Beneath a Dakota Cross Page 14

  “Let the young lady tell the story,” Louise insisted.

  “Yes, you’re right.” Thelma folded her hands in her lap. “Go right ahead, dear.”

  “I sold some of Mamma’s jewelry and rode the stage to Dallas, then bought a train ticket to Kansas City,” she explained.

  “They let you ride on a train by yourself?” Brazos searched for a pleasant way to spit the coffee grounds out of his mouth.

  Dacee June rolled her round eyes, then stared at the lingering clouds. “I told them my daddy had died in Dakota Territory, and I was going north to bring the body home.”

  “You told them what?” Brazos coughed the grounds into his gloved hand, then brushed them into the mud at his feet.

  “Well, it worked.”

  Brazos snatched the coffeepot off the flames and poured himself another cup. “It was a lie.”

  “The Lord will forgive me. My heart was right,” she explained.

  “You can imagine how surprised we were to find Dacee June at the train depot in Kansas City,” Louise broke in.

  “Let Dacee June finish her story,” Thelma insisted.

  Dacee June took a small stick and poked at the flames. “When I got to Kansas there was Mrs. Speaker and Mrs. Driver at the depot.”

  “We were very glad to see her,” Louise interrupted. “There was this simply wretched banker from Baltimore who kept following Thelma all around the terminal!”

  “He wasn’t completely wretched …” Thelma mused.

  “But he was annoying.”

  “That’s true. And I rather pity his two valets who had to tote all that baggage,” Thelma added.

  Brazos felt his daughter’s thin, warm hand brush his arm. He yanked off his glove and slipped his fingers into hers. “Now, young lady, just exactly what did you tell the March sisters when they asked where you were going?”

  “I told them the truth.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mostly the truth,” Dacee June conceded. “I told them I had gotten a letter from you and that you were settled into the Black Hills and I was going up to be with you.”

  “Settled?”

  “Well, you said you wouldn’t be back to Texas until next summer. That sounds like you settled in to me.”

  “She has a point there, Brazos Fortune,” Louise lectured. “Heaven knows we didn’t have any intention of telling someone else how to run his family. But after all, Sarah Ruth was our very dear friend …”

  Thelma broke in at Louise’s first breath, “So we decided that a young lady shouldn’t have to travel alone …”

  “And since we had no immediate plans …”

  “We might as well take the stage with her to St. Joseph, and ride the steamboat up the river.” Thelma Speaker took a deep breath when she concluded.

  “I thought you would be in Fort Pierre,” Dacee June added.

  Louise Driver fiddled with the high lace collar on her heavy, dark dress. “We decided to just come up to Dakota, have a nice little ­supper with you and your daughter, then return downriver. It seemed like quite an adventure.”

  “Which it certainly has been. My goodness,” Thelma continued, “I never dreamed that there were fifty men for every woman in Fort Pierre.”

  “One hundred to one …” Louise corrected.

  “We certainly would have visited here sooner!” Thelma chuckled, then turned to Dacee June. “I was just kidding, dear.”

  “When I got to Fort Pierre and couldn’t find you,” Dacee June continued, “we thought we’d ride out and meet you coming in.”

  Brazos stretched out his long legs, to work off a cramp. “But what if I wasn’t on the trail?”

  “Then I just thought I’d join up with some others going to the Black Hills and surprise you,” she announced.

  “You certainly surprised me, all right. You just rented a buckboard and took off across the prairie?”

  “Heavens no!” Thelma gasped. “It’s much more complicated than that.”

  Louise reached over and patted her sister’s knee. “Now, dear, let Dacee June continue.”

  “Well, Daddy, I thought the March sisters were going back to Texas when we got to Fort Pierre, so I …”

  “So you bought a shotgun and camping gear.” Brazos tossed a couple more wet branches onto the fire.

  Dacee June dropped her chin to her chest. “You aren’t mad at me for trading away the jewelry, are you?”

  He reached over and hugged her. “At the moment, I’m extremely happy … but I reserve the right to give you a whippin’ after it all sinks in.”

