The Streel Page 11

  one. Nel ie threw a dark red rose down onto the casket and then the men

  tossed in spadefuls of dirt. I said a silent prayer for her soul.

  And then, out of nowhere, I was hit with deepest sorrow. The body

  entering the ground. I knew my mother had been buried in the earth, but I had been unable to be there. I would never see her again. Tears threatened

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  to spill out of me. I forced myself away from thoughts of my mother. No

  one here needed to see me cry. They would not understand and might find

  it strange that I would grieve so openly about Lily’s death when I had only met the woman once.

  After I pulled myself together, I walked up to Nel ie to give her my

  sympathy. Her face was blotchy red with crying and her handkerchief wet.

  As I came closer to her, I recognized the reek of whiskey on her breath.

  “Nel ie, I’m so sorry. But it was a lovely funeral.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? There aren’t many sporting girls like us can claim as much, but I promised Lily she’d have a nice one.”

  “Did she fear she would die?”

  “Oh, it’s just one of the things the girls talk about. You never know

  what’s going to happen with a customer.” Then her red eyes filled with tears that gushed down her cheeks. “But I’ll never have a friend like her again. We told each other everything. Like a sister she was to me. A dear, dear sister.”

  “You were lucky to have her,” I murmured, thinking of my own dear

  sisters at home, wishing they were with me.

  When I turned to go, I felt a hand on my arm.

  I lifted my face and found Charlie Hunt very close, leaning over to

  converse with me. I pulled back slightly and he stood up straighter.

  “I am so pleased to see you, Miss Reardon.”

  “It’s good that one of us can say that.”

  “I see you’ve honed the tongue.”

  “I see you’ve polished your boots. They won’t last long in this town.”

  “I know. May I give you a ride down to town?”

  I meant to say no. I meant to say it immediately. But my feet were

  cold and flakes of snow were descending like needles from the sky. I would need to do business with this man. Refusing a lift seemed melodramatic. I had no time for that effect.

  “That would be kind of you.”

  I let him lead me to his carriage and lift me up. The mole- nosed man

  climbed up on front with the driver. A horsehair blanket awaited my lap.

  Charlie secured it around me and sat down across from me. He leaned back into the seat and looked me over. “Yes,” he said. “You are as handsome as ever.”

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  “Handsome is for men.”

  “Yes, and a few women who are uncommonly good looking. Who

  have a bold look.”

  “Now that’s the second time I’ve been called a streel in two days’ time.”

  “A streel?”

  “It’s Irish for a good- time lady.”

  “You have not that look, and I would never deem to call you that.”

  “And yet you treated me like one.”

  He looked down at his gloved hands and said quietly, “I’m sorry if you

  think I took advantage of you at my parents’ house.”

  “I have missed the luxury of your parents’ house. And the books,” I

  said boldly, remembering the last one I almost read.

  “Yes, I imagine.”

  “What brings you back to Deadwood so soon?” I asked. I already knew

  much of the answer but wanted to hear what he would tell me.

  “Business and pleasure. I hear that I might actually be able to mix

  them by dealing with you.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve been told that you’ve taken on your brother’s share of the claim.”

  I was astounded. This man couldn’t have been in town more than a

  day and he had already found out more than I liked him to know about my

  business. “How do you know this?”

  “I have my ways.”

  I turned to look out the carriage window. Charlie cleared his throat

  and then asked, “How fares your brother?”

  “Your network has failed you. I assumed that you could tell me much

  about him that I do not know.”

  “Nel ie told me you had taken on Seamus’s share.”

  “Oh, so you’ve moved from Lily to Nel ie. Wel , I suppose a man must

  find his comfort wherever he can.”

  “I can explain . . . ,” he started.

  “You do not need to explain anything to me. Because I am young, you

  might assume I am unknowledgeable about such matters. I have certainly

  acquired a wealth of information from the places I have worked. Even your parents’ establishment.”

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  He looked at me dumbstruck and I hoped that I had set him properly

  in his place. Instead, a most explosive laughter burst from him and I experienced an overwhelming desire to strike him. He quickly sobered up and

  assured me, “I have always assumed you to know much about everything.”

  “Wel , I look forward to doing business with you.”

  “Might I be so forward as to ask if you would join me for dinner in

  two nights’ time? We could try Delmonico’s. I’ve heard their food is quite good.”

  “I will have to see. I am keeping house for Padraic and Billy, and they

  might require me to be there.”

  “As I was dealing mainly with your brother in negotiating the deal for

  their claim, I thought I might continue my dealings with you. However, if Padraic is going to take over, please let me know.”

  “I will certainly.”

  We rode in silence. The snow kept falling and it quieted even the clop-

  ping of the horse’s hooves. I felt tucked into myself. Charlie too seemed to have sunk into himself, staring out the window.

