In the Lick House Hotel, a dining room the size of a cathedral had been transformed into a ballroom the size of a cathedral. According to Affie, the room was modeled on the banquet hall of a famous French palace.
Violetta and Blezzard were holding their wedding reception here on account of this hotel was even grander than the Occidental and quickly becoming all the fashion because of this splendid ballroom, the finest in the state of California. The room was made of cream-colored marble with gold trim & columns & the biggest mirrors I had ever seen that doubled and tripled the other walls so that it seemed there were about ten more cathedral-sized rooms giving off of this one.
If you looked up, the ceiling was so high it made you dizzy. There were little arched alcoves on the walls up high, with circular windows at their backs and rails at their front. That was where the musicians went. There were three fiddlers and a cello up in one of those alcoves and they were already playing waltzes & polkas.
All around the sides of the dining room stood linen-covered tables laden with sugared fruits & candied nuts & blancmanges & suchlike. Turkey carpets had been rolled up to reveal a wooden parquet floor specially built for dancing.
On the north side of the ballroom, set between two fancy paintings of pine-clad mountains and hiding a door leading to the kitchens, stood Minnehaha’s stage. She and Affie had directed hotel staff and they had set it up real good.
It looked like a miniature music hall, with a stage, curtains and side bits. You could get to the back of stage by a nondescript door leading to a corridor used by waiters to take away dirty dishes & suchlike. Miz Zoe was in a room back there with my troops, viz: Martha, Ping and Affie.
Without Affie I never could have done it, but he had spoken to the hotel owner and said it was a wedding present from his pa, Sir Fitzhugh Fitzsimmons, who was not only a famous naturalist and jungle explorer, but also distantly related to Queen Victoria.
It was not yet 4 o’clock but people had started arriving & were already dancing. The men wore black & white. The women sported puffy silks & satins & foulards & suchlike. Their ball gowns matched the colors of the sugared fruits & candied nuts.
I was peeping out from between the closed curtains of the stage to see if my mortal enemies had arrived yet.
I was hiding as I did not want to let Violetta or her evil husband know I was in Frisco and ‘onto them’. But by and by I got impatient and ventured out onto the dance floor.
I was wearing my wig with the long black hair and a hawk feather for bravery in it & my zigzag Zouave jacket & my fringed deerskin trousers & butter-soft moccasins.
I was not prepared for people’s reactions when they saw me in my Indian gal getup. Some of the women uttered little cries & fanned their fans whereas several of the men swore under their breath & raised their eyebrows.
Suddenly Jace stood before me, tall & slim & dressed in black, smelling of musky pomade and Mascara cigars.
‘P.K.?’ he said. ‘Is that you? D-mn me! Ain’t you a vision?’
I did not reply but walked around him & carried on through the twirly, swirly couples. He was not marrying Violetta, but he had betrayed my secret to her. It was his fault I had been made the target of a cruel Confidence Game designed to ruin and kill me.
Then the musicians struck up a different song & the couples stopped dancing & turned to the main doorway of the ballroom & began to applaud.
Dang! The bride and groom had arrived! All might be lost if they spotted me.
Quick as a whip-crack, I skedaddled back to the curtained stage. I slipped between the red muslin curtains to find Affie and Zoe just setting up the man-sized knife-catching wheel target.
‘Blezzard’s a comin!’ I cried. ‘Violetta and her new husband are here!’
‘Good!’ said Affie. He draped a dust sheet over the target.
Zoe went to the doorway at the back of the stage and called out softly, ‘Martha, are you ready?’
Martha emerged from the door leading to the kitchens and mounted the two steps to the back of the stage. She was wearing my daffodil-yellow frock! But it looked bully on her.
‘Martha, you look bully,’ I said.
‘I know!’ she replied. ‘I am frightened and happy all mixed together.’
‘Stage-fright,’ said Affie. ‘Every good performer experiences it.’ He glanced up at the little orchestra in their lofty alcove halfway up the wall & gave them a little wave. Immediately they stopped their waltz & they began to play a jaunty Irish Jig.
Miz Zoe pulled the curtain from one side (and stayed hidden behind it) & I pulled the curtain from the other (being careful to stay hidden, too). We each had tiny crack to spy on the audience.
