Friends and Enemies

by Stephen A. Bly

  Jamie Sue took a deep breath and patted Veronica’s head. “He’s a man who is equaled in stupidity only by one named Riagan Moraine.”

  “Mama, don’t pat me on the head,” Veronica whined.

  Patricia scooted up on the other side of Jamie Sue. “You can pat me on the head, Mama. What did Eachan’s father do?”

  Jamie Sue’s lip curled as if she had bitten into a rancid walnut. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That’s all you’ve been talking about since you came in the house,” Veronica whined.

  Jamie Sue klunked the teapot over on the barely warm stove. She stared at her twins, her arms clenched across her chest. “Girls, tell me something. When you read a novel, do you think it’s true … or make believe?”

  Patricia raised her hand. “It’s all made up,” she blurted out. “That’s what a story is about.”

  Veronica rocked up on the toes of her shoes. “Except maybe the book about Uncle Todd. It was true. Mostly. Sort of. Wasn’t it?”

  “Why did you ask us that?” Patricia quizzed.

  Jamie Sue turned back toward the teapot. She took a long, slow breath through her nostrils, then let it out very slowly through her mouth. She could feel her shoulders and forehead relax. “I shouldn’t talk about it. I need to wait until your father gets home.”

  “Is it something naughty?” Patricia murmured.

  Jamie Sue stared into her daughter’s bright, penetrating glare. “Naughty?”

  “Sometimes you won’t tell us something because it’s naughty, and you wait and tell Daddy,” Patricia declared. “You tell him the naughty things you won’t tell us.”

  Jamie Sue put her hands on her hips, which felt wider than she remembered. “I most certainly do not! Who told you that?”

  Patricia stared down at her shoes. “Eh … ’Nica.”

  “I did not,” Veronica protested. “I did not! I merely said, perhaps that’s what Mama does. It was just speculation. Amber said that her mother won’t talk about naughty things except to Uncle Sammy, and I merely said that perhaps Mama and Daddy did the same. That’s all.”

  Jamie Sue stormed around the kitchen. “This definitely isn’t naughty. I’m just very, very grieved, and I don’t know what to do about it. I wish your father were home right now.”

  “So do I,” Veronica said. “Maybe he knows where the key to our trunk is.”

  “Can’t you even tell us about it?” Patricia prodded.

  Jamie Sue laced her fingers. “You’ll hear about it soon enough, I expect. Mr. Moraine, and apparently some others in this town, have the opinion that all the Fortunes hate the Irish.”

  “Hate the Irish?” Patricia yelped. “What’s he talking about? Aunt Abby is Irish, and so is Amber, and I think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. And little Garrett is half Irish.”

  Veronica tilted her head and licked her thin, pale lips. “I certainly don’t hate Eachan! Why would anyone say that about us?”

  Jamie Sue paused her pacing and rested her hands on the back of a straight-back wooden chair. “There’s a new Hawthorne Miller book called Ambush on St. Patrick’s Day in which U.S. Marshal Ted Fortune single-handedly puts down an Irish miner’s strike in the Black Hills.”

  “Who’s Ted Fortune?” Patricia asked.

  Jamie Sue brushed the hair back out of her eyes. “He’s a fictional character that Miller made up. He has nothing to do with any of us. Besides, I’m not at all sure that putting down a miner’s strike is always evil.”

  Patricia fussed with her white lace yoke collar. “Ted Fortune sounds a lot like Todd Fortune.”

  “That’s the point. Miller tried to piggyback on the Fortune name and succeeded in alienating all the Irish in the Black Hills.” Jamie Sue plucked up a tin plate from the counter and used it to fan herself.

  “Does Mr. Moraine believe the story in the dime novel and think that Ted Fortune is a relative of ours?” Veronica questioned.

  “Yes, he does.”

  “That’s silly,” Patricia said. “I hope you told him so.”

  “I tried to reason with him … but … but … he is an unreasonable man. He thinks Little Frank missed a baseball on purpose so that it would break his kitchen window … and he refuses for me to let someone from the hardware come fix it because he won’t do business with Fortunes!” Jamie Sue bit her lip, then tried to brush back tears from the corner of her eyes. “It just isn’t fair!”

