Jessi Belle & Martha Jane by Ben Goheen

Deadwood, South Dakota Spring, 1877

“Deadwood is a dangerous place, Jessi,” Wade said. “You could have gone to Abilene, Newton, or a hundred other towns to learn more about life in the West. Why Deadwood?”

“Because Deadwood is the real West,” Jessi Belle Flynn replied. “It’s the real thing. I can’t sit in St. Louis and churn out these Bison Bob stories without seeing and experiencing the places I write about. It’s… it’s, well, it’s dishonest.”

“Hogwash,” he replied. “Who would know the difference?”

“Oh, stop being so ornery. I have you here to watch out for me, don’t I? You know this town. You said so yourself, and it’s a town of legends.”

“Yes, and most of the legends died a violent death.” Wade Rowland shook his head at the pretty blueeyed woman whom he could never get the best of in an argument. He might as well shut up and accept his fate. “Well, we’re here, so we might as well make the best of it.”

“I knew you would see it my way. Eventually.”

“Yeah, you wore me down again.”

She brushed a strand of dusty-brown hair from her forehead as she gazed out the front window of her rented house. She smiled as she imagined how surprised the readers of the popular Bison Bob dime novels would be if they learned the author was a thirty-one year-old former schoolteacher from St.

Louis—who had never fired a gun in her life. She couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.

“What title did you use for the book you submitted before we left St. Louis?”

“I settled on Bison Bob and the River Pirates—or How Bison Bob Saved the Marquis.”

“And how did our hero save the Marquis?”

Jessi shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. You will have to buy the book to find out.”

“And spend a whole dime?”

Jessi laughed. “Oh, I might buy it for you since you described a couple of ways Bob could pull it off. I used the one where Bob disguises himself as a coal stoker for the boat’s boiler crew to get aboard the vessel.”

“Hmm, that suggestion ought to be worth a dime any day—or maybe even a kiss.”

“Don’t press your luck, cowboy.”

Jessi realized how fortunate she was to have Wade and his knowledge of the western way of life as a resource for her to mine. The tall, deeply tanned ex-soldier and ex-cavalry scout was three years her senior but armed with a boatload of experiences to share. She first met Wade when she heard about his work as a troubleshooter for the H.T. & C. Railroad. At that time, she had Bison Bob chasing Jesse James and his gang and needed to learn more about railroad holdups. As time passed, the two gradually grew closer and closer.

She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the door. “Off with you, cowboy, I have work to do. Go entertain yourself for a couple of hours.”

Jessi sat in a straight-backed chair at the kitchen table, where she turned her attention to the next adventure of her hero. What kind of trouble could she put Bob into this time? Another damsel in distress story, or should he single-handedly fight off a horde of miscreants to save a village?

Oh, well, she would fi gure it out. She had lost track of the number of Bison Bob novels she had written, but thought the next one might be number twenty-four.

Jessi owed her fiction career to Sammy Keller, a student at St. Andrew’s in St. Louis where she had taught for two years. Sammy’s love for dime novels had often distracted him in class. After she had repeatedly caught him reading a dime novel in class, she threatened to burn the next one she found.

One week later, she caught Sammy again and confiscated his Deadwood Dick book. Despite her frustration with Sammy’s choice of literature, she agreed to return it at the end of the week if he promised not to bring any more dime novels to school.

That evening, Jessi glanced at the book’s colorful cover that depicted half a dozen cowboys caught in a cattle stampede. Curious, she began to read the book and became captivated with the fast-paced story.

I can do this too, she thought. That’s when she gathered an assortment of reference books from the library and conjured up Bison Bob. He was a wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped man who carried a Bowie knife on his right hip, and a .36 caliber Colt Navy pistol, butt forward, on his left hip. He never met a man he couldn’t whup or a woman who wouldn’t swoon in his presence. She decided on the name Jesse West as the author, and she was off and running.

