Dearest Dan
You cannot imagine the delight I felt when I received your short letter. What a thrill to hear from my dear old friend way out in the Wild West frontier. I have told my friends of your exploits and of the wonderful time we spent together as you practically raised me, and they are all eager to meet you. They think I am quite the frontier woman, although it has been several years since I rode a western trail.
As you can guess I am fitting in here quite well, and have made many friends, principal among them are my best, best friend from Ireland, Kathleen O’Neal, and, of course my dearest, wonderful Roger Farnsworth. He has just graduated law school and has set up his practice here in Winston-Salem. I help him with forms and depositions and we are quite close.
But you must come to visit! You must tell me in person about what happened and where we are with the villain, Monte Steep. That burning wagon seems so long ago, and so far away. But, I have not forgotten, as I hope you have forgotten the ramblings of a young girl at the train station who knew so little of life those many years ago. She has grown, and moved on, and is quite happy now, thanks to her many friends, and especially to wonderful Roger.
I did receive the money and I understand about it and my participation to get the silver mine. Thank you so very much! It is sad about the demise of CK. I know you cared deeply for her. Sally seems to have taken over nicely. Have you been with her? Are you with her now?
Please contact me when you will come to visit so I may make preparations. Again, it was such a delight to have contact from you! Until I soon see you, I remain affectionately,
Mandy
Dan stared at the page while a breeze wiggled its edges. He read the words again, slower. He searched through sentences looking for Mandy – his Mandy – and found little trace of her. She would be twenty or twenty-one, apparently quite the young lady with new friends and a new life. What a way for him to think. His Mandy? Why did he squint when he read the names of her friends? He had no business thinking the way he was. Mandy was her own woman now. He had no connection with her life.
Dan stood and mashed the cigarette under his boot heel. He replaced the letter in the envelope and tucked it away. He’d read it again later, and again, pleased that she’d written. His first reaction was to reject any notion of a visit. Then he realized he really wanted to see her. He had missed her company. He missed her. Even now, though he pushed such thoughts away. But he wanted his Mandy, the girl who carried her feelings open and left no doubt who she wanted – the angel, open in her innocence and shameless with her loving emotion. Other men might have taken advantage. He couldn’t. He had considered the offering of her love too precious, and undeserving for the likes of him, though she had been a girl too young to know what feelings meant.
A polished young lady who knew her own mind and had her own friends had written the words he read in the letter, and all she wanted from him was a visit. Why should she want more? The life they had together had been rough and wild and filled with violent killing and hate. No good memories about that. She needed to move on.
Dan stood by the creek looking down the hill. Maybe in spring, he’d take the train east. The stage shotgun job was done. Why was he dwelling on memories of that spindly young girl anyway?
And who the hell was Roger Farnsworth?
Chapter Nineteen
Winston-Salem, North Carolina with a population of just fewer than five thousand, built its train station southwest of the town. Tobacco plants pushed toward railroad tracks while the behemoth train screeched and squeaked on in. Dan Quint felt uncomfortable because he didn’t like train travel – didn’t much care for trains at all – or wagons and coaches. All he needed was a good horse, maybe a pack horse behind. He might cross the country on a good horse.
When the train hissed to a halt, he stepped onto the platform, wearing a dark blue wool suit with new black boots, a silk vest under the coat and a new, gray, broad-brimmed Plains Stetson. The Peacemaker was tucked into a new, black-leather holster below his right hip under the coat. His black hair just covered his neck. His face was clean-shaven except for the half-inch goatee – about as close to civilized as he might get.
The town smelled of growing tobacco and train-boiler coal smoke and steam. Well-dressed men and ladies stood on the platform – some greeted passengers, others looked for greeters. Talk went from squeals of delight to murmurs of affection as folks met each other. Just beyond the station, fancy buggies waited with shiny, fresh-brushed horses standing over equally shiny horse chips.
Dan didn’t see anyone who might look like Mandy Lee.
He set the black leather case down. The late morning hung overcast and cool. He felt some humidity, like Kansas in fall, only without the heat. He searched faces on the platform until a girl with bright-red hair held his gaze.
