Shadow of Legends

by Stephen A. Bly

  “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.

  “Dacee June, where’s Rebekah?” His voice was almost a shout.

  “She hasn’t come home,” she replied. “Are you mad at me, too?”

  “What do you mean, she hasn’t come home? Carty said the three ladies walked home nearly an hour ago.”

  Amber sat up and blinked her eyes at the light.

  “What other ladies?” Dacee June asked.

  “Abigail and her mother.” Todd paced the room.

  “I’ve waited and waited for them.”

  “You were supposed to wait for me at the church,” he brayed.

  “Well, I got to acting really stupid and marched home. But it’s OK, now,” she announced.

  He stopped in front of her and looked down. “What do you mean it’s OK?”

  “When we got here, Amber was sick and needed to go to the privy so I . . .”

  “My tummy hurts,” Amber mumbled in a barely audible voice.

  “Anyway, I went up on up the hill and talked to the Lord. And now I need to come back and apologize to Rebekah for being such a pill. So I’ve been waiting for her. I’m sorry I took off like that, Todd. Don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you,” he shouted.

  “Well,” she murmured, “it certainly sounds like you’re mad.”

  Todd paced the room again. “Dacee June, this is getting crazy. Quiet Jim’s been shot.”

  “What?” Dacee June flinched at the words so drastically that Amber clutched her arm and began to whimper.

  “I found him wounded along Lincoln Street.”

  Dacee June cuddled Amber. “How about Quintin and Fern?”

  “If they ever stop crying, they’ll be alright. They weren’t hurt.”

  “Is Quiet Jim . . . dead?”

  “No, the doc’s over at their house now. Columbia is beside herself, and the kids are all crying. I’ve got to get back and help. I need Rebekah to come with me,” he fumed.

  “Maybe she stopped by the Gem Theater.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps Abigail wanted to show them something. I don’t know, Todd . . . I don’t know anything . . . I wish Daddy were here.”

  “Well, he’s not here, Dacee June, and we’ve got to pull ­together.” The old man gone a week and the whole world falls apart. Lord, this isn’t good. “Lil’ Sis, I need you to help me out. Rebekah’s not here, and I’ve got to count on you to fill in for her. I don’t need a twelve-year-old sister; I need a twenty-year-old one.”

  “What do you want me to do? I can do it, Todd.”

  “You take Doc’s rig and drive over to Quiet Jim’s. Just barge in and take the kids off to one room and try to settle them down while Columbia and the doc look after Quiet Jim. I’ll be right over as soon as I find Rebekah.”

  “How about Amber?”

  “Take her with you.”

  “Would it be good if I brought all the children back here?”

  “If I haven’t shown up in a half hour, have Carty help you bring them all home.”

  “I won’t need any help.”

  “Dacee June, I don’t have time for a sixteen-year-old’s vanity. Do you understand?”

  “I know . . . I know you’re right. I’ll ask Carty,” she mumbled.

  “I’m going to backtrack Rebekah to the church. Maybe . . . maybe she stopped by to show them the store . . . or something.” He waved toward the entry. “Take the shotgun.”

  “I have my revolver.”

  “I said, take the shotgun. I’m tired of you not doing what I ask!” He could see Dacee June start to tear up again.

  “I’m sorry, Lil’ Sis. I didn’t mean to snap like that. I’m worried. I’m really worried. My wife and two other women are missing. Quiet Jim’s been shot . . . there are men roaming town looking to shoot me . . . I’m sorry.”

  Dacee June hugged her brother. Amber hugged his leg. “It’s like the tribulation in Revelation, isn’t it?”

  “There is a likeness.” He brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Maybe the Lord is coming back soon.”

  “That would be nice.” Dacee June pulled aw
ay and retrieved the shotgun near the front door. She led a startled Amber Gordon to the porch. “It’s OK, Todd. I mean, it’s OK to yell at me. I deserve it sometimes. I know I do. I’m trying to grow up. I really am.”

  Todd stepped out on the porch and gave her another hug. “Take care of yourself, Lil’ Sis. If two strangers come up to you, point that shotgun at their midsection and ask them what they want. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Do whatever you can to help Columbia.”

  “May the Lord have mercy on us, Todd Fortune,” Dacee June called out as she and Amber trotted out into the night.

  He watched her whip the team and spin them in the narrow road, then disappear down Williams Street. Have mercy on us . . . Todd glanced back at the house with the lantern still lit in the parlor. I ought to turn it off . . . Then he glanced at the house next door. Dacee June didn’t close Dad’s front door all the way . . . I ought to . . . He turned and looked down the steep stairs down to Wall Street. No, I’ve got to find my wife!

  Todd took the steps two at a time, swinging on the wooden handrail. “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me; for my soul trusteth in thee; yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.”

  He ran down Wall Street, all along Main past the Grand Central Hotel, Stebbins & Post Bank, and the hardware, then down Deadwood Street to the church. He turned on Sherman Street and sprinted back to the Gem Theater.

  Then he retraced the entire route, checking every hotel, café, and theater. Finally, he ran back up the Wall Street stairs to find Carty Toluca with a shotgun over his shoulder sitting on the front porch.

  “Did you find Mrs. Fortune?” he called out.

  “Not yet. She didn’t come home?” Todd pressed.

  “No, sir. Dacee June’s inside with the passel of children. I’m standin’ guard.”

  “Carty, you take Doc’s rig back to him at Quiet Jim’s, then hike back and check with anyone you meet in the street about Rebekah and the other ladies.”

  “You want me to leave the shotgun?”

  Todd took the shotgun from his hand and barged through the door. The parlor was empty. “Dacee June?”

  “We’re all upstairs, Todd!” a mature-sounding teenager called back.