The crowd said ‘Oh!’ as Martha danced out onto the stage. She danced a capering little jig. Her yellow skirt spun & the green flounces flounced & her feet twinkled & her teeth beamed. I was so astonished that I stood there with my mouth hanging open, you bet!
Martha finished her jig and the room erupted in thundering applause.
Affie stepped forward. Did I mention he was wearing his jungle explorer outfit of palm-leaf sunhat & beige linen knickerbockers?
‘Welcome to the Lick House Music Hall,’ he said in his English accent, ‘a wedding present from my father, the famous naturalist and jungle explorer Sir Fitzhugh Fitzfimmons in honor of the newlywed couple Mr. and Mrs. Blezzard.’ Affie gestured towards Martha. ‘Please express your appreciation for Miss Martha May and her energetic jig.’
Everybody expressed his or her appreciation.
I saw Violetta and her groom exchange smiles.
‘And now,’ cried Affie in a carrying voice, ‘straight from the Spice Courts of China, I bring you Ping the Wizard and his “magic rings”!’
‘Ping?’ I said to myself. ‘The Wizard?’
The musicians started playing oriental-type music as Ping came up the steps onto the stage. He was dressed in jade green silk pajamas and a skullcap. He had three silvery metal hoops about the size of big dinner plates. He could put them together in a chain and then pull them apart unbroken! He bowed! He smiled! I was amazed and so were the people.
The crowd said, ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Ah!’
Once again I saw Violetta and Jonas Blezzard look at each other. They had each raised an eyebrow. I think that was Quizzical or maybe Ironikle but I could not be sure as my Christian ma had not taught me those Expressions.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ cried Affie. ‘Express your appreciation for Ping the Wizard and his “magic rings”!’
Ping bowed and everyone clapped.
‘Before our finale,’ said Affie, ‘I would like to pose some conundrums.’
There was a happy murmur. San Franciscans obviously liked conundrums.
‘How is matrimony like a game of cards?’ Affie gestured towards Violetta and Blezzard and then answered his own question: ‘The woman has a heart, the man takes it with his diamonds, and then her hand is his!’
Everyone laughed and some people clapped.
Through my spyhole I noticed that Violetta & Blezzard were not among those clapping.
‘What four letters of the alphabet would frighten a thief?’ Affie pointed at Blezzard, ‘O I C U!’
The crowd groaned and there was a smattering of applause.
Violetta and her groom were no longer smiling.
‘And now for our grand finale!’ cried Affie. He glanced to where I was waiting behind one of the curtains. I nodded.
‘Before we start, I require a volunteer!’ cried Affable. ‘A man of exceptional bravery and fortitude. I need a fearless hero to show he wife he will always protect her.’
From my spyhole I saw several men raise their hands. Mr. Jonas Blezzard was not one of them. He was still too busy giving Affie Expression No. 5 – Anger and/or Suspicion.
‘You sir!’ cried Affie, pointing at Blezzard. ‘Yes, you! Ladies and Gentlemen, the happy groom has volunteered to put himself in the hands of a lovely savage! Please applaud Mr. Jonas Blezzard!’
To the universal sound of clapping, Mr. Jonas Blezzard AKA Ray G. Tempest slowly made his way forward. He wore an expression which I could not read.
‘And now the lovely savage,’ cried Affie, ‘all the way from the Black Hills of Dakota: Kimimila!’
I stared at him for a moment in surprise. He had used the Lakota word for ‘butterfly’! He had given me a new Indian name!
I took a breath, stepped out onto the stage and faced the dancers.
Everybody gasped.
Then I heard a nearby woman clap her hands and say, ‘Ain’t she pretty!’
Another lady said, ‘I wish I could wear trowsers!’
A man said, ‘Look at that bully pistol belt!
I looked at Violetta. I could tell she recognized me, for her long-lashed eyes were as round as blue poker chips and her mouth resembled a red O. Then her pretty face went from Expression No. 4 – Surprise, to Expression No. 5 – Anger.
But my other mortal enemy did not seem to recognize me. The face of Ray G. Tempest AKA Jonas Blezzard showed a strange commixture of a genuine smile & surprise. He was only two feet away but he did not recognize me!
Behind us, Affie removed the dust sheet from Minnehaha’s wheel with a flourish.
