P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows

by Caroline Lawrence

  By and by, I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I remember is lying there in the dew-drenched prairie grass in the gray dusk of morning.

  The Shoshone had gone, taking their horses and ours. I rose up and went over the hummock and looked down at Ma and Tommy Three and Hang Sung.

  They were all three dead.

  And it was my fault.

  If I had not gone off in a “huff” to be alone I would have been there to help them fight the Shoshone. I am a good shot and there were five balls in my Indian ma’ s Baby Dragoon revolver. I could have killed those five braves and saved us all.

  I built a burial platform for Ma. I used pieces of the wagon and strips of canvas not too badly burnt—though it should be a tree and buffalo strips—and laid her on it so that her soul could climb the Milky Way to judgment. The platform was not as high as it should have been but I did my best.

  For the other two I dug graves with a serving spoon, which was about the only implement the Shoshone had left. I felt bad about burying Hang Sung out there on the rolling prairie because he once told me that if he ever died he wanted his remains to be shipped back to China and planted in the land of his ancestors.

  After I had laid their bodies to rest, I sat down and sang my own death song. That was when I got the Mulligrubs for the first time.

  A day or so later, another wagon train passed by. They found me sitting there in that bad trance. As soon as they started cooking food, my appetite revived me. A preacher and his wife fed me & cleaned me & took me in. That was Ma and Pa Jones, who were my foster parents for two years.

  But now they are dead: also because I wasn’t there when they needed me.

  Was I wrong in leaving Jace to the wiles of Violetta De Baskerville, just because he said I was bothersome as a deer tick? I should have swallowed my anger and gone back to Carson to warn him that she was in cahoots with an evil man. Or at least tell Stonewall that I had finally got the bulge on her.

  I have been sheltering in this Elixir Wagon for two nights and three days. Now my pages are finished & my pencils all used up apart from this stub, which I can barely grip. But it does not matter because I have finished my account. It will soon be getting dark again. I have taken out the picture of Jace and his family & stuck it in a crack between two planks of the wagon so I can look at it before I die.

  I wish my Original Ma & Hang Sung & even Tommy Three had not died.

  I wish Ma Evangeline and Pa Emmet had not died.

  I wish Jace’s wife and children had not died.

  It is getting dark now and the snow is still falling in flakes as big as goose feathers.

  Cheeya is standing awful still & with his head hung down. We are not thirsty but we are cold & hungry, tired & downcast.

  When I started writing this account I said I wanted to be on my own. But I sorely miss my pards.

  I reckon God was right when he said it is not good for man to be alone.

  I miss my old pards in Virginia City: ornery Ping & Titus Jepson, who feeds me, & Bee Bloomfield, who pesters me.

  I miss my new pards in Carson City: clever Barry Ashim & Mrs. Murphy, who feeds me, & Carrie Pixley, who pesters me.

  I miss Sam Clemens, who cusses so well, and Belle Donne, who cusses even better, and ugly Stonewall, who cries like a girl.

  So I write this final prayer: “Dear Lord, I know I lost Jace’s friendship by betraying him, but please will you make sure he gets this account so he can see I was only trying to help? And bless all my other friends and grant that I may one day see them walking the streets of Glory. Amen.”

  WELL, AS YOU CAN GUESS from the fact that there are more pages & that I am now writing with a sharp new pencil, I did not freeze to death nor go to Glory neither. I am now writing this account back in Virginia City on the afternoon of Monday, December 22nd in a warm & nicely furnished upstairs room in a boardinghouse on B Street not far from the Flora Temple Livery Stable. This room has a feather bed & carpet & queen’ s-ware washbowl & the same hundred-mile view I enjoyed from my old bedroom at the back of my Detective Agency. Best of all, this room has only one occupant: me.

  Here is what happened.

  After I finished my account in the frozen blizzard, I closed my eyes to die. Presently I sensed a brilliant white light beyond my eyelids. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the risen Lord Jesus in all his Glory. But I was not in Heaven. I was in a strangely spacious Elixir wagon. The brilliant white light came from sunshine on snow outside and the spaciousness of the quarters was due to the fact that Cheeya had gone.

