Shadow of Legends Read Free Page A

up here in Deadwood, Lead, and Central City we have six or seven thousand folks. This is home. I built this house with my own hands when no one lived on Forest Hill but Ol’ Rocker Dan. This is where we belong.”
    â€œThis is your home, Todd.” Rebekah’s voice softened. “Even with my father’s furniture, it has never felt like mine. And now with him moving back to Chicago, I feel rather abandoned.”
    â€œIt’s that time of the month when everything looks bitter to you, Darlin’,” he suggested, without glancing at what he knew would be an exasperated glare. “Give it more time.” He listened to the reverberation on Main Street. In his mind he could see Handsome Harry Hansen holding the ribbons of a six-up team of nickel-plated harnessed white horses as they thundered up the dusty street through China Town, through the badlands district, past the Gem Theater, and roar up to the front of the Merchant’s Hotel.
    â€œMore time?” Rebekah fumed as she strutted across the oval Turkish carpet. “We have been married four years. And, if you remember, I have felt like this most every day.”
    How could I ever forget it? Todd let his breath out slowly, trying to relax his face. He rubbed his thick mustache and goatee. “Perhaps we should go for a ride next Sunday. Get out of town. Find some fresh air,” he suggested. Todd thought he heard Handsome Harry’s “Yip-yip-yip-yip-yi-yi-yi-yi!” as he brought the northeast stage to a halt. Handsome Harry. Big blue eyes. Thick drooping mustache. Rosy cheeks. Leather-tough skin. Deep booming voice. Hands as wide as a shovel.
    Rebekah stopped by the head of the settee. Todd squinted his eyes open just enough to a spot a glimmer of hope in his wife’s eyes. Rebekah Jacobson, you have captured my heart with those dancing eyes from the first day we met.
    She stooped over and began rubbing his vest-covered shoulders. “Why don’t we ride down to Rapid City? Just for fun. I want to look at it once more. Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it will never amount to anything more than a hay camp. But I want to see it again.”
    â€œI’ll take you, but I’m not going to move there. And I do not want to manage a bank,” he asserted.
    She bent over and placed her soft lips on his. “Thank you, Mr. Fortune.”
    â€œJunior,” he added. “Folks seem to need to remind me that I’m not my father.”
    She stood up and stepped back. “You aren’t Junior to me, Todd Fortune. Daddy Brazos has never been as captivating as his oldest son.”
    â€œYou lean down here and kiss me that way again, and I’ll definitely be captivating!” he chuckled.
    â€œDo you want your pie now?”
    â€œYou know what I want now.”
    â€œYour grouchy old wife?”
    â€œIn that case, I’ll have the pie.”
    â€œI thought so. Lunch hour is about over. ‘Fortune and Son Hardware’ will be missing its co-owner.”
    â€œThey can get by without me.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I’ve been saying!” she called back from the kitchen.
    â€œBut only for a few hours. You know that. Dad doesn’t want a business to run and Dacee June is only sixteen.” He could hear dishes rattle in the cupboard and didn’t know if she had heard him.
    He closed his eyes again. His thoughts slipped down the steep stairs to Wall Street and down to Main Street where the stagecoach would be sitting. Fearless Handsome Harry. His white Stetson cocked to the side. Leather reins in one hand, swirling whip in the other. White horses prancing to catch their breath, and passengers doing the same.
    â€œWould you like me to warm it up?” she asked.
    Todd tilted his head back to the kitchen’s open doorway. “One look at sweet Rebekah’s smile ought to melt the cheese, the apple pie, and the china plate.”
    â€œOh, you are one smooth