Shadow of Legends

by Stephen A. Bly

  Everyone gets a second chance in Deadwood. Even sinners.

  I know you’ve promised to go with us wherever we go, Lord. But Rapid City is a step down. After that she’d want me to be a banker in Des Moines . . . then Molene . . . and somehow we’d end up in Chicago. I couldn’t do it. It would kill my soul . . . which is probably a lot the way Rebekah feels right now.

  Lord, my heart and my soul can’t agree and my mind refuses to take sides. How about You deciding this one?

  “I say, Mr. Fortune? I was just going to find your house.”

  Todd glanced east, toward Shine Street. A nobby-dressed man headed his way wearing patent leather shoes and a neatly pressed light wool suit. “Mr. Olene, I was on my way home. Our place is not difficult to find, but you’ll have to climb the stairs on your own.”

  “It’s a steep ravine.”

  “I carried most of the cut boards for our house up this hillside on my shoulders,” Todd informed the man.

  The two men strolled past the Stebbins and Post Bank, then waited for a freight wagon to pass before they crossed Lee Street.

  “I’m delighted you decided to reconsider my offer,” Olene explained. “Your invitation to lunch was a very pleasant surprise, indeed.”

  Todd pulled his watch out of his vest, glanced at it, then let it drop back into the pocket. “Mr. Olene, I don’t want you to get up any false hopes. I do this out of respect for my wife’s father, and his friendship with you. I really haven’t changed my mind about a thing.”

  “Well, yes, young man,” Olene challenged, “but just as soon as I tell you what I’m prepared to offer, I do believe you’ll be impressed. Yes, indeed. Good money most often changes good intentions, I always say.”

  Todd struggled to stay silent. Lord, I don’t even want to hear the offer. I don’t understand why I should even have to go through this. Olene is exactly the type I don’t like doing business with. I could never be a banker. It would be dealing with men like that all day long. Alright, Daddy Brazos . . . if you didn’t up and shoot the man, what would you say? Todd studied the man as they walked. “Mr. Olene, what town did you grow up in?”

  Tobias Olene’s gray head jerked around. “I say, what?”

  “Where’s your hometown?” Todd prodded. “Were you born and raised in Cleveland?”

  “Oh, no. I grew up in Wellington, Ohio.”

  “A little place?”

  “Yes, quite small. Southwest of Cleveland.”

  Todd stared the puzzled man in the eyes. “Well, that’s sad, isn’t it?”

  Olene took long strides to keep up with the younger man. “What do you mean, sad?”

  “Sad that a town that close to a big city never grew much,” Todd explained.

  “No one there is complaining.” Olene’s hands dropped to his sides, swaying in time with his steps. “People there like it small. It’s exactly the way they want it to be.”

  Todd tugged the brim of his hat lower in the front. “And that, Mr. Olene, is true of Deadwood. It is just as we want it to be.”

  Olene’s face blushed. “Are you telling me to keep my nose out of Deadwood?”

  “I have a feeling there is no one on earth that could tell Mr. Tobias Olene to keep his nose out of anywhere.” Todd stopped to give the older man a break. “Don’t take that as an insult. The same thing could be said of my father, and I love him dearly.”

  A slight smile broke across the businessman’s face, and he nodded slightly. “I look forward to meeting Brazos Fortune.”

  “Well,” Todd grinned. “The first thing you want to do is pronounce his name Braazis . . . Anything else will produce a definite rile.”

  “Just in case . . .” Olene pulled several folded papers from the inside pocket of his suit coat, then replaced them. “We can discuss this part later. I mean, I know the odds are slim . . . but just in case my offer happens to be acceptable, there would be a certain amount of paperwork to take care of. Since I need to return east in a couple of days, would there be a chance you or your father will be in Cleveland in the next month or so? We could finalize things there.”

  Todd leaned his head back until he could see the Dakota blue sky. “Mr. Olene, you’d have a better chance carving Mr. Lincoln’s bust in a limestone cliff in the Black Hills than you would of having my father go to Cleveland,” he laughed. “If sufficiently bribed, you might get him to go to Cheyenne . . . but don’t press your luck on Denver. And Cleveland? You might as well ask him to meet you in Hades. He won’t go.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose I won’t have to return west. I can send a team of lawyers to . . .”

