Fox was spared a reply to this incredible question by Seth Bullock, who stepped forward to introduce himself and his partner, Sol Star, who then bowed from behind the desk. Both men wore suits and paper collars.
"How proud you must be to have such a remarkable mother," Bullock proclaimed. "It took great courage and resourcefulness for her to come all this way alone. She's just the sort of woman Deadwood truly needs."
"You won't get an argument from me," Fox agreed obliquely.
"Mrs. Matthews has been telling us that she taught school for a good many years," Sol Star put in. "That's what Deadwood needs—a first-rate teacher to educate our children."
"I can't think about such a project yet," Annie demurred. "My son needs me first."
"Ma! What are you saying? How could I be so selfish to keep you to myself when the children of Deadwood are in dire need of a teacher? It sounds like you were destined for such a position; makes me think that the hand of God led you out here"—Fox swept his arm overhead—"to the wilderness!"
"Certainly I'll consider it," she murmured, directing a sharp glance at him. "I must say that I find the civic spirit in this town to be very... fervent. Why, Daniel, did you know that Mr. Bullock has taken on the job of sheriff? He's just been telling me that the reward has been raised to fifty dollars in clean, merchantable gold dust to anyone bringing in an Indian's head!" Annie Sunday paled slightly. "Truly there are aspects of life here that shall be difficult for me to adjust to. I certainly pray that no one will think of harming our dear Sun Smile."
"I don't think that's the kind of Indian the reward is about, Ma," Fox assured her, while trying to figure out how to get her out of the store before she said his real name again or anything else he'd regret. He should have known better than to let her out of his sight without explaining that the people here didn't know him as Daniel Matthews. Of course, she'd been in Deadwood for days. Had she already spread his real name all over town? "Would you mind waiting for me outside?"
"But, my purchases—"
"I'll take care of everything," Fox told her through a clenched smile.
"Well, since you put it that way... Gentlemen, I must bid you good day." Regal as a queen, she nodded to them both and swept out the door.
Fox asked to see a list of the items his mother had bought. Most of the furniture was on order and he asked Star and Bullock to hold off on their search for the pieces she'd requested. Everything else that wasn't a matter of personal taste, he told them, might be delivered at their convenience. "I'll return in a few days to pick out my other household goods personally," he said before paying them and taking his leave.
Annie Sunday was perched on the seat of the Averys' open wagon. Little Ben sat next to her, holding the reins. There was a moat of waste and mud separating the store's wooden porch from the wagon, so Fox was forced to stand a few feet away and converse with his mother.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Ma, but I'm a grown man. I'd like to do my own shopping." His tone was gentle. "We can discuss this better at home, I think. Why don't—"
"You never cared one bit about picking anything out for yourself before," she interjected. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that you were about to take a wife!"
"We'll talk about this later. I'll meet you at home at midday."
With those parting words, Fox set out in search of Preacher Smith.
* * *
Maddie was nearing her wits' end. At her father's behest she had spent the better part of the morning trying to coax Sun Smile to come out of the prairie schooner and into the house. However, each time she tried to interact with her half-sister, the effort seemed to widen the chasm between them. Sun Smile was adamant in her rejection; it was impossible to pretend otherwise or to stem the tide of hurt and resentment that swept over Maddie after she'd been pushed away.
With a great deal of trepidation, she approached the wagon again at noon, carrying a plate of sliced chicken, fried potatoes, buttered rye bread, and a plum. When she poked her head under the canvas cover that arched over the wagon, the smell was overpowering. Sun Smile was cloaked in shadows, huddled against a trunk that had been filled with her few cherished possessions. As soon as she heard Maddie's step, she averted her face so that all that was visible was a snarled mass of black hair.
"Sun Smile, aren't you hungry? I know that you can understand me," Maddie said, speaking slowly and clearly. "I have brought you food. Father hopes that you will come into the house. We want to take care of you."
Sun Smile made pushing motions in the air with one grimy hand and began to moan, softly, her mourning song. At last Maddie shook her head, set the food inside the wagon, and turned back toward the house. However, her attention was soon captured by a horse and rider nearing the top of the drive leading to the Avery home. The man was waving—and moments later she could see him clearly.
