Telegraph Days

by Larry McMurtry

  I was not about to admit what I knew. Danny Mueller looked very relieved—he soon went back in to try and calm the Finns.

  Even in his weakened state Bill Cody was not dumb.

  “You know more about this than you’re telling, Missy,” he said, giving me a baleful look.

  “Your loving wife would never knowingly harm a hair on your head,” I told him. “If you neglected me like you neglect her I’d have no compunction about braining you with a poker. But I’m not Lulu. She’s of a more gentle temperament.”

  “Aw, the hell she is!” Bill declared. “You women always take up for one another. I’d say she poisoned me—if it wasn’t for my strong constitution I’d probably be dead.”

  “You’ve been in a saloon for several hours,” I pointed out. “Bad whiskey could have given you an upset stomach. It’s bad manners to blame everything on your wife, who is a fine cook. I have never eaten tastier elk, and the rhubarb pie was excellent.”

  “Shut up, I never said she couldn’t cook,” Bill barked.

  He held one of his hands out, attempting to hold it steady. His hand was shaking like a leaf. He tried it with the other hand—same result.

  “You’ve just got the whiskey tremors,” I told him. “Father’s hands always shook like that after one of his toots.”

  “Hogwash,” Cody said. “I’ve been more or less drunk since way back before the Civil War and my hands have never shook like this.

  “Lulu poisoned me—but I suppose you’ll back her up,” he added.

  “The woman’s crazy about you and you don’t even know it!” I reminded him.

  “Hard to see why, the way I treat her,” Cody said—then he chuckled. Given time, Bill Cody would find the humor in just about anything, including odd situations of his own making.

  Then he tried to kiss me but I pushed him away.

  “I don’t think so—you need to gargle before you start kissing women,” I told him.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow—I’ve put off the generals as long as I can,” he mentioned. “Surely you can spare a kiss or two for your old boss.”

  “No sir,” I said. “Your own wife’s in there pining for the merest touch. If anybody gives you a kiss tonight, it ought to be her.”

  “Maybe I won’t send you to Harvard after all,” he said. “You’d probably come back a lawyer and take me to court.”

  In a few minutes, with no more said, Bill got up and tromped back into the house, leaving me to ponder the ways of man and woman.

  Later, as I crept back upstairs, I heard sounds of violent argument from the master bedroom. Cody was yelling—then Lulu yelled awhile—then Bill yelled some more. I was fast asleep before the Codys quieted down.

  I suppose every marriage is different. Mother was far too genteel to ever yell at Father; the most she would allow herself, by way of protest, was some heavy sighs. But Mother’s heavy sighs probably scared us young ones more than Lulu’s howls.

  What happened that night in North Platte, Nebraska, proved to be no little fight. For years Bill Cody remained convinced that Lulu had tried to poison him. Long years later, in the course of bitter court proceedings, Lulu finally admitted that she had given Bill the love potion, in hopes of winning back his affection. I don’t think Bill was ever convinced it wasn’t poison. Mostly, their lives were lived apart. And yet Bill kept buying Lulu splendid houses—in North Platte, in Rochester, in Wyoming, and even in Denver, I heard. There was a sadness to it for both of them, and, I’m sure, for their children too.

  But I was only in their lives in a close way for a few years—what did I know?

  13

  I AM NO early riser, I admit. I have always been a sound sleeper, and I awake reluctantly, particularly so if I’m enjoying a good dream. I seem to have plenty of good dreams too—many of them involve kissing cowboys.

  On my first morning in North Platte I lingered in the sheets till nearly ten in the morning. I was awake earlier, listening for sounds of trouble, but things seemed to be quiet, with no sounds of argument from the Cody quarters, so I decided to snuggle into the sheets and keep to myself for a while, until I was sure that harmony had been restored to the household.

  My little delay was based on the assumption that the Codys had composed their differences, at least temporarily, and might be enjoying a happy connubial breakfast—if a reconciliation was in progress, the last thing I wanted to do was butt in.

  But I was hungry and could smell bacon and flapjacks and coffee—sooner or later I was going to have to break into the domestic scene or risk getting one of the headaches I get when I don’t get enough food.

