Juliette Douglas mentioned
3 favourites of her own books to me. She tells me COPPERHEAD, the first of her ‘Freckled
Venom trilogy,’ is dear to her heart because it was her first book. And it did
win the Laramie Award for best debut western. Juliette’s heroine in COPPERHEAD
is Lacy Watson, a female bounty hunter pursuing outlaws who is also pursued by
demons in her own past. She joins up with Wyoming Marshal Rawley Lovett to
bring three psychopathic brothers to justice.
I’ve blogged about
bounty hunters before, a staple of western fiction although hard to find in the
real history of the Old West – male or female. One gun-toting western woman who
was real was CALAMITY JANE – real
name MARTHA JANE CANARY (or CANNARY.)
Much of Jane’s life –
like the origin of her nickname - is shrouded in legends of her own making. She
was born in Missouri, although her given birth year of 1852 has been
questioned. She claimed to have been a muleskinner
working for the U.S. Cavalry. Captain John G. Bourke, who was on General Crook’s
campaign against the Sioux in 1876, wrote: ‘It was whispered that one of our
teamsters was a woman, and no other than ‘Calamity Jane’ a character famed in
border story.’ Jane claimed also to have been an army scout who fought Indians, but another cavalry
officer, Captain Jack Crawford, stated: ‘Jane… never
was in an Indian fight. She was simply a notorious character, dissolute and
devilish, but possessed a generous streak which made her popular.’ As a sign of
her generosity, she once gave a destitute woman her shoes.
There doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence that she worked as a guard on
a stage coach. She was acquainted with
Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood shortly before his murder there in August 1876,
but as to whether she secretly married him or gave birth to his child… who
knows? The story that she confronted Hickok’s murderer, Jack McCall with a meat
cleaver also can’t be verified.
Jane did appear in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1893 as a
story-teller. It would appear that she lived in various locations in Wyoming,
Montana and South Dakota and did work as a laundress and a prostitute, drink
heavily, carouse loudly and sometimes wear men’s clothes. She also married
several times and had two daughters. She died of pneumonia in 1903.
Jane has been widely portrayed in romanticised form by actresses from
Doris Day, in the musical named after her,
to Stefanie Powers in an episode of ‘Bonanza’ (where she has an unhistorical relationship
with Doc Holliday!)
Stefanie Powers (as Calamity Jane) with Michael Landon in 'Bonanza'
Anjelica Huston’s portrayal in ‘Buffalo Girls’ (1995) was undoubtedly nearer the truth.
Sharon Stone in the
movie ‘The Quick & the Dead’
isn’t exactly a bounty-hunter, but she’s the nearest to one I could find!
The last time I looked
all reviews for COPPERHEAD are 4 and 5 star.
‘A gripping and
compelling western with an engaging heroine’
‘Truly outstanding’
’The dialogue was
wonderful’
‘I’d like to see it made
into a film’
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