Calamity

by Libbie Hawker

  “You will not go with her,” Dodge insisted. “You’re needed here, and you aren’t being paid to escort road-house girls through the wilderness. She will ride in the wagon with an escort of men; her safety will be assured.”

  “I will not ride in no god-damned wagon,” I hollered.

  Bill cast me a pleading glance that seemed to say, Shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you, Calam. But when have I ever known what’s good for me?

  I pulled my arm out of Bill’s grip. My face burned so hot with shame and anger that I felt sure every man could see it, even in the darkness, with color all washed away by the stars. I said, “I can take care of myself, and I will, so Bill here can save his false concern for my welfare. Stay here with Dodge, Wild Bill; he’s the one as pays your wages. For myself, I ain’t gonna stick around to enjoy his civil company no more.”

  Joe and Sam was quick about packing up my things. They had Silkie there on the bank almost before I’d jammed my feet back into my boots. Joe handed me my black sombrero with his eyes downcast.

  I swung up to Silkie’s saddle, though my body was stiff from cold and from indignation. My mare pranced eagerly. Her injured knee seemed as good as it ever was. I shivered hard, still more wet than dry, but I was ready to be off, just like my mare was. I crossed back over the crick with a great, loud splashing of Silkie’s hooves and soon enough found the trail the expedition had left, a gouge of dark wheel ruts and hoofprints through the silver-and-black forest.

  “Damn it, Calam!” Bill called to me from across the crick. But he said no more.

  I recalled that some ways back, there had been a fork in the trail, a split that ran off past the Bear’s Teepee. And not far from the Bear’s Teepee stood the Cuny and Coffey Road Ranch, where I had worked for a week or two in the past. I could make it safe to Cuny and Coffey’s, if God was willing. To distract myself from the considerable shame I felt, I thought about that road ranch with anticipation—the loud music, boisterous dancing, the burn of whiskey in my throat.

  But before I’d made it far from Dodge’s expedition, I heard a distant splash in the crick. Then the pounding of hooves along the trail. I pulled Silkie back to a slow walk and allowed the rider to catch me.

  I wasn’t surprised to find Wild Bill, tall and straight on his big sorrel gelding. He fell in beside me but held his tongue.

  “Dodge won’t pay you if you come with me,” I told him.

  “To Hell with Dodge,” said Bill. “You need a guide; that much is clear. For one thing, you’re headed the wrong way if you mean to get to Deadwood.”

  “Ain’t going to Deadwood.”

  “Back to Fort Laramie?”

  I shook my head, but I didn’t reveal my destination. I didn’t think Bill would like to hear that I was planning to take up my old trade again. And there was little to do at a road ranch except drink. I guessed I had to admit to myself that I was planning to take up that old pastime, too. Why not? All the beauty had been stripped from me, trampled into the mud by Dodge and his god-damn ideals. I was what I always had been: a worthless whore. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

  “You ain’t going to accompany me,” I said to Bill. “If you think so, then you can go to Hell right alongside Colonel Dodge.”

  “Is that any way to talk to your friend, Calam?”

  “Are you my friend?” I looked at Bill squarely then. I held his eye, daring him to speak—to say, No I ain’t, not really, for you can’t never be anything to me. Or to say, I’m more than your friend because I find myself powerful in love with you and want you for my wife. Both possibilities were absurd, I knew. And yet I couldn’t have said which I longed to hear more: the truth, or the lie.

  Bill didn’t respond—not with words. To this day, I think he was wise to keep quiet. I was riled up then, boiling with vinegar, and I don’t know how I might have reacted had he said anything a-tall, even if he’d merely coughed or clicked his tongue at his horse.

  Instead he reached down to his holster and drew his gun.

  For a second, I thought maybe he’d shoot me, though I’d given him no cause. Maybe in that moment, I just wanted it to end—the shame, the ache of my dreams shattered, the ridiculous nature of my love for him. But he reached across the space between us and handed his gun to me.

  I took the pistol, looking down at it for a moment. It was well polished and perfectly clean, shining like the moon on the horizon. It smelled of oil, bitter and sharp—just like Bill did.

  “I already have a gun,” I said.

  “You might need another, if you come across any Sioux.”

