When the first leaves fell from my birches, I saddled up my horse and rode for Ekalaka. I passed through the gully above Medicine Rocks; the old miners’ camp was gone, the shacks disassembled and scattered into the brush. Nothing remained to mark the camp, save a couple of charred black fire rings and tramped ground—and the three stones I had laid to mark the graves, the three souls lost. I scarcely paused to take in the sight of the camp where I had labored for a terrible, treacherous month. I rode on, and reached Clinton’s ranch by nightfall.
The ranch was a merry place, it must be said, full of music and laughter. The rising notes of a fiddle far off in the twilight brought to mind the first rail camp I had visited in my mulewhacking days. As I rode along the rows of canvas tents, searching for my family, smoke from a dozen campfires pricked my eyes and brought on the hot flush of tears. But they was tears of happiness—of gratitude, for I had survived my ordeal, and the future that lay before me seemed fresh and new as a budding rose. A stir of campfire talk mingled with the distant lowing of the herds. Away across’t the valley, I could hear wolves crying, and the sound gave me a comfortable thrill. My solitude had ended; I was back where I belonged, with a pack full of rowdies eager to whoop it up proper, embraced by warm fire light.
Now that I was certain I wouldn’t die of smallpox, I longed for Jessie more forcefully than any hunger that had ever afflicted me. I stopped at a campfire to inquire where I might find Clinton Burke, and the fellas directed me to a tent on the edge of the encampment, then lifted their cups in cheerful salute as I rode away.
Long before I reached Clinton’s tent, I could hear Jessie’s high, sweet voice cutting above the sounds of the camp. I couldn’t make out her words just yet, but I could tell by the cadence of her speech that she was telling one of her stories. I sniffed back a few more tears and rode around the corner of the last tent—it had to be Clinton’s—and there at last I saw my girl, seated on a little stool beside a jolly, crackling fire. Even though she was seated, swinging her legs and bouncing on her bottom, I could tell Jessie had grown. The sight of her—happy and whole, thriving like a flower in the sun—wracked me with a shiver of love and relief so powerful, I damn near fell right out of my saddle.
Clinton set beside the fire, too, grinning at Jessie, enthralled by her words, chuckling now and then as she spoke. And there was a stranger at Clinton’s fire—a woman whose back was turned to me. But even so, I could tell the woman was young and slender. Straight, black hair fell across’t one shoulder and down her back. At the sound of my horse’s approach, the woman shifted on her stool, turned to glance into the darkness. Her beauty struck me, even in silhouette against the fire’s ruddy glow. Her bold nose and high cheeks proclaimed her half-Indian, if not more than half. She smiled in welcome when she saw me—and that smile struck me cold. There was nothing unfriendly in the woman’s demeanor, but even so, I knew my road to happiness ended at her smile.
Jessie saw me next. She stopped speaking; her little legs ceased to swing. The girl stared at me for a long moment. Then she shouted, “Grandmam!” and sprang up from her seat.
I vacated my saddle so quick, maybe I did fall to earth, after all. Jessie was running to me, and I strode out to meet her. I scooped her into my arms, covering her with kisses, laughing like a damn fool from the sheer bliss of holding my baby again.
“Cushie Butterfield,” I said when I could speak through my tears. “I missed you, girl.”
Jessie giggled, wrapping her arms so tight around my neck she could have choked me. I didn’t mind. “I missed you,” she said. “You was gone a awful long time.”
“I sure was, but I had very important work to do. Otherwise I never would have left you. But all my work is finished now, and I don’t aim to leave your side ever again.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, and if I’m lying, stick a needle in my eye.”
“Martha.”
Reluctant, I pulled myself away from Jessie’s soft curls. Clinton stood there before me, kicking his feet at the edge of the firelight. He was hesitant, shame-faced. His old warmth had cooled a little. Not in anger—his eyes shone with gratitude for my return—but there was no more light of longing in those eyes, neither. Not when he looked upon me.
