Calamity

by Libbie Hawker

  I knew it was a shame, the way I followed Bill Hickok around that camp, hoping for some cast-off scrap of acknowledgment like a dog sniffing for crumbs below a table. It was a shame, but I didn’t care. I got to know the men who circled Bill—his familiars—and they professed a certain bemused fondness for me, accepting my presence when they came to understand that I wouldn’t leave them be. Bill remained maddeningly beyond my reach. A fancier lady might have called him aloof or untouchable. I had no such words, back then. I couldn’t do a thing but stare. I followed his every step with my eyes, desperate, besotted, grinning like a fool—just the way a baby stares after its mother. I felt the least motion of his body—his hand plucking at the faro cards, his heel striking the ground in a smooth stride—snapping and humming down the fine lines of my own secret nerves. He was in me, deep under my skin. I couldn’t get him out, and I didn’t want to try.

  Wild Bill might have kicked dirt at me—told me to get lost. He had no use for me, lurking as I did in the periphery of his days, haunting his every waking hour. But for reasons I still can’t explain, he put up with me, showing the same kind and patient toleration that a much older brother gives a kid sister who can’t be dissuaded from tagging along.

  I made myself part of his retinue, and because I could walk like a man despite my long skirts and talk like a man and swear even better, I was accounted a natural part of Bill’s inner circle. Never mind that he hadn’t known me a-tall before he came to the Big Horns. Never mind that he hardly spoke more than two words to me at any given time. None of that mattered a lick, far as I was concerned. All that mattered was whether I could drift into Wild Bill’s proximity a dozen times a day and bask for a moment in the sun of his beauty.

  I couldn’t have contained that longing for Bill, even if I’d been inclined to try. The dreadful, aching want was as powerful as the need that drove paying men to my bed. But it was made from something finer, something silvery and delicate—something holy. My adoration held no base desire—a simple itch in want of scratching. Mine was the yearning of like towards like. It was the same force that calls the rain down from the sky to soak the bare, thirsty ground—the same unseen magic that pulls one raindrop toward another as they race down a pane of glass. I loved Bill on first sight because he was the West, and the West was already deep inside my bones. And in those days, I was convinced—I am still convinced, when I’m quiet long enough to be honest with myself—that neither Bill nor I would ever be complete till we lay in each other’s arms, till the broken parts of our spirits was at last made whole.

  The trouble, of course, was that Wild Bill wanted nothing to do with me. I hung about, his useless shadow, while he conferred with General Sheridan in the big central tent—while they planned a series of scouting missions into the hills and the high green valleys, where the Sioux was rumored to hole up with their war bands. I contributed nothing to those meetings, as you may well surmise, and the general often paused in his plotting to cast a long, slow, narrow-eyed stare in my direction. In those moments, a thick sense of waiting fell inside the tent, as if Sheridan expected Bill to explain himself—explain me. But Bill never said a word about my presence at his side. Nor did he glance my way. I could have been a spaniel, curled on a cushion and gnawing on a bone, for all the notice Wild Bill took. I could have been a gnat whirling in desperate circles around his head.

  All the days of Bill’s presence in that rail camp, I never worked once. How could I have done it? In five years of giving men what they wanted, I had never balked at the task—it was only a job to be done. My work was no more onerous and no more escapable than the camp boys’, who laid the railroad ties out across the land. But suddenly my bed had become the scene of something sacred, and all at once I found it wouldn’t do for any man to join me there but Bill Hickock. I felt a deep, sharp loss just contemplating the possibility of inviting a paying customer to my small tent—for though I had entertained countless men, now I knew I had never laid down with love in my heart. I wanted to know how it was different—to take a man to bed for affinity, for love—not for money. And there was one man in all the world who might give me what I lacked—what I lacked, and what I wanted more desperately than the desert wants the flood.

  On the fourth or fifth day, when I was dazed and aching from the mere sight of Bill (always walking away from me, tall and proud, the fringe on his buckskin coat swinging) I dragged myself back to my tent in an attempt to clear my head. I saw Silkie’s fine tooled saddle there, and guilt struck me, for I hadn’t taken her out riding in days. I knew she must feel restless and abandoned.

