We
arrived in Eklaka, Montana, in August of 1895.
It had been a very long, hot trip by covered wagon and it seemed as if
we had brought every mosquito that we had ever met, with us. The three-month trip had been very dusty as
well and as somebody said this was one of the driest Summers they had ever
seen. My mother and older brother,
Edward, 24 and youngest brother, Dwight, 4, had gone to see some friends over
on the South Dakota border. My youngest
sister, Mabel who is eight and me, Bertha, I am ten, are to stay with this
Indian lady, Ethel Yellow Bear until they return.
Ethel
Yellow Bear lives in a sod house on the main street that has grass growing on
its roof and has a dirt floor. Every
morning she makes coffee in a big blue pot and while the coffee is brewing, she
sweeps the floor. I do not understand
why she sweeps the dirt floor but she does it every morning. She has long hair and brushes it every night
and in the morning, she brushes and braids it. She does all of this while the
coffee is brewing. Once the coffee is done, she pours a cup, puts a little milk
in it. She offers some to Mabel and me but I tell her we need lots of milk in
ours. She fixes our coffee and then she goes outside and sits on an old wood
round in front of the sod house. The
wood round must have been there for some time as it is really smooth from being
sat on. She rolls a cigarette from a
leather pouch of tobacco she carries in her shirt pocket, lights it with a
wooden match and seems to enjoy the peacefulness of the morning.
Mother
did not say how long they would be gone.
I ask Ethel Yellow Bear how long she thinks Mother and the boys will be
gone. She looks at me without turning
her head, just moving her eyes and says they will be gone until they get back.
My father used to have smart comebacks like that I tell her. I shouldn’t worry
she says after a few minutes, no harm will come to them. She is trying to put me at ease and Mabel as
well but this is the longest we have been away from Mother since Father died.
For
breakfast she fixes us some runny porridge and a thick slice of hard bread with
really fresh butter on it. The noon
meal is another slice of the hard bread with a piece of yellow cheese on it and
a cup of cold milk. She has an old wooden icebox that has two shelves. A block of ice sits on the bottom and keeps
everything above it cold.
The
afternoon of the third day, I am reading to Mabel from a primer that Mother had
given me, when there is a commotion outside and we hear Ethel Yellow Bear say
something like, “I’ll be a sonovabitch!”
We race to the doorway and see her standing up and walking towards a
figure riding horse back. The figure is
riding a sorrel mare and has on buckskin pants and shirt and a hat held by a
hat-string around their neck. The figure has long hair and the hair and the hat
bounce in unison as they ride up. The figure is carrying a pistol on their hip
and has a rifle in a scabbard on the left side of the horse. Reining the mare in, the figure dismounts,
drops the reins and grabs Ethel Yellow Bear in a bear hug and lifts her off the
ground.
“Ya big
‘ol squaw, how the hell are ya?”
It is a
female, probably in her early forties and dressed like a man. She smells like a man too and acts like one
as well. She is loud and doesn’t seem
to care who hears her. She looks at
Mabel and me, with curiosity, and then to Ethel Yellow Bear and then to us
again, her brow furrowed.
“What
the hell is this all about?” looking at us and then pointing like she was a
wild woman and had never seen children before, directing her question to Ethel
Yellow bear. Her hair needs to be washed and brushed as does her teeth and
there are big circles of sweat under her arms on her buckskin shirt. “They are the Dore girls from Nebraska,
Mabel is the young’st and Bertha is the older.
Girls, this here is Martha Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane.”
I had
heard of Calamity Jane when we were in Sterling (Colorado). She had been a scout for General Crook and
had been in the Seventh Cavalry with Custer before the Little Big Horn. People had always spoke of her like she was
a little crazy, which came from way to much drinking, some said. Looking at her
and listening to her, I think I could understand why.
“Ladies,
it is my pleasure to meet you.” She
bowed a little, with a sweep of her hat like a gentleman and when she did her
hair fell forward revealing one of the dirtiest scalps I had ever seen. I did not want to get too close and when
Mabel smiled at her and started towards her, I held her back. I had had head
lice just last year and I think she would have given them to Mabel.
It is
early afternoon and Ethel Yellow Bear and Calamity Jane are sitting out front
of the sod house. Ethel Yellow bear is
smoking and Calamity Jane has a small clay jug with her and between the two of
them, they each drink from the jug. Not
big swallows but more like a sip, a small drink, like they are trying to make
it last. The more Ethel Yellow Bear
drinks from the jug, the more she smokes and soon there is a small pile of used cigarettes at her feet. The more Calamity Jane drinks from the jug,
the louder she becomes and the more profane and the less she cares about who is
hearing her.
