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  “He did indeed.”

  “So Charlie Hunt and the professor are heading to Cheyenne to-

  morrow to catch the train, then on from there to St. Paul to take the ore sample back to be analyzed,” Paddy told me. “We’ve found someone to

  take our sample on the same trip. An engineer we’ve worked with before

  when we were staking our claim. He’s from Cork and I’d trust him with my life.”

  “How long will all this take?” I asked, interested in when we would

  settle on the mine, also wondering when Charlie would return.

  “About two weeks, I think. It can be analyzed right there in St. Paul.

  Our man thought he could return when they did. He’s taking another

  claim’s sample out at the same time. The professor and Charlie will travel with the ore sample, returning with the results. And, we can hope, a fair offer for our stake.”

  “Two weeks. I suppose it would take that long.”

  “That’s if the weather holds. This snow could strand them at many

  places along the way.”

  I stood by the window and watched the snow fluttering down. The

  mounds shone in the dark, reminding me of the phosphorescence I had

  seen in the ocean, the glowing in the deep, the beauty hidden in darkness, and I wondered what would come of the ore that had been taken from the

  earth. Would it prove of worth? Would it shine with gold?

  Charlie came to see me the next morning before he went off to Cheyenne.

  The snow had stopped and the sun reflected off it like a thousand gaslights in a theater. I hoped that his travel would go smoothly.

  I answered the door and he doffed his hat at me. He stood as tall as I

  remembered, and I found myself happy to see him. He brought with him

  all the good memories I had of his home and family. Surely he was to be

  trusted.

  I smiled and stepped out onto the porch with him, closing the door

  behind me. Paddy and Billy had both decided to stay home from the mine.

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  Paddy was whittling on the sofa while Billy played a game of solitaire. Neither of them needed to be party to my conversation with Charlie.

  “I wanted to say goodbye to you.”

  “You will be gone two weeks, I’ve heard.”

  “I’m hoping no more than that.” He took my hand. “When I’m back,

  I’d like to court you in earnest.”

  “I would like that also.”

  “May I bring you back something from the States?”

  “Just yourself would be more than gift enough.”

  “Foolish to ask a woman what she wants as a gift. I should know bet-

  ter. I’ll surprise you.”

  “I turn eighteen on the second of February,” I blurted out, and it sur-

  prised me to see what a child I still was, wanting everyone to know when my birthday was.

  “I swear I will be back here by then, even if I have to walk through

  snowdrifts ten feet high.”

  His skin seemed rosy from the sun, and I yearned to reach out and

  touch his cheek.

  “Take care, Charlie,” I said.

  “I wil , Brigid.”

  “I’ll pray for your safe return.”

  “I know there’s no one God would be more wil ing to listen to than

  you.”

  “I may have been named for a saint, but I’m not one myself.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Before I could move back to the door he had

  claimed me. Both hands on my shoulders and a kiss placed right on my

  mouth. Goodbye whispered in my ear. And then he pulled away with a

  more formal goodbye said out into the thin cold air of winter, where the sound of it hung long after he had turned and gone down the steps and

  walked off into the streets of Deadwood.

  The waiting was hard on all of us. Lily’s death stayed in my mind but— as we might all be leaving soon— I wasn’t sure I would ever clear my brother’s

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  name. If the claim’s ore was found rich in gold, we would be leaving Deadwood and could find Seamus in Cheyenne. However, if I chose to enter

  Charlie’s life, who knows where I might end up?

  Paddy still watched over me. He stayed close to the house, whittled,

  cut wood, tended the fires, and kept me company. Often, I read to him

  because he did not know how. I taught him to write his name and how

  to write out the numbers up to ten. I read to him from another book I

  borrowed from Elizabeth, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and we laughed together at how Tom got all the boys to paint the fence. Paddy said if he would have known there were such good stories in books, then he would

  have learned to read sooner in his life.

  Billy, however, could not stay in the house and remain calm. He

  needed to move. He went out every day and many times did not return

  until late in the evening, if he returned at all. The smell on him was awful sometimes, as if he had been dropped in a vat of brew. Paddy worried that he was gambling and spending all his money.

  “He’s counting on this big sum of money from the sale of the claim

  something fierce. If this sale were not to happen, I hate to think what he would do.”

  The last week in January, Paddy surprised me by informing me we

  were going out celebrating that night. We had been sitting comfortably

  in front of the fire and it was getting late. I had actually been thinking of getting ready for bed.

  “Celebrating what?”

  “Don’t you know that it’s the New Year?”

  “Are you daft?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Whatever are you on about, Paddy?”

  He laughed and explained, “The Chinese apparently have a different

  calendar from us. Their New Year moves around a bit, but I’ve heard that it’s to be celebrated tonight. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen and heard a Chinese New Year. Last year they put on quite an affair, and it promises to be even bigger this year.”

  “What do they do?” I asked, thrilled at the idea.

