Telegraph Days (27 page)

“What do you think you're doing out here with these ruffians?” he asked rudely, grabbing my arm. “Get back in that office where you belong!”

I was shocked. Zenas had never spoken to me in that tone before. I suppose we had copulated so much that he must have come to feel that he owned me.

“Hey, you calm down!” I demanded. “You've met Mr. Warren Earp before, haven't you? He's going to try and ride Cody's biggest buffalo, and I want to see it.”

“I'll ride the buffalo, though I admit he is a big scamp,” Warren said confidently.

“I don't care what Mr. Earp's going to do with the buffalo,” Zenas said. His face was as red as a red flannel shirt. “You get back in the office and do your job.”

I tried to disarm Zenas by just looking puzzled and shy.

“This is my job, Zenas,” I informed him. “If Mr. Earp rides the buffalo for half a minute I'm to present him with a check and invite him to join the troupe. Besides that, it's my job to work the stopwatch.”

I thought if I kept my tone mild Zenas would finally calm down.

In the pen the five cowboys, with Cody's help, finally got a saddle cinched onto Monarch's back. Warren Earp spat and tightened his belt buckle and was about to climb over the fence and go ride the buffalo when Zenas, his temper at a fever pitch by the realization that I wasn't going to obey his order, made the mistake of slapping me.

The slap didn't hurt me, but it was loud. Everybody turned to look, including Warren Earp. I was so embarrassed I froze, but Warren Earp didn't freeze.

“Whoa, now, scribbler!” he said, and clipped Zenas on the jaw, knocking him flat.

Across the pen Cody had begun to look annoyed. He wanted Warren to come on while they had the buffalo more or less under control, which is exactly what Warren did. Knocking Zenas flat had been the end of the argument, so far as Warren Earp was concerned.

Zenas sat up, rubbing his jaw. He looked surprised. Though he had traveled all over the West, reporting on outlaws and killers, it had probably never occurred to him that someone might actually hit him.

“Someone needs to go arrest that fellow,” he said, allowing me to help him to his feet.

“What kind of fool are you, Zenas, that you'd slap me?” I asked. “I haven't done anything wrong. Hiring talent for Bill Cody's show is part of my job. Why would you think you had the right to slap me?”

“Because I saw you were keen on that Earp fellow,” he said, plaintively.

“That's all?” I inquired.

About that time, with Warren settled into his seat, the cowboys turned Monarch loose. I at once punched the stopwatch I had been entrusted with.

Then I climbed up on the fence and watched the ride.

Warren Earp hadn't been exaggerating when he said he could ride anything on four legs. He didn't control Monarch—nobody could have managed that—but he rode him as easily as if he were rocking him back and forth in a rocking chair. Thirty seconds slowly ticked away, and Warren still rode the brute.

Across the corral Bill Cody began to look worried.

“Get off!” he yelled. “I wanted you to ride him, not tame him!”

Warren swung off and just kept his feet.

Monarch continued bucking until he shed the saddle.

I strolled over in my capacity as majordomo and handed Warren Earp his reward: one hundred dollars in cash. I believe the young man had been expecting ten at most—for him riding a buffalo was no exceptional feat.

But he took the hundred and expressed his gratitude to Cody. He even tipped his hat to me.

In the excitement of the ride I had completely forgotten Zenas Clark—when I looked around he was nowhere to be seen. Warren had left his horse hitched over by the saloon. I strolled along with him, enjoying the morning.

But the more I tried to be friendly, the shyer Warren Earp became.

“That scribbler of yours, he's rude,” he told me. “I expect you can do better, if you're willing to look around.”

“I may just look around,” I said—and I looked right at him, but he didn't turn his head.

“Do you read books?” he asked.

“I sure do—I read quite a few books” I admitted.

“I have yet to read a book,” he admitted. “My brothers keep me working most of the time. They prefer free labor.”

