‘The bigger a man's gun the smaller his doodlewick.’
Calamity Jane
Robyn and I had thought the Big Sky boast on the license plates was a Montana myth, until it opened up before us. We were looking farther and seeing less of anything but heaven and earth. I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land. The grey ribbon went to infinity, through a fabric of gold and dotted green, and the hazy purple crenulations along the fringes of our vision. We rode in the direction it was going.
Those who had written the history of the Old West hadn't paid more much attention to the women that had come through it. But there were three that, in their own unique way, defined the eras they lived in. All three had the wanderlust, two had ordinary lust, and one had a drinking problem.
Calamity Jane was afflicted with alcoholism, but her vices were the wide-open sins of a wide-open country – the sort that never carried a hurt.
Her father died, soon after they left Virginia City. Jane took over as head of the family, loaded up the wagon once more, and took her siblings to Piedmont, Wyoming. She took whatever jobs she could find, a dishwasher, a cook, a waitress, a dance-hall girl, a nurse, and an ox team driver. In 1870, she signed on as a scout at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. Jane claimed that she served under General George Armstrong Custer, but she claimed a lot of associations and adventures that remained unsubstantiated and, in some cases, were contradicted. One verified story was her swim across the Platte River, and a ninety-mile ride at top speed while wet and cold, to deliver important dispatches for General Crook's detachment on the Big Horn River. The closest she probably got to Custer was during the 'Nursey Pursey Indian Outbreak' of 1872, near present day, Sheridan, Wyoming, although she likely didn't meet him. One of her claims was the manner in which she acquired her nickname.
‘It was during this campaign that I was christened Calamity Jane. It
was on Goose Creek, Wyoming where the town of Sheridan is now
located. Capt. Egan was in command of the Post. We were ordered out
to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had
numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and
several severely wounded. When on returning to the Post we were
ambushed about a mile and a half from our destination. When fired
upon Capt. Egan was shot. I was riding in advance and on hearing the
firing turned in my saddle and saw the Captain reeling in his saddle
as though about to fall. I turned my horse and galloped back with all
haste to his side and got there in time to catch him as he was falling. I
lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him
safely to the Fort. Capt Egan on recovering, laughingly said: “I name
you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”’
But in 1904, the Anaconda Standard published a quote from Captain Jack Crawford, who had served under the generals that Jane claimed to have taken orders from ...never saw service in any capacity under either General Crook or General Miles. She never saw a lynching and never was in an Indian fight. She was simply a notorious character, dissolute and devilish, but possessed a generous streak which made her popular. Others maintained that she had obtained her sobriquet as a result of her warnings to men that to offend her was to 'court calamity.' While she worked as a scout at Fort Russell, Jane also found 'on-and-off' employment as a prostitute at the Fort Laramie Three-Mile Hog Ranch.
In 1876, Calamity Jane settled in Deadwood, South Dakota, where she worked, on occasion, as a prostitute for Madam Dora DuFran, and later, as a cook and laundress, for the same patron. She became friendly with Wild Bill Hickok. She later claimed that he fathered her daughter, and that she attacked his murderer with a cleaver, although this is likely fabrication. Hickok, for his part, was not as enamoured with Jane, and apparently went to great lengths to avoid her. Jane lived in the Deadwood area for some time, and at one point she saved several passengers of an overland stagecoach by diverting several Plains Indians who were in pursuit. The driver, John Slaughter, was killed during the pursuit, and Jane took over the reins and drove the stage on to its destination at Deadwood. In late 1876, Jane nursed the victims of a smallpox epidemic, with much kindness and compassion.
In 1893, Calamity Jane started to appear on stage in buckskins, in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, as a storyteller. Unlike Annie Oakley, her performances involved no sharpshooting or roping or riding, merely the recitation of her adventures, which metastasized with each telling, in colorful but clean language. But she began to live up and down to her name, about six months after her participation in the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Depression and drinking had driven her colorful language increasingly profane, and ended her career as a stage performer. She died of pneumonia in 1903 and, in accordance with her dying wish (and possibly as a final piece of mischief from his friends), was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery, overlooking the city of Deadwood.
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