Buffalo Girls

by Larry McMurtry

  “You’ll be old yourself someday, and then you won’t be so goddamn fresh,” she remarked, although in fact T. Blue looked rather subdued—for him.

  “You better comb your hair a little better before you curtsy to the Queen,” Blue said. “If you ride up looking like you do this morning she might mistake you for Sitting Bull.”

  “I intend to buy a wig, for your information,” Calamity said. His manner irritated her so much at times that if she had been armed she might have taken a shot at him—she had taken two or three over the years, all wild.

  “Oh, one of them artificial scalps,” Blue said. “Get a red one while you’re at it. We need more redheads in this country. Have a smoke.”

  He offered tobacco to Calamity and No Ears, and they all had a smoke and watched the tall grass wave for a few minutes. The buffalo dog wandered off to chase three deer.

  Calamity’s stomach settled a little, and she began to notice what a grand day it was. In the afternoon they were to start east to catch the steamboat on the Missouri. The thought made her feel sad. Why had she agreed to leave the plains? What did it matter what the Queen of England looked like? The plains were her home, the ground of her life. What if she never got back? What if she got rowdy in England and got sent to jail? Of course that had happened even on the plains, but they seldom kept her too long in the little prairie jails. The deputies soon tired of feeding her or listening to her rattle on.

  In England it might be different. And what if the big boat sank? Even No Ears was apprehensive about the ocean, and No Ears had lived a long life, through pretty chancy times. Only two nights before, in Dora’s saloon, the fat blacksmith Maggs had been talking about how whales could sink boats. He explained to No Ears that a whale was as big as the house they were drinking in—some of them were bigger. Maggs claimed to have seen a whale that would cover the whole parade ground at Fort Kearney. No Ears had been alarmed to hear of a fish that large and had peppered the blacksmith with questions, so many that Calamity had passed out while he was still peppering.

  She was soaked from sleeping in the dewy grass; her hands were shaky, and she felt queer. Getting presentable enough to meet the Queen seemed an immense effort in itself—not to mention the thousands of miles of travel that had to be accomplished first.

  “I don’t want to go, Blue,” she said. “I wish people would just leave me alone. I just want to stay here with my friends and be buried near Bill Hickok when I die.”

  Blue, of course, immediately changed his tack. He was looking a little more like his frisky self, and when he was frisky he would argue with a stump; whichever side of an argument the stump took, Blue would take the other.

  “Now, Martha, I was just joking,” he said. “You oughta go on—at least it’ll be a ride.”

  “Why do I need to cross an ocean just for a ride?” she asked. “I could start right now here and ride a thousand miles in any direction, if I just wanted a ride.”

  “Well, no,” Blue said—he enjoyed splitting hairs when she was least in the mood to have a hair split. “You could clock off a thousand miles south with no trouble, or a thousand miles east, but if you went a thousand miles north you’d need to learn to talk Eskimo, and a thousand miles west would put you about a hundred miles off shore, in the Pacific. I doubt if that black horse could swim a hundred miles, either.”

  “Go piss in your ear, Blue,” Calamity said. “I didn’t request a map. I’m glad Dora’s moving. It’s about time she cut you loose and let you wander.”

  “Thank you for the smoke,” No Ears said, setting off for town. He had neglected to buy the slicker and decided he had better go do it while Blue and Martha Jane were having their conversation. He had experienced their conversations before and knew they were apt to be lengthy. Though he had little to pack, he did want to take some care in selecting the slicker. He wanted, if possible, to find one whose collar would protect his earholes. Also, some slickers had collars that collected rain like a cup when they were raised. If England was as rainy as had been reported, a little time spent selecting an excellent slicker would be time well spent.

  The dog Cody had returned from his chase. He barked at No Ears as No Ears walked away, but the old man kept going and was soon out of sight in the waving grass.

  “Cody don’t like the party to be split up,” Calamity observed.

  “I don’t neither,” Blue said. “I think we’ve all stuck together this long, we ought to stick together till the matter’s finished. But I can’t get Dora to see it that way—she is just determined to move.”