It was Graham Horatio Winslow III.
Maddie sighed. The last thing she wanted was to play hostess to a social call. But at least she looked presentable, even pretty, in a graceful amber faille walking suit that set off her brilliant hair and showed her figure to advantage. She moved forward to greet her guest as he hailed her.
"Ah, my dear Miss Avery!" Winslow dismounted a trifle awkwardly and clasped his derby in his hands. "My eyes gasp at your beauty!"
"Do they?" Maddie asked whimsically. Then she smiled. "It's nice to see you, too, Mr. Winslow."
"Ah, you have not forgotten! How can I describe my relief? And I cannot refrain from remarking on the amazingly similar clothes you and I have chosen to wear today. Is it not singular?" He bent his curly blond head to sweep a hand downward, encouraging her eye to follow. Indeed, Winslow did wear a light brown suit, a cinnamon-colored vest of watered silk, and a brown silk tie over his stiff-bosomed shirt and celluloid collar.
"Quite singular, sir." And, as it was inevitable, Maddie succumbed to propriety and invited him in for a glass of lemonade.
When they were seated on the settee, Winslow whispered, "I must make a confession."
Maddie could see her father through the doorway to his room and knew he was listening. "A confession?" she repeated weakly.
"Yes. Yes, it's true. I heard this morning that you have been among the Indians. I want you to know that this knowledge does not in any way alter my opinion of your character, Miss Avery. In truth, I must tell you that you appear to be unblemished by the experience."
"I'm not sure I understand you, sir."
He set down his lemonade and tried to take her hand, but she eluded him. "I mean, my dear, that I know you are too fine to allow anything you may have been forced to experience to tarnish your character. Perhaps you have, instead, become more... how shall I say it? More womanly, as a result." He blushed and began to perspire. "Miss Avery, I know that you and I did not strike up the sort of friendship I had hoped for after my first call here some weeks ago. However, a great deal has changed since then. I have become more and more discouraged in my quest for a suitable wife in this godforsaken town. My mind doth ever return to you." Graham caught her hand this time and clutched it fast in his damp grip.
Startled, Maddie tried to pull away. "Really, Mr. Winslow, I don't—"
"Wait! Hear me out! Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that there were already few enough suitable men out here for you to choose from? Now, after your little journey... Well, need I say more? However, I am willing to overlook it!" he announced triumphantly. "In fact, I might even regard it as a sort of... aphrodisiac..."
"Mr. Winslow!" Maddie gasped. "I'm certain I did not hear you correctly!"
"Dare to believe it, Madeleine!" he exclaimed passionately. "It's quite true: I am asking you to become Mrs. Graham Horatio Winslow the Third!"
"Of the New Haven Winslows?" It was Stephen, calling from his bed in tones of mock wonder.
Graham jumped to his feet, still clutching her hand, and cried, "Yes! Yes, sir, the very same!"
Maddie was dizzy with the urge to giggle when anot
her voice spoke from the kitchen. "Now, hold on." The door swung open and Fox seemed to fill the room as he strode in and loomed over the younger man. "Let go of her hand."
"I hardly think that you have the right to tell me—"
"Fox!" Maddie's face shone with a radiant smile.
"I'd watch my tongue if I were you, Mr. Winslow," Fox said in a low, menacing voice."I have every right to threaten you at this moment. You're proposing to the woman I intend to marry this Saturday."
A series of gasps seemed to bounce around the parlor. Even Gramma Susan poked her snowy head in from the kitchen, her face bright with surprised pleasure. Stephen was trying to get out of bed, and Maddie had gone white, her mouth frozen in the shape of an O. Without another word, Winslow released her hand, twisted his derby, and marched toward the door.
"Don't hurry back," Fox called after him, unable to resist.
Winslow pivoted in the doorway. "No man humiliates a New Haven Winslow and gets away with it. You have not heard the last of me, Mr. Daniel Matthews!"
