Now that was an odd year in the West, one of the strangest I ever witnessed. Perhaps it was only the disordered state of my heart, reflected from within me and casting its broken shadow over the world, so that I saw things all askew, and noted misery and uncertainty everywhere I looked. But I think not. Even today, I believe it was simply the state of the world, for I also observed a great and optimistic restlessness, a gathering of hope. I think I saw the world honest and true that year—the year I turned nineteen. Every man and woman in the Hills—and on the prairie to the east, in the mountains to the west—seemed as jumbled-up and hopeless as I was.
You see, George Armstrong Custer was up in the Black Hills that strange, wild year, tangling with the Sioux. He had come to the area almost two years prior, and though I never saw him with my own eyes, I felt I would recognize Custer on sight if he came swaggering into a saloon while I was buying up a new ration of whiskey, or if chance took him through one of the railroad camps. Even if he lacked his fabled contingent of men, I felt certain I would know him, for his legend had so preceded him that he already seemed familiar, a force imbuing the whole West with his mighty presence.
Custer had first come to Dakota Territory back in ’73, with a charge to stave off the Sioux so the men who plotted the railroads could take stock of the terrain and plan the course of the next long, reaching arm of track. He had done such a fine job of fighting the Sioux that the folks in charge became mighty impressed with him, and sent him up into the Hills to look for gold, just as they would later do with General Sheridan and my Bill. But Custer’s expedition had struck a richer vein than Sheridan’s in the Big Horns of Montana.
News of Custer’s gold had spurred a right stampede into the Black Hills—packs of eager men, all raring for a chance to fill their pockets with gold nuggets and make themselves rich as devils forever. The sleepy little town of Deadwood boomed with a suddenness we could hear all across the West. The rattle of it shook our bones and echoed in our heads. Before the gold, Deadwood had been nothing but a faltering stage-stop, the last half-civilized place before the earth turned to white cliffs and painted slopes and Indians with ill intent hiding in the holes of shadows, out there in the treacherous Hills. Now Deadwood was as grand as a metropolis—or what passed for a metropolis in a sea of prairie grass, out where the rail lines tapered off to nothing.
I hadn’t yet been to Deadwood. I saw no reason to go, for till the coming of Custer and the wild hope of his gold, Deadwood was a place better ignored, if not conscientiously avoided. However, I did have occasion to ride back to Fort Laramie in May of ’75. I had need of a few goods which I could only obtain from the trading post there, and besides, I’d grown tired of the dull routine of railroad camps—the long, lonely days when the air filled with the pounding of mauls against spikes, distant but oppressive in their repetition—a flat metallic clanging that went on and on. And each night in the rail camps, when darkness fell, my soul was overtaken by another rhythm, another pounding, just as wearying and fretful. So I was pleased to find an excuse to ride alone to Fort Laramie. I longed for the quiet of the trail, just me and my horse in the long grass, with the soothing quiet of stars at night and no one in my bed roll but me. I had no more fear of Red Nancy. If she still haunted Fort Laramie, she wasn’t like to tangle with me now. Anyway, I had my pistol with the pearl star in its handle. If Nancy came for me, I’d only have to draw the gun to make her run screaming in fright.
On the day I rode into Fort Laramie, I wore my usual riding get-up: trousers in lieu of a dress, and a boiled shirt I had won off one of the other camp girls in a game of faro. (She had been given the shirt as a token of great affection from a railroad boy, a poor sod who thought himself sore in love with the girl. She, of course, had no use for the thing. Still, it was a fine prize for me, and fit me as if it had been made to order.) I had a dandy pair of buckskin chaps, too, which I found in an abandoned cabin somewhere out in Montana on one of my lonesome rides. I adorned my boots with two mismatched spurs—which I wore purely for looks. Silkie was a spirited horse, but not bad-tempered; I’d had no cause to give her anything worse than a hard word or a smack from my open palm. But what I liked best about my riding outfit wasn’t the silver spurs, but a big, grand sombrero I’d bought at a trading post when I was eighteen. It put me in mind of the sombrero I had worn while driving Braddick’s mules. Men and women alike thought it a great laugh to see me crown myself with that sombrero. And even with my boiled shirt and heavy chaps, the hat kept me cool on hot, sunny days.