  So I came cautiously downstairs and into the dining room, where no tender scene—or any scene—was in progress. The big round walnut table was set for one—and I was evidently the one. The two Finnish girls—the northern equivalent of Pete and Pat—began to bring in food, starting with cabbage soup, a delicacy I had never taken with breakfast before. The fact that it seemed to be flavored with oxtail was another little test of my cosmopolitanism. Fortunately the combination worked, but I confess I felt more at home with the eggs, bacon, and flapjacks that followed.

  I thought it odd that neither my host nor my hostess was around to get me started on my new duties, whatever they were, but I supposed they must be out checking on their livestock, or something. Maybe Lulu had even coaxed the shy Ripley Eads into giving her a pedicure, though I doubted it.

  “Excuse me, where are the Codys?” I asked finally, after I had put away a substantial quantity of food. I thought maybe I’d take a stroll and find out what the town of North Platte looked like.

  “Oh, gone!” one of the Finnish girls said, looking distressed.

  “You mean gone to town?” I asked.

  “No, gone! Gone away!” the other girl said.

  “Gone away? Both of them?” I asked, getting an uneasy feeling.

  “Both of them—you be our missus now,” the younger girl said. Her name was Gretchen and her sister’s name was Sigurd, a truth I didn’t arrive at until later in the day.

  “You mean gone far away?” I persisted, whereupon both the Finnish beauties burst into tears.

  I soon began to bawl with them, out of shock, I suppose. I had left my cozy life in Rita Blanca, and now what? I was way up in Nebraska, where I didn’t know a soul, and both Codys had deserted me.

  I dislike bawling in front of the help—it’s the kind of thing that just wasn’t done, on our plantation—so I stumbled outside to finish my cry.

  Fortunately it was a fine, crisp day—brilliant sunlight, deep blue sky; a passel of ducks and geese were passing overhead. The North Platte River was nearly covered with waterfowl—I remembered that Bill Cody had mentioned that there would be no shortage of ducks where I was going.

  Now I was there and the Codys were gone. Fortunately the brilliant sunlight had a good effect—my spirits began to edge up, despite my discouraging start.

  They were helped even more by the appearance of Danny Mueller, the young fellow who had been trying to help Bill Cody survive his wife’s love potion.

  “Hello, Danny—may I call you Danny?” I asked.

  “Sure—most people call me Danny,” the boy said. He had a sweet, slightly hangdog smile and a cowlick that stuck up whenever he took off his hat.

  “I fear I overslept,” I told him.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Uncle Bill and Aunt Lulu were nervous about seeing you anyway.

  “It’s because they knew you must have heard their big fight,” he explained. “Unless you’re deaf, you’d have to have heard it.”

  “I am not an eavesdropper—at least not on a regular basis,” I told him. Of course I felt no qualms about eavesdropping in cases of necessity.

  “Where’d the Codys go—if it’s not a secret?” I asked.

  “Aunt Lulu caught a train back to Rochester and Uncle Bill’s headed for the Yellowstone River,” Danny informed me.

  “And when may we expect them back?” I aske
d.

  Danny shrugged.

  “Not anytime soon,” he admitted. “Uncle Bill said he had a play to do in New York once the generals get through with him.”

  “What about Mrs. Cody—mightn’t she come back?”

  Danny looked sad.

  “She told me this morning she can’t live with Uncle Bill,” he reported. “And Uncle Bill still thinks she tried to poison him.”

  “She didn’t—it was just a love potion that evidently didn’t work,” I told him. “You mean we’re looking at months before we see either of them?”

  Danny Mueller nodded.

  “Well then, Daniel—do you have any idea what I’m supposed to do?” I asked. “Your uncle Bill brought me up here and dumped me. I thought he was starting up a Wild West of some kind and I was to help organize it.”

  “Oh, Uncle Bill’s still mighty keen on the Wild West,” the young man assured me. “He means to get it going within a year or two, and meanwhile he told me he wanted you to be in charge of pretty much everything. There’s a man at the bank you need to see—and we’ve got some cattle up on the Dismal River that we’re supposed to go and inspect once you get settled.”

