by Judy Alter
"Who is he?" she asked.
"An outlaw," I said serenely, sailing past her with my books in my hand.
Annie was right behind me. "How do you know?"
"I can tell."
He didn't appear at supper that night, and I admit to some disappointment. Annie was relentless.
"Where's your outlaw?"
"I don't know," I replied, feigning disinterest.
"I saw how he looked at you this afternoon. You better watch out. You know what Fannie thinks about your—what's her word?—fraternizing with the customers."
I wanted to reply hotly that he wasn't a customer and I wasn't fraternizing with him. But I knew another blush would give me away. I managed to say, "He's... he's staying a long time. He's not just a one-night visitor."
Annie smiled, her look full of anticipation, and I knew full well what she intended. I felt like reminding her that she was the one who hated outlaws, not me.
That night I was the one who peeked. The formal parlor was full of loud noise, voices overcoming the piano. Several men stood around the piano singing, their voices straining to match the "Sweet Adeline" that was being banged out by the piano player. The girls hovered around them, and I saw instantly that Annie stood with her arm casually around Sundance's shoulders. He sang heartily, at least pretending that he was unaware of her presence. And never once, while I watched, did he turn his head to smile at her, the way I'd seen men do too many times in my peeking.
Later that night, after I had really and truly been studying for a while, I crept back to the first hall just in time to see Annie go up the stairs with a man I didn't recognize. Though he was smiling and joking with her, she almost stomped her way up the stairs. A few minutes later Sundance went up those stairs, and as he had forecast he was alone.
I went to bed, a certain gladness filling my soul. I was too naive to fantasize about Sundance and me, to build a dream life—or even a dream encounter—for the two of us. But I was certainly glad he hadn't gone up those stairs with Annie or one of the other girls. I never did figure out where he got his supper.
In the next two days I saw him occasionally, usually from a distance. He would appear at odd hours and be missing at times I expected to see him, like supper. When we met in a hallway, he flustered my soul by looking hard at me, but always with a smile.
Three days after his arrival, he appeared at Fannie's front door riding a fine Thoroughbred and leading another. I had just gotten home from school and put my books on my study table when I heard Hodge calling ever so softly, "Miss Etta. You best come out in front. Mr. Sundance, he done brought two horses. He says for you to come out there."
Two horses? Whatever for? But quick as a flash I was out the front door.
There he was, wearing another fine suit, sitting astride a beautiful chestnut. One hand held the horse's reins while the other led a second, equally fine horse.
Grinning, he asked, "You ride?"
"I—I've ridden a workhorse," I said. And then I felt compelled to add, "Never with a saddle."
His laughter echoed across the street. "I thought so. Atlanta, my foot! You're from the country, girl!"
"Fannie told you 'outside Atlanta,'" I reminded him.
"More likely, outside San Antonio," he hooted. "You ever ride sidesaddle?" Before I could answer, he went on, "No, of course you haven't. All right, I'll give you a lesson."
With that he dismounted, hitched his own horse to one of Fannie's fancy hitching posts—they were cast metal, shaped like little black boys holding their hands out for the reins—and handed me the reins to the led horse. "Here, hold this while I demonstrate."
Now, a sidesaddle is at best an awkward affair. There's a curving horn on the left side around which you're supposed to hook your left knee, and then you ride with both legs on the same side of the saddle. It's made more graceful when your legs are covered by countless yards of riding skirt, but when a man in trousers tries to demonstrate, it's purely ridiculous. Of course, until Sundance showed me, I didn't know a thing about sidesaddles, but I knew enough to laugh at his posture as he tried to show me how to mount. In fact, I laughed aloud.
"How did you ride that damn workhorse?" he demanded.
"Astride," I answered. "I pulled my skirts up to where they didn't get in the way."
Now it was his turn to laugh. "Well, I don't hardly think I can take you riding in San Antonio that way. You'll have to master this blasted saddle."