People gasped at the sight of the giant target with its rings of blue & red & its yellow disc in the middle & also those leather straps. Some knew what it was and began whispering to their partners. Others were asking what it could be.
Nobody asked for the dance to resume.
Blezzard AKA Tempest turned and saw it and his face went white. Then he looked at me and I saw understanding dawn.
‘Thank you for volunteering, brave sir!’ cried Affie. ‘Please step up upon the target!’
Read on...
The next morning I woke to the smell of coffee and doughnuts.
‘Have you finished it?’ I heard Martha whisper.
‘Just this very moment,’ said Zoe, and then I heard her give a big yawn.
I sat up to find I was on one of the camp cots, covered in a soft blanket. I had stayed up late talking to Miz Zoe and Martha about woman things. Then Zoe had let me take her cot as she had an ‘All Night Job’.
‘Look what Miz Zoe done made you last night,’ said Martha. She held up a beautiful quilted jacket. It looked like a soldier’s padded jacket if the soldier had been a gal.
‘Martha helped,’ said Zoe. ‘We did it together.’
I blinked at them. ‘What is it?’
Zoe said, ‘It is a Zouave jacket, named after a famous infantry regiment from New York. Such jackets are all the fashion for ladies this season.’
I said, ‘That was your All Night Job?’
Zoe nodded.
‘I got some sleep,’ said Martha, ‘but Zoe was up all night.’
I pushed away the cover & got up off the camp cot. My legs were stiff from all the hill walking I had done the day before. I splashed some water on my cheeks from the basin & dried my face using one of the towels on Miz Zoe’s Toilette Trunk. Then went over to where Martha stood holding my new jacket. It was made from different scraps of cloth. Most Zouave shirts have curlicues but this one had zigzags.
I said, ‘I like this a lot. I am partial to zigzags.’
‘The zigzags were Martha’s idea,’ said Zoe. She was over at the camp stove, brewing a pot of coffee.
I took it in my hands and felt it. ‘How did you make it so soft?’
‘We used old scraps,’ Zoe said. ‘But they are clean,’ she added hastily.
Martha said, ‘We have a special way of sewing seams so they do not rub. Put it on.’
I put my new Zouave Jacket on over the fresh cotton chemise and bloomers. Then I put on the things Minnehaha had given me the day before: the fringed buckskin trowsers & beaded moccasins. Oh, how good they felt! Finally I put on the wig. The shiny black hair was not pinned up but flowing down.
‘Oh, Pinky!’ said Martha.
And Zoe said, ‘How does it feel?’
‘It feels bully,’ I said. I swallowed hard. ‘But how do I look?’
‘See for yourself,’ said Zoe. She said it with a kind of hush in her voice as she turned me to face the mirror leaning against the wall.
I could not believe my eyes.
I saw a girl with fringed buckskin trowsers and a zigzag Zouave jacket & long silky black hair. She had slightly slanting black eyes & toffee-colored skin & symmetrical features.
She was beautiful.
I said, ‘She is beautiful.’
Zoe said, ‘No, you are beautiful.’
Martha said, ‘You look like a buckskin butterfly.’
When she said that, I remembered something. A few months ago in Eagle Valley, I had dreamed of a beautiful half-Indian girl. And now there she stood reflected in the full-length mirror. Almost.
‘I need a sombrero hat and some firearms,’ I murmured.
‘What?’ said Zoe.
‘Nothing,’ I said. And then, ‘Do you think I will attract much attention walking down Montgomery or Market Street dressed like this?’
‘I should say so!’ laughed Zoe.
‘You will attract forty kinds of attention!’ Martha giggled.
‘Then do you have something I could wear that will help me not attract attention?’ I asked.
Martha nodded. ‘I can adjust one of Miz Zoe’s old frocks,’ she said. ‘They are still a mite big for me but one of them might fit you.’
‘Red calico?’ I asked.
‘How did you guess?’ asked Miz Zoe with a yawning smile.
I said, ‘I have got to go to the Willows and see if Minnehaha will help us in our plan to trap Jonas Blezzard. Will you come with me?’