  “There will be a parade with a large dragon and wonderful costumes

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  by the celestials. Lots of noise and strange music. And then there will be fireworks.”

  “In the snow?”

  “They’ve probably cleared the streets.”

  “When do we go?”

  “They stay up all night to celebrate, but I think the parade will be in

  another hour or so. Dress warmly. And stay close to me.”

  I wore my men’s boots with wool socks, long underwear under my skirts, a woolen vest over my dress, and then my wrap and a scarf around my neck.

  Paddy insisted that I put on a buffalo skin hat that he had recently bought, which fit over my chignon and was not unbecoming in a rough sort of way.

  We walked out into a still and bril iant night, but already loud bangs

  and noises were drifting up the streets from the Chinese settlement. As we drew closer to the crowds, I noticed red lanterns hanging from the doorways of many shops and homes. Then a man with a queue leaned out his

  doorway and held out a long string of fireworks tied to the end of a pole.

  A little boy dressed in loose pants and a padded vest ran out with a lit stick and set fire to the string. The red firecrackers danced and jumped, bursting open in a series of loud bangs in the cold air.

  I grabbed Paddy’s arm and we laughed as we steered between the

  fireworks.

  The parade was starting from the joss house at 558 Main Street, which

  served,
Paddy told me, as a general meeting hall for the Chinese. Men

  slept there until they found places to stay, and they had even held a trial there of one of their own kind.

  Banners hung down the front of the building with Chinese writing on

  them. In the streets around us celestials and other citizens of Deadwood mingled. Children were making snowballs, throwing them at each other

  and at some of the men lining up for the parade.

  “So many people,” I commented to Paddy as we watched the scene.

  “The Chinese have come here from all over the hil s to celebrate.”

  I heard the Chinese around us greeting each other in their language.

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  The sound was nothing like English but had some of the softness of Irish.

  I made out they were saying, “Gung hay fat choy. ”

  Then the other would respond, “La choy. ”

  A band gathered at the front of the house, and at the stroke of mid-

  night they let out a mighty blast. At this signal everyone who was in possession of a firecracker set it off and any man who was carrying a firearm shot it off into the air. The noise was infernal and echoed throughout the hil s until I was sure that we had woken everyone in the territory.

  The band started to move forward, and then I saw the dragon. This

  wonderful creature had many feet and a large gold face with red eyes and a huge mouth that opened and closed as it cavorted down the street. Men

  walking alongside it were waving red streamers and a man was in front of it, teasing it with some sort of ball.

  The band was playing a spritely and oddly tuned music that tinkled in

  the air like wrapping paper being crumpled by hand.

  I moved forward to see the dragon more closely, watching it dance

  down the street, and I followed for a while to watch the wonderful crea-

  ture. The movement had such energy that I almost believed the dragon

  was alive. What must the children think of this spectacle? I wondered and looked around to see their faces wide with a mixture of fear and amazement.

  I twirled around but could not find Paddy anywhere near me. I grew

  frantic as I continued to search for him. The parade swept down the street and all the while the fireworks exploded in the air with red paper flying out from their centers like so much blood on the snow.

  Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed me and pulled me into a doorway.

  “Why are you out walking alone at night?” a man’s quiet voice asked

  close to my ear.

  He was dressed in padded clothes with his shaved head bent forward.

  I turned to face him in a doorway, afraid of what he might want from me.

  When I saw who it was, I wanted to run but he still had hold of me.

  I tried to keep my voice from shaking. It would do no good to let him

  know that I was afraid. “Mr. Lee.”

  “Miss Brigid,” he said. Ching Lee was staring at me. He let loose of me.

  “Happy New Year,” I managed to say.

  “Have you been watching the parade?” he asked.

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  “Yes, and I’m with Paddy.”

  He looked around, then said, “He does not appear to be close by.”

  “I think we’ve been separated.”

  “It’s too cold for you to be outside alone like this. Please, step into

  my house.” His hand closed around my arm again and he moved me a few

  steps down the street. He was insistent. “Please. I will take care of you.”

  I looked around for Paddy as Ching Lee pulled me toward a door with

  a red lantern hanging under the eaves. He opened the door and escorted

  me into the house. Inside it was warm and the air was rich with incense.

  His children ran to greet me, and his wife rose from the game she was playing with another woman.

  She bowed to me and I bowed back as best I could. She said, “Gung

  hay fat choy. ”

  Ching Lee translated, “She says Happy New Year.”

  I answered, “La choy, ” as I had heard others do. Her face broke into a big smile. Ching Lee seemed pleased. “You have said ‘Good luck’ to her.”

  I looked around the room. Paper cutouts hung in the windows and

  small narcissus flowers were blooming out of bowls of water and stones. A small shrine was set up on a table and had red streamers around it.

  Ching Lee brought me to a chair and had me sit. His wife gave me a

  bowl of tea and some small dumplings. They were delicious, hot and sweet.

