In Calamity's Wake (12 page)

Deadwood was an international oasis. Its Chinatown, in fact, was big and getting bigger. People said it was the biggest Chinatown beside San Francisco, and the whites could no longer pretend they were alone. Nights I was offstage I went with Calamity and Sam to eat some Chinese food and talk with the old fellow, who reminded me of my grandfather, that cheery man who pinched my grandmother's behind until one day he got himself shot by one of those clumsy men who shoot other men by accident. Cause of death: mischief unknown. On the odd occasion, when we were very lucky, we'd see a lion-dance in the place, two people performing acrobatics under the giant gold head trailing red ribbons. Calamity cheered and howled; she was so happy when the cymbals crashed.

Our other friend was Aunt Sally Sarah Campbell, a coloured woman who came in as a cook for Custer and bought herself a mining claim. She was the first woman to do that and white men were proposing marriage to her when the gold came in. The journalists made up a new name for what Sally was; they called her an unbleached American. The four of us thought that was hilarious. Sally said it was like saying she was as good as a white. Calamity said it was like saying she was a man. I thought, how strange it was for white people to see their own skin as bathed in acid. Sally made us
dinners sometimes and we talked business, asking her advice. She was a stone-solid woman with a confidence I envied. Later, in Galena, she cooked to feed the poor miners, always sharing her good luck. Calamity delivered the food because the men had seen so few black faces not made that way by coal that Sally feared they might not eat. She and Calamity were ever colluding in kindnesses.

So many of my old associates in the cork opera had already passed away. To a quieter stage, I hoped, beyond the double-dealing of managers and fickle audiences. An old showman is, in truth, a being
sui generis
, something unlike any other. We were like the heroes of the Far West, a dead and dying breed able to make the most dramatic of forms out of the most minor of incidents. We were not naturally worse than the majority of men when it came to lying, liquor and love, but we experienced more temptation and so we fell more often and became known more for our weaknesses than our strengths.

My second wife, Mollie, knew me to be a man of contradictions, and, as she was a kind and generous profiteer of human flesh, we understood each other and were most gentle with each other always.

I performed on Mollie's stage for three years. Towards the end of that time I was tired of the excesses
of life. I began to doubt whether a great Negro minstrel was a more enviable man than a great senator or author. I wondered if I could be one of those things instead. Mollie loved me. She would have turned over every cent made by her girls upstairs to keep me dancing in the gaming hall. I had her purchase books for me and I began to study every day, devouring every work of poetry, biography, fiction and history I could lay hands on. I practised arithmetic and grammar in the day and I dressed up like a good Scotch girl at night.

Week by week I became indifferent to the audience. Then I began to feel contempt fester until finally I felt a positive hatred of their vacant faces. They would feel the same, I thought, watching me dance, as they would staring at a puppet in a museum.

The community made the decision for me. They finally found out I had been in prison for shooting my first wife and I was marched out of town and left by the railroad tracks. Mollie, Sam, Calamity and Sally tried to stop them. But I was happy to be released from the security of the Bella Union.

My life, in the end, consisted of more treks and visions. A few times I went to school, a few times I held down jobs in stores or on ranches. But I always returned to show business. I travelled on steamboats, one that carried a museum with the Twelve Apostles,
Jesus, Mary and Joseph all in wax and one that showcased a taxidermy zoo and was filled with stuffed birds, a giraffe and alligators. I performed beside the giraffe for a small wage. I belong on a stage no matter what size, and when you find a place where you feel you belong it is almost impossible to leave.

T
HE STAGE, THE FLOOR, THE WALLS, THE CHAIRS
were all of the same newly hewn fragrant pine. Heavy red velvet curtains parted and a woman stood in the light emanating from a semicircle of gold painted shells. She wore fringed buckskin trousers and a cream-coloured silk blouse. Her blond hair, waved and clipped, shone as if oiled. She licked bright lips and put the back of one hand to her cheek. She opened her arms as Calamity Jane and sang to the body of her lover, Wild Bill, where he lay, stage left, a neat form outlined by a white sheet. Her voice was a sweet emotional treble.

