Beneath a Dakota Cross

by Stephen A. Bly

  Brazos flushed and was thrilled to hear Milton’s baritone voice boom out, “I hear there’s a rebellion down in Cuba. That island always seems to be the center of turmoil. Have you ever been there, Brazos?”

  “No, but then I’ve never been to Florida, either.”

  “Don’t go to Florida. If the mosquitoes don’t carry you off, the alligators will! It’s a worthless land. One big swamp and a little sand. I don’t know how the Spanish ever suckered us into takin’ it off their hands. An ol’ boy from New York City came out here tryin’ to sell me a hundred acres of beach. Can you imagine the gall? Can’t farm sand, I told him. Can’t graze cows in the swamps. It will never be good for anything.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Pass Mamma the potatoes,” Barbara signaled. “I believe she’s still hungry.”

  “Granny Young hasn’t been full since ’59,” Milton roared.

  Everyone at the table laughed.

  Including Granny.

  Brazos hugged a teary-eyed Dacee June Fortune in her bed before daylight the next day and rode north towards Fort Worth. He hoped to make the nearly one-hundred-mile journey in one day. He’d have to push his dark sorrel geldings to reach town before dark.

  It felt warmer than April should be. He pulled off his coat before noon. The traffic on the road increased a little as he rode north out of Hill County. Most of the day he kept wide of the others on the trail.

  His Sharps carbine bouncing on his lap, he trotted north, his mind wandering from Wyoming to Waco.

  Lord, leavin’ Dacee June was the second hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I told her over and over ever’thing’s fine, but you and I know it truly could be the last time I ever see her.

  Where did this thing go wrong?

  It was supposed to be me and Sarah Ruth, some babies, and a nice little spread down on the Leon River. We weren’t goin’ to bother no one. Just work and love and go to church on Sundays. A simple life.

  Then came the war. A man had to choose.

  The war cost ever’one somethin’.

  It cost me the lives of two beautiful little girls who died of smallpox down on the border. Sarah Ruth lost the sparkle in her eyes in Brownsville. Too ashamed to come home, Sammy went on the owlhoot trail. It’s like we lost a son, too. We came back to squatters livin’ on our ranch. Neighbors who hated us. A bank that was set to ruin us.

  Then, Sarah Ruth came down with the cancer.

  Now Lord, I’m not sayin’ that it’s not fair. No, sir. Fairness is your business, and I probably couldn’t spot it if it stared me in the face.

  Sometimes I think I’m goin’ north just to speed up things.

  There are worse things than dyin’. Like losin’ my Sarah Ruth. And sayin’ good-bye to Dacee June.

  If a man is given a certain number of tough times, I think I used mine up already.

  Take care of my baby girl, Lord. She’s the reason I get up in the mornin’ and keep pushin’ myself.

  I’m gettin’ tired, Lord. Way too tired for a man of forty-nine.

  Big River Frank, Grass Edwards, and a extremely thin man introduced as Hooker Reed were waiting on the bench in front of the Ranger’s Roost Cottage when Brazos rode into Fort Worth. They spent half the night pouring coffee and poring over maps of the North. After selecting a route through the Llano Estacado and up to Denver, then on to Cheyenne City, they eyed the 40-by-120-mile stretch of western Dakota called the Black Hills. The entire area was marked “Sioux Indian Reservation.”

  “It don’t seem right to go in there, if the government says we can’t,” Big River mildly protested.

  Hook Reed jabbed his fingers at several places on the map. “They’re going in from Cheyenne, Sidney, from Fort Pierre and Fort Abe Lincoln. Trust me, boys, the government don’t care. Shoot, it was Custer who went in there and brought out the report of gold. He ain’t goin’ to come kick us out. I say if we don’t get in there by Christmas, there won’t be any claims left. I was too late to the Comstock, too late to Alder’s Gulch, and too late to the Salmon River. I ain’t goin’ to miss this one.”

  “I heard they might open it up by this summer. Could be that question is solved by the time we get there,” Grass Edwards added.

  Big River Frank rubbed his freshly shaven, pointed chin. “What do you think, Brazos?”