Dan kept the red hair in view. Long and curly, it surrounded a smooth, peach face of about twenty, looking around the platform. She stood with a black man in a white suit. He was shaved bald without a hat. Her deep-blue eyes looked away from Dan then back again. Her expression was quizzical. Not willowy, she looked slightly plumper than full bodied – as if she still had some baby fat, but as she moved it was clear she had blossomed and her bright yellow dress fit her well. Once the blue eyes locked on to Dan, they never left. She stepped toward him with the black man behind her.
‘Dan?’ she said in a lyrical voice. ‘Dan Quint? Sure’n and it has to be you.’ She gripped his hand in both hers. ‘I dunno, I expected buckskin or a coonskin cap. Sure’n you look, you look. . . .’
‘Almost civilized?’ Dan said.
‘Civilized, of course – except around the eyes. I am Kathleen O’Neal. This is Samuel. Take his bag, Samuel.’
Samuel picked up the case and carried it to a four-place open buggy. He put the case on the passenger seat and unlatched the back door.
Kathleen stepped in and pulled Dan to sit next to her. She stared at him as she wrapped her arm around his, her pretty face beaming in a wide grin. She had a trace of freckles across the bridge of her nose. ‘You’re here, you’re actually here.’ Her blue eyes danced around every part of his face. ‘God, sure’n you’re really here.’ She hugged his arm tight.
Samuel climbed behind the reins and the black stallion pulled the buggy away from the station.
Kathleen said, ‘Mandy has told us so much about you. I feel we are practically intimate.’
Dan raised his brow to her. ‘That so?’
Her speech had an Irish lilt to it, the same as a few drovers Dan had met who came to America and out west to make their way. Her voice carried a more pleasant ring. She held his arm tighter. ‘Yes, Dan Quint, really. God, you’re here next to me. I can feel you. I hardly believe it.’
‘How come Mandy ain’t here?’
‘Oh, she and Roger had a deposition to take. They’ll meet us later at the hotel.’
‘No school today?’
‘It’s Wednesday, we only had morning classes. Full schedule tomorrow.’ In a breathless voice, she said, ‘Did you actually shoot a bear of a man who had a shotgun after he attacked Mandy?’
Dan chuckled. Kathleen O’Neal was cuter than a chipmunk. ‘Yes’m. Even his name was Bear.’
‘Then it’s true. He was going to carry her off to his shack and make her his love slave. Sure’n her stories about you all must be true. And are you living with a whore now?’
‘No,’ Dan said.
‘But you have lived with whores.’
‘I have.’
‘How wicked.’ The buggy pulled to a stop. ‘Here we are,’ Kathleen said.
Samuel had stopped the buggy in front of a decent-looking establishment, Salem Hotel. Across the street a college campus showed a sign: Salem Female Academy. Two and three-story, white-painted buildings surrounded the college, as well as the hotel. The name change adding Winston must have come after both towns were built. He wondered why.
The reception was at five in the afternoon, peach punch and little, crustless sandwiche
s, snacks and slivers of white cake with pink frosting served by black waiters. The hall was the size of a mining-town saloon with walls painted a pale green – three, room-long, fluffy white tables, and two candle-chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Dan had cleaned up while Kathleen returned to her college dorm to change. He now waited in his same suit while girls fluttered in like bright butterflies around a candle flame, most barely beyond their twentieth year, looking and smelling good, chattering to him, introducing themselves with stares of wonder – and names he immediately forgot. They seemed to get some thrill out of touching him as they repeated events in his life for him to confirm. Mandy had told them just about everything.
Dan understood that a small dinner would be at eight with Kathleen and the mysterious Mandy, and with Roger of course.
Kathleen hung on his arm while he mostly verified stories the girls had heard. Her bodice showed more of her than many of the other girls dared. The ladies seemed most shocked by the corral gunfight in Bismarck, where Mandy had shot Tom Baily in the back.
Along about seven, Mandy and Roger arrived.
