Shadow of Legends (19 page)

“She did what?” Abigail turned to Mrs. O'Neill. “Mother?”

“Alright, so I taught her a few things besides hearts. She has natural rhythm and timing. Just like you, Dear.”

“And I have told you I didn't want her growing up to sing and dance.”

“Oh my, I hope we didn't start something,” Rebekah said.

“We will discuss this matter later,” Abigail lectured.

“I do believe Grandma's in trouble.” Mrs. O'Neill turned to Rebekah. “Do you have a spare guest room, Mrs. Fortune?”

“Mother!” Abigail huffed.

Mrs. Gordon waved weakly to Rebekah as they left the kitchen.

With the dishes done, Rebekah began hanging the tea towels to dry.
Lord, I really like Abigail. I believe she would make an excellent friend. Perhaps that is why you had me stay in Deadwood to this point. But I don't know anything about her commitment to You.

Abigail poked her head back into the kitchen. “We can't find Amber and Dacee June. Where did you say they were?”

“They aren't out in the social hall?”

“No.”

“Did you check the sanctuary?”

“They aren't there either.”

Rebekah hung her last towel and unfastened her full-length apron. She led Abigail back out into the church social hall. She glanced around at the few people left milling in the room full of benches and chairs. “They aren't out on the front step?”

“No, I'm sure we would have seen them,” Abigail reported as they approached Mrs. O'Neill.

“Carty?” Rebekah called out to the young man who was waving his arms and telling a story to two younger boys near the silent fireplace. “Have you see Dacee June and Amber?”

Carty removed his wide-brimmed hat and meandered toward them. “Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Fortune. Dacee June and Miss Amber walked home.”

“What do you mean?” Rebekah could barely control her voice. “I distinctly told her to wait for the rest of us!”

Carty Toluca hung his head. “Yes, Ma'am, you did.”

“Well . . . well . . .” Rebekah clenched her fists tight enough to turn them white. “Why didn't you walk with them?”

Carty rolled the brim of his hat and stared at his feet. “I started to, Mrs. Fortune, but she pulled a gun on me.”

Mrs. O'Neill's hand flew up to the top of her plum-colored straw hat. “She what?”

Mr. Toluca kept his chin buried in his chest, but peeked up like a scolded puppy. “She told me she'd shoot me if I tried to walk with them.”

“Oh, she and Carty play games like this, Mrs. O'Neill.” Rebekah waved her arms about as she tried to explain.

“My word, they play with guns?” Mrs. O'Neill gasped.

Abigail seized the moment. “It is the frontier, Mother. I did warn you.”

“Sometimes we use knives,” Carty added with a sly grin.

“He's teasing,” Rebekah insisted.

Carty pushed up his flannel shirtsleeve and flashed a two-inch scar. “Dacee June stabbed me once.”

“Carty . . .” Rebekah grabbed him by the tie and tugged him toward the door. “Would you please leave now?”

He glanced back at the stunned Mrs. O'Neill. “She stabbed me by accident. She was just mad because I punched her.”

“Carty!” Rebekah yanked the tie above the young man's head like a noose, then released him.

“That was years ago when we was just kids!” he called back as he staggered, then trotted out of the room.

“I'm afraid Dacee June's a little obstinate tonight,” Rebekah tried to explain.

Mrs. O'Neill let out a deep breath and color returned to her cheeks. “No need to apologize. I had a teenage daughter much the same myself.”

“Dacee June didn't exactly like being third in the queen contest,” Rebekah reported. “But don't worry about her. She's very careful with children. Besides, she knows her way around town better than anyone else in Deadwood.”

Rebekah walked with both ladies out to the porch of the church. Flickering lantern lights sprinkled the gulch.

“We'll walk up to your house for Amber.” Abigail adjusted her white felt hat and took her mother's arm. “After a big French supper, the climb will be good for us.”

“If you'd like to wait, Todd will be back soon and we can all go together.” Rebekah stared through the night up and down Sherman Street.
Todd . . . I wish you'd come back and deal with your sister. There are times when I really miss Daddy Brazos.
“In fact, I'll walk with you, now.” Rebekah called to a young man sulking in the shadows. “Carty? Could you tell Todd that we went on home?”