Chapter 24
August 19, 1876
"I still can't imagine what came over Fox," Maddie mused as she sat in a tin bathtub tucked into a curtained corner of the kitchen. "Are you sure he really means to turn up today, Gramma Susan?"
"Well, of course he does!" Susan O'Hara paused in the midst of spreading almond icing on the rich bride cake she had been laboring over for most of two days. Peeking around the curtain, she added, "I've spoken to Fox myself. He loves you, sweetheart. Don't you believe that?"
"Actually... yes." It was a mild day for August—a perfect day to spend in the Hills. Maddie drew her knees up in the small tub, tipped her head back over the rear lip, and leisurely soaped one slim arm. "In fact, I probably have more knowledge of his love for me than he does, but that doesn't mean I thought he'd marry me—especially on such short notice. Why, we've barely spoken since we got back to Deadwood! I mean, even after that crazy scene with Graham Winslow, he didn't take me off alone for a proper, tender proposal."
"No? I seem to recall that after Mr. Winslow's melodramatic exit, Fox turned to you and said something like, 'You and I are getting married Saturday, in front of your garden at one o'clock!' Do you mean that was the end of it?"
Maddie pointed a toe in the air, displaying an elegant leg, and gave Susan a winsome smile. "Pretty much so. He did ask me again, when he was hurrying off somewhere, did I really want to, and it was clear that he meant for me to say yes, and I did. The rest of the time, he's been building something over there on the other side of the pine trees, and we've been busy over here, and then there's been the whole situation with Sun Smile, and Saturday—today—came so quickly that I hardly have had time to think until right now."
"I think this sudden wedding has been a happy distraction for us all," Susan admitted to her granddaughter. "Even your father seems to be at a loss for a solution regarding Sun Smile. Have you noticed that Annie Sunday has been spending a good deal of time trying to draw her out of the wagon?"
"She's probably looking for a distraction of her own," Maddie remarked, with a touch of irony. "If you want the honest truth, I think that Fox decided a wife in the house might keep his mother from taking charge of his household." She slid under the water to rinse her hair, emerging with a grin. "Of the two of us, he doubtless believes I'm more manageable."
Susan felt a pang of worry. "Darling, I hope you are going into this marriage with a strong, full heart. I can understand that you might be nervous today, but not doubtful, I hope."
"Oh, Gramma"—her voice broke with the emotion that swept over her body—"I've never been more certain of anything in my life than my love for Fox. I've missed him so much since we got home that I've just ached all the time. We were so close during those weeks away, and I was so happy... and I know he was, too." She stood, dripping and glorious, and reached for her towel. "I can't deny that I find this wedding a bit peculiar, but there's nothing I want more than to become Mrs. Daniel Matthews. It's just my destiny, and I know it—to share his home and make a life with him." She paused in the midst of toweling her mass of hair to add, "I just didn't expect it to happen so soon or so easily. Fox told me he couldn't marry me; that the sort of life I need wasn't possible for him."
"Daniel Matthews is his real name," Susan said, as if attempting to make sense of it. "I assume he was hiding something and then Annie Sunday appeared, spoke too freely, and liberated Fox from his secret."
"I can't really talk about it, Gramma. Not yet, anyway." Damp and glowing, Maddie drew on a loose muslin dressing gown, pushed back the makeshift curtain, and approached the impressive bride cake. "I just hope that Graham Winslow can't find a way to use that knowledge against Fox. For a fellow who professes to be a refined gentleman, he can get a gleam in his eye that's positively feral."
"Well, I think Fox can take care of himself," Susan declared.
"Gramma, I must tell you that I find this cake simply amazing! How can I thank you? If not for all your hard work, we'd be forced to consume beans and jerky following the ceremony!"
They laughed together, then Susan drew her granddaughter onto a chair and stood behind her, gently combing out her damp hair. "I am delighted to do whatever I can to help make your wedding day one you will recall fondly, my dear," she murmured.
"What comes after the icing? Can you put a little ribbon on it made of icing, or a flower? I remember that you made a birthday cake for me once when I was small, and there were little candied violets clustered on the top."
