“And when you needed to fight, you got that done on your own, too, right? Any particularly memorable occasions you can think of when you used any of the rules to get into a really good fight?”
Now, that question really got me thinking. There were a few fights that were memorable. The time I knocked out the sportswriter traveling with the Louisville Colonels was one, but there were others.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cascade, Montana, April 1903
I was playing poker at the Silver Dollar saloon. I was sitting at a table across from two other hands. The first fellow was a little guy from Texas. He was about the same size as a tree stump, give or take a few inches. His partner, a fellow who went by the name of Jack, was a lumbering sort, the kind you find out on the prairie angrily tossing around hay or cursing wildly while insisting with brute force that a steer do something, anything, the steer didn’t have a mind to do.
The boys must have already spent hours in the saloon that day, even before the card game got going.
They talked with slurred speech as though they were drinking laudanum instead of whiskey. Furthermore, the short fellow from Texas spoke like he had two tongues in his mouth and hadn’t bothered to organize them before leaving his house that morning.
I was holding three of a kind in my hand, three Queens. I was waiting to spring the trap.
“Tex, s’it looks like da lady’re got us beat this han’,” Jack said.
“Lady! Lady? T’ain’t no lady, Jake,” Tex said, looking at the table like the table was the deck of a ship floating on a troubled sea. “Wassah madder with chu? You never could hold whiskey. That’s a man! I tell you…Jake.”
“Tis so, a lady, a big ole colored lady.”
“T’ain’t really no such thing as a colored lady, colored girl, maybe, but t’ain’t no colored ladies, not where I’m from anyway.”
“Where you’re from! T’ain’t been established where the devil you’re from to my satisfaction anyway. You ain’t no better…”
I slapped my cards face up on the table.
“Three of a kind, boys. Don’t matter what you call me, actually. Matters what I am. And right about now I’m the winner. Pay up.”
“You mean’ah tell me yuh bin sittin’ at this table and yuh didn’t know yuh was sittin’ ‘cross from a lady, Tex?” Jack persisted, hiccupping.
“There it is ‘gin. No matter how many times you say it. I got no problem with yuh,” Tex said, looking across the saloon. “I got a problem with, with, with, with them boys over there or nothing else.” Tex stood up. He adjusted his belt. He sat back done.
“Where yah goin’ Tex?” Jack asked.
“Nowhere.”
“One of you better be going somewhere, like out to get my money, unless you got it on you,” I implored.
Tex looked at me like he couldn’t believe his ears, like he possibly was looking at neither a lady nor a man, but a monster. He exaggerated opening his eyes wide, so more white than usual showed. Then, he squinted, like there wasn’t enough light in the room.
He avoided eye contact by looking across the saloon at the bartender.
He did this to give himself enough time to figure out what to do about the colored lady before him. The bartender kept working the bar, setting up glass shot glasses, pouring whiskey.
Then, it happened.
Tex knocked over the table trying to get at me. He swung wildly. I caught the punch, grabbed it out of the midair.
The part that infuriated Tex is that I not only caught the punch, I held it and subdued him. That is, I held onto his fist with one hand. He couldn’t overcome my strength to free it. He swung with his free hand. I blocked that blow.
When I got tired of blocking blows, I hit Tex with a left hook that glanced off his nose. However, I caught enough of his nose to draw blood. There was a lot of blood, too.
The sight of blood has a way of revealing character. It presents something of an emotional crossroads. There is one road that requires you to stand your ground, to fight. There is another road that offers a way out of your troubles, the one that offers escape to the fleet of foot. Tex elected to pick the later. So, he didn’t bother picking up the table. He fled through the saloon doors and vanished!
“And if you want the rest of it, wait for me outside,” I yelled pointlessly at the saloon doors, which were now closed.
I looked at Jack. He was stunned. He hadn’t come to the aid of his friend. He hadn’t risen from his chair. In fact, he hadn’t done anything at all. He just sat there.
“You want some of this, too, partner?” I asked, leaning close enough to Jack to give him a kiss.
Wisely, Jack didn’t answer. He simply ran.
The memorable part of the incident was none of the boys in the saloon saw the need to intervene. They knew my reputation. They knew I packed power in both hands.
After sunset, the ranch hands came into town from the prairie. They hitched their horses at the rail. Most nights, the saloon got crowded and rowdy after sunset. I was at home in all of that action.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cascade, Montana, May 1913
The reporter was interested in talking about the perils of prairie life back before the railroads got going. He talked about gold, boisterous railroad towns, ranching, farming, homesteading, copper mines, and the rest of the panorama associated with the Western expansion, like I was a historian, an authority, or something. I wanted to talk about how the women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution finally passed that year, and how the perils of life on the Western frontier sped up the recognition of women’s rights, but this didn’t seem to tickle the reporter’s fancy.
