Hour Glass Page 9

  When the item came free, I laid eyes on a little buckskin turtle with a leather strap making it suitable for wearing. It was decorated with tiny beads and bits of stone, and tenderly painted red in places to look like a turtle. I remembered watching Cage make the little amulet. When Flower was born, she had been so careful to save the bit of her cord when it fell off. It was sacred, she had said, to keep the thing that connected her to her baby. As was her people’s way, Cage had put her bit of cord in this buckskin pouch and made a turtle out of it. It was her Keya, she had told me. Pa thought she was crazy when she made it.

  I intercepted the argument, holding up the amulet like a white flag of truce.

  “Can we take her with this? Is it enough protection, Cage?”

  Her mouth was wide open, as I had interrupted her in the midst of a good rant. She looked at the little turtle amulet I held, and the tenderness came back to her face as she closed her lips again. The edges of her eyes softened, and suddenly the storm had passed. Sunny, blue skies opened up above us through the parting clouds. Pa, for his part, looked relieved but still took great caution with his words.

  “She can wear it around her fer protection,” he said gently.

  There was still worry in Cage’s face, but she nodded, still looking at the amulet.

  Not long after, we were trotting our way to town. I walked beside Pa, who led our mule Betty with Cage, Flower, and a load of furs on her back. Cage held the baby with the Keya around her and the blanket she was wrapped in. Her face was not happy or content, but the cradleboard had stayed at home. She had refused any white clothes, but she had settled for her plainer dress. Compromise seemed to mean no one was truly happy, and everyone chewed on a bitter weed for the duration of the day.

  Town had few real buildings. There was a general store and an adjoining saloon that were made completely of wood, but most of the buildings around were nothing more than big canvas shanties. There was no telegraph or mail service yet. One preacher man had set up shop in a lean-to next to the saloon, but he weren’t seeing much business. The town didn’t even have a proper name. This was a place for trappers and the like to trade and buy goods that weren’t available in the wilds of the Dakotas. Nothing more.

  We walked Betty to a hitching post and tethered her there among others of her kind and the horses who watered at the trough together. Pa and I unloaded her burden and made several trips into the store to carry everything we had to trade. We left Cage with Flower outside the store near the entrance. She was only a holler away, but when the last of the furs had been unloaded, Pa told me to go outside with her while he spoke business with the clerk.

  By the time I made my way outside to her, a small crowd was already there menacing her—her back against the outside wall of the store. At first, there were just three people, ragged-looking trappers it appeared, but then a few more joined in. They seemed to flock to the spectacle like a murder of crows sniffing out an easy meal.

  “Who said you was welcome here, squaw?”

  “This place ain’t fer yer people.”

  “I think she was part o’ that party come by and scalped old Holland last month.”

  “You better run squaw, and take that papoose with you.”

  I ran to her in a hurry as her back touched the wall. There was nowhere for her to go, but her eyes told another story. Cage glared at the men as stoic as if she were holding a rifle instead of just reaching for the small knife she had on her hip. No person worth their salt liked to show they were backed in a corner, but backed in a corner she was.

  I put my small body in between her and the men.

  “Stand back,” I said with my boy’s voice.

  So badly I wished for a man’s voice just then, but I summoned up all I could manage. The men laughed at me a little, and some of the menace left the air.

  “What you care about this Injun, kid?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  Cage didn’t look at me, and I didn’t look at her, but something connected between us at that moment. There was a recognition that hadn’t been there previously. She had always been careful with her affection toward me and had never forced mothering on me since she was not mine by blood, but something had grown in the space between us. Neither of us were the type to discuss the matter, but when I called her my mother to the band of men before us, a binding took place.

  The hand that wasn’t holding Flower let go of her knife and placed itself on my shoulder. She claimed me for all to see.

  Something about this riled them up all over again. Two men came at us. One grabbed at my shirt, and the other grabbed at Cage and Flower. We screamed and Cage wrapped her arm around me hard so they couldn’t pull me from her. In the process of protecting me, the other man had seen the Keya amulet come loose from Flower’s blankets and yanked it off the baby with a quick snap of the leather that held it.