He helped me up, his hands moving my legs into position and sending that same electric thrill through me that I'd felt when he kissed my hand two days earlier. I managed, however, to keep my composure and end up seated on the horse, though it was an uncertain seat at best. Fortunately, the horse was calm and stayed fairly still through this whole procedure. My skirt was a plain broadcloth cut for school—not the yards of cloth meant to cover a sidesaddle—and I was sure I looked ridiculous. But I didn't care.
Without my noticing her, Fannie had appeared on the porch. I wondered later if Hodge had summoned her.
"I'm just taking your niece for a ride," Sundance called happily. "She needs the fresh air."
I guess Fannie knew that she couldn't make a fuss in public. She shrugged and went inside, but I could tell from the set of her shoulders that she was angry. Hodge followed nervously behind her. And I thought I saw Annie peeking out of one of the upstairs windows.
Riding sidesaddle was not easy. I felt as though I would slide off the horse at any minute—on the left side, of course. Sundance was good about keeping the pace slow.
"Want me to keep the reins?" he asked. The idea that any man had to hold the reins to my horse galled me, and I said no, I could manage by myself. But between keeping my seat and guiding the horse, I was hard put.
We rode through the city streets. "You mean you've never seen the Alamo?" He was incredulous. "You've been here how long, and you've never seen it?"
"Nobody ever offered to show it to me," I said, feeling as though my education and background were lacking just because I'd never seen one famous ruined mission.
"You know what happened there?" he demanded.
"The Mexicans killed some Texans."
His laughter rolled over me. "I'm not a Texan, but I can even do better than that at telling the story." And then he launched into a tale about Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and Colonel Travis, who drew a line in the sand and dared men not to be cowards. "I... if I'd been there, I'd have been with Travis," he concluded. "I'd never have run."
"You'd have died," I said. It seemed a simple choice to me: run or be killed.
"I'd have died knowing I was doing the right thing."
I didn't tell him I thought that was a strange sensibility for an outlaw.
The Alamo really was just a hollow shell of a building, with a couple other falling-down buildings and a wall that had great, gaping holes in it. The roof was mostly gone over the main building, there was brush and cactus everywhere, and in one corner a pile of dirty blankets seemed to indicate that someone was living there.
"Don't you just feel the spirit of those men?" he asked.
I shook my head. "It's dirty and falling down. Why don't they just tear it down?"
"Because," he said sarcastically, "it's a shrine. Some Texan you are."
Outside he bought chili from an old woman with a pushcart. It was spicy and hot and burned my tongue, but he ate it without blinking and went back for seconds. The old woman smiled at him and said, "Muy bueno."
"You, too," he said, and then, with an apologetic smile to me, "I don't speak Spanish."
"Tell her gracias," I said.
It came out like "grassy-ass," and I giggled at him.
We were mounted again—me still sliding off that sidesaddle—and we rode through the market area, passing stands where they sold fresh vegetables and poultry, wagons full of hay or wool or hides.
"This is such a wonderful city," he said enthusiastically. "I love all the different people and things. You can get Mexican f
ood, German food, look at the river, sit in the park.... I envy you living here."
"I've never seen it like this," I said. "I just go to Fannie's and school. No one has shown me the city... and Fannie sure wouldn't let me wander around alone."
He was amazed again. "You live in San Antonio and you haven't seen it? It's not just the Alamo you missed—it's the whole city."
We had come to a park, a green openness with lush palm trees and beds of roses. Sundance dismounted and helped me down. After he ground-tied both horses, he surprised me by producing a blanket on which we could sit. We sat in silence for several minutes, he comfortable and me anxious.
"You aren't from Atlanta... or Georgia," he said. "Want to tell me about it?"
I considered for a long moment and then said, "No."
Sundance laughed—I soon learned that his laughter always bubbled to the surface, and it was one of the things that made me love him. "All right, I'll tell you about me."
"Please," I said.
He looked startled, as though no one had ever wanted to hear about him. "My family," he said, "generally doesn't want to hear my stories. They'd some of them like to forget I was ever born a Longabaugh."
I could have told him I was sorry, but I didn't think he wanted sympathy. Besides, of all people, I knew that sometimes family were wonderful, like Mama and Ab, and sometimes, like Pa, they were a burden. "Are you going to begin with 'I was born...'?" I asked.