  I rose up and emerged blinking into the brilliance of the morning.

  Cheeya was standing not far away and a figure was kneeling at his feet, doing something. The kneeling person wore a pale-gray rabbit-skin robe and a tattered stovepipe hat bedecked with feathers & ribbons & a rosette on top.

  It was Blue Supper. He was strapping horse snowshoes to Cheeya’s hooves. They were not plank snowshoes like Blue Supper’s, but rather plate-like things woven from tule reeds and tied on with whang leather.

  Blue Supper looked up. “Howdy!” His squeaky voice sounded strange but welcome after three days of silence.

  “Howdy,” I called back. My voice was creaky because I had not drunk any melted-snow water that morning. My teeth were chattering.

  “You stranded?” he cried.

  “Yes, sir. Stranded, lost, cold and hungry.”

  “Well, it seems I am appointed your guardian angel. What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyways?”

  I hung my head. “I wanted to be a hermit like you.”

  Blue Supper stood up & picked up his long staff from the snow & came gliding up on his long snowshoes. Cheeya took a few faltering steps after him. The rising sun sent their blue shadows undulating across sugar-white drifts of sparkling snow.

  “I see you found my shelter,” said Blue Supper. “I am on my way to Carson to get provisions but I have pemmican enough for one last meal. Plus a little coffee.”

  Pemmican! I had not had it in years. It is a tasty mixture of ground-up dried buffalo with added fat, berries & spices. Blue Supper had marble-sized balls of it in his backpack. While he brewed coffee over my revived sagebrush coals, I ate half a dozen. He also gave me a small apple. I was hungry and it was mighty good.

  Blue also had an apple for Cheeya, who stood happily in the sunshine on the sparkly snow. It was almost warm.

  After I finished my apple, Blue Supper let me share his tin cup as before. I sipped the hot black coffee. It made me warm inside but I was still shivering outside. Blue Supper draped his rabbit-skin cloak around my shoulders. It was soft & warm & smelled of bear fat, which always reminds me of my Indian ma.

  Without his robe, I could see that Blue Supper wore an old burgundy velvet frock coat with some bald patches & every button different. He also had three silk scarves of different shades of blue wrapped around his neck and yellow kid gloves with his fingertips poking out.

  “So you came out here to be a hermit? With a little tuition,” he said, wiping his sharp nose with the gloved part of his finger, “I believe you have the makings of a bully hermit. You could be my apprentice.”

  I did not tell him that after three days in a blizzard the Life of a Hermit had lost its appeal.

  Instead I said, “Why do they call you Blue Supper?”

  He wiped his nose again. “I always get blue round about suppertime.”

  I said, “Blue?”

  He nodded. “Means ‘low’ or ‘sad.’ That is the time of day I miss Frenchy. Also the time of day my folks was kilt by Indians.”

  I said, “Are you not half Indian?”

  “Lordy, no!” Blue Supper covered the dip at the base of his neck with his grubby fingers. “Why would you think such a thing?”

  I was about to say it was because he had no beard nor trace of stubble and
that the only other men I knew who did not have beards or stubble were Indians. Then I remembered something Jace had taught me.

  “Pardon me for asking,” I said, “but are you a woman?”

  “DANG MY BUTTONS,” said Blue Supper. “You are a sharp one. How did you guess I was a gal?”

  “Your hairless cheeks and high voice,” I said. “But mainly something a former friend of mine taught me: women cover the dip at the base of their necks, but men hardly ever do.”

  Blue Supper hung her head and nodded. “You found out my secret,” she said. “Do not despise me for it.”

  “I do not despise you,” I said. I took a breath and confessed, “I am also a girl.”

  She looked up. “Really? You ain’t just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “I am not just saying that,” I said. “I am a girl. Only I don’t feel like one.”

  Blue Supper asked, “You feel more like a ‘he’ than a ‘she’?”