  “No, don’t!”

  The men let us go, but they ignored Cage’s cries for the amulet. Satisfied enough with their new prize and the reaction they were getting from it, they backed off enough to torment her with it. All the fight had gone from her eyes. She held Flower and me to her body, desperately pleading with the men to give her back the turtle.

  “You want this thing back? What is it?”

  “Looks like Injun black magic to me.”

  “Do you use this, squaw, to curse little white children?”

  Cage didn’t say anything. Maybe she knew it would do no good. Every word she said would fall on deaf ears. But those eyes of hers longed after the delicate amulet in their hands.

  “Give it back!” I cried on her behalf. “It’s for the baby.”

  Cage squeezed me closer to her.

  “It’s fer the baby, is it? You hear that, fellers? Black Injun sack magic fer the baby.”

  The gruff man threw the turtle down and began stomping on it.

  “No!”

  They all joined in. Some spat on the sack, others kicked dirt and grit on it. Within a few tearful seconds, it was nothing but rags. The urge for tears welled up inside me, and I hugged close to Cage as the men closed in on us once again.

  “If’n you cried for that bag, just wait ‘til you see what we gonna do to you.”

  A long shadow suddenly eclipsed Cage, Flower, and me from our left side. At the same moment as the shadow appeared, the clicking sound of a cocking pistol silenced the party around us. The men’s attention turned away from us and to the tall, lean figure of my pa standing a few feet away with a gun trained right at the head of the lead man. I was so happy to see him, tears fell down my face. Relief filled Cage’s eyes. The men were not nearly as pleased.

  “Now, what exactly were you plannin’ to do to my wife?” said Pa to the main fellow.

  His eyes were level and his tone was mean. It was the stern mean that was meant to speak down to and frighten lesser men. The men before us backed off a little, and the one in front rose his hands in surrender.

  “Nothin’, cuz. We was just foolin’.”

  “I ain’t your cuz, and it didn’t sound like foolin’ to me.”

  “Come on now. We didn’t know she was your squaw.”

  “She ain’t. She’s my wife. Them’s my children. Now, you is gonna back away, and let us leave. You do that, and no one’s gotta get hurt.”

  The men nodded and backed away slowly with all hands in the air, but they didn’t leave. This standoff wasn’t going to end gently. They kept their ground, not saying anything but not letting us out of their sights. Pa cocked his head in my direction.

  “Jimmy, you go get tha store man to help you load Betty. Do it now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I tried to go once, but Cage was still holding me tight to her. Pa inched closer to her and whispered just loud enough for us to hear alone.

  “Let him go, Cage. I’m here. They don’t want him.”<
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  Reluctantly, she unraveled her arm from my chest, and I ran inside to the store. The man who owned the store refused to help me load our goods in the middle of a standoff, so he sent his black boy from the storeroom to help me. The poor kid’s dark eyes were as wide as dinner plates when we walked out to the scene I had just left. I felt plum sorry he had gotten wrangled into a mess that weren’t his.

  We worked as fast as we could, loading Betty up with all that Pa had bought with our furs. The boy and I both trembled with terror as we worked. No one was talking, and not one person moved an inch other than us. This was a battle of wills, and had Pa not had his gun, we would have already lost the fight.

  When we had finished, Pa thumbed a nickel at the boy as he ran back inside. He and Cage edged their way to the mule slowly, never turning their backs on the men before them. For an instant, Cage’s hand reached out to the mutilated amulet in the dirt in front of them as if to grab for it. One touch from his free hand told her not to even try for the thing. I helped her and the baby onto Betty’s back so Pa could keep his gun trained.

  “Lead Betty on ahead, Jimmy. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  And so it went that way. I led our mule away from the town with Cage and Flower and all our goods on her back. Pa brought up the rear by walking backwards, still aiming his pistol at the men outside the general store. The men never advanced nor did they back down. All of them watched us with silent menacing faces as we slowly made our way out of town. I would never forget how long it took or how deathly quiet everything in the world was on that terrifying journey home that day. We never went back.

