I didn’t meet Bill Cody the following day, but I did meet another of his agents, a man who called himself by only one name: Farley, which I took to be his surname, though who can rightly say?
Josephine sent me to stand outside the Christopher Columbus, directly under one of the street lamps. I was garbed in an unfamiliar dress of plainest cut, all grayish-blue without pattern or pintuck. I imagined the nuns at Jessie’s new school likely dressed the same way. But the simple clothing drew no attention from the swarms of men and women who passed in carriages or astride their horses, or on foot, tramping up and down the streets of Minneapolis. I was invisible again, just as I’d been in Salt Lake City so many years before. This time, I didn’t mind—for I knew myself to be ill-fitted for city life; I wanted no part of it. I hadn’t yet done my sworn duty to the Wild West Show, but I already longed for the end of the touring season when I could return to Deadwood and put the whole mad experience at my back.
Anyway—there I stood, Short Pants. Picture me, gray-blue and unadorned, my bullwhacker’s build draped in the vestments of a near-nun. I would have looked ridiculous to any soul who cared to pause and observe me. None did, except for Farley. When another carriage just like the first halted in front of my lamp post, I knew Farley must be inside before he even opened the door.
Like Josephine, Farley was all city, from his John Bull hat to the shine on his shoes. He stepped down into the street and offered his hand as if to help me into the carriage. I didn’t take it. I’ve never needed any assistance clambering in and out of rigs. To be frank with you, I’ve always looked askance at ladies who can’t manage a few steps up or down on their own.
Farley seemed put out by my independence, but only for a moment. He followed me back inside the carriage and shut the door. Then he rapped on the ceiling with his knuckles and the buggy began to roll.
“Miss Jane,” he said, tipping his hat, “it’s an honor to meet you.”
I wasn’t sure how I ought to respond—what would a proper city woman say? I had no desire to ruffle Josephine’s feathers with unladylike behavior. I set and stared at Farley while he waited for me to speak. Finally he tugged on the lapels of his jacket and went on with his business.
“We are all so glad you’ve agreed to join the Wild West Show, Miss Jane. Our company performs at the Star Theater in the heart of the city. We are on our way there now.”
“Will Mr. Cody be there?” I asked.
Farley smiled. “Many people are eager to meet Bill Cody—naturally, of course. He has made quite a name for himself, and now you will take part in his fame.”
I wasn’t starstruck by Cody’s name, as Farley imagined me to be. I merely wanted to get a good look at the man. Who was this fella, cobbling together a vision of the West and selling it to tenderfeet on their own turf? Cody had earned enough jingle from his gig that he never hesitated to send me that fat advance. The Wild West Show must be a lucrative business. I was curious about the man himself—his character, his presence. How well did he understand the goods he sold to his audiences? And was he the sort of fella a body could trust?
“I’m afraid Mr. Cody is unlikely to appear at the matinee,” Farley said, “but he may grace the evening performance. We shall see. Bill Cody is a busy man. Now attend, if you please, Miss Jane. We haven’t much time to speak, and it’s my job to tell you everything you’ll need to know before your first appearance on the stage.”
I tried to focus on Farley’s words as he described the show, the stage, the Star Theater itself. He spoke of the other performers the way I’d oft heard ranchers speak of their cattle. I scolded myself to pay attention, to remember every word he said. But his instructions came so fast and thick, I knew I was bound to forget something important, and I didn’t like to make myself a fool by asking the agent to repeat himself.
“We’ve nearly arrived at the Star now.” Farley peered out the buggy’s window into the bustle of Minneapolis. “Straight away, you must report to Lucy Greaves, our costumer. You’ll find her most congenial and talented.”
“Costumer?” I said.
“Of course. You’re our wild lady of the West. You must look the part.”
“I could have met you looking the part already, sir, if I’d only known. Josephine Brake instructed me specially to wear this dress, but I most usually wear trousers and a shirt.”
“Ah,” Farley said with a small laugh, “Lucy will do better than that. Here we are now. I’ll show you the performers’ entrance. It’s around the back.”
