by Judy Alter
But the thing that most made me a new person was that I had left yet another life behind me. Five years ago, I'd fled from Pa, his hardscrabble farm and barbaric ways, and I'd even taken a new name to completely change my identity. This time I'd take that name—Etta Place—with me, but I'd left the whorehouse behind for good. My change of identity—and of life—would be as big. Did I feel a certain sadness, a tie to San Antonio? Not at all. I was ready for whatever came next.
But I was a bit puzzled. If I expected Sundance to whisper sweet nothings in my ear now that we were away from Fannie and off, as it were, on our life together, I was disappointed. He treated me cavalierly, holding my arm as we boarded the train, bowing me into the seat, leaning almost across me to point to something out the window, and, always, smiling at me as though he'd just invented me. But beyond casual touches of the hand, there was no passion—nor any hint of passion to come.
I was, of course, nervous about the passion part of our relationship. He was a man used to physical pleasures, and I was a girl raped by her father, albeit one who had lived in a whorehouse and seen the casual acceptance of coupling by others. But never by myself. A part of me was frightened—would it be as painful and unpleasant as it had been with Pa? But another part of me was impatient—there were those feelings deep in the pit of my stomach that welled up when Sundance even looked into my eyes and that electric tingle when he touched my hand.
He seemed oblivious to all that and more concerned about what we would get to eat when the train stopped in Austin. We got off and went into the station, where food was available. We studied the menu crudely printed on a blackboard, and I announced I'd have the chicken salad.
"Uh, I wouldn't do that," he muttered in my ear.
"Why not?" If I wanted chicken salad, then I wanted it.
"Well... no telling when it was made, or how clean it's been kept. Stick with something that doesn't spoil."
"Such as?"
He shrugged. "A sausage sandwich is pretty safe."
"I don't want sausage," I said, "I want chicken." If he thought he was going to start this relationship off by telling me what to eat, I'd show him. I hadn't been around Fannie all those years for nothing. I would not be Mama or Mrs. Brewster!
"Suit yourself." He shrugged and ordered himself sausage in a roll. "The lady'll have chicken salad," he said.
"The lady" was faintly sick by the time we reached Fort Worth, and desperately so when we got to something called the Maddox Flats. It wasn't a hotel—in fact, dimly, I thought it might be a whorehouse—but a woman came out of the back to greet Sundance joyously. He, however, rushed through the formalities in order to get me upstairs, where I promptly hung my head over the chamber pot and disposed of the chicken salad.
He was amused, but he was sympathetic. "Can I get you anything?"
I shook my head, miserable because I felt so bad and because I was embarrassed. But a part of me was also mad. I'd given him a chance to say, "I told you so." Fortunately, he didn't say it. He simply sent for hot tea, and when I collapsed on the bed, still wearing my traveling suit, he put cold cloths on my head.
"I'll just step outside," he said, "and you get into one of those warm wrappers. Ah... ah, forget that satin thing for now."
Dimly I realized that the "satin thing" was meant for this, our first night together, and my dinner of chicken salad had spoiled all our plans. But I was too sick to care. With Sundance pacing outside the door—I wouldn't have cared if he'd stayed inside the room—I pulled off the suit, left it in a heap on the floor, pulled on a wrapper, and crawled into bed.
"My, my, aren't we neat," he said when he came back into the room, eyeing the crumpled clothes on the floor. With careful precision, he hung them in the wardrobe and then deliberately and slowly undressed down to his underwear. Carefully, he climbed into the other side of the bed.
I lay curled into a ball of misery on my side, my back to him.
He leaned over, kissed me on the forehead, and said, "Good night, Etta." Then, as he pulled away, he said, "There will be better nights, I promise you."
Thinking I heard just the faint touch of laughter in his voice, I turned toward him. "Are you mad at me?" It was an instinctive reaction, probably born of too many years with Pa.
He laughed softly. "Of course not. But I did tell you not to eat that damn chicken salad. Maybe next time you'll believe me."
I reached for his hand. "I might," I said.
And that's how Sundance and I spent our first night together, lying stiffly next to each other in a double bed, me racked with misery and he—well, I don't know exactly what he felt, but I'm sure things hadn't gone as he'd planned.
It would not be, I decided firmly, an omen of things to come between us.
Chapter 11
During the night, I really began to believe that Maddox Flats was a whorehouse. It was a big house like Fannie's, and in my misery that night I heard the familiar sounds of men's voices—loud voices—and the occasional softer laugh of a woman. Beside me, Sundance slept soundly, snoring softly.
"Are we staying in a whorehouse?" I asked in the morning.
"Shame on you!" he replied indignantly. "Mrs. Maddox would never want to hear you say that. She runs a respectable boardinghouse."
"Does she serve breakfast?" I asked, my stomach now recovered enough to feel empty.
"No. I went out while you were still sleeping and bought some penny rolls from a cart in the street." He reached into a sack and held out a fat roll, glazed with syrup.
The fact that she didn't serve breakfast confirmed my suspicion. No one in a whorehouse got up early enough to eat breakfast, but everyone in a "respectable" boardinghouse expected eggs and hotcakes.
