Telegraph Days (23 page)

Whereupon he stopped the buggy, handed me the reins, and headed for the nearest saloon.

Ripley Eads was riding with us. I suppose he was one of your sensitive barbers. He sensed trouble about the same time Cody did and jumped out of the buggy as if propelled by a spring.

Both men soon disappeared behind the swinging doors of a nearby whiskey palace, leaving me to deal with the formidable Lulu as best I could.

“Look at them run, the cowards!” Lulu said, when I pulled up.

She was soundly annoyed but not surprised. Lulu was a pretty woman, despite being stout and the tiniest bit bug-eyed. To me she looked French, and it turned out she was mostly French; she was no shrinking violet, and she scared plenty of men badly, but I want to put on record that in the years I worked for the Wild West, I never had a harsh or unkind word from Lulu Cody. Somehow she figured out right away that I was “safe”; that is, I was not likely to become her husband's mistress.

Lulu Cody drew that conclusion at the very moment when I was still more or less musing that I would become Bill Cody's mistress, at some leisurely point when there was no Lulu handy and no pressing business to interfere with our romance. I now realize that I hadn't yet come to terms with the extent to which Bill Cody was all business. Oh, he liked to carouse at the end of the day—indeed I seldom saw him entirely free of the effects of the whiskey he drank—but he was still all business. When I assumed he hired me because he wanted to copulate with me, I was dead wrong. He hired me because I was organized, and also responsible. In the world of shows that Bill Cody was swiftly moving into, the organized man (or woman) was rare, and the responsible ones even more rare. The truth is that Bill Cody had as good an eye for character as he did for horseflesh, and nobody had a better eye for horseflesh than Buffalo Bill Cody.

But that's to jump ahead.

Lulu had an elk roast cooking. As soon as I got my stuff inside, out of the dusty breeze, I hurried into the kitchen to try and be helpful to Lulu and the two stout Finnish girls she employed as household help.

“Give me Finnish girls any day,” Lulu told me, handing me a salt-shaker and indicating that my duty was to salt the soup.

“Why Finnish?”

“Because they understand English and I don't understand Finnish,” Lulu said. “They gossip in Finnish, which leaves me free to get my work done.”

“Now, this is cozy,” I said, referring to her bright, warm kitchen, which was rapidly filling up with good smells.

For a moment Lulu looked as if she might cry. She teared up and a tear or two spilled over before she caught herself and bent to check her roast.

“That's right—one thing I can do is make a place cozy,” she said. “It's a fine skill, if you ask me, but Bill Cody hates cozy—he flees it like sinners flee the Lord. The cozier I make it, the farther away he wanders.”

I knew Lulu was right. My bright efforts to get Bill Cody into a cozy place for romantic purposes had come to naught. Whatever his opinion of copulation, the man was not going to allow himself to be sucked in by coziness.

“Who was that fellow in the buggy with you and Bill?” Lulu asked.

“Ripley Eads, a barber and chaperone,” I said.

“I wonder if he does pedicures?” Lulu asked. “I confess I'm rather partial to pedicures.”

“It seems unlikely—Ripley's shy,” I told her.

The smell of the elk roasting was making me hungry.

“What will you do about Bill's dislike of coziness?” I asked, though it was not exactly my business.

“Do you believe in love potions, Miss Courtright?” Lulu asked.

“Love potions?” The question took me wholly by surprise.

Lulu nodded and took a little bottle out of a cupboard and held it out to me. I had mostly read about love potions in novels—and not the better novels, either. Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens didn't dwell much on love potions.

Lulu unscrewed the top of the bottle and offered me a smell. I took one sniff and immediately got the vapors. The liquid in the bottle was brown, and unpleasantly murky.

“Potent, don't you agree?” Lulu asked. “I got it from a Gypsy. I figure Bill will show up about three hours from now, hungry as a wolf and wanting some strong coffee to do combat with his hangover. Several drops of this in the coffeepot is supposed to do the trick.”

I was still struggling to clear my head.

“What trick are you expecting it to do, Mrs. Cody?” I asked.

“It's supposed to make Bill love me again,” she said. “He did love me once.”