Mabel and I stay inside for Mother says people should not swear,
so I try to keep Mabel from hearing that profane woman but staying indoors
doesn’t help much. I return to reading to Mabel but it is of little use, the
swearing continues. Mabel and I lie down on the furs and when we awake from our
afternoon naps, the sun is beginning to set and the western sky is a really
pretty pinkish orange now. It is cooler
and the shadows are longer. They have been outside since before the noon meal. The cigarette pile in front of Ethel Yellow
Bear has risen and the jug that they have been drinking from should be about
empty but seems to have an endless bottom. They have both become loud, telling
stories about what has been happening in their lives since they have seen one
another and using profanity with abandon.
Mabel says she is hungry and
I’m feeling the pangs as well. Ethel
Yellow Bear is too busy to prepare us any food. She is what they call drunk and so is the other lady. I use that term loosely with her. I have never seen anybody drunk before. Father and Mother never drank any thing
harder than apple cider. Ethel Yellow
Bear has trouble standing. Calamity
Jane is having trouble as well. She
can’t stand but she can still drink from that jug and she can get as loud as
she pleases. I get into the icebox and
the milk is still cold. I get out the
cheese and cut us each a big slice. I
wrap a slice of bread around the cheese and together Mabel and I have our
evening meal.
Ethel calls me by name,
loudly, and I go to the door and pull the skins aside and step out.
“Bertha, I washt you to fix
some sheese and milk for you and your sisterrrr.”
I don’t know if she forgot
Mabel’s name or just had a hard time talking, dragging her “r’s” like
that. The more I listen to her, the
more I know what an excessive amount of that little jug will do for you. She can’t stand, she can’t talk plainly but
she can still swear.
“I already have, Ma’am, and
we’ve had some milk too.”
Her elbows were leaning on
her knees and she tried to turn and look at me but her head would not turn far
enough. She just kind of stared at the
ground half way between her feet and me and nodded slowly.
The mosquitoes are getting thick cause I can hear those two
slapping at them. The glow of Ethel’s
cigarette has gotten brighter so it is getting dark. Pretty soon they will be in here and Mabel and I won’t get any
sleep.
I try and read to Mabel but
it is of no use. Those two and their
loudness is very distracting besides Mabel has never seen anybody that looked
like a female and dressed and talked like a man.
. I light the lanterns and
that gives us some security but the light draws the bugs. I take the lanterns and put them in opposite
corners of the sod house so the bugs don’t bother us.
All of a sudden the skins
are thrown back and those two enter. Ethel staggers to her side of the room and
plops herself down. Calamity Jane spots
the lone chair on the wall across the room and heads for it. She barely makes it. I really thought that she would fall and I
was wondering if I would have to help her up or if I could even get her
up. I suppose, too, the way she
smelled, I would leave her where she fell, at least she would be quiet. We watch her wondering what will be
next. Ethel Yellow Bear can be heard
snoring already.
Calamity Jane is quiet for
some time and her eyes are closed, her chin is on her chest. Her hat is behind
her and her dirty scalp is staring back at us. At first I think she is also
sleeping and then just as it got really quiet, she startles us with, “You girls
wanna hear a story
“Sure,” said Mabel who was
kind of holding this woman in awe, staring at her.
Me, I didn’t really care as I was tired of reading
to Mabel and she wasn’t really paying attention anyway. Not like she would have paid attention if
Mother were here.
“It was in August, of ’76, the first part, when a
friend of mine dad. Shot dad in the
back whilst he was playin’ cards. Was holdin’ what was later called a Dad Man’s
hand, a pair of eights and a pair of Aces, all black. Wild Bill Hickok was his
name. A fine, fine man. Anyway I heered he was kilt whilst I was over to
Dadwood, where he was kilt. I was in
such a hurry to see him before he dad and find his killer that I left my pistol
belt hangin’ from my bad post.”
Her
grasp of the English language was not the best. She sounded to me like she had very little schooling as she could
not pronounce some of the easier verbs as they should have been
pronounced. Then, too, that little clay
jug probably had a great deal to do with the pronunciation.
“Knowing that this killer, Jack McCall was
the one. I knew what he looked like and
where to look for him. He liked to bs
with a guy named Shurdy who ran the butcher shop. So’s I went to the back of
Shurdy’s shop and barged in. There was
Jack sitting there bsing like nothing had ever happened. I picked up a meat cleaver, the first thing
I saw and threatened him that if’n he dint put up his hands I would make him
look like tomorrow’s supper chops. From there I got him to the sheriff’s
office. The sheriff and a deputy took him to a log cabin just on the edge of
town and thought they had him secured.
