Buffalo Girls (9 page)

“This is silly,” Calamity said. “I don't know why it took me so long to admit it. This is just plain silly.”

“Are you criticizing my fire?” Bartle asked, puzzled by her tone.

“No, I'm criticizing your damn life,” Calamity said. “And Jim's. And Johnny's. And mine. What the hell are we doing here?”

There was a long silence. Calamity rarely asked questions in
the morning; she tended to sulk over her coffee; she seldom became talkative much before the end of the day.

“Just trying to get breakfast, I guess,” Bartle said—he had been about to cut himself off a piece of yesterday's elk haunch.

“What's got you so itchy?” he asked, wondering if maybe Calamity might be sick.

“Looking at you sourpusses, that's what,” Calamity said. “All three of you look like you belong in a hospital, one that keeps an undertaker handy. Jim looks like he could die any day, and you're mainly skeleton yourself, Bartle. I know I'm no better. I expect I look as rough as sandpaper.”

Jim Ragg was a little startled. He knew he hadn't been feeling too brisk lately, but he was a long way from death, in his view.

“That smart little Billy Cody figured all this out years ago,” Calamity said. “He changed his direction and made more gold than Johnny's gonna find if he wades in creeks for the next twenty years. All this is silly. There ain't no gold, and there ain't no beaver. There's just four fools and an Indian, and the Indian's just in it for the company. I could be sleeping on a feather mattress in Miles City and not wake up every morning with my knees too froze to bend.”

“There could be a vein of gold ten foot thick right here in these mountains,” Johnny remarked.

“If there is you won't find it,” Calamity retorted. “It's underground, and you ain't a mole.”

“I admit Johnny ain't a mole, but what's the point?” Bartle said.

“Billy Cody made the point when he started his Wild West show,” Calamity said. “The big adventure's over. It's over, and that's that. He's smart to make a show of it and sell it to the dudes. I think I'll go hire on with him, if he'll have me. It would be more enterprising than sitting around here watching us all get old and die.

“More comfortable, too,” she added, holding out her cup.

No Ears poured her some coffee.

Darling Jane—

This bitter cold is something. I put the ink in the coffeepot to thaw it, it was froze solid. I am glad that No Ears decided to come with me, there have been times when I have trouble making a fire, and without a fire tonight your mother would freeze for sure.

It's because I have no patience that I'm a bad fire-maker. If it don't start I get mad, then I decide I'll just freeze, I think, What's left anyway?

One reason I struggle to write these letters even in this cold is so you'll know a little bit about me, for I could someday get ate by a bear, or get my head knocked in by some tough—these things can happen out in the west Janey. I gave the boys a big lecture on how the west ain't wild anymore, it upset their stomachs I guess. It ain't wild like it once was when just the Indians and the animals had it, but it's still wild enough that someone who runs loose like I do can get killed pretty quick.

No Ears felt he would like to come with me to Miles City, I didn't insist but I am plenty glad he came, otherwise I'd worry all day about being able to make the fire. I have made hundreds, you'd think I'd learn the skill, I haven't. It even takes No Ears a while, and he is an expert—finding dry wood is the first problem. Plenty of men are no better at it than me, one reason Wild Bill stuck to the saloons is because he couldn't have made a fire in a week—he liked to stay around where there were bartenders to pamper him, not to mention girls, there was a thicket of them, too. As I say, he was handsome.

Well, Janey, my speech to the boys was a shocker, they didn't like hearing me say Billy Cody was smarter than them, they didn't want to be told that the fun is over, either. I guess nobody does, but anyway it is. I think Bartle is tired of the woods and the prairies, he would not mind a little city life. He will have a time persuading Jim though, Jim is stubborn—I have never seen a man with less give in him than Jim Ragg.

It is deep cold tonight Janey. No Ears told me a story—he says once on the plains he was about to freeze, there was no wood and
he had no shelter, all that saved him was a crippled buffalo cow he found. The cow was down but not dead, he opened her up and got in her belly. The cow lived till morning, it kept No Ears from freezing. Maybe that's too strong a story for your delicate ears Janey—it is just a story about what people will do to save themselves. I would not like to crawl into a cow buffalo's belly, but then I've got a good fire. Without it a buffalo's belly might look good.

I hope Billy Cody is still there when I get to Miles City, I expect he is unless Dora has chased him off, she will if he ain't careful. The man has always been perfectly nice to me. I should try to reform and not make fun of him like the rest do, after all it is no crime to start a Wild West show. I think Bartle wishes he had thought of it first. He got to the west a long time before Billy did, that don't make it his, though.

It's a wonder this tablet don't catch fire, I am sitting almost in the flames to keep the ink from freezing. Pardon the short letter, it's the fault of the conditions—brisk conditions, Jim calls them.

Your mother,
Martha Jane

I
SUPPOSE LIFE'S HARDER FOR WOMEN
,” B
ARTLE REFLECTED
. “It's hard enough for me when it gets this cold,” Jim Ragg said. It had only been in the last winter or so that he had begun to have difficulty staying warm. His feet pained him a good deal, and his ears got so cold that he occasionally found himself envying old No Ears. In windy weather he shivered most of the day and sometimes shivered at night, even with a good fire.

The difficulty with his feet bothered him most. Beaver meant wading—they didn't just walk out of the water and hand themselves over. In earlier days wading had never bothered him significantly; working in ice water wasn't pleasant, but the excitement of taking beaver made it easy to overlook the inconvenience.

What worried Jim was that his feet now troubled him all winter, and he had done no wading. If they did come upon beaver he wasn't sure he would be up to the work of getting them out.