  Todd put his hand lightly on the man’s shoulder. Mr. Olene flinched. “That would ruin the deal for sure. My father would think of it as an insult to have to talk to lawyers. I can guarantee that he won’t sell the business without a personal handshake from you. And neither would I. Out here some things are just more important than lawyers and papers.”

  “Well, I’m certainly learning a lot about your father before I ever meet him. He sounds like a real character.”

  “He’s a Deadwood legend, Mr. Olene. A hundred years from now enthusiastic novelists will still be writing mostly true stories about him. But he is extremely predictable in some respects. He won’t sell the store.”

  “My, you are a persistent and pessimistic young man.” Todd thought he could see a slight smile in Olene’s lingering expression. “Don’t take that personal. In my business, I find that a very commendable trait. But I don’t understand your resistance to progress.”

  “Mr. Olene, Deadwood has a very unique, distinct personality. It’s an isolated island of frontier in a quickly settling West. Some folks like it. Some don’t. But those of us who call it home are here because of that fresh, exciting unpredictability. Some of us are kind of afraid of making it progress too quickly. I guess we have a fear of waking up some morning like Jacob in the Bible and finding out we married the wrong sister. We don’t want a little Cleveland, or a little Chicago . . . We don’t even want a little Denver.”

  “My word, you’re quite a philosopher.”

  Todd began to laugh. “I’ve hung around the potbellied stove too much.”

  “Sentimentality often stands in the way of progress. But I must warn you, it seldom, if ever, succeeds.”

  A short man in a crisp bowler and slightly crinkled brown-striped suit waited for them at the corner of Main and Wall Streets. Todd pushed his narrow-brimmed felt hat back and rubbed his sweaty forehead. “Mr. Dover, are you waiting for me?”

  “Mrs. Gordon sent word for me to meet with her at your house for lunch, so I thought I’d walk up with you.”

  Todd rubbed his light-brown mustache in an effort to cover his surprise. Dover’s coming to lunch, too? I wonder if Rebekah knows about this? He turned to the older man. “Mr. Tobias Olene of Cleveland, this is Mr. Watson Dover, of Woodrow, Goldstein and Dover, of Chattanooga.”

  As the men shook hands, Dover corrected, “That’s Woodson, Goldberg and Dover.”

  All signs of civility dropped from Olene’s face. “Is that the law firm that defended that scamp John Casebolt?” he blurted out.

  “I don’t remember Mr. Casebolt as being a scamp,” Dover bristled. “You aren’t Olene Steel Company, are you?”

  “The same,” Olene growled.

  Dover’s reply was almost a shout. “You should have gone to jail for the way you treated Casebolt.”

  Olene yanked off his hat. Veins bulged on his forehead. “That is a slanderous remark!”

  “Whoa . . . whoa . . .” Todd stepped between them. “May I suggest that is old business? If you want to pitch a fit over it, you’ll need to do that before or after lunch. Rebekah will not accept that tone at her table.”

  “Quite so . . . ,” Olene admitted, letting out a deep breath. “I’m no
t sure why you need a Chattanooga attorney at this meeting, but . . .”

  “Mr. Dover is meeting with a friend of ours on a separate matter. It just so happens that we will all sit down at my wife’s table.”

  “Yes . . . well,” Dover cleared his throat. “I apologize to you, Mr. Fortune, for getting carried away over past dealings. I appreciate greatly the use of your home for this meeting.”

  The three had just silently reached the base of the Wall Street steps up to Williams Street when a girl’s voice rang out. “Todd, wait up. Could you help us?”

  Dacee June strolled toward them with two small children, one at each hand, toddling along beside her.

  “You’re baby-sitting for Quiet Jim and Columbia?” There were moments when his sister actually looked mature. This was one of those times.

  “She’s not feeling well. Quiet Jim has his hands full with the baby, so I agreed to take Quintin and Fern.”

  A curly headed boy wearing short pants tucked into long socks grinned. “Hi, Uncle Todd.”

