Buffalo Girls (45 page)

She was buried on Mount Moriah, just above James Butler Hickok. A crowd in drunken spirits climbed up the hill and then stumbled down again to try and become more drunken still.

Bartle and Johnny filled in the grave themselves—it was a small measure of economy. Johnny meant to be off the next day, to try his luck in Idaho. Bartle had a show planned in Denver in three weeks—if the receipts were favorable he meant to retire to Sheridan, Wyoming, and open a saloon.

“I don't care if I never see these goddamn dreary Black Hills again,” Bartle said. He and Johnny sat on a wheelbarrow by Calamity's grave, having a smoke. It was Johnny's new wheelbarrow—he was so proud of it he never went anywhere without it, not even to funerals or wakes.

“Why, you'll be back,” Johnny said. “I will too, unless I fall off a hill.”

“If you could just learn to roll yourself in your new wheelbarrow your travels would be a lot easier,” Bartle said.

Johnny, no humorist, didn't consider that funny. He smoked a cigar he had meant to give the preacher—but the preacher had found so little of a favorable nature to say about Calamity that Johnny didn't consider he was really owed a cigar.

Bartle Bone felt sad. With Calamity dead, who was there left to see in the lands of the west? Billy Cody was always touring, T. Blue was always ranching—if you visited him you were far too likely to be put to work—and Potato Creek Johnny was too single-minded to be much fun.

Since he never expected to encounter Johnny again, Bartle thought he might just see what the man knew about something he had been curious about for a long time—namely, whether Calamity had been a woman or a man.

“I traveled many a mile with Martha Jane,” Bartle said. “She was with me in Chicago when Jim was kilt—the memory will sting ever time I think about it. You knew Martha nearly as long as I did. I'd like to ask you one question. Did you ever hear that Martha was a hermaphrodite?”

Doc Ramses had explained the meaning of the term to him.

Johnny twitched a little—big words often made him twitch. He tried to remember if he had ever heard that particular term applied to Calamity, and could not recall that he had.

“No, and you know what? I don't care what religion she was,” Johnny said. “I just liked the old girl.”

M
Y
C
OMPLIMENTS TO THE
S
HADES OF
:

Martha Jane Canary
Dora DuFran
Teddy Blue Abbott
William F. Cody
Jack Omohundro
Sitting Bull
Annie Oakley
Daisy, Countess of Warwick
Russell of the
Times
Potato Creek Johnny and a few others whose stories outgrew their lives