Calamity

by Libbie Hawker

  But I was damn sure I could earn more from Buffalo Bill than I would ever make hawking my photographs at the stage coach depot. Cody had offered more than a job: he had given me the best shot I had to make Jessie happy.

  I resolved to respond that very afternoon, and accept Bill Cody’s offer.

  The buckskin-clad belle of the plains

  Buffalo Bill never inspired much praise from those of us who knew the real West, for his vaunted show was nothing but trickery and tales—wors’t damnable lies than anything my many writer friends scribbled in their novels, and more egregiously told. But I will say this in Cody’s favor: he dispatched a generous advance against my future earnings upon receipt of my letter (I paid the mistress of the boarding house fifty cents to write that letter for me, since my own writing fell somewhere south of chicken scratch, in terms of readability.)

  Cody’s money arrived just a few weeks later in the hands of a tight-laced, stodgy young woman by the name of Josephine Brake. I knew I was destined to butt heads with Josephine the moment she stepped off her train and onto the Deadwood platform. She wore a meticulous dress of cream and wine-red, with a big flounced bustle over her behind and a jacket with a ruffled collar. Even the most fashionable girls in Deadwood never donned such a get-up; Josephine Brake fairly dripped with city living. As I watched her brush the dust from her skirt, I thought I could just about smell the Back East life rolling off her person like a thunderhead blown by an ill wind. Even from across’t the platform, she stank of coal smoke, fancy perfume, and down feathers—all the odors of easy living. Her chestnut hair was swept up in a tidy roll, crowned by a cream velvet hat with a huge red flower canted off to one side. I could already see the Black Hills dust clinging to pale velvet, discoloring her finery with the dry grit of the hard West. She had eyes that could skewer you with a single glance, and a turned-down mouth that let you know she brooked no nonsense without her needing to speak a word. Josephine was a tenderfoot, all right—but she carried herself with a steady determination no tenderfoot ever showed. She had come to Deadwood on business, and that business was me.

  I threaded my way across the platform, conscious of my buckskin jacket and my patched trousers as I never had been before. Stood up next to that woman’s finery, I was sure to disappoint. I was powerful annoyed with myself, too, for I had never cared a whit what any tenderfoot thought of me. But this lady wasn’t just any Back East visitor; I reminded myself of that fact while I brushed through the milling crowd. Josephine held my daughter’s future in her hands. Even if I disliked her showy style and her hard, suspicious eyes, I had to make a favorable impression for Jessie’s sake.

  “Good afternoon mam,” I said when I reached her side. “I guess by the description you sent me in your last letter, you must be Miss Josephine Brake.”

  “Indeed I am. And you are Miss Jane.” She pulled off an ivory glove and offered her hand. When I took it in my awkward grip, one corner of her mouth twitched. Guess she didn’t much care for my calluses. “I mentioned in our correspondence that I am an agent of Mr. Bill Cody. Do you understand what that means?”

  I was older than that chit by a good ten years—and I looked at least thirty years her senior. Her habit of speaking to me as if I was a small and especially stupid child didn’t exactly thrill me to my toes. But I swallowed my irritation and shook my head in what I hoped was a mild, friendly sort of way.

  “It means Mr. Cody has authorized me to speak and act on his behalf, Miss Jane.”

  Josephine bent over the handled case waiting at her feet, slipped her ungloved hand into a side pocket, and withdrew a piece of paper. She flashed the paper with a kind of stately flourish. I could see that it was scrawled all over with fancy writing, and a very special scrawl crossed the bottom of the page, which I guessed might be Bill Cody’s personal signature. To read the page would have taken me a good five minutes at least, and I had no desire to keep the agent or myself waiting out in the hot Dakota sun. So I nodded, and Josephine tucked the paper away.

  “We are terribly pleased by your agreement to perform with the Wild West Show, Miss Jane. We feel certain your act will bring an element of adventure and delight our many avid viewers.”

  Inwardly, I cringed, for I didn’t like the idea of any passer-by hearing that Calamity Jane (the One and Only, the Authentic Wild Girl of the West) had sold her soul to Buffalo Bill and his three-ring circus of lies. But I reasoned the tale would get out sooner or later.

