RBC | Taken directly from the July 7, 1877 issue of the Cheyenne Daily Leader:
The city editor was at his desk. The office thermometer was away up in the 90s and the city editor divested of all superfluous clothing, his hair tumbling upon his cranium like angry wave crests on a stormy sea, was spoiling paper in a vain effort to stop the unceasing yell of “cop-ee.” Outside all was calm, hot, and unpleasant. The July sun poured down its torrid rays upon rich and poor alike, and away up the street the chatter of Murrin’s mocking bird was faintly heard.
A heavy footfall was heard on the stair. Up it came, slowly but surely, until, on reaching the top, there was a moment of hesitation. Then the heavy footfall was heard again, each on nearer, clearer, louder than before, until a presence stood in the sanctum door—a presence at once awful and ludicrous. The perspiring man at the desk wrote on, never raising his head, never heeding the ominous presence.
Outside, in the back alley, a small boy was tying a tin can to a cur’s tail while a cross-eyed female leaned over a fence and gossiped with a red-haired slatternly girl. Suddenly the presence in the door bounded forward, sprang over a chair, sat down, and in a sepulchral falsetto voice spoke, saying: “I am here.”
Outside, the boy having fastened the tin can to canine’s caudal appendage, released the poor animal, and it shot into the street, passing under the heels of a team, which broke loose and ran away. The cross-eyed woman and the red-haired girl shrieked and ran home, people on the street yelled “Whoa!” and the combined racket aroused the editor from his engrossing labors.
He raised his head and beheld a not homely female, clad in a cavalry uniform, with a big bull-whip in her hand, a leer in her eye and gin in her breath, who frowned and was silent.
The hair of the editor rose, great beads of sweat stood out on his brow, his knees shook and his teeth chattered. He cast a despairing glance into the back yard, and saw that death or serious injury would result from a leap. The female militaire moved her chair into the doorway and sat down in it again.
The editor faintly murmured: “How do you do?”
The visitor replied: “I want to see the fighting editor. I am Calamity Jane. I am just in from the Black Hills. Be you the fighting editor?” and she cracked her whip at a big fly on the ceiling, hitting it in the left ear and knocking it out of time.
“He’s out,” was the reply. “I’ll call him.” And the editor climbed upon a convenient desk, sprung through the skylight, ran nimbly across adjacent roofs, jumped through another skylight, and hid in a friend’s office.
Half an hour later he returned to the sanctum, which was in complete confusion. Tables, chairs, desks, and books were piled up in every outlandish shape conceivable. A note was tacked to the door, which had been written by the devil [a printer’s apprentice], who dropped in for copy, and was pressed into service by Calamity Jane to write it.
It said: “Print in THE LEADER that Calamity Jane, the child of the regiment and pioneer white woman of the Black Hills, is in Cheyenne, or I’ll scalp you, skin you alive, and hang you to a telephone pole. You hear me, and don’t you forget it. CALAMITY JANE”
There is a vacant chair in our sanctum. The city editor has gone to Borneo.
By ED PECK