Women’s suffrage didn’t appear to be a topic the reporter had written anywhere in his notes. He was after a more sensational story, something that would sell newspapers. In his view, women’s rights simply wouldn’t sell.
I knew the reporter wanted to talk about Indians.
The reporter wanted to know if I had any close calls with any of the tribal nations. Now, a story about a woman running mail out in the middle of nowhere may show some appeal, but if the story is complicated by the woman repelling an attack by hostile Indians, now, that was a story that would sell newspapers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t oblige the reporter’s sense of intrigue. However, there were a couple of incidents involving Indians who rode up to my stagecoach out of nowhere.
The stage run went across the open prairie between Cascade and Billings. There were all sorts of perils, surprises. However, the United States Postal Service didn’t insure against surprises, Indian attacks, or anything else, really. You were strictly on your own.
The Crow was the first tribe to confront me. I wasn’t worried at all. The reason is it was broad daylight. I could see the riders coming up out of the distance. I could tell they were not bandits. I could tell they were Crow by the way they rode.
The riders leaned into the necks of their ponies, busy bouncing in their saddles. There were no irons, so their lanky legs curled across the bellies of the ponies, like ropes. The riders wore skirts over their loins, not trousers. The skirts sported colorful patterns, including rows of diamond shapes.
The Crow were stripped naked to the waist. Their entire bodies, including their upper bodies, legs, and faces, were covered with horrible white paint. The way their eyes blinked and peered out from the mask of white paint made them look mysterious, even evil. They wore colorful strings of beads across their chests. Their faces were long. Each man wore long hair woven into two tight braids that fell over each shoulder.
All appearances to the contrary, the Crow were friendly. They were nomadic, having arrived on the Western frontier from Alberta, Canada following the buffalo herds. As a Nation, they had befriended the United States army and supported the Western expansion as scouts. The Crow had fought alongside the 57th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Battle of Greasy Grass. The Crow were not hostile to the rapid change that came with the discovery of gol
d and the railroads and the new settlements popping up everywhere. On the contrary, they roamed the prairie following herds of buffaloes
Predictably, the Crow warriors rode up to the stagecoach, spotted me on the buckboard, said nothing, turned their mounts away, and simply vanished. That was it. There was nothing particularly sensational in this encounter. My encounter with the Lakota, on the other hand, scared me halfway to death.
The Lakota showed interest in my stagecoach. They were highly skilled warriors and completely hostile to the Western expansion. They had annihilated Custer’s men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
I could tell the riders approaching the stagecoach were Lakota. Their bodies were completely covered in baggy buckskin. The buckskin had simple patterns of geometric shapes and abstract shapes of birds. Unlike the Crow, their long hair was unbraided and parted down the middle of their heads. Their hair flowed in the breeze as they bounced on saddles mounted over colorful saddle cloths.
I held my finger snug against the trigger of my .38. The .38 was under my apron. The sight of Lakota triggered heightened breathing. My shotgun was leaning against the buckboard, still untouched.
I didn’t want to excite the Lakota. They might have been spoiling for a fight. Their faces were bronze and wide, like Eskimos. They weren’t as tall as Crow warriors, and they didn’t paint their bronze skin.
Two curious feathers were stuck in headbands at the back of their heads, fully erect. Each rider carried a spear, not a firearm.
The Lakota eased their mounts and rode alongside of the stagecoach. I let the team plod along. There was no point in trying to outrun two Lakota warriors on ponies. It would have been foolhardy to try, so I didn’t object to the warriors joining the parade. I waited to act until there was a sign the warriors intended to make a move to stickup the stagecoach.
The Lakota didn’t speak. However, their eyes spoke volumes. Their eyes searched me for signs of fear. There were none. Their eyes curiously searched the empty stagecoach. Their eyes squinted at the rifle. Then, they made eye contact with me. This was their way of informing me that they knew I was armed.
The Lakota remained casual on their ponies, walking so slowly alongside the stagecoach that the hooves of the ponies dragged in the dust. After the Lakota satisfied themselves that they had erased any doubt in my mind that they lacked confidence, they fell out of line, stopped their mounts, and simply watched as my team kept after the trail ahead. I looked back over my shoulder. The Lakota were gone.
I snapped the reins at the team. The team complied. We were back on the open trail toward Billings.
This story may not have thrilled the reporter, but every line of it was true. The Indians never bothered me, and I never bothered the Indians. I guess you would say it was a case of mutual respect.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I stopped looking at the reporter. Instead, I stared at a random spot on the newsroom wall. I looked at that wall like the wall was a spot I tried to detect on a ridge off on Wolf Mountain. The memory of the Civil War years, and thoughts of the Crow and Lakota, swept my mind completely off into a daydream. The reporter gave me time to recover. He didn’t rudely interrupt. After a fashionable period of time, he politely broke the daydream.