The roll was delicious, but so sweet and sticky that I could hardly open my mouth to ask, "Is there any coffee?"
He shook his head. "The pitcher's still full." He nodded toward a pitcher and basin set on the bedside table. Two glasses sat by the pitcher, but when I poured the water it was lukewarm and not very good-tasting. I made a face.
"Etta," he said with real impatience, "one thing you've got to learn about this life..."
"What life?" Every reference to "the life" I'd ever heard had meant being a whore.
"The outlaw life!" he exploded. "You just can't always have the comforts you got used to at Fannie's."
"But we're not outlaws right now," I pointed out. "We're paying customers—we are, aren't we?—in a boardinghouse that ought to provide better for its guests."
"I'm going downstairs," he said, turning his back on me. "Get dressed, and I'll show you Fort Worth."
"I don't want to see Fort Worth. I want to go to Denver and on to Wyoming."
"There's no train until tomorrow," he said. "You can either see Fort Worth with me or you can sit in this room and remember how you felt last night."
Sundance, I was discovering, could give as good as he got. "I'll be downstairs shortly," I said, and then dressed so leisurely that he was nearly out of patience when I appeared.
We rented a carriage at a livery, and he headed the horse west along the bluff behind the pink granite courthouse. To one side of us was the city, with its mix of rough frontier days and up-and-coming business. On the other side, below the bluff, the prairie stretched endlessly before us.
Next thing I knew we were in a residential section far different from that which housed Maddox Flats, much finer. The houses were grand—some of wood, some of brick, one of granite like the courthouse. All were large and square, with even rows of windows marching across them, chimneys emerging sedately from the roofs. Imposing front lawns and walkways directed the eye to front doors of leaded glass.
"Bankers must live in these houses," I said. "Are there very many rich people in Fort Worth?"'
"You've got an obsession with bankers," he said, "and blinders on about what they're like. Someday you and I are going to live in a house just like these. Bankers are going to help us get there." Then he laughed. "I'm a banker, of sort
s, after all."
I considered for a minute. "Will we live in Fort Worth?"
"Maybe, maybe not. How about South America? Butch is always wanting to go there."
"I don't think they have houses like this in South America," I said. "I think there they would be more... well, like San Antonio."
"And what would you like?" he asked, amused at me.
I looked straight ahead at a three-story red-brick home, with a green glazed tile roof, tall columns on the front, and wraparound porches at the second story. "I want that house," I said. "And I want it in Fort Worth."
I had no idea why the city fascinated me. I had been there less than twenty-four hours and had spent much of that time sicker than I wanted to recall. "I want to live in Fort Worth," I said with determination. I meant, of course, after we'd saved up a fortune by robbing trains and banks and gotten all that adventure out of our systems.
Sundance reined the horses to a stop and sat staring at me. "You really mean that?"
"Yes," I said firmly, "I do."
Laughter again. "All right, my lady, you shall have your wish.... I just can't tell you when."
Neither of us knew how prophetic those words were, nor the twists and turns our lives would take before I returned to the Queen City of the Prairies. But I knew even then that I would be back.
* * *
That night we dined on quail and roast beef at a place called Peers House. "Better than Julie's cooking," I said, eating the last bite of a fruit trifle laced with bourbon, even though I had already eaten twice as much as usual.
"Julie's not cooking for bankers in Fort Worth," he said, and then laughed at me.
A short but dapper-looking man in a vest and top hat came by, barely glanced at me, and then bent to whisper in Sundance's ear.
"No. Thanks, but not tonight," Sundance replied.
"We'll miss you."
Sundance tipped an imaginary hat in his direction and said, "There'll be other times."
"A poker game," I said.
"You're clairvoyant, too! Of course it was a poker game. I told him I'd prefer your company."
My heart sank just a little, for I knew what he meant. "I believe I'd like some more claret," I told him.
"I believe you wouldn't," he said. "Remember the chicken salad."
When we got back to our room at Mrs. Maddox's, I retired behind the folding screen and emerged wearing a long-sleeved, high-collared wrapper.
Sundance stood looking out the window, though he stood to the side of the window and reached one hand to part the curtains ever so slightly. Through this slit, he looked down at the street. I would learn that this was the way he always looked out of windows, a habit of caution that had become part of him. He still wore his pants, but he had discarded his shirt and was down to an undershirt.
"Come look," he said. "You won't see this much activity again for a long time." He hadn't even turned to look at me, but when I walked to his side his free arm went quietly around my waist. If the wrapper bothered him, he said nothing.
"See that lady of the night down there? She's old... and kind of pitiful. I've a mind to go give her a dollar."
"For what?" I asked.
He turned toward me. "Not for what you think," he said. His face was now very near mine, and he stared intently at me. Then his hands reached up to hold my face, and he kissed me long and gently. "Get in bed."
I did as I was told, still wearing the wrapper, shaking in anticipation as I waited for him to come to bed. I didn't know which I hated more—my own nervousness or the fact that the nervousness made me lose control of the situation.