Wade returned to the house at dusk. He had stopped by a couple of his old haunts to socialize, then accidentally bumped into a friend at the Lucky Lady where they relived their past escapades over a mug of beer, with more than a few exaggerations and outright lies thrown in for good measure.

Jessi looked up from her work when he entered. “Got any new bullet holes to show me?”

“Nope, nary a one. But I did run into an acquaintance in the Lucky Lady. I was challenged to a game of billiards which I couldn’t talk my way out of.”

She laughed. “How much did you lose?”

“Well, she took me for six bits.”

“She?”

“Yep, she. Martha Jane always did have a way with a cue stick.”

“You mean there was a woman you knew hanging out in the billiard parlor?”

“Not just any woman, it was Martha Jane. We met a couple of years back in Fort Laramie when she was a young lass. Young but tougher than a buffalo hide.”

“Is there anything else you would like to tell me about this, Martha Jane?”

Wade shook his head. “Can’t think of anything you need to know.”

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs. He fiddled with his hat as if he were deep in thought. Jessi stared at him. She knew him well enough to see that he had something on his mind.

She let it ride for a few more minutes, then asked, “What is it, Wade? What’s running through that head of yours?”

“Here it is straight, Jessi. When are we going to talk seriously about our future? You know how I feel about you, but every time we start talking about it you shy away. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a great catch. Still, we spend so much of our time together, why don’t we make it official?”

She had known this day would come. In all his previous efforts to raise the subject she had somehow managed to avoid an answer. She reached out and took hold of his hand. “You’re right, Wade, I do owe you an honest answer.”

He nodded. “Yes, Jessi, you do.”

“I promise that I will give you a definite answer in one month. One month, I promise.”

“Well, at least I got you thinking about it. In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, I really enjoy your company, even though you do get contrary sometimes.”

“Enjoy my company more than this mysterious Martha Jane?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

She threw a pencil at him. “Get out of here, you worthless, mangy hound dog.”

He left the house laughing.

One week later, Jessi was well underway with her twenty-fourth adventure. Her working title was Bison Bob and the Golden Arrow. She and Wade had rented a buggy, and he had taken her out to explore an abandoned gold mine he knew about. That sparked an idea. While she mulled over how to get Bob out of a mine cave-in, she sensed there was someone behind her.

She turned and saw a petite woman with flowing red hair standing in the doorway. The visitor looked to be around twenty years old with a pale, drawn appearance that made her seem older. Her clothes were a colorful mix of red, yellow, and purple. Jessi could see a touch of red blush on her cheeks to go with that red mass atop her head.

“May I help you with something?” Jessi asked.

“Well… I’m looking for Jesse West, the writer of those Bison Bob books. I heard he might be here.”

“Well, yes, he is, sort of,” Jessi said as she walked toward the young woman. “That’s really me. Jesse West is my writing name. My actual name is Jessi Belle Flynn.” Jessi nodded toward a chair. “Please have a seat, Miss…?”

“Iris,” she said.

“Iris. That’s a pretty name.”

Iris lowered her head. “It’s not my real name, but I always liked it, so when….” She began to nervously twist a handkerchief in her hands. She raised her head and said in a muffled voice, “You might not want to talk to me or for me to even be seen in your house. You see, I work over at Madame Simone’s place.”

Jessi had heard of Madame Simone and her socalled soiled doves who kept to themselves at the edge of Deadwood.

“I don’t mean to bother you, but I… well…If we could talk for a bit….”

“Sure, Iris, let’s talk.”

“I’ve read all your books. You seem to know how to solve problems, at least Bison Bob does, so, I suppose that means you do too.” Iris leaned forward in the chair and said, “In our business, we meet all kinds of men. Most are friendly and considerate, but some of them are not so nice.”

“Yes, I can imagine that being the case.”