Martha sighed. ‘I would love to go and watch them jig-dancers,’ she said. ‘Miz Zoe and I saw Little Jennie Worrell at the Melodeon one time. But I got to go in to work this morning on account of us getting ready for the big wedding dance.’
‘And I have got to catch forty winks before this afternoon,’ said Miz Zoe.
After a breakfast of black coffee and chocolate layer cake, I put on the disguise of a red calico dress and a straw bonnet & went outside to find it foggy and cool. I caught the Mission Railroad Cars to the Willows. I stayed downstairs in a corner where nobody would notice me.
It was still early on a Monday morning and I found the Willows open but almost deserted and no shows starting until noon. It was foggy there too, and I was glad of it, for it offered a kind of protection. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found Minnie relaxing in her Medicine Show Wagon. She was reading the paper and smoking a pipe. A pipe!
I told her my plan and asked if she could help.
She said she was meeting an important Event Manager that evening for dinner but as it was very quiet on Mondays, I could use her equipment. She said her knife-throwing trick was easy & that she would show me how to do it.
She took me outside to her portable stage and showed me how to do it.
‘Can you pack up this stage and move it?’ I asked.
‘Sure. I do it every time I move on,’ she said.
‘Can you let me borrow the actual stage for the afternoon?
‘Sure,’ she said, ‘Where shall I bring it?’
‘Lick House Hotel,’ I said. ‘About 2pm if you can. I will be waiting.’
The fog was just burning off when I got back to Montgomery Street and the Lick House Hotel. The lobby and dining room were a hive of activity and nobody stopped me or even looked at me as I went inside and up to Affie’s room.
Ping and Affie were discussing the final arrangements over lunch in Affie’s suite and at 2pm we were downstairs as Minnie pulled up with her medicine wagon full of stage equipment. Affie had recruited some hotel staff to help us.
When I got back to Sansome Street to change my attire, I found a lady coming downstairs carrying a pale blue ball gown.
‘That was Mrs. Prendergast,’ said Zoe when I came in. ‘She just paid me for this job and two others! We are now flush not bust. Here are the sixteen dollars I owe you, Pinky. How are the arrangements going for our music hall?’ she added.
‘Everything is all set up,’ I said. ‘Let us go and mete out some justice!’
Read on...
‘What brought you to San Francisco?’ Minnie O’Malley asked me a short time later.
I was standing behind her in the moving wagon & looking over her shoulder as she drove north up Valencia Street.
I told her my story and concluded with these words, ‘I have got to find evidence proving that those two bogus detectives were using me. Otherwise I will be WANTED till the end of time.’
‘And you are hoping to find it at the Occidental Hotel?’
‘Yes. My mortal enemy Violetta de Baskerville is involved and she resides there.’
‘Crouch down!’ she hissed. ‘I think I see some policemen up ahead.’
I retreated into the dim & rocking interior of the Medicine Wagon.
‘All clear,’ she said presently, ‘but you better lay low. You can use my bed.’
She had a kind of padded shelf along one side of the cluttered space of her wagon. I stretched out on it.
I must have dozed off for I was suddenly awoken by the juddering noise of iron-rimmed wheels on a corduroy road.
‘Whoa!’ said Minnehaha, and put her head into the wagon. ‘We have arrived.’
‘Already?’ I said.
She grinned. ‘I am guessing you had forty winks!’
I sat up & stretched & yawned. Then I tucked my bundle of new clothes under my left arm & went down the back steps of the wagon & stood blinking in the bright sun. I judged it was about 2 and a half o’clock. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a wood plank street lined with the backs of some nice buildings and the fronts of some crowded-together buildings.
Minnie had stopped the cart outside one of the crowded-together buildings. I saw a chalk number 88 scrawled on the wall beside a door.
‘Will you wait to see if they are in?’ I asked.
‘Surely,’ said she.
I knocked on the door and then took a step back.
It was a warm day. I could smell a kind of swampy smell coming up from beneath the wooden road & fresh baked bread. I could hear hammering & sawing somewhere & also tinkly piano music from a saloon. I could see the same hill that had loomed behind the Occidental Hotel.
‘Are we near the Occidental Hotel?’ I asked.
She nodded and tipped her head. ‘Montgomery is the next street along. And the Broadway Wharf where the inland steamers dock is only a few blocks the other way,’ she said.