  “Inspect cows?” I asked. “How would I know how to inspect cows?”

  Danny grinned—I think he was beginning to see the humor in the situation.

  “There’s cowboys up there that can help us,” he said. “I guess if we see a sick cow they can help us doctor it.”

  “Wouldn’t the cowboys be able to figure that out for themselves?” I asked.

  “Maybe, if they’re eager to work,” he said. “It’s mighty bleak up on the Dismal River—the hands might not be eager to work.”

  “All right—so much for Uncle Bill,” I said. “Did your aunt Lulu leave me any instructions?”

  “Oh, you bet!” Danny said. “She wants you to look out for good real estate that she could buy cheap—Aunt Lulu’s mighty keen on real estate.”

  I looked off at the plains of Nebraska. Maybe I couldn’t see one hundred miles, but I could see pretty far. And everything in sight looked like cheap real estate to me.

  “Who’s this man in the bank I’m supposed to see?”

  “Mr. Applewhite,” Dan said. “He runs the bank, although I think Uncle Bill really owns it.

  “I’ll drive you to the bank if you want me to,” he added. “Ladies don’t walk much up here in North Platte. The town’s kind of stretched out, and Aunt Lulu told me to be sure you weren’t bothered by the wrong sort.”

  “When it comes to an abundance of the wrong sort, I doubt North Platte is any worse than the place I just left,” I told him. “But I guess I better comb my hair if I’m going to meet a banker.”

  “Mr. Applewhite won’t like you anyway, no matter how much you comb your hair,” Danny said.

  “Oh—you mean he’s the wrong sort—the sort you’re supposed to be protecting me from?” I asked.

  Danny Mueller just grinned.

  14

  I HAVE NOT frequented many banks—in Virginia genteel young ladies don’t need to—but the few I had peeked into boasted a lot of dark wood and a bit of brass.

  The bank in North Platte mainly consisted of Senior Applewhite, a large man with a mole beside his nose. He was too big to fit comfortably in his chair, although it was a large chair, and as Danny Mueller had predicted, he didn’t like me, although I had put my hair in a chaste bun and was wearing a modest black dress. It was the dress I used to wear to funerals, during the war years.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cody are our leading citizens,” banker Applewhite informed me.

  I had no quarrel with that claim.

  “’Spect so,” I said.

  “That doesn’t mean that they are always wise where financial matters are concerned,” he went on.

  I didn’t like him any more than he liked me, so I made bold to interrupt.

  “If you’re Senior Applewhite, is there a Junior Applewhite somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yes, my younger brother, but why interrupt me?”

  “Boredom, I guess,” I told him bluntly.

  Senior Applewhite studied me for a moment.

  “William Frederick Cody is a great man, which doesn’t mean he is always wise,” the banker went on. “He dragged me out of bed early this morning and insisted that I draw up a power of attorney giving you the authority to run his businesses and draw on his funds as needed.”

  “Probably he was in a practical mood, for once,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t call it practical, young lady—I’d call it the height of folly,” Mr. Applewhite said. “What’s to stop you from running off with some cowpuncher and taking every cent that Bill Cody has?”

  “My sterling character,” I told him. “Did you hear from Mrs. Cody while you were waking up?”

  “In fact I did,” he admitted. “I told her what Mr. Cody had done, expecting her to raise old Billy hell.”

  “Did she?”

  “No, and in fact she said that you might be handling some real estate matters for her,” he allowed unhappily. “I have instructions to give you what credit you need.”

  I sat. Senior Applewhite sat.

  “In my opinion both sets of instructions were contrary to sound business practice,” he told me. “Why should a slip of a girl be allowed to make free use of the Cody funds?”

  “Because somebody’s got to pay the help and the bills,” I mentioned. “I have no doubt that there will be bills.”

  “Have you known Mr. Cody long?” the ample banker asked.

  “Long enough to know he doesn’t flinch from expense and extravagance,” I said.

  “Are you his harlot?” he asked.

  “How’d you like to catch an inkwell in the middle of the forehead?” I responded, standing up. “When I tell Bill Cody what you said I have no doubt that he’ll come back here and pound you into blubber!

