“Maybe I’m homesick.”
Mr. Norris give Buckskin the longest stare, glanced at me no longer than an eyeblink takes, before saying: “Isn’t Colorado a little close to Wyoming for you, Buck?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Our manager shook his head. “I won’t. I can make my pile milking rubes for twenty-five cents a head, plus programs, plus concessions, plus appearance fees and wagers. Sweat, hayseeds, Carrie Nation, and bank robbers aside, I sorta like Kansas.”
Meaning, once we reached Lawrence, I’d have to take my Hawthorne and pedal west, hard. But, golly, how’d I miss Ruth. And Buckskin. And all my teammates, even Maggie Casey, especially since she had sent Walt Coburn, one of the Widow Amy DeFee’s gunmen, to the sawbones in St. Paul with a ruptured something that sounded awful painful.
“Nickel and dime stuff,” Buckskin said. “Towns of four hundred, six hundred. Denver tops a hundred thousand these days. More than twenty thousand in Colorado Springs. Pueblo’s pushing thirty thousand.”
“That’s more than our grandstand can hold.” Thinking he was funny, though also accurate, Mr. Norris chuckled.
“More people, more bets, more money for you,” Buckskin said.
“Maybe, but I’ve got games scheduled across Kansas for the rest of this month.” Mr. Norris yanked a wad of yellow telegraph papers from a coat pocket. “And offers from …” He glanced at one, grinned, handing it over to Buckskin. “Just look at this one. Whiting wants to play us in a doubleheader. We play the muffins from Whiting, then we play Kickapoo Indians. I’m thinking we can kick some Kickapoo heinies.” No, he didn’t say heinies.
“You’d swindle your own mother.”
“Before she swindled me,” Mr. Norris said, shoving the invitations and offers back inside his pocket, before fetching a handkerchief from his vest pocket, which he used to mop his face.
“It’s cooler in the mountains,” Buckskin tried another approach.
“What are you getting at?”
“Send me to Colorado. I know some baseball folks, know the towns. I’ll get at least two weeks of games in the state for July.”
Shaking his head, Mr. Norris dropped his soggy handkerchief and pulled out a ratty-looking notepad, which he opened. He thumbed through some pages, reading out loud the games he had already scheduled for July 3rd in Wichita, and another game which they were already calling “Women’s Rights In Operation,” which made me blurt out: “The girls will like that.”
It was true, but Buckskin gave me a mean look, and I flattened my lips as long as I could, before I yawned, ’cause this train kept clickety-clacking, and I was plumb tuckered out.
Mr. Norris said that he had games scheduled through July 14th, where, in Dodge City, we’d be playing Carol Lord’s Swatters with Colonel Floyd Manary umpiring. That name meant nothing to me or Buckskin. Don’t know if our manager had ever heard of him, either, but somebody in Dodge City must have thought the colonel to be real important, else they wouldn’t have mentioned him in no telegraph.
“Perfect,” Buckskin said. “I’ll have us games across Colorado after the fourteenth.”
“And who plays third base while you’re out traipsing across the Rocky Mountains?” Mr. Norris directed a long stare at me, before saying: “Lucy Totton here?”
“The kid’ll be with me,” Buckskin said.
Mr. Norris’s head bobbed. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. This volunteering to help me do my job wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that commotion back in St. Paul, would it?”
Buckskin give our manager a dumb look.
Which caused Mr. Norris to glare at Buckskin as he said: “From what I heard, there was some mention of a woman trying to find a runaway.”
Now Buckskin’s eyes turned cold, and I mean a hard, long, freezing look, like the bluest norther that ever blew through Kansas.
Mr. Norris looked away for a moment, sighed, and tried to sound like he gave a whit about anything other than a profit. “We’re going to lose Waddell, Buck. I warned him about who he …” Giving me a quick glance, he swallowed down what he was about to say, but it wasn’t nothing I hadn’t heard before, since I’d been rooming with Waddell and McConnell. I recollected Waddell complaining about what he thought some hussy—Waddell’s word—had give him in Chanute, and that’s why he had to go see that doctor in Dodge City, and how come by the time the Bloomer Girls joined Buckskin and me in Las Animas, Colorado, in July, Russ “Lady” Waddell had been replaced by Charlie Barngrover and Lady Rupert, who were one in the same, of course.
