Buffalo Girls

by Larry McMurtry

  You’d think the boys would get tired of wandering, I do, Janey. I was around Miles City for two months and there’s not much to do in Miles City. Fred the parrot is more intelligent than most people in Miles City and Fred only knows two words. You must think your mother is harsh to criticize people so, I should be kinder, I try, but then some old snoot with five or six corsets on will look down her nose at me and act like I have no right on the street with her, though the street might be just a mudhole anyway. It hurts—I know they’re just old biddies, most people are friendly to me in Miles City, but somebody will always come along to treat me like dirt. Dora’s tougher in some respects, she stares them down when they try to act uppity with her.

  Dora has offered me a home, she says we’re like sisters, I guess we are. I had no sisters, but Dora had three, they all died, I think Dora misses them. She offered to fix me a nice room with a feather mattress on the bed—she knows how partial I am to feather mattresses.

  Sometimes I don’t know what to think of myself Janey, my own behavior is a puzzle. I could be sleeping in comfort on a feather mattress, in the home of my best friend, too, but here I am, I’ll be lucky to find a soft rock to use for a bed tonight, there are few soft ones along the Powder. I am lucky to have Dora DuFran for a friend, she has been loyal, someday I will tell her about you Janey. Dora has no child herself, I fear she won’t have one now that Blue has jilted her, she expected better of Blue.

  I had better tell her about you though Janey and give her your address, I could always get called to the Great Roundup as Blue calls it, heaven is what people call it who haven’t been raised in the cow country. Well, heaven if you’re hopeful, I’m not particularly.

  When Blue gets drunk he becomes sentimental about all his friends who have been called to the Great Roundup or who rode the long trail, he better watch it, he’ll be riding it himself if he pushes Dora too far. I don’t suppose Dora would really shoot Blue, though I have known women who shot at men, I shot at three myself but missed. I was so mad once I nearly shot a bartender instead of the card cheat I was aiming at, all three times it was over cards—I have never tried to kill anybody over love. Of course I might have shot Wild Bill I guess, he did marry another woman, just as Blue did. It never occurred to me to shoot him, I would have been the one shot if I had tried anything of the sort. Wild Bill had no mercy, I hope that ain’t too harsh a thing to tell you about your father, it’s the truth though, he just didn’t, he would have shot me immediately if I’d shown up waving a gun.

  Look at me, I never thought I had so much to say, I have used up nearly a whole tablet just since I started writing you Janey, it is something to do at night other than stare at the campfire. I am a little worried, I have not seen my dog Cody since around noon. He took after some antelope and I have not seen him since. I hope a bear didn’t get him, he is a big dog but not big enough to handle a bear.

  I feel a bond to Dora, Janey, I feel she needs me, maybe she is the only one who does. I think I will just ramble with the boys for a month or so if I can find them, then I might go back to Miles City and see how I feel about the feather mattress.

  Old No Ears will be glad to see me, we are old friends. It was him that found me the time the horse threw me north of Fort Fetterman, he found me in a blizzard and led me in. I could not see six inches, he tied a rope to my belt, if he had let go the rope I’d have been riding in the Great Roundup ten years ago.

  Goodnight Janey,

  your mother Martha Jane

  4

  I THINK YOU MISSED YOUR LAST CHANCE FOR GLORY WHEN you decided not to go with Crook,” Bartle said to No Ears.

  “I’d have gone myself,” Bartle added. “I consider Crook the best general left. I just didn’t much feel like wandering around being shot at by Apaches.”

  “You’d have gone alone then,” Jim Ragg said. “It’s nothing against Crook. I just won’t put up with that heat.”

  No Ears had decided to travel with the mountain men for a while. The cranes were less likely to settle where three men were camping together, which meant less temptation for his soul.

  He had been thinking about his soul a lot since the encounter on Crazy Woman Creek. He wondered if perhaps his soul would grow feathers as it traveled with the birds. The business about Crook held no interest for him. He had heard of Geronimo and thought he would be a lot of trouble to catch. It would mean traveling with soldiers, something No Ears found inconvenient.

