I can tell already how this little chat will end. You’ll soon grow weary of my talk, for my memories don’t get any clearer from here on out, and they sure as shit don’t get prettier. After Bill, all the color drained right out of the world. What memories return to me now come back in shades of gray—gray and blurred, like those old photographs you sometimes see, where the figures in the foreground are indistinct, and their eyes and mouths almost don’t seem to exist a-tall. Where the only clear and recognizable feature is a line of distant hills against a blank white sky. Gray and blurred, or sepia. Take your pick. It’s all the same to me.
At some point—I know not when, neither the date nor the season—I abandoned the rail camps in a fit of restless pique and I became a town girl again. By that time, I seldom needed to work on my back, for folks was ready to part with a few coins just for the pleasure of watching me shoot. My reputation had grown steadily. The legend of the untamed girl shootist of the West had taken on proportions that far exceeded even my impressive frame. A demonstration or two outside a decent-sized village could set me up with money for board, livery, and whiskey for a week at least—and then I moved on to the next town, just as my reputation began to sour and more lawmen than curious spectators came sniffing after Calamity Jane.
I certainly did raise Hell in the towns I blowed through—more towns than I can number, in every trembling Territory, Montana to Utah to Colorado, Dakota and Wyoming, the jagged green- and black-basalt beauty of Idaho. I even ventured into some of the States (Nebraska and Kansas was often kind to me) for a while, anyhow, till the whiskey settled deep in my stomach and I began to whoop it up again. I never intended to raise any Hell whatsoever—even to this day, I swear to that truth, solemn as you please. But somehow Hell came rearin’ up out of me, regardless of my wishes or my good intentions.
The Hell-raising nights always began innocent enough: a game of cards shared among some new friends (I always set with my back to a wall, for I had learned Bill’s lesson, even if he hadn’t.) Those nights ended in fist fights and wrasslin’ matches, or with property smashed or stolen. And once a saloon was set ablaze, though I still insist that particular mischief belonged to someone else, not me. But whether I was truly responsible or not, Calamity Jane often took the heat for any ill luck that befell the towns she visited. I can’t say as I blame anyone for blaming me. I made a tempting target: a woman big as an ox, dressed in a bullwhacker’s gear, drinking and shouting and carrying on like some damn fool of a man. I stood out, and so I paid the price, even when the price wasn’t rightly mine to pay.
A very thin margin of my thoughts did remain clear of whiskey, and in that margin, I was keenly aware that my notoriety as a Hell-raiser was beginning to eclipse my reputation as a skilled shootist. If I was to hold onto my livelihood, I knew I must set that situation to rights. So I made up my mind to perform a good deed—no matter how my heart would break from the doing. In the early summer after Bill’s death, I found myself orbiting slowly around Fort Laramie, creeping from one town to the next, always with the Fort and its surrounding settlements at the center of my reluctant spiral. For I had determined to seek out Bill Hickock’s widow and bring her the news of her husband’s demise—or if she had learned of his death already, then I could at least reassure her that Bill’s killer had been delivered to justice.
I reasoned the best place to find the widow’s whereabouts was in the town of Fort Laramie itself, so I entered just as bold as you please. But all too soon, my skimpy nerves failed. I knew I couldn’t look upon the woman Bill had chosen over me. I couldn’t face her beauty without comparing myself to her perfection—without knowing how hopeless my love had always been. The widow was sure to be delicate and lovely, soft-spoken, with manners befitting a lady and a face blushing like a rose. If I was to look upon her—if I was to hear her melodious voice—she would only remind me of all the ways I had failed as a woman. Besides, she’d been fixing to have a baby, which would certainly have arrived by that summer. I would have given Bill a dozen children—and gladly so, if he had only wanted me. I couldn’t set eyes on the child he had made, and not hold that child to my breast, as my own.