  “Oh, my … I do trust you’ll be gentle with her!” Thelma gasped.

  “Daddy doesn’t ever whip me!” Dacee June grinned.

  “Well, this might be the first!” he warned.

  She hugged his neck, kissed him on the lips, then sat back down, wrinkling her nose. “He threatens a lot, but he’s pretty easy to see through. My mamma taught me that.”

  He waved an ungloved finger at her. “You still haven’t explained how you got out on the prairie.”

  “I asked at the livery stable if they rented rigs that go to the Black Hills.”

  “What did they say?” he quizzed.

  “They laughed and said no one could take a rig to the Black Hills, and they weren’t about to rent one to some fool kid.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Daddy!” Dacee June groaned.

  “Go on, then what happened?”

  “The lady I bought the bedroll and tent from knew of a group of men who were going into the hills and said I should talk to them about traveling with them. But by the time I found someone who knew them, they had already left. That’s when I ran across Mr. Jamison.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Luke John Jamison,” Dacee June said.

  “Who’s he?”

  “A scoundrel, that’s who he is!” Thelma retorted.

  “Now, dear, he did leave us the rig and the shotgun,” Louise reminded her.

  Brazos sat straight up, his hand reaching for his carbine. “He did what?”

  “Well,” Dacee June said, “Mr. Luke John Jamison, which is probably not his real name at all, overheard me ask about a carriage and said he would drive me out on the prairie to catch up with that party going to the Black Hills.”

  “For a price, no doubt,” Brazos mused.

  “Ten dollars,” she reported.

  “Ten dollars! Where did you get ten dollars?”

  “The ruby brooch,” Dacee June said.

  Brazos glanced over at the thoughtful-looking Louise Driver and a pensive Thelma Speaker. “That doesn’t account for the March sisters.”

  “When we heard that Dacee June was coming out on the prairie with some man, we decided to ride along,” Thelma explained. “We didn’t think it right for her to be alone.”

  Brazos gazed through the thick, white smoke drifting from the fire. “I owe you ladies thanks for looking after my girl.”

  “Actually,” Louise shrugged, “she sort of looked after us.”

  “What?”

  “First …” Dacee June said, “let me catch up. Mr. Jamison seemed happy that the March sisters were going along, and when Miss Milan heard that we were going, she insisted on coming too, because she’s looking for her brother.”

  “So this man Jamison had a wagonload of ladies for ten dollars apiece?” he probed.

  “Yes. We went north to the Cheyenne River to avoid the troops patrolling the main trail, so he said, and then turned south. He said we’d cut their trail that way, and if we didn’t, it meant we were ahead of them. Anyway, we pulled into an outcrop of rocks …”

  “About like this one,” Louise broke in.

  “ … late in the afternoon,” Dacee June continued.

  Thelma tried to brush her mostly blonde, curly hair out of her eyes. “And you’ll never guess who was waiting for us in the rocks.”

  “A gang of holdup men?” Brazos offered.

  “My, how did you
know?”

  “It’s an old trick,” Brazos said.

  “So they robbed us of all our valuables,” Dacee June reported.

  “Not exactly all our valuables!” Thelma raised her eyebrows. “A woman has a few places to hide most of her wealth.”

  “And some have more hiding places than others,” Louise chided.

  “Anyway, they took Mamma’s rings, Daddy.” Dacee began to sniffle.

  “It’s all right, darlin’,” Brazos comforted her. “They left you alone, right?”

  Dacee June nodded her head in his chest.

  “They took two gold eagles from me and the same from Thelma,” Louise reported. “But I think Miss Milan lost almost one hundred dollars.”

  “Then they told us to go back to Fort Pierre and be happy they robbed us, instead of the Sioux. Then they rode off.”

  “Which direction?” he asked.

  “To the west, I think,” Dacee June informed.

  “What about the Indians?”

  Dacee June stood and turned her back to the fire. “That was this morning,” she reported. “It was so late by the time they rode out of sight, we camped at some rocks for the night and slept under the buckboard.”