  Molly b’Damn was setting outside her tent on a fold-up stool, having recently wakened after a long night of work. She sipped from a tin cup. I could smell her coffee, earthy and sharp. “You haven’ been taking in callers, Jane,” Molly said.

  Wordless in my misery—pathetic with hope—I shook my head.

  “Get your cup,” she said, and raised a bottle of good whiskey from the grass at her feet. She had bought that bottle from Boss; it would be her prize possession till she drained it dry. I guessed she had added a splash or two to her morning coffee.

  I got my cup and held it out to her. Molly didn’t quite fill it halfway.

  “Jane,” said she, “ye must get back to work.”

  I made no answer. I couldn’t find any reason to offer for my reluctance—no reason Molly wouldn’t laugh over. I didn’t want my friend to think me a fool—to know me for the fool I was.

  She said, “Wild Bill Hickok is too fancy and fine a man for the likes of you. Jane, girl, you know gents of his sort don’ fall in love with slammers.”

  I hung my head then. Molly had seen right through me, though as I stood beside her tent thinking it over, I supposed every damn person in the camp could see what was in my head and my heart. Even Bill. Knowing that Bill must think me pathetic—and a fool into the bargain—my heart felt crushed and shattered.

  Molly b’Damn was sweet, though, for she didn’t point out what was obvious to me and to everyone else: a man of Bill’s caliber might indeed fall in love with a whore, if she was pretty and charming enough. Molly was the type of whore who could hope to land a decent man and step up from her low predicament into a world of hope and decency and love. Backwards Kate could have done it, too, or Em the Wrangler—even Smooth Bore. But not Calamity Jane. Calam, who looked like a busted hay bale on a good day. What did I have to offer any man that he couldn’t find elsewhere—and in a much finer package, to boot? And a man as beautiful as Bill Hickok… well.

  “I’m out of money,” I said. “Can’t even buy my own liquor.”

  “Nothing for it, then, but to get back to work. This bottle cost me dear; I won’ give you another cupful. You know I like you plenty, Jane, but it’s not as if you’re sick or dying.”

  “If I don’t work, that’s more men for you.”

  “Aye, that’s so,” Molly said. “But if we ladies don’ look out for each other, who will?”

  She stood then, slowly and carefully, as if she was an old, old woman, though I think she was only stalling, so she wouldn’t have to say the words she knew I needed to hear. But finally, she came to me and laid a hand upon my shoulder.

  “Wild Bill will never love you,” Molly said gently. “It’s best to forget him now, while you still can, and move along with your life.”

  At that moment there was an awful whooping and hollering from up in the hills nearby. Molly and I both froze in fear, thinking—as all people thought in that place, at that time—that it must be party of Sioux preparing to fall upon us with their rifles and axes, their belts hung with white men’s scalps. But then we detected words among the cries. We relaxed some; Molly even smiled at me. The words came as a welcome gift then. But now, I look back and wonder how my life would have been different—mine and Bill’s—if neither of us had ever heard those words a-tall.

  “Gold,” someone shouted from up in the hills. His voice rang out over gully and meadow, rousing the whole camp.
“By God, by jingo, by the Devil, it’s gold! Do you hear?”

  Despite Molly’s sound advice, I still couldn’t bring myself to go back to work. Not just yet. I did go riding on Silkie that day, the two of us alone under a wide indifferent sky, but riding had lost some of its savor. Silkie was cantankerous, bucking and crow-hopping as if to chastise me for my long absence. I took her rebuke without delivering any whacks in return. I figured it was my due, and a bad ride was the least of what I deserved for all my foolish ways.

  Even the land I had so loved—the wide sweeping vistas in which I had reveled just days before—brought little comfort to my heart, and no relief from the thoughts that tormented me. I no longer felt myself a part of the land. For certain, my sins was no longer absolved by God’s distance or the vastness of His creation. I was a small and wretched thing, and the farther I rode from the camp, the wors’t my heart ached, for I sensed already the discovery of gold would bring irreversible changes to my life, and more darkness than I could bear. Hadn’t that always been the way, ever since Pa made up his mind to set out from Missouri for Montana’s empty promise? There I was, in that very same Montana. Gold hadn’t entered my head in all the time I’d spent among the camps—yet now, I’d never be able to escape it. And the promise of gold would pull Wild Bill away from me—I was sure of it already—snatch him right out of my life forever, with no chance to learn whether he could love me (though the chance was ghostly-slim.)

