A Claim of Her Own

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  She had more calico. Thousands of yards of it. All hideous as far as Swede was concerned, but it was cheap and she would take a chance. Miners and town dwellers alike could use it instead of paper to line walls, and it would help keep the wind, the dust, and the bugs at bay. In addition to the calico piled high against the six-foot sides of the wagons, Swede had bolts of wool shirting, bib overalls and hats, fur-lined boots, long johns, and more than one box of fine cigars. She was reluctant to haul liquor, but tobacco was another matter. Her one vice was enjoying her pipe, and while she knew many who frowned upon the use of tobacco, she did not think the good Lord would begrudge a hardworking woman a small indulgence. Of course it wasn’t exactly feminine, but then how would femininity benefit her? In the world in which she lived and breathed, to be feminine was to be weak and vulnerable to all kinds of evil.

  Hundred-pound sacks of flour lined the bottom of another wagon. Thanks to one Joseph Murphy of St. Louis, the man who’d designed freight wagons with seven-foot-high wheels, sixteen-foot beds, and strong axles, she could stockpile hundreds of pounds of flour before winter.

  Up front on the light wagon where Eva rode, five chickens squawked in a makeshift cage perched atop the barrels of goods lining the smaller wagon bed. The four hens and one rooster were for Aunt Lou, a thank-you for looking after Freddie while she was gone. The chickens had given her the idea about cats. If she could haul chickens, why not cats, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to have help controlling the mice and rats in Deadwood? She could not think why God would have created creatures whose sole aim in the world seemed to be the destruction of goods she worked so hard to acquire.

  Cats. How much would people pay for one? And would she be able to stand the yowling all the way to Deadwood? Or would they eventually settle down and endure the journey without complaint? These were questions Swede had planned to discuss with Red tonight, now that the other teamsters had turned in and it was only the two of them sitting by the fire. But Red’s reaction changed her mind.

  Swede looked away. She set the puppy down and fiddled with her pipe while Red played with Eva. And she decided she would wait to discuss the matter of cats with Tom English, a man with some ability to think beyond what everyone else had always done.

  Maybe Tom would want the dog.

  “Look at that,” Tallent said. He set Eva on the ground only to have her pull herself up and stand, wobbling as she clung to his knee. “Won’t be long and she’ll be walking.”

  Swede nodded. “Yah.” Only yesterday Eva had gripped the edge of her coffee box and pulled herself up on her sturdy little legs. Wobbling and bobbing her head, she’d screeched with joy and called out, “Mor-mor-mor” as she pumped her little legs up-down, up-down, up-down. It wouldn’t be long, Swede realized, and she would have to improvise some way to keep the little doll from tumbling out on her head. So many children were lost beneath the wheels of wagons. Swede did not think she would survive such a horrible thing happening to her Eva.

  Drawing on her pipe, Swede pondered the future. Perhaps Tom English could help her devise a way to keep Eva safe. And a way to haul cats. Red Tallent might think the idea cause for laughter, but he’d been a drifter all his life. He knew nothing of making a home. He’d never battled mice in his pantry, never had to fish a dead one out of a crock of sourdough starter, never had a wife to teach him a different view of life. She didn’t know if Tom English had ever made a home or battled mice in a pantry or had a wife, but for some reason she felt that he would understand. And even if he didn’t understand about rescuing starving puppies and hauling cats … he wouldn’t laugh at her.

  CHAPTER 8

  As ye would that men should do to you,

  do ye also to them likewise.

  Luke 6:31

  G-g-good morning,” Freddie said as he sat beside a roaring campfire clutching a blanket around him.

  Mattie stepped out of her tent onto ground that was white with snow. She looked up at the gray sky and two tiny pinpricks of cold bit her face as fresh snowflakes drifted down. “Oh, Freddie,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, “you’re half frozen. I’m glad you stayed that first night, but it’s been a couple of days now and I’m fine. You didn’t have to stay through a snowstorm!”

  “Well s-s-sure I did, Mattie,” Freddie said through his shivers. “I s-said I would.”