Then, to my dismay, Lulu Cody burst into tears. She stood in her kitchen and sobbed heavily. The two Finnish maids, who must have been used to it, went about their business.

“You see what a crazy old woman I am?” she said, when she had cried herself out. “Love potion from a Gypsy! But I have to try anything, if I want to see my husband more than a few days a year!

“If you were married wouldn't you want to see your husband more than a few days a year?” she asked.

“I certainly would. And if the love potion didn't work I'd try to knock him down with a stick of firewood. I suppose if I hit him hard enough it would keep the so-and-so anchored for a while.”

“I've yelled at Bill, don't think I haven't,” Lulu said. “But I've never hit him with anything. It would hurt his feelings so.”

Here I was, just arrived and already in the middle of the Cody marriage. I tried to think of something good to say about Bill, and all I could come up with was Ripley Eads.

“I might mention that your husband did insist that the two of us not travel together without a proper chaperone—in this case, the barber,” I told her.

Lulu waved that one away.

“I told you Bill has very limited interest in smart women,” she reminded me.

“Of course he'd hire you. If this crazy Wild West ever gets off the ground he'll need somebody smart to keep up with the payroll and the schedules and such.

“But woo a smart woman? Not likely,” Lulu concluded. “Of
course, he likes to kiss every girl he can catch, as far as that goes. But if Bill thought you two needed a chaperone, it wasn't to protect you from him. It was to protect him from you.”

I must have been standing there with my mouth open—why hadn't I figured that out?—because Lulu gave a short giggle and invited me to fill my plate.

“No use waiting for Bill,” she said. “It'll take him two or three hours to get drunk enough to show himself.”

I did as I was told and ate a pile—it was by far the best elk roast that had ever come my way.

I
WAS INSTALLED
in an airy upstairs room, with a fine western exposure, and was unpacking my valise and hanging my clothes in a roomy cedar closet when I heard the most awful uproar from downstairs. Many people seemed to be shouting—what they were shouting about I could not determine. I put on my housecoat and went hurrying down. It sounded as if there had been a murder downstairs—I couldn't just stand aloof.

The first thing I noticed when I came into the kitchen was Billy Cody, stretched out on the floor, one hand grasping his throat. He seemed to be alive but his face had a look of stark terror. Lulu had backed into a corner to await developments, and both the Finnish girls were crying out to the saints. A young fellow about Jackson's age was trying to get Cody to sit up.

“What's wrong with Mr. Cody?” I asked Lulu.

“That love potion was supposed to work quick but this isn't how I expected it to work,” Lulu whispered.

“I should say not—who's the young man?”

“Danny Mueller, we've been raising him,” Lulu said. “Do you think Bill is acting, or do you think he's really sick?”

“How much of that love potion did you put in his coffee?” I asked.

I'll say one thing for Lulu Cody—she didn't flinch from the truth.

“I put in the whole bottle,” she admitted. “I am not one for half measures,” she added.

I began to feel a little anxious for Bill Cody. One sniff of that love potion had left me feeling vaporish for nearly an hour. I went over to where Bill lay and introduced myself to Danny Mueller, who was plenty worried. Bill Cody was never in his life to have a more devoted friend than Dan Mueller.

“Uncle Bill just took two sips of coffee and fell over backwards,” Danny said. “Do you think he's going to die?”

I wasn't confident that he wouldn't, but I did my best not to let my worry show.

“I suspect he just needs to throw up,” I ventured. “Let's drag him outside—the crisp air might help.”

It was a clear Nebraska night, with many fine stars. We dragged Bill to the edge of the porch and he soon began to throw up in Lulu's flowerbeds.

“She poisoned me, goddamn her!” Bill said, when he could talk a little. “Is that any way for a wife to behave?”

I was not about to admit what I knew. Danny Mueller looked very relieved—he soon went back in to try and calm the Finns.

Even in his weakened state Bill Cody was not dumb.

“You know more about this than you're telling, Missy,” he said, giving me a baleful look.

“Your loving wife would never knowingly harm a hair on your head,” I told him. “If you neglected me like you neglect her I'd have no compunction about braining you with a poker. But I'm not Lulu. She's of a more gentle temperament.”