So I backed away from the whole idea, and cringed within the alleys of Fort Laramie knowing myself to be a coward—with no good deed done, to boot. That’s how I found myself dangling at a loose end inside Fort Laramie. I made my pay in the usual manner—two days of demonstrations at the edge of town, riding Silkie fast around a circuit of old barrels and tent poles, standing in my stirrups to ping tin cans and whiskey bottles off fence posts as I galloped by. I had added a bullwhip to my routine, too, flicking its long lash at my targets, wrapping the whip around the tent poles, then wrenching the poles from the ground. Everyone found the bullwhip a jolly distraction.
After two days of work, I bedded down at the finest boarding house available and lived for a spell like a queen. I reveled in the softness of a feather bed; I whiled away pleasant hours listening to the faint, jolly clamor of the piano downstairs in the house’s parlor. I liked the boarding house so well that I paid for another week in Fort Laramie, even though I had already done my demonstrations and the time was fast approaching when I ought to move on.
This boarding house came with two square meals a day. The mistress was a dandy cook in addition to playing a fine piano. She was a real educated lady, too—the sort of woman I had aspired to be when I last visited Cheyenne, elegant and independent, well respected by all and sundry. She always spread the town paper on her breakfast table, so her boarders could keep themselves informed of the Indian War. I was not much good at reading, but I could make out enough of the written word to glean something here and there from the headlines.
One morning, the headline I read near-about caused me to choke on my porridge and eggs.
CALAMITY JANE WREAKS HAVOC IN FORT CASPAR
Wild Woman Wanted for Grave Misdeeds
I swallowed hard and read on, laboring over most of the words.
The notorious female outlaw Calamity Jane has been identified as the party responsible for breaking two windows and destroying several bottles of valuable spirits at the White Horse Saloon. Witnesses to the crime insist that the vagrant woman appeared at Fort Caspar around the tenth of June, already in a shameful condition due to the whiskey she had elsewhere consumed. The White Horse barkeeper asked her to vacate the premises due to her unruly behavior, upon which she drew her pistol and shot out both the saloon’s windows, then attacked the bar with a bull-whip, which she wore slung across her person as more dainty and proper women wear gay-colored sashes. Damages total $75. The Sheriff has sworn to arrest the notorious no-good woman if she ever shows her face in Fort Caspar again.
At least half of what that columnist had written was damn lies. I had been in Caspar around the tenth of June, and though I cannot swear it, I doubt I was already skunked when I arrived. However, the barkeep at the White Horse never asked me to leave, and I never shot out no damn windows, nor took my whip to the bottles. A fight broke out over a game of faro—a game I hadn’t even played—and I skittered out of that saloon right quick, along with every other person who had half a brain in their skull. Yet all the blame was laid at my feet, merely because I was notorious.
That a fella could get away with spreading so much hogwash was already enough to make me see red. I glanced toward the kitchen, where the boarding-house mistress hummed softly, going about her work. I wondered whether she had read the news yet—and if so, whether she had come to see me as more liability than welcome guest.
The more I set and stared at that filthy, lying paper, the angrier I grew. What was my odds of drawing a good crowd to my next demonstration if the whole town of Fort Laramie regarded me as a menace instead of pleasant entertainment?
Such fury overtook me then as I had never felt—not since I chased Wild Bill’s killer through the streets of Deadwood. I pushed myself up from the breakfast table abruptly, retrieved my bullwhip from my room, and stormed out of the house. With
my whip coiled around one shoulder—slung like the gay sash of a dainty, proper lady—I took myself straight to the office of the Fort Laramie Examiner and barged in.
As I threw the door open, all the printers and wire operators shouted, leaping up from their chairs, milling about in a panic. A couple of men tried to stop me—tried to point me back toward the open door—but I wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“Where’s your boss?” I roared. “Which low-down snake-in-the-grass is in charge of this lying, two-cent operation?”
A thin, balding fella with wire-rimmed specs came scuttling out of a back office. He raised his hands before him, as if he sought to placate me or fend off my considerable rage. But I wasn’t in the mood to be mollified.
“Please, Miss,” the fella cried, “only tell me what the matter is, and I’ll make it good!”