That miserable bastard escaped the next marning.”
Mabel’s mouth was hanging
open a little and I had to tell her to shut it. I think it was because she had never heard a female curse before
and smell at the same time.
“A short time, coupla daze,
later he was caught up to Horse Creek.
They brung him back to Yankton tied up securely. Tried him the next day,
sentenced him to death and hung him there on the spot. Later on, I got to thinking that I saved
Jack Mc Call’s life by leaving my gun belt on the bad post. If I had brought it with me, he might have
drew down on me and I woulda had to kilt him.
Jack never did thank me but it’s just as well.”
Mabel sat there transfixed,
she could not believe that this women sitting in front of her was who she said
she was. She started to say something
but her mouth was so dry from hanging open for so long, nothing came out save
for a little gagging noise.
I had backed up a little,
not that she was loud but the air smelled cleaner.
“Tell us one more, please,”
begged Mabel, oblivious to the smell emanating from Calamity’s side of the
room. “I want to hear one more.”
“Ya sure ya wanna heer
another,” she said, nodding and shaking her head trying to stay awake.
“Oh please,” came Mabel’s
request.
“One more then it’ll be
lights out. Unnerstood?”
Mabel nodded her head in
complete compliance. “Yes, Ma’am, we
understand.” I wondered what it would be like to fall asleep, with that woman
sleeping in the same room. Some how I
thought I was going to find out.
“It was in 1887 and I was
living in Dadwood, Sout Dacoat. A
leetle ways away from there was a place called ‘White Rocks’. I larned that
there was an epedemic of smallpox up outta
White Rocks. There was eight of them fellas that had come down with it. The ‘ol
doc we had in Dadwood was fraid to go up there, fraid he was gonna catch it, so
he just pretend like them fellas are all but done for. Them fellas were all quarantined up in one
leetle shack and nobody to care for tham.
I decided to take it upon myself to see what I could do for tham.
If’n you ever saw anybody
wit the smallpox, you’ll naver forget’em.
The lot of tham fellas complained of aches and pains. Some were starting to break out in an ugly
red rash, coupla had the rash in their
mouths and they couldn’t eat. Some had
it down their arms, so’s they couldn’t dress themselves.. Some had the rash on their legs and other
parts. From the red rash, they’ll go
into blisters, big puffy ones with pus unnerneath and then they just stay that
way until the blisters and pus dry up.
Once the scabs fall off they are most of the time well, but they got
these big pot marks all over where the pus pockets were. Even the best looking of them had the pus pockets
and scabs and then the pot marks, making them as unsightly a bunch as you ever
saw.”
Once again, Mabel was just
awestruck with that woman and I had to nudge her, so she would close her
mouth. It didn’t dawn on me until the
next day that maybe the reason Mabel had been sitting with her mouth open
through both of the stories was that she was breathing through her mouth.
“I took all the cream of
tarter’s and epsun salts I could fine and I set out. The shack was off by itself.
They had plenty o provisions so there was no problem thar. I got up thar and was they glad to see
me. Some of tham fellas were worse off
than others. There were three that I
dint think would make it and it turns out they dint. But I had’em all sitting in hot tubs of water soaking and then I
would make a poultice of the cream of tarter and dab it on them to dry up tham
blisters. I washed their clothes and
bedding. Good thang they had set in
some firewood cause we sure used a lot of it.
Like I sad three of tham fellas dint make it and the rest of’em dug the
graves. None of us had any church
upbringing so I took it upon myself to say something over their graves. The only thang that I knew was the prayer,
“Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” so that’s what I said.
I was up there for a leetle
over three weeks and that was the ungodliest duty I ever had. That was indeed a duty that I would not wish
upon anybody but I was glad I did it and if’n the need arises again, I’d raise
my hand n’go do it again.”
“Unkay ladies, thas it for
tonight.” She spat.
“Would you tell us another
story tomorrow?” Mabel said with eagerness in her voice.
“We’ll she!” Calamity
blurted, still with the little jug slur in her voice.
I had hoped that she would
sleep outside but such was not the case.
Probably during our nap, she had brought in her bedding and thrown it in
a corner. At least she would be nearer
to Mabel, so perhaps I would get some sleep.
I blew out the lanterns, bade Mabel “Good night,” found my way to my
bedding and that was it for the night.