The Long Trail Home

by Stephen A. Bly

  Sam’s forehead curled. “Carty’s mother?”

  She shook her head in feigned resignation. “Carty’s mother lives in Billings. I’m talking about young Mrs. Toluca, Carty’s wife.”

  “Dacee June?” The name exploded from his lips like an easy word at a spelling bee. “You think li’l sis should be my office manager?”

  “She’d be perfect. She knows everyone in the Black Hills on a first name basis, and she’s also quite aware of who is related to whom.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to work?” he asked.

  “What if she does?”

  “What if Todd needs her at the hardware?”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Abby kept up the pressure.

  “But . . . but . . . I . . .” Sam shook his head but no words came out.

  Abigail leaned back in her chair and stabbed a cold bite of pastry-encased salmon, baked in the shape of a butterfly. “Oh, of course,” she blurted out, “I was just rambling. It’s your turn. Now that we’ve established the fact you can’t run away and hide, what are your plans for starting up the business? You have a strategy besides knocking on doors and asking for subscriptions, right?”

  Sam stared across the table. Lord, what am I doin’ in this occupation? I don’t have any idea what I’m doin’. A big grin broke across his face. “I’ll tell you what,” he laughed: “You set up the telephone exchange, and I’ll run the dress shop.”

  “Oh no you don’t, S. Houston Fortune. So that’s the reason for all of this backpedaling—you haven’t been worried about getting shot in the back; you’ve been worried about starting a telephone business.”

  “Worried? Scared to death would be a better description.”

  “What’s the worse you could do? Fail?”

  “Fail in front of my very successful family,” he said.

  “Then I suggest you don’t fail. I think you should call it the Black Hills Telephone Exchange, rather than Deadwood or Lead. That way, if you need to expand, the name will still be valid. The B.H.T.E. has a very good sound to it. You’ll need a snappy little trademark. I know a set designer and mural artist in Omaha that could . . .” She stopped talking and laid her hands in her lap. “What are you staring at?”

  Sam ran his fingers across his lips. “A very attractive and multitalented lady.”

  “Mr. Fortune, you’ve never even seen me dance or heard me sing. Almost all people have more talents than they use. I mean, you’re good at something besides stealing horses, aren’t you?” A sly smile creased her wide, full lips.

  “I’m a fair hand at robbin’ a stage and specialize in banks. But I always thought kissing attractive women on the lips was one of my best specialties,” he concluded.

  She laughed until she had to cover her mouth with her hand. “You see, S. Houston Fortune, you are a multitalented man.”

  “Did you really used to be an actress?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Did you really used to be an outlaw?”

  “This is a very strange friendship, Mrs. Gordon.”

  “Yes, and I believe it will be rather exciting, don’t you?”

  “I doubt we will be bored.”

  “Infuriated, angry, delirious, emotional—and wanton if we’re not careful—but never bored,” she confirmed. “Now, I suggest you get your office all equipped in the next couple days. Have the newspapers write stories about what you’re going to do, and open the office the day Dacee June returns from her honeymoon.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to work for me?”

  “You don’t know your sister very well, do you.”

  “I don’t know any of my family very well, Abigail Katrina O’Neill Gordon.”

  “You know my full name? I’d say you’ve talked to Dacee June, too.”

  “You don’t think we just hummed Strauss while we were out on the dance floor, do you?” he chided.

  “Did she tell you about my first husband?” she probed.

  “Yes, she did. It was quite noble of him to help Mr. Landers, even at the cost of his own life.”

  “It’s the only known noble thing he ever did. Did Dacee June tell you about my second husband?”

  Sam jerked back from the table. Then a wide grin broke over him. “Was that the old boy from the Indian Territory with broad shoulders and a devilishly smooth smile?”

  “No. He had mostly gray hair and looked out of place in a suit.”

  “What ever happened to that hombre?” Sam quizzed.

