In the “note on pastiche sources” that follows the conclusion of Natalee Caple’s unconventional Old West family drama, the author calls the book a “metahistoriographic fiction.” Caple’s mash-up blends the real and the invented, the known and the conjured, to evoke not only an historical time and place, but to expand upon legend, imbuing with humanity and accessible emotion legendary personalities long held in states of static idolatry.

In Calamity’s Wake follows a young woman named Miette as she tracks her wayward mother from southern Alberta to Deadwood, South Dakota, in the late 1800s. Her mother, we soon learn, is the notorious Calamity Jane. Miette and her adopted father (a “wandering bishop” whose social mores and views on equality – not only for women but also for the Blackfoot Indians – are unfathomably advanced) are the product of Caple’s imagination, but most other characters are actual historical figures, recreated from accounts of the time and common knowledge. Miette herself is based on a kernel of truth: Calamity, whose birth name is most often cited as Martha Canary, claimed to have had a daughter, fathered by the equally legendary Wild Bill Hickok, whom she gave up for adoption. Whether the child actually existed is a matter of debate, but Caple infuses Miette’s quest with enough fact to convince the reader that she is as real as her infamous mother.

Raised in Alberta by her adopted father, Miette has led a largely happy, if humble, life. But as her father – tolerant, wise, and caring – lies upon his deathbed, he wrests from Miette a promise that she will find the woman who, knowing she could not be a good mother, delivered her half-starved newborn into the clergyman’s arms. Miette is reluctant about the journey, initially undertaking it out of a sense of duty rather than genuine curiosity. As she makes her way along a meandering course south, Miette struggles with feelings of guilt and anger, but the reader eventually comes to understand that she would have ventured forth on her mission even without the vow made to her dying father.

Despite her infamy, little verifiable information exists about the woman known as Calamity Jane. What is known is that, by the time she was a young woman, she had earned a reputation for being an excellent shot, expert horsewoman, and all-around good sort who could drink many men under the table. A large, tall woman with masculine features who often dressed in men’s clothing, she was not particularly attractive, but by all accounts her kindness and selflessness endeared her to many.

Miette, of course, is largely unaware of her mother’s reputation. However, at each stage of her quest she encounters characters who either knew her kindly father or claim to have known her mother. The tales are not all positive, though no one can argue with the calibre of Calamity’s character. Caple draws her as a sad creature: alcoholic, often destitute, and desperate for affection and attention. This loneliness is present in Miette as well. She longs for the comfortable discourse she shared with her father, and the nighttime disappearance of her horse is as distressing to her for the loss of companionship as for the inconvenience of having to continue her long trek on foot.

When Caple describes Miette walking along a dusty path or bathing in a cold stream, we feel the grit in our eyes and the slice of the water across our skin; her words are framed against a backdrop of black hills and rain, searing heat and raucous barrooms. Her prose, clean in its delivery and touched with enough wry humour to counter the dire reality of life in the Old West, is subtly evocative. “I stumbled along the trail until I came to a strange town called Star,” says Miette. “It looked like it was picked up from someplace it made sense to have a town and then later, when dropped from the sky, it just didn’t break.”

Caple weaves together disparate components to create a cohesive whole. Short chapters detailing Miette’s harrowing journey – complete with gunshot wound, hallucinations, and a wolf who seems to be trailing her – are interspersed with Calamity’s life story. Detours away from both storylines, describing historical issues pertaining to race, poverty, and general drunken lawlessness, add colour and context. The result is a somewhat stuttered narrative, yet it takes only a few vignettes to get into the rhythm of Caple’s tale, and to appreciate the simple beauty of how she blends it all together to form an intensely entertaining story.