The Sharpshooters of Simpering, North Dakota

By G.F. Skipworth

Before the rise of the Mighty Five in Simpering, North Dakota, the female geniuses led colorful and often dangerous lives around the world In volume 2, The Prquel: Sharpshooters of Simpering, North Dakota, colorful historical characters join in, such as Annie Oakley (an actual historical character - and yes, she really did shoot that well), Nellie Bly, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, and Theodore Roosevelt. It all gets mixed up in the Spanish-American War, women's suffrage and overseas adventures, courtesy of a midwestern Chief, San Francisco high society, and a slow boat to China.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G.F. Skipworth
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310264931

G.F. Skipworth

George Skipworth has toured much of the globe as a concert pianist, symphonic/operatic conductor, vocalist, and composer/arranger. However, on the day he sat down to write a 4th Symphony, a novel came out instead. 12 books later, and he's still going strong

Book preview

THE SHARPSHOOTERS

OF

SIMPERING, NORTH DAKOTA

G.F. SKIPWORTH

ROSSLARE PRESS-ROSSLARE ARTS INTERNATIONALPORTLAND, OREGON

Copyright©2010 by G.F. Skipworth, Rosslare Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles, reports and reviews. For information, address Rosslare Press, 7660 SW Oleson Road, Portland, OR, 97223

First Edition, 2010

Visit the Rosslare website at: rosslarebooks.com

ISBN (10): 0982471084 ISBN (13): 9780982471081

Acknowledgements and Dedications:

As always, many thanks to Barbara for her invaluable assistance and patience.

****

Many people are not aware that Annie Oakley was an actual historical figure, and she has been grossly mischaracterized in all forms of media. In truth, despite a lack of formal education, she was anything but a hillbilly. Both intelligent and extremely generous to the women of her era, she actually did shoot that well by all accounts.

The account of Annie Oakley in this story is almost entirely fictional, as is the case with Nellie Bly. I have tried, however, to handle both characters with the esteem they deserve. It is recommended that interested readers research these women further. They were interesting as real people, with or without the addition of elaborate legends. In Oakley’s case, a trip to the Annie Oakley Foundation website would prove fascinating.

"Not supposed to happen like this, Simpering!

Not like this!"

Episodes

The Queen of Simpering

Epilogue I

Phileas Fogg and the Great Race

AD 1880

Thereabouts

Second Epilogue

Daughters of the Apocalypse

Third Epilogue

"Gull dangit, that was one

honey of a nun" –

Ted Gursky

The Queen of Simperin’

Local rancher Ted Gursky probably said it best. Gull dangit, that was one honey of a nun. I’m sorry if I’m not s’posed to think about a nun that way, but if God don’t have more sense than to make ‘em look like that, then I’m just gonna keep on lookin’. If he don’t like it, then he kin jus’ start making their teeth go crooked and skew their eyes or sumthin’, cuz that was one honey of a nun! So, there you have it...summed it all up for pretty near everyone in the town of Simpering and most everybody else in the northern portion of the Dakota territory...and it wasn’t just for that generation. The story of Farika Zingarella’s triumph at the Huffy Hussy would be talked about well into the modern age. Such was the power of Simpering society’s oral tradition. That story was even bigger than favorite son Harry Henchley (brother to local bandmaster Dillon), who got himself elected some years later to the United States Congress. Well, he’d be out of there in a term or two, but Farika’s poker game founded the town, founded the empire...and when it came down to hell-wouldn’t-have-it, she’s the one who looked the world in the eye until the world blinked. There’s a lot of potential for pride in a thing like that for a small town out in that kind of country, and don’t you think there’s not!

Admittedly, it’s unusual for the local beauty queen to be a nun, and equally unusual for her to save her convent and win a town in a poker game, but there’s no exaggeration at work here. Farika had an all-surpassing beauty, and was, bar none, the world’s deadliest poker player. What else is there to say? Fortunately, she hadn’t become a fully promoted nun yet, more of what they call a Novice. If she’d gone through the whole course, you’ve got to wonder what the good sisters would have done about it. Kicking out a Novice is uncomfortable enough, but drumming a high-ranking officer in God’s army out of the corps...well, that would require considerable fortitude.