  Patricia stroked her mother’s arm. “We’ll just have to trust the Lord through all this. As soon as they get to know us, they will find out differently.”

  Jamie Sue stared at her daughter, then ran her hands along Patricia’s pigtail. Is this my little girl who’s telling me to relax and trust the Lord? That’s easy for her to say… . She doesn’t have the constant burden of … I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

  “Yes,” Patricia added, chewing on her lip, “’Nica and I never, ever hated anyone Irish.”

  Veronica danced up and down on the heels of her shoes. “Except Moira Fionne, and that’s only because she padded the front of her dress and pretended she was fifteen.”

  Jamie Sue surveyed the fleeting eyes of her daughters. “Moira did what?”

  “Oh … nothing.” Veronica pulled her mother back to the living room. “Look, Mama … all of our trunks!”

  Jamie Sue stared at the living room stacked with boxes, trunks, valises, and wardrobes. “Yes! Oh, girls, this is an exciting day. Forgive me for going on about those other things. And don’t you dare tell Eachan about any of this. It is a misunderstanding we must clear up. I just wish I could clear it up today.”

  “We want to open our trunk, Mama. But we couldn’t find a key that fits,” Veronica said.

  “They’re all on that nail by the back door.” Lord, I just can’t allow the confrontation with Mr. Moraine to dominate my every thought. I have other things to do … children to take care of. Supper to cook. Trunks to unpack. A gallows to build.

  “We tried all those, but they didn’t fit our trunk,” Patricia explained.

  “It must be there,” Jamie Sue said.

  “The keys opened all the cases and trunks except ours,” Veronica added. “And it’s the most important one … to us anyway.”

  Jamie Sue approached the huge, faded green steamer trunk and sorted through the half-dozen keys. “This is it. See, I have it tagged V&P.”

  “We tried that one, Mama,” Patricia explained.

  “This is certainly it. You just slide it in this way and …” The large key did not slip into the slot of the shiny steel padlock. “Well, perhaps it goes …” Still she couldn’t even get the key in the lock. “Do you suppose I mislabeled it?”

  “We tried them all, Mama,” Veronica announced. “Does Daddy have the key to our trunk?”

  “I don’t think so. He might have the key to your hearts, but not your trunk.” Jamie Sue fussed with the other keys, but none fit. “This is rather odd. Is it your trunk?”

  “Of course it is. See the picture I drew of a paint horse? Well it sort of looks like a horse. And look what ’Nica wrote: ‘Wanted Pen Pal: write to Veronica Fortune, Deadwood, South Dakota.’”

  “You did what? You put your name on a trunk?”

  Veronica folded her arms across the top of her head. “Yes, but no one has written to me.”

  “I certainly don’t like the idea of your soliciting anonymous letters and prefer you don’t do it again.”

  “See, I told you,” Patricia chided as she tugged at the handle of the trunk. “What are we going to do? How can we get the trunk open?”

  “Perhaps Daddy does have that key.”

  Veronica hopped in front of the trunk. “But we don’t want to wait!”

  “I’m sorry, girls, there’s really not much we can do.”

  “We could get the gun and shoot it open,” Veronica said. Veronica tapped the lock with the key. “I read in a Hawthorne Miller book about a man who escaped while being chained to a runawa
y stagecoach by shooting the lock.”

  “That’s my point entirely,” Jamie Sue declared. “Fiction is unreal. No one ever shot a lock off a trunk. Meanwhile, you can help me unpack our dishes and other goods.”

  The twins huddled by their green steamer trunk.

  “But mother!” Veronica cried. “What about our church dresses?”

  “And our good shoes,” Patricia added. “They are right in here and we can’t get to them! It’s not fair.”

  “And our scarves.”

  “And our dolls!”

  “And our diaries!” Veronica blurted out. “We have to get out our diaries before we forget everything.” Suddenly, both girls covered their mouths with their hands.

  Jamie Sue sauntered back toward her daughters. “You girls have diaries?”

  “’Nica!” Patricia murmured. “We weren’t supposed to tell.”

  Veronica hung her head. “Amber gave us diaries last Christmas and told us we were supposed to keep them absolutely secret.”