  “Some slept,” Louise reported. “I didn’t.”

  Dacee June waltzed around the fire as she talked. “Miss Milan knows a lot about horses, and she hitched the team the next morning and volunteered to drive us back.”

  “But it was extremely cold and raining this morning,” Thelma added, “and we were disoriented.”

  “So I said we should just keep on a straight course until we hit a river, then follow it downstream to the Missouri,” Dacee June explained.

  “Which we did. But by then it was raining hard so we stopped and built a fire.” Louise let the cape hood drop off her straight, black hair. “That’s when the Indians rode up.”

  “They wanted us to feed them,” Dacee June declared. “But we didn’t have anything to eat.”

  “They became quite indignant,” Louise added. “They said they would take us back to their camp peacefully or they would scalp us.”

  “But they were easy to read,” Dacee June replied. “They weren’t going to scalp us.”

  “I must honestly report that only Dacee June believed that,” Thelma declared.

  “Yes,” Louise bubbled, “then your dear Dacee June showed her true colors and saved us all.”

  “What did she do?” Brazos challenged.

  “She threatened to shoot us,” Thelma announced.

  “What?” he gasped.

  “She grabbed her shotgun and said if the Indians came any closer she would shoot Jamie Sue, Thelma, and myself,” Louise explained. “She was quite convincing.”

  “You were going to shoot them?”

  “I hoped I didn’t have to do it. Anyway, they took our horses and rode off mumbling about a bunch of crazy women.”

  “Is it true they leave crazy women alone?” Thelma asked.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Brazos countered.

  “Yes, quite right,” Louise nodded.

  “So we picked up our satchels and decided to hike back to Fort Pierre.”

  “But,” Louise continued, “when it started to snow we sought some protection in a shallow cave back in these rocks.”

  “And that’s when you came along!” Dacee June triumphed.

  “Except we thought it might be that rascal, Luke John Jamison,” Thelma said.

  “So, Jamie Sue clobbered the first rider?”

  Louise’s smile was wide and easy. “Precisely.”

  Brazos pulled off his hat and shook the melted snow out of his hair. “Well, the Lord’s been mighty good to you gals.”

  “Good?” Louise choked. “We’ve been robbed twice and left to die on the prairie!”

  “But you weren’t beaten, shot, stabbed, assaulted, raped, scalped, or killed,” he reminded them.

  “Yes, that does give it some perspective,” Thelma mused.

  Brazos and the ladies spent the next half hour rotating their position around the fire, drying out their clothing. Then Dacee June climbed the highest rock and shouted. “Here comes the buckboard.”

  “Are they both in it?” Brazos called.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That means one of ’em didn’t kill the other.”

  “They are sitting on the same seat,” Dacee June called out.

  Brazos hiked over to where she was perched. “That’s good.”

  “Close together.”

  “How close?” Thelma questioned.

  “Real close,” Dacee June exclaimed, jumping down from the rock into her father’s arms.

  That’s not good. Brazos’s mind flashed to Grass Edwards and his folded handbill written by his ‘sweet’ Jamie Sue. That’s not good at all.

  When the excitement of the reunion on the prairie finally subsided, it was determined since everyone was tired, cold, grouchy, and hungry, they would head back toward Fort Pierre and keep going no matter how late it was when they arrived.

  Because neither saddle horse enjoyed being under a harness, Robert volunteered to straddle the lead horse and keep him honest. Brazos drove the rig, Dacee June hovered at his side, Jamie Sue Milan next to her. In the middle seat, under every available blanket and bedroll, were the March sisters.

  The sky never cleared completely, but the scattered clouds sailed across without losing any precipitation. About dark, the sky cleared and the air cooled. Brazos drove on a northeast angle until they cut across the main trail east out of Fort Pierre. It was the route patrolled by the army, the one they all had avoided when they left town. But the troops were not about to halt people coming into Fort Pierre from the west, only those who tried to exit that way.

  The muddy road was frozen by the time they reached it. The wagon rolled along without nearly as much effort as earlier in the day. Sometime before midnight, Brazos stopped the buckboard in a rocky campsite, and they built a fire.