“Is there any reason why you have to live with your brothers?” I asked. “I'm sure Mr. Cody would hire you at a fair salary if you're interested. Mr. Cody's not easily impressed, but he was impressed with you.”

“Wasn't much—I've ridden plenty of broncs that can outbuck that buffalo,” he allowed.

“In fact I could hire you myself,” I let him know. “I'm the boss here when Mr. Cody's gone.”

That startled him.

“A girl can hire people?”

“I sure can,” I told him. “It may be that you've worked for your brothers long enough.”

This thought clearly took some pondering.

“I guess I should think on that,” Warren said. “If I do decide to quit my brothers, what's the next step?”

“My office is in that big house,” I said. “Just show up—I'll find a place for you.”

Warren Earp smiled a nice smile.

“I've never met a girl with an office before,” he said.

“It's just a room with a desk,” I told him. “I'm not a princess. I just have a job.”

“What would I do, if I came?”

“Be our wrangler. Bill Cody is always buying horses—some for his show, some for his ranch. He needs a professional wrangler to see that the right horses get to the right place at the right time.”

Warren studied me for a bit.

“You're not mad because I punched your beau, are you?” he asked.

“No, he had it coming. I would have punched him myself if you hadn't.”

Warren considered the matters.

“I never expected to win no hundred dollars, just for riding a buffalo,” he said. “I've sure got a lot to think about,” he said. Then he mounted up and rode away.

“I guess you kissed him!” Zenas declared, when I stepped back in the house.

“No, Zenas—I didn't kiss him,” I said.

Zenas went on glaring at me for a while.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Jack Omhundro and Jesse Morlacchi had a loud fight. The rest of us were at breakfast when the fight began. It was such a loud fight that those of us at breakfast stopped to listen. Jesse was yelling in Italian and Jack was cussing mostly in the cowboy tongue. Try though we might, we couldn't figure out what the fight was about, but that didn't mean we didn't enjoy listening. The Finnish girls tiptoed about. Cody looked mildly amused.

“It's lucky Lulu ain't here, or we'd be at it too,” he remarked.

Then, suddenly, silence fell, and we all went back to our breakfasts. Half an hour later, while Cody was telling us some yarn involving an old Indian named Rain in the Face, Jesse and Jack came down, looking rosy and cooing like two lovebirds. They promptly consumed a breakfast that would have foundered a hippopotamus.

Later, when the plates had been cleared and the menfolk had gone off, I asked Jesse what the fight was about.

“Nothing—it was about nothing,” she said. “It was just time for a fight.”

The casual way she addressed it cheered me up a little. Maybe my spat with Zenas was the same sort of thing. Maybe it was just time for a fight. I had my suspicions about how Jesse and Jack made up too. There had been some steady creakings from upstairs that Cody and I tried our best to ignore and, officially, did ignore.

I had the usual bills to pay and telegrams to answer, so I let Zenas alone until after lunch.

I suppose it's a mistake to allow yourself to believe that human beings are consistent. It's normal for couples to have fights, as Jesse had candidly pointed out—and it's also just as normal to get over them and
make up. I assumed that's what would happen with Zenas and myself. I didn't like being slapped in public and I wouldn't have liked it much better if it had occurred in private. Still, wrong as it was, I was prepared to forgive him, so I lured him into my boudoir for that purpose. I tried to seduce him—what better way to make up, as Jesse and Texas Jack had demonstrated?—but Zenas just stood there, looking about as friendly as a clam. He just stared at me coldly, as if I were the Witch of Skye, or some other bad witch. He made no move to kiss me, and when I started to unbutton his pants—one of my favorite things to do—he shoved my hand away.

Still, I determined to take a patient course. I was determined to bring Zenas back from whatever swamp of jealousy he had sunk himself in. I tried a little light kiss and he turned his head away. I tried for the buttons again and again he shoved me back, by which time my patience was rapidly wearing thin. I was beginning to get the feeling that something was really wrong.

