“I’ll accept that answer as a yes,” the reporter said, smirking.
“I don’t care how you take the answer as long as there is the promise of a stiff drink and a fat cigar at the end of it. I never missed a game.
“While I was running the Star Route, I was also doing laundry, cooking food, babysitting, staging cat fights on Halloween, not actual cats of course. I would dress up in black and paint my face like a cat, get on my hands and knees, and face another person dressed like a cat, start pawing and hissing. The kids loved it, and so did I.
“There was getting to be a lot of action around town, too. There was a ferry across the Missouri River and a new railroad stop. This was bringing a lot of strangers to town. Put the strangers together with the Copperheads, the Crow and the Blackfeet, and we were starting to get somewhere. Now, where we were actually going was open to conjecture. The point is we were going, like the rest of the nation was going.
“There was an assay office, a bank, a couple of saloons, and a couple of whorehouses to take care of all this going we were doing. Cascade was on the move. We were growing. We were not being left behind by the rest of the nation.”
“Where exactly were you in life at the time Cascade played the Colonels?”
“Hell, I was technically an old lady at this stage, but I never let on that I was old. Why would I? I just kept delivering the mail and getting paid for it. That was far easier said than done. The Star Route was hard work, and it was dangerous work.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Montana Territory, January 1903
The mail train into Miles City, Butte, Billings, Helena, and Great Falls was never late. The blizzards didn’t change anything. The mail run had to go on. It didn’t get a vacation, take a sick day, or stay at home due to inclement weather.
During one particularly bad storm, I remember pulling on two pair of men’s wool trousers, two overcoats, two hats, and snowshoes. I needed the snowshoes to walk on top of the snow drifts, which were over ten feet high at the time, and those snow drifts seem to get higher and higher the more often I tell the story! I had to climb over the snow to get to the barn.
In the barn, I hitched the team. The horses stood compliant, well-fed, well-groomed, and their stalls had been mucked out the night before. I was ready to face the snows of a particularly cruel blizzard.
The horses snorted. Thankfully, I didn’t hear any coughing. The immensity of the beasts raised the temperature in the barn considerably. However, the warmth and comfort created by their body heat was erased the instant I threw open the barn door. Then, the wind and the snow had its way with us.
I rubbed the velvet faces of each horse in the swirling wind. In turn, each beast tossed its head lovingly. My horses craved attention. I offered the rubbery lips of each horse an apple from the palm of my hand.
I commanded the horses to halt. They complied, standing erect, motionless. My mule, Moses, scowled at me from his stall. He felt betrayed. He was not invited to the party. He might have felt like part of the team, but he wasn’t. He was lucky to be able to wait out the storm from the protection of the barn.
The horses would have plenty to do just to brave the going through the snow. We were on a deadline. We were off, leaving behind the fires of home still burning in the field stone fire- place, a roasting, comforting fire that was so inviting and so very hard to leave. Nevertheless, we did leave. Duty called.
The horses showed courage lifting their knees high above the snow drifts to keep the stagecoach moving. There were times when the drifting snow was as high as the horses’ shoulders. That is when the stagecoach slowed to nearly a halt. I stood up on the box and gave the team their heads by dropping the reins. The team carried on, urging the stagecoach forward, clearing snow drift after snow drift.
With the sky turning grey with the coming of dawn, we reached a passable opening. It was a regular roadbed, no rocks, breaks, or crevices. It would be smooth going all the way to the railroad stop from there.
I shook the reins and screamed at the team. I let them know who was boss. The team responded. Their ears twitched. They snorted and bowed their necks, trotting, picking up the pace. The harnesses sang with the effort.
I turned to light a cigar. That’s when I spotted a figure emerging from the grey curtain of dawn. It had stopped snowing, but the wind still made it difficult to hear. The figure looked like a man standing in our path. The horses stopped, refusing to confront the stranger.
I climbed off the box, careful to hold my shotgun at the ready. I ran my free hand cautiously along the reins and then the bridles. I patted the faces of several of the horses to reassure them everything was in hand.
“Easy boys,” I whispered.
However, the horses were still nervous, fearful. They snorted. They complained. They were skittish on their hooves. They sensed danger.
I slowly walked toward the figure. It was the size of a man, but I couldn’t figure out why a man would be out alone in the storm without a horse, even if he was a bandit trying to rob the stagecoach.
“Who goes there?” I warned.
There was no reply.
I sized up the figure as I planted my check over the lock plate of the Winchester and looked down the barrel. I sighted the target and walked forward in that position, careful not to disturb my aim.
“I say, who goes there?”
There was no reply. There was only the noise of the wind. It grabbed my scarf.
I kept walking. I wasn’t wearing my snowshoes. There was no need for snowshoes. The snow was not deep on the road.
I got within a few feet of the figure. Then, it dawned on me. It wasn’t a man.
It was a black grizzly bear. I could see the girth and the rough silhouette of fur. I could see its cubs walking there, too. The bear was in search of food. It was bitterly cold.
On the prairie, there is no wisdom in charity. There is wisdom in foresight. There is wisdom in domination. There is wisdom in determination.
