A lone rig rumbled along behind them.
“Look in that carriage … it’s Curly Mac …” Veronica called out.
“Who’s that woman with him?” Patricia quizzed.
“It must be his aunt,” Little Frank added. “Didn’t you say he was going to visit his aunt?”
“Wearing a dance hall girl’s dress?” Veronica sat the brown satchel at her feet. “No one’s aunt is a dance hall girl!”
“She doesn’t look too young,” Jamie Sue said. “She looks older than I am.”
“Mama, you’re pretty enough to be a dance hall girl,” Little Frank suggested.
“Thank you, young man, but I don’t think beauty is a prerequisite for the job.”
Robert began to hike up the boardwalk. “I’ll bet Daddy Brazos is at the woodstove in the hardware.”
“In June?” Veronica questioned.
“It’s a cloudy day,” he replied.
“Mostly smoke,” Little Frank said.
The windows at Fortune & Son Hardware displayed everything from horseshoes to bathtubs, from cream separators to gold pans.
Robert crashed into the front door of the hardware when he turned the latch.
“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Little Frank probed.
“It didn’t open. The door’s locked.” Robert pushed his hat back and leaned into the glass. “I don’t think there’s anyone in there!”
“They probably closed down the store to come meet us at the station!” Patricia exclaimed.
Veronica stood on her tiptoes and peered in. “No one was at the depot. Remember?”
Jamie Sue searched up and down the empty boardwalk. “Is it a holiday?”
Robert stepped into the dirt street. “No, and they didn’t even put up their ‘Closed’ sign. Not all the employees were going to come greet us. I don’t know why they closed the store.”
“Are you sure we’re in the right town?” Jamie Sue laughed as she slipped her arm into his. “Come on, let’s go over to Abby’s dress shop. She’ll know where everyone is.”
“Promise you won’t tell Amber about Curly Mac?” Veronica scurried to keep up. “If she goes after him, we don’t have a chance.”
“She’s too old.” Patricia tugged on her earlobe, and her sister did the same.
“That’s what you told me last summer when she stole Quintin Troop from me.” Veronica transferred her satchel from one hand to the other.
Patricia sat her satchel down on the sidewalk. “From you? Quintin liked me.”
“That’s only because he thought you were me,” Veronica purred.
As they waited on the boardwalk, a wagon full of men raced up the street from the badlands.
“What’s happening?” Robert called out.
“There’s a fire at the mill,” one of the men shouted.
“Which mill?” Robert hollered, but the men were already out of shouting distance. He turned toward Jamie Sue. “One of the reduction mills at Lead must be on fire.”
“And it all drifts right down the gulch?” she inquired.
“I suppose so.” He led the family across the street toward Abby’s Fine Paris Fashions dress shop.
Veronica stared in the window. “Look, Mama, at that beautiful green dress on the hanger. Can I have a dress like that some day?”
“Not until you can fill it out,” Jamie Sue insisted.
“Trisha and ’Nica couldn’t fill out that dress if they both got into it at the same time,” Little Frank murmured.
The twins stuck out their tongues at their brother.
“You could fill it out, Mama,” Patricia added.
“Don’t embarrass me,” she replied.
“Aunt Abby has such beautiful clothes,” Patricia sighed.
“Amber fills out her dress,” Little Frank muttered.
“Little Frank!” Jamie Sue scolded.
“Well, she does …”
“She’s your cousin,” his mother reminded him.
“Can I help it if all my girl relatives are so handsome?” he countered.
“Good reply, son,” Robert said.
“Don’t you school him in sweet talk, Robert Fortune!” Jamie lectured.
Little Frank tried the door. “It’s locked, too, Daddy!”
All five stared through the glass window at the darkened, empty dress shop.
“What is going on?” Veronica sniveled. “Did everyone move and forget to tell us?”
“I know what it is. This is a charade. They are all gathered together to give us a surprise welcome.” Patricia chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “It’s just like that party you gave Mama when she turned thirty.”
“Oh, yes,” Veronica danced on the boardwalk. “We’ll walk into the room and they’ll jump out and yell, ‘Surprise’!”
