A Claim of Her Own

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  “Thank you,” Saddler said.

  “Tak oo,” Eva echoed, and everyone laughed.

  After the meal everyone headed back up the line to get things moving again, and Saddler went after his horse. Swede watched him remove the hobbles and climb aboard. He was an elegant man with impeccable manners and plenty of money. And she did not like him one bit.

  CHAPTER 9

  Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart

  all My words which I will speak to you, and listen closely.

  And … speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not,

  ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ ”

  Ezekiel 3:10–11

  Mattie didn’t have to wait for Aron Gallagher to show up at Aunt Lou’s. As she made her way along the side of the hotel toward the back door, she caught a glimpse of him through a screened window. He was spreading jelly on a biscuit while Aunt Lou talked.

  “Now, don’t you think that way,” the old woman was saying. “Some of the hearts in this place are so stony, why, I doubt they’d listen if the Lord Jesus himself climbed up on that box to preach.”

  “I know you’re right,” Gallagher said, “but I still can’t help thinking—” He paused in midsentence and turned around, following Aunt Lou’s gaze to where Mattie stood on the back stoop, feeling more than a little like an eavesdropper.

  “How’s them biscuits bakin’?” Aunt Lou called, and waved her inside.

  Mattie nodded at Gallagher, who had jumped to his feet the instant she stepped into the kitchen. She untied her bonnet and hung it on one of the hooks inside the back door as she talked. “All right, I guess. The McKays are about to eat me out of tent and flour sack. If that’s any indication, you taught me well.” She motioned for Gallagher to sit back down. “Actually, I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to ask you something.”

  Aunt Lou plopped a mug of coffee on the table. “Set yourself down, honey.”

  Mattie hesitated. “Only if I can help you with something while I sit.”

  Aunt Lou handed her a bowl of garden peas. “Didn’t think they’d grow, but they did. You can shell ’em while you and the reverend talk.”

  “Please, Aunt Lou. You know I’m not ordained.” Once again, Gallagher honestly seemed embarrassed by the title.

  “Well, of course you’re ordained,” Aunt Lou insisted. “Ordained by God, and that oughta be good enough for any man.”

  Gallagher shook his head and smiled at Mattie. “You’d think I’d have learned by now that it’s no use arguing with Aunt Lou.” He reached for his own cup of coffee. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Mattie nodded. “About Brady Sloan.”

  “It’ll be a while before he’s completely healed, but he’ll be able to work again in a few days. It’s good of you to ask after him.”

  “I’m not asking after him,” Mattie said. “I’m asking about him. Has he confessed to what he was doing at my claim the other night? I’ve come to believe that he didn’t know I was there that night. All that means, though, is he wasn’t attacking a defenseless woman, which is little comfort. If you know what he was really up to, I’d appreciate—”

  Gallagher’s blue-gray eyes twinkled. He was grinning.

  “Have I said something amusing?”

  “I think so.” He pointed at her. “Defenseless woman? You?”

  “Of course I’m not defenseless,” Mattie retorted. “I didn’t say I was defenseless. I said Sloan might have thought of me that way. Assuming he was after me—which I don’t think he was. But that begs the question—what, exactly, was he after in my tent?” She paused. “He must know something about my brother’s gold. And I’d like to know what it is.” She met Gallagher’s gaze. “Will you ask him about it? For me?”

  She hadn’t spent years smoothing ruffled feathers and convincing men to gamble more for nothing. She knew exactly how to look at a man to entice him into doing what she wanted, and she used it on Aron Gallagher. Full strength.

  Gallagher leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his chin. Tugged on one earlobe. Cleared his throat. “An honest man doesn’t talk behind people’s backs, Miss O’Keefe. If you have questions for Brady Sloan, you need to be the one asking them.” He stood up slowly, stretching as if the conversation were over and he was contemplating a nap. He reached for his hat and set it on his head, tugging on the brim until it came down over his gray eyes. No, blue. His eyes were blue. She couldn’t decide. It didn’t matter. Get ahold of yourself. You’re letting him get away.