“Yes, Ma'am . . . do you need me to escort you?”

“I want you to stay here and give Todd the message.”

“You can count on me,” he called out from the darkness.

Why is it, Mr. Toluca, that your promise doesn't give me a great deal of assurance?

All three women were huffing by the time they hiked six blocks, then climbed the seventy-two steps up to Forest Hill. Rebekah could see a lamp lit in her parlor.
Dacee June deserves a spanking! Too big to paddle, and too young to act mature. It's a wonder any sixteen-year-old survives to adulthood.

She thrust open the door. “Dacee June? Amber's mother and grandmother are here.”

There was no answer.

Rebekah led them into the entry, then the parlor. “Dacee June?” At the foot of the stairs, she glanced up to a darkened second story. “Dacee June, are you upstairs?”
If she's pouting and hiding from me, I'll spank her backside no matter what her age.

“Maybe they walked up a different route and we passed them,” Abigail suggested.

“She must have been here; the lamp is lit. Oh, perhaps they had to go next door.” Rebekah turned to Mrs. O'Neill. “Dacee June and my father-in-law live next door. Daddy Brazos is gone hunting for a couple weeks. They probably went over there. I'll step over and fetch them. You ladies sit down and rest a minute. I'll be right back.”

Rebekah scampered out the door, down a dozen steps, over to the neighboring house and up the steps.
I have many more important things to worry about than to play hide-and-seek with you, young lady.

There were no lamps lit at Daddy Brazos's house. Rebekah stuck her head into the entry and called into the dark, “Dacee June?”
Lord, I'm getting peeved with this behavior.
“Dacee June, you come out, and you come out right now!”

A shirt-clad arm reached out of the shadowy entry, and a man's strong, grimy hand grabbed her arm. Rebekah's heart felt like it would explode. She was yanked into the darkened entry of the house, too terrified to talk, too stunned to pray.

A hand went over her mouth.

Her hands were yanked behind her back.

The front door slammed.

But she was not thrown to the floor.

Her clothes were not torn.

Finally, her spirit squeaked out a silent
Lord Jesus, no!
It was a pitiful prayer and she knew it.

Her eyes fought to adjust to the faint evening light that drifted into the house.

“Who did you get?” a man's deep voice demanded.

The other voice sounded higher, more tense. “I don't know, but it ain't the girl. This one was lookin' for the girl.”

Rebekah labored to extract her hands, but only succeeded in paining her shoulders.
They're looking for Dacee June? Everyone's looking for her.

The man who clutched her arms reeked of tobacco and whiskey. “Lady, I'm goin' to take my hand off your mouth and I don't want you to scream. Now, listen to me. I don't know who you are. I have no intention of hurting you, but if you scream, I swear I'll put a blue lump on your head with the barrel of my revolver. Now, nod your head up and down if you promise not to scream.”

Rebekah nodded.

He didn't loosen his grip on her arms, but he did ease his other hand off her mouth.

One time when Rebekah had been eleven, she was in front of her home in Chicago when a milk wagon ran over a puppy of hers called Little Mister. In panic, she screamed so loud her father had always teased that the Chicago-Milwaukee Railroad jumped its tracks.

But it was nothing compared to the scream she now let loose.

Immediately the man's dirty, greasy tasting hand was stuck into her open mouth. She bit into the first finger she could reach, tasted blood, then dropped to her knees.

The man cursed. “This she-devil done bit me!”

A revolver barrel crushed nothing but the straw of her hat, sending it flying into the darkness.

But then she was thrown face down on the hardwood floor. A knee buried itself in the small of her back. Rebekah thought her ribs were crushed. There was a cramp in her lungs. She couldn't catch her breath.
I'm going to die right here! I'll turn blue and die with a hideous expression on my face!

There was a knock on the front door. The man on her back eased his knee.

Rebekah sucked in a breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“This ain't workin' right,” one man whispered.

“Maybe it's the girl,” the other replied.

“Knocking at her own house?”

The knocking continued, this time followed by a tentative voice. “Rebekah? Rebekah, are you all right?”