“What room?” Little Frank pressed. “Where are they all hiding?”
“At the Telephone Exchange!” Jamie Sue suggested. “They have that big foyer.”
“That’s two blocks away,” Veronica moaned. “My satchel is getting heavy!”
“You tried to pack too many things,” Patricia said.
“I packed the very same things you did!”
“Not exactly. I didn’t pack a …”
“Tricia!” Veronica blurted out. “Don’t you dare …”
“What are you two fussing about?” Jamie Sue pressed.
The answer came back as a duet. “Nothing.”
“Come on,” Robert insisted. “We can all make it two more blocks. Everyone be sure and look surprised.” He glanced back down the street. The entire badlands were now totally obscured by smoke.
Little Frank trotted ahead of them, then turned around and walked backward. “Do you think they’ll have orange punch and cake? We had orange punch and cake at Mama’s surprise birthday.”
Jamie Sue jogged to catch up with her husband’s long strides. “Robert, don’t you think this is going to extremes? If this is a Fortune brothers’ joke, I think they’ve carried it too far.”
He looped his arm in hers. “Brothers? You know Lil’ Sis … I bet this was all her idea. We should have checked at the Telephone Exchange first thing.”
“Maybe we should have hired a hack,” Jamie Sue huffed.
Robert slowed down to let the girls catch up, their satchels in one hand and their straw hats in the other. “I haven’t seen a wagon or a carriage go by since that one that was going up to the mill,” he added.
“This reminds me of the time we had to run to catch the trolley in Denver,” Little Frank said. “Maybe everyone is up at Lead fighting the fire.”
“Lead is three or four miles up the canyon. I don’t think Abigail or Dacee June would be out fighting a fire in Lead,” Jamie Sue said.
“If Daddy Brazos is there, Lil’ Sis is there.” Robert resumed his trudge down the wooden sidewalk. “She won’t let him go anywhere out of town without her any more.”
“I’ve never seen a daughter so devoted to taking care of her father.”
“The commitment is mutual,” Robert murmured.
“Well, Rebekah is not one to fight fires,” Jamie Sue said. “Fires are much too dirty.” I can’t imagine soot on those beautiful fingernails of hers. Forgive me, Lord, that sounds so petty and jealous.
“Rebekah has a tough streak … just like all the Fortune women,” Robert said.
“If the Telephone Exchange is closed, are we goin’ to hike up to Uncle Todd and Aunt Rebekah’s?” Little Frank quizzed.
“That’s seventy-two stair steps above Main Street!” Veronica whimpered. She stopped in a slump.
Patricia leaned her back against her sister’s. “I’m tired, too, Daddy.”
“I’m sure the Telephone Exchange is open …” he insisted. “Come on, it’s just around the corner.”
The blind was pulled on the glass-and-oak front door of the Deadwood-Lead Telephone Exchange. And, like the others, the door was bolted.
Robert Fortune and family trooped back out to the curb
of the boardwalk. The girls collapsed on their satchels.
“What are we going to do now, Daddy?” Veronica asked.
“I think that fire must be getting worse,” Little Frank reported. “The smoke is so thick we can’t see the homes up on Forest Hill.”
“Look, Daddy, here comes some men up the middle of the street,” Patricia pointed back down Main Street.
Veronica scooted her satchel to the curb and sat facing the street. “It’s like a parade!”
A string of twenty men, each carrying a bucket in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, serpentined up the center of the street.
“Where are you headed?” Robert called out.
The lead man pulled off a greasy felt hat and staggered toward them, then shouted as if they were a hundred yards away, instead of ten feet. “We’re goin’ to fight the fire!” he hollered, almost tipping over backwards.
“Free beer at the Piedmont Saloon for all who fight the fire!” another shouted.
“I thought we was goin’ to get a whole bucket of beer, but all we got was a bottle,” a third reported.
“Where’s the fire?” Robert questioned.
“At the mill!” another hollered.
“In Lead?”
“Shoot, mister, we ain’t hikin’ to Lead. This fire is right up there where the road turns toward Central City.” He swayed and wobbled back to the column of volunteers.
