Free (1986) Deadwood by Pete Dexter Page B

heard Bill was headed there. That he'd come through Fort Laramie with a wagon train not four days before the bull train. Jane had told more lies about Bill Hickok than Harper's Weekly . She had said they were pards, she had said they fought Indians together, she had said they were married. Calamity Jane Cannary felt like there was a link between them, and that when they finally met, Bill would see that they was two of a kind. She never saw herself embraced with him, she had visions of saving his life.
    On her first night in Deadwood, though, she'd run into Boone May at Nuttall and Mann's Number 10, and bunked down with him. She was comfortable with Boone. She had the feeling that nobody homelier than herself would notice how she looked.
    She got up now and dressed, leaving the front of her shirt unbuttoned, and crawled out of the tent. The preacher was still out there on his packing crate, his arms reaching into the air now, pulling at the air while he asked God's protection. It reminded her of a child pulling on its mother's skirts, trying to get her to notice it was there.
    She stood up and tucked her shirt into her pants. She strapped her gun belt around her waist, and then slid it to the left until the buckle was in back and the pistol lay at an angle across her lower stomach. She thought it fit her, to wear her protection over her womanhood. She tied a wide yellow scarf around her neck and pulled her hat down right to her ears. The hat was perfectly round. She thought it softened her face.
    She walked from the tent to the preacher in long strides, unmindful of the mud. "Let this day be peaceful, Lord," the preacher was saying, "so that we may preparest ourselves for the hardships we have found in this place . . ."
    Jane pushed her way through miners, paper-collars, tourists, even a few ladies—not upstairs girls, but ladies—and got to the packing crate. She picked up the preacher's hat and screamed her eagle scream. It was a noise that nobody but Calamity Jane could make. She caused it by pulling air into her voice box instead of blowing it out, and nobody who ever heard it denied it sounded like an eagle.
    It was a noise that stopped people from whatever they were doing, particularly talking with the Lord. The congregation looked up from the mud, almost in unison, to see what it was. Then, together, they took a step back. There wasn't many of them who had come across anything this remote.
    She closed the distance with an exaggerated stride and pushed the preacher's hat at the first miner she reached. "Limber up, pilgrim," she said. "The old mountain goat looks broke, and I intend to collect about ninety dollars for him." The miner stood still, looking at her, and she kicked him in the leg. "I said git down into your pokes now and come up with some cash."
    The miner reached into his pocket and found his purse. He picked a tiny piece of gold out and put it in the hat. A few of the miners who panned in the Whitewood had claims that could make them fifty dollars a day. Most of them sat on their heels in the water all day for two or three dollars, enough to find something to eat.
    Most of them already knew that they weren't going to make a go of it placer-mining. Their hopes went a different way now, that the little pieces of ground they'd staked out and claimed would be worth more to somebody else.
    Jane passed through the miners, getting money for the preacher. He had stopped when she'd done her eagle scream, but now, even while she was walking through the crowd with his hat, he started again.

The preacher's name was Henry Hiram Weston Smith, and he had been in the Hills almost a year. First in Custer, then Hill City, then Deadwood. As the gold strikes moved north, Preacher Smith moved with them. He'd wintered in Deadwood, and it had taken the life out of his face. The weather, or the things he'd seen.
    He had reasons besides preaching for coming to Dead wood, and he was ashamed of them. There was gold here, and in her