As Lulu raised her hand to catch a drop of water dangling from a stalactite, a bullet whizzed past her outstretched arm. It had to be a bullet.
The sound echoed off the cavern walls in booming thumps. Loose rock clacked down in a hailstorm around her.
Johnny rolled her against the cave wall and pulled her face to his chest until the clicking stopped. Lulu didn’t know whether to thank him or scream. Johnny Baker, her husband’s employee, took better care of her than did her own husband. But what tenderness could she count on from that famous, handsome, impossible, unfaithful celebrity she had married? What else could she expect from Buffalo Bill Cody?
She fought against the idea that struck her head like a hammer on a carpet tack. It was too horrifying, too hellish to be true. But what if it were true? What if her own husband had just tried to kill her?
He wanted a divorce. She refused. Was he seeking a divorce of the “I may be jailed and damned, but at least I’ll be rid of you” kind?
She fought down fear with anger. Pulling back from Johnny’s arms, she raised her head into a suffocating cloud of limestone dust. She batted at the haze, but only fanned more in her own nose. Mouth open, she shuddered as the bitter powder descended on her tongue.
Her chest heaved for breath; her brain roiled with unbearable thought. Where is the famous buffalo hunter? If he wants to shoot me, let him do it in broad daylight—not in some dank cave. Better still, let him execute me right out in public at his precious Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World in front of an audience of ten thousand. Now there’s a show to sell tickets. Selling tickets is all he cares about.
Tears of self-pity filled her eyes. She imagined the tent man’s bally. “Come one; come all. See the world famous buffalo killer use his trusty rifle Lucrezia Borgia for the last time. Buffalo Bill’s farewell appearance will show the world how the great hero of the Western Plains deals with an unwanted wife.”
Then everybody will know what a lecherous old fraud he is. Hero of the OldWest? Not in my house, he isn’t. Probably scalp me like he did ChiefYellow Hair if he had the chance.
She smiled in grim satisfaction at the thought of her dramatic demise—her bloody head with matron’s silver-gray bun torn away to join other scalps on the great buffalo hunter’s trophy lance. After he scalped me in front of thousands, the state of Missouri would hang him. She said aloud, “I’d buy a ticket to that show myself.”
“What?”
In the settling rock dust, Lulu spat limestone grit into her handkerchief. “I was thinking out loud.” She changed the subject. “Where did it come from—the noise of the bullet? You think it was a bullet, don’t you, Johnny?”
His face looked otherworldly in the light cast up from a single lantern on the uneven floor of the cave. Johnny nodded.
In real life, Johnny Baker was the opposite of the hot-tempered shootists he sometimes played in the show. No one in the company was more considerate or reliable. His virtues had earned him the lofty place of second in command to Cody himself.
Lulu could see his eyebrows knitted in puzzlement, and she tried to explain her slip of the tongue. “I was thinking how impressed the audience would be if Bill could re-create the echo sound in his show. It scared me right down to the ground.”
“And well it should. You’re bleeding.” He held up the lantern to cast light on her arm.
Lulu looked down. A red line slashed across the lavender silk of her sleeve. In the faint light, she could see dark ooze turning her forearm black. “I must have thrown my arm up and stabbed myself on the stalactite.”
Johnny pulled her hand toward him to examine it. He shook his head. “It’s not a puncture. It’s a graze from a bullet. I’ve seen enough of them to know.”
Not until that instant did the pain strike. It dashed up her arm in an electric burn. She bit her lip to keep from yelping. She would never give in—not to pain and not to Bill, either.
Johnny wet his handkerchief from a pool of water and laid it over the wound. “Cool water should ease the burn.”
Lulu shook her head at the irony. “Cool water. We came to spend a Sunday afternoon in this cave which smells like mildew on old rags so we could escape the heat.” She began to shiver.
He spoke in soothing tones. “We should never have come here. Whatever possessed us to think sights underground would be worth seeing? There are plenty of wonders to see out in the daylight. I could watch the Mississippi River roll by for hours—and we can see Big Ole Muddy from our own hotel windows.”