As I neared the fort outside town, I noticed a great encampment stretching along the prairie to the west, a collection of tents aligned in neat rows. Such perfect order spoke of military precision. I was a young girl, but I’d seen enough of camps by then to identify the various sorts at a glance. This was most certainly an Army camp, evidenced by its fanatical tidiness and a conspicuous lack of whoop-up. I went about my business at the trading post, then asked the gentleman at the counter why the Army had come. I had some notion of attaching myself to a new camp, for the one I’d traveled with most recently was devoid of fun. Everything I valued was trussed up in my saddle bags, so I could strike out with a new band of boys as soon as a good opportunity came along.
“That camp,” the man said, “is a mighty prestigious one, Miss Jane. It’s led by Lieutenant Colonel Dodge and its mission is, as they say, scientific.”
That caught my interest straight away. I had never been on a scientific expedition before. “Where they headed?”
“Up into the Black Hills,” the gentleman said, “to see if they can confirm or deny once and for all Custer’s reports of gold… before the fever for gold overtakes every man in these parts, and burns away what little is left of good sense.”
“General Custer wouldn’t make up stories,” I said loyally. Everyone was loyal to Custer. In those days, he loomed as large as God Himself.
The gentleman held up his hands, a half-pleading gesture. “I never said Custer would do such a thing, Miss. Never said it. But Back East, the trains are filled near to bursting with men waiting to rush up into the Hills and stake a claim. It would be a disaster—a plum disaster—if there wasn’t enough gold to go around. Fellows might turn to fighting. We might even have another war over it. So you see, a second opinion is required. Dodge will have a look for himself, then send word back to Washington, and if the Hill streams are indeed running with gold, as everyone seems to believe, then the rush will be on, and we’ll have nothing to fear. Though if the streams were running with gold, I do believe some of it would have washed down to Fort Laramie by now. Not that I’ve got a bad word to say against Custer, you understand.”
A scientific expedition sounded like a leisurely change from the railroad camps. At least I wouldn’t be forced to listen to the endless clanging of spikes into the earth. I said, “I got half a mind to take up with that expedition.”
The man at the counter paled a little. His eyes shifted this way and that, as if he was reluctant to speak. “Miss Jane,” he finally said, “from what I hear, Colonel Dodge is a mighty strict man. He doesn’t mean to let any women follow this camp.”
“Maybe he needs a guide.” It was an absurd suggestion. I had no experience guiding. I could ride better than most men, to be sure, but I knew nothing of the Black Hills, and sure as you’re born, I knew nothing about navigating through Indian territory. But the words came out of my mouth all the same. Something about Dodge’s scientific expedition had got beneath my skin. It was calling to me. Maybe it was only the promise of a change of routine, but still to this day, I believe I was feeling fate’s pull—though I didn’t recognize the touch of its hand.
“Dodge has a guide already,” the man said briskly. “Wild Bill Hickok has signed on to scout him through the Hills.”
I don’t know how long I stood and stared at that man, with one hand on the bundle of goods I’d paid for and my eyes stunned and glassy under the brim of my sombrero. If he said anything more to me, I never heard
it. All I could hear was a roaring in my ears, as of water plunging over a fall, and all I could feel was that persistent ache in my heart, but it had yawned wider all-of-a-sudden, doubling with the force of my absurd, grasping, desperate hope.
I can’t tell you how long I stood and gazed like a cow about to be slaughtered. However long it was, I surely disconcerted the man behind the counter terribly. But after a time, an idea sparked in my head. That spark lit a thin little flicker of a flame. I turned around and marched out of the trading post with my bundle under my arm—but without, I’m afraid, a thank-you-sir or a good-afternoon. I tied the bundle up on Silkie’s saddle, then hurried across to the camp as fast as I could go, before my nerve could fail.