There I go again, as Buckskin says, getting ahead of myself.
Buckskin reminded Mr. Norris: “You found me in Colorado Springs. Picked up Nelse in Omaha, signed Russ down in the Indian Nations, and the kid in …”
“Mound City,” I said, but then scrunched up my eyes, trying to remember. “Or maybe Fort Scott, technically, since that’s where I first suited up.”
Buckskin told Mr. Norris: “You can find a player anywhere.”
“But I’d be out two men till I found a couple of desperate men short on cash and pride.”
“You have enough for a battery. That’s all it really takes. Pitcher and catcher.”
“If I don’t find a replacement for Waddell in time …”
Buckskin waved his hand. “You’ll be saving money. That’s something I know you like. And the girls will be getting more playing time, more experience.”
That’s when Mr. Norris grinned, showing his yellowed teeth, and, smirking, he leaned forward and whispered to Buckskin, though not soft enough that I couldn’t hear.
“That woman in St. Paul … what if she comes to another game? Wichita … Newton … Whitney …”
Buckskin shrugged. “She won’t find a runaway, will she?”
“Uhn-huh. I didn’t see her in St. Paul. What would I tell her if she asked me about a runaway Kansas kid?”
My belly got all sickly inside, and I felt chilled, though it remained hotter than blazes.
“What could you tell her?” Buckskin said. “You don’t know anything about a runaway. But here’s something you do know.”
Mr. Norris waited. So did I. Buckskin told him in a voice even softer than one of Carrie Cassady’s whispers. Yet I heard it. And it made me shiver, though Buckskin made that threat to protect me.
“You know about Wilbur and Thad Shoumacher being shot dead off their horses at four hundred yards with an 1886 Winchester, which has the trajectory of one of your pop-ups.”
Next thing I knew, Mr. Norris was leaning way back in his seat, his face pasty-looking. He started sweating as Buckskin stared, not even blinking. I wondered if Buckskin really meant what he’d just told Mr. Norris, even though he said nothing, just reminded him about something that had happened some years back.
A good long while passed, followed by too many bobs of Mr. Norris’s Adam’s apple to count, before he pulled out that soaked-through handkerchief and wiped his face again.
He looked at Buckskin, but not at me, and said: “I’ll have some expense money for you when we reach the station. And the schedule. Let me know by telegraph when you’ve got us games. Remember though, we need to be in Wallace by the second week in August as we make our way back to Kansas City to finish the season. Deal?”
Buckskin nodded. He stood. So did I. We started to walk away, but Mr. Norris said: “And one more thing. No oysters in Las Animas. Last time we were there, I was sicker than a dog for five days.”
“Anybody who eats oysters in Las Animas, Colorado, deserves to get sick,” Buckskin told him. And we walked to our Pullman to get some shut-eye, though I couldn’t sleep that night, even aboard a train.
* * * * *
When we stepped off the train, Buckskin set down his grip and filled his lungs with air, let it out, and smiled. “Smell that,” he said. “Do you know what that sm
ells like?”
“Cow dung,” I told him, though I didn’t really say dung, because I’d been playing professional baseball with the Bloomer Girls and salty talkers like Nelse McConnell, Russ Waddell, and Maggie Casey for about a month.
Buckskin laughed. “That, kid, is the smell of the West.”
Smelt like cow dung to me.
We were in Wichita, which Buckskin said once had a reputation that anything goes and was wild, woolly, and filled with cowboys, gamblers, and vice. Now it was filled with odors of cattle waiting to be slaughtered and shipped off to feed folks.
“Did you ever cowboy?” I asked.
His head shook. “Just shot cowboys.”
He poked the brim of my Bloomer Girls ball cap to show that he was joshing, but I ain’t altogether certain he wasn’t serious. Anyway, we weren’t in Wichita longer than it took us to catch another train, and soon we was in Dodge City, which had been a rip-snorting cattle town. When we got there in June of 1906, it didn’t stink like Wichita, most likely ’cause it didn’t have no meatpacking facility at the stockyards, so it smelt like alfalfa.