“Zenas, stop it,” I said. “What's wrong?”

“You're in love with Colonel Cody, ain't you?” he charged.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Bill Cody's a married man.”

In fact the accusation stung me.

“Now, don't lie,” Zenas said. “He brought you up here from Rita Blanca—he pays your salary—he lets you live in his house—he even gave you his power of attorney!

“If that ain't love, what is?” he added.

“It isn't love, it's business! Business! That's what it is!” I insisted.

“Bill Cody's only been here three days since he hired me. When he brought me here he promptly left for two months! I work for him! I'm not in love with him.”

Zenas wouldn't accept it—he wasn't giving an inch.

“I thought you slapped me because I was chatting with Warren Earp,” I mentioned.

“Oh, that oaf, who cares about him?” Zenas burst out. “I doubt that fool can even read.”

“He can't,” I said.

“I guess Cody kisses you,” Zenas went on.

“Zenas, Bill kisses all the girls he meets,” I told him. “It's his way
of shaking hands—or maybe he thinks it's his duty as a big star. He kisses all the girls—at least all the pretty ones!”

I began to realize that our problem was bigger than I had supposed. Zenas wasn't jealous of Warren Earp, he was jealous of Bill Cody, and Bill Cody was my boss!

Once I thought about it I realized it was something I should have expected. Zenas was a young scribbler, almost unknown, whereas Bill Cody was the most famous scout in the West—one day soon he'd probably be the most famous showman in America.

Besides which, as Jesse Morlacchi had pointed out, Cody was handsome as a god. The plain truth was that I would have been in love with Bill Cody if he'd let me be. And since I was working for him, maybe I still would fall in love with him, sometime in the future.

At least I was beginning to have a better grasp of the problem. Bill Cody had trapped me, just by giving me his trust. I lived in Buffalo Bill's house. I did his work. Even if Bill Cody only showed up in North Platte ten days out of the year, it would still be something that would naturally spook a young man of Zenas's age.

I suppose in Zenas's eyes I was the damsel in the tower, with Bill Cody her knight in armor.

“I'm not in love with him,” I repeated, but rather tonelessly this time.

But Zenas had raised a big question and we both knew it.

“If you ain't you will be one day,” Zenas said.

He left that afternoon.

B
OOK
IV
 
Tombstone Days

I
STUCK IT
out as Bill Cody's majordomo for nearly four years, during which time I sent a mountain of telegrams, wrote a mountain of letters, and signed a mountain of checks, all on Bill's behalf. I subscribed to three financial papers, and I read them, the better to do my job. At my best I managed to keep the Cody enterprises solvent about three quarters of the time. But no one could really control Bill Cody, financially or otherwise. He wasn't indifferent to my expertise. He praised me lavishly and he gave me a big bonus at the end of every year. He continued to smother me with kisses when the mood struck him, which was frequently. But it went no further than kisses, just as I had told Zenas.

Otherwise, of course, he went his own way—went his way to such an extent that I began to dread the mails. Bill would involve himself in a silver mine in Arizona or a tourist hotel in Colorado or a dude ranch in some remote part of Wyoming. I wouldn't know a thing about it until the bills began to come in. There was always a flood of bills—sometimes a tidal wave of bills—and yet, mostly, I was able to pay them promptly because of the big income Bill brought in with his performances. The first Wild West he put on, in Omaha, made plenty of money, even if it was really only a half circus, with a Western skit or two and a lot of trick riding and acrobatics. As long as Buffalo Bill himself was in the arena, on his white horse, waving his hat or busting a few glass targets, the crowd could hardly stop cheering. Warren Earp showed up and promised to ride Monarch again, but this time the buffalo won the contest. Warren Earp was thrown so hard that he was in the hospital for two weeks—Cody let me stay and nurse him, which was nice of him. I offered to hire him again, when he got well,
but his brothers had too tight a grip on him and my offer came to naught.