  That decided me. I pushed his gun through my belt.

  “Stay safe, Calamity, wherever you’re going.”

  I thought, You coward. If you was a real man, you’d ride along with me, no matter what Dodge thinks. And even as that thought tumbled through my head, I scolded myself for thinking it, because wasn’t I the equal of any man on the frontier? Didn’t I have to be a man’s equal, since I never would be pretty enough or worthy enough to land a man of my own?

  “I’ll be safe,” I said shortly. “Ain’t no sense in worrying about me.”

  Bill reined his gelding to a halt. When I was good and sure his horse had stopped on the trail, I kicked Silkie into a jog-trot. We made our way back through the wilderness alone.

  The most reckless buchario in the Hills

  Riding off alone that night ranks among the most damnably foolish stunts I ever pulled in a life defined by damn-foolish things. My horse made slow progress, for the terrain was steep and hard, much rougher than any of the previous trails I followed on my own. And of course it was night, ill-lit by a low-slung moon, which only added to my fears and to Silkie’s hesitation. With every step Silkie took into treacherous darkness, I recalled with dreadful lucidity the scenery I took in from the safety of the supply wagon: limestone cliffs falling sheer and straight a hundred feet or more, the sudden ravines revealing themselves among the hills, all black shadow with hard edges, opening like rips in fabric. I had thought the landscape pretty, when I’d ridden secure among sacks of potatoes and flour. Now my heart pounded every time Silkie’s hooves skidded down a bare stretch of slope, for I felt sure we was about to plunge over the lip of a canyon or a cliff and fall to the great, cracked boulders below.

  Wild Bill couldn’t have done a thing to save me from such a fate, but he might have been some use against Indians. The Sioux was up there in the Hills, without a doubt. I couldn’t soothe myself with comforting lies that the Indians had all packed up and left when they’d seen the expedition coming, for I spotted an encampment that night when I gained the crest of a hill. As I rode up the steep trail, nothing showed ahead but white stars spattered across an ink-black sky. But the moment Silkie reached the summit, I reined up short in fear—for directly ahead, level with our vantage, I could see the banked embers of at least two dozen fires glowing red against the night. I sat perfectly still in my saddle, silently pleading with my horse not to call out to the Indian ponies, not even to snort nor swish her tail, for the night had disoriented me, and for some long while I couldn’t judge how far off that encampment lay. I knew my only saving grace was Silkie’s dark color, which would obscure me from the eyes of sentries for a few minutes at least. I sat staring at the campfires, my mind gone blank and useless with shock, heart pounding so loud in my ears that I nearly took the sound for Sioux war drums. Only very gradually did my eyes adjust to the new source of light, and then I could see that the camp occupied a different hilltop entirely—one that stood at least half a mile from my fearfully exposed perch, perhaps even farther.

  When I realized I wasn’t about to ride directly into the middle of a Sioux encampment, I relaxed some, settling back in my saddle with a quivery sigh. Silkie, sensing my relief, let out a soft whicker, as if to ask, “What now?” I didn’t know what to tell her—didn’t know what I ought to do, where I should go. To think, I scolded myself bitterly, you once thought to fool Lieutenant Colonel
Dodge into taking you for a scout. Why, you wouldn’t even know which side to fall off your horse if you was shot with an Indian arrow.

  The relief of knowing I hadn’t blundered upon my death all unawares—not yet, anyway—made me feel terrible tired. All urgency to get away from the expedition evaporated. Now there I was, well and truly away from Dodge, and my body realized all at once that it was night-time and I was sore tuckered out from a long, harrowing day. Exhaustion struck me so hard I began to tremble. Silkie sensed that change in me, too, and tossed her head in confusion. I knew I had to make some decision before she began to fuss. I was no scout—that was damn sure—but I had enough common sense to know that the Sioux wouldn’t all have taken to their beds. Watchers had their eyes wide open, searching the Black Hills for any sign of the white men who’d come sniffing after gold. Wild Bill’s words came snaking back to me through the night. I hate to think what they’ll do to a woman alone if they catch you.