I broke off a round. The report echoed against the Cascades. This angered the bear. The cubs scampered away.
I broke off another round. This time I aimed closer to the target. The round must have breezed pretty close to the business part of the grizzly. It turned and vanished, ambling off on all fours.
Suddenly, a wolf attacked me from the rear. I saw only flashing teeth. I could hear the snarling desperation of the wolf, but I couldn’t react to the attack. I couldn’t see it. The wolf had succeeded in ambushing me. It was a complete surprise.
I wheeled. Instinctively, I kicked at the wolf’s teeth. I couldn’t orient the long gun. I couldn’t get the barrel down in time. I couldn’t shoot it. The shotgun was too long. The wolf was too close.
Instead of firing the gun, I swung the barrel of the shotgun to ward off the attack. I tried to hit the wolf with the barrel of the gun. It didn’t work.
The wolf growled and yelped. The wolf jumped lustily after my long overcoat. Fortunately, I was wearing two pairs of wool trousers.
The layers of wool saved me from the cruelty of the wolf’s sharp teeth. If those teeth so much as nipped me, opened flesh, and drew blood, I could have gotten sick swiftly with rabies—or worse.
“Get! You sonofabitch! Hah! Get! Get!” I screamed.
The screams forced the wolf backward ever so slightly. I turned the shotgun over and swung the butt of the shotgun again and again wildly. This time, I managed to connect with the wolf’s skull.
The wolf jumped at me in retaliation. I swung again and again. The wolf tried to bite the butt of the shotgun.
I swung wildly. The butt cracked solid bone. This made the wolf recoil. I aimed the shotgun. I fired. The round may have hit the wolf. I wasn’t sure. If I hit the wolf, it couldn’t have been a direct hit, or there would have been silence. There wasn’t silence. There was the sound of the wolf yelping, retreating into the swiftly approaching dawn.
“Must have grazed him,” I mumbled.
I rejoined the team.
The horses looked at me dumbly through the slits in their blinkers. They tossed their heads as if to agree with the outcome. I could hear the breast plates, collars, hame chains, bits, and other parts of the harnesses singing.
We arrived at the railroad stop, early. The train wasn’t due to arrive for another hour. We waited the hour. Finally, I heard the train was clanging and banging in the distance. The whistle howled against the Cascades. Then, I could see it belching black smoke. The smoke, and the hiss of steam, reminded me of my days aboard the Robert E. Lee on the Mississippi River.
Thinking back, I grew secretly emotional as I reminisced about the Robert E. Lee. The conductors hopped down from the train, as it eased into the station. There were no passengers.
There was only freight. I signed paperwork, took custody of the mail bags, and loaded the stagecoach.
Invariably, the mail bags contained important legal documents, currency, newspapers, letters, stuff like that. The stagecoach was a bandit’s dream. However, as long as I had the Star Route, the dream would quickly become a bandit’s nightmare. I had the .38, the Winchester, the cigar, the whiskey flask, and six feet and two hundred pounds of bad attitude. I was steadfast in ensuring that the mail’s chain of custody was not broken. If the mail delivery was unreliable, it would stunt the growth of the entire region.
I owed a duty to Cascade to deliver the mail without fail. I intended to exercise that duty with expert care and unfailing courage. In over eight years of service to the United States Postal Service, I never failed once. I was never late to meet a single train. I never missed a single day of work due to illness or inclement weather. I didn’t lose a single load to bandits, thieves, wolves, or bears. This record speaks for itself.
The return trip wasn’t memorable. There were no wolves, no grizzly bears, no bandits, and no problems. I dropped off the mail in Cascade without further incident. Surprisingly, I was to confront the steepest challenge of my life upon my return home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fire!
My clapboard house was engulfed in flames! The fire raged over the roof, lashing everything in its reach.
The flames roared and popped and crackled, licking the walls, the roof, everywhere. I could see through the windows that other flames were having their way with the inside of the house, too. They had turned it into an inferno. The orange and blue and yellow flames illuminated everything.
I snapped the whip at the horses. The stagecoach hopped over the rough going. I raced away from the house looking for help.
I screamed to get the neighboring rancher’s attention. The rancher and the ranch hands came running. They hopped in the stagecoach. The horses seemed to sense the urgency. They got after their business in earnest.
We turned onto my land on two wheels. I drove the team straight into the barn. I didn’t want to endanger the horses. Horses do odd things in a fire, like rush into flames to their death seeking protection in what they consider instinctually to be the safety of their home even though their home happens also to be on fire.
I left the team hitched to the stagecoach. I slammed the barn door. The boys sprinted to the house.
We formed a bucket brigade. The buckets of water were passed from hand-to-hand, from man-to-man, down the line. The man at the front of the line fought the flames. He threw as much water as he had. He fought gallantly. There were many buckets of water expended in the fight.
The flames fought back. They popped and snapped. The insatiable hunger of that inferno searched every inch of the house for dry wood. The heat was intense. It snatched the breath from my lungs.
The water from the buckets made small parts of the inferno gasp, object. The buckets earned small victories. However, the victories were temporary. The fight raged on. Suddenly, the wind whispered. This made the flames leap even higher with delight, almost as though the dancing flames taunted us.