Grinning, he said, "All right, I was born in Pennsylvania, the last of five children. My pa, he farmed some but his heart wasn't in it, and there... well, we were pretty poor. I read a lot as a kid—read about people who lived different from me, and I swore I'd live better than my folks."
"Do you rob people to do that?"
His eyes flew wide open, and he almost jumped up from his seat on the blanket. "What do you mean, rob people?"
"You're one of Fannie's outlaws, aren't you? From—what do they call it—the Hole-in-the-Rock?"
He threw back his head in laughter. "Hole-in-the-Wall! Wait till I tell Cassidy that one!" Then he really was on his feet, asking anxiously, "How did you know about that? Did Fannie tell you I was one of them?"
I shook my head, looking up at him. "I guessed... somehow I knew when I first met you. And I knew about the whole bunch ever since Harry Logan was here—Kid Curry, I think they call him."
"Mean son of a bitch," he muttered, and then quickly said, "Pardon me....You didn't... you didn't have anything to do with Curry?"
I wasn't sure how he defined "to do with," but I quickly reassured him. "Fannie doesn't allow me to fraternize—it's her word—with any customers, and when outlaws are in the house she practically locks me in my room." His opinion of Kid Curry wasn't any better than Annie's, and yet they both associated with him—well, in one way or another.
Relieved, he sat back down. "Good for her. I don't trust a one of them—except Cassidy—and I wouldn't trust them around a schoolgirl, specially if there's liquor to be had."
"What is Hole-in-the-Wall?" I asked.
"A place," he said, "in Wyoming. Along what they call the Outlaw Trail. It's a canyon with rock walls, sort of part of the Big Horn Mountains. It's a place where outlaws hide and can't be found easily. Butch says a dozen men could hold off a hundred, because you can see for miles in any direction from the top of the wall."
"Is there a hole in it?" Somehow I envisioned a great round hole in a rock wall.
"Naw. There's a notch where you can run cattle through—and we've done that—but there's no hole."
I wanted to go there, to see it. "Finish your story. How did you get from Pennsylvania to the Hole-in-the-Wall?"
"I followed an older brother to Colorado, place they call Cortez in the western part of the state. My brother—George—he raised horses, and I wrangled for him. I know a lot about horses." He didn't sound boastful, just as though he wanted me to know the truth.
"I could tell," I said, but the corners of my mouth twitched.
"Aw, not the sidesaddle. That's not fair!"
Then I laughed aloud, and in an instant he joined me. When he could stop laughing, he said, "I know a lot about choosing good horses, horses that will last."
"Do you steal horses?" I was absolutely intrigued by the adventure, or what I thought of as the adventure, of his life.
"Horses? No, I don't steal horses—at least not too much anymore. Used to, though. That's how I got started."
"What'd you do, just say to yourself, 'I'm going to steal a horse today'?"
His hand reached out ever so casually and covered mine where it lay on the blanket. "Not quite. I... well, there were some other fellows living around there—Matt Warner, and Bill Madden, and a couple of others—and they'd been doin' it—rustling is what it's called when you steal horses and change the brand—and they kind of took me along. Not Cassidy—he was there, but he wasn't stealing horses."
"Who's Cassidy?" My hand turned and nestled into his, and he moved a bit closer on the blanket so that we were very close to each other but not quite touching.
"Butch. His real name's Robert LeRoy Parker, but he calls himself Butch Cassidy. He's... well, he's the best friend I got in the world, and I'd go to the end of the earth for him. He would for me, too."
I wouldn't have gone to the other side of San Antonio for Annie, and she was probably the best friend I had. The whole idea of friendship that strong fascinated me. But I already knew, too, that I would have gone, willingly, to the end of the earth for Sundance.
"Cassidy's in jail now in Wyoming," he went on. "Got framed. Bought some horses from an old guy without knowing they were stolen. Fellow he thought was his friend testified against him, and the court decided Butch stole the horses, sentenced him to the state penitentiary. Probably the dumbest thing they ever did—he'll come out an outlaw for sure."