Mandy appeared popular as the girls flocked to her when she came in. Roger Farnsworth stood tall as Abe Lincoln who he must have admired. He held a stovepipe hat in both hands. He wore the same kind of dark, lawyer suit, and grew a wispy imitation beard. Long and lanky, in his mid-twenties, he had a receding hairline, bony hands and looked at the world over the top of reading spectacles. He ambled, carried himself loose, and obviously worshiped the young lady by his side.
The surprise for Dan was Mandy Lee. He looked for something familiar, a gesture or feature to reveal the spindly, blossoming girl he once knew. Still slender, she had filled slightly more, but not too much. Traces of the girl still showed around her green eyes, a bright emerald shine, but her face had tightened to a good-looking young woman without childhood features. She wore a bright-red dress with tight bodice and waist. Still angelic, she did not look familiar to Dan.
Dan started across the room toward her. She came to him, a path parting, both hands extended, a wide smile but her green eyes expectant, nervous. He intended to sweep her against him and hold her tight. When she reached him, she grabbed his hand in both hers and stopped half-a-step away.
‘Dan Quint,’ she said with a nervous smile. ‘How wonderful to see you again.’
He nodded. ‘Mandy.’
Roger slid quickly by her side.
Mandy said, ‘Dan, I’d like you to meet my very dear friend, Roger Farnsworth.’ She dropped her hands from his. She hugged the lawyer’s arm instead.
The young lawyer had a firm grip. ‘Much more than friend, I expect. We meet at last, Dan Quint. It would be a waste to say how much I’ve heard about you. You must know you’re admired by every young lady in the room.’ Intentional or not, he had excluded himself.
Kathleen hugged Dan’s arm as tight as Mandy did Roger’s. ‘Aren’t we a happy quartet? Let’s shoo these girls on out of here so we can have dinner.’ She kissed Dan on the cheek.
Mandy glared at her with a stone face. ‘Don’t be so obvious, Kathleen.’
Kathleen frowned. ‘What?’
‘Honestly, that dress.’
Kathleen stood stiff. ‘It doesn’t show much more than yours, just more to show. Be nice, Mandy.’
Mandy glanced at Dan, then Roger, then back to Kathleen. ‘Of course.’ She kept her hug around Roger’s arm but smiled at Dan. ‘How was the train trip here, Dan?’
Dan ignored the make-words question. He stared at her face with an angry squint that made her wilt slightly. He’d had enough of this shallow banter chatter. He wanted the room empty of giggling girls, colorful and fluttering as they were, only noisy. He and Mandy had serious events to discuss. It didn’t look like she wanted them to be alone.
He never should have come.
During a lobster dinner in a private alcove of the hotel restaurant with Riesling wine, Mandy had remained aloof, most of her talk aimed at Roger. It was as if Kathleen and Dan didn’t sit at the same table. After dessert, Mandy excused herself and Kathleen to freshen up. Roger Farnsworth asked their permission to fire up a cigar. The ladies reluctantly gave it before they left. The lawyer offered a cigar to Dan, who declined – he wanted to roll his own cigarette. He’d learned J.R. Reynolds had built a factory in town to produce ready-made cigarettes. He still wanted his makings. He reckoned this was neither the time nor place for smoking anything.
After Farnsworth lit his cigar and filled the alcove with smoke, he sipped his Riesling and cleared his throat, acting older than his young years, behaving as a man used to being in charge, or a man who would like to be in charge. ‘How long will you be with us, Dan?’
Dan sat back in his chair. ‘I leave day after tomorrow.’
His skinny, hawkish face stared, yet his expression was one of relief. ‘That soon? Mandy will be disappointed.’
‘I doubt it.’
He cleared his throat. ‘I want to thank you for the years you spent raising her.’
‘Why? You got nothing to do with them years.’
‘Of course. She is quite a remarkable young lady, with a wild, eventful background.’
‘Just the way events worked out. What you plan to do with her?’
He blinked with uncertainty. ‘Plan? Do? Why, she will be my wife. That should be obvious.’ He took a puff on the cigar. ‘I understand your concern, Quint. You see yourself as her guardian, as responsible for her personal safety – the father she no longer has.’ He leaned forward, his dark eyes slits, as if that expression intimidated others. ‘But, perhaps you see yourself as more to her, perhaps you’d like to be more.’