  “He went and hid in a cave and was buried by an avalanche.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Of course, I don’t have time to go runnin’ off to a cave myself—I have to get back to Deadwood and open a telephone exchange office.”

  “And hire a dynamic office manager?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “It just dawned on me that ever since my mother died, I have not had a woman controlling my life. Now, within one day, I have a sister, two sisters-in-law, and an attractive landlady volunteerin’ for the job.”

  “Are you bragging or complaining, Mr. Fortune?”

  “Neither—I’m just stunned. A few weeks ago I was sleepin’ under a mesquite tree and wonderin’ if there was any way to get a meal without committing a crime. Now look at me: I’m afraid I’m going to wake up from a good dream.”

  “Sam Fortune,” Abigail insisted, “you just woke up from a bad dream . . . twelve years of a very bad dream.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the office of the Black Hills Telephone Exchange, 675 Main Street, Deadwood, D.T., August 17, 1885, 10:35 A.M.

  Dacee June glanced up from her desk as Sam strolled in. A light pink, ironed, linen handkerchief peeked out from the breast pocket of her shirt waist charcoal gray blouse of cotton shirting Cheviot. The cuffs, high collar, and belt were a pink and gray stripe. The puffed sleeves at the shoulder gave her waist an even narrower image as she stood up. “Daddy thinks this whole thing is really wild,” she announced.

  “That’s my style, li’l sis. When did I ever do any thing like ever’one else?” Sam hung his Stetson on the mahogany hat rack near the door and ambled to the polished wood railing that separated his desk from hers.

  She spun around to face him. “Daddy says that when you were little you’d watch Todd, then do just the opposite.”

  Sam leaned against the railing. “If I had my life to do over, it might be different.”

  “Would you copy Todd more?”

  “Not necessarily.” He stared out of the open doors to the street. “But just being contrary isn’t a very smart way to live, either. A person needs to think through things. I spent a lot of years not usin’ my brain very much.”

  She reached down and plucked a long, brown hair from the sleeve of her jacket. “How about the past few years?”

  He tugged on his shirt collar and nodded. “Yeah, I needed to use my brain a lot—just to stay alive.”

  “Well, the last few weeks have been the best in my whole life.” Still seated in her oak swivel chair, Dacee June turned her back to her brother and looked out the open doors. “I keep thinking it’s too good to keep going.”

  Sam stepped up behind her and began to rub her shoulders and neck. “Which part is so good, li’l sis?”

  She reached back and patted his hand. “All of it, Sammy. Did I tell you I really, really like being married?”

  He squeezed her fingers. “I think you’ve mentioned it about ten times a day.”

  She dropped her chin and her voice, “Carty treats me so nice.”

  He spun her chair around so that they looked eye to eye. “He’d better, or he’ll have some brothers to face.”

  “Carty’s a lot like you three. That’s why I picke
d him, of course. But it’s not just being married that’s a dream. It’s having you show up on my wedding day . . . and now . . . coming down here every day and see you walk in, dressed all handsome-like in a suit and tie. I used to dream about you coming home all the time, but my dreams were never this good.” Dacee June plucked up a lead pencil and twirled it in her fingers. “Daddy’s right. The whole thing’s wild.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wild.” Sam pointed over to the telephone units on the oak table next to the south wall. “We have one hundred and twelve telephone subscribers, and we haven’t even installed the system yet. Mr. Edgington down in Cheyenne will be quite surprised.”

  Dacee June grabbed a form off her desk. “One hundred and thirteen. Mr. Wong came in this morning and subscribed.”

  Sam glanced down at the paper. “Which one is Mr. Wong?”

  “Mr. Fee Lee Wong owns the Wing Tsue store and some others,” she explained.

  Sam brushed back his sandy blond and gray mustache with his fingers. “I thought that Wing Tsue was the man’s name.”

  “No. Look,” she pointed to the form, “his name is Fee Lee Wong.”

  “So, we’ll have telephones in China Town?”

  “At least one.”

