The Return of Little Big Man by Thomas Berger

Author:Thomas Berger [Berger, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480400894
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2013-01-28T19:24:00+00:00

Now, I sure could never write such fine poetry myself, and in a minute I’ll tell you who did, but at the first time I ever saw this pretty gal we was still in N.O. camped out beyond Audubon Park in the rain and she was entering Cody’s tent accompanied by several men, among them our press agent John Burke, a big heavy fellow also known as Major or Arizona John, for most everybody around Cody had to have a title, nickname, or both, Buffalo Bill even naming each of his rifles.

Having fallen for her on just that glimpse, scoff if you want, I waited till she left and then went to ask Cody whose daughter she was, and I tell you I wasn’t uneasy in so doing, given the clear conscience of my feeling.

But he was busy at the time, going over the schedule with Burke, so I couldn’t ask him till later and by that time, what with his money worries and all, he couldn’t recall much about her except she was a performer with the Sells Brothers circus, which was also appearing locally and also suffering from the weather and about to leave town. I was disappointed to hear that, given the general reputation of females involved in entertainment in that time, which my experience with Dora Hand hadn’t gone to disprove, so with the idea that her schoolgirl appearance and demeanor was intended to deceive, and likely she was one of them lady acrobats wearing indecent tights that outlined the limbs, I dropped the matter from my mind.

As it happened Buffalo Bill didn’t go home but instead took the Wild West upriver to Louisville, Kentucky, towards the end of April, and one day early in the engagement he called most of the company together in front of his tent and by the hand he brings forward the pretty girl I seen in New Orleans, and for a minute I thought what was the Wild West coming to, was we doing such bad business we had to hire a girlie act?

“Little Missie here is joining us,” Cody says. “She’ll be the only white woman with our company, and I want you boys to welcome and protect her.”

Standing next to me was another newcomer to the show—at least I assume he was for I never seen him before—a good-looking fellow of the middle height, with short, neat hair and a well-trimmed mustache, and I says to him out of the corner of my mouth, “She looks like a real velocipede,” which was what you might say in them days to mean quite lively.

And he says, “Sure if she’s not my wife, little man, and I’ll kick your arse.”

I had put my foot in it for fair, for he turned out to be an Irishman named Frank Butler, a sharpshooter of reputation, and this little wife of his was even better though nobody knew at the time that she was just about the best as ever held a firearm, man or woman.

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