  Even traveling with the mountain men had its inconveniences, the main one being that Bartle wanted to talk all the time. Jim Ragg also seemed to find this tendency of Bartle’s annoying—he seldom said much himself and often refused to make any reply at all.

  No Ears felt it was impolite not to reply; he would generally try to make some answer to Bartle’s queries, but courtesy took energy, and No Ears would really rather they just all walked along quietly. That way he could apply more of his energy to thinking about his soul.

  To everyone’s disappointment the Morning Star Saloon stood abandoned when they arrived in Ten Sleep. Indeed, Ten Sleep itself—all three buildings of it—had been abandoned. The only resident was a black chicken that had apparently been left behind. The chicken lived behind the bar, and it squawked irritably when the three men arrived.

  “I hate a black squawker,” Bartle said. He wrung the chicken’s neck and they ate it for supper. No Ears ate the gizzard and the neck, two chicken parts he had always had a craving for. In his youth he would run down prairie hens, mainly for the pleasure of eating their tasty gizzards.

  “This was once a lively town,” Jim Ragg said, depressed to find Ten Sleep abandoned. “It was more than ten years ago that we were through here, and it had three saloons. I hate to see a place dry up.”

  “I guess Ten Sleep just dwindled,” Bartle commented. “I kind of like it abandoned. We could capture it without a fight and have it be our town. No Ears can be the mayor, I’ll be the judge, and you can be the sheriff and arrest anybody that shows up if they displease you. We’ll hold court once a week and charge big fines for trespassing or spitting in the street. Owning a town might beat beavering or gold mining, either, as a way to get rich.”

  It was a beautiful morning, not a cloud between them and Colorado. Bartle was still resting under his blanket, snug against the rear of the Morning Star, a little frame saloon that would probably fall down in another year or two, or else be knocked apart by travelers who might see the opportunity to snatch some free lumber. It was already quite drafty inside.

  Bartle saw the abandonment of Ten Sleep as no great loss—it had flourished in the brief time that Texas cowboys were steadily pushing Texas cattle north to the Lodge Grass or farther. Those that didn’t hit the town on their way north made up for the error on their way south. But that time was already dying—only a trickle of Texas cattle came up the trail now.

  He liked the notion of owning a town, particularly a town with no population. He also liked to lie abed late, letting his mind toy with fancies of one kind and another, a habit in stark contrast to that of his two companions, both of whom had been up for hours. Jim Ragg exhibited distinct signs of restlessness; he was determined to find something to do, even though they were in a place where it was obvious that nothing needed doing. Mostly Jim was reduced to building fires and boiling stronger and stronger coffee.

  No Ears was an easier companion in many ways. It was not clear to Bartle whether the old man ever slept, but at least he had no compulsion to invent early morning activities. Mainly, No Ears sat and stared into space, occasionally singing unintelligible melodies to his gods.

  “What I like about Ten Sleep is that it’s a town with elevation,” Bartle said. “You can see a ways. I hate low country. That’s another problem Crook’s gonna have in Arizona. All that low country is apt to cause rheumatism and other diseases. Also, the rattlesnakes are more poisonous in Arizona.”

  “I don’t know why you want to talk foolishness like that,” Jim said. “Arizona ain’t
particularly low and the snakes ain’t no worse than other snakes.”

  “Martha Jane is coming,” No Ears said. “I see that big dog of hers.”

  Bartle sat up in his blankets and Jim stood up to look, but neither of them could see a dog.

  “I thought I saw that dog yesterday,” No Ears said. “It looks like it’s lost.”

  “Well, consider its namesake,” Bartle said, a little irritated at his inability to spot the dog. “Billy Cody’s spent half his life lost but it ain’t kept him from getting rich. Jim and me have never been lost but here we are, without a dime to split.”

  Jim Ragg believed in being methodical. He inspected the horizon carefully, moving his gaze slowly from point to point. He concentrated as hard as he could, until finally his eyes began to water. The force of his concentration gave him a bit of a headache, but he could see no dog. It was no real surprise; No Ears’s vision had often humbled him.