Sundance, however, was in perfect control. He kissed me gently on the forehead, took extra blankets from the wardrobe, and made himself a pallet on the floor. "Sleep well, Etta."
I sat up in astonishment. And then disappointment washed over me like a flood. "You're not sleeping in the bed?" I asked stupidly.
"You're not ready for me to," he said.
I lay back down, arms behind my head, thoughts racing. I wanted him—I wanted him to show me how it could be so different from Pa. But every time I thought about that, Pa's face swam before me. I remembered the pain, and I heard him say, "A man has his needs." And I remembered my vow never again to be that helpless.
Sundance was snoring softly. And I knew that sleeping on the floor on a pallet gave him more power than if he had forced himself on me.
I jumped out of the bed and stood over him. "Sundance," I said, "I... I want to sleep with you." It took every ounce of courage I had to say that, and as I said it I felt that lurching in my stomach.
"You sure?"
I nodded, and crawled into bed.
"I'm used to women taking off their clothes before they get into bed with me," he said softly.
I was flustered. "I... I didn't know...."
"My pleasure, ma'am," he said as he unhitched his suspenders and let his pants fall, revealing the long cotton underwear that he apparently wore summer or winter. Then he was in the bed, lying next to me, his head propped on one elbow. "You all right?"
From what I knew of Pa and what I heard of men at Fannie's, most of them didn't care how you were. Sundance, I told myself, was different.
"Uh-huh," I murmured. Suddenly, though it was hot as could be in that room, I was chilled through and through—the shaking kind of a chill.
He knew, of course, but he said nothing. His hand began to stroke my forehead, brushing my hair away from my face. For several minutes, he said nothing but only stared intently at me, his hand always moving. And then the hand traveled, first down to my neck and shoulders, and then, ever so tentatively, he unbuttoned the wrapper and reached inside to touch one of my breasts. I was still shaking.
"Etta," he whispered, "don't think about your father. Don't think about anything." His mouth came down on mine, gently at first and then demanding, working, insisting on a response.
Thinking I didn't know how to respond, I found my kisses meeting his, my mouth working on his.
Now he lay beside me, his length pressed against my body, and one hand reached up under the bottom of the wrapper. He stroked my belly, sending sudden sensations through my stomach that startled me. And then he was stroking my thighs, all the time talking to me in a low voice. I stopped shaking as a kind of electricity seemed to flow through me.
"Trust me, Etta. Let me show you what it can be like. Don't think about your father. Think about me. Think about us."
By the time Sundance had wriggled out of his underwear—when did he do that?—and pulled the wrapper over my head, I was in a trance, soothed by his voice and transported by his touch. When he entered me, I felt nothing but pleasure, a rising pleasure that met his every movement until both of us lay panting.
"You want to go back to Fannie's?" he asked at last.
"Well," I said, "now I know that maybe I could make a living there."
He jumped from the bed and, standing stark naked before me, shouted, "That's what's wrong with females. You're an ungrateful lot." Then he was back in the bed, kissing me and holding me tight. "It wouldn't," he whispered, "be the same with anyone else."
"I know that," I told him. "Let's go to Wyoming tomorrow."
This time I was the one who began the stroking. When again we lay panting, he said, "I do believe you're a quick learner, Etta Place. Will you learn to be an outlaw as quickly?"
At that I laughed aloud.
"I knew I could make you laugh again," he said slowly, "but I'll be damned if I know what was funny about what I just said." He shuddered just a bit as he said that, and I didn't know if it was from passion or from brief sight into the future.
I didn't tell him that I'd laughed just because I felt like laughing. It was a new feeling to me.
* * *
We went by train to Denver, and I watched the landscape in fascination. The prairie around Fort Worth turned progressively flatter as we moved north, the land rolling occasionally into deep cuts. There were wildflowers because i
t was June—carpets of gold flowers that disguised what would in a month be bare and brown—and there were plum thickets, their bloom already gone for the season. But there were no trees.
Sundance pointed out various places for me, telling me, for instance, when we were in the Panhandle. "The Staked Plains," he said, "Llano Estacado. Story is the early Spanish explorers put stakes down so they wouldn't lose their way back."
I could see why. In some places the land was perfectly flat and unmarked by trees, giving you the impression you could see forever. But at other places, it rolled into deep cuts and gorges, revealing rocky red soil.
We went north to Colorado, then straight west across empty plains where there was little vegetation. Even now, in spring, there was only a cracked and brown soil, as though it had been dry for centuries. Occasional fences rose from the ground, where some poor soul was trying to raise corn or melons or whatever he could—dryland farmers, Sundance told me, as he pointed out the scattered dugouts to me.
"Look," he said, and my eye followed his finger to a rise in the ground. "Someone lives there."
"Underground?"
Patiently he explained about dugouts, those half-in-the-earth dwellings that offered better insulation against heat, cold, and storms but no creature comforts. "Dirt falls into your soup," he said. "But you'll find that out in the Hole."
"You live in a dugout?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No, but there are some there. If it's a bad winter, we'd be glad of one."
I shook my head. I never wanted to live half in the ground. That wasn't part of the dream I carried in my head.