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virtual hotbed of vice and corruption. Filthy miners, painted whores, and rowdy gamblers lounged in doorways and on the occasional balcony, laughing, shooting guns into the air, and drinking as they watched the newest crop of pilgrims roll into Deadwood.
    Again, Stephen silently expressed his gratitude that Colleen could not comment on his decision to bring their children to this bawdy, smelly, uncivilized town. As the covered wagon bearing his offspring drew closer, he earnestly and uncharacteristically prayed that they would be happy in Deadwood. Were they not his children, too? Perhaps they might even thrive on the contrasts between this new life and the past....
    Pulled by a team of tired mules, its wheels clotted with mud, the Avery wagon groaned to a halt.
    "Hello, Father."
    Stephen's heart hurt, as it always did after a separation, when he saw Madeleine. Even after weeks of travel, she appeared fresh and ladylike from the roots of her shining hair to the tips of her kid leather-shod toes.
    "My dearest daughter, how happy and relieved I am to see you both safely arrived!"
    The driver had no qualms about climbing down into the stinking mire, which oozed halfway up his boots. "Ma'am, unless you want to step in this muck, you'll have to let me hand you over to the grocery steps."
    With a game smile that masked her exhaustion and horror, Madeleine glanced down to make certain the lawn tucker that shielded her bosom was securely in place, then lifted her skirts and allowed Hugo to catch her in his arms. He smelled like something that had not met soap and water for many weeks. Somehow she kept smiling until she was set beside her father on the brand-new pine steps.
    "Father, how did you know we would be coming today?" she asked as they embraced.
    "Nearly everyone in town has known you were coming, my dear," Stephen replied, reaching out to swing Benjamin over to join them. "A fellow who recently arrived by horseback brought word of the travelers he'd seen coming into the Hills from Pierre."
    "Did the fellow mention me ?" called a female voice from the depths of the wagon.
    Stephen's head snapped back slightly while his craggy face registered disbelief. "You'll laugh, children, but for a moment I thought that sounded like-"
    "It is, Father," Madeleine confirmed as Susan Hampshire O'Hara's wizened face peeped out. "Gramma Susan came with us."
    "Impossible!" he cried.
    "But true," his mother-in-law declared, arranging her skirts before surrendering bravely to Hugo's waiting embrace. When she was standing before Stephen, she favored him with a winsome smile. "I think you'll find me helpful. My world travels with Patrick helped me adapt to all sorts of conditions!" Turning pensive, she reached up to smooth back his side-whiskers. "You are going gray, dear boy. I hadn't noticed before."
    He swallowed audibly. "Colleen began to count them just before—"
    "Stephen," Susan said as her grandchildren politely looked elsewhere, "it's been a hard year for me, too. Colleen was my only daughter... and I found that I couldn't bear to let the children go so far away."
    "Gramma Susan was wonderful during our long journey West," Maddie offered. "I can't imagine how we should have managed alone."
    "Then I am deeply grateful to you, madame," Stephen said, bowing slightly before the diminutive old woman. "Now, I propose that we go immediately to our new home." He snapped his fingers and a Chinese man scurried out of the grocery, carrying a bag. "Meet Wang Chee, my cook and helper. He's seen to it that I have hot meals and clean clothes. I'll venture that you are all famished, but Chee will soon take care of that!"
    Even as Madeleine gave Wang Chee a gracious smile, her heart sank. It had never occurred to her to wonder how her father had been coping thus far, whether he could cook or wash his own shirts or keep house. As they'd traveled west, the romance of creating a home for them had excited her imagination. But, perhaps that would be Wang