  I longed to ask him many questions about the household I had left:

  what Dorry had received for Christmas, what Aggy had prepared for the

  meals, how his mother was, but I resisted asking anything of him. His presence reminded me of all I had left behind in St. Paul, back in the States.

  While I was glad to no longer be a servant, I had grown fond of his family.

  As we neared the main street, he asked me where I wished to be

  dropped, and I told him right by the bank. As the carriage slowed, he

  stepped out first and then reached up to hand me down. I came down next

  to him, and he continued to hold my hand, looking down into my face.

  “Brigid, I know I must give condolences to your family also. I had

  heard that Seamus and Lily were engaged.”

  I nodded and turned away quickly, thinking Lily might have been a

  sister to me.

  I had only gone a block or two when I realized I had turned in the wrong direction. Charlie had so unnerved me that I had become disoriented.

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  Most unlike myself. Thank goodness, Deadwood was not a large town. I

  looked up and could easily make out from the hil s around me where I was and headed back in the right direction.

  I saw a new mil iner’s shop that had opened, Madame Laclaire’s, and

  wondered if I should stop in and see if they had a new waist that I could purchase and wear with my velvet skirt. The skirt had been a hand- me- down from Mrs. Hunt, and one of the other maids had fitted it to me. She had

  always been very generous to us.

  As I was daydreaming, looking in the window at the lovely hats and

  gloves, I sa
w my reflection and adjusted my hat. Then the window ex-

  ploded. A gunshot cracked loud close by. I ducked into the doorway and

  heard the zing of another bullet as it hit the sign hanging above my head.

  A final bullet sung through the air, but I didn’t know what it had struck.

  I pushed open the door and fell into the shop. A dark- haired woman stared at the window and then at me. She stepped out from behind the counter

  where she had been sorting linen handkerchiefs.

  “Shooting. They’re shooting,” I gasped out.

  She pointed at two drunk men down an alley firing off their guns into

  the air. “They are crazy. Fou, complètement fou. They shoot for the fun of it.”

  I closed the door behind me. “Even in town?”

  “They have ruined my lovely chapeaux, ” she said, in what I could only guess was a French accent. She was staring at the hats in the window,

  which were covered with shards of glass.

  Then she looked at the hat I was wearing. “They have also ruined the

  hat you have upon your head. Very unlucky,” she declared.

  I unpinned it and looked at the slash a piece of glass had given it. How had I been spared?

  “I might need to buy a new one,” I agreed.

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  “What has brought you to Deadwood?” she asked in her high,

  sweet voice as she wrapped up my several purchases.

  “I’m staying with my brother and his friends.”

  She smiled. “Oh, your family is here. How nice.” The mil iner’s name

  was Clarice Laclaire. I put her age at near fifty, but she was a lovely woman with small red lips like a little bow. When she talked, I noticed, she kept her mouth quite small, never opening it much. She seemed to me to be

  the quintessence of femininity, and I felt large and awkward next to her.

  Another woman with a career and a foreigner like myself. So such a thing was possible.

  I handed her my bag of gold, not quite understanding the etiquette of

  who did what when the gold was weighed out. She took it from me and

  with a very careful hand and a small spoon put a small pile of gold dust on the scale. My purchases, a beautiful black velvet hat, a lovely lace waist, and one handkerchief, came to just under three dol ars. It seemed so odd to watch this dainty woman weighing out what looked like a thimbleful of yellow dirt. But it was the way things were done in Deadwood.

  “Is your husband here with you?” I asked, assuming they had opened

  the shop together.

  She ducked her head and said, “He was killed during the Civil

  War.”

  The war had happened before my coming to America, but people still

  talked about the tragedy of it. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes, so am I. He was a good man. But he left me with some money,

  and I’ve always liked adventure, so here I am. My own shop. For, you see, I make hats. That is what I am good at.”

  “Yes, you are.”

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  “If you would like, you could leave the other hat with me and I would

  fix it for you so that it would look like a new hat. Very much à la mode. ”

  “Do you miss your country, France?”

  “Many things I miss, the food, the culture, but I do not miss the small

  world that women must live in. That I do not miss. Here I can own myself a shop. So you see!”

  I laughed. I loved her spirit. “Yes, I do!”

  She waved her hands around at her shop. Then her eyes lit upon the

  front window and she sighed, “Ah, le pauvre vitrine. ”

  I could guess what she was saying even though I knew no French. “I’m

  sorry about your window.”

  “The men in this town are animals. Shooting, shooting, always shoot-

  ing. It is not your fault. You were very lucky you weren’t hurt.”

  In a shop window on Shine Street, I was surprised to see a wanted poster as I was walking home from the funeral. No photograph, just his name

  in big type: seamus reardon. The reward was five hundred dol ars. I

  needed to renew my efforts to find out who had killed Lily. The stories

  that Billy and Paddy told about how justice was meted out in the frontier scared me. I didn’t want my brother hunted down like a common criminal

  and shot in the back.