“Are you okay, Mary?”
“I want to stay on this beautiful land for the rest of my days. In order to change it, to see it progress, it needs to happen out here the same way the rest of the nation evolved. For example, the railroads took over from the stagecoaches. That event made change happen. Without the railroads, Montana would have remained wild, don’t you think? The way folks get along has to happen the same way. Something has to improve to help us progress, so we can advance. We aren’t allowed to curse in church because it’s a church, right?”
“Curse or draw a weapon,” the reporter interrupted, emphasizing to me that he had paid careful attention to everything I said. He wanted to alert me that I might be venturing into hypocrisy.
“Curse or draw weapons, yes,” I said, ignoring the larger point about hypocrisy. “The same way we can’t curse or act a fool in church should apply to the whole nation. I think hate speech or acting a fool should be outlawed everywhere in the nation, like it is banned in church, because the nation is a church, too. I think this ban would do for the nation what the railroad did for the Pacific Northwest. I think it would get done all of the other things Mr. Lincoln had in mind. I think that was what Mr. Lincoln was trying to get across to us.”
“Are you planning to ever leave Montana? For instance, do you ever see yourself going back to Ohio or Mississippi?”
“Or Tennessee?” I asked rhetorically, emphasizing that the reporter might possibly not have listened to my story as carefully as he believed.
Did he actually think I would consider going backward in life? If so, why not go all the way back to my origins as a slave in Tennessee?
“What’s the news this week? What are you writing about? What’s going to be on the front page?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“We are running stories on the Woodrow Wilson administration, Grand Central Station in New York, the world’s largest train station, has reopened, and rumors about a filmmaker’s plans to secretly film the greatest movie ever made, a movie about the Civil War.”
“What’s the movie called?”
“Birth of a Nation. It’s supposed to be the first ever speakie. Imagine how fast things are changing.”
“Seems most things are changing rapidly while other things are staying exactly the same.”
“You know how to read, Mary?”
“I learned on the plantation. I was field, but I got chances to get to the house where I was around reading. I paid attention the best I could until I picked it up, secretly of course.”
“Do you ever get a little homesick, like think about missing folks back in Tennessee?”
“No, I want to stay on the beauty of this land in Montana for as close to forever as I can get.”
The reporter was a very thoughtful fellow. The interview wasn’t over. He asked more questions about the adventures of Mary Fields—“Stagecoach” Mary Fields, pioneer. However, I had already reported the crux of what happened. The rest remained open to speculation.
Epilogue
“Stagecoach” Mary Fields, the lion of women’s rights, human dignity, really, met her demise, as the legend goes, on an open field in Montana. Suffering from failing health and advanced age, she elected to collapse on the prairie, the one place on earth where she knew it was impossible for her to die alone.
In her final hour, she was apparently confident that the indelible bond, the pact, she formed with Montana would not be broken. There really was nothing left, except mountains, sky, and dust. Nothing else. On her dying day, you might say she left history behind her. You might even say she was born again.
This poetic end to her life would have become the stuff of myth, except it didn’t exactly end in a poetic way. Instead, a couple of locals happened upon her body on the field while she was still clinging to life. They rushed her to Columbus Hospital in Great Falls. There, Mary Fields was pronounced dead.
The attending physicians listed liver failure as the official cause of death. Today, her grave is modestly marked by a common field stone at Hillside Cemetery in Cascade County. The words, Mary Fields, are written on the stone in unsteady hand.
About the Author
James Ciccone was born in Auburn, New York. He graduated Colgate University with a B.A. in Religion and earned a law degree at Albany Law School of Union University.
You don’t want to make me mad. I’ve got a lot of hate in me, and I am not afraid of one blessed thing in this life. I’m Crawford Goldsby—better known as Cherokee Bill—and if you think you’re the one to bring me to justice you’re wrong…dead wrong.
They call me a half-breed, but I killed my first man by the time I was twelve, and I never stopped. Why? Because I like killing—and I’m damn good at it. Indian Territory wou
ldn’t be the same without me.
But this outlaw likes living, too, and when I rob that train carrying millions for a big payoff here in Indian Territory, I’ve got a plan to cut loose and run to South America—along with my fancy woman, Maggie.
Don’t get in my way. Indian Territory is mine. Oklahoma Territory is mine. If you cross me, your life is mine, too. I’m barely eighteen, and I can deliver a kill shot without even looking your way—yes, I’m that good.
Judge Parker can’t wait to get his hands on me over in Fort Smith. If he does, death by hanging will be end of me. Will Parker get his wish? We’ll see…I’ve gotten confident in my own abilities to escape. If he gets his way at last, he won’t see Cherokee Bill running scared.
I’ll look the bastard in the eye and say, “It’s A GOOD DAY TO DIE…”
Stagecoach Justice Page 14