Darling Jane—
You’ll never guess who showed up from Deadwood last night, Ragg and Bone. They traveled over from Deadwood to find me and try to talk me into going with the Wild West show. It’s good they came. Yesterday morning I woke up on the floor—Blue leaving and Ginny dying is a bad combination, Dora can’t take much more of this leaving and dying.
I worry about Dora, Janey—sometime I am going to tell her about you, I have not done so yet for fear of making her sad. Dora had a baby boy in Abilene, she had a baby girl in Medora, in the Dakotas, they both died. She has lost several too through miscarriages, Dora is not really strong. If she knew I had a sweet girl it would make her miss her babies, I know that.
Dora looks too thin to me, I am her only friend—her only old friend, I mean. I have known Dora since the beginning. The first time I saw her she was thin, just pencils for legs—people now don’t realize how hard it was during the war. I was lucky because of Jim and Bartle, they let me come with them. They were good hunters, at least Jim was, and there was always meat. Dora wasn’t so lucky, she told me she could only remember having meat a few times when young.
I was jealous of Dora in the old days, once the cowboys came and Dora began to eat better she soon got some meat on her bones, she was the prettiest girl in Abilene, the prettiest girl in any of the cow towns for that matter. All the cowboys left her presents, ribbons and bows and pretty trinkets, most of the cowboys between Texas and Dakota were in love with Dora at one time.
It was her own fault she didn’t marry, I told her so often. Plenty of cowboys asked her—Blue claims he asked her two hundred times in one year, he exaggerates and lies but I heard him ask her more than once myself. About the time Dora finally got in the mood Blue found his Indian maiden—half Indian I mean. That’s the way things happen in this old world Janey, people just miss, they’re contrary and won’t yield or give in even when they want to.
Nobody ever bought me a ribbon or bow in my life, no man, that is—I didn’t want them. In those days I had no use for girls. I wanted to run with the dashing cowboys or the wild mountain men, you name it. I was gawky, also I despised women’s dress. I suppose ten years passed without me wearing anything other than pants, I owned no dresses, not even one to go to funerals in.
Dora was one of the few women I could tolerate in those days, although she was the opposite of me. Dora liked ribbons and bows, she liked being the sweetheart of all those cowboys. I didn’t care, I loved her the minute I saw her, she took to me just as quick and didn’t mind that I chewed tobacco and smoked and cussed. Dora saw the girl in me when I couldn’t even see it myself. We’re buffalo girls, we’ll always be friends, she said. Many a time we danced together, I’d pretend to be a cowboy in those dances.
It’s sad that Dora lost Blue. Of course, there’s lost and lost—the man was here just last week, he’s not dead like some of my best pals, Lonesome Charley, Wind River Bill, and others that have fallen. I asked Dora why she didn’t marry Blue right off, when he proposed those two hundred times. The truth is I feared to starve, she told me once. I knew he would be gone with the herds and leave me for weeks on some old ranch. I can’t go back to that, I get too scared of starving. But Blue wouldn’t leave you to starve, I said—he’d pack a smokehouse with beef. Blue would never allow you to starve—is that really your reason?
I guess it was her reason, Janey—she got a scared look in her eye. You don’t know how close I came to starving, she said. I’ll never be left on some old ranch where I might starve, not for him or anybody, I’ll stay with the towns from now on.
That conversation put a different slant on things, Janey. It made me see that I had been lucky. Of course on our first trip to Santa Fe there were days when provisions were skimpy but it was not like what Dora went through, she must have been through hell to give up her great love. I told Blue about it, I thought he ought to know. Later he told me he would leave her a cook and twenty beeves whenever he left. At the time he barely owned a saddle, that was thanks to gambling, Blue would gamble away a month’s wages in a few minutes. He couldn’t afford Dora or anybody else because of his recklessness with cards, I’ve see him bet all on weak hands many times.
I started to write a letter about Ragg and Bone, the next thing I know I’ve filled half my tablet with scribbles about Dora and Blue. I feel like Dora is my sister and Blue my brother, I have known them so long, to write of their troubles is not so strange, I suppose. What other family do I have except you, Janey?