  I guess grim thoughts of my pa and the harrowing start to my life’s adventure had riled me up some. I soon wearied of the open landscape and rode back to camp as fast as my horse could take the rocky trail. I made up my mind to find Wild Bill and speak to him face to face—force him to see me, as he had done that first day outside Boss’s tent. Force him to confront the unbridled longing of my heart. When I regained the camp, I trotted straight through the place, perched high above the fracas on my big black mare. Men skittered around me, packing up their things, making ready to abandon the rail line and go charging up the untamed hills in pursuit of their fortunes. I kicked Silkie right through the ant’s-nest of our camp till I found the tents Bill and his cronies called home. And there was Wild Bill, leaning on a tent pole while he chatted with one of his friends, lounging at his ease in the sunshine while the camp worked itself into a frenzy all around him.

  He looked up as I damn near trampled his tent, but when he saw it was only Calam in the saddle, his expression of surprise faded, replaced by an air of cool toleration.

  I swung down to earth and marched straight up to him. My heart pounded at being so near to Wild Bill. My heart always did so, when I found myself close enough to smell the soft, warm leather of his coat. I hoped the thrill didn’t show on my face.

  “You and I must have words,” I said. I never knew how my voice remained so steady, so firm.

  Bill’s eyes met mine—locked with mine, and that look held me, so I couldn’t break away. Then he shrugged. Not as if to put me off—just a casual acceptance of my demand. Without a word from Bill, his assortment of hangers-on vanished. I guess his friends all sensed there was something raw in me, and didn’t want to watch me shame myself even further. Or perhaps—more likely—they didn’t want to witness Bill’s inevitable humiliation. There’s a kind of code among men, a silent understanding that they will turn their backs when one of their own is ensnared by a female embarrassment like Calamity Jane. Bill’s friends slunk off into the bustle of the camp, disappearing as completely as if they’d been blowed away by a cyclone.

  When we stood alone, more or less (alone as a body can be in a busy railroad camp) I asked Bill the question I had come to pose. I let it thunder right out of me before I could think to hold it back, before I could be any wiser.

  “Bill,” I said, “why is it you never looked twice at me? I know I ain’t much to look at, but I am good-hearted and at least I can ride. Don’t that count for a thing with you?”

  His body gave an involuntary jerk—just a small one, so subtle maybe no one but me would have noticed, for no one stared at Wild Bill like I did, no one had memorized his every movement and habit. His initial expression was one of shock so complete that for a moment I thought he’d been stung by a wasp or a pellet. I’d never seen his eyes open so wide—and oh, they were lovely eyes, a hazel-gray-green deep as river water. For a second, I saw humor flash across his long, refined features. I feared he might laugh at my notion. But then he returned to his typical calm, to the self-possessed, sad-eyed, slow contemplation that marked him. He stroked his mustache slowly, watching my face very carefully while he gathered his words.

  Finally he said, “Calamity, I’ll tell you why I never looked twice at you. It’s because every time I saw you from the corner of my eye, you had that damn cup in your hand. You’ll do yourself in with drink if you don’t get your urges under control.”

  “I will not,” I said in defiance. After all, I hadn’t had a drink all day, since Molly had cut me off. I would have had more to drink by then, if I’d had a penny to pay Boss with, but that seemed neither here nor there.

  Bill said, “You’re young yet—and too young to look so damn rough. You ought to turn yourself around now, while there’s still time.”

  “What a fine thing to say to a lady,” I fired back.

  “You ain’t any kind of lady,” said Bill, though not without a certain gentleness, “and there’s no reason for either of us to pretend otherwise. Listen, Calam: whatever kind of woman I end up with, she won’t be bedeviled by any vice. I could never love a woman of that sort. I just ain’t that kind of man.”

  I looked at him squarely then, and set my jaw, and said, “You’re surely bedeviled by vice yourself, Bill Hickok. Some vice or other—men always are bedeviled. And I’ve known far more men than you have, I bet, so I know what I’m talking about.”