  “And I’ll take that power of attorney, while I’m at it!” I said.

  “No need, miss, it’s safe with us,” Senior Applewhite said. He had gone from looking mean to looking scared. The thought that his rude comment might get back to the leading citizen of North Platte, Nebraska, put a different complexion on the matter.

  “The document may be safe with you but you’re not safe with me, sir—not until your manners improve.”

  Senior Applewhite handed over the power of attorney meekly enough, and I walked back home and began the long task—not really finished until he closed his eyes in death, of managing the interests of Mr. William Frederick Cody, Buffalo Bill.

  15

  WHEN I WALKED out of the bank in North Platte, after my testy interview with Senior Applewhite, I felt lonely as a lost kitten. I knew no one in North Platte, and no one knew me. For help I had two nice, competent Finnish girls and Danny Mueller, a lonely, half-orphaned boy. I had been entrusted with Bill Cody’s power of attorney but had no idea what to do with it. Lulu Cody expected me to buy real estate and to know what real estate was likely to appreciate and what wasn’t. I felt as blue as a goose and my hat blew off twice in the whistling wind. A rather good-looking cowboy retrieved it for me after the second blow-off; he acted as if he might like to be my beau but I had too much on my mind to want a beau, just then.

  I was frankly put out with the Codys for leaving without saying good bye or giving me even the merest word of instruction. But once I got back to the big house, I calmed in my thinking a little and poked around until I found the small office where the household books were kept—in fact all the Codys’ books were there, whether for the household or the ranch on the Dismal River, or the fat file on the Wild West—that file consisted mostly of applications from circus people who had taken the trouble to send Bill photographs. And when I got around to inspecting the kitchen, which had a fireplace big enough to make a den for a grizzly bear, I found that the Codys had left me a note, or rather two notes.

  Bill’s note was propped against a jar of marmalade and did not take long to read:

>   Dear Nellie:

  When you visit those cowboys up on the Dismal River remember that they are lonely men. I advise you to avoid enclutchments as such men have little restraint.

  As for the trouble last night, I fail to see the wisdom of staying in a house where I have been poisoned.

  I trust you, Nellie Courtright, as I would a daughter. If you stand outside and listen close you will hear the wind call my name …

  Your fond boss,

  Buffalo Bill Cody

  He signed his name with a flourish, of course—most of Bill’s life might be considered a flourish.

  Lulu’s note was brisk:

  Dear Miss Courtright:

  I wish I could have stayed longer. I have no doubt we will be fine friends, someday. There are times when it is not wise for me to be around my husband. His neglect cuts too deep. He says he’s leaving but I suppose that’s just more lies. Give young Danny Mueller some of the bounty of your warm heart.

  Gretchen and Sigurd are fine girls. Don’t let them marry if you can stop it.

  Erratic as he is, Bill sometimes makes good choices, and he made one of his best when he persuaded you to come work for us. I feel better just knowing you’re there to help look after the help.

  With all my trust,

  Louisa Cody

  The notes were not exactly packed with instruction, and nothing was said about when I might see either one of them again, but I had had too good a breakfast to sit around and feel sorry for myself very long.

  First I had the girls show me the house—actually a mansion—from basement to attic. The laundry fixings were in the basement, the dining room would seat twenty, and there was nothing in the attic except a few old hampers and a large colony of mice.

  Downstairs there was even a billiard table and twelve cues. In Virginia I had rarely been allowed to play billiards—the gentlemen invariably hogged the table. I resolved to learn the game, but this resolve was never fulfilled, although I did find it soothing to roll the billiard balls around and listen to them click.

  In the afternoon I applied myself to the household books, which looked simple enough to keep. Then I applied myself to the Wild West files, in which there was a high pile of bank drafts written from every place under the sun. I uncovered an invoice for a diamond necklace Bill had bought from a jeweler in Chicago. I doubt this diamond necklace had been destined to fit around Lulu’s sturdy neck. But I had not been hired to preach, and what business was it of mine, anyway? I’m surprised that Lulu Cody hadn’t found that receipt—or maybe she had.