Susan's soft voice was soothing. "Well, after this I spread the sugar frosting on all three layers. Then, after I assemble the cake, I'll color the remaining icing with currant juice and squeeze it through a pastry bag. Would you like pink icing ribbons that swirl down from the edges of the layers in festoons?"
"Lovely." Maddie caught her grandmother's hand and pressed it against her cheek. It felt fragile and cool and smelled of almond paste. "Gramma Susan, you are very, very dear to me. Isn't it wonderful that we won't be separated by my marriage?"
"Indeed it is." She bent to kiss Maddie's hair, which was drying quickly in the morning air. A breeze stirred the kitchen curtains and a jay cried from the pine trees outside. "One could almost imagine that Fox planned to make you his wife before he began building that house next to ours."
"Oh, no. If anything, he meant to annoy me, not woo me!" Maddie's radiant face grew dreamy as she recalled earlier encounters with Fox. Looking back, she thought that she had not begun truly to live until the day he'd ridden up to their door to bring Benjamin home from the badlands. Fox was the most stimulating person she had ever known. The prospect of sharing her life with him made her tingle with anticipation.
The mantel clock in the parlor chimed eleven, jolting her back to the present. "Goodness, I'd better begin to move! I'll look in on Father and see how he's faring. Do you want me to tell Benjamin to take his bath now?"
"Yes; that's a good idea, darling. Then I'll be up to dress myself, just as soon as I make some proper festoons on this cake." There was just a trace of weariness in Susan's voice. Maddie had risen and they stood looking at each other, each thinking the same thing. It was Susan who finally spoke. "Perhaps you should ask your father what he hopes to do about Sun Smile today."
"Gramma..." Maddie paused, biting her lip. "Would you think me terribly selfish and horrid if I said that I would rather not devote my thoughts and energies to Sun Smile today?"
With a reassuring nod, Susan wrapped an arm around her granddaughter's waist and walked with her to the kitchen doorway. "I understand completely, my dear. This is your wedding day! As for Sun Smile... perhaps we ought to just say, What will be will be and leave it at that. Hmm?"
* * *
A few minutes before one o'clock, the tiny group began to gather in front of the garden that Maddie had designed and tended with such care. The hollyhocks, canterbury bells, cheerful zinnias, sweet william, and forget-me-nots were all in full, fragrant bloom, and even the p
ansies continued to turn their little faces up to the August sun. Behind the garden was the hillside that plunged down to the rag-tag streets of Deadwood, while beyond stretched the other rock-crowned walls of the gulch.
Preacher Smith had arrived early, conferring with Fox in his house before proceeding to the Avery property. Since arriving in Deadwood that spring, the Methodist minister had spent most of his time attempting to save souls in the badlands, and a proper wedding like this seemed almost to intimidate him. Fox had invited Colorado Charley Utter, since Preacher Smith seemed to feel more at ease with a familiar face at his side.
The first person to join them was Titus Pym. "We all look like we're fit to be laid out in our caskets," the Cornish miner observed, nodding to the minister in his Sunday best and ogling Charley in his rented black suit and paper collar. "I wouldn't get trussed up like this for anyone but me good lad Fox."
Charley Utter grinned. "Your own lad Fox owes me a mighty big favor when he comes up for air after this wedding. It took all my powers of persuasion to keep Calamity Jane, Garnet Loomis, and sweet Victoria from coming with us today."
Preacher Smith's eyes widened, but he pressed his Bible to the bosom of his shirt and refrained from comment. Titus, however, had less control over his tongue.
"God's foot, if Jane had come, and those others, we might just as well have held the wedding on stage at the Bella Union Theatre!" He pumped Charley's hand. "Fox'll be grateful to you, sir."
"I'm happy that he's found love. Not so long ago, I visited him during his... retreat—those days he spent holed up above the Gem. He was the picture of despair. Fox is a rare commodity in towns like this: an honorable man who helps his friends and enjoys a laugh. It's good to witness his happiness today, and I know Bill is looking on with a smile, too, from the great beyond." This poetic speech left Charley a trifle misty-eyed, but the moment was lightened by the appearance of young Benjamin Franklin Avery.
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