Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

THE DUCHESS OF IDAHO CHEATS DEATH

Or, The Pest of the West

In the dying man's last gasp for breath, he swallowed a fly. A big, black, vulgar fly! The Duchess of Idaho rushed to the bedside, jerking the sick man up from his bed. "Oh, dearest papa! Speak to me!" her highness cried, thumping the groaning man on his back.

The Grand Duke gave out a low moan. The Duchess put her head on the rosy dappled chest of the typhoid victim and listened. From deep inside came the sounds of a dry, leaf-swept wind and of a window suddenly slamming shut. It was the mighty death rattle she heard. The Duchess sighed and released the dead man to fall back upon his deathbed.

Later, tears came copiously. True, the Duchess had her religion and her cooking as consolation. She told the Methodist circuit rider as much when he came by the following Tuesday to lay his highness to rest.

"Potatoes offer a rare comfort, Reverend," she said, waving away the black flies from her father's bier. "Planting them in the ground gives one such faith in the resurrection."

Reverend Leroy Sams coughed discreetly. "Potatoes ain't the only thing that need to be buried. Shouldn't we be planting the old feller in the ground, Sister? The ice is nearly melted."

"One final embrace," the Duchess stipulated, grabbing the stiff corpse in a bear hug. She turned to the preacher and batted her teal-colored eyes, "After the funeral you must come back to my menage and try some of my potatoes jubilee."

At the menage after the funeral came the congregation of mourners led by Reverend Leroy Sams supporting his sister in faith, the Duchess of Idaho. Present were Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Culpepper, the Duchess's neighbors, along with Newt and Zeke, the dead Duke's men at arms, and Miss Letitia Bottoms, a dear friend from the Duchess's youth.

"So sad, so sad," said Miss Bottoms, honking daintily into her lace hanky.

"But a fine message, preacher," added Mrs. Culpepper, nudging her husband.

Mr. Culpepper spoke up, wiping his chin. "Good eats, too."

"They are all my own recipes," said the Duchess, swatting a fly. She wiped her hand on the her black bombazine dress front and dished out more potatoes au gratin.

"Funny how the old gent up and died," observed Newt, taking the dish from the Duchess.

"Just last month he was hale and hearty," Zeke commented, slapping a black fly on his neck.

"Typhoid has taken so many good people this summer," Reverend Leroy told them.

"Such an inexplicable illness!" exclaimed the Duchess, shooing away flies from her potato fritters.

Mrs. Culpepper accepted a fritter. "Me and Cyrus think it has something to do with the air around here. So many of our neighbors have come down with typhoid lately."

Miss Letitia Bottoms agreed. "The whole town is decimated. Why, the only time we get together now is for funerals. The last truly happy social event was the church social last month."

The Duchess nodded benignly, "That was when everyone was clamoring for my potatoes surprise."

Miss Bottoms sighed. "There seems so little point in staying on, now that so many of our loved ones have died."

That was the last word on the matter, but after the funeral, the others began to consider heading west. Reverend Leroy was a circuit rider and knew the way to Nevada. The Culpeppers decided that night that their best interests lay in California. They hired Newt and Zeke, now presently unemployed, to take them there. Miss Letitia Bottoms begged to join the wagon train and Reverend Leroy agreed to ride along the way. Only the Duchess resisted the idea of emigration. "Leave my beloved Idaho!" she gasped in horror. "Who will tend the family plot and wash the headstone on Decoration Day?"

"Is that all that binds you here?" wailed Letitia. "Can you so easily part with me? You break my heart!"

Here the Duchess began to weep softly, spilling tears into the potato soup she stirred on the stove. "My darling Letitia, I shall be disconsolate without you. But how can I leave? What can I do?"

"You have been given all the advantages," Letitia reminded her. "Hire yourself out as a Duchess somewhere. The wilds of California must be crying out for your civilizing touch."

"I'll do it!" the Duchess cried. "And to show my gratitude to you and the others, I insist on being cook along the trail."

It was settled. On a cloudless blue day in late July, the wagon train set off. Reverend Leroy rode off ahead on his mule with the Culpepper wagon in lead, followed by the Duchess and Miss Bottoms, while Newt and Zeke, herding sheep, brought up the rear. Nothing spoiled the beauty of the first day on the trail, other than Miss Bottoms' persistent cough, which the Duchess blamed upon the dust.

Sadly the cough persisted, and before the week was out Miss Letitia Bottoms lay in the ground somewhere along the Carson Trail. Reverend Leroy officiated at the funeral. The Duchess, being a big-hearted woman, took the loss badly.

"There, there, Sister," said the reverend comforting her. "Your friend has gone off to a better world of church socials and Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses in the sky."

"Curse this plague!" the Duchess wailed. "It seems to have followed us along with these black flies."

