Jim Saddler 6

by Gene Curry

  “I guess you could find me,” I said. “But maybe you wouldn’t like it when you found me. By that time you wouldn’t have a gang to back you up.”

  Butch said, “I wouldn’t need any gang. Maybe I do have to take a chance on you. You may be the gambler here, but I like to cover my bets. You’ve got to take somebody along when you go into that town.”

  That didn’t suit me, but I thought about it. “Will Carver isn’t known.”

  “Will Carver is too dumb, too slow with a gun,” Butch smiled. “You’re going to have to take Pearl. She’s young, but she’s smart as a whip and not known this far north. She’s a regular Annie Oakley with a six-gun. Try anything sneaky and she’ll shoot you sure. Don’t say no, Saddler. It’s Pearl, or nothing.”

  Well, I didn’t want to take Pearl or anybody else, but I knew Cassidy was set on it. Pearl was easy on the eye, even better in bed, and if I had to take a watchdog to watch me, then it might as well be her. Fact is, it wasn’t such a bad idea. We could pose as man and wife without arousing any suspicion. Of course, she’d have to doff her cowhand clothes and dress more like a woman.

  “I don’t mind Pearl,” I said. “Just don’t saddle me with Tom O’Day.”

  “Here’s how we’ll do it,” Cassidy said. “We split up after we leave here. So many people riding together is bound to get noticed. You and Pearl go first, go ahead of the rest of us. Two days before you go into town we’ll join up at a safe place I know. Then we’ll talk some more. Then you and Pearl go on in a full day ahead of us. If there is no bank, or if it doesn’t look right if there is, you come back and tell us. You’d better come back, Saddler.”

  “We’ve been over that,” I said. “Now what about getting away after it’s done. If it works it’ll be the biggest robbery in years. They’ll tear the country apart trying to find us. Shoot to kill, right down the line. And then there’s Harry Tracy.”

  “And then there’s Harry Tracy,” Butch repeated.

  “Why not kill him before we leave. Draw him into a showdown and we’ll all kill him.”

  “Don’t keep harping on that, for fuck’s sake. If it comes to a running fight with the Pinks, Tracy is worth three men, maybe four. We’re going to need that bastard.”

  The whole thing with Tracy was beyond me. “You’re going to have to do it sooner or later.”

  Butch slammed his open hand on the table in brief anger. “You let me worry about Tracy. With all this planning of yours you seem to be forgetting this is my outfit.”

  “Nobody’s forgetting a thing, Cassidy. I’m not even forgetting that I don’t have real bullets in my gun. If Tracy comes at me again I’m not going to roll around in the mud.”

  Butch reached into his coat pocket and handed me a fistful of .44 caliber bullets. I kicked the duds out of my gun and reloaded. Butch watched me. I spun the chamber and fired a bullet into the wall.

  In the small cabin the noise was deafening. Butch was offended though no longer mad. “Why in hell did you do that?”

  I spun the chamber and fired again, putting the second hole right beside the other one. I didn’t even take aim because I wanted Butch to see how good I could shoot. “You won’t take my word, why should I take it on trust that these bullets are good?” I said. I kicked out the spent shells and reloaded two live ones in their place. “Now I know for sure.”

  The two shots brought them running from all over. Sundance came first with a gun in his hand. He got up on the porch with his back flat against the wall beside the door. “Who got shot in there?” The others hung back.

  “Come on in, Harry,” Butch called. “Nobody got shot. Saddler was just proving a point. Saddler talks loud.”

  “How’s Tracy?” Butch asked when the Kid came in holstering his hair-trigger Colt .44.

  The Kid helped himself to the last drink in the bottle. Then he sat down. “You can’t kill Tracy by beating on him. You have to shoot him a few times in the right places. His nose has stopped leaking, but he’s still spitting out broken teeth. I don’t know what’s happening to our happy family.”

  Butch told the Kid to send the others away. “Saddler and me’s been talking. It’s time you sat in on it.”

  The Kid came back inside. “You tell Saddler about the money train?”

  “I told him,” Butch said. “You know how we been beating our brains how to do it and have come up with nothing?”