  I pondered this for a moment. “No,” I said at last. “I don’t feel like a ‘he’ or a ‘she’; I just feel like a ‘me.’ But boys have more freedom. And better clothes.”

  “Amen!” said Blue Supper. “I could not stand wearing them hoops and corsets and frilly bonnets.”

  “Me, neither,” I said. “It is one of my Eccentricities. I am a Misfit.”

  “I reckon I am a Misfit, too,” said Blue Supper. “But maybe it ain’t too late for you.”

  I said, “What do you mean?”

  Blue Supper picked up my Indian ma’ s flint knife, which I had been using to cut sagebrush.

  She held it in her hand like she was weighing it. “This here piece of flint used to be ugly and useless,” she said. “But someone chipped and chipped and made it into a purty blade that you can use to cut sagebrush and skin a critter. Misfits like you and me are like this flint when it was still ugly. But if you live with people they will rub you and chip at you and force you to change your ways. You will become sharper. You will become a blade. It ain’t always pleasant, being chipped at. But it makes you better.” Blue Supper heaved a sigh. “If you become a hermit, you will just stay a useless old lump of flint, like me.”

  I said, “You are not useless. You saved my life. Twice.” The rabbit-skin robe Blue Supper had put around me was so warm that I was feeling hot as a furnace. But my teeth were still chattering. That was strange.

  Blue Supper tossed the coffee dregs into the snow & stood up. “You don’t look so good, little pard. Let me get you back to civilization.”

  I stood up, too, but my knees were wobbly all of a sudden and I sat down again.

  Blue Supper saddled Cheeya and helped me up on his back. My pony did not seem to mind. Wearing those snowshoes, he was as happy as if he had been walking on solid ground.

  Blue Supper strapped on her ski-skates and led Cheeya east with me on him. I rode sitting up, but I must have drifted off. I was jerked out of sleep by Blue Supper’s bony hand pushing me back up to stop me slipping out of the saddle.

  “Lookee there,” she said, still holding me up with her right hand but pointing with her left. “We have almost arrived.”

  I shaded my eyes and squinted south where she was pointing. I could see something lit golden in the bright morning sun. It looked like a bird on the horizon about to take off. Only it did not move. After a spell more walking, I saw that it was an eagle with its wings spread. A sandstone eagle atop a building.

  “That there is Curry’s Warm Springs Hotel,” said Blue Supper. “Old Abe Curry is kindly disposed towards Indians and so is his family. They will not turn you away.”

  Blue Supper was saying something else, but I must have drifted into a feverish sleep again. When I woke up I was being pulled off Cheeya and Blue Supper was telling me, “If you ever want to visit me, just head out towards the desert west of Empire and south of Chalky Knoll. That is where you will find me.”

  I heard a woman say, “What is wrong with him?”

  Blue Supper said, “He got blizzarded and has caught ague. He might need a good plunge in one of your hot pools. Don’t tell nobody else, but he is a she.”

  “I will look after him.”

  After that, I remember being plunged into a steaming hot bath and being soaped all over with lye soap. I tried to protest, but a lady with pale owl-looking eyes kept saying, “Do not worry, I will keep your secret,” and, “This will do you good.”

  Then I was in a narrow feather bed, wearing a nightcap & a clean cotton nightshirt that came down to my ankles. The kind owl-looking lady was making me drink something like black coffee with lime juice in it. It was mighty peculiar tasting.

  I do not remember much about those four days. Miss Owl-Eyes looked in on me frequently & helped me to the chamber pot when necessary & mopped my burning brow.

  At last my fever broke & I slept.

  And while I slept I dreamt.

  Blue Supper was in my dream, and so was Violetta De Baskerville. Blue had grabbed hold of my left arm & Violetta had latched on to my right & they were tugging in different directions. I feared they might cleave me in two, as surely as that knocking saw would have done.

  Just when I could not bear it any longer, a girl of about 16 years old appeared. She seemed to be half Indian and half white. Her symmetrical features were framed by shiny black hair down to her waist and a big straw pushed-back sombrero. She wore a dark red woolen jacket with blue and yellow beads in a zigzag design & thickly fringed buckskin leggings over blue cotton trowsers. She packed a Colt’s Army Revolver in a holster around her waist and she held a Sharpe’s rifle in her hands.