“You in charge here?”
“I am the chief editor,” the balding man said. He swallowed hard; I could see how a-scared he was, but he talked smooth enough. “Tell me how I may assist you.”
“You,” I hollered, pointing one finger right at his nose. “I’ll tell you how you can assist me. I’m Calamity Jane—herself, the very one, in the flesh—and you gone and fired me right up with the lies you printed about me.”
The editor paled; I could see him trembling. His staff had gone quiet around me. The only sound was the clicking of a telegraph wire.
I dropped the loop of my bullwhip off my shoulder. “If you ever print another unfavorable story about me again, it won’t go well for you! I can tell you that!”
“Very well,” the editor said, backing away. “You have my word, Miss Jane. Now please, put down that—”
I lashed out with my whip, but not at the editor. I never intended to hurt him—that wasn’t my way, not even in anger. Instead, I licked a lamp clean off somebody’s desk and sent it crashing to the floor. The thick scent of oil filled the room. Then I cracked my whip at a fancy vase set upon a cabinet; it broke with a satisfying pop.
“Please, Miss!” The editor squealed, dancing back to keep himself far beyond the range of my lash.
I went on lighting into the office, breaking up whatever could be broken, setting into disarray what I couldn’t break. I swept papers and notebooks from desks, kicked the sturdy oak cabinets, pulled the telegraph wires from the walls. I knew what I did was miserable, and would only serve to hurt me worst in the end. But I couldn’t stop myself, once I begun. All the terrible feelings I had stewed way down deep in my heart since the occasion of Wild Bill’s death came bursting out of me at once, and even while I pleaded with myself to rein it in, I also reveled in my fury. It felt proper good to finally let loose—to give my pain a voice. Even if I could have stopped my reckless outburst, I ain’t sure even to this day that I would-a done it.
Finally I barged into the editor’s private office, intending to cause more mayhem with the whip. But I spotted a fancy oil portrait of that very same editor hung up above his desk. My plan shifted in that moment. I leaped across the room and snatched that portrait from the wall so fast, the editor could only let out a feeble squawk of protest. Then I bolted from the building with my whip trailing behind me, slithering like a black snake in the Laramie dust.
I was quick on my feet, and neither the editor nor his staff could apprehend me, though I know they tried. I could hear them skittering after me, shouting for someone to call the sheriff, for Calamity Jane had gone plum crazy in the office of the Examiner, and now she was on a rampage through Laramie’s streets. I knew the law would come for me—I figured I’d do more time behind bars. But before the sheriff caught me, I intended to have my vengeance on the Examiner and its prig of an editor.
The Gem Saloon stood just ahead; I made as if to run right past its doors, but at the last moment I turned and darted inside. I knew I hadn’t much time before the sheriff came, so I jumped right up on the first table I saw, scattering a perfectly good game of faro in the process.
“Listen up,” I hollered, “My name’s Calamity Jane, the one and only, the famous girl quick-draw of the West!”
A few men hooted in appreciation.
“It has come to my attention, boys, that the editor of your local paper is a low-down, no-good bastard.”
More cheers. Either I wasn’t alone in my opinion, or the fellas liked my show. Either way was fine with me.
“He has printed the vilest slander against me. But do you think Miss Calamity is like to take such outrage sitting down?”
The men raised a ragged chorus. “No! Show him what for, Calamity!”
“See what I got here!” I held the portrait high above my head, so everyone in the saloon got a proper eyeful. “You know this man, don’t you?”
They hissed.
“You think I can plug him at twenty paces?”
The men about went wild with enthusiasm. A path cleared through the heart of the saloon; I realized they was setting up a little shooting gallery, all for me. I hadn’t intended to blow holes in the portrait right there inside the building—such a thing could be dangerous. But more men came pouring in from the street, drawn by the commotion, and the barkeep gave a helpless shrug, as if to say, I can stand a few bullet holes in my wall if all these fellas buy a drink.