  “If you call being married on the Musselshell sticking together, then hoorah, let her buck!” Calamity said. “I don’t think Miss Dora DuFran looks at it quite that way.”

  “No, she takes a stubborn attitude, as usual,” Blue said. “I’m sure you’ll defend her, stubborn or not—you would never be inclined to help me in a matter like this, I’m sure. You’d rather ride off and visit the Queen.”

  “I guess it does beat riding around the west listening to you and Dora complain about one another,” Calamity observed. “You two started complaining about one another in Kansas, and here we are in Montana years later and you’re still complaining. I stopped paying it any attention back down the road several years, if you want the truth. I think you two ought to just shoot it out, and whichever one turns out to be the widow will have nobody to blame but yourself.

  “If Dora loses, I’ll adopt Fred,” she added. “If you lose, I hope you’ll will me your six-shooter—I gave it to you to begin with, if you remember.”

  “We ain’t gonna shoot no duel, and you can have this gun back any time you want it,” Blue said, though he didn’t offer to unbuckle his holster and give it to her. It was a sturdy Colt revolver—Calamity had won it in a poker game somewhere. She had a gun she liked at the time and had given this one to him for his birthday.

  “Blue, let’s don’t argue anymore, I’ll start to cry,” Calamity said, feeling that she might cry anyway.

  “Oh, don’t cry—I hadn’t meant to be arguing,” Blue said. “It’s just that I’ve got a long ride and I’m chattering in order to put it off a little while. I’m half a mind to go back to town with you—Dora might be in a better mood by then.”

  “Or a worse mood,” Calamity reminded him. “Her moods don’t usually float too high on the day that you leave, even if she is mad at you.”

  They sat and had another smoke.

  “Remember that time you and me and Billy and Jack Omohundro raced all the way from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Kearney?” Calamity asked. “Those were the free days. We didn’t have a bit of business in Fort Kearney either. We just did it to do it.”

  Blue did remember. It had been a lark—the four of them just wanted to ride their horses fast. He himself had just served a three-day jail sentence for roping a banker (he hadn’t known the man was a banker and had dragged him only ten yards; three days seemed excessive, but the banker had influence); Cody started bragging on his horse; then Texas Jack Omohundro started bragging on his horse; Calamity never had a horse worth bragging about, but she was always ready for a lark, and the next thing you knew the four of them were racing across the prairies and didn’t stop until they noticed Fort Kearney off to the north.

  “Yes, I recall it was a glorious ride,” Blue said. “I hadn’t got respectable yet. I suppose Texas Jack is accompanying you to the palace, ain’t he? He always acted like he belonged in a palace, even when the scoundrel didn’t have a dime.”

  “He may go along, I can’t say,” Calamity said. “He and Billy are too pretty to make good partners—they’d both want to hog the mirror.”

  “Now, Jack’s a humbler sort than Billy,” Blue said. “Every man I know’s a humbler sort than Billy.”

  “I’d say you’re just mad because Dora’s softening up toward Billy,” Calamity said. “You might as well go and have a bunch of kids, Blue—Dora’s checked you off. I expect Belle Fourche will suit her fine.”

  Blue denied
it vehemently, but it was an old business, he and Dora, and they both knew it. They bantered for a while longer—Blue’s mood improved a little, but Calamity’s continued to waver.

  “I used to love leaving, now I hate it,” she said. “I get to wondering if I’ll ever see my pals of the prairie again.”

  “Sure you will, Martha—all of them but me will be in England, riding prancing horses,” Blue said. He rode over and shook hands with her—it was an old joke he and Martha Jane liked, shaking hands upon departure, as if they were both just cowboys. In fact, there were plenty of cowboys who didn’t have the grip she had, even when her stomach was not well settled.