We ignored the danger. The buckets kept coming. There were no organized fire patrols in those years. There was simply the bond of humanity.
The flames unlocked something mysterious, primal. They spurred the men to action. This is why we fought. We fought to save something, anything of my history, the part of my history that possessions symbolized. We tried to hang on to the past. Instead of saving what was left of my home, I watched it all vanish. The light of that evil illuminated the faces of the men.
I was resigned to this fate. I was strangely mesmerized by the ravenous flames. I watched them dance and taunt.
The wind grew stiff, and then fierce. This fueled the ambitious flames to insurmountable heights. The heat threw the men backward. The bucket line was pitiful by comparison. Everything was lost.
In the morning, the sunshine revealed the damage. My home had been reduced to a charred and still smoldering pile of rubble. The few blackened boards and planks that remained upright disgusted me, like the bones of a roasted hog picked clean at a holiday feast.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cascade, Montana, May 1913
The reporter didn’t dare speak. He let me gather my thoughts. I was on the verge of tears yet again. Then, he did the work of a news reporter.
“How did you survive the ordeal of your home perishing in the fire?’
“The people of Cascade threw me a life-line, was how. I was extremely well-liked. I fed them when they were hungry and went out of business doing it. I laundered their clothes. I treated them when they were sick. I babysat their children. I supported their baseball teams.”
“You knocked out their enemies,” the reporter laughed.
“I broke more noses than anyone in the great Pacific Northwest. I once shot a man in the buttocks for calling me a nigger!”
We both laughed.
“Back to the fire,” the reporter redirected the focus, avoiding the topic of racial slurs.
“The way we bonded, the folks of Cascade. This didn’t happen overnight, and of course they might not invite you into their homes for dinner, but they welcomed me into their saloons for whiskey. That was quite enough for me.”
“Seems like it was.”
“It was. Remember, I was the only lady allowed in a saloon in those days. They made an exception for me. Anyway, back to the fire.”
“Please.”
“Yes, the folks got together and raised a new house for me in about two days. They laid the foundation, set the floor, raised the frames and beams, capped the roof, and closed the walls. It was the miracle of people working together toward a common goal. My new house was better than the old one, frankly. Of course, I could not replace the heirlooms and other personal items that are timeless, like photographs. But it all worked out quite well in the end.”
“Did they build the new house on the very spot where the old house burned down?’
“Yes.”
“Back to baseball, what exactly did you do after beating the Louisville Colonels?
“We went to the saloon and got drunk. We threw back so many shots of whiskey, sang so many songs, and I even got to dance with Billy.”
“Describe that.”
“Describe that! Billy was every woman’s dream come true. He was a knight in shining armor, like the knights of King Arthur’s roundtable, except a knight with a nasty fast ball. It was the best time I ever had in a saloon—and I had me some wonderful times in saloons—yes, sir, indeed.”
“The mail runs.”
“Treacherous. The mail runs were treacherous. The winters out here are sub-zero with wind and snow, drifting snow, and the blizzards don’t stop the trains or the mail. The mail never stops. It is the life blood of how the country grows. It can’t be stopped. To stop it is to stop the country’s heart from beating. I had a contract to honor. Thank God for Sister Amadeus. She put me on to the contract, set me up with the team and the stagecoach. It was her vision. She made it all happen.”
“Yes, but none of it would have happened unless you had the skill to do the job.”
“It was a job for two men, actually. I was o
nly one woman. The route is not even a real route. It is ground you got to drive the team over. It is rocky. It has dips and breaks, crevices, mountain climbs, and there is some easy going over cattle drives. It is freezing in the winter. It is blazing hot in the summer. The reason it is a job for two men is the second man is needed to brandish the shotgun needed discourage the bandits and Indians from sticking up the stagecoach.”
“By the way, I’ll bet Sister Amadeus thanked God for you. You saved her life.”
“We saved each other’s lives.”
“If the job of the stage run on the Star Route was a job for two men, how did you do it alone?”
“I did it alone because I am six feet tall, carry two guns, and don’t mind a good fight. That’s how. I carry the Winchester, the .38, and a nasty disposition along with me wherever I go. That’s how I made good on my promise to deliver the mail. I fought off attacks from bears, wolves, Irishmen, Mexicans, and Poles. And I did it for a very long time, too.”
“How long?”
“Eight years.”
“And what was your family life like?”
“Family?”
“Yes, family.”
“Never did have much of a family. You have to remember, I didn’t get off the plantation back in Tennessee until I was already in my thirties. Never did have much of a family life. Didn’t even know my exact birth date.”
“Cascade celebrates your birthday every year. Kids take the day off from school.”
“Yes, and that shows Cascade is my real family, doesn’t it? Some years, I tell them to celebrate two days! Why stop at one?”
This time, the laughter reached out into the rest of the newsroom.
The other writers sort of watched the interview out of the corner of their eyes instead of fully concentrating on their assignments. I must have seemed odd to them, an old lady wearing a long dress over twenty years out of fashion, a very black lady smoking a homemade cigar. I must have seemed like a living monument to the past.
Stagecoach Justice Page 12