Considering that a holy woman all decked out like that can still knock ‘em for a loop planting beans or pulling a bell rope, it’s got to set one wondering as to what’s going to happen when she goes back to being a civilian. You know...dresses and hair and all that. Well, one would be wise to wonder, because the sensation caused by her coming out at the front gate of Saint Ursula’s Seminary for Displaced Women is almost as big a part of Simpering folklore as the poker game itself. Now, Farika Zingarella knew as well as anybody that Simpering (back then, known as Garnet, then Simperin’) generally woke up about four or four thirty, but she figured that everyone would head for their ordained chores, as they did every other morning. That is why she stepped out from behind St. Ursula’s gate at around six, having spent the past two hours bidding her sisters farewell. Expecting to see the normal hustle and bustle of Simpering life, she never anticipated a line of young men in formal waistcoats, top hats and bouquets stretching all the way around the corner, two blocks past the Huffy herself. She didn’t make sense of it at first. Young men, to her knowledge, never lined up in such a way to enter a convent. But when the lot of them dropped to one knee and lifted the spoils of every family’s back yard garden in Simpering, it began to come clear. She’d captured the hearts of over two hundred suitors on her first try, and would never complain about being a girl who hadn’t been asked.

A good question to follow up with might go something like this – Why does everyone really get up so early in this town? It’s an excellent question, and pertinent to the goings-on. The good people of Simpering would not inconvenience themselves by arising before sunrise just to appear hardy, and the practice goes well beyond the early bird gets the worm theory. To a Simperinian, the underlying premise to success and abundance suggests that there are three types of people in the world...thems that owns it, thems who supervise it and thems who plants and picks it. The owner naturally arises by four, just as a nun gets up to sing Matins every day. The second gives in to a second helping of scrambled eggs and bacon, getting to the fields a half hour late. They are just in time to rule over the latter and larger group, all of whom have missed the last of the plum jobs by waiting for the sun. No one was more steeped in this tradition than Egbert Bucephalus Simperin, whose father had built the homestead at Simperin’ Springs. Enflamed as the collective male hearts of the Simpering region may have been for the soeur fatale, Egbert’s burned like a white sun. She had been his religion from the first day he saw her planting those beans, and God had already promised her to him. The yokels in waistcoats just didn’t know that yet...and that is why he arrived to the gate of St. Ursula’s at three thirty sharp, prepared to defend to the death his position as first in line.

If this had been any other town than Simpering, a deposed nun greeting an army of suitors for the first time wouldn’t ordinarily notice such subtleties, but Farika was grounded in Simpering’s laws of abundance and social destiny, and she noticed all right. Making a long, slow sweep of the situation, her gaze returned to the first man in line, the man who had the presence, discipline and insistence to appear first...the man most likely to succeed. She met his eyes and demanded their full attention, but only for a few seconds. Apparently, that was all the time it took to learn what she needed. In a gracious maneuver, she stepped back and spoke as if accepting a royal appointment. Good morning, sir. My name is Farika, and you are...my beau. Smiling politely, extending her hand to be kissed and bowing her head so slightly as to be easily missed, she extended her hand toward the modest bag sitting on the plank sidewalk at her feet. Compared with the trembling Egbert Bacephalus Simperin, Columbus and Ponce de Leon were sleepwalkers. He leaped from hopeful ardor directly into nirvana, bypassing ecstasy without so much as a fare-thee-well. Farika didn’t wait a moment, but turned on her heel and began tapping up the sidewalk in short, resolute steps, all the while standing erect under a hat she couldn’t have imagined how to wear the day before.

If the clicks of her shoes on the ancient wood hadn’t been so loud, Egbert might have never fully emerged from his reverie. Seconds behind, however, he picked up the surprisingly heavy bag and struggled after her, trying to decide whether she had packed all of the convent’s bibles or perhaps a private cannonball collection. That he didn’t faint was a tribute to him. The poor boy hadn’t even had his first kiss yet, and suddenly the most beautiful woman in the world picked him to be her beau (he didn’t really know what that meant, but it sounded enticing) over two hundred of his brethren. Lurching along the planks with the increasingly heavy bag, he began to wonder what it is that beaus do, other than haul freight. He was also caught in a conflict between fearing for Farika’s safety and appreciating the trademark wiggle in her walk. The young men might have thought it to be an attempt on her part to appear alluring, but in fact, it was her first attempt at worldly shoes, which put her at far greater risk than the hat ever would.