I strode right down the rows of tents as if I knew where I was going—and truth to tell, I did. One camp is mostly like all the others, though the soldiering kind has more order and routine. Even if his expedition was scientifical in nature, Colonel Dodge was a soldiering type, and besides, now I knew that the Colonel had no use for women trailing after his boys. I reasoned I had his personality pegged before I even reached the center of the camp. And as I neared its center, there I saw what could only have been the Colonel’s tent—perfectly white, spotless, with its sides drawn taut as a drum between guy-lines that was all precisely of the same length.
My mind was made up. I would present myself to Dodge and talk my way into the camp—not as a follower, but as a junior scout of sorts, and one who would be more useful than most other scouts. I knew how to wash laundry like no one else God ever made—and when my back was against the wall, I could cook stew and bread that a body could choke down without too much suffering. I’d done it countless times on the lonesome trail.
I never got a chance to speak to the Colonel directly. The sight of a woman in chaps and sombrero raised a stir among the infantry tents; word traveled fast along the rows. Boys came out to stand in the mouths of their tents, wearing trousers and boots but nothing else, arms folded over their thin white chests as they watched me pass. They turned aside to laugh with their friends, or stood up from the shade where they lounged about playing cards, and shouted at me and whistled in an ironical manner. I didn’t mind their humor, for I knew from long experience that if you laugh along with those who mock you, they soon enough become your friends.
Well, the hubbub I raised drew the alert of the camp’s topmost men. I crossed an open patch—a parade ground of sorts, to judge by the trampled grass—and a thin little fella come out to meet me, scuttling from the door of the colonel’s tent, tugging on his waistcoat in a great show of fluster. His hair was waxed into an elegant wave that wouldn’t last long on the trail, I knew—and anyway, it had begun to go thin up top. But he did have the most glorious mustache I ever seen, so thick it hung right down over his mouth, so long on the ends it almost brushed the winking buttons of his coat. God almighty, I thought, sizing him up, he must have been growing that mustache since the day he was born.
He marched directly up to me and said, “Mam, I fear this camp is no place for a lady.”
Some of the boys who stood closest to the edge of the parade ground heard his words, and hooted with laughter, for any fool could see I was no lady. The chaps and spurs should have been a give-away, even to a man who wasn’t yet acquainted with the breadth of my infamy.
I said, “Sir, I ain’t coming to you as a lady, but as a soldier of sorts. You see, I live here at Fort Laramie and I heard of Lieutenant Colonel Dodge’s grand mission, and I thought to attach myself with my useful talents, since I am a great admirer of all things scientifical.”
Even through the dense screen of his mustache, I could see his lips twitch, as if he was holding back an undignified laugh.
Before he could decline, I spoke up again. “I’m real handy at washing and mending clothes, sir, like you wouldn’t believe. I can cook, too.”
“We have a cook already,” the man said calmly.
Thank merciful Heaven was all I could think. But I kept my relief to myself. I said, “But it’s a hard ride up into the Hills, and your men will be better served if they don’t have to patch up their own clothes or do their own washing. Besides mending and washing, I can nurse the sick real good.”
He sort of raised up one eyebrow at that, as if to tell me he doubted the extent of my nursing skills. Or maybe he only doubted whether a creature like me had the necessary kindness and patience to care for the ailing. He was wrong on that count. Though I never worked in any official capacity as a nurse or healer, plenty of times I had helped care for sick and injured men along the rail lines. Nursing had never been any part of my usual occupation; I simply took to it when it needed doing, for any time I witnessed pain or suffering, I couldn’t help but suffer right along.
The man said, “Young lady, my name is Dr. Valentine T. McGillycuddy.”