  If I stayed at the crest of that hill, the Sioux would spot me sooner or later—either that night, when an Indian sentry turned his eyes to the west and picked out the silhouette of a rider against the stars, or in the morning, when the sun fell upon my dark horse exposed on a pale, bare hilltop. I knew I must get down low, preferably into one of the canyons, if I hoped to evade the Sioux. I dismounted to make my whole assemblage as short as possible and led Silkie step by sliding step down the other side of our hill, one eye fixed to the distant glow of Indian fires, holding my breath each time my mare’s hooves or my clumsy boots sent a stone rattling and bouncing down the black trail ahead.

  By and by, I lost sight of the fires altogether, and I reasoned I’d descended into a protective gulch. I found a flat patch of earth just big enough to accommodate Silkie and me, stamped around carefully to shoo off any rattlers, and rolled out my bed. There I caught a couple hours of much-needed rest. I slept with both guns laid out to either side of my head—the pearl-handled pistol and Bill’s gun, the dull gleam of which I stared at till weariness finally dragged my eyelids shut. Then, an hour before true sunrise, I was up and riding again, picking my cautious way down a steep path in the whispery blue half-light before dawn.

  As the next day wore on, I did my level best to behave like the scout I knew I was not. A grim truth revealed itself to me as I floundered alone through the Black Hills: I didn’t really know what the Hell a scout even did—what knowledge they held that made them so valuable, what skills they’d honed out on the lonesome trail. I reasoned that they must have sharp eyes, so I kept mine open and trained on the ridges and ochre-banded hillsides that towered above, frantic for any hint of the Sioux. I hadn’t the least idea what to do if I spotted an Indian, and I tried not to dwell on what would happen if an Indian spotted me first. I concentrated on riding among the willows and shrubs that clung to the lowest places, the sandy bellies of ravines and dry washes, hoping the rustling leaves and the shadows they cast afforded me some protection from eyes much keener than my own.

  But all the while as I rode, I kept the Bear’s Teepee within my sight—in sight, and always at my right hand, for I knew the Cuny and Coffey Road Ranch stood not far to the west of the mountain. Afternoon blazed across a merciless blue sky, and the heat raised clouds of lazy deer flies from the brush to torment Silkie and me with their searing bites. Anyplace that wasn’t covered by clothing was soon covered in bleeding welts. Silkie’s countless bites dripped red along our path, and her hide never ceased to twitch amid that hellish onslaught. The flies was such a plague of misery that I considered riding up out of the gullies to higher ground, where the wind would chase the flies away, Indians be damned.

  Just before sunset—when I despaired of ever finding my way out of those damnable hills with my skin intact—the ravine I’d been following for hours opened out onto a wide sage plain. The Black Hills lay behind me at last, and there in the distance, across a flat gray meadow of summer-dried grass and gnarled brush, I spotted the welcome palisade that surrounded Cuny and Coffey. I had found the road ranch at last; I had hauled myself through the terrors of the wilderness alone, and had survived the trek more or less in one piece.

  I would have let out a whoop of glee and lit out for the ranch at a gallop, but my shoulders still tensed and twitched at thought of Sioux in the hills behind me. I didn’t much care for the possibility of drawing their attention, no matter how near or distant they might be. So I kept quiet and urged Silkie to a cautious trot, and by the time the sun had disappeared behind the far horizon, I was pounding on the road ranch gate, hollering for them to open up and take me in.

  Accordingly, I was ushered into the protected grounds of Cuny and Coffey, and never in my life was I so glad to be shut up behind a fence. The moment the heavy timber gate closed, I slumped in my saddle, almost weeping with relief. The familiar grounds seemed to swim in my vision, the stock pens and boarding cabins and the big cheerful saloon rippling and blurring as if I looked at them through moving water, or through the squares of a cheaply made window. I scrubbed the tears from my eyes with a blood-spattered sleeve before anybody could see that I’d been on the verge of crying.

  “Calamity Jane. I’ll be damned.” Jem Coffey, one of the owners of the road ranch, came limping out of his cabin to greet me. He had always limped, since I first met him—was shot through the leg by an Indian arrow, or so he told anybody who’d sit still long enough to listen.

