OLD DEADWOOD DAYS (Tales of the Soiled Doves)
Chapter Six
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
The small crowd stood silent on the hilltop, listening to the petite blonde sing the beautiful hymn as the plain wooden coffin containing the body of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok was lowered into the grave. The preacher had just offered up a prayer for the soul of the departed and all of us had our heads bowed, some mumble singing the words along with the blonde whose voice carried down from Mount Moriah Cemetery to Deadwood proper below.
I was there. No way in hell I was going to miss the funeral of my friend, even though both Doc Babcock and Madame Featherlegs kicked up a fuss, going on how I was still too beat up from my battle with Tricksie Lynn. Well, I stuck to my guns, did some hollering of my own and, swollen black eye and busted ribs be damned, I was up there on that hill with the rest, saying my farewell to the man with the sad eyes who was more than just a legend to this little South Dakota half breed girl. He was a friend, a friend I’ll mourn for a long time.
But even through all the sadness of the proceedings, I was still curious enough about the singer I had never seen before. So I whispered to Clementine, who had calmed Madame Featherlegs down by volunteering to get me up here and back home again safe and sound.
“Who’s that blonde singing?”
She leaned over and whispered back. “That’s Miss Sara Atherton. She’s one of those theater people came in with Mr. Jack Langrishe’s company.”
Now I recognized her. Only time I saw her before she was out on the boardwalk one day in a fancy costume quoting lines from some old time play with Mr. Jack Langrishe who was wearing a frock top and tights and getting a whole lot of horse laughs from the miners and drunks who stopped to watch. They were spouting this nonsense in a kind of English (well, the words were sort of English, only said in an old fashioned way that made you scratch your head and puzzle what it all meant). Wrote by some long dead fellow named Shakespeare, Charlie Utter had told me at the time.
Charlie was standing there on the hill with us now, his eyes on the hole that Bill’s coffin was being lowered into. I squinted my one good eye in the harsh sunlight at the wooden marker Charlie had placed by the grave. I leaned close to Clemmy again and said quietly, “Clemmy, what does the writing say?”
She looked at the board and, in her quiet musical Southern drawl, read, “Wild Bill, J.B. Hickok killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Goodbye, Colorado Charlie, C.H. Utter.”
I touched Charlie’s hand gently.
“Those are real pretty words you wrote, Charlie.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded real quick and then turned his head away, blinking like the sun hurt his eyes. But I knew he was trying to fight back the tears. Clemmy and I stood there, quietly watching as the blonde sang the hymn. Her voice rang out like an angel and most everyone who was trying to sing along just faded out and let her finish it on her own.
While the funeral was going on, down in Deadwood proper in the Langrishe Theater, the coward Jack McCall was on trial for Hickok’s killing. That was way too good for the son-of-a-bitch. Someone should of just hung him from a tree and saved everyone the trouble. I would of done it myself if I could, which is probably why Featherlegs told Clemmy to stick to me like glue so I wouldn’t do anything crazy.
With the singing and praying all done, only thing left was for the grave diggers to start shoveling the dirt back in the hole over the coffin. Clemmy and I made our way down the hill with the others, except for poor Charlie, who stood watching the men fill up the grave.
“Say, um, Clemmy, you think maybe we could head over to … ”
“No. Don’t even think about it.”
“How do you know what I was gonna say? You didn’t let me finish.”
“I don’t have to. I know. You want to go to the Langrishe Theater and watch the trial.”
“Just for a little while. I promise I’ll be good. I only wanna … ”
“It’s not gonna happen, Little Bit. I promised Featherlegs, she’d kill us both if I let you go there. It’s probably all over by now anyway.”
“You think so?”
“Why, sure. It’s all out there, plain as day. He walked in, shot that poor man in the back in front of all those witnesses.”
I added, “In cold blood!”
“In cold blood,” Clemmy agreed. “They probably already found him guilty and sentenced him to hang.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna stop me from seeing that,” I muttered. “I wanna watch him swing!”
Clemmy’s eyes suddenly went cold.
“We all do,” she said in almost a whisper.
Only a coward shoots someone in the back. A coward doesn’t have the guts to face an enemy eye to eye. No, a coward waits till your back is turned. Like that damn blue-belly did to Granddaddy Hawkes that awful day at Lonesome Pine, when the Yankees came and burned and looted everything. Granddaddy stood up to them, he did, and got a bullet in the back for it. I watched the blood run out of his lifeless body and stain the Alabama dirt in front of our beloved home, the home he died trying to defend from a pack of drunken jackals.