“I convinced myself I’d never see you again,” Clinton said. It sounded like an excuse.
“Well—here I am.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“God, but I’m glad to see you. I was terrible feared you would…” He glanced at Jessie in my arms, then cleared his throat. “Feared you might not find your way back.”
“Nothing in the world could keep me from Jessie.”
“Of course not. No.”
The dark-haired woman had crept up beside Clinton, casting a timid glance between him and me.
“Martha,” Clinton said, “I’d like you to meet Sally. Sally, this is my… my friend Martha.”
I nodded at the woman. “How do you do.” There was no need for Clinton to explain what Sally meant to him. I could see the truth already.
Jessie yawned in my arms, then rubbed her eyes.
“Come along, Jessie,” Sally said, stretching out one hand. She had a kindly voice, a gentle manner. “It’s late. Let me put you to bed.”
Jessie kissed my cheek one last time. I allowed her to slide to the ground. She went meekly into Sally’s care; a moment later they disappeared into the tent.
“So,” I said to Clinton.
He nodded, then sighed. He couldn’t quite make himself meet my eye. “Only natural, I guess.”
It was the naturalest thing in the world. I wasn’t inclined to argue. “I got no right to be jealous. I turned you down, after all. Not in so many words, but I guess you knew I wasn’t inclined toward you—not in that way. Not back then.” I sighed, too, heavy and hollow. “You’re fair game for another woman. And she is a real pretty woman, at that. Can’t say as I blame you.”
“She’s good with Jessie.”
“She better be, or I’ll relieve her of her head.”
Clinton laughed a little, grateful for my humor. He folded his arms tight across’t his chest, still shuffling his feet in the dust.
“I was a fool,” I said, “not to take your love when you was willing to give it.” Clinton perked up, on the verge of making some reply, but I held up a hand to stop him. “I was a fool, and I regret it. You’re a damn good man, Clinton Burke. I was lucky to share my life with you while I did. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me.”
“Come on, now, Martha. Don’t sound like you’re about to go off and leave. Not when you only just come back.”
An ironical smile pulled up one corner of my mouth. “I can’t go on living with you—not now.”
“Why not? I’ve grown so fond of you, and Jessie—”
“Don’t talk like a fucking idiot, Clinton,” I said gently. “You got to make your own life now—not tend to mine. And truth is, I don’t want to go on living with you as we have done. Not if it means I’ll be forced to watch you loving on some other woman. Not now, when I come to understand how good you really are… and what you mean to me. I was a god-damned idiot; that’s all there is to say. It’s my loss to bear. I expect it’ll eat at my heart all the days of my life.” But I’ve borne wors’t pains, I though. Even wors’t has gnawed at me, leaving me bare as a dug-up bone.
Clinton said nothing. He only squeezed his arms more tightly around his body and nodded, eyes on the ground.
I said, “I wish you better luck in love than I ever had.” I meant it, too.
Silence fell between us again. I could feel Clinton straining against that silence; I also longed to break it. But neither one of us understood how to break it proper. Neither of us knew what was right and good to say in a moment such as this.
I heard Jessie’s voice again, gentle and sweet, muffled by the tent walls. The girl was happy there—thriving under Clinton’s care. And she had gone right to that pretty lady with the long black
hair, just as happy with Sally as she’d ever been with me.
“I think I ought to leave Jessie with you,” I said before I could think better.
“You know I’ll look after her—gladly. I come to think of her as my true daughter.”
I smiled at Clinton then, though I could scarce see him through the hot blur of my tears. But I knew I couldn’t give Jessie up. The moment those words crossed my lips, my soul reeled back from the precipice, and my head pounded with a sudden rush of blood. Jessie was all I had in the world, now that Clinton wanted no more of me. To leave my daughter with anyone else—even a man so beloved as Clinton Burke—would have shattered my heart. Parting with my girl would have destroyed me, broken me under an agony worse than giving up my brothers and sisters.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “I just can’t, Clinton. I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll damn myself someday for being too cowardly, but I can’t give away my only child.”