  I swung down from my saddle, but I had to lean against Silkie to compose myself, for my legs was shaking with the residue of fear. I reached out to shake Coffey’s hand. He turned my hand over so’s he could see the fly bites welted all across my skin, the blood dried hard and brown along my knuckles, cracked and flaking. Then he peered closer at my face, wincing at sight of me. “What in Hell happened to you, girl?”

  “Ran into a swarm of deer flies. Ain’t nothing to worry over.” I tried to make myself sound cheerful, full of pluck as I’d been the last time Coffey had seen me. “Listen, Jem—I come all this way up from Fort Laramie to work for you again.”

  “Last I seen you, you said you’d had enough of the road ranch life and you meant to light out after some other pursuit.”

  “I know—but I need the money. A girl has to support herself one way or another, after all.”

  I was conscious of my filthy trousers, my trail-stained shirt. I had nothing suitable to wear among my personal effects, for I’d sold off all my nice dresses long ago. But I hoped the reputation I’d built while touring for McDaniels might be enough to save me. If word of the girl trick-shooter had spread far enough since my McDaniels days, I might not need to rely on fancy dresses to make my way. Trousers and buckskin might prove sufficient to get me by.

  Jem Coffey sized me up, sweeping a long, considering look from my black sombrero down to my weathered old boots, pale with the dust of my journey. For a moment I feared he’d tell me he had no use for me—that unless I looked like a proper girl, he couldn’t let me work the saloon. Then his sharp eye returned to the two guns resting on my hips. His craggy face broke into a slow grin, and I could see that I had him where I wanted him.

  “Could be nice to have some new entertainment here,” he said. “Word gets out, you might even draw some folks over from the nearest towns, on purpose to see you shoot.”

  “I’ll start tomorrow, if you like,” I promised. “I only need a little time to clean myself up and rest. I’ve had a long, weary trek to get back to you.”

  “That smallest cabin is empty, down at the end of the row. But see here, Jane—you take any boys inside, you owe me a quarter of whatever they pay. Consider that your boarding fee.”

  I slapped my palm against his, fly bites and all. “You got yourself a deal.”

  “Now go get cleaned up. There’s a well and a pump out back of the saloon. You can put your horse in with the rest. I’ll make sure no one sells her. I got some salve that might do for those fly bites, too.”

  By the time we finished our negotiations, dusk was well on its way. The l
ong shadow of the palisade faded, giving way to gathering night. But I could still feel that sturdy timber wall at my back, and I was grateful for its presence. While I went about the business of settling into my new domain, I resolved to build a wall around my heart every bit as high and impenetrable as the palisade. For after that mad and reckless jaunt through the border of the Black Hills—all for the hope of one kind word, one loving look from Wild Bill—I knew Molly b’Damn had been right. I was better off forgetting Bill Hickock. Gents of his sort didn’t fall for slammers like me, and a slammer was the best I could ever hope to be.

  A year passed swiftly at Cuny and Coffey’s Road Ranch, and before I knew what had hit me, my twentieth summer dawned. I think that’s why I made up my mind to leave the shelter of the palisade and strike out for new prospects, new adventures—because I was twenty years old, and feeling my oats, as do all wild-and-free types in that most adventuresome of decades. I had put by a fair sum of cash—not as much as I’d made in the hurdy-gurdy days, for Cuny and Coffey was a remote place, there at the edge of the Hills, and was never like to attract big spenders. But I had enough scratch to see me comfortably to anyplace I wished to go.

  In early June I bid farewell to Jem Coffey, who pleaded with me to stay till the fall at least. His prediction had proven right: my shooting demonstrations, scheduled special once a week and staged in the open space between the saloon and the palisade wall, quickly drew crowds from the nearest towns—none of which was really all that near. The fellas who came looking for a little entertainment often found themselves trapped by encroaching darkness, and having no wish to venture out into the borders of Sioux territory after nightfall, they usually stayed at the road ranch till dawn. Of course, that meant extra income for Jem Coffey and his partner, Mr. Cuny—as well as for the eight girls who had become regular fixtures of the place. I was sorry to leave the lot of them. I’d become something of a star attraction, and my utility in bringing men to the palisade made me popular among the whores. That year was the first time—and just about the only time—I enjoyed real friendship with any other woman.