Sundance, Butch and Me

by Judy Alter

  Emotion colored his voice when he spoke of this place. I'd thought of it as a hideaway, but now, from his tone, I saw that it was in some strong sense a home to him, a place where his heart lived.

  "Will we ride through the hole?" I asked. Somehow riding through that much-talked-of Hole-in-the-Wall seemed a fitting entrance into outlaw life.

  "No. It's north. We'll just slide in between the beginning of the wall and the mountains. They'll know we're coming."

  "Who?" I asked.

  "Butch and the others."

  "Everyone there is an outlaw, then," I said, imagining an army of men.

  He laughed aloud. "Lord, no, we've got honest neighbors who run a few head of cattle and raise hay. But they protect us."

  "Who's 'us'?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "Never can tell at any one given time. Population changes. But Butch is always there... and mostly, so am I." He grinned at me. "When I'm not in San Antonio." A pause, and then he said, "You'll probably see Kid Curry."

  "I saw him in San Antonio," I said, "and I didn't like him."

  "You probably won't like him any better here," he told me, "but try to get along. He's dangerous. One thing I don't like about him."

  After a long silence he said, "They'll want you to cook for them, you know."

  "Who will?" I asked. Cooking was definitely not what I had come to Wyoming to do.

  "Butch and them," he said. "They do their own cooking, but it isn't very good. And they'll figure, you being a woman and all..."

  "They can figure again," I said. "I haven't cooked in years."

  "You do know how, don't you?" He was laughing.

  "I can cook," I told him.

  He smiled. "And will you?"

  I thought about it. I didn't want to cook, never had liked it, never thought I was any good at it. But cooking for them might be a way to get Butch and the others to accept me. Little did I know that I would come to enjoy it and take pride in the meals I put before Butch and Sundance. I never cared what Kid Curry ate.

  We rode past the point where the red wall began to rise out of the plains and into a valley. The walls were indeed red, steep, and absolutely bare and stark, rising sharply in layers from the valley floor. Before us was what I could only call scrub ground—brown and dry, the summer heat apparently having burned it even this far north.

  Late in the afternoon we came to a smallish river. "Middle fork of the Powder," he said. "Buffalo Creek heads up this way." He jerked his head toward the northwest.

  We followed Buffalo Creek until we came to a point where the wall turned east, away from us.

  "There," he said, "that's the hole."

  I couldn't see much. Maybe a slight shift in the direction of the sandstone and maybe a bit of a dent in the top of the ridge, but nothing that I could pinpoint and call the "hole."

  "That's it?" I asked, disappointed.

  "That's it," he said. "Did you want a road sign there pointing it out?"

  "No, but I wanted something that I could identify."

  He laughed and shrugged. "Come on, we're not far from camp. Blue Creek takes off in another mile or two."

  Blue Creek, I learned, was where Butch Cassidy had taken up a squatter's claim—and where I would live for the winter.

  We came rather shortly to a small, almost square cabin—not a dugout but a building that sat on the ground, if not exactly firmly or squarely. Somehow it had a slightly askew look, as though it might shift an inch or two at any moment or perhaps settle a little nearer to the ground. Already, it looked as though a tall man would have difficulty standing straight in it, and I wondered if Butch was any taller than Sundance.

  Around the cabin were several brush corrals, with only three horses now in them. Some scrub trees grew haphazardly around, but the ground was mostly bare, and there was no creek in immediate sight. They probably, I thought, had to draw their water from some distance away. I vowed I wouldn't be the one to draw and carry water. Cooking was enough of a compromise.

  The cabin nestled against the low wall of the rising mountains, affording a clear view down the trail toward the notch in the wall. It was well suited for watching who was coming your way, and I saw why this Cassidy person boasted you could hold off a hundred people from here.

  "Hallo the house!" Sundance called loudly.

  "They know we're coming already," I said.

  "Sure. Someone's had us in their sights since we passed the notch."

  Two men came banging out the door of the cabin, letting it slam wildly on its hinges behind them. One raised a hand to shade his eyes and look in our direction, but the other looked away, and even from that distance I could see that his expression was sour. His whole posture spoke of anger.