Clinton drew a deep breath. “I understand,” he said softly. “I understand.”
“In the morning, you must tell Jessie good-bye.”
“I must tell you good-bye, too.”
Then at last he came to me, crossing the emptiness between us. He wrapped his arms around my trembling shoulders and pulled me to his chest—embraced me, like a brother holds his sister. He held me that way for a long time. He never minded when my tears soaked through his shirt and ran down his shoulder.
By the time Jessie was eight years old, I knew I must settle down and build a proper life. And so I set my sights on the one town I had always avoided—for I knew Jessie would never find happiness till I made good on my own legend, and woke Calamity Jane from her long slumber. For the sake of my daughter’s future—whatever future I could provide—I was determined to make hay while my feeble sun was still shining.
Deadwood, 1895. The town had grown up considerable since I seen it last. A proper school now stood out on the edge of town, and I resolved to get Jessie into that school, though the cost was daunting. But a photographer had set up shop in Deadwood, too, aiming to make his fortune off the flocks of pop-eyed tenderfeet who rode the train into town, searching for the untamed West.
I found my opportunity in that photographer’s shop. I had several pictures made of myself (all dressed up in the dandiest gear, a fringed coat of buckskin and good trousers, holding a rifle as if I knew what to do with it.) The photographer printed a stack of copies, complete with a few lines of text designed to spur my infamy back to life.
The legendary CALAMITY JANE, wild woman of the West, heroine of novels, renown scout and Indian hunter who can ride standing up in the saddle and light a cigar at full motion.
I lingered on the train platform or at the stagecoach depots, selling my image each time a new gaggle of tenderfeet came flapping and squawking into Deadwood. I didn’t make enough money to buy a proper house. I was obliged to take up residence at a boarding house—and a middling one, at that. But I did scratch together enough cash to send Jessie to that bright new school.
She was glad as Christmas day the first week or so, and how I delighted in sending her off to her lessons. I dressed her in a pretty, blue-check frock with a smart pinafore embroidered with forget-me-nots. She proved a brighter student than I expected her to be. But though she loved her lessons and doted on her beautiful young teacher, Jessie often came home from school wrought out, her face red from crying.
The first few days, she refused to tell me what had upset her. She only sulked in a corner of our boarding room, knees drawn up to her chest, arms folded atop her knees, her dear little face hidden from my sight.
But one day, I coaxed the truth from her.
“The other children at the school poke fun at me,” she muttered. “They say I’m Calamity’s daughter.”
My heart froze in my chest; I actually felt it stop beating, felt my throat swell with sudden panic.
“Is it true?” Jessie demanded, raising her indignant eyes to mine.
I couldn’t look away from my daughter’s pain. Nor could I lie to her any longer. At least, I couldn’t lie much. “I am Calamity Jane.” I dragged those words out, slow and heavy as a sledge pulled through mud. “That much is true. But I’m your grandmam, Jessie—not your ma.”
“But is it really so?” the poor child insisted. She must have seen truth in my eyes—must have read my shame and reluctance as easy as she read those school-house primers. “Are you my grandmam for true?”
“For true,” I said. “I swear it. Your mother was beautiful Charlotte. Your father was the hero of the West, Wild Bill. Why, he’s buried right here in Deadwood. Someday I’ll take you to see his grave.”
Jessie buried her face in her arms again. “I don’t want to see his grave.”
She no longer believed the story—the pretty fantasy I had made for her, an escape from the hard, heavy weight of reality. But how I wanted the old tales to hold together! Not for my sake, but for hers. I cursed myself for not leaving her with Clinton, where at least she would have been happy—and free from the burden of my notorious past. If I was to maintain any slim hope for my daughter’s joy, I had to put some distance between Jessie and me. I had to spirit my girl right out of Deadwood.