  “What kind of preacher just walks away when a lady asks for help?”

  “Well, I guess by the way you said that, the right answer would be a worthless one.” He smiled again. Shrugged. Nodded at Aunt Lou. “See, Aunt Lou? Just what I was saying when Miss O’Keefe here came knocking. I’m worthless as a preacher.”

  Aunt Lou crossed the kitchen and, placing both her palms on Gallagher’s shoulders, looked up into his eyes. “Don’t you be calling yourself worthless, young man. I won’t stand for it.” She patted his broad chest. “You got the heart of a man who loves God. You remain faithful and He will do mighty things. You think that little shepherd boy named David could figure how God was gonna get him outta that field and onto a throne?”

  Gallagher bent down and kissed Aunt Lou on the cheek. “I’d like to think my mother was like you, Aunt Lou.”

  A flustered Aunt Lou slapped Gallagher on the shoulder. “Now, you go on,” she said. “It’s Sunday and God expects a good word for His side of the street today.” She shooed him toward the door. “I’ll keep you a piece of my chess pie for later.”

  At the door, Gallagher turned back to Mattie. “I won’t interrogate Brady for you, but I will walk you down to Doc Reeves’s office if you want to talk to him yourself.”

  Mattie and the preacher were not twenty feet from Dr. Reeves’s small building when the air filled with curses and a barrel-shaped man across the way threw a pile of rags into the middle of the street. As it turned out, the rags were attached to a human. When the human lifted his mud-caked face and stared back at the building he’d just been dragged out of, Mattie couldn’t help but wonder how anything that underfed and filthy could have done something so heinous as to get tossed out of a saloon as pathetic as the one called the Cricket.

  The raggedy man blinked his eyes a few times and looked around. Most people in the street were simply walking around him as if they encountered such events often. Which, Mattie supposed, was not far from the truth. But suddenly the man in the street called to Gallagher.

  “Aronnnnnn …” He swore an apology. “I shouldn’ta gone in there… .” He hiccuped, then tried to get up, but was clearly too drunk to manage.

  “Oh, Brady.” Gallagher almost whispered the name, but the tone of sadness and disappointment was undeniable. “Excuse me,” he said to Mattie. Touching the brim of his hat by way of taking leave, he headed over and hauled the drunk up to help him out of the street. The effort was in vain. Sloan was too drunk to even stumble along beside him.

  When he fell forward onto all fours and vomited, then fell face first into it, Mattie backed away. Gallagher, on the other hand, knelt beside the drunken sot and, pulling a kerchief out of his own pocket, wiped the man’s face. Grabbing Sloan’s arms, he lifted him into a sitting position, then crouched down and hefted him over his shoulder. He glanced over at Mattie. “I’ll take him back to the doc’s,” he said, “but I don’t imagine he’ll be fit to talk to anyone until sometime tomorrow. Maybe even the next day.”

  Mattie watched as the preacher staggered toward the doctor’s small building and pounded on the door. It opened, and he disappeared inside with his foul burden.

  “Slow down, honey,” Aunt Lou said. “You just knead the dough. Ain’t no call to beat it to death.”

  Mattie paused. “I’m sorry.” She went back to kneading, and in a few minutes had formed four loaves of bread.

  “You gonna tell me what the matter is?”

  “I alre
ady told you,” Mattie said. “Brady Sloan’s passed out drunk. If I want to talk to him, I’ll have to make another trip down from my claim in a couple of days.”

  “Oh, I heard what you said. But that ain’t what’s the matter.”

  Mattie pursed her lips. She shook her head and huffed around the kitchen for a few more minutes, washing out the bread bowl, scraping the table clean, hauling a bucket of kitchen slops out to the hogpen in the back. Finally, when she got back inside, she blurted it out. “I just don’t understand him. He’s a darned fool if he thinks he’s going to make some kind of heroic difference in the world hauling sporting girls back to the Badlands and standing on a box preaching to the likes of Brady Sloan.”

  Aunt Lou flipped the meat in her giant frypan before saying, “You know anyplace that needs changing more than Deadwood?”

