Buffalo Girls

by Larry McMurtry

“I’m feeling peculiar about this,” Bartle admitted.

  Jim Ragg was amused. Bartle seemed more than peculiar; he seemed completely rattled.

  “I always expected you to marry,” Jim informed him. “I just didn’t expect you to marry at such an early age. I thought you’d wait till you were about No Ears’s age.”

  “I don’t expect it’s that serious,” Bartle said. “I just met the little miss an hour ago.”

  Since they were leaving London soon, Jim decided to go spend a night with the beaver. He walked back to the zoo through the foggy streets, rather amused by the turn things had taken for his old friend. Along with the amusement, he felt a little relieved. Keeping Bartle on the move had become more and more of a strain. Bartle’s heart had not been in the search, not for many a year; also, it seemed to Jim that he was showing his age more. Perhaps a settled life with Miss Pansy Clowes would be the best thing for Bartle, after all. He himself could go to Canada and locate beaver; once he got a bunch established in Montana, perhaps Bartle could be some help.

  Within a few days everyone in the troupe was remarking on what a good influence the young Birmingham maiden had had on the old mountain man.

  “Look at him, he’s like a fresh puppy,” Calamity said. “She’s just a girl he met in the street at night. She captured him without a struggle.”

  No Ears observed the change in Bartle with no surprise. Aging men and young girls were an old story. He had married two young wives himself; although they had soon died he considered it had been an excellent arrangement. After all, anyone was likely to die.

  Bartle himself could scarcely believe his good fortune. Even Annie Oakley, known to be stiff with females, liked Pansy and hired her to sew rips in her costumes and keep them neat. Jim Ragg liked her to the extent that he had no objection to her; only Calamity remained skeptical—at times Bartle thought Calamity must be jealous, unlikely as that seemed.

  As for relations between Pansy Clowes and Bartle himself, they could not have been better—not in his opinion, at least. She still slipped up and called him sir once in a while, but that was a small error. He discovered that she was not quite so girlish, not quite such of a slip as she had seemed when he first glimpsed her on the street; Pansy had seen a bit of life. But on the whole her decent manners touched Bartle so much that he began to worry about his own deportment a good deal—and his appearance as well. What if she suddenly left him? He felt he would carry the pang forever if that happened.

  The thought worried him so much that he not only changed his buckskins for some that were newer and fresher; he also found a barber and squandered a few days’ wages getting properly trimmed.

  “What’s that smell on you?” Pansy asked pertly, her eyes brightening, when he came rather timidly into the tent after his visit to the barber. Bartle was so taken with the spirited way she said it that he asked her to marry him on the spot.

  The wedding took place the day before they sailed for home. Billy Cody took time to come, and so did Sitting Bull, who had taken a liking to Pansy and gave her his autograph several times. Jim Ragg unbent and kissed the bride. Jack Omohundro danced a Texas fandango with her, and the great vaquero Antonio Esquivel twirled his lariat in a tight loop around bride and groom to ensure that they would remain together forever.

  The only cloud on the horizon was the absence of Calamity, who was eventually found in jail. She had gotten quite drunk and cussed a sailor; the sailor blackened her eye; Calamity thus fired her pistol at him several times, frightening him badly but otherwise doing him no harm. Later she was found asleep in an alley and taken to jail.

  Bartle himself delayed his wedding night long enough to get Calamity out. When he tried to express his disappointment that she had missed the ceremony, Calamity, who looked frightful with her swollen eye, first shook her fist at him, and then began to cry.

  “I’ve retired from going to weddings, I guess,” she said, when she felt better.

  7

  NO EARS FINALLY PERSUADED SITTING BULL AND SEVERAL of the older Indians to go to the zoo with him so they could take information about some of the unusual animals back to their tribes. No Ears felt strongly that as many tribes as possible should know about such beasts as the great mudpig, the anteater, and the ostrich; also the large cats and the even larger white bear. Even if the people in the tribes never saw a mudpig or the great white bear, the information might still be important. The animals might appear to them in dreams; it was simply good policy to learn as much as possible about such animals and pass the information on.