  The boy’s simple sincerity brought tears to her eyes. She’d never met anyone like Freddie Jannike. When he said he would do something, he did it, and whether it was difficult or whether it inconvenienced him just didn’t seem to matter. How ironic that of all the men in Deadwood who swaggered down the street flaunting their six-shooters and bragging about their finds and their conquests, simpleminded Freddie Jannike, the kid they ignored and made fun of, was more of a man than any of them. She patted his shoulder. “Well, come in and warm up.”

  Perched atop Mattie’s closed supply box, Freddie was soon not only warm, but hungry. Mattie made flapjacks atop the small camp stove. And then made another batch. And then another. “You must have a hollow leg,” she teased.

  “No,” Freddie said, holding up one leg. “But Mr. Tuttle at the hotel does. He showed me.”

  “What?”

  “He has a wooden leg and one time I was bringing in a deer I shot and Mr. Tuttle was sitting on the back stoop with his leg off and when he went to put it back on I saw it was hollow and he had some money hidden in it.” Freddie smiled. “It might be good to have a hollow leg.”

  “For money?”

  “Naw.” He shook his head. “I don’t need money. Mor takes care of that for me. And gold dust just makes people mean. Besides, gold weighs too much to hide it in a hollow leg.” He thought for a moment. “I know.” He smiled. “Candy. That’s what I’d keep in a hollow leg.”

  “What kind?”

  “All kinds.” He stood up abruptly. “I got to go now, Mattie, but thank you for breakfast.”

  “Thank you again for protecting me,” Mattie said. “I think you just might be my hero, Freddie Jannike.”

  He turned bright red. Ducking out of the tent, he headed up the gulch.

  Mattie called after him. “Aren’t you going back into town?”

  Freddie turned around. “Not until I check around,” he replied. “I’ll look for stepping in the snow. If there’s no stepping and Brady Sloan is shot then you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “Have you heard how Mr. Sloan is doing?” She was surprised at how often over the last couple of days she’d thought about that, alternately thinking she’d go into town herself and then talking herself out of it. After all, she’d acted in self-defense. But it still bothered her when she thought about Sloan’s suffering. She was glad Tom English had given her rock salt instead of something more lethal, and she wondered if she would ever actually be able to shoot anyone with her pocket pistol. Hopefully she would never have to find out. Hopefully the incident with Sloan would be sufficient to make whatever point needed to be made so that everyone left Matt the Miner alone.

  “Yesterday when he was working on the store, Aron said Mr. Sloan will be all right. It took the doctor a long time to get all the salt out of him but once he did and washed him up he felt a lot better. He still has that big hurt where the wadding hit him and he’s moving really slow but he’ll be all right.”

  Mattie nodded as Freddie turned to check for footprints. “Thank you again for staying up here until things settled down,” she said. Maybe she would give him whatever gold she found today as a way of saying thanks. And she’d tell him to get himself some candy.

  But then she found her first pea-sized nugget.

  I am going to be rich. It really is happening. Mattie didn’t know if her hands trembled from the cold or from the excitement of finally finding her first nugget. It snowed off and on for another day and night after Freddie went back into Deadwood, but Mattie remained resolute, panning for gold several hours a day in spite of the cold and rejoicing in the discovery of more nuggets. She
was finally seeing the possibilities of the claim.

  She imagined digging test holes down to the bedrock and wondered if Freddie would be willing to help. If her luck held she’d be able to pay him. Then Freddie could buy his own candy and contribute to Swede’s savings without combing the hills for game. She would discuss it with Swede first, as soon as the freighters got back into town at the end of June. In the meantime, she was thrilled with her success. But still, her angst over Dillon’s missing gold would not die.

  As she worked her claim, she remembered snippets of things Dillon had said in his letters. If only she’d kept them. But it was important for Jonas to believe Dillon was gone for good, so Mattie had paid the postmaster to keep her mail a secret, she’d never read Dillon’s letters at Jonas’s, and she’d destroyed each one as soon as she’d read it.

  The claim is giving us more than I ever dreamed, he’d written. If it keeps up we are going to be rich. Alone on her claim, Mattie began to wake up in the middle of the night, transitioning from a dream about gold into a memory or a question.

