BIG SKY, BIG CRY BLUES

In a letter dated Feb 24, 1909 to “Friend Sweet”, Charlie Russell, in his own unique brand of English and spelling, wrote this:

..” . No dought you will be supprised to here from an old night hawk like me but the older I get the more I think of the old days an the times we had before the bench land grabed the grass there was no law aginst smoking sigeretts then an no need of a whipping post for wife beeters the fiew men that had wives were so scared of loosing them they generley handeled them mighty tender. The scarcity of females give them considerbal edg those days I never licked no women but Im shure glad I beet these morilests to the country its hard to guess what they would have don to me. Chances are Id be making hair bridles now for smoking sigeretts or staying up after twelve oclock. But they got here to late to hed of my fun an as I am real good now I aint worring much.”

And in TRAILS PLOWED UNDER, by Charles M. Russell, he had this to say : "..The man who comes home drunk and licks his wife wouldn't fight a chickadee when he's sober. ... The man that licks his wife ain't sorry for nobody but himself, and the only way to make him real sorry is to beat him near to death."

Spousal battery was apparently as prevalent in the Old West as it is today. While employed as an Assistant County Attorney, I saw women with faces so battered they looked like they had been through a meat grinder. Yet within a short period of time, many of them (including women who were financially independent) would reconcile with their batterers. How could this be?

Black eyes, bruises, cheatin' ways-
all buried in the grave.
Roused instead
and far from dead,
the kisses that he gave.
Big sky, big cry blue she was....
a no-good's battered wife;
and no one knew
what she went through
throughout her married life.

But through it all she love him
up till the day he died.
She then forgot
the way they fought-
his fists...the way he lied.

Grass grows o'er the fresh dug grave;
and time out grows the pain.
And time and grass
in turn soon pass.
Just memories remain.

And memories soon weeded out
the ugliness she knew,
till nearly all
that she'd recall
were roses that once grew.
Through it all she loved him.
It's hard to figure why.
Perhaps, like scent of roses spent,
some kisses never die.

Bette Wolf Duncan © 2001