I set the portrait against a wall I knew didn’t adjoin any other shop—I had no intention of firing through the planks and injuring some innocent dressmaker or cobbler on the other side. The men began to chant “Calamity! Calamity!” as I propped that fancy painting up on a table and paced out the length of the saloon.
I could hear the editor outside the swinging doors, speaking frantically, imparting to someone—the sheriff, I assumed—everything that had transpired. I didn’t have much time left.
Quick as a striking rattler, I spun on my heel, drew my gun, and fired. The pearl-handled pistol bucked in my hand. I managed to let fly three rounds before the law made its appearance. One bullet through each of the editor’s eyes, one through his flat and sallow cheek.
“Drop the gun, Miss,” the sheriff bellowed from the door.
I eased my pistol back into its holster, raised my hands above my head, and turned to face the law. As I did, the rowdies in that saloon raised up such a cheer as nearly blew the roof clean off the place. By the time I met the sheriff’s eye, I was smiling.
Well, of course I did a little time at the Fort Laramie jail in exchange for my mischief. But still to this day, I account it a fair trade. Not only did I have my revenge against that damned fool of an editor, but news of the exploit spread faster than a wildfire. My notoriety was set, double what it had been before. In fact, the small fame I cobbled together before the incident at the Examiner wasn’t a patch on what came after.
When my sentence was up, the sheriff ushered me out of Fort Laramie. But by the time I reached Cheyenne a few days after, two eager reporters was waiting there to meet me, and a dime novelist, too. Neither the reporters nor the book-writer had known I would visit Cheyenne next; they had merely hoped, or perhaps had thought to use Cheyenne as a jumping-off point to search for me, scouring every sagebrush plain and slot canyon till they’d rustled the infamous Calamity out of hiding. The fact that I had brought myself to them fairly sent the lot of them over the moon.
Each night, a different writer plied me with whiskey and opened their notebook, and I obliged them merrily, giving interviews and accounts of my life that grew wilder with each retelling. A few more writers came racing in along the Overland Line, shouting questions at me just as fast as they could hop down from their stage coaches. Seldom a day passed but I found myself surrounded by eager young men—and even a few women—scribbling down my lies as fast as I unspooled them from my tongue.
I didn’t see any harm in those wild tales. It was all a game to me. I figured I was putting on another kind of show, less physically taxing than my shooting and bullwhipping demonstrations. And I will confess that I liked the attention, too—the company of a new writer every night cheered me considerable, kept m
e from dwelling too long on my sorrows. I always found writers to be agreeable types—much more so than editors. That’s why I picked you out of this crowd, Short Pants. I could tell you was a writer before you even said boo, and I wasn’t wrong, was I? You been good company, too, all these many hours. I’ve set like this with many a writer in my time, spinning the most fanciful of yarns, but never have I told a writer the truth. And you know, it feels damn good to spill out my real history after all these years.
Well, I supposed I never thought a one of my tall tales would actually get printed. Because it was only play to me, I assumed it was all good fun for the dime novelists, too. But it was deadly serious to them—the kind of story that could make a career, securing both fortune and fame. I believe those atrocious fibs did make one or two of those writers well and truly famous. I hope they never learned the truth—never came to know how badly I duped them all. I think if they knew I fed them lies, they would have recalled our nights of whiskey and tale-swapping with grim disappointment, and I couldn’t bear such a thing—for those memories (all those nights of chummy good fun with my new writer-friends) are a great comfort to me, even still.
Like I told you, I never expected to see my stories in print. But one day I did, sure enough. I had just paid to board at a house in Fort Collins. The town had growed up considerable since my last visit a few years before, and the house I chose was a fine new one, pretty as any Back East mansion. I sighed as I settled into my room, laying back on a glorious feather bed, soft and warm as a summer cloud. But something on the bottom shelf of the bed-stand caught my eye. It was small, papery, with a yellow cover—a little book forgotten or abandoned by the last resident, and overlooked by the mistress of the house, or by the poor orphan girl of thirteen who turned the rooms.
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