She flipped the card over, revealing the jack of spades. She squinted at me. “How’d you do that?”
“Look at another. Doesn’t matter which.”
She pulled another and looked at it.
“Three of clubs.”
Sure enough, she threw down the three of clubs. “How in tarnation…?”
“I am going to reveal the secret to you. Just to further illustrate my point.”
“What point?”
“Look behind you. What do you see?”
She looked over her shoulder. For a moment she didn’t understand my meaning. Until she caught sight of her own reflection. “You saw my card in the mirror,” she said.
“The point is,” I said, scooping up the deck of cards, “that everywhere you go, Martha is standing right behind you. This other woman who goes by the name of Calamity Jane is a lie.”
She let that soak in. She drained the glass of beer. Then she did exactly what I expected her to do. She pulled out her gun. She aimed the barrel in the general direction of my head and said, “I don’t take kindly to being called a liar.”
It was an empty bluff. Her words sounded hollow, dry and bitter. I put the deck in my pocket and bought some time refilling my pipe. When her aim wavered, I said without looking at her, “All you will accomplish by shooting is me is changing the number on that poster from twelve to thirteen.”
“Not counting Injuns.”
I stared down the barrel. “We both know that half the things you talk about, most of things said about you, aren’t true. They either never happened or they happened to somebody else. Now, if you want to kill me, then have at it. I won’t even be a moving target.”
“That’s the second time you called me a liar,” she said.
“I’m calling you a fool. You act like a man and dress like a man. But you have no idea what it takes to be a man. It’s not about what is between his legs or his manner of dressing. You think just because you can drink and cuss and shoot it makes you real big. But it doesn’t. You are a coward if I ever saw one. You can’t summon up the courage to love a woman proper. You’re scared of that little bitty woman upstairs who’s crying into her pillow over losing you. All she wants is to hear is three little words and you’re too damn scared to say them. You are a coward, Martha. A coward who has missed two opportunities to love a woman and is hiding behind somebody called Calamity Jane.”
“You done sermonizing?”
“I am.”
She pulled the hammer back with her thumb and I closed my eyes.
Two gunshots rang out.
I opened my eyes. Calamity was still holding the gun at my head with her thumb poised over the hammer. Her eyes were wide. She leathered the gun and turned toward the door.
***
Not a minute passed before Pete came tumbling inside. He was breathing hard like he was being chased by a mountain lion. He bent over at the waist, his hat fell off his head and he took great gulps of air.
“What happened?” I asked. “Where’d those shots come from?”
“Was it Bill?” Calamity asked.
Pete nodded. He took another giant gulp of air and the words exploded from his mouth, “Wild Bill’s dead. Shot in the back while he’s playing poker. He never even saw it coming. Two holes.” Pete gestured with two fingers over his right eyebrow. “Bullets went in the back and came out right here.”
Calamity headed for the door. “Who done it?”
Pete shook his head. “Don’t know his name.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Big guy. Black beard and black eyes. Rode in on a palomino.”
“That’d be McCall. He’s been tailing him since last summer.” Calamity opened one door and looked both ways up and down the street. It was too dark out to see much of anything. There was a rumble of angry voices, shouts. Boots clomped on the boards outside. “Which way did he head out?”
Pete pointed north.
“Don’t go, Calamity,” I said. I guess the truth was that I had grown to be quite fond of Calamity and didn’t want her to come to harm. Which she most assuredly would if she took off by herself chasing a cold-blooded assassin. “You could get killed.”
Calamity walked out the door and headed north. Not two seconds went by before she opened the door and stuck her neck back inside. She looked a little sheepish as she said, “If by chance I don’t come back…” she swallowed. “Tell Belle…”
She seemed unable to form the words she wanted, so I made it easy on her. “I’ll tell her, Calamity. You just make sure to come back.”
She nodded and disappeared again.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I knew this was a momentous thing, the killing of Wild Bill. My mind reeled from the blow of it. I picked up my rag and polished the bar, but my heart wasn’t in it, it was only something to keep my hands busy. Pete sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. He may have cried a little, I don’t rightly know. I gave him a bit of privacy with his feelings.
After what seemed like a long time but was probably no more than a handful of minutes, Pete raised his head, wiped his hands on his pants legs and said, “You reckon Calamity is going to be all right?”
“She’ll be just fine.” I don’t know whether I said that to reassure Pete or to reassure myself. I don’t think it actually reassured either one of us.
Pete shook his head like he was trying to dislodge the scene he had witnessed. “He was a likeable fellow, even if he did drink too much.”
I nodded.
“He was a purty nice guy for an outlaw, huh?”
“Pretty nice for anybody, I reckon,” I said. I wonder why it is that once a body is dead, we feel the need to talk nicely about them. Wild Bill wasn’t any better than any other man when he was alive. The fact of the matter is I didn’t like him very much and I don’t think Pete did either. Wild Bill worked hard at making folks not like him. He was louder and brasher than most, quicker with a gun than some and had a heart that carried a heavy burden. But was he nice? Not very.
“He won that last pot with two pair. Black aces and eights,” he said. “Dead man’s hand now.”
