A few hours later, in the morning, I stepped out and saw ravens squalling in the sky. I left my horse and walked with the saddlebag that contained my knife and hatchet and some rope back to the deer. She was young and healthy-looking. I searched for a rock about the size of a finch’s body. I looked the deer over carefully and then I cut the skin around her neck and pulled it down until I could put the rock under the skin and tie it off tightly, making a kind of a hitch. Then I cut off her lower legs, holding them against the tree and using the hatchet. I sliced the skin up her legs to her underside and made sure she was cut all the way to the neck. Then I tied more rope around the hitch I had made in her skin and I went back to get my horse. It took a long bloody time to pull her skin off, but once the skin started it came off clean with a loud rip and lay like a discarded garment beneath her. I butchered the meat into small pieces and filled two bags with it. I draped the skin over my saddle.
When I was done there was still plenty left for Mr. Bear and Missus Wolf and all their coyote, fox and raven neighbours. I packed the bundles on the back of my horse with my other gear and we went looking for a smokehouse.
AS I RODE into Lethbridge all the clean rich ladies riding shotgun in their husbands’ Packards and Oldsmobiles down the wide roads stared at me as though I were a Hallowe’en apparition. They were like owls their heads rotated so. The sound of those cars. It felt so strange to look down on them. Blood seeping through the bags had stained my horse’s sides and I had had no chance to wash after the butchering. I was covered in shades of blood. It amused me to take out my rifle and ride with it held across my saddle as if I were a gunfighter entering a frontier town.
I found the trading post in the centre of town; it was a little wooden house with a tall brick false front in that top-hat style that suggests a second floor. I left my horse staring after me. The high sound of a little bell tripping gave away my entry. A woman was sorting accounts behind the counter. Around her were piss-pots and fry pans and top hats and saddles and canteens and jars of buttons and piles of socks and spools of belts, spotting scopes and stuffed parrots and bicycle parts and every sort of thing. A thick stack of dollar bills lay in a drawer before her that she shut quickly. She frowned at my appearance and I held up the deerskin.
If you are a bandit woman you have come to the wrong place. If you want to sell me that skin it has to be tanned. And if those are bags of meat and you are here to sell them then they have to be cured, dried or smoked. Which, by your meagre look, I am guessing they are not. You can’t just kill a beast and sling it around my place!
I meant no offence. Can you lend me the wood and screens to build a smokehouse and I’ll smoke some meat for you? Or just tell me where to find one and I’ll give you the skin for free, I offered.
She shook her head and turned her back on me. Her backside was half as broad as the counter. The walls were hidden behind racks of coats. An open armoire revealed a selection of wedding dresses and mourning suits. She pretended to be counting blankets, waiting for me to leave. The stack of blankets was neatly folded but she stroked and patted them as if soothing wrinkles from fine linen.
I can make do with a crate and a hammer and some old screen, I said. I’ll give you half the meat.
She squared her shoulders, put her hands on her hips and turned back to me. She clucked her tongue and reached over her head to finger a vast swath of beaded necklaces, red, turquoise, white, yellow and pearl, hanging from a hook in a low beam She assessed me and sighed.
Maybe I could help you if you were to buy something. I have some fresh imported Hutterite chicken. You look like you could use some meat.
What makes it Hutterite chicken? I asked.
She shrugged. Conversion, I suppose, and then betrayal. Have you got any salt? she asked.
I don’t.
She pursed her lips and squinted at the weak sunlight. I’ll give you a bag of salt if you’ll help me do inventory. I don’t want that skin, the cutting is ragged, it’s not fleshed and it doesn’t have a head.
I can go back and get the head.
I don’t want the head. I want someone to inventory boots; the last time I did it there was a foot in one. Make yourself some brine and soak the meat and if it looks good I’ll get you a smokehouse and if it tastes good I’ll take half. But I need three days of work from you and I need your boots.
Where will I stay? I asked, feeling like I had wandered into a trap.
You have a horse?
Yes.
I suppose you need feed for your horse?
Yes.
Then I need four days of work and you can both sleep in my stable. I suppose you need food too, and a bath.