Johnny’s voice took on a note of exasperation. “Say, where in tophet is the funny-looking fat man Bill hired to show us the local attractions? Some sightseeing guide. We can’t even sight the man himself.”
A familiar voice boomed from deep in the cave. “Johnny? Lulu? You two all right?”
Johnny sang out, “Over here. Mrs. Cody is hurt.”
A light appeared nearby—too nearby.
With lantern held high, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody strode over the rocky cave floor as if he were taking the stage to deliver a monologue. “What happened, Lu? Did you take fright and fall?”
“She’s been shot.”
“Shot? Not possible. Let me see.” He grabbed her arm and held it up under his lantern. “Hold your light higher, Johnny. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
He raised the wet cloth to peer at the wound. “I don’t think a bullet caused that nick. Maybe a falling rock.”
Johnny felt the bottom of a stalactite for jagged edges, then examined the floor. He shook his head. “No sign of a rock with blood on it.”
Bill let the cloth fall back in place. “You can’t tell a thing in here. Not enough light. Maybe the tip of the rock rolled off somewhere.”
Lulu stared up at her husband. Her eyes narrowed into slits asking a silent question.
His voice took on a defensive edge, “Well, there’s nobody here but the three of us and our cave guide. What reason would he have to shoot at Lulu?”
Lulu’s gaze traveled down to the pistol that Bill wore low on his hip like an old-time gunslinger.
He pulled it from its holster. “You think I shot at you with this? This pistol shoots nothing but blanks.”
He held the barrel up first to Johnny’s nose then to Lulu’s for the two of them to verify his words. They exchanged looks which bore witness. The barrel was cold and emitted no odor of sulfur.
Cody pointed to the muzzle. “See. It has a bar across the place where the bullets are supposed to come out. I only wear it because people expect Buffalo Bill to wear a sidearm.”
Johnny seemed satisfied. “The blank gun hasn’t been fired. It wouldn’t shoot a real bullet anyway. The bullet we heard was real enough. Probably find it if we set our minds to it.”
“I’ll have a look-see. Johnny, find the way to the entrance. Take Lulu out of here. Go back into Hannibal. Get a doctor to take care of that arm.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’m going to find our guide. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind for leaving us here. Something about the man seemed wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“So you think the guide shot at Mrs. Cody?”
“Not necessarily. Maybe at a snake. All kinds of snakes in caves.”
Lulu wondered whether she might be married to the biggest snake in the Midwest.
Cody turned on his heel and threw words back over his shoulder, “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Find out who fired the shot—if it was a shot.”
Johnny took her arm, raised his lantern, and turned in the direction of the cave entrance. Lulu picked her way across the slippery cave floor feeling alternately furious and frightened.
Just like the famous Buffalo Bill. Shove his own wife off to Nebraska or palm her off on whoever was handy. Eighty thousand dollars—eighty thousand dollars—he spent promoting the current love of his life, Katherine Clemmons, fancy actress tart with a waist the size of my thumb and ambition enough to last till kingdom come.
Ignore his own family. Why couldn’t I marry a simple man—a farmer or a banker?
Folks envy the family of someone famous. If they only knew the truth.
And that time in Chicago. Registered at a hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Cody bold as you please. They were almost as shocked as I was when the real Mrs. Cody—namely me—showed up. Cost him the ranch and the house in North Platte. I made him pay. And that was not the only time. High time, too. He has no idea what I suffer when I see women fawn all over America’s heartthrob, Buffalo Bill.
His press agent, Bessie Isbell. I’m not a bit sorry I busted up his love nest in New York City. Hotel made him pay three hundred dollars. I made him sign over another big piece of property to me. Maybe if I make him give me every penny he has, he’ll have to come home and stay put. Why should I be the only one to suffer?