  He stroked his mustache again and said, “Yes mam, reckon you have had the acquaintance of a powerful lot of men. And you so very young.” He didn’t say it with cruel amusement, to mock me. Nor did he sound disgusted. I couldn’t decide whether his words held pity or a grim sort of respect. Bill said, “I don’t deny what you say. Lord knows I do have my share of vices. But I do my level best to overcome them, Calam. You ought to do the same. Anyway,” he added, straightening from the tent pole, abrupt and business-like, “I can’t afford to fall in love with you. I’m leaving with Sheridan in two days.”

  I felt as if the world had fallen right out from under me. Dropped away into a terrible yawning blackness that had no bottom and no sides—that had nothing but the sick sensation of plunging downward forever. “Two days?” I nearly shrieked those words him.

  “Yes mam. We was sent up here to this camp on rumor of gold, and, well… the rumors have been confirmed, as you surely heard this morning. Sheridan’s company is going up into the hills to protect whichever men are brave enough to stake out a claim and begin mining.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “There’s Sioux all over in the hills. They’ll kill any whites who try it.”

  Bill pulled his gun from its holster. It gleamed like an autumn star. He said, “I’m to scout for Sheridan and keep an eye on the Sioux. There’s no one better at fighting Indians than me. I’ll clear out whatever Sioux still remain, and that’ll be that. Reckon you and I won’t see each other again.”

  I swallowed a hard, rasping dryness in my throat. Bill had sounded downright relieved at the prospect.

  He strode off a few paces, then paused, turning back to look at me. He was kind enough then to give me a smile. It was small—half embarrassed—but it was the only thing Bill had ever given me, and I cherished it as much as I would have cherished a kiss.

  “I wish you well, Calam,” he said softly. “You’re a sharp girl, for all your vices. You can go far in life, if you only will it. I do truly believe that, mam.”

  Then he touched his hat gently, just as he’d done the first time I seen him, with a graceful lift of his finger, with the barest and coolest of nods. And aft
er that, he was walking away from me like he always did, all buckskin and swinging fringe, his auburn hair flowing. Walking away—taking every scrap of my new-found world with him.

  A breast of alabaster purity

  What can a woman do, once she’s fallen in love? Nothing but suffer with the pain of it. Nothing but give in.

  I’ve met plenty of folks who would think the notion absurd: that a woman like me should ever lose her heart. Love is something reserved for pretty women—the fine ones, upright and respectable girls. Most folks find it a kind of blasphemy, I think, to picture a girl like me in the crystal palace of love. As if, like a bull in a china shop, a haystack of a woman might knock it all down, break all the prisms and shatter the rainbows and spoil love for everyone who comes along after. Plenty of times, I thought the same about myself, and tried to shut off the terrible deep longing I felt for Wild Bill. But I could as soon stop my poor heart from beating as stop myself from yearning for his touch.

  We was parted, Bill and I, for more than a year. And while he passed through my every waking thought—every heavy, haunted dream—there was never a moment when I was fool enough to imagine he spared a thought for me. In moments when I was honest with myself—as honest as I could bear to be—I knew Bill was relieved to be rid of me, for what kind of man wants a sad, lost scrap of humanity dogging his every step? What good and worthwhile fella could ever find this type of girl worthy—or even respectable? I was not only a whore renowned for my cussing, but I was an ugly whore, too.

  I worked hard, all that lonesome year—harder than I ever had before, moving from one camp to the next. I lived in rail camps and miners’ camps, soldiers’ squadrons, anywhere else I could light for a week or two. I wasn’t choosy about location, as long as the camp was out there, away from towns and road ranches. Out there was the only place I felt I could survive—in the gray-green, wide-openness of the world—for if I couldn’t be with Wild Bill, at least I could spend my days riding free beneath the sky. And there, with only the sun and the hot hills to judge me for a fool, I could give myself over to the giddiness of love and sing to myself, and let the stars come out in my eyes, and dream all my hopeless, wretched dreams. Sometimes I allowed my starry eyes to fill up with tears, in mute awe of the great force inside me—the unending, quiet torment of rapture. I worked all that long, dry, slow-burning year. I didn’t want a single one of the men I took into my bed. But I needed their money, and now that I had a name—now that all the West knew me on sight as Calamity Jane—there wasn’t no other sort of work I could find, however much I yearned to remake myself as a respectable and worthy lady, the kind of lady who might hope to win Wild Bill’s heart.