  The Kid stared at me. “And Saddler has? If he has, I’d like to hear it.”

  Butch told some of it, and I told the rest. The Kid pulled at his yellow mustache. “Not bad. Better than that. If it has to be done, I don’t see a better way to do it. Getting away will be harder than the job itself.”

  “That’s what Saddler thinks.”

  “Saddler thinks like a bandit. You sure you never been a bandit, Saddler?”

  I said no, never a real bandit. “As far as I know, I’m not wanted for anything.”

  “You’ll be wanted when this is over,” the Kid said. “Not if I grow a beard and stoop a bit and wear fanner’s clothes.” I hadn’t shaved for days and my beard comes up fast. I knew I could raise a bumper crop by the time I went into Mansfield. “Mostly they’ll be looking for you and Butch. I plan to go back to Texas and mind my business. I’m not too worried about being wanted.” Butch said it plain then. “You think we can trust him, Harry?”

  Now that it was out in the open, the Kid studied me hard. Finally he nodded. “Saddler knows what’ll happen if he leads us into a trap. We may die, but so will he. I guess we can trust him. It’s a way out, Butch, and I say we take it. How much you figure for your share, Saddler?”

  “What’s fair,” I said, knowing it would sound fishy if I said I didn’t want to be cut in. A week before I would have laughed at the idea of taking part in a bank robbery. But now my thinking had changed. I was putting my head in a noose, so why not make some money out of it? But getting clear of the Wild Bunch was more important to me than money. They were as doomed as men waiting to get hanged, and I didn’t want to be part of a group photograph, with all of us standing upright in our coffins, which was the usual display they put on when a bunch of famous bandits got killed.

  “How soon do we tell the others?” the Kid asked Cassidy. “You’re right about them being restless, and I don’t mean about being cooped up in here.”

  “That’s Tracy’s doing,” Butch said. “We won’t tell them till the minute we leave. That’ll keep them from getting too organized. Then when we split up they’ll have no way to talk.”

  Cassidy figured everything, and I’ve encountered that in other wild and crazy men. But it can have its drawbacks. Sometimes the straight way is the best way, though maybe not in his line of work. The Kid looked more straightforward than his partner, but looks can be deceiving. If Cassidy meant to double-cross his boys, the Kid had to know about it—that is, unless Cassidy meant to double-cross the Kid into the bargain. Butch’s argument was that he had to double shuffle his men because they were plotting to do the same to him, by siding with Harry Tracy. He said they were, and probably they were, but old Butch was as crooked as a ram’s horn, so there was no way to tell lies from truth,

  “You sure Etta hasn’t told any of the women?” I asked. To take the sting out of that, I added, “Women do talk.” Butch shook his head. “Not Etta. Etta is close to nobody but me”—Butch grinned—“and Harry.” Butch stood up and so did the Kid. “It’s settled then. Two days from now we’ll be on our way. Make sure your door is fixed right, Saddler. Rain is fixing to come down again.”

  “We still haven’t figured the getaway.”

  “Harry and me are going home to talk about that.”

  I asked if they wanted me to come along, then out of the corner of my eye I spotted the Kid shaking his head. Butch poked me in the ribs, and some of that was friendly and some of it was threat. He said, “We trust you like a brother, Saddler, but it ain’t right to burden you with too many secrets at one time. You’ll hear all about it when there�
��s a need for it.”

  Eight

  I got the hinges fixed and after that there was nothing to do for the rest of the day. A few squalls blew up but passed as quickly as they came. My horse was corralled with the rest of the mounts down at the other end, and I went there to have a look. When I got to the corral, an old man with a grizzled beard and a peg leg came out of the worst looking cabin I’d seen thus far and bid me good day. I hadn’t seen him before. He was well into his sixties, or beyond, and wore a worn Colt .45 on a cracked leather belt.

  “I’m Butch Cassidy,” he said.

  “Howdy, Butch,” I said, thinking he was crazy.