She bit her lip while her thoughts drifted back to the good times. How different from the day we met during the War Between the States. I had never heard the name “William Cody.” I only knew my cousin had met a boy who rode for the Pony Express in the days before telegraph poles replaced fast horses. Who would have thought my cousin would bring that same boy to our house?
By the time he was nineteen Bill commandeered everything and everybody as if he owned the big world and every little thing in it. Whatever he wanted simply belonged to him. I was no exception.
I had fallen asleep reading a book. She couldn’t help but smile at the memory.
Such nerve. Who else but Buffalo Bill Cody would introduce himself to his future wife by pulling her chair out from under her to wake her up?
The smile twisted into pursed lips. I should have known from that moment on he would bring me nothing but pain.
She held her arm above her heart to ease the sting of the gash in her arm. But how could I not love him—how could anyone not love him? So handsome—so impetuous. Then and there he asked me to marry him. I wanted to say, “Yes—right this minute—this second—whatever you want.” But I didn’t. I did what a modest, well-brought up young girl should. I told him to come back to St. Louis after the war.
For a whole year, I spent hours at my window watching for any sign of the 7th Kansas Redlegs. Then one day, he appeared—larger than life and twice as handsome. He had his mind made up to capture the love of the beautiful girl with the dark curls. He wrote in his autobiography that he adored me above any young lady he had ever seen.
Her lip quivered. She felt the full force of injustice settle over her soul. He said marrying me was the only thing he wanted—needed. But now I’m not the sweet young thing he wed the minute the Great Civil War was over. Now he finds me old and ugly.
So what if I am past the half-century mark? What reason is that to push me away—to leave me to rot on the plains of Nebraska like a buffalo killed for hide and tongue and the rest cast off like so much garbage? No reason; no cause at all. Excuse—nothing but excuse.
The cause is the man himself. Live up to his own publicity—prove he’s still the “King of the Prairiemen.” That is the real reason why he wants to bed every female he sees. I bet he was after Victoria Regina herself—only the Queen of England was too smart to let the likes of him get close to her royal bedroom.
Still, I never thought he wanted to rid himself of me enough to . . . kill me.
The pair emerged into the muggy heat of an August day. She shut her eyes against the blinding light and leaned on the rock beside the cave entrance. She shielded her face with her unwounded arm and looked at Johnny.
He brushed limestone dust from his Stetson with his hand then used the hat to swat dirt and rock chips from Lulu’s skirts. The results were disappointing. Mud clung to her hem in sodden brown clumps. Lulu wiped the grit from her lips onto her hanky.
Johnny batted dust from his white pants and sky-blue shirt with its button-on fireman’s shield front. Lulu wondered to herself. Does he think Bill shot at me? Johnny’s mild round face and kind gray eyes told her nothing.
As Johnny tried to bring back the shine to his trademark over-the-knee black boots, she tried to pose the question but couldn’t find the words. How do I ask a nice man like Johnny whether he thinks his world-renowned boss is trying to murder his own legal wife?
Her mind kept falling back to the gunshot in the cave Mark Twain made famous in Tom Sawyer. How fitting. That story was about money and murder, too.
She wrapped herself in a cocoon of silent grief and said not a word to Johnny on the trip back to Hannibal. Her thoughts tortured her. Bill said his eyes weren’t what they used to be. Maybe I cheated death only because Cody’s eyes are getting old.
Bill was in the right spot and could have fired the shot. The bullet had not come from the blank gun, but he could have others hidden—real pistols with real bullets.
He didn’t truly think the guide shot at me. Would he have gone off in search of an armed shooter without at least having his own working firearm? He knew the guide had not shot at me because he did it himself.
After firing the shot, he could have stashed the pistol anywhere in the cave. Maybe he stayed behind so he could go back for it. Maybe next time he would hit his mark. Maybe next time he would put on those spectacles he was too vain to wear in public. Maybe next time, the light would be bright enough.
Maybe next time William Frederick Cody would kill Louisa Maude Frederici Cody.