  He plucked up the lad. “Well, Quint, have you trapped any bears today?”

  The round brown eyes of the boy widened. “No. I’m all out of bait,” he squealed.

  They started up the steps. Dacee June carried Fern. Todd packed Quintin. Olene and Dover followed.

  “Young Man, what do you use for bear bait?” Olene asked, as he puffed his way up the steps.

  “Bobcat meat,” Quintin replied.

  “And what kind of trap do you have?” Olene quizzed.

  “Quint has a nice big packing crate propped up and a stick tied to a string,” Todd replied.

  Olene stopped hiking the steps and caught his breath. “Oh, my . . . I sincerely trust you haven’t caught one.”

  “Nope,” Quint replied. “I told you I didn’t have the right bait.”

  “Mr. Olene, excuse me for forgetting to introduce her, but this young lady ahead of me is my sister, Dacee June.”

  Olene tipped his hat. “Just how many Fortunes are in Deadwood?”

  Todd began to laugh. When he did, young Quintin and his sister laughed as well. “How many fortunes in Deadwood? That, Mr. Olene, is what every man, woman, and child in the Black Hills is trying to find out.”

  Olene and Dover stood awkwardly in the parlor as Dacee June, Quintin, and Fern scrambled around them.

  Todd was busy in the kitchen.

  “I didn’t know we were having a banquet,” he mumbled as he tugged an oak table leaf out of the pantry.

  “Nor did I.” Rebekah buzzed past him and strained on her tiptoes to retrieve an airtight tin from the top shelf. “When we told Abigail she could meet the lawyer at our house, I didn’t know that was an invitation to lunch.”

  Todd followed her back into the kitchen, the thirty-six-by-eigh­teen-inch slice of polished oak under his arm. “We aren’t going to get any business done with this whole gang here.”

  “We have to try,” she insisted as she opened a large can of stewed tomatoes. “After we eat we can send Dacee June next door with the children and . . .”

  Todd stopped in the middle of the room. “Lil’ Sis won’t like that.”

  “She’s the one who brought the children home.” Rebekah tugged at the tight, high-necked velvet collar of her fancy green checked blouse.

  “She didn’t have a choice.”

  “I know . . . I know . . . I’m not complaining, really. I’m just a little frazzled.” Rebekah stirred the tomatoes into the large pot of white beans, but stopped when she heard someone knock at the door. “Oh, no! Who is it now?”

  “Relax, Mrs. Fortune,” Todd chided. “It’s probably only Mrs. Gordon.”

  “Who?”

  “Abigail . . . Miss Abby O’Neill, remember?”

  Rebekah tried brushing her bangs back off her forehead, but they flopped right back in the same place. “You set up the table and entertain. I’ll have things ready in just a minute. This turned out to be quite a crowd. I’m not used to cooking for this many.”

  “You mean you never had crowds at your big home on the north side of Chicago?” He heard Dacee June speak to someone at the front door.

  “Yes, often.” Rebekah reflected on her parents’ house crammed with well-dressed people. “But they all presented their printed invitations to one of the servants at the door. And our cook took on extra help.”

  Todd sat at one end of the heavy oak table with thick spiral legs. The dining room felt crowded, the conversation shallow, expectant of things to come. He passed the ham-stacked china platter to Tobias Olene at his right. Next to him, in the middle of the table sat Abigail Gordon, once again wearing her “Douglas, Douglas, Tender & True” plain dress. On the other side of her, Watson Dover sulked like a lawyer with an unpopular defendant. He buttered a roll as if he were trying to mash it to death. At the far end of the table was Rebekah’s place. She, however, spent most of the meal scurrying between the kitchen and the dining room. On the far side of the table, next to the north window that provided a view of the steep, treeless backyard, sat Quintin, Dacee June, and young Fern, who delighted almost everyone by mashing a stewed tomato on top of her head.

  “I’m certainly glad to find out these are not your children,” Olene blurted out over a fork full of beans. “I mean to say, I would have been quite lax if you had children, Rebekah, and I hadn’t known it. I believe your father would keep me informed of such important information.” His awkward smile made his thick, brushy sideburns look clownlike.