  Sitting Bull became very angry while walking around the zoo. He was very much annoyed that the whites had collected such ugly animals—and not merely ugly—many of the animals were clearly quite dangerous; only people as stupid as the whites could collect such animals and pasture them near their homes.

  Sitting Bull took a particular dislike to the warthog—not only was it extremely ugly, it was also quite clearly ferocious. Sitting Bull wanted to go back to camp, get his rifle, and come back and shoot the warthog before it broke loose and began to kill people.

  By the time they actually returned to camp, Sitting Bull’s anger had increased. He immediately began to try to persuade the young braves to steal some real ammunition from Cody’s wagon and come back to the zoo with him. They would have a fine hunt and rid the world of many dangerous and obnoxious animals. The young braves, who were rather tired of shooting off false bullets in the Wild West show, were perfectly willing to accompany the old chief on a hunt.

  No Ears and Two Hawks, a sensible Brule Sioux, tried their best to put a stop to the notion of a hunt in the London zoo. The whites would be very disturbed—it was necessary to point out how outnumbered the Indians were, should war result. Also, there was the ocean to get back across—even if they fought their way out of London, they still didn’t know how to run a boat.

  Sitting Bull was not convinced. He wanted to go back and shoot the warthog before he started to have bad dreams about it—the great white bear was also worrisome. It was just the kind of animal likely to cause troublesome dreams; he thought they ought to get on their horses, ride through the zoo, and wipe out as many of the bad animals as they could. As for the ocean, it was only a big lake. If they followed its shoreline they would eventually get around it and make their way home.

  Sitting Bull’s opinion about the ocean was popular with quite a few of the Indians, none of whom was looking forward to getting back on the great boat. Most considered that they had been very lucky to make it across the ocean the first time. Two Hawks himself had been very uncomfortable on the ocean; he had spent much of the voyage singing his death song. He reminded everyone of the great whale fish. What if a herd of whale fish tried to attack? The thought of a herd of whale fish did not improve Sitting Bull’s mood—or anyone else’s mood, either.

  Fortunately Cody appeared in time to keep everyone’s mood from getting any worse. Cody wanted Sitting Bull and a few chiefs to go with him to something he called a wax museum. It seemed to be a place where they kept wax carvings of great chiefs of various tribes. Cody told Sitting Bull and Red Shirt and one or two others that the Queen particularly hoped they would let the carvers of the wax museum make statues of them; that way the Queen could visit the museum once in a while and be reminded of the visit they had all made to her country.

  No Ears decided to go along. He thought he might enjoy seeing a few carvings. Even if the carvings were ugly, he might enjoy seeing the buildings along the way. It was a puzzle why whites felt they had to put their buildings so close together.

  As they clumped along the river, he saw that there were even little tribes of people who lived in boats. Cody was doing his best to keep Sitting Bull in a good mood, telling him several times what a great honor it was that the Queen wanted him to have his statue carved so she could remember his visit. Despite Cody’s efforts, Sitting Bull remained in a surly temper. As a guest, he felt it was incumbent on him to do what the Queen requested, but what he r
eally wanted to do was go back and shoot the warthog.

  The first thing they saw when they got to the museum was a statue of Cody, and another of Annie Oakley—they had only been finished the day before. Sitting Bull was very taken with the statue of his little sure shot and began to ask if he could buy it. He was told he couldn’t, which didn’t improve his mood. He grew annoyed when the man who was going to make his statue began to measure him, but Cody finally got him to behave.

  No Ears was not particularly interested in the statues; he felt it might be more interesting to go back and study the tribes who lived on boats. Of course it was odd that the whites had filled a whole building with statues of dead chiefs or their women, but he didn’t take much interest in the proceedings until he happened to see one of the men who worked in the museum sticking a pair of ears on the head of a tiny statue.

  Jack Omohundro, who stood beside No Ears, saw the point immediately. He looked at No Ears, he looked at the statue that was having its ears fixed, and he walked over to the workman and got right down to business.

  “Is that a statue of a midget?” he asked.

  “Yes, Tom Thumb,” the man said irritably; he seemed to be in the kind of mood Sitting Bull was in.