Once Iris began to talk, she couldn’t stop. She told about a man’s vicious assault on her a week earlier, and it wasn’t the first time she had to endure a beating at the man’s hands. She told how this man would show up at Madame Simone’s every Monday morning and demand money from Simone.

“This man told Simone if she refused to pay him, he would see she was run out of town. One morning when Simone argued with him about the amount of money he demanded, I heard him tell her she might get the same treatment that Inge Jorgenson over at the livery stable got. Simone asked around and found out that Jorgenson had been beaten to within an inch of his life.”

Iris squirmed in her chair and continued, “He must be stopped. He’s going to kill me, or one of the other girls, or even Simone if she keeps arguing with him.”

“Have you gone to the local law about this?”

“Oh, no, we don’t dare do that. No, no.”

“What is this man’s name, Iris?”

Iris continued to look down and twist the handkerchief as if she were scared to call his name. Then she lifted her chin in a defiant manner and said, “Deputy George Acker.”

Jessi knew she had a startled look on her face when she heard the man was a lawman.

“Don’t mention my name,” Iris said. “Please. And you be careful. George Acker is a mean and dangerous man, especially when he’s drunk, which is most of the time.” She lowered her head again and added, “I’m sorry I had to come here and unload all this on you, but I didn’t know what else to do, or anywhere else to go.”

When Iris left, Jessi paced as she thought about what she had heard. She had no inkling as to how she would use Iris’ damning information, but she knew the deputy must be held accountable somehow.

That night, Jessi told Wade about her conversation with Iris.

“This Acker sounds like a real disgrace to the profession,” Wade said. “I’d be more than glad to shoot him first thing tomorrow morning if you want me to. Right after I’ve had a cup of coffee.”

“Wade!”

He laughed, threw an arm around her shoulders, and hugged her tightly. “I was only joshing, but it might save folks around here a lot of grief if someone did.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just have to do it another way. I don’t want to spend the rest of my Sunday afternoons visiting you in jail.”

Deputy Acker entered the room he rented above Hiram’s Boot Repair shop. He flopped down on the narrow bed and stared at the dingy walls covered with cobwebs and greasy fingerprints. He had heard all the grumbling from Madame Simone he wanted to hear, and he was convinced that one of her girls had been talking too much.

He grabbed a whiskey bottle off the table and took a huge swallow. The more he thought of it, the more positive he became that he knew the answer. It had to be Iris. She had been uppity the last few times he had been around her. She had told him to leave her alone and had threatened to talk about what she knew more than once. Yes, it had to be Iris. He took another gulp of whiskey, then hurried out the door.

It was early evening when Jessi Belle learned just how violent Deadwood could be. She sat at the table sipping on a cup of hot tea when she heard a sound at the front door. She listened closely but heard nothing more. Then she heard the sound again. Was that a moan or a cry?

She walked slowly to the front entrance and put an ear on the door. There was no question about it this time. There was someone on the other side. She cautiously cracked open the door and peeked through the opening. She let out a loud gasp as she saw a woman lying stretched out on the front stoop, her face covered in blood, and her dress shredded.

The woman tried to talk through bruised and battered lips, but her words were barely audible. Jessi then recognized the woman by her distinctive red hair. It was Iris.

“Iris,” she whispered as she bent over the woman to help. “Let me help you into the house.”

“No, don’t, it hurts too bad to move.”

Jessi ran into the kitchen and returned with a cloth and a pan of water. She washed Iris’ face and got as much blood off as she could without doing more harm. The damage to the young woman’s face made her stomach queasy. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut, her face blue-black with bruises and cuts.

“Did George Acker do this?”

“Acker. He… he… left me for dead. I fooled him.”

Iris dropped her head back on the stoop, exhausted by her effort to drag herself to Jessi’s house. Jessi bent lower and could tell each breath was a struggle and was becoming shallower with each effort. She was scared to move Iris but realized she couldn’t let her lie there, either.

“Iris, can you move at all? I’ll get you into the house, then I’ll get a doctor.”