  Her grip was about all that was still strong enough—the rest of her looked in rough shape, and Blue had to wonder, as he rode west across the sighing plains, if Martha Jane would make it back from her long journey. Her face was bloodshot—she had begun to pick up a touch of age, it seemed; her pals of the prairie might soon be missing her. It worried him and saddened him—Martha Jane had been part of the western life ever since he had known the western life; as he rode on and thought about the possibility of her passing he remembered what she had said about being buried by the side of Wild Bill Hickok, a cold killer who would not likely have deigned to spit on her while he was alive. That was an odd note—he had meant to ask her about it but it had slipped by in the conversation. Now he would just have to save it until she returned from her visit to the Queen.

  15

  TEAT SAT ON THE TOP STEP OF DORA’S BACK PORCH AND watched the party prepare to depart. Trix was there, sighing and pouting. Right up until the last minute she hung onto Bartle, half hoping he would decide to take her along. Wouldn’t it be fun to see England? On the other hand, wouldn’t it be sad to leave Dora and Skeedle, Doosie and Teat? She felt mixed, cried one minute and laughed the next. Dora and Skeedle both had wet eyes, and Calamity was so upset that it took both mountain men to hoist her onto her horse; she had been drinking all day and was not in control of her legs, or any other faculties.

  Teat didn’t really want to go—no journey and no Queen could tempt him to leave Trix’s side, and yet, with all the women crying and the men looking somber, he began to feel sad himself. There was no doubt in his mind that life involved too many leave-takings, too much going on.

  When he was a small boy his people had moved often, but they moved together and made camp together; no one left for long, unless on a hunt or on some important spirit quest.

  But then the soldiers came and killed his family and most of his tribe; the Crows had taken him in, and then Dora had taken him in, and he soon observed that in the villages of the whites, no one stayed long. Men appeared in the saloon, were there for a few weeks, and then never appeared again. Girls came for a while and then vanished. All the talk in the kitchen the last few days had been of moving. Trix talked of going to Texas, Skeedle favored California, Calamity and the mountain men spoke of a place called England. No Ears talked of the ocean, where great fish might live. Dora assured him that he was welcome to come when she moved the saloon to Belle Fourche, but inside, Teat felt worried; it seemed that people did not stay together anymore for very long. In his tribe the old men and women had told stories from long-ago times and Teat had felt good, sitting in the shadows and listening. The tribe had always been together; hearing the stories made him feel they always would be. But then, within an hour, the tribe ceased to be—the few who survived, like himself, were widely scattered. He would never have the tribe again, never be with his people, or any people who felt it was important to stay together. Someday Trix might leave with some party much like the one that was leaving that day. She might have gone with the old white man if he had asked her.

  Teat felt that one reason he so often felt sad was that he didn’t understand enough. The old people of his tribe had understood the pattern of life and knew how to follow it and live correctly—it was his misfortune they had been killed before they could explain the pattern to him and show him the correct way to live. Now no one was left who knew the pattern, who could describe the correct way; now people simply wandered at will, as the whites did. No Ears was old, and could have been helpful, but he was preoccupied with other things, such as getting a good slicker to shed the rain, or attempting to keep his soul from leaving before it was ready.

  As the party got nearer to departure, Teat felt more sad. He remembered something his grandmother had said to his mother the night before the soldiers attacked. His grandmother was one who could see ahead.

  “Tomorrow we will both go home, by a road we do not know,” his grandmother had said. Teat had recalled her words many times and had even heard her repeating them in his dreams.

  His grandmother had been right—now No Ears and the others were going to take a road they did not know. No soldiers might come to kill them, but other things could—a great fish could, or a great storm could. It seemed foolish. Try as he might, Teat could not gain an understanding of it. He sat on the top step saying nothing.

  Jim Ragg said nothing either, and carried nothing but his rifle and effects. He had no interest in the journey, the Wild West show, or England. The job ahead didn’t involve him; it was just a task that had to be done before he could get back to beavering. Only the week before, a cowboy who had drifted down from western Canada told him there were still plenty of beaver to be seen there—you just had to go north a way, past the settlements. Jim was prepared to go north; England was just a detour.