  Brazos tugged off his gold-framed spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Boys, somewhere up there is a place the Lord has for me. I’m goin’ north to find it. Might be Wyoming. Might be Montana. Might be the Black Hills. I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “Brazos got a sign from the Lord,” Big River reported.

  “What kind of sign?” Grass Edwards asked.

  Brazos stared across the room. “I don’t want to sound fanatical, but I had this dream about a big cross and …”

  “A cross?” Hook Reed shouted. “You’re lookin’ for a cross? Look here!” He unrolled a crude map etched out on buckskin. “This gold claim is beneath a Dakota cross! Right out on the bluff above the creek this old boy drew a cross. Do you see that!”

  Brazos studied the map. “That’s not exactly what I envisioned. Some gulch on Indian Reserve Land isn’t ranch country.”

  “But it is a cross!” Hook insisted.

  “Might be a good place to start lookin’,” Big River offered.

  “I suppose headin’ for one destination is better than havin’ none at all,” Fortune admitted.

  Brazos had never been in two barns that were exactly the same.

  But every barn had the same smell.

  Leather.

  Hay.

  Sweaty horseflesh.

  Manure.

  For him it was the smell of home. It was still mostly dark when he led his packhorse, Mud, out of the livery stable and tied him to a corner of the corral. Coco, the other dark sorrel gelding, pranced at the touch of the saddle blanket on his back. He snorted when the cold bit was slipped into his mouth and tugged back at the feel of the girth yanked tight.

  With the morning drift from the north a little chilly, the blanket-lined coat felt comfortable. As Brazos waited for the other three to saddle, he pulled off his dark brown, wide-brimmed hat and ran his fingers through his clean hair that looked increasingly gray.

  Well, I’m ridin’ out of Texas, Daddy … and I hope you understand why I just couldn’t stay. For you it was the promised land, but the Lord’s promised me something else.

  He untied Mud’s lead rope, then swung up in the saddle on Coco. He pulled his carbine out of the scabbard and laid it across his lap, just as Big River Frank rode out of the barn. “Well, Brazos, are you ready for a long trip north?”

  “Are you Brazos Fortune?” It was a high-pitched, nervous voice.

  Brazos turned back towards the street. He spotted a medium-built man in a custom wool suit, vest, tie, crisp bowler hat, and a silver badge pinned to his pocket.

  “I presume you ain’t been in Texas too long,” Big River called out. “You pronounce his name Braa-zis … just like the river.”

  The well-dressed man ignored Big River Frank. “I’m from Illinois and unfamiliar with Texas rivers, but that don’t matter. I asked you a question. Are you Brazos Fortune from Coryell County?”

  “I reckon that’s me. What can I do for you, Deputy Constable?”

  As the policeman watched Grass Edwards and Hook Reed ride up alongside Big River Frank, four guns became visible.

  “Eh, well …” He pulled a paper out of his vest pocket. “I have a telegram here from the sheriff of Coryell County saying I should detain Mr. Brazos Fortune in Fort Worth, pending his arrival.”

  “What on earth for?” Brazos asked.

  “It mentions failure to pay some sort of loyalty tax.”

  Brazos took a deep breath, then stared up to a mostly clear, breaking daylight sky. He rode his horse forward past the lawman, and the other three swung in beside him.

  “Where do you think you’re goin’?” the deputy consta
ble shouted.

  “We’re leavin’ Texas,” Brazos called back.

  “You can’t! You have to wait for the sheriff of Coryell County!”

  Brazos stopped and turned in the saddle to face the man who now had a .32 caliber revolver in his hand, pointed down at the dirt. “I have strict instructions to keep you in town and to impound your saddle, horse, and gear, including that Sharps. They will sell them at auction to repay the back taxes.”

  Brazos rubbed his hand across his mouth, glanced over at Big River Frank, then back at the constable. “Son, I appreciate your enthusiasm. I’m a law-abidin’ man myself. As Big River can testify, the folks down in Coryell County ran off my cattle, burnt my barn, and illegally appropriated my ranch. This horse and this gear and this gun is about all I have left in the world. I’m not givin’ them up to you. I’m not givin’ them up to any man.” The carbine across his lap pointed in the general direction of the deputy constable. Brazos cocked the hammer with his thumb.