L
EW RODE ME TO
B
ILLINGS AND DELIVERED ME
to a hotel. He walked me inside, holding my arm, smiling back at hostile and astonished stares. He rang the bell for the porter even though the man stood in front of us.

Dear sir, said Lew, could you call on my wife, Mollie Johnson? Tell her I am here with our child.

The porter sneezed loudly and blew his nose, hiding behind the handkerchief for as long as possible.

You make a fool of me, sir, he said at last.

A loud voice coming from the direction of the restaurant said, I liked whoring; I won't deny it. I met the best women in the world in the business!

That's Mollie now! Lew said, grabbing my arm and leaving the porter sneezing behind us and customers lining up to chorus, Well, I never!

Mollie! Lew called from the entrance to the restaurant.

A fat woman with blond hair piled over her crown and around her ears and loading her shoulders looked up at us and her expression turned from dull confusion to joy.

Lew! Lew, come in! Don't mind the riff-raff. Come right in.

After whispers and embraces Lew left me with Mollie, who took me to her rooms. Alone, she was quiet and polite. I'm sorry for what you heard, she said. Once in a while the hypocrisy of life makes me break out of this disguise. She gestured to the room and to her furniture and to herself. The room was clean and well decorated; a four-poster bed made up neatly with quilts stood at one end. The walls were papered in soft patterns. Pink velvet sitting chairs under an open window framed a little table that bore a silver tea set. A neat wooden bureau lined with framed pictures, brushes and combs, and a set of lace doilies stood against the far wall.

I live here now, Mollie said.

In the daylight that fell through her windows I saw that her face was old and it seemed the more so for the youthful style of her powdered makeup.

Do you like my dress? she asked, and I realized I had been staring.

Yes.

Yes? It was imported from Rome. This is real silk.

She stepped forward and took my hand and laid it on the voluminous skirt. The fabric was indeed soft as a chick's feathers and the violet colour had a curious, shifting depth.

So, you don't know what to say to me now?

I don't. Except, I—I am looking for Calamity—

Jane, she said. Well, she is most likely in the Black Hills. She always returns there. She was always lovesick, stupid as a poet over the Badlands and Black Hills. Not me! I tell you the first time I got out of the coach with my mother I looked at the mountains and they reminded me of great crested waves. The Plains seemed endless like the ocean and I got seasick!

Mollie motioned for me to sit down and so I settled in a chair and watched her prepare tea. I felt numb; I don't know why. She poured for me and for herself and she settled in the opposite chair, took off her hair and the heavy beaded jewellery around her neck and ears, and sighed, looking out the window.

So, you are the girl, she said. Amazing. And she is your mother. You know, I came here, to the West, with my mother. We came all the way from Europe. My mother was as opposite yours as diamonds are opposite to coal. No offence, darlin.' I loved Jane. But my mother had such class ambitions! It was our intention to open a
dress shop in America to serve all the suddenly wealthy with extravagances. We, like everyone, had heard that gold dust was common as dust motes. My mother got very sick on the journey from Germany to New York to Harrisburg to Lincoln to Deadwood. When she stepped down from the coach and said, Mollie, look we're here, I looked at her sunken eyes and I knew she would be dead in a day.

Dead from what? I asked.

Cholera. It was cholera. On the ship it had been so bad people liquefied before my eyes. In the morning I saw a woman delicately hold a handkerchief over her nose and that afternoon the same woman was tossed overboard by her husband. I don't understand why I could wade through that mealy rice-water diarrhea and not get sick but a doctor told me once it was something to do with my blood type. I have tough blood.

I had my mother's sewing machine, which she had held onto on the rocking boat through storms and plagues and undersea monster attacks. And I had a little room in the south end where I sat and worked most days and night. I made beautiful shirts and pants that could make a woman fall in love with the man that wore them. But I made dresses very poorly and everything else worse. I made a wedding dress once that killed the bride. She tripped on the hem coming down the stairs
to go to the church and would probably have broken her neck falling except the veil wrapped round her throat and caught on a nail and hung her. So, business was up and down.