I knocked again. Louder this time.
No reply.
I called out. ‘Martha? Miz Zoe?’ (That was what Martha called Mrs. Zoe Brown.)
Then I heard a feminine voice from on high.
‘What do you want?’
I looked up to see the pretty head of Mrs. Zoe Brown sticking out of a raised sash-window of an upper floor.
I said, ‘I want you, Miz Zoe. It is me: P.K. Pinkerton.’ I lifted up my pink poke bonnet to show my short dark hair. ‘I am in disguise.’
‘P.K.?’ The head retreated & presently I heard feet on stairs & a moment later the door flew open.
‘Oh, P.K.!’ She rushed forward & hugged me to her frilly bosom. ‘It is wonderful to see you!’
Miz Zoe Brown is a quadroon, which means she has a dash of Negro blood. This makes her skin the color of caramel. She is shapely with big brown eyes & long eyelashes & a smell of honeysuckle.
I squirmed out of her embrace. ‘Miz Zoe,’ I said, ‘I am in trouble and need a place to lay low. Can you shelter me for a day or two?’
‘Why of course!’ she cried. ‘Martha and I have been hoping for a visit!’
I turned & waved to Minnehaha. She gave me a thumbs-up. ‘Don’t be a stranger!’ she cried. ‘You know where to find me.’ Then she flicked the reins & carried on down Sansome Street.
‘Oh, P.K.,’ said Zoe, again. ‘Martha will be overjoyed.’
‘She ain’t here?’
‘No,’ said Zoe. ‘She works as a chambermaid.’
‘Even on the Sabbath?’
Mrs. Zoe Brown nodded. ‘Even on the Sabbath. It is harder than I thought it would be to make ends meet.’ She gave a sigh and a smile and then looked me up and down. ‘That is some disguise. I cannot wait to hear why you are here in Frisco dressed like that.’
She led the way up dark & narrow stairs and said over her shoulder. ‘Martha will be home soon. I am just making a pot of tea. Do you like tea? Martha is partial to China tea with a slice of lemon and I have got a taste for it, too.’
I said, ‘I have never tried China tea with slice of lemon.’
‘Please excuse the disarray,’ said Miz Zoe as she went into a large room. The sun shining through red calico curtains gave it a roseate glow. She pulled opened the curtains and a strong flood of afternoon light showed a wrought iron table with one of those newfangled sewing machines like the one Mrs. Wasserman had used to alter my dress.
‘This is my Singer sewing machine,’ said Zoe. ‘I had to sell Sassy to buy it. All the ladies here in Frisco want machine-sewn seams on their dresses,’ she explained. ‘Now how about that cup of tea? We do not have a kitchen but I have a little camp stove and there is a baker downstairs who gives us day-old rolls for a fraction of the price. I have got cinnamon rolls today.’
‘You had to sell Sassy?’ I asked. (Sassy and Sissy were the names of the two white horses that had pulled Zoe and Martha over the Sierra Nevada.)
Miz Zoe nodded. ‘Sissy, too. And the lacquered buggy. Since I wrote to you our fortunes have dipped a mite. This city is a lot like Virginia, only bigger. And the weather is perverse.’
I did not reply, for there was a full-length mirror leaning against one wall & I had just caught a glimpse of myself in it.
I said, ‘I look like an Indian brave who had just massacred a little white girl and dressed in her frock for a hideous jest!’
Miz Zoe giggled. ‘Well, let us just say that color and style don’t flatter you much. Whatever possessed you to wear such a thing?’
I was about to tell her everything when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Was it Martha?
No. These steps were heavy & menacing. Zoe must have thought so, too, for she ran to the door & bolted it with a wooden bolt. Then she stepped back a few paces & put her hand over the base of her throat like some women do when they are upset or scared.
The footsteps on the stairs got closer & closer & closer.
They stopped right outside.
For a moment there was silence.
Then the latch slowly moved but the bolt was down and the door stayed shut.
A sudden heavy pounding on the door made my heart leap up into my throat.
‘Dang it! You come out now!’ a man’s voice shouted. (Only he did not say ‘dang.’) ‘I know you are in there!’
My heart was beating like a rabbit’s. Somehow my pursuers had found me.