  “Can I carry your case?” I picked up Josephine’s bag before she could answer. “Guess you’ll be wanting to stay the night at the best hotel in Deadwood. That would be the Shelby. I’ll walk you there.” The last thing I wanted was for Josephine to choose her accommodations on her own. She might pick a boarding house where Calamity Jane was a well-known commodity, and hear one too many tales of my exploits. I couldn’t have this agent go scampering back to Cody without me, still burdened with my advance.

  I had no cause for fear on account of my money. The moment Josephine checked into her room, she paid me forthwith. Three hundred and fifty dollars—more than I had ever held in my hands; more than I had earned for years at a time. I made as if the astonishing sum was all in a day’s work to the great Calamity Jane, and stuffed the wad of notes in my trouser pocket with a word of thanks.

  “I imagine you will need some time to arrange your affairs here in Deadwood,” Josephine said. “Can you be ready to travel in three days?”

  I certainly could be ready. Cody had already written to inform me that an advance was forthcoming; the moment I’d been sure of his money, I arranged for Jessie’s enrollment in that fancy convent school and made all necessary plans to transport my girl safely to Sturgis. I took my newfound fortune back to my boarding house and enlisted the aid of the housekeeper, a firm and reliable widow whose age had been no detriment to her energy or her sharp good sense. The housekeeper agreed to accompany Jessie on the train to Sturgis, and to escort her safely to the convent school, as well. I paid her an extra dollar on top of her transport fee. That was so she could write to me, in care of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, and tell me when Jessie had lighted safely among the nuns—for I would be inconsolable with worry till I knew my girl had reached her comfortable new future in one piece.

  All that remained was to tell Jessie. I set her down on the edge of the bed we shared and brushed her dark curls away from her forehead. They sprang back into place the moment I moved my hand.

  “Jessie,” I said, “I know you ain’t been too happy in this school, on account of the children being so cruel. I don’t like to do it, for I’ll miss you something awful, but I found another school for you—a better one, with smarter teachers and kinder children.”

  “Why will you miss me, Grandmam?”

  “Because…” I faltered, and found I couldn’t speak a-tall for a spell. I stared at my hands in my lap, and there I found the gumption to go on. “Because I must send you away from Deadwood. The school is out in Sturgis. But it’s a right dandy place, all brand-new, and you’ll live behind its walls just as if you was a princess in a castle, safe and sound. And the ladies who run the place won’t take kindly to any mention of Calamity Jane. Nor any other notorious persons, I bet. No child at this new school will know a thing about me—and if they do, they won’t be quick to speak of it. I hear nuns can be awful generous with their switches when children break the rules.”

  I looked up at my daughter’s face, expecting to find Jessie wrestling back her tears. Instead she beamed at me and threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me again and again on my cheek. And with a heavy heart I understood that I would miss Jessie far wors’t than she would ever miss me.

  When the fateful day dawned, I took Jessie to the town bakery and bought her a pretty little cake with lemon frosting. I watched her devour that sweet, rosy-cheeked and eager-eyed. Then I walked with her to the train depot, where the staid old widow stood waiting. I kissed my girl one last time, and watched through misted eyes while she boar
ded the train. Then I meekly followed Josephine Brake to our own train: a sleek, new one shining like a jewel, even if it was one of those oddly compressed narrow-gauge conveyances.

