Beneath a Dakota Cross (26 page)

“I won't be of much help when the Sioux kill me.”

“Oh, you're very resourceful. I think you can pull it off. Besides, your daughter told me a whole posse rode out with you. It's a simple trade. You bring me the money. I let your girl go unharmed.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because you don't have any other choice.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Oh, you take all the time you need. Your daughter is bound and gagged. I promise you I won't lay a hand on her or go near her until you return. I won't touch her, I won't feed her, and I won't give her any water. Now you can see how quickly you need to work.”

Even if she's in the shade, that's not more than a couple of days.

“I'm not leavin' her here,” Brazos said.

“Sure you are. You're no different than me, Fortune. You left several men back in the canyon to do your fightin'. And I saw you leave a dyin' man down there by the river, just for the money you'd make sellin' this mule. And you'd leave your daughter to go find those gold coins. My only concern is whether you'll even come back for her.”

“I ain't exactly dead yet!” The deep voice of Big River Frank caused Brazos to spin around. Kabyo, only ten feet in front of him, kept his short rifle pointed at Fortune. Downhill to the left, Big River Frank leaned against a boulder about the size of a grizzly bear.

“You pull that trigger, cowboy, and this little Fortune girl loses her daddy,” Kabyo screamed.

Brazos glanced over at his own carbine lying on the rock soil about eight feet to his right. “Shoot him, Big River . . .”

“You're a dead man, Fortune,” Kabyo screamed.

Brazos perched on his toes, ready to leap for the Sharps. Big River suddenly took a couple steps towards Kabyo, then crumpled to his knees.

The outlaw spun around and fired at Big River Frank. At the same instance, Big River shot back.

Brazos dove for the Sharps.

Both the other men dropped to the dirt.

Fortune waited for Doc Kabyo to move.

He didn't.

Then Brazos sprinted toward Big River Frank. “Dacee June, I'm OK. I'll be right there, darlin'!” He slowly turned Big River over. The .44-caliber bullet had hit him high in the right shoulder. Brazos jammed his hand against the blood flow that pumped out across Big River's shirt.

“Partner, you stepped forward and took that bullet on purpose.”

Big River Frank didn't open his eyes. “Don't reckon I got enough blood for two wounds, do I?”

Tears flowed down Brazos's cheeks. He tried to rub them but only smeared bloody hands across his own face. “How'd you make it up this mountain?”

“By the grace of Jesus, Brazos. It ain't so steep back there against the mountain. I heard that first shot and figured you couldn't get along without me.”

“You're right. I can't. So hang on, Big River. I'll get you to town. It ain't endin' like this. No, sir. We still got too many good times to celebrate.”

“I reckon we do,” Big River mumbled. “But that will have to wait until we're together on the streets of glory! Did I kill him?”

“He's dead.”

“How's my Dacee June?”

“I haven't checked on her yet.”

“Go on.”

“I can't leave you.”

“Please . . . Brazos . . . I've got to know she's OK! It's important to me.”

“Big River, you promise you won't go dyin' on me?”

“I'll be here.”

Brazos stood up and brushed his bloody hands on his jeans, then stared down at Big River Frank.

“Don't let her see me like this,” Big River groaned.

“That bullet was meant for me, partner, and you know it.”

“Henry Fortune, I ain't never did much in my entire life that has any lastin' value. You know that. Well, I jist kept a little girl from becomin' an orphan . . . and an old man from losin' the light of his life. I figure that makes my life a success, don't you?”

Brazos tried to suck air and keep from sobbing. He watched Big River's chest stop heaving.

A night shower had settled the dust on Deadwood's Main Street and left the air clean.

“Did I tell you I've decided to name my first son Franklin?” Dacee June covered her eyes with the black ribbon that circled her straw hat.

“I don't believe you mentioned that.” Brazos tugged at his bow tie as he paced the boardwalk in front of the Grand Hotel. “Have you got the husband picked out yet?”

“Daddy!” Dacee June rolled her eyes and sighed. “I meant when I'm old . . . you know, around twenty.”

Brazos flopped down on the bench next to her. “Well, darlin', Franklin is a mighty fine name. I never had a better friend, nor known a braver man, than Big River Frank. And I probably never will again.” He could feel the tears swell in his eyes.