Five days work? I asked, and she nodded.
And your saddle. You’ll need to buy back your boots and a saddle, I suppose?
Images of skeletons stacked in the hay of the stable floated in my mind. I need to think about it, I said, and I backed up all the way out the door. As I turned to leave I saw a pile of folded Confederate and Union uniforms topped by a tray of wedding bands beside a collection of Bibles.
Where you goin’? she called sharply.
Thank you. I won’t bother you. I’m going to South Dakota.
That’s a long lonely ride. Are you for mining?
No.
Are you gambling?
No.
You don’t look like a whore, at least not a good one.
I’m looking for Calamity Jane. I have a message for her.
Ha! You’re goin’ the wrong way. Better go to Virginia City. Last time I read her name she was there.
I watched her hunt through papers but she did not find the proof of her direction. Exasperated she said, better yet, go anywhere you please. Here, I know what you’ll want.
She turned to sift through another stack of papers.
Here it is. Here’s a history of the woman. She’s not even real. She’s just the made-up fantasy of that little man.
She dropped a pamphlet before me. It was an illustrated biography of Ned Wheeler.
Twenty cents, she said, and that’s to save you the cost of hunting phantoms.
I BOUGHT the book, bags of salt, dried herbs, a couple of screens and wood, and a tin bath from her. A man and wife offered me a room at the hotel in exchange for smoking some rabbits for them. The man giggled inconsolably at my appearance until the woman put him to bed with a bottle. I built a little smokehouse in the back and while I smoked the deer meat and the rabbits I read the brief story of a boy who dreamed of women. The story was written very plainly and the two illustrations were of Ned Wheeler himself and his first famous creation, the magical personage of Wild Edna.
The Inventive Ned Wheeler
NED WHEELER WAS BORN SICKLY IN UPSTATE New York. He grew up bookish and pale, dreaming of Western adventure. At twelve he wrote a short novel about a girl named Wild Edna who dressed in men’s clothes and rode beside a man named Dangerous Joe. Wild Edna would shoot a fly out of the air if she thought that it might light upon Dangerous Joe. Ned wrote four more books from the point of view of a daring female. He read his stories to his mother every night when she came to tuck him in, sit beside him and take his temperature. Twasn’t long before Wild Edna became Hurricane Nell, who in turn grew a foot in height and became Giant Susan, the Girl Bandit. The women were outlets for his illness. Some months Ned could barely breathe and then his heroines became opera singers. When he grew weak they would dance in halls before senators, and once, before the dazzled president. When he grew strong they grew weak and became imperilled damsels rescued from moustaschioed villains by a pale boy from New York.
At twenty Ned began to send his stories to the Philadelphia story papers. By then he had read in the newspapers of Calamity Jane, her comings and goings across the countryside. Every woman bandit, lady sheriff and melting sweetheart in his imagination fused into one and was named after Jane. His stories sold so well and were so popular with readers that Ned Wheeler and Calamity Jane were married in the pr
ess without ever meeting each other. Stories in the papers of her real adventures became tinged with something he was proud to call a Wheeler-esqueness. She was now the Heroine of the Hills, embroiled in scandal for her reckless love of Deadwood Dick, the Black Prince of the Road. Artists sketched her for the cards that came with chewing tobacco. Perhaps she found herself there once or twice, unravelling the packages.
Ned’s stories attracted the attention of two New York publishers, the canny Mr. Erastus Beadle and Mr. Robert Adams. Mr. Beadle and his assistant Mr. Fox visited Ned one day with a plan. Mr. Fox was a small man in a black bowler hat. He stood a bit behind Mr. Beadle, his head barely reaching the other man’s shoulder. He stepped quickly back and forth, one foot to another, in obvious excitement. Mr. Beadle was as tall as Lincoln with a long slender nose and deep-set eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was soft and persuasive.
Mr. Wheeler, said Mr. Beadle, we have an idea for a new form of reading material. I believe it will be popular.