  Me and Josephine, we slung our bags into the hold and took our seats, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. Josephine took a little book from her handbag and settled in at once to read—travel by rail was nothing startling to such a worldly, sophisticated type. But though I had eye-witnessed the exterior parts of more trains than I could ever remember, I had never actually been inside a train car before. Cramped against the window, I turned my head this way and that, taking in the gleaming wood panels and the short curtains of green velvet, drawn back and tied beside every window. The car smelled of new leather, ladies’ sweet perfume, and the lingering odor of cigar smoke. I had smoked cigars more than once in my life—most usually during my trick rides—and I craved one powerfully then. What a distraction it would have been from my tangled-up nerves and the raw pain in my heart, my sadness over parting with Jessie. I longed for that compelling tingle on my lips, the soothing effect of a cigar’s thick blue smoke—better than any nerve tonic I knew. I might have approached one of the gentlemen in our car and offered him fifty cents for a smoke, but a glance at Josephine’s prim, austere face (in profile, turned down over the marbled cover of her book) put me right off the idea. I might have been hired to play the part of the Buckskin-Clad Belle of the Plains, but I sensed instinctively that Bill Cody’s hard-eyed agent expected me to confine my performances to the stage, and to comport myself like a lady at all other junctures. Or as much like a lady as I could manage, anyhow.

  The train whistled and gave a jolt as its engine came to life. The narrow car shuddered, then crept forward; a high wine emanated from its wheels. The train found its speed, holding me subtly against the padded leather bench with a force and pressure I had never felt before. I pressed my cheek against the window, watching Deadwood vanish in a hot white haze behind.

  The land became a blur outside my window as we traveled east, but for hours, the world around me didn’t change. Morning aged into afternoon; the Black Hills followed our route, keeping their distance, a raised plane of ochre and limestone-white strung along the horizon. Not only the unchanging world, but also the motion of the train became monotonous, and a thick, oppressive discomfort settled in. My head ached as much as my heart. It gave me a dreadful sense of doom, to be shut up in that cramped car when I had been accustomed to roaming free whenever the mood took me. I longed for my horse and saddle with a passion so sudden and fierce, I was obliged to blink away my tears lest Josephine catch me weeping. I fretted that I had made the wrong decision, after all—but now it was much too late to halt all the changes I had set in motion.

  Josephine noticed my anxious fidgeting and offered me a book to read. But I didn’t like the thought of that pinch-faced agent watching me from the corner of her eye, measuring how long it took me to turn every page. I politely declined and resolved to keep my attention fixed to the world outside, giving every impression I was absorbed in the unchanging landscape. I did my best not to fidget anymore.

  As evening came on, small, ragged settlements appeared, crouching out along the prairie, flashing by and disappearing before I’d had a chance to observe them proper. Then the widely scattered settlements became real towns clustered around the tracks, with well-built houses and church steeples, stores and liveries and stage coaches rolling along their broad, dusty streets. I caught sight of people working on small farms or in fenced gardens, glimpsed so rapidly through a blur of motion that they seemed stilled forever, captured in time, like photographs in full color. Homes and shops became more numerous, crowded under a purple, dusky sky. And then there was no more space to speak of between one town and the next. The train leaned slightly as it took a long bend, curving around the foot of a hill. When the track straightened and the hill receded from view, I caught sight of Minneapolis in the distance: a thousand orange lamps glowing against the oncoming night, lights so numerous they might as well have been the stars overhead. My mouth fell open at the sight. I made no attempt to hide my awe. Not even Salt Lake City had been so large, so vastly populated. My heart beat high and rapid in my chest, till the pulse roared in my ears.

  Less than an hour after my first sight of Minneapolis, we pulled into the station and stepped off our train. I knew I was out of my depth that very moment. The noise of the city pressed in all around me—a constant hum of voices, of carriage wheels rattling over brick pavers, the clamor of music coming from every direction at once. Gas lights burned in square cages atop towering lamp posts; the whole world was cast in the ruddy monotone of the flames, and a current of smoke from trains and towers of industry flowed down every street. Josephine invoked the name of Bill Cody at once. Our bags was fetched and loaded onto a waiting buggy, a far finer conveyance than any I had seen in the West. I stepped up uncertainly into the gleaming carriage, settling on a padded bench. The rocking of the carriage on its springs and the hostile night outside the window reminded me of the night Jessie was born. The same sinking dread came back to me. I looked up over the roof-tops of brick buildings reaching three and four stories high, but I only saw a scattering of stars. Never had I felt so small and frail in all my life.

  Josephine spoke a few words to the driver, then settled in beside me.

  “Are you well, Miss Jane? You look pale.”

