Buffalo Girls by Larry McMurtry Page A

offered her employment in his show. Calamity had scarcely responded, though the candy had disappeared little by little.
    â€œI got no complaint about Billy,” Calamity added—she felt a little guilty about having received him so listlessly. After all, she had risked her life coming to hire on; why couldn’t she just say she’d hire on? Somehow the words stuck in her throat, along with all other words.
    â€œBilly’s perfect,” she said, a little later. “If you had good sense you’d marry him.”

    â€œWe won’t talk about that,” Dora said quickly. “I can’t marry him, and anyway he
is
married.”
    â€œ
Won’t
marry him, you mean,” Calamity said, stirring a little at the thought of Dora’s stubbornness in refusing good-looking Billy Cody.
    â€œWon’t or can’t—it’s between me and Billy,” Dora reminded her, feeling her temper rise. It almost always rose when she and Calamity got on the subject of matrimony. Calamity, who had never got within a mile of being married, nonetheless felt perfectly free to advise her on the matter.
    â€œYou won’t even go to work for him, yet you expect me to marry him!” Dora said more loudly, her temper rising higher.
    â€œOh, shush down and bring me a rifle,” Calamity said. “I want to be ready, in case I have to shoot.”
    Dora turned toward the window; when she turned back, Calamity saw tears on her cheeks—once again she had gone too far.
    â€œCan’t you get mad without crying?” Calamity said meekly.
    â€œNo—I can’t and you know it!” Dora said.
    â€œDon’t bring me the rifle,” Calamity said. “You might shoot me with it. I think I’ll get up and get drunk.”
    It took another hour for her to actually get out of bed and into her clothes, but she did it. Then, while she was downstairs at the bar in the process of fulfilling her resolution, the door to the kitchen swung open and T. Blue walked in, his cheeks red from the chill, and his spurs jingling.
    â€œHowdy, cowboy,” Calamity said, feeling better already.

10

    S TOP DRINKING THAT DAMN BEER AND DRINK WHISKEY WITH me,” Calamity demanded, an hour later. She was glad to see Blue; he was one of those rare fellows who stayed so cheerful himself that his arrival could lift the spirits of a whole town, at least if it was a small town. For some reason, though, he was being irritatingly proper, sipping beer like a Missouri farmer and looking lofty as a deacon.
    â€œNow, Martha, I’m reformed,” Blue said. “I have been asked to stand for judge, and a judge can’t be drinking too much whiskey. I might show up in court drunk and hang the wrong fellow.”
    â€œI consider that a joke,” Calamity said. “A territory that would consider making you a judge has reached a bad pass. I’d probably be the first person you’d arrest, and I’ve known you all my life.”
    She did like cowboys, though, Calamity reflected. Blue seemed to be the only one in the room, and he shone like a flare. The miners, gamblers, mule skinners, and general drifters just didn’t have the shine Blue had. He was looking over the room as he sipped beer, sizing up the card games and flattering the whores with an occasional casual glance. Of course, the glances he bestowed on Ginny and Skeedle and Trix had to be mighty casual, for Dora was likely to come down any minute. Wordwould soon get out that Blue was there—someone would holler his name, or Dora would just sense it.
    â€œI suppose you heard I nearly got lost in a blizzard,” Calamity said. She looked around for No Ears. In her mind the old man had saved her twice, for when she’d stepped off Satan in the blizzard she felt sure she would have stumbled off in the wrong direction and never seen the box of light if he hadn’t kept a firm hold on her coat. Since then she liked to be