Where to start with all that the boy didn’t know! Well, he didn’t know anything at all, nothing...about anything! That doesn’t prevent one’s creative imagination from filling in the blanks, though. Egbert’s imagination, to be truthful, didn’t have much to go on, other than the tender attentions and homespun, starry-eyed devotions from the shy and delicate holy woman, singing Amazing Grace at the reed organ and delivering platters of steaming potatoes and turkey from the kitchen. This would suggest, of course, that he missed the last few minutes of his life entirely, including that moment in which his beauship began by royal decree. He seemed to have gleaned no information from it whatsoever...and why was she heading into The Huffy Hussy?

Everyone within twenty miles knew that she had gone there last night, and no one had yet breathed a word about what might have happened there. By the time everyone else was in bed, every rancher, casino owner and corporate executive in Simpering had come and gone. Of the three most prominent, Horatius Binford Dinwiddy (of Dinwiddy Funeral Services), Brandon Pig-Pen Sterling (proprietor of the Nasty Nugget) and Bartholomew Eckerson (who owned the largest ranch in the state), not a one was talking...to anybody. Neither would anyone from the long line of patrons who filed in through the night…nor would the sphinx-like Sister Zingarella. Here is the way that Egbert saw it, though. The love of his life had gone on a mission from God to cleanse the town of the evildoers who swindled money from the citizens, plied the young with drink and amassed fortunes off the backs of the field and factory workers. He could just see the way it was, like overturning the tables of the money changers and filling the chambers of the wicked with lightning bolts. Yes...that must have been the way it was.

The only people who did know what happened were the nuns of St. Ursula’s, the Mother Superior in particular. She saw part of it first-hand, and she could be seen accompanying Farika out of the establishment well into the night. Surprisingly, the only news that got out at all was Farika’s expulsion from the convent. It never occurred to anyone that she had done something wrong. It could only be the next step in her mission. Perhaps she was going to war with the casinos in Splunkville and Miresburg as well, then on even to Bismarck! Farika Zingarella was going to be North Dakota’s own Joan of Arc, and he, Egbert Bacephalus Simperin...was her beau. How one day can change everything! The young men of Simpering understood that in a great bargain sale of merchandise, the best items go fast, and that Farika would go immediately if she would go at all. No one wasted any time, and Egbert wasted less than anyone else.

Secrets never stay secrets for long in small towns, and the truth trickled out over the next day or two. For right now, though, Egbert could only guess that Farika had unfinished business at the Huffy. Maybe she was going back for the final stroke, perhaps even to burn down the den of iniquity. Needless to say, it would be a full day of adjustments for the new beau. First, he learned about the poker game, and that she was really going to her new office. To his credit, he took it like a man, whatever that means, and remained utterly transfixed on her every move. The fact that she had routed such sinister figures at their own game, all well-known to the community, fulfilled a religious mission to some degree, to a point where he was not entirely unsatisfied. The worst of it, though, was his discovery that she was in possession of a fortune at the age of sixteen. Worse, she was to be the de facto queen of Simpering, boasting an ownership of fifty one percent, plus many of the outlying ranches and farms. Saints preserve us...Egbert was to be the queen’s beau, and had never gotten the chance to play out his adolescence in a less weighty situation. No, he was heading for the center stage, and he wasn’t ready…but then, who is?

