DORA FOUND OUT SHE WAS PREGNANT THE DAY CALAMITY and Bartle finally returned. She had been married three months; almost two months had passed since Blue’s visit. Once such news would have made her joyful; this time she received it with foreboding—a foreboding that had little to do with the question of who the father was. She felt convinced that T. Blue was the father, but was not ready to face the question of whether she would inform him of her conviction once the child was born.
The task that caused her to worry came before any question of choosing a father: before she needed to decide on a father, she had to get a living child. Her first child, a girl, had scarcely lived three hours; her second, a boy, had lived almost two months—she remembered all too well the year of grief that had followed his death. Without Blue, she herself would not have lived, she was convinced.
She had known women who had lost five or six children—it was common on the frontier—but could not imagine that she herself would want to survive such a load of grief.
When she told Doosie her news—she had already told her of her suspicions—Doosie at once tried to order her to bed.
“Get in it and stay in it,” Doosie said. “You ain’t gonna do a lick of work until you have that baby.”
Dora ignored her. Ogden was off hauling some freight to Deadwood—he was due back that evening. Dora felt her first dilemma was whether to be truthful with him—or, rather, to decide how much truth would be good for him. She doubted that Ogden knew much about the technicalities of reproduction; he had begun in complete ignorance of all matters connected with it, but had quickly acquired a lot of enthusiasm for some of them. But certain niceties of timing might be lost on him unless she explained them. Ogden’s trust in her was profound; he would believe whatever she told him.
“I’ve got too much to think about just to get in bed,” Dora said, pacing around the kitchen.
“Well, think lying down,” Doosie said. “You can’t just walk around in circles in my kitchen for six months.”
“You seem to be mighty cheerful—you’re not the one who has to have it!” Dora said, annoyed that her moody maid had suddenly turned into a sunbeam.
“I hope it’s a little girl,” Doosie said. “Be nice to have a little girl around here. Wouldn’t be so dull if we had a little girl.”
“I don’t see what’s dull about it now,” Dora said. “I’m out of business, and I’ve got a husband who can eat a beef a week.”
“This girl might not be too little—it’s got a big Daddy,” Doosie said, watching Dora closely to see if she would confirm the statement.
Dora didn’t confirm it; instead she went upstairs and stayed in her room all day, with only Fred for a companion. She felt that if prizes were to be given for doing everything wrong, she would win them all. The memory of Blue’s face—the white spot at the edge of town—was still fresh. How it haunted her. Why had he stopped and looked that way, unless it was a last look? He never meant to return again; he hadn’t said it, but she knew it. Their love had become too awkward, too much a strain on both of them, now that both were married.
So why, after all their years, had she waited to take a child from him until their very moment of parting? Of course, maybe she was wrong; maybe she held Ogden’s child—Ogden had vigor enough to make plenty of children. And they had been married two months before Blue came. Everything argued for Ogden—except her heart and her instinct. And through the day, in moments when her spirit lifted a little, when she felt some touch of excitement at the thought that after all her disappointments—there had been two miscarriages, also—she might finally have a child, the thought that it was Blue’s was part of the gladness. He might never come back, might never know about the child, but she would, and maybe, someday, the child would, too. Even if Blue never came back, there might in time be a way for him to know about the child—to know that at last something more than just the fussing had come of all their times together.
As if the news that a baby would be arriving in six months or so was not enough excitement for one day, Potato Creek Johnny came rushing in with another startling piece of news. Calamity and Bartle had been spotted a few miles north of town; they were said to be taking their time, but would make town by nightfall or sooner unless some accident befell them.
“Calamity and Bartle?” Dora asked. “What’d they do with Jim?”
“The news is Jim is dead!” Johnny said.
“Dead of what? Did he get smallpox?” Dora asked.
“Well, I’ve heard different stories,” Johnny admitted. “I think a stagecoach fell on him. Another story is that it was suicide.”
Dora didn’t like getting such news—she fretted most of the afternoon, looking out the window a hundred times or more. But the horizons to the north remained empty, and when someone finally showed up it was Ogden, stomping up the stairs to hug his wife. Ogden’s hugs were perils in themselves; he had little sense of his own strength. More than once Dora feared her ribs might give way, but in her jangled state she was glad to see Ogden—there was so much of him that after a few minutes beside him on the bed, body heat alone relaxed her and calmed her down. The only nuisance was Fred, who was jealous of Ogden. Fred had already pecked the buttons off all Ogden’s shirts—if Ogden forgot him for a moment, to kiss his wife or something, Fred would reach in and crack another button.