A solution presented itself the very next morning; seldom had fate proved so kindly or expedient. I was on my way to the photographer’s shop, due to pick up a new stack of souvenirs. I breezed past the dry-goods store, but a paper tacked up beside the door fluttered and caught my eye. I paused and leaned close, studying the print, puzzling out the words while a growing sensation of luck flowered in my heart.
To open in STURGIS, Dakota,
May 1:
Saint Francis Convent School for Girls
Room, board, and
SOUND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION
Along with
ESSENTIALS of EDUCATION
For girls age 8 to 15
Monthly cost: $80.00
Room and board. Sturgis was a good two days away from Deadwood, if you rode overland. A long day’s journey by stage coach. Far enough, I hoped, that my legend would leave Jessie in peace. And a convent school—surely the sour old nuns in charge of the place would brook no mention of a sinner like Calamity Jane, even if the legend preceded me.
But how could I hope to afford eighty dollars a month? We hardly scraped by on the few dollars a week I earned selling my photographs at the depot.
I could feel the watch in my pocket, just where I always kept it. It seemed to heat against my thigh, burning me, urging me to do the unthinkable. I might hope to get a year’s worth of schooling for Jessie, provided I could find a buyer who believed my story that the watch had once belonged to Wild Bill Hickock.
Even as I summed up the value of Bill’s old watch, my gut tied itself in knots at the thought of selling. The loss of Bill’s gun still pained me; that had been eight years before. I couldn’t part with his watch or his ring—not even for Jessie’s sake. I must find some other way to send her off to that dandy new school in Sturgis.
I turned away from the notice and pressed on toward the photographer’s shop, frowning over my sad dilemma. A shout halted me again. “Miss Jane! A moment, please.”
I turned, bracing myself to face a gawking tenderfoot—but I found the postmaster bustling out of his little office, waving something above his head.
“Letter for you, Miss Jane. I’ve been hoping to catch you; you never step into the office anymore.”
“I never expect any mail.”
“Well, this has come for you. It has been waiting for some days now.”
I took the letter and opened it, then nodded my thanks to the postmaster. He retreated to his office; I sank down on the edge of the boardwalk and began again the laborious process of reading.
My dearest Jane:
You must forgive my rude manners in addressing you by your Christian name. I have been unable to locate your surname, so “Jane” will have to do.
Madam, surely you have heard tell of Bill Cody, pr
omoter of the greatest Wild West Show from New York to California. I am that same Bill Cody, otherwise known as “Buffalo Bill,” and I write you now seeking your talents as the most singular performer of the West, legendary star of novels and all manner of exciting tales.
I offer you a chance to perform with the greatest display of Western entertainers yet seen on this Continent. The pay is VERY GOOD and the work rewarding.
I have heard you may be reached in Deadwood. Write me back with your interest, dear Jane, and let us further discuss this opportunity (not to be missed) for fame and fortune.
Yours,
“Buffalo” Bill Cody
Well, Short Pants—I don’t mind confessing that my first reaction was one of outright revulsion. I earned my living from the tenderfeet who crowded Deadwood’s streets—cooing over the quaint town, fancying themselves a part of the West, for one day at least—but I didn’t like those bastards, not one lick. The damn fools had recently found the graveyard, and had so cluttered up the place that the groundskeeper had built an iron fence around Bill Hickock’s grave to keep the careless herds of tenderfeet in check. I had never seen a Wild West Show before, but I knew just by the sound of its name that it would only draw the sort of folk who flocked to Deadwood for a gander at the place, then left again in a puff of dust. They had no proper respect for the West—the world I knew, the world I loved. All the bright and fleeting beauties of my land—my heart—was nothing but caricatures to the tenderfeet. Like the funny drawings you find sometimes in newspapers: exaggerated and false, printed for amusement, easily forgotten the moment you turn the page.
No, I had no great liking for this Buffalo Bill, or his vaunted Show. In fact, I plum hated the idea of accepting his offer.
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