And then, one day, Calamity Jane came in and asked me to make a pair of trousers so fine they could bring a sheriff to leave his actress wife. I knew she meant to give them to Wild Bill. The pants I made were dark brown wool with a V-back waist and three bone buttons on the fly. I sewed one of Jane's own eyelashes into the crotch seam. I should have known then that she would be destroyed by the man in those beautiful pants. Anyway, I am at base a kind person and so I turned to whoring. I thought to save some lives that way. She laughed at her own joke and stood and smoothed her dress.

It is easy, she said in sudden seriousness, to judge a woman for half of what she's done without weighing it against the other half. Your mother begged money for drinks. She would borrow five dollars, buy a few drinks and then one for the house. She would go out on the street and borrow some more. She would order the house to buy and the house bought. This was tolerated, encouraged. It was considered neither begging nor borrowing. Calamity was Calamity; she was dear for being true; there was not an iota of herself that she
kept hidden. I admire her for that. It was part of the expenses of the night to keep her glass filled and I must say that I was paid well for my pretty kindnesses and she was paid poorly for all the lives she saved, for all the good she gave, willingly to anyone. If you but whispered of a sick friend she would sober up and devote herself to their care. She risked her own health doing so. So, fine, she drank her weight the rest of the time. If Wild Bill Hickok was a hero then Calamity Jane was a hero and heroes were part of the overhead. I'll send a telegram to Dora DuFran, she said. Dora will know where to find your mother.

C
HARLIE
U
TTER HAD THE MAD LOVE FOR
D
ORA
DuFran even though she was married and it made his friends, especially Martha, laugh to see him so besotted. Charlie, Martha always said, was the most noble of creatures in all forms of love including friendship, and little interested in public opinion. The only person who may have loved Wild Bill more than Martha Canary was Charlie Utter. He followed and protected Wild Bill as the tiger follows and protects a spoiled cub. Once Bill was gone the only person who could make him laugh was Dora.

Charlie was no joke of a lover. He cut a notable figure. He stood only five and a half feet tall but he was unusually meticulous in his person. He had long flowing gold hair and a trimmed moustache. He wore hand-tailored fringed buckskins, fine linen shirts, beaded moccasins and a large silver belt buckle, elaborated with designs
of roses and thorns, and he carried a pair of gold, silver and pearl ornamented pistols. He slept under the highest quality blankets, imported from California, and he carried with him everywhere mirrors, combs, razors and whisk-brooms. He was well known for his bizarre habit of bathing daily and the whiff of lotions that followed him.

So, when Dora gathered Martha to a room and told her friend (all flapping and flushed) that Charlie had asked her to marry him and that she had declined on the basis of her matrimonial state, Martha thought it natural to advise him to treat Dora's every request from then on as a heroic task set by a goddess to win her immortal favour. Charlie, understanding how little he understood, agreed to such a long-term courtship that it might never be clear what was won by whom or how or when.

It was fall in 1878 when Dora thought of the cat solution. Martha, she said, I have it! My girls are the sweetest, the prettiest and the cleanest in Deadwood. But because they are, they are also the loneliest, so much more discontented than the girls who work for Madam Mustachio, who are always gay with drink, or even the girls who work for Mollie Johnson, who are so prone to jealous fistfights. I know now they need a cure for their loneliness as much as or more than they need other cures.

Dora sent her pianist and lawyer, Franca, to ask at the
Black Hills Pioneer
office where they could get some pets for the girls. Franca was followed down the street by a band of suffragists beseeching Franca to abandon Dora's whores and the men who drank liquor beside them.