  Jamie Sue slipped her hands on her girls’ shoulders. “I see … well, you have been doing a very good job of it.”

  “It’s OK, isn’t it, Mama? I mean, I don’t really have any good secrets, but if I did, it would be alright to write them in my diary, wouldn’t it?” Patricia probed.

  “I believe every girl needs to cherish a few secrets.”

  “See … I knew Mama wouldn’t mind,” Veronica boasted.

  “Let me give you one word of caution. As secret as you want to make them, diaries have a habit of being known … sooner or later. So, keep that in mind. Perhaps not in your lifetime, but certainly in your own daughter’s.”

  Veronica’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Certainly. What do you think your twelve-year-old daughters will do when they stumble across your diary?”

  “Oh no!” Veronica gulped. “I really, really need to get this trunk open. When is Daddy coming home?”

  “Probably not until dark.”

  Veronica danced back and forth on the hardwood floor in front of the massive trunk. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  Jamie Sue circled the baggage. “I believe if we were careful, we could unfasten the screws in the hinges and open it from the back.”

  “Really? Can we, Mama?” Veronica pressed.

  “If we can find Daddy’s screwdriver.”

  “Where is it?” Patricia asked.

  Jamie Sue surveyed the crates and boxes crammed into their living room. “In one of these other cases.”

  Sam Fortune reviewed his notes scribbled across sheets of paper that were weighted with rocks and pebbles on the dirt next to the headworks.

  “What do you think, Sammy, can you run a telephone line out here?” Robert asked.

  “We can run a line most anywhere. Whether anyone can afford it, and whether it will work, is another matter.”

  “Would you follow the road we took?”

  “Looks like it. From the top of the headworks you can see down there for miles.”

  Augusta Raxton strolled over to where they squatted on their haunches studying the notes. “You boys ready for supper?”

  Robert noticed her scrubbed face and hands. There was still dirt on the back of her neck and under her fingernails, but most the rest of the exposed surfaces were scoured pink clean.

  “You tidy up mighty fine, Miss Augusta,” Samuel said.

  “And you’re a handsome liar, Mr. Samuel Fortune. I can’t remember when I last had a hot bath and put on clean clothes.”

  The Fortune brothers strolled to the long, rustic, outdoor table where the others sat on half-log benches. Sandra Raxton, Tio, and Poco also sported clean hands and faces.

  Oscar Puddin remained dirty.

  “You know what I like best about the Raxton sisters?” Robert asked, as he sat down.

  “It ain’t our charming manners or our nobby clothes.” Sandra Raxton’s laugh was somewhere between a donkey’s bray and a hawk’s lament.

  “I like your honesty. You just blurt out how you feel and what you’re thinking. Sometimes it takes months to find out things from other women. But not you two,” Robert declared.

  “There’s too much work to do to dally around visitin’ about nothin’,” Augusta scoffed.

  On the table was a huge bowl of thick, dark, brown gravy with elk meat chunks the size of a man’s fist. What first looked like potato wedges in the gravy turned out to be turnips. A stack of steaming tortillas, each about two feet in diameter, was piled directly on top of the stained wooden table. Coffee steamed in the pot, and thick-crusted apple pies sat at each end of the table.

  “Sorry we’re all out of eggs,” Augusta said. “We used the last two in them pie crusts.”

  “This is very generous of you ladies,” Robert announced.

  Byron Chambers, still wearing his top hat, but not his coat or tie, stared at the tin plate full of gravied meat and turnips. His fork seemed welded to his unmoving hand.

  “Well, Byron …” Robert quizzed. “What will be your report to the Bank of Ottawa?”

  He laid his fork down. “It’s very confusing.”

  “The records?” Robert questioned. He jabbed a forkful of meat and gravy into his mouth and was surprised that it tasted sweet, yet spicy.

  Chambers pushed his plate away and sipped on the steaming coffee in the tin cup. “No, I maintain the Raxtons have most of the receipts in order. I believe I know where the funds went. And I’m convinced from the assay reports that this mine has wonderful potential. But I don’t have a set of books to bring back and convince the bank to pump in more money. Without that, my employers will pull out of the project and attempt to sell their part. They weren’t happy with this situation before. But now that …”

  “Now that women are running it?” Miss Sandra asked.

