A Claim of Her Own (34 page)

He looked down at his arms. Some lesions were dried, but not all. How long, he wondered . . . how long would it be until he could exact his revenge and shake off the dust of Deadwood and reclaim his life?

He savored the thought of finding the O’Keefes, of forcing Dillon to watch while he taught Mattie the real cost of running out on Jonas Flynn. The money she’d taken was almost unimportant now. Oh, it had been the initial reason he’d followed her, but the money paled in comparison to what Mattie had done to him now, what he had become because of her. The money was only a very small part of what she owed him now.

Jonas returned to Chinatown and stole food for three nights in a row, each night carefully choosing his elderly victims, before he had to stop. Who would have expected a powerful young buck with a queue trailing down his back to emerge from the dark with a meat cleaver in his hand?

Jonas had to kill him, too. The shrieks that went up before he’d dispatched all three victims threatened to bring the entire lot of Chinamen down on him. He managed to get away, but barely, and he had to settle for the food he’d stuffed in his pockets before the hulk intervened. There would be no more dining in Chinatown.

He was getting stronger, but he wasn’t ready to take action against the O’Keefes yet. For one thing, he didn’t know enough about Mattie to plan the perfect moment. He knew she was friends with the mammy. And, interestingly enough, with the idiot who’d offered to care for the bay gelding all those weeks ago. The kid was something of a hunter, it seemed. He’d delivered game to the mammy several times while Jonas watched.

The return of the freighters to Deadwood explained what Mattie had been doing with the keys to Garth and Company Merchandise. She’d been working there while the couple who owned it were gone.
Some couple.
Swede’s man was so thin he’d break in half if she ever took a swing at him. She hadn’t mentioned a husband when Jonas was following the freighters to Deadwood, but then she hadn’t really said much of anything to him. The blond-haired child was charming, but already becoming a burden to her mother. As they all did, sooner or later. It was, Jonas thought, quite a menagerie. He still couldn’t figure out their exact connection with Mattie beyond her minding the store, but he would. He had all the time in the world.

And so he continued to watch.

Mattie paused outside the Langrishe Theatre building long enough on Sunday to read the chalked sign. The play
The Banker’s
Daughter
was scheduled. Nightly performances, it said. She stepped inside, lingering to the right of the door as she listened to the congregation sing.

Kitty Underwood had spoken the truth when she’d said she wasn’t very good on the piano. No one seemed to notice, though. “ ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.’ ” She didn’t think that was quite the way she’d sung it for Bill’s funeral. No matter. The meaning was the same. She couldn’t help smiling at the way she’d learned that hymn. They’d had a customer with a habit of singing hymns when he was drunk, and he was drunk a lot.

When the hymn was finished, everyone seemed to know to sit down. Swede and Freddie were up front, as was Aunt Lou, wearing an enormous hat with a long black ostrich plume curving elegantly along the crown. The Underwood women were wearing hats, too. Mattie was fairly certain Kitty’s bonnet had been on display in the Berg sisters’ store window only yesterday. It was a red and black version of the blue and lavender one Mattie was wearing right now. As she slid into a chair right inside the door, Mattie loosened the bow at her throat and slid the bonnet back off her head.

Just as Aron got up to speak, Justice padded through the door and came to her side. There were a few chuckles in the back rows, but no one said anything, so Mattie patted his head and pointed to the floor, hoping he would lie down. Which he did, but then he quickly lifted his head, sat up, and stared at the door. His tail thumped, and when Mattie looked about, Tom English was standing there looking nervous. She waved him over.

“You new at this church thing, too?” she whispered. He only nodded as he removed his hat and sat down. Mattie noticed that he hid his hook under his hat. She’d have to tell him that it wasn’t really an issue anymore. The hook was simply part of who Tom English— an admirable man—was. In Tom’s case, the hook didn’t matter.

Aron welcomed everyone and had the Langrishes stand up so he could thank them publicly for the use of the theatre. He looked up at the canvas roof and said, “And, Lord, if you’d hold off any rain until I’m done preaching, I’d be grateful.” And everyone laughed.

“Now, why didn’t I think of praying on opening night?” Langrishe quipped, referencing how everyone who’d attended the inaugural performance at the theatre had come away drenched to the skin when it stormed and the canvas roof stretched and leaked.

Aron’s sermon topic was once again about hope in the face of disasters like smallpox. The only hope for
this
life was to focus on the
next
and get things right with God, he said. The only way to get things right with God was to put ourselves in the place of the thief on the cross, to realize we had nothing to offer, to put our faith in Jesus.

As usual, Aron stopped talking abruptly—long before he’d brought his talk to a proper conclusion, as far as Mattie was concerned. Kitty Underwood sashayed back over to the piano and there was more singing, but Mattie and Tom didn’t stay for that. Mattie had to take Justice out before he did his business right there in the middle of a church service, and as for Tom, he said he had to get back over and open the store. They both slipped out unnoticed. At least that’s what Mattie thought.