  “I’m well enough, thank you.” I knew my voice sounded a little too shaky to fool the sharp-eyed agent. “Just weary from travel, I suppose.”

  “You needn’t fear,” she said, perceiving at once the real source of my paleness. The carriage began to roll; the hiss of steam from the trains faded behind us. “Minneapolis must seem a jungle to you, after the life you’ve grown used to. But this isn’t so very large a city. New York is far larger. Boston, too. Why, Paris puts them both to shame.”

  “Have you been all the way to Paris?”

  “Once.” She smiled, and it made her look less icy and severe. I even found a hint of sympathy in her face. “Disorienting though a city may be, you’ve no cause for concern—as long as you listen carefully to my instructions, and always do as I bid.”

  “I will do that, mam; I can assure you.” For Jessie’s sake, if not my own.

  “Very well. We shall board at the Christopher Columbus, one of this city’s finest hotels. They’ve an excellent restaurant. We’ll take a late supper as soon as we arrive. I’m famished; are you?”

  Josephine was as good as her word. When our buggy rolled to a stop outside the Christopher Columbus—the finest place I’d ever laid eyes on, all pale limestone and leaf-carved cornices along the line of its third story—a soft-spoken young Negro man took our bags and promised to take them directly to our rooms. Then Josephine led me to the restaurant, which smelled as rich as Heaven itself. My stomach ached so badly from hunger, the sensation made me sick. I was certain I couldn’t eat a bite, till a waiter in a fine black coat set before me a steaming plate of roast beef and stewed carrots. Then I found I couldn’t slow myself, and I’m afraid I made a spectacle, digging so enthusiastically into my supper. I will be honest with you, Short Pants: more than once I wanted to ask for a whiskey, a glass full to the brim. But I didn’t like to displease Josephine. I perceived that she would tolerate very little of my whooping up—and what she did tolerate had best be confined to Buffalo Bill’s stage.

  Josephine led me up two flights of stairs to my room. I was to have my own accommodations, a fact which filled me with shuddering relief. I didn’t think I could maintain my best behavior indefinitely; it would be a mercy to close a door between myself and Josephine Brake.

  My room was across the carpeted hallway from Josephine’s. She handed me a key on a wooden tag. Then she glanced this way and that, making certain the hall was empty before she leaned close and murmured, “Now, Jane. You must take care not to do anything that would start ill rumors about the show. Mr. Cody won’t stand for it—and, I must tell you, neither shall I. Tha
t means no roaming about without accompaniment. That’s not what respectable ladies do in a city like Minneapolis.”

  I nodded. I had suspected Josephine might impose such limitations upon me. I didn’t mind staying confined to my room—the city beyond the walls of the Christopher Columbus plum scared me right out of my trousers, and I ain’t afraid to admit it. But I had darker suspicions about the checks she would set on my behavior. I said, “No smoking cigars, either, I guess. Nor drinking whiskey.”

  Josephine went pale. “Certainly not. Neither smoking nor drinking can be considered acceptable behavior. I will thank you to remember as much.”

  I solemnly vowed to behave myself. In that moment, I earnestly thought it would be easy to do so—for not only was I determined to provide well for Jessie, but I felt rather sick at the thought of Minneapolis itself. The starless sky and the constant din made me feel as if I’d stepped from that train into a different world entirely—the fairy realm of children’s tales, where nothing was as it seemed, where a lifetime could pass in the blink of an eye or an hour moved slow as a hundred years. A trap for ordinary men—a comfortable damnation, where those caught in the snare sank into complacent sleep while the world they had known died slowly around them. I craved whiskey something awful—the usual craving, but sharpened and made more urgent by my fear and sorrow. A stiff drink would have soothed my fears and eased me into sleep, but I couldn’t give Josephine or Buffalo Bill cause to send me packing yet.

  I let myself into my small room and made ready for bed. By the time I slipped beneath the velvet covers and settled into the feather mattress, I found I had no need for whiskey, after all. Worn out by awe—and by the pain of parting with Jessie—I fell into the deepest sleep I’ve ever known. I’m glad to report that I dreamed no dreams.