  “You can’t change these people,” Mattie said. “Even the ones who seem nice are usually just waiting to gain everyone’s trust so they can make their move on the rest of us.”

  “Aron Gallagher,” Aunt Lou insisted, “is a good man tryin’ his best to do good work here.”

  “Hmph,” Mattie grunted. “Show me a good man, and I’ll show you a good actor.”

  Aunt Lou stared at Mattie, her expression changing gradually from frustration to gentleness and a compassion that was harder to stand than disapproval. “I don’t know what kind of man you’ve known who called hisself a preacher, honey, but whoever it was—” She broke off. “I have seen this reverend give the last penny in his pocket to someone who was hungry. He chops wood to pay for the meals he eats in my kitchen, and he’s never once left off choppin’ before there was a stack of wood twice as high as what we agreed on. I know for a fact that he’s already given away every cent your Mr. English paid him for buildin’ that store—because he brought it to me and asked me to do it for him so no one would know he was doing it.” Aunt Lou paused.

  “And as for making a difference for the folks here in Deadwood, it may be hard, but it is not impossible. Not with God. The Good Book says that.” Aunt Lou walked over and patted her hand. “You’re not really so angry with the reverend, honey. You’re angry because you’ve been done wrong—by more than just Brady Sloan, if I know anything.”

  “I have a right to know what Sloan was up to sneaking around my tent,” Mattie insisted. “And whether that preacher helps me or not—” She broke off. How could she say the things she suspected about Gallagher when Aunt Lou had just given witness to the man’s good deeds? She shook her head. “All I’m saying is if a woman doesn’t stand up for herself, there are plenty who will take advantage. And that’s a lesson from the past I can’t just forget because some good-looking preacher does a few good deeds.”

  “I understand what you’re saying. But just under the surface of that common sense of yours is a layer of somethin’ that—” Aunt Lou’s voice was gentle as she continued, “Honey, if I was to take out on this here city what’s been done to me in the past, I’d be slittin’ white men’s throats left and right. And you know what? That wouldn’t do a thing to change the fact that I was done wrong, and the men that done it are still walkin’ the face of this earth and likely forgot it ever happened. I can’t change the past and you can’t, either. Maybe you can’t help feeling angry about it. But you can stop punishing the good men in your life today because of the bad ones in the past. And you can learn to trust again. With the good Lord’s help.”

  Mattie only nodded. Aunt Lou had witnessed the preacher’s good deeds. She couldn’t argue with that. And Aunt Lou was right about something else—she was suspicious of men in general. What Aunt Lou didn’t realize, however, was that her suspicions about the preacher were based on years of living with and around cheats, gamblers, and pretenders. What Aunt Lou didn’t realize was that before showing up in Deadwood, Aron Gallagher had almost certainly been one—or all—of those things. Of course Mattie couldn’t say that without revealing her own past … so she kept quiet, finished helping Aunt Lou, and left the hotel no wiser about what Brady Sloan had been up to than if she’d stayed up on the gulch prospecting.

  Mattie had no intention of listening to another sermon as she rounded the back corner of the hotel building and headed toward the street. But then she heard Gallagher’s voice asking, “Do any of you here in Deadwood think you have enough?” She stopped short of the street, out of sight of the Sunday crowd gathered to hear the preacher. She relaxed against the rough board walls of the hotel exterior and listened.

  The preacher repeated his question. “Do any of you here in Deadwood think you have enough?”

  “Enough what?” someone said.

  “Enough of anything.”

  “Well,” the same voice replied, “I’ve already had about enough of you.”

  People laughed.

  Gallagher began to read. “ ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase.’ ” He paused. Mattie could imagine him staring over the gathered crowd as he said, “One of the wealthiest men in history learned that when a man’s goal is earthly treasure, he never has enough. That man left his wisdom for us in his writings in the Bible in hopes that future generations would learn that seeking wealth is just so much striving after wind. But Solomon wasn’t the only one to say that. The disciple Matthew was even more blunt about the topic of earthly possessions. He said that we should not be concerned with laying up treasures on earth. He said we should be looking to eternity.”