  Brazos, Dacee June, Robert, and Jamie Sue huddled around the billowing white smoke and blazing red flames.

  The March sisters refused to leave their wool blanket cocoon in the wagon.

  “The horses are mindin’ better now that we’re on the road to town. You better come back and crawl under some blankets so you don’t up and freeze,” Brazos cautioned his youngest son.

  “Yes,” Jamie Sue encouraged, “we have plenty of blankets.”

  “I don’t want to disturb the sisters,” Robert shrugged.

  “No,” Jamie Sue continued, “I mean in the front seat. We can make room for another, can’t we, Dacee June?”

  Dacee June leaned on her father’s shoulder, his arm around her. “Sure, but it will be kind of crowded,” she said.

  “That’s how we can warm up … sitting close like that.” Jamie Sue scooted over to Robert and flopped a corner of her blanket around his shoulders.

  Brazos sipped his coffee and studied the slightly embarrassed grin on young Fortune’s face, then glanced at Jamie Sue. She said something to Robert that Brazos couldn’t hear over the crackling of the campfire.

  That Jamie Sue is not exactly a shy girl. Robert’s always been hesitant around the women. Not like Samuel. He’s not even like Todd. Robert’s been too busy. There was studies, and training horses, and then the cavalry. I always figured him to marry some general’s daughter.

  She’s a cute girl. Black hair, brown eyes, full eyebrows, large, almost pouting lips. She’ll turn heads in any western town. In Deadwood, she’d be elected queen!

  But I don’t know anything about her.

  What’s her background? What’s her family like? Her brother is a scoundrel … what about her? Where’s her faith?

  The boys know what my standards are.

  And Robert’s the one who wouldn’t vary from those standards, no matter what.

  I think.

  She is awful cute.

  They make a handsome couple. With his discipline, her outgoing nature … he
could be Governor some day. The Honorable Robert S. Fortune, Governor of Dakota, and his lovely wife Jamie Sue.

  Talk about handsome grandchildren. If they looked like mamma and daddy, they’d be stunning.

  Of course, they could always turn out to look like their grandpa. Poor things. Lord, it might be better if they didn’t look like me.

  Brazos realized that he had been staring into an empty coffee cup.

  Sarah Ruth, look at me. I’ve only known this girl for a few hours, and I’m marrying them off already. I sound just like you. When Robert was six years old you had him paired up with that neighbor girl … what was her name? Natalie … or Naomi … or was it Odelia? You know, the one with bright red hair who punched Robert in the nose and made it bleed when he was too embarrassed to dance with her?

  I remember you said that some day, he would regret …

  Brazos set his coffee cup down and gave the dozing Dacee June another hug. He could feel tears flood the corners of his eyes.

  Lord, how I miss you Sarah Ruth.

  But I’ve got my girl back. I thought I might have lost her.

  For a while this morning, I thought I was losing everything.

  They arrived in Fort Pierre just before daylight and convinced the owner of the Wild Goose Cafe to open a little early for breakfast. The conversation around the table started lively as they repeated to each other the exploits and adventure of the previous day.

  Brazos gave them all a report from Deadwood City.

  By the time they had stuffed themselves on sausage, ham, biscuits, grits, bacon, eggs, coffee, hot chocolate, and dried figs, and allowed the heat of the cafe to warm their bones, the entire gang looked drowsy.

  A party of about a dozen men vacated their rooms at the Muddy River Hotel about daylight to take a small boat upstream. That allowed them to find two hotel rooms at 8:00 A.M. in a crowded town. Brazos, Robert, and Dacee June shared one room. The March sisters and Jamie Sue took the other.

  Lying three to a bed, with Dacee June in the middle, Brazos did not intend to sleep. He lay down on top of the comforter just to rest.

  The sun was low on the cold, western Dakota horizon, and Brazos was alone on the bed when he finally opened his eyes. He was surprised that his back did not ache. Nor did his legs cramp. Nor did his neck stiffen. Only his wrists throbbed a little.