Friends and Enemies Read Online Free Page A

don’t think I’ll go to Deadwood after all. In fact, maybe I’ll ride back to Rapid City with the sheriff’s posse.” The man backed down the slope of the hill toward the train, his hat in his hand.
    The passengers were given the option of waiting out on the hillside or reboarding the train and waiting there. Most of them, like the Fortunes, remained out in the fresh air of the Black Hills.
    Little Frank tucked his boiled cotton shirt into his ducking trousers, and tugged his worn, wide-brimmed hat down low across his eyes. “Daddy, can I go look at the horses while we are waiting?” He stared toward the far end of the train.
    â€œWhat horses?” Jamie Sue queried.
    â€œThe two horses that are going to Deadwood for the big race,” Little Frank reported. “It looks like they’re unloading them to give them some exercise.”
    Her narrow eyes pinched; her thin lips tightened. “I will not have my son hanging around that racehorse crowd,” she insisted.
    Robert reached over and hugged her narrow waist. “He only wants to see the horses, Mama, not run off and join the circus,” he laughed. “Besides, it will be a history lesson.”
    She folded her arms across her chest. “And just how is this going to be a lesson in history?”
    Little Frank rocked back on the heels of his worn brown boots. His blue eyes danced. “The big gray is a descendant of Traveller, General Lee’s favorite. And the other is a descendent of General Grant’s horse, Cincinnati!”
    â€œOh, my . . .” Jamie Sue reached up and tried unsuccessfully to tuck a wild strand of brown hair back under her straw hat. “I can see how this will be a horse race of epic proportions and national significance.”
    â€œDoes this mean I can go watch them exercise the horses?” Little Frank pleaded.
    She reached over and brushed his hair off his forehead. “How can I refuse such a historic event? It would be unpatriotic.”
    When Robert attempted to withdraw his arm, she clamped it around her waist. They watched Little Frank sprint back toward the livestock car.
    â€œThe girls are right,” Robert admitted. “I should stop calling him Little Frank. He’s almost as tall as I am.”
    She pulled his hand over to hers and laced his calloused fingers in hers. “No matter what we call him, Daddy Brazos will call him Little Frank.”
    â€œMama, we want to go for a walk too,” Veronica insisted as she stood and brushed down her lacy white cotton dress.
    Jamie Sue raised her thick dark eyebrows. “You want to go look at some horses?”
    â€œNo, she wants to go look at that young blond boy with the curly hair that’s standing by the big lady and the half-naked little boy,” Patricia announced.
    â€œI do not.”
    â€œYes, you do.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œâ€˜Cause I want to go see him too! So there!” Patricia stuck out her small, pointed pink tongue.
    â€œPlease, Daddy,” Veronica begged, “can we just walk around?”
    He glanced at the milling crowd of impatient passengers. “As long as I can keep you in sight.”
    Patricia jumped up next to her sister. “Why do we have to stay in sight, Daddy? Little Frank doesn’t have to keep in sight.”
    â€œBecause Little Frank isn’t one of the two cutest girls on the face of the earth,” Robert replied.
    Patricia and Veronica grinned and wrinkled their identical round, upturned noses in unison.
    â€œDaddy is one smooth talker, Mama,” Veronica beamed.
    â€œYes, he is.” Jamie Sue drew his fingers up to her lips and brushed a kiss across them. “It’s a Fortune characteristic.”
    The girls held hands and giggled their way over to a stand of short ponderosa pines. Soon, they wormed their way close to the blond curly-headed boy.
    â€œWell, Daddy, you sweet-talked them this time, but