  “That’s good . . . Dacee June, that’s the great thing about telephones. Everyone in town can have one—and anyone can talk to anybody, no matter what district you live in. There’s total equality!”

  Dacee June’s mouth was large for the width of her cheeks, but even wider when she smiled, “Where do I sign up, Mr. S. Houston Fortune?”

  Sam strolled across the office to a table where a telephone receiving unit was mounted. “I guess I’m gettin’ more enthused, as this looks like it might actually work.”

  “Just a few more . . . critical details. I’ve been praying about all of it, Sammy.”

  “Me too, li’l sis. But I seem to keep gettin’ into the same argument with the Lord. I keep debatin’ whether I’m supposed to sit still and do nothin’ or use the brain he gave me and make some decisions on my own.”

  Dacee June pulled a small hand mirror out of her center desk drawer. “Which side of the debate is right?”

  Sam lifted the receiving unit and held it to his ear. There was no sound. “That’s one of the things we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Here comes Professor and Mrs. Edwards!”

  Sam turned and waited for the couple to enter the store.

  “Morning, Dacee June . . . Sammy,” Mr. Grass Edwards greeted as he waited for his wife to lead the way in.

  “I believe we should start calling him, Houston,” Louise Edwards corrected.

  “I’ve known that boy since he was no taller than Delphinium occidentale,” Grass answered. “It’s going to be hard calling him something else.”

  “Maybe when all of this settles down, we can dispense with the name change,” Sam offered.

  “No,” Edwards insisted, “change can be good. Look at me, Sammy. For years everyone called me Grass Edwards. But I wrote that book and now it’s Professor Edwards. I get much more respect. Even porters on the Pullman cars give me a better berth when they see that word Professor on the train ticket.”

  “Well, Professor Edwards, at least you haven’t changed your taste in clothing,” Dacee June teased. “I don’t know of any other man in the Black Hills that has a bright yellow shirt like that.”

  “It’s not yellow. It’s called ‘mustard,’” he insisted. “Of course, to me it looks like Sonchus arvensis.”

  “I think he means a perennial sowthistle,” Louise Driver Edwards explained.

  “That shirt makes you stand out like an Asteraceae in a field of Amaranthaceae,” Dacee June added.

  Edward’s eyes widened. “Like a sunflower in a field of pigweed? My word, Louise, a college-educated woman is a marvel to listen to!”

  “I learned that from you, Mr. Edwards. Remember the time you, me, Yapper Jim, and Daddy got stuck in that tent north of Miles City until the Missouri River quit flooding? You kept us up until midnight for six days reciting that botany book.”

  He turned to his wife. “Are you sure we can’t adopt this girl?”

  “No need for that,” Louise chided. “You and the others have been treating Dacee June like your own daughter for over twenty years.”

  “I reckon you’re right about that. Well, come on, Louise darlin’,” Grass pointed to the far wall. “I’ll show you how these telephone receiver units work.”

  “She knows all about them,” Dacee June insisted. “She helped me set up the whole office while you were speaking in Laramie City.”

  Grass Edwards threw up his hands and shrugged. “Then she can explain them to me. I figure if this is going to work we ought to look busy.”

  “Just help yourself, Professor,” Sam said. “If you figure out how they cram a voice down that wire, maybe you can explain it to me.” He retreated past the railing to his desk in the back of the office.

  Rebekah wore a stylish black blazer with shawl collar; her vest was faced with Sicilian silk. She swaggered into the room followed by a hatless Todd Fortune.

  “Good morning,” Rebekah called out as she strolled up to Dacee June and wiped her gray gloves along the edge of the oak desk, then examined her fingertips. “Can I sweep and dust for you?”

  “Oh, you don’t need to . . . ,” Dacee June protested. “I just cleaned everything last night.”

  Rebekah held the soiled glove in front of Dacee June. “Nonsense. I want to do something besides wait for the men to settle things.” She and Dacee June scooted to the storeroom in the back. They emerged with a feather duster and a frayed cotton rag.