We checked out the baseball game, and, after that travesty—Buckskin’s word—I could understand why Carol Lord’s Swatters was so jo-fired to have Colonel Floyd Manary do the umpiring. He was either blind or a cheater, and whilst I ain’t saying he was ignorant of the rules, I am saying he was both. I was relieved I wouldn’t be in Dodge City when he umpired that game the Swatters had scheduled against the Bloomer Girls, though I already felt sorry for sweet Ruth. Thinking that made me sad, on account I didn’t get a good chance to tell her that I’d be gone for a while. That was because her ma had been with her the last time I saw her, along with that scoundrel from Topeka, Mr. Louis Friedman, the special correspondent for the Sporting News and Variety who, iffen you was to ask me, just prostituted hisself by writing for any publication that would pay him. Though I’d never say that word—prostituted—whilst in earshot of Ruth.
Buckskin noticed how sad I got to looking. I think he figured out why I was so blue, so he took me to the City Drug Store, where he bought me some Purity ice cream. Remembering what had happened with them Valley Boys, I ate real slow.
“I was joking about shooting cowboys, kid,” he said as we were sitting there. I stared at him. “Norris was standing behind you … so that comment was for his ears. Just a reminder.”
Which didn’t make me feel no better, ’cause that reminded me of them two men Buckskin had shot dead. No, that ain’t right. He’d kilt four men, at least, because I’d seen him shoot down Charles Gallagher in Axtell, and I also believed he might’ve drilled Thomas Gallagher that day, too.
“Well,” I made myself say, “thanks for getting me out of Kansas.”
Buckskin wolfed down his ice cream. “I did have ulterior motives.”
I said: “Ulterior?”
He said: “Clandestine.”
I said: “Clandestine?”
He smiled. “Hidden. Secret.”
After taking another bite of ice cream, I asked: “What do you mean?” Figured Buckskin wouldn’t tell me, ’cause if I knew, then his motives wouldn’t be clandestine, but I was glad when he did.
“I’m guessing it’ll take Ed a while to find somebody in western Kansas willing to play baseball wearing bloomers and a topper. So the girls will get more experience playing baseball against men, which is what they want.”
The ice cream started giving me a headache, but Buckskin told me to rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth. As I did that, he told me that this ice cream parlor was once one of the most notorious saloons in Dodge City.
“I think I’d make a good coach,” Buckskin said, more like he was thinking aloud. “But going out like this gives me experience in organizing things. Booking games and hotels. Making sure we can get from one town to another. And …” He lowered his voice. “Remember Emporia.”
Thinking back to that town, I recollected Buckskin steering me into that alley there as those two cowboys passed through town and then taking me along while he bought cartridges for his big rifle.
“We’ll be gone a month,” Buckskin said, “so maybe that DeFee woman will figure you’re not with the Bloomer Girls, and she’ll give up following the team. And the Kelton brothers will go back to Wyoming.”
“Who are the Kelton brothers?” I asked, never having heard Buckskin mention that name before.
“Cousins of the two men I shot dead in Wyoming.”
If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t, ’cause now I knew who those two cowboys back in Emporia had been. If the Widow Amy DeFee or the Kelton brothers figure we ain’t in Kansas, I thought, maybe they’ll look for us in Colorado.
I didn’t say that aloud.
Maybe I should have.
Chapter Eighteen
Las Animas Leader
Las Animas, Colorado • July 27, 1906
Part of the team only were girls, but they put up a very good game, and the time honored saying that a girl can’t throw straight was exploded as they sent the ball in straight and swift.
Buckskin and me got to Colorado just fine, though at first it wasn’t no cooler than Kansas, but at length we reached what they called the Front Range and didn’t sweat much after that. Over the next few weeks, Buckskin left me to be a ringer for some team whilst he traipsed across the plains, that weren’t that much different than parts of Kansas, and the mountains, which were a lot different than anything I’d seen in Kansas, unless it was a drawing in Harper’s Weekly. Buckskin said he let me play with town-ball teams so that my arm and swing wouldn’t go bad, and that worried me. I don’t mean I was concerned about my throwing and hitting getting no worser, ’cause I’d been in slumps before, and Buckskin had taught me that I just had to ride them days out. But I feared that Buckskin might not come back iffen the Kelton boys caught up with him.