Jim and Bartle are like my brothers too, sometimes I wish we had all died together in the Indian wars, I would not like to have to get by without them. Wherever they wander I know they will always show up someday, looking for me.
The reason they have decided to go with the Wild West show is because of a grand idea of Jim’s to buy hundreds of beavers and turn them loose in the west again. They got the idea from Billy Cody, who has been buying buffalo. It shows you how times change—when I come west the plains were covered with millions of buffalo, you couldn’t have sold one for a penny. They wiped them out and made them valuable, Billy helped too, now he’s the one buying them. Jim has no interest in buffalo, he wants to buy beaver and is willing to go all the way to England and perform for the Queen in order to get wages to buy some.
I told them I might go if they behave. Of course they won’t behave. It’s exciting though—can you imagine your mother meeting the Queen of England? You can bet I will stay sober on the day I meet the Queen. She has been Queen for fifty years, I have only been alive for thirty-eight, I think it is thirty-eight, she was already Queen when I was born. I have seen pictures of her, she is about as fat as Doosie, what does it matter if you’re the Queen? Maybe if not for slavery Doosie would have been a queen in Africa herself.
Dora ought to come with us, I am trying to persuade her, she should sell this hotel and travel, undoubtedly there’s plenty to eat in England or they wouldn’t have such a fat little Queen. We will be gone six months, there are going to be shows in Washington D.C. too. If the President came that would be grand, I would meet a President and a Queen on one trip.
I think it would be good for Dora to come—let Blue cool his heels. He can ride and rope to his heart’s content, when we get back he might behave a little better though probably not.
I fear when you grow up you will have men lie to you Janey, the truth isn’t in the male, not that I can tell. Bartle Bone has made up thousands of lies in my hearing, it’s all he does all day unless he’s traveling. He is downstairs right now telling lies to Trix, the next thing you know he’ll be proposing to her. The fact is, Bartle’s getting old, a girl as spritely as Trix would be a fool to take him seriously or take him at all for that matter, I don’t suppose he has a cent. Jim will have a fit if Bartle falls in love just as he is ready to leave for England, Bartle has caused Jim too many delays already—Jim will froth at the mouth if Bartle dares to fall in love now.
I don’t know who I am to play in the show, myself I hope, Janey. I sure ain’t an actress. I hope I will be allowed to take my horse Satan—I don’t trust strange horses. My dog Cody I am going to leave here in Miles City, Doosie will look after him. No Ears is coming with us, they always need extra Indians, Billy says. Once he thought he had forty Indians to be in a show in Richmond. All but two wandered off and he had to paint up some cowboys and make them pretend to be Indians. The cowboys didn’t like it—they considered themselves too grand.
These letters get away from me, Janey. They run on like antelope. I only mean to write a line or two to let my little girl know her mother loves her, the next thing I know the pages are flying by. If I had known earlier it was so easy to scribble I would have hired on with a paper. I have no great respect for the men who write for papers. They know little and confuse everything, I suppose the people who read papers know even less. I knew Kellogg, he liked me, he said he was going to write a book about my exploits. Then he went off with the Seventh, to write up Custer’s great victory, th
at was the end of Mr. Kellogg. I will stop and go now Janey—I had better go see what is going on with Bartle and Trix.
Your mother,
Martha Jane
13
NO EARS HAD BEGUN TO WORRY ABOUT THE OCEAN. WHEN he had first agreed to go with Martha Jane to see the Queen of England he had supposed they would go horseback, perhaps taking several pack animals loaded with presents and provisions. It would undoubtedly be rude to visit a great queen without bringing presents, though when he mentioned this to Bartle, Bartle waved the notion away.
“The Queen’s got the whole British Empire to pick from—let her give us presents,” Bartle said.
No Ears was not quite certain where England was, but he had formed the impression that it was on the other side of Canada. The reports he heard indicated that it rained a lot in England—he thought it might be wise to purchase a slicker before he started out. He himself liked slickers because they were light. Buffalo robes eventually grew sodden in rainy weather and were cumbersome to drag around.