  Rebekah buzzed around the table refilling coffee cups. She was surprised to find herself enjoying the mealtime. “Quintin and Fern are very special. Their father, Quiet Jim, is a dear, dear friend of Daddy Brazos. They are like family to us.”

  “You’re a very gracious hostess,” Watson Dover added as she poured his cup. “I’m afraid my wife would be quite flustered with such a sudden assembly.”

  “Living on the frontier means having plenty of unexpected opportunities to practice hospitality.” Rebekah set the silver coffee­pot on the serving cart and slipped into the chair at the end of the table, not bothering to remove her dress-length apron.

  “Frontier?” Olene’s voice thundered like a company president addressing a roomful of subordinates. “Deadwood is a booming town. Hardly seems like the frontier.”

  Abigail’s voice was soft, melodic, and beautifully controlled. “Obviously, Mr. Olene has never spent a night in the badlands.” She took a delicate sip of coffee with her small finger properly arched.

  “The badlands? I heard someone at the hotel mention the ‘badlands district.’ Is that in Deadwood?” Watson Dover quizzed.

  When the light caught Watson Dover right, Todd thought he looked a little like a thin-chested Ulysses Grant. “The badlands is any part of town lower than the dead line,” Todd informed as he ran a bite of ham through a puddle of molasses.

  A startled look flashed across Tobias Olene’s pinkish face. “The dead line?”

  Todd leaned back in his chair and savored the bittersweet taste inside his mouth. “Wall Street separates town. On the lower side you have saloons, gambling parlors, theaters, and other accompanying businesses,” he explained.

  Dover’s beard-covered chin seemed to bob up and down as he talked. “Why do they call it the dead line?”

  Dacee June’s wide grin revealed a mouthful of large, straight white teeth. “Because past that line, you’re liable to find yourself dead.”

  “It’s not all that bad. But it is definitely the frontier.” Abigail’s eyes sparkled with an I-know-more-than-I’m-saying dance.

  “I presume you all stay out of that section.” Dover held his coffee cup in front of him as he spoke, and Rebekah noticed his manicured fingernails.

  Dacee June reached down and scooped Quintin’s buttered biscuit off the floor. She ga
ve it a quick glance, then popped it back into his eager hands. “Oh, it’s fine in the daytime. But at night we usually just sit up here on Forest Hill and watch. Even the sheriff doesn’t patrol past the dead line.”

  “My, it sounds like a difficult place to raise children,” Olene said.

  Todd refused to look across the table at Rebekah. Thanks, Olene. I do trust you’ll go back through Chicago and tell Rebekah’s father how dangerous Deadwood is. Perhaps Mr. Jacobson sent you here to chide us to move to Rapid City. Or did his daughter arrange this?

  “Actually . . .” Dacee June blurted out as she tried to wipe stewed tomatoes out of Fern’s ear, “all of Deadwood is safe for kids. Everyone in the whole town looks out for you. A kid can roam from China Town to Ingleside clear up to Central City and never worry about anything. It’s sort of like being adopted by the whole town.”

  “Dacee June is right about that,” Abigail added.

  Watson Dover wiped his mouth with the blue cotton napkin, then turned to Abigail Gordon. “Speaking of children, I thought perhaps you would bring young Amber to this luncheon.”

  Rebekah watched her response closely.

  Abigail cleared her throat. “If we have business to discuss, I thought this was not a place for her to attend.” It was the reply of a mother, not an actress.

  Dover tapped his fingers on the rim of his coffee cup and glanced down. “I do trust you have good baby-sitting.”

  “What kind of baby-sitting I have, or don’t have, does not concern you, Mr. Dover.” The controlled voice came out with such authority that everyone at the table froze in place.

  The attorney looked as if the opposition had just introduced new evidence. “Well, not me personally. It’s just that I wanted to bring some kind of report to Dr. Gordon.”

  When Abigail turned to the man next to her, her eyes flashed like a mama bear protecting her cub. “Dr. Gordon has not seen fit to contact his daughter or me for over three years. I doubt seriously if he cares who is her baby-sitter. Your presence here confirms that. If he is concerned about her, I expect he will come to visit her.”