  What was it Brady Sloan had said? “I only wanted to borrow …” She could not put the suspicion to rest that Sloan had something to do with the disappearance of Dillon’s gold. She couldn’t let him get away with it. It was too bad Deadwood didn’t have a sheriff she could appeal to.

  What about Aron Gallagher? The night of the shooting, Gallagher had left her campfire on his way to talk to Sloan about his eternal soul. Maybe, Mattie thought, just maybe Sloan had confessed. And what if that confession included information about Dillon’s gold?

  It was time to head back into town.

  When Tom English said he could have Swede’s store finished in a matter of weeks, Mattie hadn’t believed him. But he’d done it. Swede’s once-empty lot now boasted a solid two-story building with merchandise displayed behind the windows and an Open sign hanging above the front door.

  Stepping inside, Mattie surveyed the unfinished interior. Tom, wearing a sturdy shopkeeper’s apron while he sanded a substantial counter, waved hello even as he spoke to the two men watching him. “Swede will be back by the end of the month, and we’ll have everything you need. And yes, we will meet the competition’s price. Be sure to come down for opening day. Aunt Lou is overseeing an outdoor pig roast.”

  “Free beer?” one of the men asked.

  Tom stopped sanding. “Now, you know what Swede thinks of strong drink. But we’ll have cold lemonade, and there has been talk of ice cream.”

  With a grumbling comment about teetotalers, the men nodded at Mattie and exited the store.

  “Well, if it isn’t Matt the Miner,” Tom said. Taking one last swipe at the counter, he laid the sandpaper down and ran his hand along the grain, nodding with satisfaction. He patted the smooth surface. “I’ve been hoping to get everything varnished before Swede gets back. And I just might make it.” He motioned around the huge space. “Think Swede will be pleased?”

  “She’ll be thrilled,” Mattie said. “It’s a fine store.”

  “Glad to see you survived the snow up in the wilderness.”

  “It wasn’t bad,” Mattie said. “The little stove in the tent does a good job of keeping things warm. Poor Freddie about froze out by the campfire, though.”

  “I heard.”

  “He seems to think it’s his sacred obligation to be my guard dog. I feel terrible about it. I didn’t even know it snowed until I opened the tent flap and there he was, shivering. I hope he doesn’t get sick.”

  “Freddie’s as healthy as a horse and none the worse for wear.”

  “Thank goodness.” Mattie opened the bag she’d carried into town and pulled out her wooden dust-catcher.

  English took the lid off and whistled low. “Someone had a good week on the claim.”

  “Can you tell me what it’s worth?”

  “Of course.” He paused. “But you can trust the bank, you know. They’ll weigh it before you deposit it and give you a receipt so you have proof of exactly how much you put in the safe.”

  Mattie shook her head. “I just need to learn how to estimate weight and value so I can keep my own accounting.” She pointed at the dust-catcher. “Those flakes are bigger than anything I’ve taken in at the store.”

  Crossing to the opposite side of the store, Tom emptied the gold onto one side of the scale sitting atop another counter and began to set weights on the empty pan. Presently he looked up, smiling. “Well, Miss O’Keefe, at seventeen dollars an ounce you’re looking at about forty-five dollars. Which is very good work for an inexperienced miner.”

  She couldn’t hide her disappointment.

  “Wages around here average a couple of dollars a day for everyone but skilled miners. So if you had a paying job, you’d be looking at maybe thirty dollars every couple of weeks. You’re way ahead mining. Assuming, of course, there’s more gold to be had on Mattie’s Claim.” He opened a drawer and pulled out the same soft leather drawstring bag she used when she worked in the store. “Even if you want to keep using Freddie’s dust-catcher, you should still have insurance in case the lid he carved comes off. You can put the whole thing in here.”

  “What do I owe you?” Mattie asked as she put the bag around her neck.

  “Another beautiful smile,” Tom said, pouring her gold back into the wooden dust-catcher and handing it over.

  Mattie tucked the leather bag inside her chemise before asking, “Is there any chance you’d know where Aron Gallagher is?”