One afternoon Jim Ragg came riding into Miles City with most of an elk packed on a mule. He had been scouting south in the Bighorns, hoping to locate a sufficient number of ponds in which to deposit the beavers he hoped to acquire on their travels. The elk had walked in front of him and he had been considerate enough to shoot it and pack the most edible parts of it onto his mule, Missouri. He had bought the mule on credit in Miles City.
“I’ve carried my own grub around these parts long enough,” he informed Bartle, who had declined to accompany him on the scouting trip.
“You’re getting spoiled in a hurry, ain’t you?” Bartle remarked. “Next you’ll be wanting a buggy.”
Doosie took charge of the elk and soon had a roast cooking. The smell pervaded the whole of the Hotel Hope—a crowd soon gathered in the kitchen, waiting for the roast to be ready. The crowd consisted of Bartle, Trix, Skeedle, Calamity, Dora, Teat, No Ears, and Doosie, who went about her business doing her best to ignore the seven superfluous persons who had settled themselves in her way. Teat made himself useful, carrying water and keeping wood in the stove.
Jim Ragg had declined to wait for his own elk to be ready to eat—he kept a haunch and walked off with his mule toward the Bull Mountains, on the same quest he had just returned from. Again, Bartle had declined to accompany him.
“Jim’s had about enough of you sitting around town,” Calamity informed him.
“A sightseeing trip don’t interest me right now,” Bartle commented. “I’m resting up for my visit to the Queen.”
“I wish I could go to England,” Trix said. She had no objection to Bartle, though he was old and rather smelly. Far worse men had been sweet on her, though, and she saw no harm in encouraging Bartle, up to a point. The winter had been long and chilly; she had already made up her mind not to let another one catch her in Miles City. Ginny’s sudden demise had made a big impression on her. She herself wanted out while she had her health.
Calamity sat at the table wearing her odd, distracted, lost look. No one Dora knew could look so lost—and Calamity was a big woman. When she looked that way it was a lot of lostness to cope with.
“Why should a Wild West show just have cowboys and Indians?” Bartle asked. “What would the west have been without saloons? Why not have a saloon in the show for the cowboys to whoop and holler in?”
“It would be too much trouble to haul a saloon to England,” Calamity said. “Billy says it will be trouble enough just getting the animals across the ocean.”
That was when No Ears learned that traveling to England meant crossing an ocean. It worried him slightly, for he knew that the hole in the sky where souls went was somewhere near an ocean.
Later, full of elk, the party dispersed. Calamity got drunk and fell asleep on the back porch in the warm sun. Bartle and Trix went upstairs. Teat helped Doosie clean up. Skeedle was engaged by a party of five surveyors—she was skilled at dealing with parties—and Dora went into the bar and played the piano for a while. An Italian musician who had been court-martialed out of the army for striking an officer had given her a few piano lessons years ago in Nebraska. She could play “Annie Laurie” and “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” and, when the mood struck her, she could provide a fair rendition of most of the popular ditties of the day.
Today she chose “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” Two of the surveyors, finished with their play in Skeedle’s chambers, sat in the bar and wept. Soon Skeedle came down and listened, too. Dora was glad to see her; Skeedle was a woman of considerable poise. It was usually calming to have her near, especially if several morose surveyors were getting drunk and sobbing together as they sat listening to Dora play the piano. No doubt it reminded them of close times with their mothers and sisters. Everything except what occurred in the bedrooms seemed to remind them of close times with their mothers and sisters.
Watching the surveyors weep over a few bars of sentimental music had the effect of making Dora feel stony. She had had a mother and sisters, too, but her close times with them had consisted of watching them die, one by one, on the Kansas plains, and then burying them. Her memories didn’t make her weep; they just made her feel hard.
No Ears enjoyed listening to the music. When Dora struck a note particularly hard it seemed to him the note traveled directly into his head. Of course, in the saloon there was no wind—on the prairie the wind often snatched away sounds that might otherwise have made it into his head.