  He cackled and scratched his dirty white beard. “It’s not what you’re thinking, son. That’s my real name. Young Butch took my name ’cause he liked the sound of it, ’cause I been knowing him since puppyhood. Butch never did like his own name, which was George Parker in them days. These days I tend to the horses for Butch and the boys. I look after the horses and I do it good. Been working on cow and horse ranches a good part of my life.”

  I asked him how he got his present job, which seemed to please him mightily.

  “The law caught me making off with a few cows and sent me to jail for ten years. Guess I was lucky to get caught by the sheriff instead of the stockman. Had he caught me I’d of dangled. I got old in jail and wasn’t good for nothing but odd-job work when I come out. I was swamping in a saloon when one night Butch come in and knowed me for an old friend. At that time Butch was just getting started in the bandit business and figured he ought to have a catchier name than George Parker. One that folks would remember. So he give me fifty dollars for the full use of my name. Not only that, he didn’t make me call myself George Parker.”

  “You ask for this job or did Butch offer it?”

  “Butch offered it,” the old man said. “Was glad to take it. Easy work, the wages good, not a worry in the world.' Naturally I’m too old to go out on any raids, and don’t want to go.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a bad life,” I said. And for an old, half-crazy jailbird it wasn’t.

  The old coot liked my way of looking at things. “You’re the first man ever said that to me, so I’ll give you some free advice.”

  “What’s that?”

  The original Butch Cassidy stuck a short pipe with a cracked bowl in his toothless mouth. That made him spit. “From the cabin yonder I seen you looking at the valley walls. There’s no way out, son. Butch, I would think, told you that already. Now I’m telling you in a friendly way, and I know this Wyoming country better than any man alive. There’s nothing out there but badlands. Stick with Butch, son, and you’ll be fine. You can have a lifetime job with Butch if he takes a liking to you.”

  After that the old rustler lost interest in me. He peg-legged his way back to talk to the horses and I went to the dead outlaw’s cabin to rustle up some grub. I fried a steak that was aged just right, opened a can of peaches, and made a pot of coffee. It looked like I would have to play out this hand to the end. On the way back to the cabin I saw Tom O’Day squelching through the mud from one cabin to another. The bad weather was keeping the rest of them indoors drinking and card playing.

  Eating the steak and drinking coffee, I thought about this town of Mansfield, a place where my life might end. Butch said it was a lively place and that was better than some half-dead cow town where I would get too much attention. A few days from now I’d know how lively or dead it was. Until then everything was guesswork. There might be no money at all, though it was likely there would be some.

  I washed my plate and hardware and finished what was left of the coffee. I still needed sleep, dog tired after all the fighting and fucking and drinking, but this time if Harry Tracy came I would be ready for him. I tilted a chair against the door and piled tin plates on it. If he came he’d make a racket and I’d kill him. All my chores done, I stretched out, the gun in my hand, my finger resting outside the trigger guard. With the stove going good and new rain on the roof, I was asleep in no time.

  I must have slept through the rest of the day. It was dark when I woke up, and the chair at the door was being moved. I got off the bed fast and edged my way along the wall to the door. Just when I got there the plates fell on the floor with a clatter. I waited with the gun cocked. Maybe fifteen seconds passed before Etta’s voice came in a whisper. “You in there, Saddler? It’s Etta. Open the door if you’re in there.”

  I couldn’t be sure who was with her, so I kicked the chair away and jerked back from the line of fire.

  “What’s going on?” Etta said. “It’s just me, nobody else. I’m coming in now.”

  The door creaked open and she was outlined against the light. Then she came in and closed the door behind her. I struck a match with my left hand and lit the lamp. Yellow light flooded the cabin as I put the chimney back in place and turned up the wick. Etta smelled as if she had just stepped out of a tin tub of soapy water. She smelled good and her hair, still damp, was combed back and tucked under her hat. In the lamplight she was very pretty and I wondered what the hell she was up to.

  “Nice night,” I said.

  Just as politely she answered, “At least the rain has stopped. I hate rain. It makes me think of funerals.”

  That surprised me. Hard, cold rain and funerals were linked in my own mind, too, I’d always thought that was some quirk of my own.