The thought of standing up to his waist for three or four hours a day in water that was just one degree from ice was a worrying thought. What if he couldn't do it? He'd be the laughingstock of the west.

“It's rare for Calamity to complain,” Bartle mentioned. “She's usually of a sunny disposition. I guess we should have left her in Ten Sleep.”

As he talked, Jim Ragg glared at him from the other side of the fire. Of course, Jim Ragg rarely sat around smiling, but he often managed to look neutral, at least. This morning he looked hostile.

“Are you planning to murder me for my valuables?” Bartle asked. “You've got a murdering look in your eye.”

“I ain't planning to go be in no Wild West show,” Jim said. “I wasn't meant for the circus. But if you want to make a fool of yourself, head out. You ain't a woman and don't have Calamity's excuse, though.”

“I've never been able to decide whether Calamity
is
a woman,” Bartle said, mainly to change the subject. He was not in the mood for an argument about the future, not with Jim sitting there ready to charge. In that respect Jim was like Custer: get him in a tight and all he knew to do was charge. And if he didn't happen to be in a tight, Jim Ragg—like Custer—would charge just for the hell of it.

“I guess she's a woman and you oughta know,” Jim said. “I recall you were sweethearts once.”

“If we was, I was drunk and slept through it,” Bartle said. “When was we ever sweethearts?”

“On that first wagon trip, the one that flooded out at the Arkansas,” Jim said. “I seen the two of you sneaking off.”

“Oh, that trip,” Bartle said. “We did sneak off, but all Calamity wanted was for me to teach her how to throw a knife. She didn't own a gun at the time but she had a fairly good knife.”

“Throw a knife?” Jim said, startled by the reply. “Why would you ever throw a knife?”

“You wouldn't,” Bartle said. “Not if you had good sense. Calamity claimed to have read some dime novel—a mountain man threw his knife at a grizzly and killed it. Or maybe it was an Indian chief he threw it at. I never read the book myself.”

“I never accused you of reading,” Jim said.

His mood seemed to be improving slightly, Bartle thought.

“So you thought Calamity and me was in love, is that it?” he
asked. “Is that why you've been sullen the last twenty-five years?”

“No,” Jim said. “I had no objection to you being her sweetheart, except that you stopped paying attention to business. If you'd paid a little more attention we might not have flooded out.”

Bartle snorted. “My god, Jim—I ain't Moses,” he said. “I could have paid attention constantly and not stopped the Arkansas from flooding.”

“How
do
you throw a knife?” Jim asked mildly, realizing that his criticism had no validity. It had been an unusually rainy spring that year, and a rainy spring was clearly not Bartle's fault.

“I don't know,” Bartle said. “I never threw one.”

“Then what'd you teach Calamity?”

“Tracking, mostly,” Bartle said. “I taught her her tracks—what's a fresh track, and what ain't.”

“I did think you were sweethearts, though,” Jim said. “Enough so you'd have no doubt that Calamity is a woman.”

“Nope,” Bartle said. “She was quite standoffish, and still is. Once in a while she
does
dress like a woman now, but she didn't on that trip, if you'll remember. She wore pants the whole way.”

“Still, she must be a woman,” Jim said. “Her name was Martha Jane. Nobody would name a boy Martha Jane.”

“That's a point,” Bartle admitted. “She's still got that odd look, though.”

The sun had been out, but it disappeared; a snow squall was moving toward them from the Black Hills. Dark clouds hid the tops of the mountains.

“I've been thinking we ought to buy ourselves a couple of horses,” Jim said.

Bartle felt gloomy, as he always did when the sun vanished. He didn't mind snow as much as he minded clouds.

“Horses to ride or horses to eat?” he asked, not particularly interested.

“To ride—I don't like to eat horse,” Jim said.

“I don't like to ride 'em any better than you like to eat them,” Bartle declared. “What's wrong with just moving around on our own two feet, like we always have?”

“My feet are getting tired, that's what,” Jim said.

Bartle could hardly believe his ears. Jim Ragg, who had been ready to rush over and strangle him not ten minutes earlier, had just said his feet were tired. Bartle did his best to conceal his surprise.

“I ain't as tall as you,” Jim reminded him. “This deep snow's troublesome to wade in.”

“Yep, that's why snowshoes got invented,” Bartle said. “I've always considered the horse a large dangerous animal. I'd about as soon own a bear.”

“You
are
contrary,” Jim said. “There's nothing wrong with horses.”

“There was something wrong with that one that fell on me in Santa Fe,” Bartle reminded him. “I guess you don't remember that—I was only busted up for six months.”

Jim remembered it, of course. Bartle had been showing off with some cowboys, and a stout young bronc fell with him, rolled on him, and gave him a good kick, to boot.

“That came about from your showing off,” Jim reminded him. “There's plenty of tame horses to be had.”

“Aw, let's just live on a riverboat during the winter,” Bartle suggested. “We could just drift along and watch it snow.”

“You'd never agree to anything,” Jim said. “You never have. I can't remember why I picked you for a
compañero
. Skinning beaver was the only thing you were ever good at, and you've probably forgotten how to do that.”

The snow squall engulfed them; the plains vanished and the campfire began to spit, as swirling flakes fell into it.

“You wouldn't get weather like this in Arizona,” Bartle said. “Maybe we ought to go help the old Gray Fox.” That was the Indians' name for General Crook.

“You can—I ain't,” Jim said. “Crook has been short with me
once too often. If I had to vote for him or Geronimo for President I'd vote for Geronimo.”

“You're full of surprises today,” Bartle said. “I never heard you express an interest in who was President before. Have you ever voted?”

“No, but I'd vote if Crook were running,” Bartle said. “I'd vote against him.”