“I… I’ll try.”

Jessi was able to maneuver the smaller, lighter Iris into the bedroom. “You lie still, while I find a doctor. Don’t you give up, Iris, you hear me? You hold on.”

By nighttime, miners, cowboys, businessmen, and everyone else in Deadwood knew about Iris’s account of her assault and of Acker’s pay-off scheme. Once it was out in the open, other Acker victims began to talk. Among the miners and cowboys, there was talk of a public lynching. Many were patrons of Madame Simone’s establishment and wanted Acker hanging from the nearest tree.

Wade returned to the house later and stuck his head in the bedroom where Jessi sat holding Iris’s hand. “How’s she doing?”

“Sleeping. Doctor Peterson said she should recover in time. She’s a strong, determined young woman.”

Wade said, “I thought you’d like to know that Acker left town. Taz Hiram, his landlord, said Acker cleaned the junk out of his upstairs room like he was never coming back.”

“Good riddance.”

“I’ll see you early tomorrow morning,” he said. “Meantime, I’ve got to roundup Martha Jane.”

Jessi felt her heart jump. Roundup Martha Jane?

Before it was fully light outside, Jessi heard someone rumbling around in the kitchen. She was napping in a chair next to Iris. Wade, she thought. She tossed aside a light blanket, checked that Iris was sleeping, then walked to the kitchen. When she walked through the doorway, a hand grabbed her arm, and another hand covered her mouth.

She tried to scream when she saw George Acker.

“Shut up,” he said as he slapped her across the face. Then he threw her limp body over his shoulder and hurried out of the house where two saddled horses waited. He hoisted her body across a saddle and securely tied her on the horse.

The sun was high before she became fully alert. The pain of lying on her stomach across the saddle with her hands and feet tied was excruciating. It seemed to her that Acker deliberately guided the horses over the roughest, most rugged terrain he could find. They crossed through deep ravines and over rocky hills. Each step of the horse shot pain throughout her body.

Finally, they reached a dilapidated shack hidden deep within the rocky confines of a narrow canyon. Jessi was terrified but determined not to show Acker any fear.

When Acker pulled her off the saddle, she could barely stand.

“Don’t you be looking for no help, lady,” Acker said. “Nobody knows about this here place but me. You belong to me now. If you’d minded your own business, you wouldn’t be in this fix.”

Inside the shack, Acker shoved her into a corner and tied her wrists and feet with a thin cord. He left her alone for two or three minutes then came back with his saddlebags. He sat down in a chair and pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bags. He held up the bottle. “Hair of the dog, lady,” he said, as he chugged down a quarter of the contents.

It was an hour after dawn when Wade and Martha Jane Canary, better known in the territory as Calamity Jane, rode into the yard of Jessi’s rental house. Calamity was a tough looking young woman of twenty-five years whose legendary reputation belied that young age. She wore greasy buckskin trousers, a buckskin shirt with an array of long fringes, and a floppy leather hat that looked homemade. She carried a Winchester across her lap.

She and Wade became friends when they rode together as scouts for General Cook in the Black Hills a couple of years earlier. When she learned of Iris’s injuries, she was distraught. She was well acquainted with Madame Simone and her brood and was ready to go after Acker when Wade found her.

“Gotta meet this lady of yours before we go after Acker,” Calamity said. “She must be something special to corral you.”

“She’s a keeper,” he said. Wade dismounted and tapped on the front door. No response. He tapped harder. Still no response. He then tried the latch, which clicked open.

He eased through the doorway.

“Jessi,” he said in a hushed tone to keep from disturbing Iris. He searched through the house, but there was no sign of her. When he entered the bedroom, Iris was sitting up with a frightened expression.

“Don’t be afraid, Iris,” he said. “I’m a friend of Jessi’s. Do you know where she is?”