I burst out laughing at that. I couldn’t help it. The man had such a fine-and-fancy name—and it was sore out of place here on the fringes of Fort Laramie. “Sorry,” I said, and controlled myself with some effort. “Don’t think anything of me, Doctor. I’m rough around the edges ’cause my pa was a brave soldier killed by the Indians when I was but twelve years old, and my dear ma was consumptive, and never could stop me from running wild and seeking out adventure, though she was a very fine and respectable woman, well loved by everyone who knew her. I’m quite sure she turns over in her grave on the regular, to see her only child running about in britches and a sombrero, but if I don’t make my way with some kind of soldiering, you know what kind of iniquity I’ll be forced to turn to—me being a girl, and all. You wouldn’t cast me down on iniquity, would you, Doc?”
Dr. McGillycuddy didn’t respond to that. He combed his mustache with his fingers, narrowing his small eyes. His air was thoughtful. Finally he asked my name, and I gave it as Margaret Bird, not wanting to leave him any trail to follow back to Calamity Jane.
“Margaret,” he said, “your type of woman is sure to follow along after the camp whether you’re welcome or not. But I must tell you frankly: we are about to embark on a difficult and hazardous mission. This is no jaunt through a park.”
“My whole life has been no jaunt through a park,” I said, and that was the truth, at least.
He said, “I suppose you do know how to ride—or else why would you be dressed in this strange attire?”
“I can ride better than any of your men. You needn’t worry about my safety; I’ll keep up.”
“That’s exactly what I fear,” he said.
“Doctor, won’t you speak to the colonel on my behalf? I’d like his blessing to ride along, and I know I’ll be useful—and not at all sinful. I won’t bring any shame or disgrace to a single one of his men. I’ll do his name proud—you’ll tell him that, won’t you?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Dodge will certainly not permit you to follow this expedition,” Dr. McGillycuddy said.
I just grinned at him then, wide and saucy and unconcerned.
He said, “If you make any trouble—any kind at all, young lady—you’ll be sent back to Fort Laramie alone. We will not be able to spare any men to accompany you. If you have a scrap of wisdom within you, you’ll take the road of safety and remain here, where you belong.”
They called those rows of tents the barracks. I strode among them happy and smiling, for I knew by Dr. McGillycuddy’s tacit surrender that I would soon be riding into the Black Hills. The doctor knew, I believe, that whatever Dodge would have preferred, there was no way to keep men from women, nor women from men. Not in the West, anyhow. Perhaps in the fancy halls and mansions of the East, people was content to mind custom and propriety. But here beyond the crumbling edge of civilization, the world moved to a different rhythm. Our lives and actions was dictated by times and seasons no high-minded colonel could change, no matter what he believed. The rhythm that moved us was deep and powerful, essential and true.
I would soon make my way back to the hitching post to retrieve Silkie, and buy up the remaining supplies I
needed for a lengthy expedition in the wilderness. But first I wanted to find him—first I needed to quell the quiver in my belly, or fire it up stronger than ever before, and lay eyes on Wild Bill after that long year of aimless, endless ache.
I found him far across the camp. Past the parade ground—beyond the rows of barracks tents, where the gathering fringed out into open field and the river ran by, swift and quiet—Bill sat on the sun-warmed ground, leaning against a pannier. A few stuffed saddlebags lay nearby. He had crossed one ankle up over his knee, and his hat was pulled down low, shading his eyes and his thoughts. He didn’t face the barracks, nor the high wooden walls of the fort beyond. All his contemplation was turned toward the river and the distant line of blue mountains slung low across the prairie.
I stood still for a moment, staring at him—took in the sight of him, while the stillness of awe damped down everything else inside me. For a year I had heard nothing of Wild Bill’s movements—though to be sure, I had gleaned from some source or other that General Sheridan had returned from his mission in one piece. But there had been no reliable news of Bill Hickock. Scouts and guides was often killed up in the mountains and foothills, for the country was confusing to the eye—I ought to know, from my many lonely rides. The Sioux was treacherous everywhere, but especially in the Black Hills, where they could shelter in the numberless gulches, unseen by the keenest white man’s eye. But there Bill sat before me, whole and alive, exactly as I remembered him. He kept himself slightly apart from the rest, as if he knew how fine and grand he was with his dark red hair spilling down to his shoulders and his foot bouncing above his knee in a slow, idle rhythm.
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