I wiped away a tear and continued polishing.
***
There’s been a lot of speculation over the hows and whys of James Butler Hickok’s death. Over the years the stories have grown larger and larger. But after hearing people talk, reading the newspaper account (which was mostly hogwash) and the story that Pete related, here’s the truth as near I could understand:
Jack McCall had been laying for Wild Bill for some time. He claimed that Wild Bill had shot down his brother in some kind of bad business dealing. McCall put the word out that he wanted revenge, and it was no secret to Wild Bill that he was being tracked everywhere he went.
That night when Wild Bill left The Globe and headed next door to the Number Ten Saloon, he was looking for a game of cards. He found three men already playing a heated game of five card stud. He asked to join and they assented. The only open chair had its back to the door. Wild Bill made a show of not wanting to put his back to the door, but none of the other players would switch with him.
Pete was at the bar getting a drink for himself and Wild Bill when McCall rode in on his palomino. McCall must have recognized Wild Bill’s horse. It was big and black and had a proud way of stepping and holding its head. The horse was aptly named Othello and had a Lazy A brand. McCall tied his horse nose to nose at the post with Othello. He overheard Wild Bill’s loud voice carry outside. He must have said something along the lines of “I won that hand, boys, with a pair of aces and eights.”
McCall drew his gun, pulled back the hammer and, keeping it low against his leg, walked inside the Number Ten. He saw Wild Bill’s buckskin-clad back and knew it was his lucky day. He knew better than to confront Wild Bill face to face; everybody who did ended up six foot under. He walked up behind him, lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. Twice.
Wild Bill’s hat blew off his head fr
om the force of the bullets. McCall didn’t even wait for the hat to hit the floor before he was back out the door and headed north out of town, his spurs gouging horse flesh the whole way.
***
I was trying to read, but the words were just a bunch of nonsense hieroglyphics marching across the page.
Pete had gone out several minutes before to mingle with the men on the street. I could hear some of their talk drifting into The Globe. Men talking soft about where to lay out Wild Bill’s body and other men talking harsh about forming a posse to track McCall.
I stowed my book when I heard Belle open her door and head down the stairs. She had two carpetbags stuffed to full.
“You’re heading out, I take it,” I said.
“After I buy myself a horse,” she replied. “I plan on leaving at first light.”
“Guess you know about Wild Bill?”
She looked at me with an expression of puzzlement, so I enlightened her on the circumstances. She swallowed the news and looked around the empty room. I knew right off who she was looking to find. “Calamity lit a shuck out of here. She’s gone to seek revenge.”
“Oh no,” Belle whispered. She sat down heavily in a chair. For the first time ever, I brought her a drink without her asking. And for the first time ever, she didn’t drink.
We must have sat there not moving for a good five minutes. I was beginning to think Belle had frozen up like her mother when all of a sudden there came a cacophony of sounds from outside on the street. Loud voices, scared voices, surprised and angry voices, all in a tangled heap.
All of a sudden Pete threw open the doors. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of me and Belle. He took off his hat and looked everywhere but at us. His hands were shaking and he looked about to faint.
“Go ahead,” I ordered. “Say it.”
“Calamity’s dead,” he said. “McCall got her too.”
Belle swooned. Pete caught her before she hit the floor. I picked up her drink and threw it back in one swallow.
***
After Calamity’s death Belle didn’t leave town. She didn’t go to the double funeral three days later. Neither did I. Pete went. He came back and told me all about it. Wild Bill and Calamity were buried on a knoll just north of town. It was a nice spot to overlook the country. They were laid side by side under a tree. Two hundred people showed up to pay their respects. There was a preacher who said some prayers and led everybody in singing a couple of church hymns. It must have been a sight to behold.
Pete dropped by The Globe most every day. He would buy one beer and mope around for a couple of hours. He talked a lot. I listened a little. I figured he was biding his time, waiting on Belle to come out of her room. He probably thought she would finish mourning Calamity and end up back in his embrace. I knew better. So, after three or four days of his moping, I decided to put an end to his suffering. I lighted my pipe and said, “Pete, we have to talk.”
“I know,” he said.
“You need to move on with your life.”
“I know.”
“Waiting on Belle isn’t good for you.”
“I know.”
“You need to go live your life. Find another job.”
“I know.”
“Well,” I said, “if you know so damn much, why are you still loitering about my place?”
“I’m not waiting on Belle, Charlie,” he said.
“Then why’re you showing up here all the time and getting under my feet?”
“I thought you might need a friend.”
I puffed on my pipe a while. Then I said, “What makes you think I need a friend?”
Pete smiled. “You’re not fooling us, you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t mean to say everybody in town knows your secret. Only me and Belle.”
“Hah,” I said. “I don’t have any secrets.”
“It took me a while to figure out,” Pete said. “But I finally put all the clues together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I puffed on my pipe like a locomotive going uphill.
“You got those dainty little hands. No Adam’s apple in your neck. You carry all your extra weight on your back end. Then Wild Bill told how he’d seen a woman who looked just like you, had your nose even. It was your face when he said that that gave it away.”