"Strange are the ways of Providence," he told her. "Life is a hard ride for all of us with only a cold, lonely bedroll at the end of the trail. Best any of us can do is press on."

Press on, they did. The Duchess worked even harder keeping good, hot meals ready for the men, especially after Mrs. Culpepper took sick. Diarrhea, the dreaded scourge of the trail, had laid her low. The men decided to camp by a stream until she recovered, keeping watch by her at night for signs of improvement.

"Oops, thar she blows again," said Zeke laconically.

"Better tell the Duchess to fetch more sheets," Newt advised.

Reverend Leroy patted weary Mr. Culpepper on the shoulder. "You get some rest, Cyrus. I'll break the news to the Duchess."

Down by the creek, the Duchess had two fires going, one for cooking, one for washing. As the reverend approached, he saw her busily turning back and forth from one pot to the next.

"I don't know how you do it, Sister. You are truly strong in the work of the Lord."

The Duchess wiped her brow. "Lord knows I'm tired, Reverend, but if not me, who will look after the rest of you properly?" Drops of perspiration shook from her hand and fell to season the broth in the cooking pot. "You come to eat?" she asked. "The stew is ready."

Reverend Leroy shook his head fondly. "I came for fresh bedding," he explained.

"Mrs. Culpepper again!" cried the Duchess. "That woman's loose stools will be the death of me."

"It might be the death of all of us if she don't improve," Reverend Leroy said. "Diarrhea is often the first symptom of typhoid."

The preacher's words proved prophetic. By the end of the week, Mrs. Culpepper became delirious, and on the next Monday she was dead. A short funeral was held on Tuesday, but old Mr. Culpepper was too weak to dig his own wife's grave. Already, the rosy spots of typhoid fever lay heavy on his chest.

That evening in their contracted circle around the campfire, Zeke and Newt muttered dark warnings to the other two. "Last week when we took the sheep grazing up on the range," began Zeke, "there was lightning on the hilltop."

"But no sign of rain," added Newt, mysteriously.

The Duchess turned around to look at the large mountainous butte rising in the distance.

"There's always strange weather on those old bunions," Reverend Leroy told them.

"Me and Newt went up for a closer look and saw hooded men in a circle, casting spells."

"It was some atmospheric disturbance playing tricks on your eyes," the preacher told them. "Such mirages are quite common, I understand, though they always confound the superstitious. The Indians around here claim that Death himself resides on that butte. It is considered bad medicine to go there."

Newt and Zeke nodded at one another wide-eyed. "That's what we're telling you, Padre. It's that butte up yonder that's doing us in. As long as we stay in its shadow, we're dropping like flies."

"Stuff and nonsense, Men!" shouted Reverend Leroy. "Get a grip on yourselves."

"Certainly, flies are dropping all around," said the Duchess, picking one off a baked potato. "Ready for seconds, Reverend dear?"

The reverend looked at the potato, then stared at her. "It is getting late in the year," he observed. Then speaking to no one in particular, he added, "The little communities along my circuit must be wondering what has happened to me. Perhaps I have stayed here too long."

"Now, Reverend Leroy," chided the Duchess, "there can be no talk of your leaving until we bury old Mr. Culpepper. It's only a matter of time, you know. Besides tomorrow I plan to make for the three of you my potato surprise!"

The reverend turned wide-eyed at Zeke and Newt, who stared wide-eyed back at him. No one said a word, but the men soon went off to their bedrolls before having seconds.

In the middle of the night, the Duchess awoke to a strange sound -- silence. No heavy breathing was coming from the Culpepper wagon. She got up and made her way in the dark to the old man's side. Dead and gone, poor soul!

"Oh, Reverend Leroy!" she called. Silence. "Newt! Zeke!" Silence. She made her way back to the campfire now burned down to glowing cinders. Reverend Leroy's mule was gone!

She made her way to where the sheep were penned. "Out of my way, you foolish creatures," she yelled at the lambs and ewes. Where was everyone? Except for the sheep, she was all alone. The others had left.

Alone with a dead man on some empty trail in the middle of the night was intolerable for anyone, but especially for the Duchess of Idaho. She hitched up her skirts and made for the butte in the distance. Seeing flashes from the mountaintop, she remembered that Zeke and Newt had said there were people there, and more than anything she needed people around her right now.

The long distance from the creek to the butte melted before her, as she seemed to float up the steep hillside like a dream. Always before her eyes were the flashes of light upon the mountaintop assuring her that something was there.

Soon, in the distance, she thought she saw a group of figures huddled around a campfire. The figures seemed to be playing dice, which was odd, for they were dressed in hooded robes like friars, each in a different color: black and white, red and yellow, and blue.

