Telegraph Days: A Novel Read online

  “I could send a telegram in Latin—that ought to count for something,” I replied.

  That was nearly a lie. The Latin I knew was “O patria, o mores,” and I wasn’t entirely sure that even that little tag was correct; but if I intended to make a go of being the telegraph lady of Rita Blanca, it wouldn’t do to let the McClendon sisters wear me down.

  At this moment in time, which is to say early August of 1876, all I knew about Buffalo Bill Cody was that he was a skilled killer of buffalo—I believe he supplied meat for the Kansas Pacific Railway, or some railroad at least. I knew some dime novels had been put out with him as the hero, but Father preferred for us Courtrights to read good literature rather than trashy stuff. Of course, I’d seen the dime novels—they were in every railroad station in the land—and if Cody was the man on the cover, then he was a very handsome man, but I would not have been willing to bet that the real Bill Cody looked even half that good. Too many of the swaggering gents who are supposed to be handsome turn out to be spotty and bowlegged upon actual inspection.

  Be that as it may, the McClendon sisters were in no mood to give up, so I took Andy Jessup’s tip and suggested we float a telegram or two up to Leavenworth. Maybe some autographed pictures would come back someday.

  “We need to know his play schedule too,” the older sister said.

  “Play schedule of what?”

  “Why, Mr. Cody’s next performance,” the younger sister said. “Surely you know that Mr. Cody is a star of the stage, when he’s not hunting.”

  I remembered that I had vaguely heard that Buffalo Bill was trying to be an actor—actually it was Bill Hickok who told me that: he said some fool had got the two of them to be in a play together in Chicago or somewhere. It was called The Prairie Scout. Bill Hickok claimed that he had never uttered a single word while onstage, and Cody had uttered very few, due to stage fright. It sounded like a silly business to me. Billy said they were so short on props that they even used red flannel socks for scalps.

  But I was determined not to lose my patience with the McClendon sisters, so I promised to include a request for tickets to his next performance.

  “I fear it will be a far piece away,” I told them. “If there’s a stage anywhere around here it has escaped my notice.”

  “Of course it ain’t around here—it’ll be in Rochester, New York, in the early fall,” Bertha McClendon said. “We should know, our baby sister lives there.”

  One of the hens had the temerity to jump up on my desk, but I promptly grabbed her and pitched her out the window—this resulted in a spate of intemperate clucking, but little did I care. Hens always think they own the world, but I am quick to show them that they are not welcome on my desk.

  About two weeks later, on a sultry afternoon, I got drowsy in my office and slipped into a nap. It seemed someone was playing “Lorena” on a fiddle—that song always makes me sad. Then there stood Billy Hickok, in my dream: he was holding me at arm’s length, and he was wearing specs. Usually Billy looked a little puzzled—I put it down to his bad eyesight. But this time he didn’t look puzzled. “You’re even prettier than I thought,” he said. “Now that I can really see you.”

  But then someone rapped on the window of my office, which ended my best dream about Bill.

  16

  MRS. KAROO, KNOWING that I did not like to leave my post for lunch, showed up a little past noon with two biscuits, a boiled egg, and several slices of her delicious cucumbers. Despite my sad news I had managed to send off twenty-seven telegrams that morning—I was glad to pull my Closed sign down for ten minutes and eat her delicious snack.

  The sun was blistering by then. Just as I was finishing, who should show up but Ted Bunsen, my brother, Jackson, and a third man—a skinny fellow who looked distinctly subdued. He had one arm in a sling. Like everybody else in Rita Blanca the trio ignored my Closed sign and got right down to business.

  “How well do you know old George Murray?” Teddy asked.

  “He and Father were friends—they fought in the war together,” I said. “He dropped by Black Mesa from time to time.”

  “Didn’t he try to marry Aunt Sally?” Jackson asked.

  “That’s right—she wouldn’t have him,” I replied. “Aunt Sally liked to travel. She married Uncle Bob, who bought her a big boat. I think she mainly used the boat on the Great Lakes. I don’t think she had anything in particular against George Murray—it was just one of those things.”

  “I’ve got something particular against the goddamn old fool,” the skinny fellow said. “He shot me—that’s what I have against him, the old bastard.”