We’ll call it the dime novel, piped Fox, although we could sell it sometimes for a nickel. Yes, said Beadle with wide smile, it will be a kind of booklet, released weekly, with an illustration of your story on the cover. I believe that millions of people will read your work, sir, now that millions can read. Millions of people, men and women from New York State to Santa Fe, will come to know your Calamity Jane and love her deeply, as you so obviously do.
That night Ned’s mother visited for dinner. As she peered into the stew on the stove, counting out the pieces of beef and carrots and onions, he told her about Fox and Beadle. She lifted her face, wet with steam, and crowed and stamped her feet.
Oh, Ned, she said, I have always loved your stories, especially the ones with Fearless Frank!
Mama, calm down. It’s only new. Who knows what printed stories will do?
Oh, Ned, she said. She grabbed his face and kissed him. I don’t care. I’ve felt so many times that you were writing yourself back to life!
Martha
SHE VISITED HER BROTHER, ELIJAH, IN A holding cell before he was transferred to the penitentiary in Wyoming to serve five years for trying to defraud the railroad. He had forced stolen cattle onto the tracks to be killed and then filed claims for their replacement.
The guard was polite, asking after her day as he brought her to Elijah’s cell and offered her a wooden stool. The jail was a wheelless wooden boxcar attached to the sheriff’s office. The room was long and narrow. The doors on either end of the cart were left open to facilitate some breeze. It was September, hot still, and the mad colours of the trees, gold, pink and red, were visible through those doors. The room contained three small cells divided from one another by bars. It was a set of cages like the ones she had seen in travelling circuses.
Elijah was in the middle cage. He pulled himself over on a stool and gripped the bars. She sat and looked at her little brother. He was shaved bald. His skull was lumpy and his forehead cut and bruised. He had gained a lot of muscle and he looked just like their father, with his same rounded shoulders and thick neck. All the fat had melted from Elijah’s face and his features were stark, almost brutal. There was hardly any trace of the soft sweet hammy boy. He shook his head and reached through the bars to cuff her ear.
It’s a nice place, she said.
Oh, thank you.
They play music?
They fiddle for me.
What do they feed you here?
Oh, pastries filled with warm apples and ham and bread, hot fresh bread, thick with butter, and yam soup with cream, and I drink whisky every night to fall asleep.
Well then, you eat better than ever. You look like someone danced on your face.
He covered his eyes with a thick hand. Don’t say that.
The light through one tiny window shone narrow rays on the bucket that still held his shit and piss. Flies gathered there and on a tray with a little empty bowl, and on the pillow that lay at the head of a cot so narrow she knew he must sleep on his side.
I’m all right. You look like someone replaced my sister with my brother.
She laughed and slapped her knee. Her brother’s nose was obviously broken and his eyelids were misshapen.
They beatin’ on you?
Don’t look at me. Look at you. What would Mama say?
She could smell the vinegar of old sweat on his clothes. His teeth were big and yellow from nicotine. But his smile was the same uncertain line.
She would say, The two of you get to sleep! Tomorrow we are going to a wonderful place where your father and I will be rich and you and your sisters and brothers will all stay together. A pony for every child!
Well, that’s true. She was crazy hopeful right up until she died. Lena said you had a baby?
Martha nodded and sighed raggedly. I had a few. I don’t have any now.
I’m sorry, Marthy.
It’s all right. I had a stepdaughter, Jesse. She was Steer’s daughter. I tried to do well by her. I tried to get her into school. I took her to Deadwood with me and introduced her all around as mine and they held a big benefit to raise the money to send her. And everyone was happy and drinking and cheering and congratulating me. When they handed me the money I was so overcome I offered to buy them all drinks and I spent it all, thanking them.
Elijah laughed sharply. The guard looked over.
Steer beat me, she said. He stabbed me and he hit me in the head with a rock. I hollered at him and I hit back. But I left before he killed me. I left Jesse with him. He wouldn’t hurt her. She was his.
Don’t cry, Marthy. I’m sorry, Marthy. I should have been with you.
No. You’re my little brother. I should have been watching you.
No one could watch me. I always was bad.
No, stop it. You never were bad. You did some stupid things. So, you like insurance fraud?