“There’s a reduction mill there?” It was as if Robert had swallowed a lit firecracker and was waiting for it to explode in the pit of his stomach.
“Reduction mill? Mister, it’s the sawmill that’s on fire.”
The internal explosion went off. “Sawmill?” The word shot from his mouth like a Fourth of July cannon.
“Yeah, the one them Fortunes bought from Quiet Jim Troop. We hear it’s burning to the ground and a-threatenin’ to jump the yard to miner’s hall and even the church.”
“Oh, no!” Jamie Sue gasped.
The cortege of drunks continued their haphazard march up Main Street.
“That’s our mill!” Little Frank moaned.
Patricia’s tongue stuck out the side of her mouth and she chewed away. “What are we going to do, Daddy?”
“Go fight a fire,” he replied.
“Do I have to carry this satchel?” Veronica pleaded. “I’m really tired, Daddy.” There was no dance in her step.
“You and the girls stay here. Little Frank and I will …”
“Oh, no you don’t. If we can kill snakes and catch train robbers, we can fight fires!” Jamie Sue blurted back. “You’ve made the point about the toughness of your family’s women. We do not intend to be stranded on the streets of Deadwood while the rest of the family is in peril. Come on, girls, it’s time to join the Fortunes of the Black Hills.”
They were all winded by the time they rounded the corner by the Belmont Hotel and could see what was left of the Troop-Fortune Lumbermill and Yard. A tall, thin black smudge-faced woman with tangled hair half unpinned stared at the charred remains. Her hands, with grimy fingernails, were on her hips, and two small dirty boys were at her side.
“Is that Rebekah?” Jamie Sue whispered. “I’ve never in my life seen her dirty.”
“Aunt Rebekah!” Patricia called. “What happened to our lumberyard?”
The woman spun around and a white-toothed smile glowed out from the grimy face.
“Veronica! Oh … Robert … Jamie Sue …” Rebekah started to cry.
“It’s OK, Mama,” the taller of the two boys tried to console. “It’s alright.”
“Little Frank, take Stuart and Casey over to those whitewood trees for a minute… . Show them your baseball bat and your leather glove,” Robert motioned. Then he held out his arms to his sister-in-law.
“I’m filthy,” Rebekah whimpered.
“Who cares?” Robert grabbed her and held her tight. “What happened, darlin’?” he asked as Jamie Sue stepped up and also hugged her weeping sister-in-law.
Tears cut furrows into the grime on Rebekah’s high, square cheek bone. “There was an explosion in the sawdust burner. It just blew up like dynamite, scattering flames all over the mill.”
Even in the heat and smoke of the dying cinders, Robert felt a chill run down his back. “Who got hurt?”
“No one seriously, praise God. That part was a miracle. Some of the men were singed bad and some were hit with flying boards, but no one has reported anything more than a broken arm so far.” Rebekah took the blue bandanna Robert offered her and began to wipe her eyes and cheeks.
“What do you mean, so far?” Patricia asked.
“Oh … girls!” Rebekah clapped her hand over her chapped, dirty mouth. “You are so grown-up looking!” She held out her arms and they scooted next to her.
“What did you mean, no one is hurt so far?” Veronica echoed the challenge.
“There’s always a possibility someone was at the mill we don’t know about. Todd’s trying to determine that now.”
Patricia chewed on her lip. “You mean they could have burnt up, Aunt Rebekah?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure there was no one else there.” She stared at the boys by the trees. “Stuart and Casey spent yesterday down at the mill with Todd. I shudder to think what would have happened if the fire was yesterday.” She began to cry again and tried to hold the tears back with the bandanna.
“The ‘what ifs’ of life will drive us insane,” Robert counseled. “It’s only a mill. The family is safe.”
“That’s exactly what Todd said. We didn’t even try to put out the mill, just kept it from spreading,” Rebekah added. “It’s been a gruesome afternoon.”
“We’ve had quite a day as well,” Jamie Sue said.
“We heard there was a hold-up attempt on the train,” Rebekah replied.
“Yes, and then this man from the railroad offered Robert …”
“Enough of that,” Robert interrupted. “We’ll have plenty of time for talk later. What can we do to help?” he asked.