  10

  To the untrained eye, life looked to be a peaceful thing for us in the waking world of Deadwood. Hour liked the chores Nancy May gave her to do in the kitchen. Their time was spent rather perfectly, seeing as how Nancy May loved to gossip on and on, and for Hour to speak any words at all was a feat in itself. Time moseyed by them easily as the cook babbled on to the quiet girl peeling potatoes. The key was to stop Hour when she had peeled enough. Otherwise, if left alone, the girl would probably have kept peeling until she was too hungry to continue.

  Likewise, my life at Diddlin’ Dora’s was one of routine and happy days. I didn’t mind the work at all. Mopping and moving cases of whiskey was a mighty upgrade from all that I normally did in the shanty by the creek. There, I was mother to Hour and cook to Pa. At least at the cathouse, there was always something happening and someone to talk to. The girls were thankful for my help, and they often doted on me like I were a cute puppy or a little brother. I didn’t mind a lick if Lil’ Missy wanted to pinch my cheeks and say sweet things to me. Not to mention having a house full of cats was always amusing to watch. They’d tumble after one another and not think a second about pawing a man’s unattended whiskey glass off his table.

  One customer found himself without a date when he angrily kicked at one of the girl’s cats. The black and white cat had made a nuisance of herself, seeing as how her owner was perched in the man’s lap. With one adept paw, the cat knocked his whiskey to the floor, and the fellow was none too pleased. He hollered and kicked at the animal, not landing one blow. Joseph poured him another drink on the house, but he had lost his date, who ran off to see about her precious pet. After that, more men than not learned to hold their tempers and treat the furry inhabitants as amusement so as to not upset the girls.

  The thing of it was we’d been here over a week. Sometimes, it felt a lot longer. So much had happened in the space of that week, it seemed as though it should have fit into a solid month, if not two. Regardless of feelings, it had been a week, and there were no reports on Pa’s progress since I saw him with Jane.

  Jane was busy elsewhere, it seemed. When she weren’t at the pest tent, which was a rarity, she was at Dora’s, drinking her fill. Not once all week had she tried to sleep in her cot in the storeroom we were supposed to share. I eventually just moved Hour and Fred to it, seeing as how it made not a lick of sense that she sleep on the floor rather than use an empty cot. A few times, I had caught sight of Jane in the saloon and tried to ask her about Pa, but she’d ducked my questions and gone outside. The thing was, I knew where she slept. I’d seen her almost every morning passed out drunk against the necessary behind Dora’s.

  There came a point I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore. I grabbed Hour after lunch and headed to the outhouse. I asked my sister to bring her swear jug, knowing full well Jane couldn’t duck the likes of Sheriff Hour so easily. At least, that was the nickname most of the girls started calling her because of her ruthless pursuit of pennies from people who swore. Between the cats and Hour’s swear jug, Diddlin’ Dora’s was certainly cleaning up its ways.

  “Why are we leaving? We going home?” asked Hour when we were alone.

  “No. We are going to go see Pa.”

  We found Jane, just as I suspected, unconscious next to the outhouse. I kicked up some dirt and nudged her boot to get her attention.

  “Jane, wake up. Please, Jane, wake up.”

  The woman asleep before us moved a bit and moaned. She tipped her hat up to look at me with a face that could melt wax. Sour things tasted sweet by comparison to her gaze. I immediately regretted this decision, but there was no turning back at this point. Forward or bust.

  “Whatch’ya want with me, Jimmy Glass?”

  “We wanna see our pa, please.”

  Jane looked at me harder and then turned her foggy gaze to Hour beside me. Hour stared at the ground as was her custom. Jane smiled at the sight of her.

  “Well, I see you got that jug o’ yours, so I’d better be on my best behavior,” jested Jane.

  “How is our pa? Is he better at all?”