No one would suggest for a moment that Farika Zingarella treated Egbert like an afterthought, the way some women treat French poodles. She just knew how to set up a business quickly, and their partnership was to be her life business. No, she didn’t love him standing there at St. Ursula’s gate. It was clear to her, however, that she soon would, and all good things take time to mature. In that she could be patient. Not so with the reminders of her competition in the town of Simpering. Within days, many of the rival casinos had been torn down to make way for loftier institutions, including schools and libraries. At the same time, she added on to the Huffy and funneled all of the out-of-town clientele into the one establishment. As a new giant in the world of credit, the banks were in awe of her. She built this and tore down that, bought this and paid off that. She met her deadlines and debts early and established the downtown of Simpering that people would come to admire for generations, on time and under budget. Most of it was accomplished over the next two years, and when she felt satisfied that the good works were nearing completion, she turned to her beau one day and said...It has all gone as we hoped, my dear. Now we shall marry.

It takes a lot of courage to be that confident two years after someone’s had time to learn everything about you. Generally, it doesn’t take that long for a person’s true colors to emerge, at least once in a while. If you’re paying attention, you can pretty near predict the tone of the years to come. Egbert, though, was as smitten as he’d been at the convent gate, which is not meant to imply that he was mentally deficient in any way...still a tad naïve, but smart enough to know a good thing…and Farika was, indeed, a good thing. She was energetic, clear-eyed, excited and exciting. She loved to create, to build, but not like a potentate. She built that town for the families who couldn’t win fortunes in poker games. She lavished civic care on their children and lifted the spirits of both the factory and field people...reminded them continually of their importance and nobility, raised their wages and improved their health conditions in every way possible. She walked, talked, worked and dined with them, joined them in their important celebrations and times of grieving. She treated every citizen like close family, and all but erased the idea of social class. No, Egbert wasn’t stupid, nor was he entirely gullible to a pretty face with a big bank account. In the same way she nurtured her town, she nurtured him. Egbert never felt like a kept man, and was to serve many important functions in the community. She released gestures of tenderness so gradually that he didn’t notice the change...thought it had always been that way. As they walked daily through her streets, she took him by the arm one day where she wouldn’t have last month. After a week or two, she walked closer than ever before, and by the day of their wedding under the birch grove at the Simperin Springs homestead in March of 1864, there was no doubt that she loved him dearly. Egbert was never to be a plaything of Simpering’s queen...you can rest easy on that.

There were still a few people, mostly in the outlying areas, who referred to Farika’s town as Garnet. The French settlers knew how to pronounce Simperin (Samperan), but townspeople who didn’t just called it Simperin’ Springs. Contractions that countrified the names of places always bothered Farika for some reason, so she added the g, closed down the name of Garnet forever and standardized the carving or paint over the entrances to all city buildings. Unless you were willing to pronounce it correctly, no merchant or banker would do business with you. In fact, they would simply say, I’m sorry sir, there’s no such town here, until you got it right. Everyone learned quickly. The homestead on the acreage out at Simperin Springs was turned into a log cabin owner’s paradise. Egbert’s father went west to hunt for gold, and was never seen again...not that he was ever on the chatty side, but it struck the young couple as odd. Skirmishes with the defeated poker players broke out from time to time, but the sizeable force of rangers that Farika had put in place from the beginning generally made things right in no time. They were based on the successful Texas model, and suffered no nonsense from anyone in their quest to keep the peace.

The vast holdings of Simperin Springs had almost everything you could think of putting into a prairie estate, but on the morning of December 8th, 1864, it had everything. On that day of lightning bolts and thunder clouds, Edielou Simperinia Marie Zingarella was born, and the calendar people were delighted to see that Farika had gotten right to it, just as she always did. Edielou was born into a family that had a lot to give in every direction, and a lot to teach in areas that would naturally be of importance to a resident of Simpering. The ranch had become a miracle of nature, with miles of tree-lined creeks, good prairie earth, lawns, corrals, swimming holes and horses. Close by was a town that adored her, and both friends and privacy were in abundance.