  “I haven’t seen him this morning. He’s been staying pretty close to Doc Reeves’s recently. I think he’s hoping to reel in a lost lamb.”

  “Thievin’ varmint is more like it,” Mattie said. When Tom didn’t comment she continued, “I’m grateful I had that shotgun, by the way.”

  “Do you need more rock salt?”

  Mattie shook her head. “I doubt anyone’s going to try that again.”

  Tom smiled. “You’ve got a point there. But just the same—”

  A group of miners came in the front door. They were laughing and joking and cursing about something one of them had just said, but the minute they caught sight of Mattie all speech stopped. One of the younger ones nudged the one standing next to him and muttered something under his breath. “Ma’am,” they all said, and took off their hats and stood to one side of the door.

  Mattie nodded and, with a glance at Tom, left the store. She hesitated just outside the front door. Forty-five dollars. For hours and hours of backbreaking work. Once again, Dillon’s letters came to mind. As did the reminder of her nightly earnings in Abilene.

  She glanced up the street toward the Badlands. At a dollar a dance she could easily bring in several hundred dollars in three weeks. Of course she’d have to put up with being pawed and— No. With a little shiver, she put the thought out of her mind.

  She stepped into the street and headed for the Grand Central Hotel. Aunt Lou would be busy in the kitchen. Maybe she would want some help. Aron Gallagher would likely show up there before the end of the day, and with a belly full of Aunt Lou’s cooking, maybe he’d be more inclined to talk about Brady Sloan.

  A few days out of Sidney, the lone stranger who’d been traveling alongside the freighters invited himself to join the men sitting around Swede’s campfire. She’d noticed him before, but he’d spent his time around other campfires, and she was fine with that. There was something about him that made her uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with the hook that had at some point in the past replaced the man’s left hand. No, it was something else. Something less tangible. As she watched him, Swede realized the man never looked relaxed astride his fine bay gelding, but Swede didn’t think it had anything to do with his ability as a rider.

  The horse was spirited, but the stranger didn’t seem to have any particular trouble controlling him. Still, he rode leaning slightly forward, as if by doing so he could make them all go faster. Swede would not have been surprised if the stranger had simply kicked his horse to a gallop and disap
peared into the distance one day. That would have been foolish, but fools were not in short supply out here in the West.

  Today, as the bullwhackers all the way down the freight line shouted to their teams to stop for their midday break, the stranger dismounted and walked with Red toward Swede’s campfire.

  The closer Tallent got, the louder Eva babbled and the more energy she put into her latest little “up-down” routine while she grasped the edge of her cradle. As for the pup, he positioned himself between Swede’s wagon and the approaching men and began to bark. It was odd behavior. The pup had never barked at Tallent.

  “Shoosh,” Swede hollered, even as she bent down to swoop the pup into her arms. He lay quietly, except for a barely perceptible growl as he watched Tallent and the stranger head to the wagon. When Tallent picked Eva up, the stranger said something to Eva and chucked her under the chin. She smiled at him but leaned into Red in a sudden and uncharacteristic bout of shyness.

  When the puppy began to wriggle to be put down, Swede set him alongside Eva’s cradle in the wagon. Immediately he raised up on his haunches and, bracing his front paws against the wagon-box sides, barked again. It took more than a little scolding to settle him.

  Finally, Tallent introduced the stranger as Mr. James Saddler. Swede was obliged to invite him to share the midday meal around her campfire. It was her turn and she was not about to be openly rude to a man just because the puppy didn’t seem to like him and she didn’t like the way he sat a horse.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been caught unawares with the length of the journey,” Saddler said. “Mr. Tallent thought you’d be open to the idea of boarding me the rest of the way. I hope he’s right.”

  Swede shrugged. “Two dollars a day vould do it,” she said. It was more than they charged in town and she knew that, but this wasn’t town and she was hoping Saddler would turn her down. He didn’t, and so Swede determined to make the best of it, reminding herself that God was bringing some unexpected income her way, that she should be thankful, and that perhaps she was wrong about the stranger.