  “A nasty little brat pulled his ears off,” he added. “It’s happened before and it will happen again.”

  The man had a sizable goiter on his neck, but he knew his business; he quickly worked the ears back onto the statue.

  “The point is I’ve got a friend here who needs a pair of ears,” Jack said. “How much to make him a pair?”

  The workman had quite a start when he looked around and saw that No Ears indeed lacked ears.

  “Lord Gad!” he said. “Who pulled this old fellow’s off?”

  Once his professional curiosity was aroused he quickly became more friendly; he came over and gave No Ears’s head a close inspection.

  “Whoever sawed ’em off should have sharpened his saw,” the man remarked. “They done a rough job. Let’s go down and see what we can find.”

  They went down some stairs until they were quite a distance under the earth; to No Ears’s astonishment they were taken into a large room filled with parts of people. One whole shelf, the length of the room, contained heads—but the heads had no features. There was a shelf of hands, and a shelf of feet—even a shelf of torsos. Smaller shelves were covered with ears and noses. The workman studied the shelf of ears for a while and then held up two that seemed about right for No Ears. He rummaged in a drawer and found a mirror so No Ears could look at himself and take part in the selection.

  No Ears began to get the shakes. He had seen whites go in stores and try on hats and other garments, but he had never supposed that the hour would come when he would be trying on ears. The workman had become very friendly; he seemed ready to spend all day seeing that No Ears got exactly the ears he desired.

  The selection wasn’t easy, either. No Ears had the shakes so badly he could hardly keep the various ears shoved up against his head long enough to consider which looked best. He changed his mind several times; he felt upset and could not remember to talk in English. He began to express his opinions in Sioux. Jack knew a little Sioux but not enough to follow No Ears’s discussion, which was rather particular; he ran upstairs to get an Indian who could help, and soon, to the workman’s amazement, the whole party was down in his workroom, helping No Ears pick out ears.

  When so many eyes fixed upon him, No Ears grew even more shaky—he began to despair of making up his mind. One set of ears would seem correct for a few seconds; then he would see another that seemed better. Everyone else had an opinion, too—one would argue for one pair, someone else for another. A young brave named Plenty Horses, who seemed to dislike his own ears, wanted someone to cut them off for him so he could have a new pair. Several people wanted to buy a spare set of hands or feet in case they lost theirs in battle.

  Fortunately Cody finally showed up and solved the problem by buying No Ears a dozen pairs of ears.

  “They’re wax, they might wear out,” Cody told him. “Let’s get a supply while we’re here.”

  The workman with the goiter, who turned out to be a patient fellow, gave No Ears some special glue to help him fix the ears to his head; he carefully explained how the glue was to be put on and taken off.

  “Now these won’t do for every day,” the man cautioned. “If a brat grabs one, it’ll spoil it. If I was you I’d just save them for weddings or maybe funerals—they’ll do fine for special occasions.”

  He gave No Ears a nice wooden box to keep his ears in. Of course, when they got back to camp everyone wanted to see them; two or three pair were badly smudged before curiosity diminished. Fortunately the workman at the museum had given the party a sackful of wax limbs, arms and legs mostly, that had been broken off statues and were no longer deemed useful. These kept most of the crew amused.

  For the first few days No Ears did nothing but guard his ears from all comers. Sitting Bull was jealous because he had not been given any ears; he demanded that No Ears present him with a set. No Ears resisted and fortunately his understanding friend Cody came to his aid. Cody gave him a fine box, lined in velvet, to keep the ears in. The box even had a lock and key so that No Ears could lock up his ears whenever he wanted to.

  The box with the lock and key reassured him for a while, but not for long—it was all too obvious that virtually everyone in the troupe envied him his wax ears. Sitting Bull was far from being the only one who coveted them—even his old friend Two Hawks, who had two perfectly good ears of his own, pestered No Ears for a look and even asked if he could borrow a pair for a few days.

  No Ears soon came to feel quite resentful of the fact that everyone coveted his new ears. All the people who envied him had real ears of their own and had had real ears their whole lives, whereas he had spent nearly seventy years without ears of any kind. It annoyed him that people couldn’t simply have the good manners to let him enjoy his ears in his own way.