Ogden was an impulsive hugger and kisser; it often prompted Dora to impulsive actions too, or, at the very least, impulsive talk. After returning some of his impulsive kisses it was on the tip of Dora’s tongue to tell him about the baby, but before she could do so she looked out the window once more and spotted a familiar black horse, with a familiar black dog. Limping beside the horse was Bartle Bone, looking very much the tired, foot-weary mountain man.
“It’s Calamity!” Dora said. “Calamity and Bartle!”
Calamity had been keeping a lookout for Dora as she rode through Belle Fourche. Dora often ran to meet her when she’d been away awhile.
“Here she comes,” Bartle said. He had spotted Dora and Doosie the minute they stepped outdoors.
“My God, who’s that?” he added. A boy so large he had to turn edgewise to get out the door had appeared behind them. He was the largest man Bartle had seen since his last visit with Touches the Sky, the Miniconjou chief. Touches the Sky was taller than the young man on the porch, but not by much, and he was far from being as large in bulk.
Calamity, too, was startled by the size of the youth. Dora looked tiny beside him. Calamity had been fighting back tears all day at the thought of seeing her friend—now she could stop fighting them back: there was Dora!
“Get down, get down, you’re here!” Dora said.
“We ain’t all back. Jim’s dead, we buried him in Dubuque,” Bartle said. He felt it best to deliver sad news promptly.
On the long ride up the Missouri and the walk south he had suffered more than he had expected to suffer from the absence of his old compañero of the trails. They slid past the banks where he had so often camped with Jim; then, walking south over the gray plains, he was constantly afflicted by memories of Jim Ragg—at times he almost felt he was traveling with a ghost, so strongly did Jim Ragg still haunt the Missouri country.
Calamity had got tired of hearing about it; she had liked Jim too, but enough was enough, and Bartle was as voluble as ever—just ten times as lugubrious. They took to drinking at opposite ends of the boat; once they left the boat, Calamity soon had to insist on a separate camp: she didn’t want to spend any more evenings listening to Bartle cough up memories. She concentrated on getting home to Dora. Dora had told her she could have her own room.
The big boy looked shy. He stood well back from the hugging, which went on a considerable time. But he kept his eye on Dora.
“What did happen to old Jim?” Potato Creek Johnny asked, when everyone was hugged out. He was shocked at the appearance of Calamity and Bartle; they looked gaunted by travel, or drink, or both. He himself had walked out of Miles City with them only a few months before; he didn’t feel any the worse for having lived a few months, but both Calamity and Bartle looked as if they had aged several years—and neither of them had looked any too young to begin with.
Ogden, too, was a little taken aback by the appearance of the odd-looking woman and the rough old mountain man. He had heard Dora and Doosie talk about them and knew they were old friends of both. He had pictured them in his mind as fine, attractive people—old-timers, adventurers. But these two old people just looked like wrecks; they looked dirty, wobbly, and sad. He wondered if some terrible massacre had occurred of which they were the only survivors.
“What did happen to old Jim?” Johnny repeated. Both Bartle and Calamity had ignored his first inquiry.
Suddenly Bartle slammed him in the face with his fist, sending him reeling backward, though more from surprise than hurt.
“Damn you, I’ll strangle you if you call him old again,” Bartle said, fiercely angry for a moment.
Johnny quickly apologized. “It just slipped out. I’m sorry,” he said. “But what did happen to him? We heard a stagecoach fell on him.”
Neither Bartle nor Calamity really wanted to reveal the unflattering facts, but Calamity finally decided she might as well get it over with.
“A loco in Chicago stabbed him with a pocketknife,” she said.
“A pocketknife?” Johnny said in disbelief.
“A pocketknife can kill you if it hits just the right spot,” Bartle said, embarrassed for Jim.
Dora, realizing Ogden had been left out; led Calamity over to him.
“Martha, this is Ogden,” she said. “He’s my husband.”
To Calamity the news was as unexpected as a slap, or more so. Ogden looked like a decent boy, but it was still a slap of surprise. After a moment she offered her hand but found she had to struggle to say anything.
“Howdy, I guess for once I’m tongue-tied,” she said. “Chalk it up to the long trip.”