  “You got anything to drink?” Etta said before she saw the empty quart bottle Cassidy and I had finished earlier. “I see you don’t. Here!” She took a flat pint bottle from her coat pocket and gave it to me.

  I knew she wasn’t there to drink or to pass the time. Of all the members of the Wild Bunch I expected to come calling, she was the last. While I poured drinks she put a brown cigarette in her mouth and said she didn’t have a match. I struck one for her and had to get close to give her a light. I think she had a match—people who smoke that much always have matches—but she wanted to break the ice with me. I didn’t know why.

  Etta’s own lines were like those of a thoroughbred mare, a young and pretty one, a fast trotter. She seemed to be doing her best to forget the hostility she had shown since I’d arrived in the Hole. But that wasn’t easy for either of us, because she had been so obvious about it. “Why don’t you sit down,” I said.

  Nothing was said about her reason for being there.

  “Thanks,” she said, but instead of a chair she used the edge of the bunk.

  “Good luck,” she said before she drank her drink.

  “Same to you,” I responded gallantly. The conversation was going nowhere, and to steer it a little I let her drink more than I did. I don’t know if she noticed that or not. I was glad to let her drink more than her share. I had been lapping up too much whiskey lately, and if I didn’t want to develop a shaky gun hand I’d have to go easy.

  “Look, Saddler,” Etta started off after the third man-sized drink. “I’ve been thinking and don’t see any reason we can’t be some kind of friends.”

  “Any kind is all right with me, Etta.” I felt like smiling because Harry Tracy had used about the same words when he’d tried to bugger me. “I can’t blame you for being suspicious at first.”

  Etta looked wise. “It’s the life we lead, Saddler. Hunted from pillar to post. It frays the nerves and makes me jumpy. So I’m sorry I’ve sniped at you so much.”

  “What’s past is past,” I declared, not believing a word of it.

  Etta reached over and rubbed my crotch when I said that. That broke the ice quicker than anything else and she lay back on the bunk when I pushed her down gently. My push was light as a feather, yet this tough gunwoman lay down for me. I kissed her with our clothes on, and then I started to take hers off. The gunbelt had to come first and she tensed slightly when I began to unbuckle it. Anybody who carries a gun all the time feels naked without it. But after I got the gun out of the way, getting the rest of her undressed was easy. I saw her small shapely feet after I got her socks and boots off. She w
as well-shaped all over, almost delicate, and I could well believe that she had been a schoolteacher at one time.

  Etta excited me more than the other women because she was much more dangerous. The threat of violence always lurked in her dark eyes, and I knew it didn’t come from the wild life she led, but was a part of her nature. She could be as rough spoken as any man; some of that had become habit, and some was just plain put-on.

  Lying back with her eyes half-closed, she watched me while I dropped my clothes on the floor. I poured the last of the whiskey into a cup, took a short drink to be sociable, and gave her the rest. Before I got in beside her she asked me to light a cigarette for her. She burned it down to the nub with a few deep drags.

  Then, still unsmiling, she opened her arms and her legs for me. Her bush was thick and soft and I had to part it with my fingers to get my shaft in. She groaned and arched her back as I penetrated her to the hilt. She was so wet that I went in all the way with a single thrust. Maybe this whole business had started as a sham, some part of a plan cooked up by Cassidy, but all that changed as soon as I got my big cock in her.

  Every thrust made her quiver like a strung wire, and her breath came fast and hot in my ear. All of her tongue was in my mouth, and though she smelled and tasted of strong tobacco, I didn’t mind. Now and then, as she grew more excited, she made me raise up so she could look down and watch my cock pumping in and out of her. I got the feeling that, in watching herself being poked, she was watching someone else.

  Whatever it was, soon she began to moan, almost crooning in her excitement, as she worked her way up to an orgasm, and when it came I could barely control her. Her doubled-up fists beat on my chest and her eyes closed tight, wanting to shut out all but the frenzied sensations inside her. Her first come brought me off in a volley of hot juice, and that got her going again, and she came and came until she cried out crazily, twisting and turning under me. I held her firmly and kept on moving until every drop I could shoot was inside her. And she kept moving too, quietly but in fierce concentration.