“Innocent? They let him walk?!”
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. The coward Jack McCall was a free man. A jury of dumb ass cocksuckers found him not guilty, according to the writing in the newspaper Clemmy was reading to me. We all heard the news before but it was just so crazy none of us believed it. But here it was in the paper so it had to be true.
“Said Hickok killed his brother in Abilene and he shot him in revenge for that,” Clemmy muttered. “Jury took less than two hours to say he was not guilty.”
“Dirty bumble-dickin’ cocksuckers!”
“You hush your mouth, Little Bit,” Madame Featherlegs snapped. “None of my ladies uses that kind of language during working hours!”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered. I held my tongue but I was still plenty mad.
Because I was still too bruised and banged-up from the fight, Featherlegs kept me in the parlour to greet the ‘guests’, smile at them, make nice talk, bring them drinks while they waited. The other girls were all entertaining in their rooms, Clemmy had just led a gawking grinning pimple-faced oaf up the stairs. I knew Featherlegs had her hawk’s eyes on me so I kept making nice to the men, even though I was wondering if any of them were the cocksuckers who found the coward Jack McCall not guilty.
Suddenly the door burst open and a huge mountain of a man stormed into the room, all cleaned up from the bath he just took but stinking to high heaven of cheap whiskey. We all knew him, he was a regular ‘guest’, called himself Bear, and he liked nothing more than picking us up in his tree trunk size arms and giving us a tight hug till we felt like our eyeballs would pop out. Since I was the only one in the room, except for Featherlegs (and Bear may have been roaring drunk but he knew not to even think about trying a hug on her) he bore down on me like a grizzly on a rabbit. Before I knew it, I was a good two feet off the ground and trapped in a god awful hug, the likes of which would probably break the rest of my ribs and then some.
“Owwwww, damn it, Bear!” I yelped in agony, not giving a hoot about Featherlegs’ rule about cussing. “Put me down, ya big lummox!”
Well, he got a good laugh out of that. He never meant to hurt us, it was just he was so damn big, so damn dumb, and so damn drunk, he didn’t know his own strength. So, instead of putting me down, he squeezed me tighter and started dancing me around the parlour. All the while, my face was getting redder and redder, my feet were kicking in the air as he whirled me around, his big feet galumphing on the wooden floor as he stumbled and lumbered, and I prayed that he wouldn’t fall and squish me.
“BEAR! YOU PUT HER DOWN THIS INSTANT!”
The sound of Featherlegs’ voice stopped the big man in his tracks. When she raised her voice, the best thing to do is obey. Don’t ask questions, just obey. And that’s exactly what Bear did. With a gentleness I never would of expected from somebody so big and drunk, he sat me down on the red velvet divan and then stood there like a giant schoolboy waiting to get sent to the naughty corner.
In a quieter voice, Featherlegs said, “Bear, I can’t have you carry on like you do, squeezing my girls till they cry. If you promise that you’ll sit there and wait your turn patiently, without hugging Little Bit or busting up my furniture, I’ll give you a drink on the house.”
Bear immediately rushed over to the frail wooden chair in the corner and sat himself on it with his hands in his lap, ignoring the loud creaks of the chair under his weight.
Featherlegs rolled her eyes and muttered, “That’s bloody terrific! All the chairs in the parlour and he picks the most delicate one to park his arse on!”
But she gave him a sweet smile and moved to the bar to fix him one of her ‘special’ drinks. The same ‘special’ drink she gave Bear the last four times he acted up.
I tried to hide a grin. He falls for it every time! I watched as Featherlegs poured a generous amount of whiskey into a glass. Not the good stuff from the shelf, no sirree, Bear got the same swill that was served in Swearengen’s place and the Number 10. And in a plain regular glass, certainly not the fancy cut crystal for special ‘guests’. But then Featherlegs added that ‘little extra’ that made this drink so special. She pulled out the stopper from a small dark bottle under the bar and quickly added a few drops of chloral hydrate to Bear’s whiskey. Then with her ruffled lace pantalets fluttering as she walked across the room, she delivered the glass to Bear as sweet as can be. The big dope grabbed it, drained it in one gulp, smacked his lips and sat back with a lopsided smile.