  She looked solemn & strong & beautiful.

  I thought, “If I can grow up to be like her then I would not mind being a girl.”

  She silently held out her gloved right hand, as if to say, “Then come on.”

  I OPENED MY EYES to the bright light of a sunny December morning in the high desert. The small window above my head showed the sky still blue & the snow dripping from the eaves. The only thing missing was birdsong, for there are few birds here apart from buzzards, and they do not sing much.

  My three days in the snowstorm had resulted in four days abed, so that was a week out of my life.

  I had been nursed by one of Old Abe Curry’s grown-up daughters. She told me her name was Mary Etta but everyone called her Mettie. She was a plain spinster of about thirty with pale blue eyes. She was the owl-faced lady I remembered from my delirium. She was kind & wise & kept my secret.

  “Where is Cheeya?” were my first lucid words.

  “Who is Cheeya?” she said.

  “My Buckskin pony,” I replied.

  “Your pony is safe in our stables.” Mettie put down my rinsed and empty chamber pot. “Look,” she said pointing to the end of my narrow bed. “There are your own clothes, all clean and dry. Why don’t you get dressed and go out to see him? Then come to the dining room for an early supper.”

  I was feeble, so Mettie helped me get dressed.

  My buckskin trowsers practically fell off and she had to bring me some twine to use as a belt. I think I had grown some, too. And not just up. I was beginning to “develop.”

  “You will not be able to pretend to be a boy much longer,” said Mettie.

  I nodded sadly. Then I remembered my dream about the beautiful half-Indian girl, and I felt a little better.

  Once I had dressed, the first thing I did was go to the stables.

  Cheeya greeted me from a clean stall with a happy nicker as if to say, “There you are!”

  I hugged his neck for a long time & smelled the good smell of his mane & thanked God for preserving him. “I see they have been feeding you,” I said. “I will be back soon but I am hoping they will feed me, too.”

  I followed the smell of food and sound of cutlery & reached a dining room half full of men. The Carson-bound stage f
rom Virginia City had just arrived.

  Mettie had come down to help serve. She saw me lingering in the doorway & showed me to a table in a corner.

  “Pa and Ma don’t mind Indians,” she said. “But some of our clients might not be so kindly disposed. I will put you here at this table with your back to the entrance. Keep your hat on. Would you like bacon and beans with cornbread?”

  My stomach roared and Mettie laughed.

  I had not eaten in almost a whole week.

  I was ravenous.

  She brought it and I devoured it.

  “What is all the excitement?” I asked as she brought me a piece of apple pie with a slab of cheese on the side.

  She said, “They have introduced a last-minute bill to make Nevada a State. Also, they are holding a final nighttime session to vote on the Corporation Bill. Pa says it is about their last chance to get it through. He says they are building a big bonfire and mustering a brass band to stop Hall from going in to vote against it at tonight’s session. It is all down to one vote, you see. Everybody is saying Mr. Hall was bribed.”

  “Gaven ‘Hothead’ Hall,” I murmured, after she left. “He is con the bill. He is in cahoots with those Frisco Fat Cats.”

  “Hall not the main one in cahoots,” snapped a familiar voice behind me. “Main one is Stewart.”

  I swiveled on my seat. “Ping?”

  Sure enough, it was my partner from Virginia City. Ping was standing right beside me with his fists on his hips and looking even more ornery than usual.

  “Stewart is main one against Corporation Bill,” said Ping. “He is working for Frisco Fat Cats.”

  “William Morris Stewart, my lawyer?” I said. “Not Hothead Hall?”

  “Hall, too,” said Ping. “But he is just piece on chessboard. Stewart is one who paid Hall fifteen thousand dollars to vote con the bill. You get my telegram?”

  I said, “I have not been in Carson for about a week. I got blizzarded and then I got sick.”

  Ping sat down opposite me. “I send important telegram to warn you.”