“I know ven de snows come to Dakota, Mr. English.” Swede lifted her chin and glared down at him. “I need no lectures from you. Ve vill be fine and back into Deadvood by de end of October. Or maybe first of November.” She paused. “Either vay, ve vill be fine.”

Tom had been sitting behind the counter with the ledger open before him doing sums, and he’d just mentioned that maybe Swede should consider forgoing the last supply run of the year. “I didn’t mean to lecture you,” he said gently. “I only meant to suggest.”

“If dere is much snow once it starts,” Swede said, “ve vill need much more of flour and other staples dan ve haf. Much more of
everyting
to keep from running out.”

Tom disagreed. “Not if we close the store when supplies get low. If we do that, there would be plenty for—”

“For who? Are ve now to make a list of who goes hungry and who does not? How does dat show kindness to others? Did Aron’s sermon yesterday mean noting to you? Is dat vy you left so soon?”

Tom stood up and, placing hand and hook atop the counter before him, said quietly, “Let us not turn this into a religious discussion. I was only raising a hypothetical situation. Your family would
not
go hungry.” He closed the ledger book.

“I promised Mattie I vould bring de tombstone. And it vas not dere last time. But it
vill
be vaiting for me ven I reach Sidney dis time. It is promised to me, and I have promised Mattie, and I vish to see her pleased vit the marking of her brother’s grave before de vinter. Already he has been buried too long and no marker.”

“Mattie would understand. And I don’t think you should go.”

Why was he being so
obstinate
? He had never been this way before. She loved him for his gentleness. For his not minding Garth’s name on the sign. For the way he didn’t push to take over. They had been true partners. He had never acted as though a woman knew nothing.
Until now.
It was a part of Tom English she had not seen, and one she did not like. Not one bit.

“Of course she vould understand. Dat is not my point. It is not right to disappoint ven I can avoid doing so. And I can avoid it. De oxen are strong and I vill make de load lighter. It von’t take so long. But I am going. I must.”

“Have you considered Eva—and what being caught in a storm might mean for her?”

It was the straw that broke the donkey’s back. For all her hard labor and all her fears about how Eva was being raised, for all her guilt over the countless miles her precious child had spent virtually locked in a makeshift cradle and getting rained on . . . she had done her best, but her best was not enough, and now to have Tom point that out . . . and hint that she might let her stubbornness endanger Eva! How could he say such a thing?

Whether it was anger or hurt, the emotion filled Swede’s eyes with tears. “How dare you say such a ting to me, Tom English! How dare you hint—” She could not continue. And she could not look at him. She marched toward the stairs.

“I didn’t mean it that way. You’re a good mother, Kat. A wonderful woman. I—”

At the base of the stairs, Swede whirled around and pointed at him. “Hush. You hush now. Never did I tink dat you vould do dis ting, Tom English. To say such things to me, ven all I vish from you is—” She bit her lip to keep from speaking further. It was too embarrassing to face him with these womanly emotions rolling over her common sense. And so Swede turned and ran up the stairs to the room she shared with Eva, and if Eva had not been napping at that moment she would have slammed the door. She did not cry, but she sat on the edge of her bed, her arms crossed, muttering to herself. “Vonderful voman? Hmpf. You tink I am vonderful, vy don’t you—”

Kat?
Had she heard correctly? Had he just now called her Kat? Swede stood up and crossed to the door. She reached out and had the handle in her grasp. But then reason won out. She imagined Tom English down below, closing up the store and turning down the lamps. She heard his footsteps as he headed for the back door. Was it her imagination, or did he just now pause at the base of the stairs? Closing her eyes, Swede waited. Listened. Hoped. But then came the sound of the back door closing.

Swede took a deep breath. She retreated to the bed. Lying back atop the patchwork quilt, she stared up at the ceiling. Presently she closed her eyes.
Hush, now. Just hush. Hush and sleep and tomorrow . . .
get the oxen yoked.

C
HAPTER 19

. . . the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the
outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7

P
raise be to God.
Swede traced the letters in the simple white stone.

Dillon Patrick O’Keefe
Born June 6, 1854
Died May 1, 1876
Beloved Brother

They’ll give me a welcome the warmest on earth,
All so loving and kind full of music and mirth,
In the sweet-sounding language of home.

The words blurred as Swede remembered Mattie singing that song. She’d called it “Mist-Covered Mountains” and said she and Dillon had often sung it together. Taking a deep breath, Swede stepped back. She nodded at the baggage handler who’d unwrapped it for her. “Load it onto de second vagon, please,” she said. “Dere is much hay in de bottom for cushioning. Ven you have it in place, fill dat vagon with hay.”

“All the way?”

“Yah, sure.” Swede nodded. “All de vay.” She didn’t think it was going to snow, but if it did, she would not be caught on the prairie without a way to feed her oxen. In spite of what Tom English thought, she was not foolish.