  When I got home, I found that Padraic had gone back out to the claim

  and Billy was sleeping on the sofa. I was slightly offended to find his body carelessly draped over the only decent piece of furniture in the living room.

  The sofa was placed right in front of the fire and looked awfully cozy. I cleaned up around him, sweeping the floor, shaking out the rugs, rearrang-ing the wooden chairs, but none of my activity made him stir.

  I pulled up a chair near the fire to warm myself and stared at him.

  What an odd little man, I thought. Much like the leprechauns that are said to inhabit Ireland, though they are talked of more here in America than

  back home. His face was darkened with the shadow of a beard, and his

  hands were rough and torn from the mining work. I wondered how long

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  Billy would last. He seemed to go at life awfully hard, and he might simply, in the end, be worn down by it all.

  “What you staring at?” Billy opened one eye at me.

  “The mess that someone has left lying on the couch.”

  He gave a snort and came to life with all limbs flying. He sat up and

  shook his head, then asked, “How was the funeral?”

  “Simple. I think it served its purpose. Nel ie seemed pleased.” I looked over at Billy to see how he would react to her name. I was uncertain of

  their relationship.

  He nodded. “Good. Nel ie’s a fine woman. But you know what they

  say about the three worst smiles . . .”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “The smile of the wave, the smile of a sporting woman, and the grin of

  a dog about to leap at you.”

  I laughed at his triad. I hadn’t heard a good one in a long enough time.

  Billy always brought me back to Ireland and I loved him for it, as scruffy a little leprechaun as he was.

  “Oh, and I forgot to tell you: Mr. Charlie Hunt attended.”

  That got his attention. “He did, did he? Wel , it’s nice to know he’s

  back in town. Now he can take the claim off our hands and we can clear

  out of here. I’m tired of this godforsaken place.” He put his head down into his hands and rolled it back and forth.

  “Where will you go next, Billy?”

  He lifted his head up and said loudly and clearly, “Where there’s

  money to be made. Maybe California. I’ve heard great stories. They say the sun shines there every day and the trees are taller than the tallest building in New York City. Will you not come along?”

  “I’d like to see California, but I’ll need to see what Seamus wants to

  do. I’d also like to bring our family over.”

  He rubbed at his eyes. “You need to forget about your family.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “They brought me into this world and I’ve already done my time for

  that. My father’s a drunk and my mother had too many children. Lord help them, because I can’t.”

  I realized he was describing my own family as wel , but unlike him I

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  missed them terribly: my mother’s hands, my father’s laugh. “But they sent me here.”

  “To be rid of you. Once I left Ireland, I decided to never look back.

  Not that my belly doesn’t wrench at the thought of the lovely land I left behi
nd. Maybe someday I’ll return, but until then I’m setting my sights on the treasures right here.”

  I didn’t want to argue with him, but just the mention of them made

  me long for my family.

  We sat a moment in silence, watching the red flames lick at the dark

  logs. Dreams, immigrant dreams, to return home wealthy. But few of us

  would ever return and fewer would become wealthy. I hoped I would be

  different. Once the mine was sold, I’d have money and the opportunity to make even more. I had to keep my head about me.

  “Billy, do you know Moses Walker?”

  “By sight. He has a claim near enough to us. Why?”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “You might well find him out there today.”

  The livery stable saddled up the small horse, Gertie, for me and I rode

  out. When I got through town and to the beginning of the trail, I reined in the horse. I wanted to take a minute and breathe. I pulled off a glove and reached my hand down into the horse’s hair. Her coat was long for the winter, like prickly down it felt. This horse was a solid little mare. The snow had let up, but the air felt crisp. The mud had frozen, which made it easier to ride through town and up the trail. I didn’t like going out by myself, but I had to do it.

  I reached into the pocket of my coat and felt the cold metal of the

  derringer that Billy had given me. He said he had picked it up in a card game and had no use for it. When I told him about the shooting incident in town, he told me I should be armed. Now I needed to learn to use it. In this country, a woman needed to know everything a man knew. While I might

  never become an Annie Oakley, I thought I could become a decent shot.

  As I climbed up and out of the valley that Deadwood settled in, I could

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  see the lay of the land and how beautiful it was. I noticed more this time than when I had ridden out with Billy and Padraic. I think being alone

  allowed me time to study the land, and I felt more at ease on the horse.

  Like a dark line drawn on white paper, the trail was easy enough to

  follow through the snow- covered woods. The pine trees towered over me

  and the snow cupped into the hollows on the hil s.

  Halfway to the claim, I ran into three miners going to town. They

  looked like they had packed in from a way out, their animals loaded down with gear. Two were on horses and the last rider was on a mule.