  The angry one was, of course, Kid Curry. I recognized him and instantly liked him no better than I had at Fannie's.

  The other man walked quickly toward us. When he stood within a few feet of our stopped horses, he said, "Sundance," and Sundance replied, "Butch."

  I looked at Butch Cassidy, about whom Sundance talked so much, the man for whom he'd go to the ends of the earth. Cassidy had a round face, which had broken into an easy grin when he greeted Sundance. His jaw was square, and his face one of strength, yet friendly enough that he reminded one of a happy child. Much stockier in build than Sundance, he was a slower man. He reminded me of a teddy bear.

  He caught me looking at him. "You're Etta," he said, his voice almost shy.

  I nodded and smiled.

  "Well, it's a real pleasure to have you here, ma'am."

  Kid Curry had joined us by then, but he looked sour and said nothing. He was dark-complected and unshaven and generally unappealing. But it was his eyes that drew my attention and that I remembered from Fannie's. They were dark and small and smoldered with perpetual anger.

  "Sundance," Butch demanded, "you gonna help that lady off that horse?"

  Sundance sat unmoving, but his face was creased with laughter. "You're so anxious to get her down off it, why don't you help her?"

  "Well, I guess I just will." And with that Butch came to offer a handheld step for me and help me down.

  Just as I turned to thank him, Kid Curry said, "You shouldn't have brought a whore here, Sundance. They ain't none of them nothin' but trouble."

  I froze and then turned slowly to look at him. He was staring at me, his look challenging and angry. Sundance, for once stunned, still sat on his horse.

  I knew I had to deal with Kid Curry right then or I'd deal with him forever. Maybe I just acted on instinct, or maybe I knew from life with Pa what happens when a woman lets a man bully her. Probably I knew Curry and I couldn't live together all winter without clearing the air.

  I moved without hesitation—or so it seemed to Sundance and Butch, though to me it was an eternity while I walked the few steps it took to put me squarely in front of him, my face inches from his.

  He stared at me with an arrogance that made me sure he expected me to explain, conciliate, even beg.

  Instead, I reached up and slapped his face as hard as I could. "Don't you ever again call me a whore," I said.

  Instinctively he covered his red cheek with one hand. But I saw the other hand go to his gun.

  Sundance was now off his horse, faster than I'd ever seen him move. "Curry," he said, his tone soft and slow, "don't do it. Don't make me fight you."

  "She slapped me," Kid Curry said in disbelief.

  Butch shrugged almost philosophically. "You called her a whore. Sounds like a fair trade to me."

  At that, Sundance burst into laughter. I knew later that it was deliberate rather than spontaneous, his way of defusing the situation. And it wasn't until much later that I saw the humor in Butch's statement. But what Butch said and the way Sundance laughed worked—Kid Curry turned away.

  "Keep her outta my way," he muttered.

  Sundance, now bold, replied, "Sure, Curry. You don't have to eat what she cooks."

  Later Sundance came as close to anger at me as
he ever had. "He could've shot you right there," he ranted. "I wouldn't put it past him. I... I've seen him shoot a man for no good reason. You took a foolish chance."

  "I'd have taken a worse chance," I said, "if I let him go on thinking of me as a whore."

  Sundance finally grinned. "Etta Place," he said, "you are something different. I don't know how long we'll last, but it's a pure pleasure, ma'am, it surely is."

  Chapter 13

  Sundance and I were outside, wandering around the bare ground, but he had gotten over his anger—or scare—at my encounter with Kid Curry. I had not gotten over my anger.

  "I won't sleep under the same roof with Curry," I said.

  "There's a curtained-off sleeping area." His voice was soothing, and I knew he was trying to lull me into acceptance. "That'll be for us. Butch and Logan will sleep in bedrolls, outside as long as it's not too cold."

  "I mean it," I repeated. "I won't ever sleep under the same roof with him. If I do, I'll take to putting a butcher knife by my side again."