“Aw, the hell she is!” Bill declared. “You women always take up for one another. I'd say she poisoned me—if it wasn't for my strong constitution I'd probably be dead.”

“You've been in a saloon for several hours,” I pointed out. “Bad whiskey could have given you an upset stomach. It's bad manners to blame everything on your wife, who is a fine cook. I have never eaten tastier elk, and the rhubarb pie was excellent.”

“Shut up, I never said she couldn't cook,” Bill barked.

He held one of his hands out, attempting to hold it steady. His hand was shaking like a leaf. He tried it with the other hand—same result.

“You've just got the whiskey tremors,” I told him. “Father's hands always shook like that after one of his toots.”

“Hogwash,” Cody said. “I've been more or less drunk since way back before the Civil War and my hands have never shook like this.

“Lulu poisoned me—but I suppose you'll back her up,” he added.

“The woman's crazy about you and you don't even know it!” I reminded him.

“Hard to see why, the way I treat her,” Cody said—then he chuckled. Given time, Bill Cody would find the humor in just about anything, including odd situations of his own making.

Then he tried to kiss me but I pushed him away.

“I don't think so—you need to gargle before you start kissing women,” I told him.

“I'm leaving tomorrow—I've put off the generals as long as I can,” he mentioned. “Surely you can spare a kiss or two for your old boss.”

“No sir,” I said. “Your own wife's in there pining for the merest touch. If anybody gives you a kiss tonight, it ought to be her.”

“Maybe I won't send you to Harvard after all,” he said. “You'd probably come back a lawyer and take me to court.”

In a few minutes, with no more said, Bill got up and tromped back into the house, leaving me to ponder the ways of man and woman.

Later, as I crept back upstairs, I heard sounds of violent argument from the master bedroom. Cody was yelling—then Lulu yelled awhile—then Bill yelled some more. I was fast asleep before the Codys quieted down.

I suppose every marriage is different. Mother was far too genteel to ever yell at Father; the most she would allow herself, by way of protest, was some heavy sighs. But Mother's heavy sighs probably scared us young ones more than Lulu's howls.

What happened that night in North Platte, Nebraska, proved to be no little fight. For years Bill Cody remained convinced that Lulu had tried to poison him. Long years later, in the course of bitter court proceedings, Lulu finally admitted that she had given Bill the love potion, in hopes of winning back his affection. I don't think Bill was ever convinced it wasn't poison. Mostly, their lives were lived apart. And yet Bill kept buying Lulu splendid houses—in North Platte, in Rochester, in Wyoming, and even in Denver, I heard. There was a sadness to it for both of them, and, I'm sure, for their children too.

But I was only in their lives in a close way for a few years—what did I know?

I
AM NO
early riser, I admit. I have always been a sound sleeper, and I awake reluctantly, particularly so if I'm enjoying a good dream. I seem to have plenty of good dreams too—many of them involve kissing cowboys.

On my first morning in North Platte I lingered in the sheets till nearly ten in the morning. I was awake earlier, listening for sounds of trouble, but things seemed to be quiet, with no sounds of argument from the Cody quarters, so I decided to snuggle into the sheets and keep to myself for a while, until I was sure that harmony had been restored to the household.

My little delay was based on the assumption that the Codys had composed their differences, at least temporarily, and might be enjoying a happy connubial breakfast—if a reconciliation was in progress, the last thing I wanted to do was butt in.

But I was hungry and could smell bacon and flapjacks and coffee—sooner or later I was going to have to break into the domestic scene or risk getting one of the headaches I get when I don't get enough food.

So I came cautiously downstairs and into the dining room, where no tender scene—or any scene—was in progress. The big round walnut table was set for one—and I was evidently the one. The two Finnish girls—the northern equivalent of Pete and Pat—began to bring in food, starting with cabbage soup, a delicacy I had never taken with breakfast before. The fact that it seemed to be flavored with oxtail was another little test of my cosmopolitanism. Fortunately the combination worked, but I confess I felt more at home with the eggs, bacon, and flapjacks that followed.