I looked at Zoe. ‘Is there any way out of here?’ I said in a low tone.
Her pretty eyes were round with fear. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There is no way out. I will have to open the door.’
I stared at my erstwhile friend in dismay.
I thought I had found a person I could trust in this strange city.
But Mrs. Zoe Brown was about to hand me over to my pursuers!
Read on...
I left the Emeu’s cage and went racing back the way I had come. I whizzed down crowded paths, across bowling greens & through the fronds of willow branches. As I rounded the carousel of ‘flying horses’, I slipped in those danged girly boots and twisted my ankle.
My limpy run would not get me away. I must hide!
Then I saw a wagon such as peddlers use to sell notions and potions. On the side it said Minnehaha’s Medicine Show. There were wooden steps going up the back and before I knew it I was up those four wooden steps & through a kind of curtain.
Imagine my surprise when I saw Minnehaha herself, sitting in front of a table with a mirror. She was smearing white cream on her face. She whirled round on her seat & gave me Expression No. 4 – surprise.
I was breathing hard. ‘Please can you hide me?’ I asked her in gasping Lakota. ‘Some men want to arrest me for something I did not do.’
‘What are you doing in my wagon, at all?’ she asked in English.
She did not appear to understand Lakota.
‘Please can you hide me?’ I asked her in gasping English. ‘Some men want to arrest me for something I did not do.’
Close up, I could see she was taking off face paint with the white cream. She was a bogus Indian!
‘Why are they after you?’ she asked. Her eyes were wide which meant she was surprised not angry.
‘They think I killed a stagecoach driver and that I stole some silver ingots and gold coins.’ I pulled off my pink poke bonnet and laid it over my heart. ‘But I am innocent.’
‘Bejeezus!’ she cried. ‘You have short hair. Are you a boy or a girl?’ Her eyes were wide.
‘I am a girl,’ I confessed, surprised at how easy it was to tell her. ‘Only I hate dressing like one.’
The sound of men’s voices reached us. They were outside!
She chewed her lower lip for a moment and her eyes darted here and there, looking for a place where I might hide.
From outside came the sound of footsteps on the wooden stairs and a man’s voice. ‘Minnehaha? You in there?’
‘Yes?’ she replied. ‘Why?’
‘I got a representative of the Overland Stage Company and a policeman with me. They are looking for a Wanted Person. They would like to question you. May I send ’em in?’
Minnehaha lifted the flounce of the table at which she was sitting & looked at me & pointed underneath.
I did not wait to be asked twice. I jumped under & scrouched down like a mouse in the pantry.
‘Enter!’ Minnehaha said.
I felt the wagon rock and heard it creak as they came aboard.
‘My name is Isaac Blue,’ growled a familiar voice. ‘I am looking for a dangerous fugitive.’ I heard the rustle of paper. ‘You seen this girl?’ he asked. Then he added. ‘Or maybe it is a boy. Folk are not decided.’
‘Miss Prudence Pinkerton,’ said Minnehaha. I could tell from her halting speech that she was reading it. ‘Aged 12. Half Sioux Indian. Wearing a fur-trimmed purple cape, a yellow dress & a lighthouse bonnet.’
‘She changed her lighthouse bonnet for a narrow pink one,’ he added. ‘And she prob’ly ditched the cape.’
‘They are offering one hundred dollars?’ cried Minnehaha.
‘Actually,’ growled Icy Blue, ‘it is two hundred. They have just doubled the reward money.’
I held my breath. All Minnehaha had to do was jump up & pull back the flounce. My crouching form would be exposed & she would be $200 richer. There was nothing preventing her, not even loyalty among Lakota: for she was a bogus Indian.
‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘I do remember a girl in a green and yellow dress and a pink poke bonnet was watching my twelve o’clock show. She put a greenback in my quiver. And just now, on my way in here I thought I saw that same girl running past.’
‘When was that?’ said another male voice. It was probably the policeman’s.
‘Two or three minutes ago,’ said Minnehaha. ‘Maybe less. She was heading towards the main exit.’
Blue swore in language unfit for publication & I felt the wagon rock as they hurried back down the steps.
‘If you hurry,’ cried Minnehaha, ‘you might catch her!’
A moment later she whispered. ‘You can come out now. The coast is clear.’