"Why would anybody lie about his stealing horses?"
Sundance looked away, squinting his eyes a little as though seeing a land not anywhere near where we were. "Big ranchers up there in Johnson County and around, they're fighting against the small ranchers. Butch just got caught in the middle."
"Will you get caught too?" I asked. My hand was still inside his.
"Not... least I hope not. Don't intend to.... Hey! Look at that sun goin' down. We best get back. Fannie'll skin me alive."
"She's more likely to skin me," I said. "Are you afraid of Fannie?"
His grin was pure mischief. "Nope. I know how to sweeten her."
Naive, I didn't even think to speculate on what he meant. I was reluctant to leave, and he had to pull me to my feet. When he did I found myself face-to-face with him, our faces only inches apart. We stared at each other, eyes locked.
He reached for me, then seemed to hesitate, and with a shrug said, "No, not now." Then, almost briskly, "Come on, let's get you back on that saddle."
This time as he helped me mount, his hands seemed impersonal, and I felt no surge of thrill. Something had changed the mood of the afternoon, and I wished I knew what it was.
Fannie was waiting when we got back to the house. "Sundance...," she thundered as we walked into the front hall.
"Fannie," he said patiently, a bit of exasperation creeping into his voice, "we went for a ride, and I told your niece the sordid story of my background. That's all." He thought a minute. "No, that's not all. She's a charming young lady, and I enjoy her company. I... I also respect her."
Fannie looked somewhat mollified, but she didn't want to give up her anger totally, so she turned it on me. "You go to your room. I'll be there directly."
Smarting, I did as she said. Good as she'd been to me, Fannie didn't, I told myself, have control over my life. That was my belligerent mood when she knocked on my door.
"Everything I've tried to tell you about whores goes double for outlaws," she said, standing before the desk where I sat.
I didn't answer. There seemed to be nothing to say. "You get involved with that man, you'll spend your life wondering wh
ere he is, when he's coming back, whether or not he's in jail... or hung from a cottonwood someplace. It's no life for a lady."
Suddenly I started to giggle, and the more I giggled, the angrier Fannie got at me. Her hands were akimbo on her hips, and her eyes blazed. Finally I managed to say, "I'm not spending my life with him, Fannie. I just went for a ride. He... well, I really like him."
"That's what I mean," she said triumphantly. "I can see it in the two of you—and I'm no dummy about these things—you really like each other. You're both headed towards trouble you don't know."
There was more to the story than what Fannie was telling me, but I couldn't make it out. She was angry beyond measure, if her only thought was to protect me.
I stood up to face her. "Fannie, I've had trouble, and you've rescued me, for which I'm more grateful than I can tell. But I'll have to find out some things for myself. And do what I think is right. Just now, that doesn't amount to much more than finishing school and maybe going for another ride or two with Sundance before he leaves." I was surprised at my own strength, but I stood my ground and looked directly at her.
"I oughta tell him he's not welcome," she mumbled, "tell him to move on."
"But you won't," I told her, "because then I'd have to leave with him." I didn't know that wasn't the only reason she wouldn't tell him to move on.
"It's that serious?" Her anger was replaced by surprise.
"It's that serious, at least for me. I can't speak for him." I hadn't, of course, thought of it as serious at all until that moment. The words surprised me as they came out my mouth, but they were true.
"I wouldn't count on him taking anything serious. You'll be buying yourself a whole peck of trouble. Believe me, I know." And then Fannie Porter did the most extraordinary thing. That hard-hearted madam, who seemed to tolerate me only because my presence built a new image of her, reached out and hugged me.
I hugged her back fiercely. We might never understand each other, but a strong bond would always hold us together.
* * *
I didn't see Sundance for three days, at least not to talk to. Oh, yes, I wondered—and at night, I'd peek through the curtains and see him laughing with Maud and Annie and the others. But he didn't come to supper, and he didn't bring a horse for me to ride, and he didn't tell me any more of his life story. I hadn't the nerve to watch each night and see if he went upstairs alone—I would have been too crushed if I'd seen him go up those stairs arm in arm with Annie.