  “Here now, none of your profane cussing,” Teddy said, striking the fellow a sudden hard blow to the jaw. “The law here will not tolerate profane cussing when ladies are in hearing,” he added.

  The blow to the jaw evidently did not impress the victim, whose name was Palmer. He glared like a bear might glare, and with his good arm, which happened to be the right, dealt Teddy Bunsen a blow to the solar plexus that deprived him of the capacity to breathe in air for a while.

  “Pound him on the back—be a good deputy,” I told Jackson, but the sight of his boss getting whopped in the solar plexus by a fellow with one arm in a sling upset my brother so much that he chose to disregard my advice.

  Mrs. Karoo came hurrying along—she managed to get Teddy to stand up straight, after which he was soon able to breathe again.

  Mr. Palmer, evidently disgusted with the level of law enforcement in Rita Blanca, tipped his hat to me and Mrs. Karoo and stalked off to imbibe some liquor in one of Leo Oliphant’s saloons.

  “Want me to shoot him, Sheriff?” Jackson asked. He had his hand on the handle of his pistol but did not actually draw it. It was only Jackson’s third day as a deputy, after all—it was clear that he was not yet solid on the finer points of the law.

  Though he was now able to breathe a little bit, Ted Bunsen had still not recovered the full use of his voice. He waved vaguely at Jackson—Jackson took it as a sign to draw his pistol, but he didn’t shoot.

  “Hold off, Jackson,” I instructed. “If you’re going to be shooting everybody who cusses in front of ladies, Rita Blanca is likely to lose population quick.”

  “But it’s against the law to hit a sheriff—I’m pretty sure of that,” Jackson protested.

  “Put up the pistol,” Teddy managed to croak. “You can’t shoot Ed Palmer because he’s my brother-in-law.”

  “I thought your sister lived in Omaha, Teddy,” I said. “What’s her husband doing way down here? If I ever have a husband, I intend to keep him on a shorter leash than that.”

  I raised that point in the belief that it never hurts to enunciate firm principles. Though there might be scant likelihood that Ted and I would ever be married, if such should turn out to be the case I wanted him to know that I would not be one to tolerate long absences.

  “Ed Palmer wants to be a rancher,” Ted explained. “Old George Murray owns a passel of land south of Rabbit Gulch. George is eighty-five and claims to be thinking of retiring, so he sold Ed one hundred thousand acres, and that should have been that.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Palmer paid the money and that damned old George changed his mind,” Teddy told us.

  “He now claims he has no interest in retiring,” Teddy added. “Every time Ed rides out to claim his property George shoots at him. Mostly he misses, but yesterday morning Ed got too close and the old fool winged him.”

  “Mr. Palmer doesn’t look much like a cowpuncher to me,” I said. “What line was he in in Omaha?”

  “Dry goods,” Teddy admitted.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would a dry goods salesman think he could make a go of a ranch in No Man’s Land?”

  But then I remembered Father and all those brochures he read extolling the beauties of the West. If an educated man such as Perceval Staunton Courtright could get sucked in by a bunch of slick brochures, then there was no reason
why a haberdasher from Nebraska would behave any more sensibly.

  People must love the notion of ranches, particularly people from the East who have no real idea how vexatious and uncomfortable ranch life can actually be.

  “I see Mr. Palmer has a problem,” I told Teddy. “What do you want me to do—telegraph the army?”

  Teddy was silent for a good space of time. He liked to gather his thoughts in his own good time.

  “When old George was a little friendlier he expressed a great fondness for you,” he said finally. “He told me once that if he were a few years younger he’d marry you. What do you think of that?”

  What I remembered was that on one or two of his visits Mr. Murray had cast me looks which were not exactly proper. Once when I’d been washing my hands in a pan of water he had looked at my bare arms in a way that took leave of propriety, in my opinion. I felt a kind of heat coming off him, so I rolled down my sleeves and walked away.

  “I didn’t much like Mr. Murray, but that’s water under the bridge,” I told Ted. “Even if the old creature shoots your brother-in-law and five or six other people, I’m not likely to marry him.”