The theater was unlike anything I had seen in my life—unlike anything I had imagined. High above the banks of wooden seats, gilded arches held up a domed ceiling painted deepest blue, adorned with silvery stars. The stage was even wider than the one I had used for my first shooting demonstrations at McDaniels’ back in Cheyenne.
“Am I to shoot here?” I asked of Farley.
“Shoot? Heavens, no. Such a display would be far too dangerous, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Farley. If I ain’t here for trick-shooting, what am I here for? What does Mr. Cody expect of me?”
The agent turned to me with a smile that felt a mite too condescending for my liking. “You are Calamity Jane, madam. You need do nothing but stand before the crowd. I believe that will be sufficient.”
Next, I was conveyed to a large room somewheres behind the stage. The place smelled of sweat and a singed undertone of hot irons and well-pressed cotton—odors which had become all too familiar to me in my laundry days. The room was so crowded with racks of clothing and with can-can girls in various stages of undress that I could scarce navigate my way to the gray-haired, pinch-faced dame at the heart of the chaos. She was Buffalo Bill’s costumer, and she needed only one glance at my big frame and blunt face to identify me.
“Calamity Jane,” she said, even while she yanked on a dancer’s corset strings with one hand. With the other, she swept a bundle of clothing from a rack and thrust the whole lot into my arms. “Your costume. Be quick, now, Miss; curtain is in one hour, and I must have time to make any needed alterations.”
The can-can girls had no compunction about dressing right there in the costumer’s room, so I did the same. It was a relief to shed that dress, for I never felt entirely comfortable in dresses, as I guess you’ve surmised by now. I slid myself into a fine set of twill trousers decorated with Indian beads along the cuffs and up the outer seams. A shirt of bright plaid followed, then a vest cut like a man’s shooting jacket, but embroidered all over with flowers—which was, I assumed, an attempt by Lucy the costumer to make me seem more girlish.
Lucy paused in her ministrations to the can-can girls just long enough to look me over. She took a bit of chalk from the pocket of her apron, marked my shirt here and there, then placed a few pins and a few deft stitches. Then she declared me good enough for a matinee and thrust a buckskin jacket, a pair of boots, and a sugarloaf hat into my arms. She pulled a rifle from beneath one of her clothing racks and handed it to me, as well.
“Put these on,” she told me. “Then you may go backstage and await your cue.
I did as I was told. Some fool had painted the boots with bright designs of red and blue. I had never seen a bullwhacker or a ranch hand with painted boots before. They was too big for my feet, besides, but I figured too big was a damn sight preferable over too small. The jacket’s sleeves trailed heavy fringes that put me in mind of Wild Bill. A lump rose in my throat when I donned it. I could remember the sight of him, stark against a twilight sky, the light of emerging stars picking out the beads along his sleeves. Bill had loved a fancy jacket, to be sure—but he had never dressed as gaudily as that costumer dressed me. I found a looking glass standing in a corner and assessed myself. I wasn’t best pleased by my own reflection. They had made me a scout of sorts—mine was a version of Wild Bill’s beloved get-up. But the colors was garish and far too gay. No true scout would ever have dressed so foolishly—no scout would have survived long decked in scarlet and royal b
lue, with a flowery vest and glimmering beads everyplace a bead could be sewn. A body might as well have worn a sign reading Indians Shoot Here. I could swear I heard Wild Bill’s ghost chuckling at sight of me. But I did feel closer to my dear Bill, sudden and unexpected, while I wore that buckskin coat. And so I wound my hair into a small knot at the nape of my neck and settled the oversized hat upon my head, and told myself I was ready for my first appearance in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
I pressed myself against a wall backstage, grateful for the darkness, keeping as far from the curtain and the stage itself as I could manage. Fellas in workman’s cover-all bibs scuttled here and there, faces and hands barely lit by the tiny, single-candle lanterns they carried. Their spots of ruddy glow drifted through the backstage darkness like ghost lights in a midnight cemetery. I could hear the crowd assembling in the theater, a constant murmur of voices and rustling activity that increased with each passing minute. Then a small brass band began tuning its instruments, somewhere out there under the painted stars where I couldn’t see.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” said a girl in the shadows to my right-hand side.