  Jane focused on Hour, trying to gather her attention, but her eyes were fixed to the floor.

  “Have I ever told ya’ll the story of how I got my name?”

  The question was directed more to Hour than myself, probably because I knew she was stalling. Still, the sentence did make Hour look up and into the eyes of the infamous woman.

  “I ’spect it ain’t nearly as pretty a name as we came up with fer you, but it’s quite the tale. Do you wanna hear it?”

  Ever so slightly, Hour nodded her head.

  “Well then, I’ll try to give it all the grandeur it deserves despite my current condition. I was scoutin’ fer a while in Fort Russell, Wyoming, and remained there until the spring of 1872.” Jane was at one end of an invisible rope and we were at the other, with nothing but words, she began reeling us in. “You see, that’s when we were ordered out to the Mussel Shell, or Nursey Pursey as the Injuns say. There was an Indian outbreak there. In that war, all the stiff-collared generals were there. You never seen so many high noses. This campaign lasted until the fall of 1873, and it was during this campaign that I was christened Calamity Jane.”

  Like a child in school, Hour was fixated on every word Jane uttered. She sat there in the dirt, holding her jug, and listening attentively. The fact that the air smelled of all manners of foul things given our current position didn’t seem to bother either of them. Jane was quite the storyteller, and soon, I found myself raptly listening as well. It was like she cast a spell over the two of us. We dangled on her line.

  “It was on Goose Creek, Wyoming, where the town of Sheridan is now located. Captain Egan was in command of the post. We were ordered out to quell an uprisin’ of the Indians and were out fer several days and had numerous skirmishes durin’ which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded.” In her excitement of the telling, Jane came alive with the story. Her arms flew this way and that with more vigor as she spoke. Only in the hard blink here or the fidget of an arm there, could a person see how much the drink had disabled her.

  “Then on returnin’ to the post, we were ambushed about a mile and a half from our destination by a war party. They were out fer our blood as much as we were out fer theirs.�
� The stillness of the pause she left filled us with all the anticipation Jane had bet on. “When fired upon, Captain Egan was shot. I was ridin’ in advance, and hearin’ the shot, turned in my saddle and saw the captain reelin’ and startin’ to fall. I galloped back with all haste to his side and got there just in time to catch him. I ain’t fibbin’ a lick, and I probably couldn’t do it twice in a lifetime, but if I hadn’t reacted the way I did, he and that waxed mustache of his would’a been goners. I lifted him onto my horse and succeeded in gettin’ him back to the fort.” Jane looked pretty pleased with herself.

  “Captain Egan was a funny fellow, and on recoverin’, he laughingly named me Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains! I swear to you this is true, and I have borne that name until this present day.”

  Some might have thought this a tall tale, but I had ridden with Jane when she saved the stagecoach full of people. To write her off as a skilled liar would have been too easy a feat. Perhaps they were all fabrications. Fabrications that enraptured and engaged my unusual sister, but fabrications all the same. The thing was, I had seen Jane in action. Even if what she said hadn’t happened, my guess was it could have. She had the talent of a hero and the tongue of a storyteller. So good was she that I forgot my mission long enough to give up and take my sister back inside.

  Joseph was waiting for me when we walked back into the saloon, dazed and defeated. Hour made a beeline to the kitchen to get ready for the afternoon duties, and I was to help Joseph stock up the saloon. A large shipment of bourbon had arrived, and it needed unloading. After drinking in my appearance, he looked at me with a question on his face.

  My first impression of the man was that he was a kind fellow, but one that was led around by the nose when it came to his wife, Dora. After a solid week of knowing him, I learned other truths. Joseph was bossed around at length, but not for any other reason than he wanted the fine lady to succeed. He was, in fact, a kind fellow. He was also a soft-spoken man who quietly sat back and watched the goings-on in the place. Joseph absorbed more than anyone gave him credit for, and I had seen how much the great Dora DuFran leaned on him in the quieter parts of the day. To dub him the weak one of the two would have been a grave error in judgment.