  “No, but since he likes you I thought we might ride out and visit the man,” Ted said. “I’d like to avoid further bloodshed if I can. If you talked to old George maybe he’d ease up on Ed Palmer and let him have the hundred thousand acres.”

  The suggestion was reasonable enough, but right away, I sensed a plot on Teddy’s part to get me alone. Sheriffs don’t normally ask telegraph ladies to help them arrest dangerous criminals.

  “Ted, I’m the telegraph lady,” I reminded him. “I can’t be leaving my post just because George Murray is a little unruly.”

  “The telegraph office ain’t open on Sunday,” Teddy reminded me. “If you’re willing I’ll rent a buggy and we can ride out Sunday and visit your father’s old friend.”

  It was plain at that point what Teddy’s game was. Protecting Ed Palmer was just an excuse. What he wanted was a good stretch of time with me alone. Obviously he had kissing in mind, and possibly matrimony as well.

  “How long’s the buggy ride?” I asked. After all, my Sundays were mainly dull. I suppose I could have stayed home and hung curtains. But fighting off Teddy might be more interesting.

  “It’s about twenty miles out to Rabbit Gulch,” Teddy admitted.

  “I suppose I ought to assist the law anyway I can,” I told him. This caused Ted to brighten considerably.

  Of course the dull creature that my upbringing had trained me to be would have insisted on taking a chaperone along on this buggy ride. But the fact is I never held with chaperones. The whole point of courtship, as I enjoyed it, was to figure out ways to be alone with whatever fellow was courting you at the time.

  I said nothing about a chaperone. Teddy sure didn’t mention one, so we made our date for Sunday.

  17

  IN FACT, GIVEN the choice, I would rather have gone on a Sunday buggy ride with Andy Jessup than with Ten Bunsen—but I was given no choice. Andy had a commission to pick up a string of horses down in southern Kansas somewhere and deliver them to Buffalo Bill Cody to be used in his big buffalo hunt with the dudes from Chicago.

  “I suppose that sheriff means to marry you,” Andy said, as he was saddling up to leave. We were moping around in the stables and had even exchanged a shy peck or two.

  “His courtship rarely pleases me—I suppose I’ll end up a spinster,” I said. “I’m just too hard to please.”

  Andy didn’t contest the opinion. He gave me another peck and he was gone. His abrupt departure, just as I was beginning to fall under the spell of his dreamy eyes, put me a little out of sorts with this fellow Buffalo Bill. Not only was he the idol of the bossy McClendon sisters, his need to make money off Chicago dudes had caused Andy Jessup to run off and leave me just when I was beginning to want to kiss him.

  Just about the time I was closing the telegraph office on Saturday afternoon, old Josh the mail rider came racing into Rita Blanca on a horse so badly winded that we all expected it to die—but the horse turned out to be a tough little mustang that defied our expectations. When Josh yanked the saddle off, the little pony rolled in the dirt a few times, blew out his breath, and was soon eating oats in the livery stable.

  In fact, old Josh came closer to dying than his mount. He was white as a sheet and could hardly summon words out of his mouth.

  “Yazee gang!” he managed finally. “Yazee gang—killed George Murray and dern near caught me.”

  He had no sooner said it than every man in hearing distance raced off to grab up armaments. My brother was quickest. He had the ten-gauge of Father’s, and his new pistol as well. Ted Bunsen strapped on two pistols and emerged from the jail carrying a repeating rifle. Drunks poured out of the saloon, most of them armed to the teeth; those who were weakly equipped raced into the general store and bought what weapons they could afford. Aurel Imlah was the last to arrive but he made up for it by carrying two buffalo guns.

  As I understood it, the Yazee gang consisted of six wild brothers of that name. They tore through Arkansas and Kansas and wherever else they felt like going, burning houses and killing men, women, and children without compunction. Bert Yazee, the oldest brother, reveled in busting people’s skulls with a big war club he had taken off a Ponca Indian. It was said that Bert Yazee gave no more thought to busting skulls than he would have to busting an egg.

  Of course, after the war, several of these wild gangs looted and burned in Kansas and Missouri. One of Father’s reasons for settling in No Man’s Land was that there was nothing out there for such a gang to loot.

