Buffalo Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

lonely. She dressed like a man, and had lived a life as near to a man’s as she could get; it sometimes seemed to Dora that Calamity almost thought she
was
a man. Maybe it came from running with the boys too long. More often than not, she
looked
like a woman, though there was something indefinite in her look, a kind of in-between quality, that no one, man or woman, knew quite what to make of. At times Dora felt that Calamity had not quite made up her mind which sex to be. One day she’d be in a dress or even sport a fancy hat, and the next she’d be back in pants, cussing like a buffalo hunter and bragging about all the generals she’d scouted for, or the rides she had made for the Pony Express.
    Blue, who had known her as long as anyone, maintained that Calamity’s bragging was mostly just plain bragging, with little basis in fact.
    â€œThe drunker she gets, the more she lies,” he put it, not unkindly—whatever his faults as a mate, Blue was a loyal friend to Calamity.
    â€œNo general would have let a woman scout for him,” Blue pointed out. “He’d have been court-martialed, unless he was General Lee, and she sure didn’t scout for General Lee. She didn’t ride for the Pony Express, either—they shut down the PonyExpress before I was even old enough to ride for it, and I’m older than Calamity.
    â€œWhat she might have done,” he added, in an effort to make their friend seem less of a braggart, “is tag along on a few scouts with Ragg and Bone. I think they took her with them sometimes, when it looked safe.”
    To Dora what he said just made the matter more sad; it made it seem that Calamity hadn’t actually done much of anything except wander here and there on the plains, the little reputation she had the result of invention, or the indulgence of a few kind men; her stories and her story were mainly based on whiskey and emptiness.
    Of course, the stories of half the people in Miles City, or perhaps in the west as a whole, were based on pretty much that, whiskey and emptiness; every night Dora’s house filled up with braggarts who hadn’t done half the things they said they had done. If every man who drank in the saloon had killed as many Indians as he claimed to have killed, there wouldn’t have been an Indian left west of the Mississippi; if every miner had found as much gold as was claimed, palaces would stretch down the Missouri all the way to St. Louis.
    But the men were just customers—Calamity was a friend. Dora didn’t try to be much, but she did try to be truthful, and it made her nervous and a little uncomfortable always to have to suspect Calamity of lying.
    â€œOh, she just exaggerates,” Blue said. “Everybody exaggerates, once in a while.”
    â€œYou don’t,” Dora pointed out. Bragging was not among T. Blue’s many failings; if anything he tended to understate his achievements as a cowboy.
    â€œWell, you don’t know that,” Blue said. “I might exaggerate once in a while when you’re not around.”
    â€œShe’s been talking about Wild Bill lately,” Dora said. “I didn’t know she even knew him, but now she acts like they were in love. Do you think he was ever in love with her?”

    â€œNo opinion,” Blue said immediately.
    â€œWhy wouldn’t you have an opinion?” Dora asked. “You told me yourself you knew him.”
    â€œNow you see, right there I’m caught in a fine exaggeration,” Blue said. “I seen the man walk down the street a couple of times, and was once in a saloon where he was playing cards.”
    â€œThat ain’t what you said,” Dora insisted. “You said you knew him well. Seems like if they were together you would have known.”
    â€œMyself, I was mostly with the herds,” Blue said. “I didn’t squander much time in Dodge City.”
    â€œOh, hush, you liar,”