Typically, a child takes after one parent a little more than the other, or takes on one or two qualities of each, but for Edielou Zingarella, it was more profound than that. She drew deeply from both. Her father spoiled her, if that’s what a childhood of inexhaustible tenderness means. The girl didn’t need the toys and trappings of childhood, already having God’s best acreage outside her front door. Even as a tiny child, she and her father walked for miles along the creeks, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes with her aloft on his shoulders. While this side of her home life was governed by a sweet soul, the other side was fired by pure genius. By the third year of study in mathematics and accounting, there was no mistaking whose daughter this really was. She took to horses in the same way, and was a precocious acrobatic rider in no time. Adept with bow and arrow or hunting rifle, Edielou was equally at home with pistols...right, left or both. All of these gifts surprised onlookers, as she tended toward the petite for several years, showing no sign of the adult presence she would come to acquire. Whatever her mother and father had to offer of themselves, Edielou took it all...all of her father’s sweetness, which she tucked safely away inside, and her mother’s brilliance, which she wore publicly so that no one could work their will on her feelings without permission. Even in childhood, she was cordial and business-like to the stranger, naturally suspicious. Once a friend’s loyalty was established, she was generous with herself. Unlike most families, what was considered lady-like and tomboyish were openly encouraged. From time to time, during her rasslin’ phase, she’d grapple in the mud with neighbor boys, and Farika would look on without intervening. Even when they ganged up on her, both parents remained silent. It’s all right, Eg. There are all types out there, and she’s going to wrestle with them one way or the other. Let her be. Egbert would pace behind the window. But they’ve got her face in the mud. She can’t breathe! Let her be, Eg...let her be, Farika would always whisper.

Why Farika owned ten thousand head of cattle is a difficult question to answer. She was a businesswoman with a town to run. It can’t be said that cattle was in her Dakotan blood, either, because she was from Europe. Egbert had no special interest in running a cattle ranch, and would rather have been home with his wife during the times he was out chasing the fool things in any and all kinds of weather. Simperin Springs Ranch expanded even further to the east, past the point where anyone really wanted to take care of it. For Farika, though, it just seemed like something that they were supposed to do, and it did provide a secondary fortune to sit atop the one garnered in the poker game. Egbert wondered why they would ever need that kind of money. She was already the richest woman in the state...or in most states. He was a comfort-seeker, bless his heart, and would naturally ask such a question, where she would not. Farika Zingarella had a plan for each day of her life, and to wake up without one would have been dismissive of her calling. Thinking on a much larger scale than anyone knew, she kept most of her vision to herself, and just kept adding land and cattle.

Part of that land included the westernmost portion of the rocky Horse Heaven Hills, situated about eight miles from the ranch house. Through a slim entrance, down a two mile corridor and out into another open range was some of the best grazing land in the state, largely ignored by other ranchers since that corridor was the only entrance. Once each year, a short family cattle drive was part of the spring regimen and, so far, Egbert and Farika had managed it themselves. By 1874, though, things had almost gotten out of hand, and they were on the verge of hiring help. Edielou was ten that year, and brilliantly stated her case for being included at last. It didn’t matter if the girl quoted Shakespeare or burped. The simple truth of it was that Egbert could be charmed into almost anything by his daughter, and folded immediately. Farika, not so easily overwhelmed, but well- acquainted with Edielou’s advanced riding, roping and shooting skills, beamed with pride at the girl’s sense of logic and self-command. After all, they would be together...better than having her cooped up in the house reading seamy Wild West novels or out taking pot shots at starlings and magpies.

The ten mile cattle drive of 1874, as one would suspect, got under way before sunrise, but not too much before, as the horses couldn’t see the gopher holes without some light. What a change came over that girl. Gone was the festive red cowboy hat with white twine around the brim...no frilly shirts or decorative belts. She was the real thing now, ten years old or not, and brought a surprising maturity to the project. It must also be added that she rode a stallion that had thrown half the ranching community of Simpering, and that she was armed with a rifle in the sheath and a Colt on each hip. For a modern culture, that would be a child’s fantasy, but not far-fetched in this one. North Dakota was never intended for the dainty, and everything to be done on the ranch lands came down to Can you do it or can’t you? A ten year old had the same opportunity to answer that question as anyone else, and Edielou Zingarella left no doubt about her fitness for it. She wasn’t play-acting a child’s dream. She was driving cattle to the spring range.

The Horse Heaven Hills may have been Edielou’s favorite sight in the world. A few hundred feet high at most, they were still steep. Rocks of every size created an imaginary playground for