  No Ears told Calamity of his disappointment in the manners of his friends while the two of them stood at the rear of the great boat as it sailed away from England. No Ears felt a little sad; he had not liked England, yet it had to be admitted that the English were ingenious. No Sioux had ever ever thought of making him wax ears; no American had, either.

  Calamity did not look well. She had taken to drinking and fighting with sailors almost every night. The police had taken her pistol away; without her pistol she could not scare the sailors, and thus got regularly pummeled. She looked so battered that she refused to have her picture taken with the troupe before departure. Cody, after one look at her face, had not insisted.

  “It’s good riddance to England,” she said, as she and No Ears watched the gray shore fade into the gray sea.

  She was in such a warlike mood that No Ears was rather fearful about what might happen once they returned to America. What if she didn’t want him to travel with her anymore? Where would he go?

  “I can’t wait to see Dora,” Calamity said. “Do you reckon we’ll be there in a month?”

  “I’m afraid someone will steal my new ears while we’re on this boat,” No Ears said. It had become his darkest fear.

  “I’ll keep ’em for you,” Calamity suggested. “They’ll be safe with me. Nobody wants to get near me now. I’ve even got too rough for Sitting Bull.”

  No Ears adopted this suggestion. He hid his box of ears under Calamity’s bunk; he visited her cabin several times a day to make sure they were still there.

  On the sixth day out from England No Ears saw something as impressive as the whale fish; he saw a great mountain of ice floating in the sea. The ice mountain was so large that it took the ship all day to leave it behind. No Ears watched it as long as he could see it. A sailor informed him that there were thousands of ice mountains in the northern seas.

  Before No Ears could think too much about the ice mountain, a storm struck the ship. The storm continued for three days, and long b
efore the third day everyone on board was sick. The one exception was Annie Oakley, who was unaffected by the storm, though she did have to interrupt her shooting practice. Most of the Indians began to sing their death songs again, but No Ears felt too sick even to do that. Calamity decided she should sing a death song too, and she sang “Buffalo Girls.” Her voice was too weak for the singing to be heard over the crash of the storm.

  “I’m never leaving the shore again if I get out of this,” she said after each spell of vomiting.

  Sitting Bull got so sick that he wanted to shoot the captain of the ship, a man he had never liked. One of the elk got loose somehow and rushed around the deck frantically before jumping into the sea. No Ears watched it happen. The great sea immediately swallowed the foolish elk.

  In the agony of the storm and the long fatigue that followed it, the box of ears was gradually forgotten. No Ears unlocked the box and looked at the ears only when no one was around. He fixed them to his head when he was alone. After some reflection he decided it was far too late to present himself in public as a man with ears. For seventy years he had been No Ears; everyone in the west knew him by that name. If he were to suddenly appear wearing ears, it would only confuse everyone. Some of his friends might think he had become a bad spirit and refuse to speak to him.

  In private, though, when everyone was asleep, No Ears often opened his box and quietly fixed a pair of ears to his head for an hour or two. With ears on, he could sit and smoke and peacefully dream his way through a different life. He dreamed himself as he would have been as a young man like others—that is, with ears. He saw himself taking many more wives and becoming much more prosperous than he had been. He saw himself as a leader in battle, helped by his keen ears; he saw himself as a chief of his people, though in truth he had been something of an outcast.

  Most pleasing of all to No Ears was an ability he acquired, thanks to his fine ears, to dream back the conversations he had missed in life due to the whistly and uncertain nature of his hearing. The voices of old-time people began to float back to him in his dreams. He heard again his lively young wife Pretty Moons; he heard his friend Sits On The Water describing the best tactic for catching angry turtles; he even dreamed back a conversation he had once had with Crazy Horse, an abrupt man who didn’t have too many conversations. Crazy Horse had been in the mood to kill some soldiers that day, but whether he had done it had never been clear to No Ears. In the dream memory, though, he saw Crazy Horse coming back with three scalps, indicating that he had followed his mood.