  “It might be a sad commentary, but it’s true,” Chambers declared.

  “We won’t get any more financial backing?” Miss Augusta pressed.

  “Not from our bank. They would deem that a woman could not run such an operation.”

  “You mean two of us ain’t even as good as one drunk man like Mac?” Miss Sandra challenged.

  “I’m afraid some would see it that way.”

  “How about you, Byron?” Robert said. “Do you think they can run it?”

  “That’s the confusing part. Indeed, I believe they can run it. But the Raxton sisters, in there present splendor … eh, nothing personal I assure you … make it quite inconceivable to arrange financing.”

  “What do you mean by present splendor?” Miss Augusta asked.

  Oscar Puddin wiped gravy across the back of his hand. “He means if you two women go marchin’ into a banker’s office looking dirty and smellin’ like a hog, you ain’t going to get no loan.” The big man grinned and looked over at the cooks. “This might be the best Mexican gravy I ever et.”

  “But, if we sit back and do nothin’, we could end up with new partners that want to chase us off our claims?” Miss Augusta speculated.

  “Depends on who buys the Bank of Ottawa’s shares,” Robert added.

  Miss Augusta stabbed a huge bite of elk meat as if it were a rat about to attack her. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. We did all the diggin’ and blastin’, and right before we hit it big, someone comes in and takes it away from us. That ain’t right, and you boys know it.”

  “But we’ve got to have partners to get the real riches out of this mountain,” Miss Sandra declared. “How about you Fortunes? You want to buy the bank’s shares?”

  “I told you, Miss Sandra, I don’t have the funds. But we know some who do,” Robert added.

  “You could talk to them for us, couldn’t you?” she asked. “You could tell them how hard we work and how close we are to the big lead.”

  Robert glanced over at his brother. “You two sisters would have to come to Deadwood and make your pitch.”

  “We couldn’t do that. We can’t leave the mine,” M
iss Sandra declared.

  Sam pointed at the Mexican cooks. “Poco and Tio could watch it.”

  Miss Augusta dropped her head and said, “We wouldn’t know who to talk to or how to talk to them.”

  Robert glanced over at Byron Chambers, who continued to avoid his meal. “Your bookkeeper could go to town and arrange things before you arrived. He could schedule a big dinner at the hotel. You could bring in samples and assay reports, then make your pitch.”

  “We ain’t got no bookkeeper and no one is goin’ to lend us money. Mr. Chambers made that quite clear,” Miss Augusta insisted.

  “I’ve spent my life organizing battles and campaigns that work,” Robert insisted. “I have seen your ore. I can tell you how it would work.”

  “Do tell us how, Mr. Fortune,” Miss Sandra said.

  Robert rolled up a tortilla and pointed it toward the mine shaft. “You keep a crew diggin’ out here as much as you can so you’ll have a little spendin’ money when you come to town.”

  Miss Augusta rubbed the back of her neck. “We’re workin’ as hard as we can and just breakin’ even.”

  “No offense, ma’am, but two tired women and two old men are not the healthiest of crews. You’ll need some big strong bruiser of a man to do the heavy work,” Robert suggested.

  “Someone like Oscar.” Sam slapped the big man on the back.

  Oscar Puddin wiped gravy off his chin with a steaming tortilla. “I ain’t lookin’ for a job, and I ain’t goin’ to work out here for no women.”

  Robert turned to his brother. “Sammy, you were on the wrong side of the law a time or two when you were younger. What kind of jail time do you think Oscar will get for that stunt he pulled back there on the trail?”

  “Attempted robbery and murder?”

  “I wasn’t tryin’ to murder nobody,” Puddin insisted.

  “You came extremely close to murdering me!” Byron Chambers blurted out.

  “With that kind of testimony,” Samuel pondered, “Oscar will get one to two years in jail. They’ll send him out to Ft. Pierre. I hear those cells are might tiny for a big man.”

  “But,” Robert added, “if none of us press charges, he could work out here for a couple of months and everything would be settled. Right, Mr. Chambers?”