I turned towards the voice, squinting in the darkness. I could just make out one of the can-can girls standing beside me. Her pale, round face and her flounces of ostrich feathers looked gray in the dim space, the feathers touched here and there along their edges by dim light thrown from the workmen’s lanterns.
“Yes mam, I am quite new,” I said.
“You look just about sick from nerves. But there’s no need to worry about a thing. It’s easy as can be; you only need to put on a little show, make them believe it’s all real.”
“What’s all real?” I said.
“Why the Western hoopla, of course. That’s what they’ve paid to see.”
At that moment, the brass band struck up a wild fanfare and the crowd made a strange sound all together, a kind of “Ah!” of anticipation. The can-can girls filed past me, brushed through the swinging velvet drapes, and took their places on the stage just as the cymbals crashed with a triumphant ring. The audience applauded—whistled—shouted. And through the noise and rush, through the fever of my confusion, I struggled to recall Farley’s words in the carriage that morning. I hadn’t the first idea what I ought to do.
But the matinee moved easily from one act to the next—the can-can girls, the slim young fella who twirled his lasso and leaped in and out of its ring. The kindly old grandfather who draped himself in a bear skin and pretended to be a fearsome French trapper; the Japanese man who donned a bonnet of eagle feathers and made believe he was an Indian chief. I studied each performer’s face as they came off the stage, leaving behind the audience’s eager applause—and sometimes scattered jeers. Each time the curtain swung, the stage lights illuminated the performers’ faces. Whether they received acclaim or mockery, the result was always the same. Every one of them left the stage calm and easy, looking as if they’d just done a thing as routine as emptying their bowels, and so I told myself there was nothing to fear.
The announcer called out, “And now we present, the one, the only, heroine of the West and subject of more than a dozen popular novels, Calamity Jane!”
The brass band played my fanfare. I sucked in a deep breath, tugged on my buckskin jacket to be sure it was straight, and walked out onto the stage, holding my gun before me. The crowd cheered at sight of me, which made my blood pound in my cheeks. Then—as I stood there, smack in the center of the stage and half blinded by the lights of a dozen lamps—the crowd fell silent. I could feel the tension of their expectation filling the theater like a flood, creeping up its walls foot by treacherous foot.
The silence turned to shuffling. Then to murmurs. And then, to my outrage and mortification, a ripple of quiet laughter moved through the audience. I heard somebody from the wing of the stage clear their throat—trying to gain my attention. I thought it must have been the can-can girl who had spoken to me kindly some time before. But I couldn’t see her, for she was shrouded in darkness, and besides, I didn’t feel as if I could safely turn away from that audience. Their laughter held a feral note, an eagerness for my humiliation.
Somebody shouted from the back of the theater, “That’s not Calamity Jane!”
A few more hecklers joined in. “The Belle of the Plains!” “It’s the Hellcat in Leather, in the very flesh!”
I hefted my rifle, held it athwart my chest as if it was a shield to defend me. “I am too Calamity Jane!”
At my protest, some of the laughter died away, but not all of it. Somebody called out, “Calamity Jane is a beauty!”
The crowd murmured their agreement.
“Well,” I said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That’s in the Bible. Or if it ain’t in the Bible exactly, then your mas should have told you as much.”
“Prove it!” a man cried, and applause bounced around the theater.
I swallowed hard, hoping the audience couldn’t see my fear, praying the fringe of my sleeves didn’t swing wildly with my shivers. How could I prove my identity? My face was growing hot under the glare of the lamps—burning with embarrassment and anger. I didn’t like the thought of that pack of fools winning the day. Even less did I like the thought that Bill Cody might account me a poor investment if I didn’t please his matinee audience. I knew I must give a performance convincing enough to appease those damnable fools.