I came out from beneath the table.
‘Thank you for not giving me away,’ I said in a low tone. ‘I will make it up to you when I find the real robbers and get the reward.’
‘That would be bully,’ she said, and added, ‘We tomboys have to stick together.’
I said, ‘Tomboys? What is a tomboy?’
She said. ‘Why someone like you and me! Girls who like to dress like boys and play with guns and knives and such like.’
I said, ‘There is a word for us?’
‘Why sure! That word is Tomboy.’ She draped her bare white arm around my shoulders; I could feel it firm & cool & round through the merino-wool fabric of my dress. ‘Did you think you were alone in the world?’
I nodded. ‘I feel a bit like that Emeu in his cage. Like a giant plucked chicken. I used to dress a bit like you. Then my bogus pa burned my buckskins and flannel shirt. I surely do miss them.’
She stood up & went over to a box & opened it & pulled out a pair of buckskin trowsers with beads on them and fringe, too.
‘I have outgrown these trowsers,’ she said. ‘I bet they will fit you. And these moccasins, too. Take them!’
I felt prickly-eyed all of a sudden and there was a bunch in my throat. ‘Thank you,’ I said. It seemed the least thing made me want to blub these days.
Minnehaha’s face showed Expression No. 1 – a genuine smile. ‘As I am feeling generous,’ she said, ‘you may borrow one of my wigs until you are safe. This one has hair like yours would be if you let it grow. It came from a real Cheyenne squaw, they say.’
The hair of the wig was beautiful: straight & black, long & shiny.
‘Let me pay you for the clothes,’ I said. ‘I do not like to owe people.’
I pulled my medicine bag out from the neck of my daffodil-yellow dress and took out the coins & greenbacks.
‘There,’ I put the money on her dressing table. ‘Eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents. It ain’t much but it is all I have left.’
She gathered up the money and pressed it back into my hand. ‘I will not take all the spondulicks you have left. But if you get a reward, you can share it with me like you said.’ She winked at me. Her eyes were sparkly green and she had freckles on her nose. She rolled up the wig and moccasins in the trowsers to make a kind of parcel. Then she tied it all with a piece of twine.
Once again I had to swallow a lump in my throat.
‘What is your real name?’ I asked.
‘Bridget,’ said she. ‘Bridget O’Malley. But you can call me Minnie.’ She held out her hand & I shook it. Her hand was small, but her grip as firm as a man’s. ‘I take it you are Prudence?’
‘Never call me Prudence,’ I said. ‘That is a bogus name. My name is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye. You can call me Pinky if “P.K.” seems too strange.’
‘You are a private eye?’ Her eyes glittered. ‘That sounds exciting.’
‘Yup,’ I said. ‘It is exciting, all right. Dangerous, too.’
She said, ‘Well, P.K., I was just going to drive into the city to attend Mass. May I take you anywhere? Where are you staying?’
I said, ‘I have heard the What Cheer House is only fifty cents a night.’
She laughed. ‘The What Cheer House is for men only. And they pack lots of them in each room.’
‘Oh,’ I said. That part had not been on my cherry red slip of paper.
She said, ‘You got any family or friends here in Frisco?’
‘My newspaper friend Mark Twain is here,’ I said. ‘But he is more an acquaintance than a friend and I don’t reckon it would be proper for me to stay with a bachelor, anyways.’
‘Anybody else? Any lady friends?’
At first I thought of Mrs. John D. Winters. But then I remembered how she had looked down her nose at me.
Then it came to me. Of course I had gal friends! They had even written to invite me to stay with them any time I was in Frisco.
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I know a ten-year-old Negro girl named Martha. She was my first client. After she witnessed the murder of a Soiled Dove, the man who done it tried to kill her. She came to me for protection.’
‘Did you protect her?’ Minnehaha’s green eyes were round.
I nodded. ‘After I vanquished the killer, Martha left Virginia City for Frisco with a pretty seamstress named Zoe Brown. They invited me to stay with them any time I was in Frisco.’
‘Well there you are, then! Do you know where they live?’
I nodded. ‘88 Sansome Street was the return address on the letter they sent me.’
‘I know that street,’ said Minnie. ‘It should be easy to find them. If they are still there.’
Read on...
