Feature
Contributed By Kiniksu Kid
6-29-08
Calamity comes to Wallace
As a townsman approached the stranger asked, “Say, would you tell me something?”
“Yes sir, if I ca.. oh I’ sorry, I mean yes ma’am.”
“Think nothing of it, Sonny, happens all the time.” She appeared to be in her early thirties, but showed signs of hard living.
In spite of her hearty laugh and male clothing, her eyes left no doubt that she was all woman.
“Where is the best grubstake place in town?”
“Oh, that’d be Jake’s place, right down the street, the Prospector Saloon and Restaurant.”
“Much obliged Sonny, sounds fine.” The townsman stared after her wondering who she was. The gold rush started the previous year when word of A.J. Prichart’s rich strike got out and many different kinds of people began swarming into Wallace looking to get rich.
The sounds of a piano drifted into the street as she passed by and entered the restaurant. Heads jerked and eyes followed her as she crossed the room to a middle-aged man in a white apron and derby hat.
“I’m looking for Jake,” she informed him.
“You’re looking right at him…..uh…ma’am”
“Well I just hit town and it took all my cash to get here. Reckon a body could work out a little board and room? I’m a right good cook and it kinda looks like you could use a little help around here.”
“Lady…. If folks keep pouring into this town, I’m going to need a whole new eating place. But as for help - they keep running into the hills looking for gold. So ok you got a job and we’ll see how good of a cook you are. But…you got a place to stay? This ain’t no town for a ..uh…lady to be just wandering around.”
“Don’t worry about me Sonny, but yes fact is I do need a place to bed down.”
He walked her to the door and pointed out a lodging house. Curiosity was overtaking him as he asked her name. She watched amusedly for his reaction as she softly spoke her name.
Jake’s mouth fell open and then his face glowed with delight. The room full of diners hadn’t heard the name but stared as his grin broadened and he pulled a big black cigar from his vest. Handing it to her, he lit it for her and watched as she went puffing down the street.
By now the diners were demanding to know who she was. ”That’s the new cook boys…..” Not wanting to pass up a chance to promote business, he added, “But if you wanna know who she really is, just be here for breakfast in the morning.”
Word of things new traveled fast in Wallace. The place was packed for breakfast and soon a crowd was on the sidewalk straining for a look at the cigar-smoking cook. An old prospector just in from the hills asked,
“What’s going on around here?”
“Haven’t you heard?” a man yelled at him, “Calamity Jane is cookin at Jake’s.”
No question about it, it was her. Already with nation-wide fame both in fact and dime novels, she was intriguing, hard-riding, tobacco-chawing, crack-shooting frontier hero (heroine), once the sweetheart of the late Wild Bill Hickock. Her visit to Wallace in 1884 was part of a pattern she loved to repeat- To arrive broke in a frontier boom town and create a rush of business for a saloon or restaurant. She was a featured attraction in big Eastern Roof rack, tow bar, bench engine stand, and two boxes of grab bag parts. $100 takesit all, you could easily pay that just for the rack. e-mail orcall 263 6060Roof rack, tow bar, bench engine stand, and two boxes of grab bag parts. $100 takesit all, you could easily pay that just for the rack. e-mail orcall 263 6060theaters, but chose to return to the real thing out West where men were men and women… well… 124 years later all women would wear pants and many would even smoke cigars. Very few women however, even in Wallace, have started chawing tobacco, a fine art in which Calamity Jane is still well ahead of the times.
Source :The Rainbow Seekers, a KXLY publication by Westcoast Publishers 1974.
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Last Modified 6-29-08