  The deputy took a couple steps back, but left his own gun in hand, hanging at his side.

  “You cain’t leave town! You’re a wanted man!”

  “Son, I don’t know if you’re goin’ to lift that gun and pull that trigger or not. If you are, hurry up and do it. But I guarantee that when that gun gets pointed at me, I’m goin’ to pull this trigger.”

  “Are you threatenin’ me?” he screamed.

  “No, sir. I’m just trying to avoid either of us gettin’ hurt. Do you think this horse and saddle are worth either of us gettin’ shot?”

  “Eh, no … I reckon I don’t.”

  “Good,” Brazos said. “Now, we’re goin’ to ride out of town. Why don’t you go have a cup of coffee to settle down those shakes of yours?”

  All four men and the packhorse rode past the constable, who now trotted down the dirt road beside them.

  “But … but … what will I tell the sheriff of Coryell County?” he cried out.

  “Tell him you chased me out of Texas and threatened to arrest me if I ever set foot in Fort Worth again.”

  The deputy stopped his jogging. “Yeah … that’s right … I did, didn’t I? And don’t you come back to Fort Worth again!” he shouted.

  A slight grin broke across Brazos’s face as he eased the hammer down on the carbine and kicked his spurs into Coco’s flanks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Near Lightning Creek, southern Black Hills, Dakota Territory, August 2, 1875

  “Wake up, Brazos, I think I’m in love!” The voice rolled across camp like a gravelly serenade.

  If it had been May or June, Brazos Fortune would have grabbed his Sharps carbine and yanked back the hammer before investigating the shout. Reaching the Black Hills unscathed, the quartet had been confident of rapid riches. In those early days, a big gold strike was just around the corner, untold wealth only hours away, and every disturbance a signal of a possible intruder, a thief … or both.

  But now such enthusiasm was buried somewhere in the muck and the mud of western Dakota Territory.

  Brazos slowly pulled himself out of his damp bed. For sixty-seven straight days he had risen to the sound of rain dripping from the roof of the dirty canvas tent onto his damp, mildewed bedroll.

  On this day, it finally stopped raining.

  It snowed.

  Brazos briefly thought about combing his hair, then jammed his mud-caked-brown felt hat down on his head. His hair felt dirty and greasy. “You find yourself a woman, Grass?” The words broke out of his mouth like thin ice cracking underfoot after a light freeze.

  “Not yet, but I got evidences,” Edwards shouted back.

  “Evidences of a woman?” Brazos contemplated an image of a blue silk dress … a sweet, shy smile … and a sailboat ride on Galveston Bay.

  “Yep. I’ve got evidence here in my hand. I’ll build up the fire. You come on out, and I’ll show ya the proof!”

  The peace of the east Texas portrait faded from Brazos Fortune’s mind. Sarah Ruth, you always were one handsome woman!

  With narrow, blue-gray eyes creased by nearly fifty years of outdoor work and worry, Brazos peered out at the snow-covered ground west of the creek. Their tents were pitched at the base of the rimrock on the west side of the gulch. Even though the sun was blocked by East Mountain, daylight had broken, and an inch of fresh, clean snow radiated light from the unseen sun. Still sleeping in the tent was a gaunt, black-bearded Hook Reed, his filthy, gray wool blanket pulled up to his chin. His eyes were so sunken, his cheeks so caved in, that he looked more like a corpse than a prospector.

  Brazos squeezed his own right wrist with calloused fingers, trying to wrench the tightness out of his joints, then rubbed his beard away from narrow, chapped lips. Darlin’, I’m sure you got better things to do up there than torment my mind. Now, you run along and tell Veronica and Patricia “good mornin’” for me.

  In the neighboring canvas tent, Brazos heard the erratic gasps and snores of Big River Frank. The cascade of a little stream, bouncing through sluice boxes and over granite riffles, bubbled in the background. Across camp he heard the crunch of Grass Edwards’s boot heels in the snow. Brazos pulled his own boots out from under the India rubber sheet that had almost kept them dry during the night. He sorted through a brown leather satchel and yanked out a pair of worn, slightly dirty socks, then sat on his bedroll and began to pull them on.