It don’t like me.
Can I do anything for you?
No. You need to leave me behind, he said. He snorted and wiped at his nose with his sleeve. She remembered this action.
When we were little do you remember how I was always catching rattlesnakes with my hands? he said.
Yes. I remember them wrapped around your arms.
And you said, Fuck you, Elijah, let them go. You never understood I couldn’t let go—once I had them I had to cut their heads off or they would turn on me.
You could have let them go by throwing them.
I cooked them up in soup with yams and we all ate it.
That’s right, we did. They were delicious. You did a real good job feeding us. Elijah, remember when we were scouts together?
Yes, I showed you how to be a boy. We watched the war together and we never gave away her secrets.
Remember skating on the river?
In our army boots.
Can you be good, Elijah, when you get out of here?
I tell you, Martha, I won’t get myself hung, but there is no reason for me to be good.
She studied him in silence. Their faces were level. You look so hard, she said.
He blinked and his chin quivered. I’m not hard, Marthy. I’m not good but I’m not hard.
I know, Elijah. You won’t get yourself hung. You’ll go to Heaven on a whirlwind. You’re my little captain. You’re our pony boy. Remember Annie on your back?
He nodded, his chin tucked up tight to his collar. I’m glad they didn’t live to see us, he mumbled. I’m glad they didn’t live to end up this poor.
Shh, I’ll tell your fortune. Guard, she called.
The guard looked over from the doorway. She saw him in silhouette against the sunlight. He was a skinny, disinterested man, wearing a too-large uniform.
Please, can you bring us water and a cloth so I can tell my brother’s fortune?
The guard was at the end of his shift. He knew who she was and he was pleased to eavesdrop for a story to tell. He had no sense of anything bad that could happen so he brought her a shallow painted basin filled with water and a little cloth.
Come nice and close, Elijah, she said.
He pushed his face against the bars. She brought the wet cloth to his eyes and wiped away the dirt and dried blood. She lifted his eyebrow with her thumb to see a cut on his eyelid.
They really hurt you. Move your head back a bit so I can reach all of your face. Kneel here in front of me and give me your hands.
He knelt and she held his hands, turning them over and over and wiping at the lines and in between his fingers. She soaked his fingertips to loosen the grime and used her longest nail to clean beneath his. She kissed his knuckles and put her forehead in his palms.
Take off your shoes and give me your feet, she said.
He sat down and pried off his shoes and tore his socks from his wounded feet. She washed her brother’s gnarled toes, the bony outcrop of a bunion and red ragged sores on his ankles. When she was finished the water in the basin was black. She stirred the dirty water with her finger and leaned over, studying the mud and how it settled.
What does the water say? Elijah asked.
It says you are good. You were always a good brother and I love you and you should always call on me if you need me.
Miette
MY HOSTS, JOHN AND SARAH, WERE HONEST as eggs and they agreed that Calamity Jane had been reported last in Virginia City so I decided to change my route and go through Montana first. In the morning John helped me to pore over maps of the trails and plan my way. Sarah fried me eggs and bid me well, packing me bread and water for my journey. My clothes had been washed. My body was warm and clean after a long bath. I had a big bag of fresh deer jerky. The deerskin I had fleshed and hung for the night and rubbed with salt. I had more bags of salt to take with me. My horse was brushed and fed. The sky seemed like a lovely bright dome such as you might find over a Christmas scene in an ornament.
WE PASSED through a great netherlands of hoodoos, under the chins of giant scouts. The air was so full of ghosts I could hear them. The stone path, uneven beneath my horse’s feet, made me feel as if the earth was rocking. We meandered all day over the body of the landscape, around concretions that might be shoulders and ribs and knees of a sleeping being. Echoes dissolved into whispers. We stopped to drink from Milk River and I saw carvings in the stone side of a steep butte, of battles between men with shields. I saw the bodies fall before me again. I saw a rider on a horse, long flowing lines of his headdress behind him and a buffalo before him. It put me off balance, I don’t know why, but I was out of time with myself. Something heavy shifted in me.
In Calamity's Wake Page 5