We waited. It didn’t take long. First his eyes started fluttering like he was fighting to keep them open. Then his head began to nod and he’d jerk it back again. Finally his chin dropped down to his chest and a low rumbling snoring sound was heard along with the creaking of the chair. Featherlegs walked over to the slumbering lummox, gave him a quick push and he toppled to the floor, out cold, snoring away.
“Well, that’s that,” she said with a satisfied smile. “No more ruckus and no broken chair either.” She turned to the Dwarf who was watching by the bar. “Go fetch the Albino. Tell him to bring the barrow. He’ll know.”
I’ve gotten used to dealing with drunks. Seems like most of the bluebellies rampaging from one end of Alabama to the other are nothing but drunken animals. No decency towards any of us, no concern or regard for our property, stealing everything in sight. And what they can’t steal, they destroy. Burn it up in an unholy fire.
There was one, though, I thought was different. He didn’t have that look about him, the look I grew used to seeing in their eyes. But his eyes were friendly. A bright emerald green with little specks of gold. Eyes that sparkled and shined in the bright sun. Almost like they were laughing. And he was so handsome! If it wasn’t for that damned blue uniform he wore, that boy would pass for any of the fine beaus waiting for a dance at the cotillion.
“No need to be afraid, little girl. No one is gonna hurt you. I’ll see to that. All we want is a little somethin’ to eat and we’ll be on our way.”
“We don’t have much, sir. Other soldiers came by before and took most of our cows and chickens. All we have left is one milk cow and two laying hens and the old rooster.”
His eyes were still smiling. I wanted to trust him. Wanted so much to believe that they weren’t all bad.
“Well, you can keep them, little missy. We can’t have you fine folks starve, can we? No sirree. I’m gonna go inside and see if I can’t find a few potatoes and carrots to take along. Then we’ll be on our way.”
I believed him. I didn’t see the look he gave one of his men. Then he turned and went inside the house.
About a week after the trial, Clemmy and I were walking down the thoroughfare, past the Number 10, and we stopped to hear Billy Nuttall say how ‘California’ Joe Milner, Hickok’s old partner, let it be known to one and all that it wouldn’t be ‘healthy’ for the coward McCall to stick around Deadwood. Naturally, the yellow weasel turned tail and lit out of town before anyone could get justice for Bill.
“Don’t you worry, Little Bit,” Clemmy told me as we moved on. “He’ll get his.” Her eyes narrowed. “Trash like that always does.”
Green eyes that laughed in the bright sunlight. But turned into something unspeakable in a flash.
Suddenly I saw one of the bluebellies leading our milk cow by a rope around her neck. Another carried our dead laying hens by their feet, swinging them in half circles as he walked.
(You lied to me. Lied to me! LIED TO ME! Liar. Liar! LIAR!)
I let out a scream. “Granddad! They’re stealing our cow!”
Granddad came out on the porch, unarmed, carrying only his knotted pine walking stick. He took one step. Then a shot rang out. I screamed. Granddad took one more step, then pitched forward off the porch, facedown in the dirt. A dark red stain began to spread on the back of his white shirt. The handsome soldier with the laughing eyes stood in the door, a smoking pistol in his hand. Only his eyes weren’t laughing now. They were filled with evil. Hate. Hate enough to kill.
I know that hate now. I have that hate now. And I’ll kill. If I have to.
Up ahead was the McDaniels Building, home of the Langrishe Theatre Company and, just as we passed, the door opened. Out stepped Miss Sara Atherton, the petite blonde who had sung so beautifully at Bill’s funeral. She was elegantly dressed in a classy sky blue brocade dress with a lacy bodice and organza collar. Her matching parasol was resting on her shoulder. It would be a miracle if she made it to wherever she was going without being splattered by the ever-present Deadwood mud. She smiled at us. Clemmy and I returned the favor.
“Afternoon, ladies,” she said without a trace of snobbery. We’re all so used to the looks the ‘proper’ ladies are so happy to give us every time we dare to set foot on the thoroughfare. It was nice to get a genuine friendly look and ‘how do you do’ for a change.
“Afternoon,” Clemmy responded with a smile.
I nodded and said with a smile, “I just want to tell ya that I thought your singing at Bill’s funeral was beautiful.”