Now suffrage came to the West years before it came to the East. Wyoming gave women the vote in 1869. New Jersey and New England actually gave the vote to women earlier, but that was by accident. They forgot to recognize a difference between citizens in the laws. Many of the wives in town were suffragists and by and large they did not like either Dora or Calamity Jane. You can guess what they thought of soiled doves and ladies dressed as men. They clashed. But they were on the same side regarding political representation. Women lawyers were being admitted to the bar in California, Wyoming and Colorado, and Franca had come to Deadwood from Wyoming. Maybe it was because Deadwood was so lawless and events so rarely came to court—a citizen was more likely to see a doctor than a judge after a dispute—but no one ever bothered Franca. Or maybe it was because the town liked having a real lawyer who lived there, even a woman, even if she only played piano.

Dora told Franca the girls needed some uncompromising love. You see, said Dora, I have my parrot,

Fred, who eats out my mouth and tells me all the time that I am wonderful. So I know what a difference even a little bit of animal love can make.

Franca went into the office of the
Pioneer
and said, My name is Franca Gordon and I'd like to place an advertisement. Richard Hughes, a reporter for the newspaper, was working that day and he asked what type of ad should be placed. Franca was very proper. She dressed like a church lady, all dark colours, high collars and straight sleeves. She was broomstick skinny with bulging eyes. She was so grave everyone listened to her, afraid to miss the news of their own death. In her most professional voice she said, I wish to purchase a dozen cats.

What are you going to do with a dozen cats? Mr. Hughes asked.

Rodents, said Franca. She explained that she was an attorney who presently was employed as a piano player at Dora DuFran's Green Front Hotel. And, like the other establishments on lower Main Street in Deadwood Gulch, the Green Front was crawling with rats. This was only partly true. Dora was particular about keeping the rooms immaculate but outside the kitchen, in the alley, where the garbage collected, there were, undeniably, inevitably, rats. Consequently, said Franca, the ladies are unable to concentrate on their work and the customers are complaining.

Hughes claimed there were no cats or rats in Deadwood. He said they had some rats before but some magic evening they all wandered into the forest and coyotes got them. He was the sort who thought if he did not know a thing it was not true. Franca lifted her tight little hat and adjusted her hairpins. Now, she said, that is frustrating. I am sorry to say that I have seen the rats. They are most real and it is essential I locate and purchase at least a dozen cats. Do you know anyone who could bring some cats into town?

Mr. Hughes, in spite of his doubts, thought for a second, then told her Charlie Utter would be pulling out for Cheyenne to buy supplies soon and he might be able to accommodate. I'll take you to Charlie, he offered.

Had I known, said Franca, you would direct me to Charlie Utter, Dora would have gone herself.

Left alone with Charlie, who was a friend to all, Franca was honest and explained Dora's plan to put a cat in each of the Green Front rooms.

Well, I am moved, said Charlie, by her sensitivity, her human compassion. My God, she is an angel! Please tell Dora I will procure the finest felines and deliver them forthwith.

Well, in no time at all Charlie travelled and when he returned he delivered a wagonload of purring cats, and soon the Green Front was the only completely
rat-free building, much less brothel, in Deadwood. The girls were happy, the customers were happy, Dora was happy, and after a small reciprocal gesture, Charlie was happy too.

But Madam Mustachio was not at all happy watching customers line up for the Green Front. She went to Al Swearengen and Mollie Johnson and asked that all the brothel-owners in town join forces to put pressure on the mayor and city council to bring legal action to stop the public nuisance created by crowds forming at the Green Front. Evidently, the clerk didn't understand what was going on. He drafted an ordinance that outlawed houses of prostitution within the city limits. Well, this had Al and Mollie stomping and crying bloody murder. But by that time the wives of the town had discovered the mistake and they were overjoyed, insisting the ordinance be passed as written.

Dora was fit to kill and suddenly all the brothel-owners were again on the same side even if it was the wrong side of the town. But no matter what fuss they made, no matter the deadly threats implied by Al Swearengen or the secrets to be revealed by Mollie Johnson, city hall was packed with spectators when the law was unanimously adopted. Franca and the girls carried Dora, screaming, out of the hall. Franca tried to staunch her employer's fuming. Dora, she said, you have
to trust me. Now I can prove that I'm not only a great pianist; I'm also a great lawyer. Dora slapped Franca and stormed home. Franca stayed in good spirits right behind her.