“What is it you think you know?”
“It’s okay by me,” Pete said. “You can masquerade as a man all you want, I don’t care either way. The way I see it, you’re a mighty good friend to have even if you are a woman.”
There. It was out in the open. I was unmasked. I had thought that if I were ever to be found out that I would feel vulnerable, naked. But in fact I felt quite the opposite. I felt relieved. Lighter somehow.
I didn’t say anything. Not a word. Pete and I sat for a long time. I smoked my pipe. He put his spurs on top of the table and I didn’t ask him to put his feet down.
Finally, I opened my mouth, and when I did the words tumbled out like an avalanche. “I didn’t pass myself off as a man until I was twenty-two years of age. I was a woman, born a woman and expected to live out my life as a woman. My parents died, one shortly after the other, and I was handed off to my brother. I was his responsibility, his burden to bear. It’s hard enough to be a woman, Pete, but it’s even harder to be a woman and a dwarf. There was no man who would marry me and no employer who would hire me. I was at the mercy of my family.”
I smoked on my pipe a bit, then continued, “So one morning I woke up and decided to change all that. I had always been good at playing cards. I had nimble hands and an above average intelligence. I donned myself a suit of clothes, spoke with an English accent and became a riverboat gambler. Made a good living too.”
I watched my smoke float up to the ceiling and gather in a cloud. “Until the day I was almost killed for my nimble fingers. So I reinvented myself again. I became Charles Engleman. Made my way here. Bought this saloon. I like being a man. I want to continue being a man. To that end, I would appreciate you not telling anybody.”
“You got your sights set on marrying up with Belle?” he asked.
I laughed. “No. No, I don’t. I will admit to having delusions of such once upon a time, but no more. Bachelorhood agrees with me just fine.”
We sat in each other’s company a while longer, each of us busy with our own thoughts. After he finished the beer, Pete stood and mooshed his hat back on his head. “Well, Charlie,” he said, “I guess I’ll be moving on.”
I nodded.
“If I ever come back through town—”
“Be sure to stop in for a free beer,” I finished for him.
He grinned ear to ear. “I’ll do that.”
He hitched up his pants and walked out the door, taking my secret with him.
***
After Pete left, things went on as usual, but there didn’t seem to be the same heart in it. Belle stayed shut up in her room. She didn’t touch the laudanum or any spirits but languished in bed anyway. I brought her meals that she only picked at.
A week went by. One morning I was taking her breakfast of scrambled eggs and grits up the stairs when a big gust of wind swung the batwing doors open. I turned and looked, but nobody was there. I continued on my way when the doors swung open a second time. This time I didn’t bother to look.
“I could do with a bite of breakfast myself,” a familiar voice said.
I turned and looked down into the room. A woman stood there looking up at me. She had on a plain calico dress, faded from years of washing. There was a bonnet on her head, the type worn by women as they travel into town. “Hotel across the street serves breakfast, ma’am,” I said.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
I stared at her unblinking for a full two seconds. When it dawned on me who it was, I dropped the tray, spraying grits and eggs high in the air. She threw back her head and howled a coyote laugh.
“
Calamity!” I shouted.
She shook her head. “Calamity’s dead, Charlie, didn’t you know? I was even at her funeral. I witnessed firsthand her casket being lowered into the earth.” She thumbed the bonnet back off her head. “You’re looking at none other than Martha Jane Cannary.”
“How…Who…How?” I stumbled across my words. My thoughts scattered like struck pins in a bowling alley. So I did the next best thing and laughed. I laughed long enough and hard enough that I must have looked like an escaped lunatic from the asylum.
“You got egg on your face, Charlie,” she said.
***
We sat down, side by side on the stairs, and Martha told me the story from her side of it.
After shooting Wild Bill, Jack McCall jumped on his horse and rode at breakneck speed out of town. He knew a posse was probably forming behind him and he’d have to hightail it into the Black Mountains to hide out. Luck is a fickle lady, though, and McCall’s steed misstepped only two miles outside of town. Cursing, McCall dismounted. His horse’s leg was broken. He pulled his gun and put the poor beast out of its misery. Dragging his saddle, Winchester rifle and saddlebags, he veered from the trail and headed toward a pillar of smoke in the distance.
The smoke was coming from a log cabin’s chimney. McCall approached carefully with his rifle at his side. A large man, a Swede from the looks of his blond head, was in the corral putting a horse through its paces. McCall dropped his belongings and snuck up on the man. “Get off your horse,” McCall ordered.
The Swede turned and studied McCall. “What do you want?” he asked.
McCall raised his rifle and answered, “I’ll be taking that horse. Back away and you won’t get hurt.”
The Swede, being no fool and also being un-heeled, got off the horse. That was when the big Swede made a fatal mistake. As he was handing over his horse’s reins, his eyes flickered to a spot behind McCall.
McCall ducked and spun, discharging his rifle in the same movement. The blast caught the Swede’s wife in the head. She keeled over backwards, dead before she hit the ground. She was still holding a shotgun in her grip. Her once pretty face was now a death mask of blood.
Wild at Heart Page 12