She looked me over with a smile of her own. My eye was still puffy and swollen, although the color had faded to a light purple. Makeup covered the brunt of the cuts and scrapes on my face but she could tell. And still her eyes and smile stayed genuine.
“Were you friends of Mr. Hickok’s?”
“I guess you could say we were, yes’m. We came in together on Charlie Utter’s wagon train.”
“I’d heard a lot about him. Always hoped to meet him someday. I never got the chance.”
We started walking together. Turns out she was headed to Star & Bullock’s, the same direction we were going. We made quick introductions.
“I’m Meg Hawkes but folks here call me Clementine. Or Clemmy.”
“Laurel Luckett’s my name. but I go by Little Bit.”
“Clemmy and Little Bit it is then. I’m Sara Atherton, out of Denver.”
“Yes, we know,” Clemmy said. “We saw your performance with the Langrishe Company on the boardwalk.”
“Oh, that,” the actress laughed. “That was just a little taste of what we do. Publicity for the show.”
“It was very good.”
“You’ve seen Shakespeare before?”
“Once, a long time ago when I was a girl,” Clemmy said quietly. “Back in Alabama. Before ... ”
The blonde smiled, understanding. “Well, wait till you see it when we’re up on the stage, in full costumes, with the gaslights up. It’s magical!”
Just then a couple of respectable ladies emerged from Star & Bullock’s. They gave us the usual fish-eye stare, curled their lips and went on their way, taking great pains to avoid coming in close contact with us.
“Don’t pay them any mind,” I said to Sara. “We’re used to that.”
She grinned and winked. “So am I!”
“Huh?”
“Oh, those proper church ladies are all sweet as can be when they come to the theater. But out here on the street is a whole other story. It’s like I have the plague or something.”
“Shoot,” I muttered. “They are like that with us all the time!”
Clemmy was quiet. Her mind was far away. Remembering.
If all those fine upstanding ladies back home could see me now! Caleb Hawkes’ baby girl. Jedediah Hawkes’ granddaughter. The darlin’ of Lonesome Pine.
Would I be like them if the war never happened? Would I turn up my nose at women like Little Bit or Sara Atherton just because they had bad breaks or chose a life that isn’t acceptable in proper society?
Sara stood in the doorway. “I thank you for accompanying me to the store. I know we’ll be seeing each other again. You should come by the theatre some night. As my guests.”
“We’d like that,” I said. “If Miss Feather – I mean, Miss Fourcade says it’s okay.”
We said our goodbyes and the blonde went into the store. We continued down the boardwalk.
“Why are you so quiet all of a sudden, Clemmy?”
“Huh? Oh, no reason. Just thinking about something.”
I stopped and grabbed her arm. “You know what I’m thinking about? I’m thinking we should head over to Chinatown, see if maybe we can lay eyes on that China Doll!”
She shook my hand off her arm. “We’ll do no such thing! We’re to go to Doc Babcock’s for Miss Featherlegs’ medicine and for him to change your dressing. Nothing else than that.”
“Oh, come on, Clemmy! You’re just as curious as me to see her. I was watching you when Charlie Utter was talking about her.”
“You may be right, Little Bit. I admit, yes, I am kinda curious to see this China Doll. Specially after hearing Mr. Utter go on about her.”
“And it’s daylight now, nothing bad is gonna happen!”
“No? It was daylight when you had that run-in with Tricksie Lynn.”
“That was different. That bitch followed me there.”
Clemmy grinned. “Well, alright. I suppose a little look wouldn’t be too bad.”
So off we went, down the alley right in the heart of the Celestials, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious China Doll. To hear Charlie Utter tell it, she was absolutely stunning, like a fragile porcelain doll, with haunting eyes, a beautiful face, always dressed in elegant embroidered robes and fine jewelry. She was never ever seen on the thoroughfare, very few had laid eyes on her. Only her clients. Like Charlie. And, boy, did he ever moon about her!
Clemmy and I walked maybe fifty feet past the shacks and hovels when a wall of Celestials suddenly appeared behind us and blocked the alleyway. Another group did the same further down. There was no expression on any of the faces, they looked like statues, not moving, not saying anything. We were trapped, no chance to escape.
There was a rush of activity and four small black-haired girls were on us, snarling in fury, yanking our hair, scratching, kicking. Clemmy and I fought back desperately. We didn’t have a chance to wonder why we were being attacked like this. All we could do was fight for our lives. And that’s what we did.
