Calamity Jane (Part 2)

(Cont. from last week)

by Dan R. Conway

(Originally published in the Hysham Echo Oct. 7, 1926)

“At Spearfish we were to rejoin our main party, which was there in camp. We started across a country looking beautiful with the advent of spring. The rich grass was matted on the earth and pine trees dotted the landscape. Parks were numerous and the antelopes roamed over a thousand hills, while the huge buffaloes in great herds wandered carelessly about, scarcely noticing our presence. We made a hard ride and reached Spearfish about dark, for we had lost the route and gone out of our way. As we passed up the valley we were surprised to see a white woman riding toward us at full gallop and leading a pack. We suspected that it was ‘Calamity Jane’ and pulled up as she approached.

“‘How! How!’ said she, ‘Where are you fellows going?’ ‘To spearfish,’ we answered. ‘Well, you had better get to Red Water Crossing, because there is a party there corralled by Indians, and there are some women in the bunch. I would go with you, boys, but I have this dispatch to take to Custer City. Take the trail and follow my tracks and you are all right.’ ***

“Calamity Jane was a noted female scout of the western frontier from 1870, her daring intrepidity, her rapidity of movement and her deadly skill with firearms, as well as the qualities she displayed as a rider, causing the Indians to consider her as possessed of supernatural powers. ***”

The timely warning of this woman scout resulted in the party at Red Water Crossing begin saved.

Saves the “Deadwood Mail” Coach

Perhaps the most thrilling of her many rescues took place in the Black Hills in 1876 when the “Deadwood Mail” stagecoach of the famous Overland line, on the route from Deadwood to Wild Birch, was surrounded by Indians. This was at a time when the feeling between the natives and the invading whites was at it’s most bitter stage. Calamity Jane was the only woman passenger of the coach which was rumbling along the trail. The reds ordered the driver, Jack McCaull, to stop. Despite the fact that he obeyed, he was shot and seriously wounded with a poisoned arrow. Then the Indians sat waiting for some one of the whites seated in the coach to mount the driver’s seat in McCaull’s place, and thus furnish them another target.

It was a desperate situation. McCaull’s body lay limp in the boot of the coach, one arm resting on the dashboard. In another moment, the horses, frightened and freed of restraint, would have lunged from the road. The six men passengers sat cowering inside the coach; and, it was Calamity Jane who proceeded to action. She climbed immediately into McCaull’s place, completely ignoring the Indians. Jerking the horses back to road, she whipped them into a gallop and took the stage with its passengers and wounded driver into Wild Birch safely and in good time.

This McCaull was the same man who, a few months later, murdered “Wild Bill” Hickok, one of Calamity Jane’s best friends.

Saves a Friend’s Life

Another story is told of the coolness of action of this frontier woman, in which she heroically stood by a comrade in the face of greatest peril. She was out riding with “Buckskin” Frank, also known as “Antelope” Frank, another famous western character, when the two suddenly found themselves surrounded by Indians. The pair “rode for it”, but Frank’s horse fell into the ditch and broke its leg.

“Ride for your life.” said Buckskin. “I can take care of myself.”

“Damned if I will, Buck,” replied Calamity, “I stay right here with you and we’ll see how many of those redskins we can drop.”

They opened fire on the warriors and were able to force them to a retreat with a loss of five of their number, the woman having done a good share of the killing.

The “Good Angel” of Deadwood

Although Calamity was admittedly rough, she had a warm heart, which fact was demonstrated time without number during the turbulous days of Deadwood Gulch. It is told of her that on one occasion while she was in the employ of General Custer in the Black Hills county, a mule skinner was maltreating his animals. Calamity Jane cautioned him to cease his cruelties and go easy on the beasts. At this the skinner flicked off Calamity’s hat with his whiplash.

In a flash the man was looking along the blue-steeled barrel of the woman’s six-shooter, and he heard her coolly drawl:
“Put that hat back where you got it.”

There was but a moment’s pause on the skinner’s part. As he looked into the cold eyes confronting him, he stooped, picked up the hat and replaced it on Calamity’s head.

Later in the day, after the mule-skinner learned from others in the camp that he had actually met Calamity Jane he was exceedingly thankful that woes fate had not befallen him. Then, with a manly respect for the charitable deeds that the woman had performed, he returned to the camp wagon where the woman was lounging and apologized for insulting her.

“I’m glad to hear that there’s a gentleman in camp as well as a lady,” the woman responded, and thereafter she and the skinner became friends.

During the smallpox epidemic at Deadwood, it has been stated of Calamity that she turned a regular “female Robin Hood,” going into the home of the afflicted, taking food to them and administering to their needs. Seymour G. Pond in an article published several years ago tells of one episode in connection with the smallpox epidemic, which depicts that character of the woman.

She had entered a Deadwood grocery store; and, ordering several cans of white cherry, fancy delicacies and high-priced foodstuffs for the sick, commanded the proprietor to place the goods in a sack and to tie the sack in such a way that she could throw it over her shoulder, thus keeping her gun hand free. When she stooped to pick up the sack, the proprietor halted her saying:

“You will pay me two ounces of dust before taking those goods!” In an instant, the grocery man was covered by Calamity’s gun. The man dodged behind his counter, as his hands and the hands of those near him went straight up. The woman glanced quickly about her, threw the sack over her shoulder and backed out of the store. Once outside, she dashed toward the smallpox cabin in the hills. The grocery man was about to give chase, but was prevailed upon by his neighbors to refrain.

Her Deadwood Romance

Of Calamity Jane’s love affairs, very little has ever been written. One writer states that in her early years, she was enamored with a young sergeant at Fort Laramie, but there is no proof of this. Being a frequenter of the dance halls, saloons and gambling houses of Deadwood, she came to know all of the famous frontier characters. It is stated that she had the real romance of her life through admiration of and infatuation for the celebrated “Wild Bill” Hickok, famous frontier sheriff and Indian fighter, who had come to the Black Hills from the south.

“Wild Bill” Hickok

Wild Bill, who had a remarkable Civil war record as a scout and spy, first became known on the old frontier as the town marshal at Hays City, Kansas, then about the toughest center that the world ever knew. He was a dead shot with any kind of firearm, and after he had delegated several desperadoes to “Boot Hill” cemetery, his authority throughout the west was undisputed.

In physique, Wild Bill was as perfect a specimen of manhood as ever walked in moccasins or donned a buckskin coat. He stood about six feet two inches, had a lithe, slender figure, broad shoulders, small feet. He was quick to feel the cards or to pull the trigger of a pistol. His hair was auburn and his face clean-shaven, excepting for a thin, drooping, sandy-brown moustache. He had clear, gray eyes, and a firm, but pleasant expression. His luxuriant growth of hair fell in ringlets over his shoulders. In fact there was nothing in the man’s appearance to denote the fierce and deadly fighter that he was, other than his step. He walked like a tiger, and much the same as that denizen of the jungle, when aroused he was ferocious and pitiless.

He is said to have killed 40 men in his day on the frontier, but never did he kill except in the performance of duty or to save his own life. His greatest exploit was enacted in 1861 on the borderland of Kansas, when he single-handed fought and killed the McCandles gang of 10 desperadoes. The fight took place after the gang had chased Hickok into a dug-out cabin, and then stormed his place of refuge. Hickok’s deadly aim accounted for a man as long as his ammunition held out, and, when that had exhausted, he used his knife to the best advantage. Hickok was badly wounded in the fray. Print this post