“I think there’s nothing left but to make sure the fire doesn’t start back up.” Rebekah surveyed the ruins, then her eyes rested on the boys by the aspens. “How did Little Frank get so tall? I can’t believe how much he looks like a young Todd,” she added.
Jamie Sue pointed at the taller of Rebekah’s boys. “And your Stuart looks so much like Robert.”
“I know it. Todd often forgets and calls him Bobby.”
“Which Fortune do I look like, Aunt Rebekah?” one of the twins asked.
“Why, darling … you look … you look identical to … Patricia!”
“Aunt Rebekah, I am Patricia.”
A wide, relaxed smile broke across Rebekah’s dirty face. “You see, I’m right.”
A fortyish-looking gray-haired man, with a dirty white shirt, no tie or suit coat, and an empty wooden bucket jogged up toward them. “If it isn’t the Fortunes of Arizona! Just like little brother to show up after all the hard work is done.”
“Sammy, you look like the time you got stuck under Lesa Bufford’s front porch with that family of mad raccoons,” Robert greeted.
Samuel Fortune threw an arm around his brother’s shoulder and purposely rubbed soot on Robert’s forehead. “The raccoons were nothin’ next to the whippin’ ol’ man Bufford gave me when I finally crawled out.”
Veronica’s blue eyes widened. “Really?”
Samuel stepped back and surveyed the twins. “Say, Bobby, you didn’t introduce me to these two fancy ladies from Paris.”
Patricia bit her lip, then giggled. “It’s me and Veronica, Uncle Sammy!”
Samuel pushed back his hat and spread open his arms. “Patricia? Veronica? I can’t believe it! You both look so charming and mature.”
“Uncle Sammy, don’t you try to sweet-talk us. We know all about you!” Veronica giggled.
“You do?”
“Yes,” Patricia continued. “Mama said if we ever meet a boy like Daddy we should marry him, and if we meet o
ne who reminds us of Uncle Sammy, we should run the other direction.”
Sam laughed. “You’ve got a very wise Mama.”
“That wasn’t exactly the way I worded it,” Jamie Sue protested.
With one arm around Robert’s shoulders and the other around Jamie Sue’s, Samuel stared at the ruins. “Well, little brother … what do you think about the lumberyard? Think you can make a go of it?”
“Sammy, it’s not a laughin’ matter,” Rebekah protested.
“Rebekah, darlin’, Fortune men aren’t very good at cryin’, so we might as well laugh. Right, Bobby?” Samuel insisted.
Robert studied the ruins and shook his head. “You’re right about that.”
Samuel Fortune dropped his arms and turned to the twins. “Amber took most all the other kids up to the schoolyard. Do you want to go up there?”
“Can we, Daddy?” Veronica asked.
“Take Little Frank and the boys with you. We’ll be up in a bit,” Robert instructed.
All five children scampered down a smoke-filled Main Street.
To the north, clumps of bucket-toting men huddled around smoldering ashes. Two dark-haired ladies, soot-covered and sweaty, scurried out of the alley.
“Bobby! Jamie Sue!” the younger called out as she threw her arms around Robert’s neck and planted a sooty kiss on his cheek.
He hugged her tight, then pulled back. “Well, Lil’ Sis, I do believe you have a slight smudge on your face.”
Jamie Sue hugged the other woman. “Abby, it looks like you’ve had an exciting day.”
“It started out peaceful enough. We all hiked down to the depot right before noon to meet lil’ brother and his family,” she explained.
“And she does mean everyone …” Samuel added. “Abby actually had Garrett’s cowlick combed down and his face clean. Rebekah had her gang slicked up like military school cadets.”
“Sammy, don’t exaggerate …”
“Lil’ Sis and Carty even dressed up those three little princesses of theirs.”
“Where are your girls now?” Jamie Sue asked Dacee June.
“Thelma Speaker and Louise Edwards are with them.”
“Anyway,” Sam continued, “Daddy shaved, washed his hair, and put on a new boiled shirt for the occasion.”
Friends and Enemies Page 4