  Sam held open the short wooden gate that opened to his desk. “Mornin’, big brother.”

  “Mornin’, Sammy.” Todd sauntered through and plopped down in a leather side chair. “You ready for a big day?”

  Sam sat in his oak swivel chair and reclined, placing his polished boots on the nearly clean desktop. “You know what I was thinkin’ this mornin’? I tried to remember why it was I didn’t come up here in ’76 when I first heard about your movin’ up here. And the truth is, Todd, I can’t remember why I was so dead set against it.”

  “Still fightin’ the war, maybe.”

  “I suppose Daddy was right. We couldn’t win, and it only made things worse in Texas.”

  “Did you ever tell him that?” Todd challenged.

  “No, but I will.”

  “I think that will be good for him to hear,” Todd encouraged.

  “I know I have a lot of things I ought to say. I’ll have to trust the Lord will give me time to say them all.”

  “You worried?”

  “The Lord’s been so good to me over the past two months, Todd. Sometimes I feel guilty askin’ him for anything else.”

  “Enjoy it,” Todd encouraged. “Some days it’s a struggle to get by. Other times it’s kind of like blessings are ‘good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.’”

  “Amazing grace . . . ,” Sam murmured, “amazing grace.”

  “Say, I got a letter from Bobby down in Arizona.” Todd sat up and tugged his revolver from his vest holster. “Says that since you’re here in the Black Hills, he and Jamie Sue are talking about getting mustered out after they round up Geronimo again, then moving up.” He checked the chambers and then shoved the pistol back into his holster.

  “That will make a lot of Fortunes in the Black Hills,” Sam said. He slid open the two top drawers of the desk and scanned the walnut-gripped Colt .44s.

  Todd slowly rubbed his long hawkish nose and nodded. “I don’t know if Bobby wants to live right in Deadwood. There’s some rimrock country on the back road to Rapid City. If a man wanted a little solitude and a nice little spread, that would be the pl
ace to settle.”

  Sam kept a close watch on the front door of the store. “You figure Jamie Sue for a ranch girl?”

  “No. But she’s followed Robert from fort to fort. She’s no more a ranch girl than Rebekah.”

  “Or Abigail?”

  Todd rubbed his light brown goatee. “I don’t suppose you’ve asked that lady to marry you?”

  “Not until the dust settles. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but there really are too many nightmares from the past following me.”

  Todd watched Rebekah and Dacee June as they flittered around cleaning the mostly empty office. “I figure that’s Abby’s decision.”

  “If it is, then she deserves to see the whole picture before she decides. Anyways, if things go bad today it won’t matter much what I think, will it?”

  Quiet Jim rolled his wheelchair through the big, double, glass and oak front doors that were propped open by two, black iron, miniature beaver statues. Behind him, toting his Sharps carbine, walked Brazos Fortune.

  Sam stood up and strolled to the railing that separated his desk from Dacee June’s. “Don’t tell me you got tired of tellin’ windy stories over at the hardware?” he teased the two gray-haired men.

  “Is this lad castin’ suspicion on the veracity of our past accounts?” Brazos replied as he leaned the carbine against the wall next to the front door then ambled toward his sons.

  “It’s a sad commentary on the present generation,” Quiet Jim added as he rolled along beside Brazos. “The day will come when no one believes the truth, and they will rewrite the history of this land for their own benefit. But with any luck, Brazos, you and me won’t be here to see it. Progress does not guarantee improvement.”

  “Whoa—this old man’s beginnin’ to sound like Yapper Jim,” Brazos chided.

  Quiet Jim’s eyes blurred as he stared back over the years. His voice softened, “You know, I actually miss that loud mouth of his.”

  “I know what you mean.” Brazos cracked a smile. “The world always seemed so quiet and peaceful when he stopped talkin’.”

  “Sort of like when the stamp mill shuts down for repairs and a man can hear his own heart beat,” Quiet Jim added.