  “I will go get your Paddy for you. Wait with my wife. You will be safe

  here.”

  The two women looked up from their game. They talked to me, but in

  their language, and all I could do was smile.

  Ching Lee’s wife held up a small ivory piece with carvings on it. “Mah-

  jong,” she said.

  “Mahjong,” I copied her.

  Both the women laughed, then they went back to their game. I watched

  them and drank my tea. I was warm and sleepy and wondered that I had

  been afraid of Ching Lee.

  When Ching Lee returned with Paddy, I felt he was someone I could

  trust. He had taken me into his home, with his wife in attendance, and

  then returned me to the safety of my friends.

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  On the other hand, Paddy looked quite fearful. He scolded me but

  seemed immensely happy to have found me.

  As we were leaving, I still couldn’t help asking Ching Lee, “When you

  left the dance on our New Year’s Eve, where did you go?”

  “I went home to my wife.” He looked at me. “You must stop suspect-

  ing me of something I have not done. I mean you no harm. You and I want

  much the same. We want our families to be safe and our lives to be peaceful. We work hard for our money and we try to spend it wisely. In Chinese we say, ‘The large of mind see the truth in all faith, the small of mind see only the difference.’”

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  February second was a midwinter day, dark and dreary, but I smiled

  at the sight of it because it was my eighteenth birthday. I had al-

  ways looked forward to my birthday because it was the day, my father had told me, that we Irish once called Imbolc, the first day of spring.

  “How happy we were to see you that morning when you arrived,” my

  father would tell me and tickle me under my chin. But, more important,

  he said, it was a very holy day for it was St. Brigid’s Day. There was nothing for it but my father must have me named after the saint.

  “For she is the saint of healing and poetry,” he told me. “And you’re a

  poem if ever I saw one.”

  I shook myself away from my memories of my homeland and my fam-

  ily and turned to face the day, wondering if anyone would notice that I was another year older. As I went to stir the fire, a knock came at the door and I hurried to answer it.

  A young boy handed me a note and I thanked him, expecting him to

  go away, but he stood watching me.

  “Do you need something?” I asked him.

  “I’m to wait for an answer. That’s what the gentleman said.”

  The note bore my name. I tore it open and found an invitation to din-

  ner from Charlie. He had gotten in early that morning and asked for the

  pleasure of my company.

  “Tell the gentleman yes,” I said to the boy.

  That night, as I was leaving, Paddy had a word with me. “Set up a meeting for us all, and if you have any chance to glean information, it might be very helpful. We will know what we’re walking into.”

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  “I will see how the evening goes.”

  “Try to find out what they intend to do.”

  “I promise I will try.”

  Paddy helped me on with my wrapper and for a moment I felt his

  arms tighten around me and his breath upon my neck. “Best wishes to you

  on this day of your birth,” he said close in my ear and then let me go.

  “I had them set up a private dining room for us, my dear,” Charlie told me as he greeted me at the door of the hotel. He was waiting in the lobby for my arrival and stepped out into the snow to greet me. He took me by the

  arm and ushered me into the hotel.

  “That sounds lovely,” I said.

  “Brigid, you do look older and more elegant than ever.” He compli-

  mented me before he even saw what I was wearing. I hoped he would not

  be disappointed. All I had to wear was my old best dress, which he might recognize as his mother’s.

  “Thank you, and I hope that I am also wiser.”

  “Too much wisdom in a woman cannot be good.”

  “Certainly not for a man who wants to have his way.”

  He laughed and showed his fine teeth. Every time I saw him, he grew

  in comeliness and stature. He never wore the same clothes more than

  once. He had on a handsome black vest and a shirt clean and white as a

  new drift of snow.

  Continuing to hold my arm, he led me to the stairs. I assumed we

  were going up to the private dining room. We went up one flight and

  then he ushered me into a large room with a fireplace blazing away and

  a small table set right in front of it with two carved wooden chairs. Three tall windows overlooked the street, draped with velvet curtains of a deep burgundy color. The feeling in the room was one of warmth and elegance.

  I turned toward the other end of the room and saw through a door-

  way a bed and realized that I was in fact being asked to dine in Charlie’s bedroom suite.

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  “Charlie,” his first name slipped out quite naturally. I continued, “Is

  this quite proper?” I asked. My eyes swept the room again and then up to his face.

  He took both my hands and faced me directly. “I don’t know and I

  don’t care. I’m sick to death of proper. After all, I can’t ask you out for a walk and take you up into the deep woods of the Black Hil s. There’s certainly too much snow for that. Or that I fancy the idea of spending the evening with Paddy and Billy and talking business with you all. Or we might have done as we did last time and eat a nice formal meal in front of the crowd that gathers in the restaurant and be able to say hardly anything and have everyone talking about us for days afterwards. I wanted you alone