‘Perhaps you babble nonsense that ain’t none of your business,’ Dan said.
Roger sat back. The mood in the alcove had changed. ‘I have already drafted paperwork. You have no real claim to her. In three months, she will be of age, and she will need no further connection to you – distant friends, of course. I understand you . . . and a . . . whorehouse madam paid for her education. When we are married, I will see you compensated. Believe me, I can afford it.’
‘That so?’
The young lawyer blew smoke toward the ceiling. He rushed on to get everything out as if to make sure Dan fully understood. ‘Her future life is here with me, Quint. She will not be giving herself to some horse riding, cattle driving gunslinger out on the western plains with designs on her young mind and body, old enough to know better.’
‘That so?’
The young man beamed with confidence now. ‘The instant I saw you, I knew what you were after. She has the perfect mind for law. She will be an attorney with her own practice – an office next to mine. That is my plan. That is what I intend to do with her. She will share an office building during the day and my bed during the night.’
‘That is if she marries you.’
‘It is ordained, Dan Quint.’
‘Do your ordaining after I’m gone, lawyer boy. Mandy and me got things to talk about that don’t concern you. We got to be alone to do it.’
Roger Farnsworth relaxed with a smug expression. He took a puff from the cigar and sipped his wine with a conceit that showed he commanded the table. ‘I know about Monte Steep and the silver claim. She has told me everything – everything. I intend for us to take Steep down using the law. If he has swindled her out of her claim, there are legal ways for her to get revenge.’
‘If he swindled her?’ Dan sighed, not liking the news. ‘That ain’t gonna be enough.’
‘The legal way is the only way, Quint.’
‘That ain’t what I got in mind for Steep.’
‘I will not have my fiancée involved in killings.’
‘Then there ain’t no reason for me to be here. You tell your fiancée that. She don’t seem to care much anyway.’
‘You still influence her, Quint. I’m trying to wean her from that. Apparently, you are always her hero in a small way, though that has diminished over the last few years. I intend t
o be her future hero.’
‘That so?’
‘Yes, that is so. Perhaps you should enjoy yourself with Kathleen tonight. She is apparently smitten with you. She must be desperate with all her pent-up emotions. And you look just frontier enough to bring some wildness to her life.’
‘Nothing gonna happen with Kathleen. If I can get myself a ticket, I’ll be on a train west tomorrow.’
‘That is wise.’
Dan again felt uncomfortable. He hadn’t really belonged since his arrival. And like a few other places he’d visited and wanted to leave, he wished to be away. ‘The ladies will be back soon. I got to tell you, Farnsworth. When I come here I didn’t know how I felt about Mandy. I wasn’t sure the frontier life was for her no more. I see now it ain’t. Sure, I thought about her maybe paired with me. It mighta happened once, but it was wrong then. It’s wrong now for different reasons. One thing I do know, you ain’t the one for her, lawyer boy. There ain’t nothing in you to make her happy. I got no way of knowing how close you are to her. If I can, I’ll make sure you get no closer, and no intimacy starts or if it started, continues. You get what I’m saying, boy?’
‘You’re out of your depth, gunslinger.’
‘That so?’ Dan Quint said.
Chapter Twenty
At midnight, the knock came on Dan’s hotel room door. There had been no deep sleep for him, only snatches of dozing while visions of Mandy passed before him. He remembered the campground beside the Republican River in Kansas when she offered herself too young. He remembered the train station and her cruel words of hate to him. She might still feel the same.
When he opened the door, Mandy stood in front of him, wearing the same dress, her emerald eyes searching his face. She had been crying, and that squeezed his heart. He stepped aside silently and let her in. She sat in an armchair, her hands folded tightly on her lap. Her fingers started to quiver.
‘You have a chill?’ he asked. He pulled one of the blankets from the bed and draped it around her slim shoulders. It was when he touched her shoulders that she became familiar to him. The girl was still in there, his Mandy, his angel.
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