  Sundance whirled to look at me, his eyes wide with surprise. Even between us the subject of my father and my use of a butcher knife was forbidden. That I had brought it up myself testified to how strongly I felt.

  "We can sleep in a tent," he said.

  "And freeze?" I asked.

  "Not us," he said, leering at me, "not us."

  Sundance pitched a tent for us some hundred yards from the cabin. The canvas floor was made soft by featherbeds, and there were more comforters to cover us when the nights turned chilly. For now, it was warm enough for light blankets.

  It was a commodious tent—not a Sibley, he informed me, like the ones the army said held seventeen mounted soldiers, as though anyone would be mounted in a tent! This was like the tents the army issued, with a stove—Libbie Custer had slept in one with the general before he got slaughtered. Sundance said we'd never use the stove even on cold nights, lest we burn up or suffocate ourselves. Besides the stove, there was room for a chair or two and poles on which I could hang most of my clothes.

  I liked it a lot better than the cabin.

  "I can fix you sort of a table, if you've a piece of mirror," he said. "And we've enough lanterns." He was trying hard to please me, and I loved him for it. But I wasn't going to give an inch on my hatred of Kid Curry.

  "Do I have to cook supper tonight?"

  "Up to you," he said. "Butch'll probably do it, but it'd be better if you did."

  "I'll start tomorrow," I said, but Butch's rendition of stew made me regret that I hadn't started right away.

  Denver seemed a long time ago, and Sundance and I had had no comfortable privacy since, being either on trains or sleeping by campfires. Sometimes that long first day at the cabin, when he looked at me a certain way I ached with wanting him.

  Etta Place, I'd say to myself, you vowed no man would ever do that to you again, and now, in less than seven days, you've gone weak-kneed over him. You can't be an outlaw if all you want to do is run off into the woods with Sundance!

  But my lectures did little good. When Sundance and I were alone at last, I turned to him almost frantically. He was deliberately slow, teasing with his hands, his mouth, his tongue until I moaned and almost begged, and when at last we came together I cried out in pleasure.

  "You're right, Etta," he said, and I could hear the laughter and happiness in his voice, "a curtained-off area would never have done."

  Still panting, I managed a little laugh. "I... I won't do that again," I said.

  "Yes, you will," he said. "At least, I hope you will."

  I couldn't get Curry out of my mind, even with Sundance's loving. "He's... he's not the same kind of outlaw as you and Butch," I said. "He's mean, evil... I wouldn't cry if he went to prison."

  "And if he was hanged?" he asked.

  Startled, I sat up. "Hanged? None of you will be hanged."

  He shrugged. "It could happen. Of course, I prefer to think not, but... Besides, Etta Place, think about you. You're not the kind of woman that people think of as a murderer. But here we both are."

  Yes, I thought, here we both are. And I couldn't be more pleased. But there was still Curry. Somehow I had to get him out of the way. "I don't like the way Curry looks at me."

  "He'll never lay a hand on you, Etta, I promise you that. Even Curry wouldn't dare do that." His voice was solemn and hard now. "Can we please stop talking about him now?"

  Funny how little we understand about the future, and how things can go just the way we were sure they wouldn't. But we didn't know that then, as Sundance took me in his arms again. This time his urgency was greater than mine, but I never could make him cry out. At least he never grunted like Pa.

  * * *

  I began to cook for them, though the kitchen was pitifully supplied with utensils—there was a cast-iron spider in which I could fry and make gravy, and a handled griddle for pancakes, and a shallow granite oven that someone had let get rusty. Only three of us could eat at any one time, there not being any more of the chipped enamel plates. But wonder of wonders, there was a corn bread pan like the one Mama had, where the corn bread comes out shaped like little ears of corn. I made corn bread until they were tired of it. Of course, before I could use any of it I had to give all the utensils and the whole cabin a thorough scrubbing.

  "I keep it clean," Butch protested, sitting with his feet up on the table and watching me while he sipped coffee.

  "Do you know how much grease was on this spider?"

  Coming through the door, Curry said, "Don't go washing the coffeepot. It'll taint the coffee."