That night No Ears had the first of several dreams about the ocean. He knew he was in a dream when he saw the face of a friend of his called Sits On The Water, a Yankton Sioux he had hunted with frequently some thirty years before. Sits On The Water was fond of canoes; he also liked steamboats, flatboats, keel boats, and rafts. Anything that floated interested Sits On The Water, thus his name. Once he had killed a bear from a boat. The bear had happened to swim by, and Sits On The Water had killed it with a lance.
Sits On The Water had sometimes convinced No Ears to come into a boat with him, but No Ears had never liked sitting on the water and never enjoyed those boat rides. He didn’t feel he could smell well while in a boat. Of course, near the shore, he could smell frogs, mud, mussels, rotting fish, muskrats, ducks, cranes, certain snakes, and other shore-hugging creatures; but in the middle of the great Missouri he could smell only whatever happened to be in the boat. He thought there might be a giant fish under the boat and it troubled him that he wouldn’t be able to smell it if the fish grew angry and attacked. He imagined that the giant fish had the temperament of a hungry bear, and was consequently unable to enjoy boat rides after that.
His friend Sits On The Water had enjoyed one too many boat rides, finally. His canoe turned over one spring day right in the middle of the great Missouri when it was in flood. Sits On The Water had wanted to ride the flood, but the flood took him. His canoe was found many miles downstream, but his body was never found. It was No Ears’s view that the great bear-fish had swallowed Sits On The Water—in a way it served him right for spending too much time in boats.
Yet in No Ears’s dream, Sits On The Water reappeared after an absence of many years and tried to persuade No Ears to come and ride in a boat on a river that was so wide No Ears could not see the far bank. No Ears was reluctant, but suddenly he was in the boat, and in it alone. Sits On The Water had vanished from the dream. No Ears was drifting in the boat and the river had become wider still—for now he could see neither shore. All he could see was a great plain of water as endless as the sky. The water and the sky became harder to tell apart, and finally impossible. Thinking he was breathing air. No Ears suddenly took a big breath of the river and began to drown. As he was breathing the river he saw a huge brown shape swimming toward him. He tried to swim away from the bear-fish, but though he wanted to swim fast, he seemed to swim more and more slowly.
When he woke up he spent the rest of the night thinking about his dream. It was the most ominous dream he had had for many year
s. The night before the Custer battle he had had a very bad dream also, but since then his dreams had been mostly good. He dismissed the bear-fish as being merely a spirit fish—if bear-fish had existed in the Missouri, some of the old people in his tribe would have known about it. Though they lived on the Platte, they often hunted on the Missouri and would have heard of such a dangerous fish.
The part of the dream he could not dismiss was the part about confusing the ocean and the sky; if the ocean was indeed as large as the sky, it seemed to No Ears that such a thing might happen, with very dangerous consequences for those who traveled on the ocean. They might begin to breathe the ocean, thinking it was the sky.
The next morning, when Calamity woke, he asked her how long it would be necessary to be on the ocean.
“Well, I hear it’s a big ocean,” Calamity said. “I’ve never seen it myself.”
Bartle was sitting nearby, trying to sew up one of his moccasins. He had stepped on a knife someone had lost or discarded and had gashed the moccasin. As needlework was not his speciality, he was making a poor job of sewing it up.
“I have read somewhere that it’s three thousand miles across the ocean,” he said. “It might be a little less, I guess.”
“How far does a boat go in a day?” No Ears inquired.
“You’ve seen steamboats,” Bartle said. “The Missouri’s thick with them. Why don’t you go clock one?”
“Why don’t you ask Trix to sew up that moccasin, if you like her so much,” Calamity said. “Or else ask a squaw.”
“I’m afraid of squaws,” Bartle admitted.
“For what reason?” Calamity asked.
“For the same reason that I’m afraid of you,” Bartle said. “You’re unreasonable, and so are the majority of squaws. They may kiss you, but if they don’t they’re just as likely to cut out your gizzard. I’d rather have a hole in my shoe than lose my gizzard.”