Without the least warning, I lifted the rifle to my shoulder and sighted down its barrel, straight out into the crowd, as if I intended to fire upon them.
All laughter died on the instant. The crowd shrank back in their seats. Women screamed; men hollered in protest. A few people leaped up and ran for the doors.
“You dare to question me, the Hellcat in Britches!” I hollered. “Why, you know I can shoot the hat clean off a man’s head. Who’s man enough to come up and let me try it?”
I pointed my rifle this way and that, always aiming into the theater. No one volunteered, but as I stood there squinting down my sights, I could sense the mood of the crowd turning from fear to amusement. Chuckles sprouted here and there, tentative and small like mushrooms after an autumn rain. Men shoved each other towards the stage, but none of them climbed up to join me. They milled in the aisles between their banks of seats, slapping each other on the back and grinning up at me.
“It’s me,” I cried, “Calamity Jane, the true one and only, the White Devil of the Yellowstone. If you don’t believe me, you can…” I searched my head for something suitably Calamitous to say, something that wouldn’t upset Josephine Baker or anger Buffalo Bill. “You can sit on a hot poker!”
Genuine laughter rippled around the room—no longer tentative, but full and hearty. The announcer left his place beside the brass band. He climbed a few steps to stand beside me while the band played another triumphant chord, a flourish of finality. The announcer raised his hands to the crowd, but to me he gave a subtle jerk of his head—commanding me to high-tail off the stage. “Calamity Jane,” he called out again. Tepid cheers followed me.
I cringed in the darkness, brooding over the humiliating affair, till the show had ended and the last performer made his way offstage. If I hoped to bring in more money, I would have to devise a new and better act. It wasn’t enough merely to stand before the crowd—not for me. Those damned novels had made such a legend of my supposed beauty that no paying customer would ever take me for the real Calamity. If I hoped to win their hearts and bring in their cash, I must present myself in my element.
As the audience filed out of the Star Theater, somebody lit more lamps backstage. Light returned to the world, and I found Josephine standing beside me. She eyed me with a sober, appraising air, from my sugarloaf hat to my painted boots. “You certainly look the part.”
I couldn’t help scowling at the woman, even if she was an agent, permitted to speak on Cody’s behalf. “I look like a damnable fool.”
“Nonsense. You look perfect.”
“No one dres
ses like this in the West. If any scout rode out into the hills this way—” I plucked at the flowery vest— “like some kind of prancing peacock, he’d never make it half a mile. He’d be shot full of Sioux arrows before he could say boo.”
“I don’t doubt your… expertise,” Josephine said while the can-can girls passed us in a herd and the false Indian chief shook out the feathers of his bonnet. “But our audiences haven’t come to see a real scout of the Black Hills. They’ve come for a fantasy, Jane, and you must deliver it.”
“I can’t deliver much, standing about like I mislaid my wits and letting them jeer at me. Let me shoot a pistol if you want me to put on a good show. I shot on stages like this one before.”
Josephine shook her head. “We would never obtain permission for such a thing here, in the theaters—in a city.”
“Then you won’t make good money off me. I ain’t interesting to no one, standing there holding a rifle and shuffling my feet.”
“The spectators have already paid their fee by the time they’ve taken their seats. It matters very little, whether they love your or hate you.”
“Buffalo Bill could double his tickets sold if the audience loved me—if they told their friends to come down and see the famous Calamity Jane in the flesh. Why don’t we give them something to talk about, Miss Brake? I can do much more than kick up my legs like those can-can girls. I can give your audience a spectacle they never seen before, and ain’t like to see again. Think of the money to be made. I’m wasted, standing like a fence post. And Cody’s money is wasted, too.”
Josephine sighed. “You make a compelling argument. I will speak to Mr. Cody the first chance I get, but I must caution you, Jane: don’t expect a miracle. Mr. Cody has been running the most successful Wild West show in the United States for years now. He knows the business well. Now, don’t frown. I will present your case to him—you have my word on that count. You should come back to the hotel with me. You’ve an evening performance ahead. You must take your rest while you can.”
Calamity Page 43