"Ahem," she said in a loud voice, hoping to draw the strangers' attention. None of them looked up. Instead, they kept on playing. She came closer and saw that there was no campfire at all -- only an eerie light like one of those atmospheric disturbances the reverend had talked about. At last, she stepped in amongst them. "Please," she began, "may I join you?"

"You wish to cast your lot with us?" the one in the blue hood asked.

"I don't usually gamble," the Duchess said. "I think it sets such a poor example for the lower orders."

"We are all great lords here," the one in yellow replied.

The Duchess scrutinized the company closely. In the half light, it was impossible to see their faces, but their hands were gloved in fine leather dyed to match the colors of their cloaks, and in each waistband was a rose. Could these be a college of cardinals incognito? the Duchess wondered.

"Won't you join us?" quizzed the one in red.

The Duchess made up her mind. "Yes, Your Imminence, I shall," she said, sitting down.

"If you join us, you must play," said the one in white.

"Not dice, if you please. It's so vulgar," said the Duchess. "However, I do play cards. I understand Her Majesty Victoria plays piquet."

Out of nowhere, the one in the black hood flourished a deck of cards. "You deal," he said

As the Duchess shuffled, she listened to the others talk.

"North of here, in the Sierras," said the one in white, "I passed a wagon train that had perished of hypothermia and starvation."

The one in yellow nodded sympathetically. "I left the south just after an outbreak of Malaria had claimed a thousand lives."

"Pity," said the one in red. "When I was back east an epidemic of Cholera swept through the cities taking with it fifty thousand."

"So many lives lost," sighed the one in black, "but not nearly the devastation I saw in Europe once when the bubonic plague raged unchecked. Hundreds of thousands perished before spring." e turned to the one in blue. "How are things here, my brother?"

"Typhoid claims many, many lives," the one in blue replied.

"So true, so true," sighed the Duchess. "Everywhere I go, people seem to drop dead from the fever."

The others nodded to her deferentially.

The one in black cut the cards. The Duchess watched as the ace of spades moved from the middle to the bottom of the deck. "What shall we play for?" the one in black asked.

"Oh, dear me, dear me," said the Duchess, fumbling through her reticule. "I'm afraid I am financially embarrassed."

"If you cannot wager, you cannot play, and if you do not play, you cannot stay," explained the one in blue, with inexorable logic.

"Please don't make me leave," asked the Duchess of Idaho. "I'm all alone in the world. My family's dead, my friends and neighbors, all gone due to typhoid."

"But you still stand," commented the one in black while the one in blue gnashed his teeth.

"I hear there are carriers, who help the typhoid fever spread," spoke the one in white.

The one in blue spoke up. "The fever needs no help from meddlers," he snapped.

"Perhaps," said the one in black. "We shall see." He turned to the Duchess of Idaho. "To play poker, one must bet money, unless it is strip poker."

"Bet my clothes!" said the Duchess, so insulted that if it were not for the lateness of the hour and the utter desolation of the surroundings she would have left then and there. "But if I wagered and lost all my clothes, it would be the same as losing my honor."

"Indeed," said the one in red.

"But I should rather lose my life!" declared the Duchess.

"Agreed!" said the one in yellow.

"But to risk my life over a game of cards, I fear I would lose my immortal soul!" the Duchess protested.

"Done!" said the one in black. He turned to the one in blue. "You heard the wager?"

The one in blue did not answer. Instead, he discarded two cards, so the Duchess dealt him two more.

"Excuse me, while I powder my nose," the Duchess said, as her opponent examined his cards. She drew from her reticule a compact mirror and began angling it around in the uncertain light until she got a glimpse at the rival hand of cards. He had three aces. She dropped the mirror back in her reticule and examined her hand.

"Dear, oh, dear," she muttered, pulling at her paltry hand: a pair of fours along with a deuce, a trey, and a five of hearts. Not a single court card in the entire hand, and nothing with any chance at all to beat three aces. Then she remembered the ace of spades resting at the bottom of the deck.

She discarded one of the fours and glanced at the other players. Each head was turned her way. "One of my party just died of typhoid tonight," she said nonchalantly, "only three others escaped."

"One died, but three escaped!" roared the figure in black to the one in blue. All attention shifted on the one in blue, and the Duchess quickly drew the ace of spades from the bottom of the deck. "I have a straight," she declared, throwing down her cards: ace, deuce, trey, four, five! "What have you?" she challenged.

Suddenly, the weird flickering lights around them fused into one lightning bolt that crashed into their midst, and the one in blue went up in a puff of smoke. Only the hooded blue robe remained.

"Take it, it's yours," offered the one in black.

"Blue is the color of the Idaho flag," the Duchess observed.

"Take up the mantle and wear it proudly," they told her. "You have an important job to do."

That's true, thought the Duchess, remembering the job offer at Loathsome Lodge, California. She put on the robe and hurried off in the night, bringing pestilence and death with her.

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