The next day the law went into effect and the sheriff arrived at Dora's door. She was allowed to stay at the Green Front under house arrest until her trial the following Tuesday. Dora was on her way to trial the next day when Charlie appeared. Charlie stood in front of her braced in his finest posture and cleared his throat. Dora, he said, could I ask you to please give Franca a message in response to her inquiry?

Sure, why not? Dora snapped. I've got nothing important to do. What do you want me to tell her?

Just let her know that I'll have my wagon parked where she told me to, Charlie said and he bowed and walked away. Dora was too irritable and distracted to give what he said much thought. She walked into court, gave Franca the message in her best damn-you-all-to-Hell voice and stood before the judge.

That judge was as indignant as Dora was unrepentant. He waved the piece of paper that the ordinance was written on in the air and demanded the defence. Franca stood beside Dora, excited at last to be acting as a lawyer.

Miss DuFran, said the judge.
Yew
, he whined, are
charged with violating the city ordinance that prohibits houses of prostitution. How
do
you plead?

Before Dora could start swearing, Franca answered. Your Honour, the accused pleads not guilty and waives her right to a jury trial.

Dora had thought a jury was a grand idea, given how popular the Green Front was. The judge turned to the city attorney and asked if he was ready to proceed. He was and so Dora watched as wife after wife testified to the noise and danger caused by the men waiting their turn outside the Green Front doors. No matter how many times Dora poked her, Franca declined to cross-examine any of them.

Eventually the smug prosecutor rested. Franca rose and ambled like a lioness up to the bench.

Your Honour, I move that the charges against my client be dismissed for lack of evidence, she said. Even Dora gasped.

There was a buzzing in the courtroom as if a beehive had erupted. Naturally, there were many madams and prostitutes in the crowd as interested parties. The judge pounded his gavel for a full minute to quiet the spectators. Miss Gordon, he said at last, do you take me for a fool? Kindly explain your argument.

Franca bowed to him slightly. Thank you, Your
Honour. My reason is quite simple. A house of prostitution must be inhabited by prostitutes.

So? said the judge.

Franca pointed to the prosecutor. The prosecution has established the popularity of my client's place of business. However, he failed to prove that the popularity of the Green Front Hotel is due to its being a house of prostitution. I assure you that it is not such a house.

The judge fairly roared. If the Green Front is not a whorehouse, then what the hell is it? he demanded.

Franca smiled. I sincerely appreciate your indulgence, Your Honour. And I understand the error. But the Green Front is a zoological exhibit, a residence for felines, very special, very precious felines. In fact, Miss DuFran is so fond of these furry sweet little four-footed friends that she provides a personal guardian for each and every one of them.

Everybody laughed. Dora sank in her chair and seethed with embarrassment. The judge banged on the desktop with his gavel. When the hullabaloo abated, he stared at Franca.

She stepped closer to the bench. In a loud, clear voice she said, Sir, if I'm not mistaken, it was just a few days ago I observed you during your visit to the Green
Front. You were holding and petting Miss Trixie's little black pussycat in the drawing room.

The judge fell back in his chair. His wife stood up in the gallery with her arms crossed over her chest. Franca turned to the courtroom as she said, I'm sure, Your Honour, we all know you would not have been in the Green Front Hotel if you did not also share Missus DuFran's love for cats. You see she provides an outlet for all the town's citizens by hosting such a vast array of loving creatures.

The judge lowered his head for a moment, then looking up with a queer smile he tapped his gavel and made his ruling.

After reviewing the facts, I find this ordinance is not applicable to cat houses, he said. Case dismissed!

Charlie Utter pushed through the crowd and announced in a loud voice, On the corner of Main and Wall streets, I have available for a limited time, one hundred and eighty-five of the finest felines ever seen in Deadwood Gulch, selling for a price of just fifty dollars each!