  “I’m damned if I can see a dog,” he said finally.

  “He is pretty tired,” No Ears said. “I think he has been chasing antelope all night. It may take Martha Jane a day or two to catch up with him.”

  No Ears was one of the few who still referred to Calamity by her given name. He thought it was a beautiful name, and was puzzled that people had decided to call her Calamity.

  It seemed to him that it was unnecessary and even dangerous to change a person’s name once the matter had been settled by the proper authorities. He himself had lived most of his life under the handicap of a nickname, but in his case it was understandable, since he had lost his ears so young. His real name was Two Toes Broken; not long after his birth a horse had stepped on his foot and broken two of his toes.

  It saddened the old man to consider that he was probably the only person living who knew his true name. Perhaps there were one or two old women living somewhere along the Platte who would remember him as Two Toes Broken, but it was not likely he would ever see those old women, if even they still survived, and so would never meet a person who would greet him by his true name. It was a lonely fate, and he hoped his friend Martha Jane would avoid it.

  It was a bit of a puzzle to No Ears why she had come to be called Calamity. His own nickname, by comparison, was perfectly simple, since anyone could take one look and see that he lacked ears. But the notion of calamity was a good deal more complicated—essentially it seemed to mean trouble; at least that was how Bartle had explained it to him.

  Bartle might be right about what the word meant, but that didn’t explain why so many people had chosen to attach it to Martha Jane. In No Ears’s experience, Martha Jane was anything but a troublesome person. If he had been choosing a nickname he would have called her Helpful, because she had often gone out of her way to help him. Several times she had persuaded sheriffs to let him out of jail when the sheriffs had just been inclined to let him sit there without much to eat or smoke. She had also helped him nurse his last wife; the wife had died of smallpox anyway, but Martha Jane had done what she could to make her passing easier. No Ears knew of other instances when Martha Jane had been helpful enough to earn herself a kinder nickname such as Helpful. But he had never mentioned his view, even to Martha Jane herself. White people had a different way of naming, and also of nicknaming, it appeared. That was their way and there was no point in arguing with them about it. But he himself still thought it best to call a person by his true name unless special circumstances applied.

  It sometimes occurred to No Ears that there might be a link between the fact that white people had weak eyes and the fact that they had little attachment to their true names. At the moment both mountain men were annoyed because they couldn’t spot Martha’s dog; if they couldn’t see a dog merely because it had lain down to rest behind a bush a mile or two away, how would they see the truth in a person’s name? No Ears had puzzled over white people’s lack of insight for a good many years without reaching a firm conclusion about it. His suspicion was that white people simply had no serious interest in truth. What they managed to see was usually enough truth for them, even if it was only half of what was there to see.

  The interesting thing was that both Bartle and Jim knew perfectly well that he could see better than they could. Both of them were annoyed, but neither of them tried to argue that the dog wasn’t there. And when the dog had had its rest and came trotting into Ten Sleep, they expressed no surprise.

  “Howdy, Cody—I hope you didn’t wander off and leave Calamity lying out drunk,” Bartle said, offering the dog their chicken bones.

  Darling Jane—

  I guess I could have been a book writer if I’d known what an easy habit scribbling is to get into, it is easy if you’ve got a good pencil. Bartle Bone wants to read whatever it is I’m writing, he would never dream it’s a letter to my daughter. He thinks I’m writing about him no doubt—everybody knows Bartle is vain.

  I told him I was writing a book called The Wild West Adventures of Ragg and Bone, Mountain Men of the Old Days. Bartle is already finding fault, he says the title is much too long. He would find a lot more fault if I gave him a glimpse of my spelling, he considers himself a fine speller though so far as I know he has not penned a line in thirty years. It don’t make him modest though—Bartle supposes he can do anything anyone else can do, even spell.

  I guess I won’t listen to wandering horse traders again, that gent I met way back on the Powder gave me bad directions. I spent three days riding the Little Missouri, since he told me the boys were there. I saw no sign of the boys and no sign of Cody either, that is not surprising since the bunch of them were taking it easy in Ten Sleep all the while. You would have thought they would have scurried around and tried to find me once my dog showed up, they didn’t though. Bartle is lazy and probably talked the other two out of making an effort. You can bet I gave them a tongue-lashing when I finally located them. Bartle just laughed. Not much fazes Bartle.