Rebekah struggled forward on the floor where the knee was on the small of her back, not her lungs.
Abigail? No . . . no . . . go away!

The front door swung open and all Rebekah could see in the moonlight were the shoes of Abigail, her mother, and a man in tattered boots.

“Oh, my word!” Mrs. O'Neill gasped.

“Get in here,” he demanded, “or I'll use this gun.”

“Rebekah!” Abigail cried out.

The door slammed shut and a sulfur match flared. The candle on the entry table flickered to life. The shadows revealed two men in dusty trail clothes and wide-brimmed hats. One was tall and blond. The other short and dark bearded.

“This is the lady at the church kitchen,” the blond one muttered.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. O'Neill demanded. “You release that woman immediately!”

The barrel of a revolver was waved alongside the temple of Mrs. O'Neill. “I'll do what I want to do, Old Lady!” he growled.

The other man backed his knee off Rebekah and yanked her to her feet.

“Did they hurt you?” Abigail asked.

“Her? Look at this.” The blond man with the gun held up a bleeding finger. “She nearly bit my finger off!”

Abigail stepped toward Rebekah with a handkerchief she had pulled from her sleeve and wiped blood off her lip and chin.

“I'm OK . . . ,” Rebekah fought not to break down and start crying. “Once he got his knee out of my back.”

The blond-haired man grabbed the handkerchief from Abigail's hand and threw it on the floor. “Where's the girl?” he demanded.

“Amber? They want her? Dr. Gordon would stoop to this?” Abigail swung a clenched fist at the dark-haired man, but he caught her arm before it struck him.

“Who's Amber?” he demanded.

The other man yanked on Rebekah's arms. “How many girls does Brazos Fortune have?”

The pain was so severe, Rebekah struggled to form words. “Why are you doing this?” Rebekah was shocked at how hopeless and whiney her voice sounded.

“We've got a house full of women and none of them is the right one.” The dark-haired man with a full beard held Abigail's clenched fist in one hand, his revolver in the other. “This is Brazos Fortune's house, ain't it?”

“Yes, and as soon as he gets here you two stagecoach outlaws will be hung?” Rebekah managed to mumble.

“How did you know who we was, church lady?”

“Because Sheriff Bullock is looking for you.”

“The sheriff's down in the badlands on a wild-goose chase. Maybe we could take all three of them,” the dark-headed man proposed.

“We want one to be a Fortune or it won't work.”

The man holding Rebekah's arms loosed his grip a bit. “What are we going to do? Maybe we ought to just shoot them.”

Rebekah's knees buckled. The man's tight grip on her arms kept her from collapsing to the floor.

“We cain't shoot 'em. That would rile the whole town, no matter who they are. They'd call the troops out from Fort Meade and comb the hills. We want 'em to chase us, not catch us.”

“I don't understand,” Rebekah whimpered.

“You church ladies ain't supposed to know anything. Jist thank the Lord that we didn't put a bullet in all of your brains. Now, let's tie 'em up. Maybe it'll take them a while to discover 'em. That might be fear enough to send out a posse.”

A dirty bandanna was tied in Rebekah's mouth.
Fear enough for what?

Within minutes all three women were gagged and shoved to the floor of the entry hall, their hands tied behind them with a curtain sash.

Then the blond man blew out the candle and they left.

In the dark, Rebekah closed her eyes.
Lord, here I am, bound, hurting, and scared. But that's a lot better than I thought a few minutes ago. Daddy Brazos, these men are mad at you and plan to take it out on your family. And you aren't even here! Todd Fortune, I really, really need you right now. It's time for you to come home. Lord, protect us . . . oh, Lord God, deliver us all from evil.

Todd drove the borrowed rig recklessly up Shine Street. It was so steep that most of the residents of Forest Hill usually walked to and from their homes. He turned abruptly right at the corner. The right wheels of the carriage raised off the ground. He whipped the two horses on down the dirt path of Williams Street to the front door of the house. He knotted the reins to the hand brake, leaped off the rig, and sprinted up the steps to the front door.

Dacee June sat on the couch, a sleeping Amber Gordon stretched out beside her, head in her lap.