  I ignored him and deliberately plunged the coffeepot into hot, sudsy water. I never had believed that old cowboy tale about coffeepots "seasoning" with use and ruining with soap.

  "Bitch!" Curry turned on his heel and left.

  "Why do you deliberately make him mad?" Butch asked.

  I shrugged. "I don't like him."

  He smiled a little. "He doesn't much like you either."

  Almost always, Butch and Sundance and I ate together, but sometimes Kid Curry was there. Then I made him wait until one of us was through and I could wash the plate and give it to him. It struck me it was like feeding a dog after the family had eaten. If he resented it, he never showed it. Curry ate as heartily as any, and I had fleeting thoughts of Lucreztia Borgia and her poison ring that scattered lethal droplets into the food of her victims. Other times there were other men at the cabin. My favorite was Elzy Lay, who apparently left behind his bride, Maude, and their new baby, born too soon to be healthy. And there were one or two others who were never even introduced.

  I cooked mostly what they brought me—some days a fat sage chicken or a plump young rabbit that I larded with bacon and let roast most of the day. Sundance was a great hand to shoot squirrels and clean them—I never would clean the game they brought—but I didn't even like to cook the tiny varmints and made a face every time he brought the things. Still, they made a good stew, with fresh new potatoes and turnips, bought from a farmer down the valley.

  Some days Sundance packed me off to the mountains early in the morning. We had two or three favorite streams we went to, where we'd catch grasshoppers and make birch fishing poles. The trout ran freely, all silvery gray with dark speckles and shades of rose and orange dotting their flesh. Sundance and I would pack potatoes and buttered bread and lard to cook the fish and have a feast, way up there in the mountains by ourselves, and then the others would be angry when we came back and they had no supper. I told them there was jerky in the shed, and when Curry flared in anger, as he usually did, I saw a slow smile creep across Butch's face.

  Sundance and I would ride high enough that the pines whispered as we passed under them, following the creek until the air was clear and keen, almost biting with its smell of sage and pine, and alive with the song of the meadowlarks. There were green, grassy meadows, surrounded by quaking aspen, whose leaves had not yet turned gold in anticipation of the first frost, and cottonwoods and rabb
it brush that grew shrub high with bright yellow flowers.

  Sundance used to watch me as I rode through this land. He knew that it was unlike anything I'd ever seen, and he knew, without my telling him, that I felt truly free here. I wasn't Martha Baird, the farmer's daughter, nor Etta Place, the madam's protégé. I was just me. Sundance might have reminded me that I was now an outlaw's woman, but I didn't look at it that way.

  But days wore into weeks, and no one talked about robbing a bank, stopping a train. They talked about hunting and fishing and maybe going to Denver for a change of scenery. They didn't seem to need much money. When supplies were needed and Butch went to town, there was always enough cash. His first trip to Kaycee, the nearest town, he brought back my trunk that had apparently been shipped from Casper. I never did figure out how the Wild Bunch arranged some of these mysterious things, like the horses that were always waiting for us at the right spot.

  But I was overjoyed to have my trunk back. I searched its contents carefully.

  "You think Mrs. Johnson stole something?" Sundance asked as I shook out fine dresses of crape, voile, silk, and challis.

  "Never can tell," I replied crisply. "She didn't like me. Thought I was a whore."

  He laughed. "That wouldn't make her steal your clothes. In fact, it'd probably have just the opposite effect."

  "Sundance, I'm... well, I'm bored."

  "Shame on you. And I work so hard at night. I'd, ah, never have guessed you were bored."

  I threw a shoe at him. "I'm not bored at night, but I thought I was coming to live with outlaws. All I see is a lazy bunch of men, sitting around fishing and talking and not doing anything."

  He turned serious. "You can't rob trains every day. It's not like going to the office every morning. When we run out of money, we'll start to plan again."

  "When's that?"

  He shrugged. "I warn you, Etta, nobody but me's gonna take kindly to your butting in. I know you're smart, and I bet you have some good ideas. But you tell Curry that..." His voice trailed off, the grim prediction left hanging. Then he changed the subject.

  "You know how to shoot a rifle?"