Dacee June brushed down her skirt and folded her hands in her lap. “It was a nice service, wasn't it?”

“Yep. Preacher Smith does a good job of presentin' the gospel. Big River would be proud of that roomful of people.”

She waved her hand up the street. “Look, here they come!”

A rough, unpainted wagon draped in black bunting rolled up the street. Quiet Jim was driving. Yapper Jim sat next to him. Behind the wagon, Grass Edwards rode his horse and led Coco and Big River's black gelding.

“I don't know why you can't bury him in Ingleside,” Dacee June quizzed. “Everyone could go over there.”

“That graveyard is beyond the barricades. It could be dangerous out there.”

“We haven't had a bit of Indian trouble since you all came back from Spearfish Canyon.”

“Besides, we wanted somethin' special for Big River,” Brazos tried to explain. “The graveyard at Ingleside can't be seen from Main Street.”

“But it's a difficult hike up to White Rocks, let alone to tote a coffin.”

“We'll pack him as far as we can. We surely won't go clean to the top . . . it's nothin' but rock up there.”

“I think I'll stay down here with Todd. Carty Toluca said he saw a bobcat near White Rocks yesterday.”

Brazos hugged her shoulders. “I told you that you could go if you wanted to.”

“Jamie Sue is supposed to come in on the stage. Do you think the stage will get through?”

“They said the army would escort one in from Cheyenne City. But don't be surprised if it's runnin' late. They're takin' it real cautious these days. I'll be home as soon as we're through.”

Brazos met the wagon, and Dacee June followed behind. “You boys ready for this?”

Grass Edwards handed Brazos the reins to Coco. “We're goin' to ruin our new suits climbin' this mountain with a casket.”

“I certainly hope so,” Yapper Jim blurted out.

“How come you have Big River's horse?” Dacee June asked.

“An empty saddle. It shows we lost a partner.”

“Are you really going to put that cross on his grave?”

“Yep.”

“Say good-bye to Big River for me, too,” she called. “He's my hero.”

“Ours, too, Dacee June,” Quiet Jim added.

Brazos turned in the saddle and looked back at the young girl in the long, black dress and saw, instead, a young woman. “I will, darlin'.”

“I love you, Daddy,” she shouted.

“I love you, too, Dacee June!”
Sarah Ruth, what am I going to do? I don't know anything about raisin' a teenage daughter. I reckon the boys will start hangin' around the place. I suppose I could just shoot 'em all.

Most of those in town had said their good-byes to Big River Frank at the service in the ballroom at the Grand Hotel. Many, though, came out to the slightly muddy street to watch the wagon and the horsemen ride by.

“We lost Hook last summer and Big River this summer. At this rate we'll all be gone in four more years,” Grass Edwards announced as he turned south at the fork up Whitewood Creek.

“Boy, that Edwards is a cheery lot,” Yapper Jim complained. “If we listened to him, we might as well dig five graves right now up on this mountain.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Quiet Jim suggested. “I don't mean actually dig the holes, but we might reserve the ground. I ain't got no place I'd rather be buried . . . you know, when my time comes.”

“I hear what you're sayin', partner,” Brazos called out. “But who knows where we'll be when we lay it down?”

“There are worse things than being buried by your friends,” Quiet Jim added.

“You reckon we'll all be right here next summer, Brazos?” Grass Edwards quizzed.

“Boys, by then this whole gulch might be a ghost town,” Brazos cautioned.

“Or an Indian encampment,” Yapper Jim added.

“Either way,” Brazos declared, “there won't be a single structure left standin'.”

“There'll be an iron cross up near White Rocks,” Quiet Jim reminded them.

By evening the four dirt-caked, sweaty men shuffled down off the mountain. A half-moon peered through a twilight sky after they cleaned up, changed clothes, and gathered at the back of the Fortune and Son Hardware & Mining Supplies store. The March sisters bustled around the long, makeshift table that had been propped on barrels near the far wall.

“You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble, girls,” Brazos insisted. He was dressed in old jeans, a leather vest, and even older boots. It was the first time he had been comfortable all day.

Thelma Speaker brushed sprigs of her blonde hair behind her dangling purple earrings. “We most certainly should have, isn't that right, Louise?”