  Now, Lord, I ain’t arguin’ with you. I followed your leadin’ out of Texas to a place I didn’t know. And I’m livin’ in a tent in this promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. I haven’t found my cross … I haven’t found my ranch … we haven’t even found Hook’s Dakota cross. We’re strugglin’ just to survive day by day. If we would discover a little more color in the stream, we’d be rich enough to leave. This isn’t exactly somethin’ to write home about, let alone move your family to.

  A sharp pain shot through Fortune’s lower back. He stood and stretched just outside the tent flap. As usual, both his knees locked up stiff. It would take a half-mile of walking before they limbered up. He gingerly stooped back into the tent and plucked up his Sharps carbine, then hobbled over to the fire.

  Both men had floppy beaver felt hats pulled down tight on unwashed hair. Edwards’s long, full mustache drooped down past his chin and made him look permanently depressed. He was two inches shorter than Fortune and toted a Colt .44, hung by a wire loop to his leather belt. His hat forced his ears out, which widened his face and narrowed his round brown eyes.

  Brazos tugged the coffeepot off the hook and plopped it down on the flames of the fire. “Now, what’s this deluded shoutin’ about being in love? Have you been isolated so long you’re starting to believe your dreams? None of us has seen a woman in three months.”

  “One hundred and six days, unless that includes the Chief’s wife, but she was covered up by a blanket and don’t count,” Grass informed. “Now, look at this!” He shoved a folded beige sheet of stiff paper into Fortune’s hand. “What do you think?”

  “A letter?”

  “A notice,” Edwards said.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Down at the post office tree.”

  “You’re supposed to leave those notices posted,” Brazos reminded him.

  “I ain’t sharin’ her with no one else,” Grass insisted. “And the only reason I’m tellin’ you is because you’re a widower and still consumed with your Sarah Ruth.”

  “You’re beginnin’ to sound desperate, partner. I hope the chief doesn’t bring his wife through here again.” Brazos handed the notice back to Grass Edwards. “I don’t have my specs on, so read it to me.”

  “You can see that fancy writin’, can’t you?”

  “The penmanship is quite impressive.” Brazos rolled a stump over to the flames and plopped down to stretch out his legs and massage his knees.

  Grass cleared his throat, then hooked his left thumb into the pocket of his tattered leather coat. “Listen to this.”

  My dearest
friends,

  If you know the whereabouts of my brother, Vince Milan, please inform him that his baby sister is waiting in Cheyenne with a surprise for him.

  With much sincere affection and gratitude,

  Jamie Sue Milan

  A wide, easy smile broke across Brazos’s bearded face. “You fell in love with a notice like that?”

  Edwards stared at the handbill and sighed, “I’ve fallen in love with Jamie Sue.”

  “I believe you fell for her handwriting.” Brazos tugged suspenders off his shoulders, then leaned over to rub rough and dirty fingers above the campfire’s flame. “Maybe she can’t write and had the man at the train station pen that note.”

  “Don’t talk about my Jamie Sue like that,” Edwards snapped. “I just know she’s well educated, slim, and has long, curly yellow hair … and freckles.”

  “Where in that handbill does it say all that?”

  “I’m readin’ between the lines,” Edwards insisted.

  Brazos felt his stiff denim trousers begin to warm. “How do you know she’s not sixty years old and fat?”

  Grass Edwards leaned forward, elbow on his knee, chin on his palm. “After one hundred and six days, sixty and fat don’t sound all that bad,” he grinned. “Anyway, I’m keepin’ this notice, and next time we’re in Cheyenne, I’m lookin’ up my Jamie Sue. The rest of you might want to live like hermits the rest of your lives, but I’m the marryin’ type.”

  “You waited a long time to decide that,” Brazos teased.

  “How old were you when you married Sarah Ruth?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “See, that proves it. Ever’body knows I’m twice the man you are, so I should wait until I’m forty-four.”

  “Well, you’d better hurry. That leaves you less than a year.”

  “I reckon I’ll wait until the next time I’m in Cheyenne.”

  “You figure Jamie Sue’s the one?”

  “It’s destiny.”

  “What were you doin’ down at the message tree, anyway?”

  “Lookin’ for dry wood.”

  “Did you see either of the Jims stirring around?” Brazos probed.