Iris slowly shook her head and lowered her head back on the pillow. Wade realized she had fallen asleep. That was when he heard Calamity shouting from the front of the house. He hurried outside and found her bent over examining the dirt.

“These tracks are recent, Wade.” She pointed toward the east. “Headed that way. Two horses.”

Wade’s eyes narrowed. “Someone took Jessi and not too long ago.”

“Then, let’s git riding,” Calamity said. He had mixed feelings about leaving Iris alone, but he figured she would sleep the remainder of the morning, and Dr. Peterson would check on her sometime later. His mind made up, he said, “You take the lead, Martha Jane. You know this territory better than I do.”

An hour passed before the opportunity Jessi sought finally presented itself. Acker was now drunker than a Saturday night sailor, slumped over with his head lying on the table. Earlier, she had noticed a double-bladed axe with a broken handle standing along the wall next to a stack of firewood, about ten feet from where she sat. She quietly scooted along the rough floor toward the axe blade. It wasn’t the sharpest axe she had ever seen, but she managed to get her wrists straddling the blade and sawed back and forth at the cord until it separated. Her wrists were free, then she untied her legs.

Now what? Should she just run? No, not a good idea. Either Acker would find her, or she would become lost in this unforgiving country. There had to be another way. She looked around the cabin and her eyes settled on the stack of firewood. She spotted a thick piece about three feet long and thick enough to do what she needed to do.

She took a deep breath while slowly moving toward the table with the makeshift wooden club in her hands. She moved behind Acker who suddenly looked up.

“What… what,” he mumbled in his drunken state.

With both hands, she swung the club at his skull with all her strength. He tumbled off the chair to the floor with a thud. She checked to see if she had killed him, not caring one way or the other after what he had done to Iris. He was still breathing, so she rolled him over and tied his hands and feet with his own cord.

Bison Bob couldn’t have done it any better.

Calamity suddenly stopped as she spotted a faint spiral of blue smoke rising above a nearby ridge. “Stay here, Wade,” she said. She crawled up the rocky knoll and slowly raised her head. Two hundred yards below where she lay stood a ramshackle shack with two saddled horses tethered outside. A woman sat under the porch in a rocking chair. A man was sprawled out beside her with his arms and legs tied.

She hurried back to Wade. “Acker’s horse is down there, but there’s something odd about it. You’d better take a gander.”

Wade retraced Calamity’s trail and peered over the ridge. He returned to the horses laughing.

“What took you so long?” Jessi asked as Wade and Calamity rode up to the shack.

Wade sat on his horse and shook his head. “Jessi Belle, you surely do amaze me sometimes.”

Calamity walked over where Acker lay on the floor. She kicked him in the side and said, “I oughta shoot you for what you did to Iris, but I won’t.” She then turned to Jessi. “Sakes alive, girl, you shore do fine work when you put your mind to it. No wonder this old buffalo skinner took a liking to you.”

“Would you be Martha Jane?”

“Yep, but most folks just call me Calamity.”

“Calamity Jane? You’re Calamity Jane?”

“In all my wondrous glory.”

Wade dismounted and sauntered over to Jessi. He took her in his arms and said, “Not a month, Jessi Belle. I want an answer today. Right now.”

She threw her arms around his neck and said, “The answer is yes, Wade. Yes, forever, and ever, yes.”

Calamity rolled her eyes at them and gave Acker another solid kick in the ribs for good measure.

Ben Goheen is a former secondary-school teacher, and human resources manager in the chemical industry. He is a graduate of Murray State University and currently lives in Western Kentucky near Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. Ben’s novels of the Old West, written under the name Ben Tyler, are Echoes of Massacre Canyon, winner of the 2016 Peacemaker Award as Best First Western, and his follow-up novel, Mabry’s Challenge. A third western novel entitled The Cowboy and the Scallywag soon followed. When not writing, Ben spends much of his time whacking a golf ball around the picturesque courses of Western Kentucky with his buddies, and spending time with his son and four granddaughters.