  My first thought on this occasion was to worry about dreamy Andy Jessup—what if they had ambushed Andy? But fortunately, Andy had ridden off to the east and Rabbit Gulch was to the west.

  But what about us? Most of these drunks were not fighting men.

  Matters weren’t helped by details old Josh added once he caught his breath.

  “They cut old George’s ears off and nailed them to the front door,” Josh informed us. “I don’t know what became of his eyeballs,” he added casually.

  “Uh-oh,” Ed Palmer said. “Uh-oh.”

  From the greenish look on his face I judged that dry goods in Omaha were looking better and better to Mr. Palmer.

  “Josh, I think you ought to spare us any more details,” Teddy suggested. “There’s a lady here, remember?”

  In fact, there were several ladies there by this time. The McClendon sisters were there, as well as their hens, and the blacksmith’s wife, a big, stout woman who armed herself with a meat cleaver.

  “Do you reckon they’ll come down on us, Josh?” Ted asked.

  “Did you bury George Murray?” he asked the old rider.

  “Bury George? … With the Yazees in the neighborhood?” Josh said. “Are you crazy? Once I seen what they did to George I was in no mood to dig a grave. I ran for my life but even so they spotted me and gave me a hard chase.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Karoo began to ring her dinner bell—she rang it for dear life.

  We could all see her—she was pointing to the southwest, where a fast-moving dust cloud seemed to be moving our way.

  “Uh-oh,” Ed Palmer repeated, to the irritation of his brother-in-law Ted Bunsen.

  “If you don’t stop saying ‘Uh-oh,’ by God I’ll shoot you,” Teddy said.

  “I’m your brother-in-law,” Ed Palmer reminded him, but Ted did not rescind the threat.

  Aurel Imlah wore a little spyglass on a leather cord around his neck. He used it to spot distant buffalo, I suppose. He trained his spyglass and watched the dust cloud closely, while the rest of us stood around on one foot and then the other, wondering what he was seeing, and how it might feel to be massacred.

  “Bert Yazee’s still riding that big roan horse,” Aurel announced casually, “but on the whole those scoundrels are poorly mounted.”

  “Think they’ll charge us, Aurel?” Beau Wheless asked.


  “Eventually, I expect … but not today,” Aural concluded. “They want to scare us first—get us jittery.”

  “Hell, I’m jittery already,” the blacksmith said—and he was the largest man in town.

  Aurel walked off back to his hide yard. Mrs. Karoo stood by her bell, but she was no longer ringing it. Several of the drunks had begun to drift back in the direction of the saloons. Jackson Courtright had cocked his new pistol, a point of technique that drew comment from the sheriff.

  “Don’t be lolling around with that pistol cocked, Deputy,” Ted told Jackson. “It might go off and kill a chicken, or something.”

  Then Ted turned to me.

  “I guess tomorrow might not be the best day for our buggy ride,” he told me, with a disappointed look.

  “Nope,” I agreed.

  I felt a little sorry for Ted—he sure did look disappointed.

  18

  THE REGULARS AT Mrs. Karoo’s supper table lingered a little longer than usual on this particular Saturday night. Perhaps it was because she had made a cinnamon custard for dessert—and fortunately she had made lots of it, for everyone took a second helping.

  There was not much talk. We all had the Yazee gang on our minds. Doc Siblee remarked that the preacher had picked a bad time to choke on the corn bread.

  “He could have prayed for us,” he pointed out.

  “There’s only six of them,” Aurel reminded us. “A whole town ought to be able to fight off six killers.”

  “A doubtful thing is the quality of our marksmanship,” Teddy admitted.

  “If the Yazees make a run at the town it’ll be mostly close-range shooting, I would hope,” Aurel pointed out.

  Then he lit his pipe and Mrs. Karoo lit hers. She got out the rum and everyone except my brother, Jackson, indulged in a snort. A snort happened to be enough to make Hungry Billy drunk—he soon wobbled off into the night. Doc Siblee went with him and the rest of us moved out onto the porch. The evening star was especially bright that night, as bright as I’ve ever seen it. Far in the western distance we heard a deep lowing, a sound that seemed to interest Aurel Imlah a lot more than the Yazee scare.