was the Son of God”? How was it that he believed Jesus was special when most of Jesus’ own people screamed for the Romans to crucify him?

Something amazing leaped out at her as she read.
Jesus prayed for
the people who were killing him
.
“Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.”
The idea that anyone could be dying like that and care about the very people who were torturing him was unfathomable. What kind of man did that? It was a kind of forgiveness Mattie had never seen, and it made Aron’s willingness to preach Brady Sloan’s funeral look insignificant by comparison.

Maybe that’s how he looks at it, too. All the time I’ve been thinking
he was doing so much for someone who didn’t deserve it. . . . Maybe Aron
was thinking about Jesus and thinking preaching Sloan’s funeral wasn’t
anything special.
But Aron had paid for Brady Sloan’s medical care. Aron had picked Sloan out of the mud and wiped the vomit off his face, and never given up hope that Sloan was changed. And now he was making arrangements to have the man buried and paying for it out of his own pocket.

Setting the Bible down, Mattie began to dress for town. Sloan might not deserve a proper burial, but she was going to do what she could to help Aron give him one. After all, it couldn’t hurt to follow the example of a man who wanted to be like Jesus.

Could anything else possibly go wrong in this hellish place? A thrown shoe had forced Jonas back to Blacktail, and a drunken blacksmith had made it necessary to wait in that Godforsaken hole an entire day before the bay could be attended to. Now he was once again riding the trail back to Deadwood. There was no sign of the drifter, but Jonas wasn’t worried about being identified. The shadows had been long that evening. Stand the two of them face-to-face in a court of law—which as far as Jonas knew did not exist up here anyway—and he had no doubt he could convince anyone the drunk had fingered the wrong man. Even so, he would take precautions.