  Jim Ragg don’t look good to me, Janey—no color. I asked him if he was sick, of course he denied it. Mountain men will never admit to being sick, they pride themselves on being able to stand anything. I pointed out to Jim that quite a few mountain men have died as dead as other people, he had no answer for that—he could be rotting away and he would be unlikely to admit it.

  We have been debating about where to go next, Janey—if we go anywhere. Bartle wants to take over Ten Sleep and build it up, he thinks it could be a fine town—ha, if it was a fine town none of us would want to spend five minutes in it. Jim Ragg is convinced there are beaver in the Owl Creek Mountains, he still has beaver on the brain. Bartle don’t want to go, he’s feeling lazy still. I think we might as well go, we don’t have to stay long—if we don’t go Jim Ragg will complain for years about all the beaver we made him miss.

  No Ears calls me Martha Jane, of course it’s my name but I’ve been Calamity so long it’s odd to hear it. Dora still calls me Martha once in a while when she’s feeling sweet. Blue don’t, although he knew me when Martha was all I was ever called—so did Bartle and Jim. I don’t know if I would ever have got west if not for Bartle and Jim, I was having a hard time finding my way out of St. Louis. I knew nothing then. I was hired to chop firewood, the man that hired me didn’t realize I was a girl. Bartle and Jim were guiding ten wagons, I think they had only agreed to get them as far as the Arkansas, they took a liking to me and let me accompany the wagons. It surprised them that I could walk all day as good as a mountain man. Some of the ladies in the wagons didn’t approve of my dress—I had hardly set foot in the west before ladies started not approving. I hope you will never meet with the kind of scorn I have met with, Janey, it leaves a bitter taste.

  Now Bartle and Jim have nearly had a fight, it’s a good thing we have no liquor here—if drunk, I fear they would have fought. Bartle’s patience is about gone when it comes to beaver, he’s finally ready to admit there ain’t none to be found. He don’t want to go to the Owl Creek Mountains or anywhere else in search of beaver. Bartle said he’d rather just stay in Ten
Sleep and think for a few days—it upset Jim no end. Think about what? he asked. Bartle said nothing in particular, he would just enjoy the opportunity to do some general thinking. All right if you want to be lazy, Jim said, he has always considered Bartle to be somewhat on the lazy side. I ain’t lazy but I’ve had about enough of walking up one hill and down the other looking for beaver with you, Bartle replied, he would have done better to keep that remark to himself, now Jim will sulk for days.

  No Ears is worried that it might be getting time for him to die. He says some cranes showed up where they shouldn’t have been the other night—he thinks they were waiting around hoping to make off with his soul. I will be sorry if he does die, I will have one less friend. But it ain’t No Ears I’m worried about, it’s Jim Ragg. If I knew where there were beaver I’d buy him a few, it’s about the only thing that might cheer him up.

  Now Bartle is trying to sing, he’s singing Buffalo Girls, I am going to stop this letter, he might take it wrong if he saw me scribbling while he’s trying to entertain us.

  Goodnight Janey,

  your mother Martha Jane

  5

  DORA’S HAIR WAS STILL FINE AND SOFT, WITH ONLY A SPRINKLE of gray in it. Some of the girls thought she ought to dye out the gray—“Old ladies don’t belong in sporting establishments,” Trix remarked—but Dora ignored them. For one thing, the Hotel Hope was her establishment; she had worked hard to get it and she made all the decisions, including the decision to let her own hair go gray if it wanted to.

  Now that she was more or less retired, Dora rarely primped much, but she did devote some time to her hair, brushing it every afternoon for the better part of an hour. She had never considered herself particularly pretty; her soft, dark hair had always been her best feature. Sometimes in bitter moods she wished it would just go on and turn white; perhaps then she could get on with being an old lady and subdue the quick hopes she had had to contend with for so long—hopes it seemed would never be satisfied.