  Skeedle, who had always been secretly fond of Jim, hugged him and tried to get him to show some of the usual sentiments of departure, but Jim was a poor subject. He had no objection to Skeedle and, in fact, liked her, but in his mind he had already left and the weeping and hugging just seemed tiresome.

  “The thing to do is go,” he said several times, but no one heard him.

  Dora felt timid with Jim—always had—and skipped over him in the round of hugging. The company of women made no impression on Jim—at least her company didn’t.

  Bartle Bone, on the other hand, gloried in leave-taking. He cheerfully accepted kisses and hugs all around, several from Dora, several more from Skeedle, and many from Trix—much of his time in Miles City had been spent accepting leave-taking favors from Trix. Bartle even kissed Doosie, more than once. It fit his notion of male destiny for women to weep when men left. The one thing that attracted him to soldiering was the sight of all the wives and whores around an army camp lined up sobbing as the cavalry clattered away, or the foot soldiers marched. A few such scenes made up for all the cardplaying, burial details, and lice-collecting that constituted normal army life. Better to march off with Custer and die on the Greasy Grass than to do laundry forever in Fort Leavenworth.

  “You didn’t die with him, though,” Calamity pointed out, as he was explaining his theory of leave-taking the night before.

  “No, I haven’t died with any general yet,” Bartle cheerfully admitted. “I haven’t found one smart enough to throw in with.”

  He managed to prolong the leave-taking until Jim Ragg was grinding his teeth—a crowd had gathered, for it was not every day that a party left Miles City to go perform for the Queen. Potato Creek Johnny planned to accompany them to the steamer, if not farther; several drunks became confused, thinking they were expected to go too. They stumbled around uncertainly, getting in everybody’s way.

  No Ears wore the splendid bright-yellow slicker he had finally selected, although it was a clear, breezy day.

  Calamity had to be tied to her horse; she was so drunk and unhappy it was feared she might flop off any minute and hurt herself.

  “I wish you’d change your mind and come, Dora,” she said several times. “I don’t like to travel so far from you, or be gone so long.”

  “Well, don’t, then, who’s pushing you?” Dora said in a shaky voice.

  She stood by Calamity’s horse, holding her hand—every time Calamity bent down to kiss her her tears showered Dora’s face. Calamity cried so much and showered her so man
y times that Dora felt she ought to be wearing No Ears’s new slicker. She felt trembly and more than a little unsettled herself. For a time she had been happy in Miles City. Blue’s little accident had been a boon; they had had some of their sweetest times in the past winter. Not since the early years in Kansas had she felt so close to Blue, and it seemed he had felt it too. It seemed for a few weeks that they had come at last to the place they had supposed they would get in their first few months of love, when he was a brash young cowboy and she a pretty buffalo girl. It was what they had talked of in Kansas; finally, in Montana, it happened, or seemed to. But then he had begun to feel like cowboying again, and had ridden off one morning as if their time together had been nothing—as if it were common.

  Dora’s heart took such a drop that morning that she didn’t know if she would ever fully recover her feeling for Blue; now Martha Jane, the other pal of her youth and companion in the adventure of life, was going far away. Martha Jane was sober more and more rarely; what if she died of drink and never returned? They would both be gone, Martha Jane and Blue—what could she do then but get old and be alone?

  Doosie was irritated—Bartle kept forgetting things. He trooped back through her kitchen, allowing drunks to follow him. She wanted the party to go—she had cooking to do and didn’t welcome such interruptions.

  Trix soon wore out her emotion. Now that it was settled that she wasn’t going, she felt a good deal relieved. Old Bartle had too many bad habits, such as wearing his moccasins in bed or dribbling tobacco juice on the sheets. She much preferred Teat—he was respectful of her—and had begun to look forward to life in Belle Fourche. There might be some dandy fellows in Belle Fourche.

  Skeedle walked off before the party was quite gone. She had made plans to get her fortune told that day by an old Spanish woman who lived in a little hut with her goose. The old woman usually gave her a good fortune—she saw riches in Skeedle’s life, and the thought of riches was so pleasant that Skeedle could keep happy for a week or two just thinking about the old woman’s predictions.