  “I don’t know where I’m gonna spend next Friday night,” someone hollered. “I got no time to be worryin’ over eternity.”

  “No one has to worry over it,” Gallagher replied. “ ‘These things,’ John says, ‘have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.’ ”

  The words rankled at first. How could anyone be so cocksure of something as mysterious as life after death? And yet, as she peeked around the corner of the building, Mattie saw no hint of arrogance in the preacher. She thought back to his rescuing the whore from the street … his kneeling in the filth beside Brady Sloan. If he was scamming Deadwood, it was a strange sort of scam. Especially in light of what Aunt Lou had just said about Gallagher giving all his money away. What made a man willing to do something like that?

  As for his comment about people never having enough, maybe that was true of some folks, but she wasn’t like that. She’d never been a greedy person. She’d know when she had enough. In fact, if her claim kept paying out, enough wasn’t far in the future.

  When it began to rain in the night. Mattie woke with a start, but as the gentle shower pattered against her claim tent, she snuggled back beneath her blankets, comforted by the murmuring of a gentle wind, dreaming of spring flowers and warm breezes. When morning came and it was still raining, she used the few sticks of wood inside the tent to build a fire in the little stove and make coffee. Once the coffee was ready, she tied the tent flap back as far as possible to let in the daylight while she cooked flapjacks on the tiny stove.

  She had just closed the supply box and perched atop it to eat when the wind came up and rain began to fall in earnest. Closing the tent flap, Mattie lit a lamp and wondered what she would do all day. If only she had a book. In Abilene she’d spent countless pleasant hours reading. But there were no books up here on the claim. Maybe she should slip and slide her way into town again and make another attempt to talk to Sloan. No, it was probably best to stay put. Tom wouldn’t have enough customers in this weather to need her help, and Sloan wasn’t going anywhere. She could wait for dryer weather. After holding her plate and fork outside the tent flap long enough for the rain to rinse them off, she set them down. Returning to the cot in the corner, she lay back down and dozed.

  When the rain didn’t let up, Mattie donned Dillon’s rubber slicker and, rolling up the sleeves, pulled on her boots and hat and headed outside. The creek was running deep and fast. On the claim below hers, the McKays were mucking
about, cursing the rain for filling the holes they’d dug. After a few minutes, the three of them threw their shovels down in disgust and prepared to head down the gulch and into town. Finn hollered an invitation for Mattie to join them. A day in one saloon or another seemed to be the McKays’ antidote for every trouble. Wondering if they had ever mined for a complete week, Mattie hollered back, “Thanks, but no.”

  Not long after the McKays left, she realized it was almost impossible to do any panning wearing the oversized slicker. She finally gave up and, stomping back to her tent, huddled inside drinking coffee. Early in the afternoon the rain began to let up. Freddie slid down the gulch from higher up with a deer carcass slung over his shoulder. Hanging it from a tree growing near the rock wall of the gulch, he dressed it, burying the entrails and cutting away a generous portion of meat for Mattie before showing her how to rig a tarp over her campfire so she could cook.

  “Now you know why I made you stack some wood inside,” he said as he built a fire with her dry wood and set the deer meat to cooking.

  Mattie nodded at the stew pot. “I’ll be able to eat for a week off that. Thank you.”

  After Freddie had slung what was left of the deer over his shoulder and made his way down toward town, Mattie kept busy tending her fire. She tried digging a test hole to see what it would be like “digging to bedrock,” but everything she dug silted back in immediately. By what she imagined was about suppertime, she had given up on getting anything accomplished. After dishing up a small portion of venison stew for her supper, she slapped the lid back on the pot and settled it down in the coals to let it simmer through the night.

  Closing her tent flap, she huddled in her tent rereading the letters she’d written to Dillon—he’d saved them all—and reliving the past, which was a terrible way to spend a rainy evening. She began to hum to herself. Finally, she gave the melody words and launched into one of the songs she and Dillon used to sing together. That night, she cried herself to sleep.