Clemmy is maybe two inches taller than me, both of us could be considered featherweights but, compared to the wild girls we were fighting now, we were heifers! It’s rare that I come across a girl shorter than me and all four of these Chinese were five feet tall or even shorter. And none could be over a hundred pounds. But they fought with a savagery I’d never seen. The look in their eyes was hate. Pure hate.
Hate. I have that hate now.
Clemmy managed to grab the long flying black hair of one of our attackers and use it to whip her into the wooden wall of a shack. She went down in a heap, but scrambled back up again and launched herself at me. I already had my hands full with one of her friends who was tearing at my dress with one hand while flailing her other fist at my face. As my dress started to tear, the dressing covering my ribs was exposed and, with a cry of delight, both Celestials started hammering their fists into ribs over and over. I let out an anguished scream and fell to the muddy ground, pulling them down with me, trying to kick my feet at them while I covered up my ribs.
Clemmy couldn’t help me. The other two were wearing her down. She was fighting hard, with a fury fueled by the rage inside her. The proper Southern belle became a hellfire in that alley that afternoon. Her two attackers were definitely taking a beating but they kept coming at her. Clothes were shredded, hair was yanked out by the roots. Everything was a weapon: fists, feet, teeth, elbows, knees. I grabbed the arm of one of the Chinese and sank my teeth into the soft flesh of her forearm. She screeched something in her native tongue but kept on fighting.
Why? Why were these four girls fighting like they were possessed? Why was the crowd of Celestials just standing there, watching? We had a lot of questions but the most important one of all was, are we gonna get out of here alive?
One of Clemmy’s attackers called out something in Chinese and a fifth girl appeared from a shack and joined the beat-down. Clemmy was still fighting wildly, her arms were swinging, her fists connecting with faces and bodies. I was doing my best, still kicking at the bitches on me, covering up my ribs. A hard kick to my temple dazed me and sent me reeling. Clemmy was on the ground now too, the odds were too much against her.
Then a sky blue blur whooshed past me and I heard a loud crack followed by a groan. Sara Atherton had appeared out of nowhere and was using her parasol like a club, breaking it across the face of one of the Celestials, who was now rolling in the mud holding her face, her legs kicking in pain. Sara used the broken handle of the parasol to stab and poke at the other Chinese, who finally pulled away from Clemmy and scurried off, disappearing into the nearby shacks. Then she turned her attention on the bitches still on me. The petite blonde actress sent a hard boot straight to the nose of one of my attackers. She let out a gurgle and flew backwards. Her partner gave up the fight, grabbed her companion and pulled her down the alley where they were swallowed up by the sea of Celestials.
Clemmy and I were a mess. This is the second time I’ve ended up half naked and beaten all to hell in a Chinatown alley. Clemmy didn’t look much better. Sara helped us up to our feet and we slowly made our way back toward the thoroughfare. The human wall had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Only Fee Lee Wong remained. Mr. Wong, the owner of the Chinese store, one of the leading Celestials in Deadwood, approached us with a sad regretful look on his face.
“You go, please,” he said in halting English. “Not safe. Go, please.”
We didn’t need to be told twice. We got the hell out of there. Folks naturally stared as we made our way back up the thoroughfare, trying to cover ourselves up as best we could. I knew I must have broken another rib, the way my whole body felt like it was on fire when I tried to breathe. Clemmy’s eyes now matched mine, in color and swollenness. We were covered with bruises and scratches and were lucky to be alive.
We thanked Sara for coming to our rescue.
“I watched you two go down that alley from the store window. I knew something was up when I saw that wall of Celestials just appear and block it off.”
“And we are ever so grateful that you did,” Clemmy smiled, and winced.
The blonde smiled. “Anything for friends of Wild Bill.” She took both our arms. “Now let’s get you two over to the Doc’s.”
Clemmy protested, “But we don’t want to take you away from ... ”
Sara cut her off. “That’s what friends do.”
Friends.
The hate is leaving now. But I’m not empty any more. I have friends. A new family.
I loved Lonesome Pine. I miss it so. But it’s gone now. Everything gone. Everyone I ever loved. Now it’s just me, out here in this wild country. I don’t belong here. I wasn’t brought up for this life. But here I am and I will survive. I will go on.
TO BE CONTINUED