“Yes, dear. We always fix a meal for the family after a funeral. And you four men and Dacee June are as close a family as Big River Frank could have.” Louise's dark brown bangs flopped down to her thick, dark eyebrows as she pried under an enameled tin roasting pan lid poised on top of the wood stove.

Thelma Speaker rearranged the cut flowers in a green glass vase perched in the center of the table. “Louise is right,” she added. “We must fix a funeral meal. Why, what would people think?”

Yapper Jim leaned against a barrel of black iron gate hinges. “What people?”

“Well . . . well . . . respectable people, that's who,” Thelma said. She continued to fuss over the flowers. “I can't do a thing with these lilies.”

“Actually, those are
Oenothera caespitosa
. . . tufted evening primroses,” Grass Edwards corrected her as he rocked back on his boot heels, his hands dangling awkwardly at his side.

Thelma scooted over and latched onto his arm. “Oh, Lawrence, would you mind arranging these for me? You are so good with flowers. I have just never met a man like you before,” she cooed.

The front door of the hardware store banged open and Dacee June announced, “Here she is. Here's our Jamie Sue. She made it, even if the stage was four hours late.”

A print carpetbag in each hand, a shawl over her shoulder, and a hat tied on with a blue ribbon around her chin, Jamie Sue Fortune burst through the doorway.

“Welcome back,” Brazos offered. “We were afraid no one could make it to town. Let me carry those up to your room.”

“Oh, no, please, Mr. Fortune, eh . . . I . . .”

“You got to do better than that. I'm either Brazos, or I'm Daddy,” he insisted.

Jamie Sue's wide, full-lipped smile lit up the shadowy room. “I think I like Daddy Brazos.”

“That's fine with me,” he said.

“But it might take a little gettin' used to,” she admitted.

“We'll all just call him Daddy Brazos,” Yapper Jim hooted. “Just to help you out.”

Jamie Sue stood open-mouthed, her eyes darting back and forth.

“Don't pay no mind to Yapper,” Quiet Jim added. “No one else ever does.”

“Well, no one is going upstairs for now,” Louise Driver protested. “This food will get cold if we don't eat it. I want everyone to sit down. Those who are late will just have to take what's left.”

“Yes,” Thelma added, as she untied her full-length, lavender flowered apron and hung it on a peg next to several pitchforks. “I've made name cards for each of you. I thought we should sit boy-girl-boy-girl.”

“I ain't been called a boy in thirty years,” Grass noted.

“Don't care where I sit,” Yapper Jim boomed, “jist so there's biscuits and gravy within reach.”

Everyone circled the large, food-filled table to discover their place. One chair remained empty. After Brazos blessed the food, he turned to Dacee June. “Help yourself to the black-eyed peas, li'l sis, then pass them to Quiet Jim.”

Dacee June wrinkled her nose. “Why do they call them peas? They look just like beans to me. Why don't they call them black-eyed beans?”

Brazos plopped a spoonful of black-eyes on her plate. “That's an intriguing question, but you still have to eat them.” He then scooped a large spoon of scalloped potatoes onto his own white china plate.

“I have an intriguing question for Jamie Sue,” Dacee June blurted out as she passed the vegetables to Quiet Jim and dug into the steaming bowl of scalloped potatoes.

Jamie Sue stopped buttering a biscuit. “What's that?”

“Are you goin' to have a baby now?” Dacee June stabbed a slice of ham as if it were about to attack her.

Jamie Sue blushed and dropped the biscuit in her plate. She carefully wiped her fingers on the white linen napkin. “Well . . . not . . . I mean . . . such things take time.”

The men guffawed, then continued to heap steaming food on their plates.

Dacee June smeared an ear of white corn with pale yellow butter. “But you've been married over a week. Besides, a baby would be company while Robert is away.”

“Looks like you got a little explainin' to do, Brazos,” Yapper Jim laughed as he dissected a long, skinny sweet potato.

“Actually, dear,” Louise Driver lectured, “as you undoubtedly know, there is a nine-month gestation period after conception takes place. So, assuming the marriage was consummated, as I suspect it was, it would still be completely undetectable for the first few weeks. Then the woman begins to . . . ”