Or that the Widow Amy DeFee and Kevin Brett, that villainous judge, might catch up to me whilst I didn’t have no pard with an 1886 Winchester repeater in .45-90 caliber and a .38- caliber double-action Colt to protect me, which is kind of selfish thinking, but Buckskin keeps telling me to stay honest in this here narrative.
Buckskin, though, he come back to Pueblo and Trinidad, and took me with him to some other cities. He had games scheduled for Breckenridge, Cañon City, Castle Rock, Denver, Fort Collins, La Junta, Lamar, Las Animas, Rocky Ford, Salida, and Trinidad—that being alphabetical order and not the order we played the games. Buckskin had challenged me to list the teams by the alphabet and says, after I let him see what I written down, that I done real, real fine.
Them Colorado mountains are mighty pretty, and when we got to Leadville, which didn’t have no team for us to play, Buckskin made me pitch and bat and throw and catch with him, which plumb near kilt me and caused my nose to bleed and my chest to heave. He said I needed to get used to being up the mountains, and whilst I’d always liked Buckskin and thought he liked me, I began to suspicion that maybe he was working for the Widow Amy DeFee and this was her way of torturing me before she had me killed. But once my nose stopped bleeding and after I stopped getting sicker than a mad dog from running to the graveyard and back, I come to feel pretty good. I think, too, it helped that I slept good, ’cause for me them mountains brought on sleep just like a train could, even without the clickety-clacking go-to-sleep sounds.
“Are you going to work Ruth, Cassie, and Maggie this hard?” I asked him.
“I won’t be managing the Bloomers then,” he said, “and you know Norris doesn’t care if they win. All he cares about is making money.”
We left Leadville and headed south to Pueblo, and Buckskin left me there to play for the Lithia Ball Club, which got its name from its sponsor, Lithia Water Bottling Company, meaning I had to work for the company since Mr. Norris wasn’t paying me to travel with Buckskin and hide out from the Widow Amy DeFee and those
Kelton brothers. It weren’t much fun filling bottles with water from the Colorado Lithia Well, which was some twelve hundred feet deep, but I knew the widow and judge wouldn’t look for me there, and whilst the baseball team wasn’t very good it was the only team I knew that could spell its name—L-I-T-H-I-A—with baseball bats lined up on the ground. Which tells you something about how people in Pueblo entertain themselves.
When Buckskin fetched me in Trinidad—where I played after Pueblo—he said that had he known how easy it was to schedule ball games, he’d have taken up this job a whole lot sooner. Folks wanted to play the Bloomer Girls in Colorado as much as they wanted to in Kansas.
Buckskin had got all the games we needed, and I felt fine because I’d been swinging the bat real good. Buckskin and me shot some billiards and ate some mountain oysters, which didn’t taste like snot, before we left Trinidad and went to Las Animas, where there weren’t no mountains and where they warned us to look out for rattlesnakes in the outfield.
Whilst we was waiting at the depot for the train that would bring the Bloomer Girls to Colorado for our first game, my stomach was filled with butterflies, on account I was so nervous to see beautiful, sweet Ruth. Buckskin was reading a newspaper from a bunch he had collected on trains. He called me over and showed me the Nortonville News, which got published in Nortonville, Kansas, a town I’d never heard of.
Thus I read this:
Snail Snyder, the Effingham ball player who was invited to leave Effingham because of a robbery in that city, has again been heard of. He is playing ball with the Bloomer Girls.
Weeks earlier, Buckskin had showed me the telegraph that Mr. Norris had sent Buckskin in Colorado Springs that said Charlie Barngrover had joined the Bloomers and was pitching for them instead of Russ Waddell, who was recovering from having a copper tube shoved up his … well, I don’t want to write that down or remember it, ’cause it makes me practically double over in pain just thinking about it.
“It don’t say what position he plays,” I said.
Which scared me that if I got scratched from the Bloomer Girls, I’d have to pedal my Hawthorne over Raton Pass and into New Mexico and keep on pedaling all the way till I got to Mexico. I spoke neither Mexican nor New Mexican.
Buckskin, Bloomers, and Me Page 13