by Judy Alter
"I know how to shoot a pistol," I said smugly.
"I know," he said grinning. "I remember. But what about a rifle?"
When we practiced with a rifle, I was not nearly the success that I had been in San Antonio with a pistol. I shied from the kick of it, and my shots went wild. He made me try again... and again, and he gloated with satisfaction when I hit one of the tin cans he had finally found somewhere. If I missed, he'd simply say, "Try again." I thought I was using untold quantities of ammunition, but he always said, "Bullets are cheap. Your life isn't. You may need to be able to do this one day."
The day I shot a rabbit was triumphant for Sundance and bittersweet for me. The small, gray critter was still warm and soft when I picked it up—gingerly—by the hind feet.
"Good shot," Sundance exulted. "Rabbits are hard, 'cause they're so fast. They kind of dart out of your sights. You're learning, Etta. You're going to be a real shootist."
That night Sundance skinned my trophy, but I refused to cook it.
Evenings, when we were headed back to Hole-in-the-Wall from a day in the mountains, the sky would be the most astounding shade of violet and then, before our very eyes, it would turn to amber and rose. We'd ride into a canyon and the world would become dark, as though night had fallen suddenly, but then, up on the next ridge, we'd be treated to those violent colors again. Finally, the whole world would turn a dull gray, and I'd be left longing for the brightness of sunset. Sundance always knew how to time it so that by the time the world turned gray we were almost back at camp. We never rode long in the darkness, and I was grateful. Once in one of those canyons I saw a wolf sitting on the rim, watching us curiously, as though trying to appraise these intruders into his land. When Sundance reached for his rifle, I held out a hand and said, "No." The wolf watched another minute, then was gone. In later nights, when I heard howling, I wondered if it was that wolf... or the coyotes that tried so hard to get the few good banty hens that Butch insisted on keeping in a small fenced area.
"Winter be here in another month," Sundance told me one day as we sunned in a meadow, having just filled ourselves with gooseberries I'd picked.
"Another month! It's only August." Here I sat, perspiring—forgive the word—in a cotton shirtwaist, and he was talking of winter!
"In Wyoming there are three seasons: winter, July, and August. You've had July and now we're on August. Then it's winter."
"Winter doesn't come until November," I protested. "Maybe sometimes a cold snap in October, but..."
"That's Texas," he said, and laughed. "This is Wyoming. We best get those sheepskins aired out from the shed and put them in our tent."
* * *
Butch Cassidy was a real puzzle to me. The others deferred to him, even Sundance, and he was clearly the leader. But I thought him too soft, too gentle to be an outlaw. Curry was too hotheaded to be in charge, but Sundance... No, Butch had some kind of power over the others.
Whenever the talk turned ugly—especially when Kid Curry was around—Butch would rise up and say, "You won't be swearing in front of a lady." Curry would hush, but his look was resentful.
Sundance sometimes fell into a fit of bad language as well, but he always looked sheepish when Butch reminded him there was a lady present. And once, when he and I had quarreled—the matter so minor that I don't now remember it—Butch all but ordered him to apologize. Sundance bristled, as though he'd fight, and then all the starch in him collapsed, and he looked at me and said, "I'm sorry." But even then there was laughter in his eyes. Behind him I heard Curry mutter, "By God, I'd never apologize to a whore." This time, I chose to ignore him.
In those long August evenings as we sat around a late-night fire outdoors, Butch would sometimes talk to me, as though he longed for a woman to talk to.
Butch had been born Robert LeRoy Parker in Utah and was thirty years old that year at the Hole. His family was strict Mormon, and Butch had known hard work all his life.
"First time I ever got in trouble," he said, staring off into the firelight, "I rode into town to get some overalls. Store was closed, but I didn't want to have to come back—it was a long ride, maybe seven, eight miles. So I let myself into the store—didn't bust anything—took the jeans, and left a note saying I'd be back to pay. Had the money in my pocket and everything. But the storekeeper, he didn't see it that way."
"What'd he do?"
"Swore out a complaint. Embarrassed me. I was raised to believe a man's word is good, and you take him for it. Made me doubt the law."
I almost hooted at the difference. I had ended up outside the law because I'd killed my father; Butch, because he'd "borrowed" a pair of overalls. It was like Sundance told me, justice really was blind.
"Seemed to me," Butch went on, "that neither the law nor the Mormon Church were doin' me much good, just hemming me in with don'ts and punishing me for things I didn't do. My pa, he lost his land when the church ruled against him. I pretty much saw that being a saint wasn't an easy road. Guess I was ripe when Mike Cassidy drifted by Marshalls' ranch one summer while I was working there."
"Cassidy? Is that how you got your name?"
He grinned, like a child caught in an embarrassing moment. "Yeah. I guess I sort of had a case of hero worship. Mike Cassidy was lots of things, but the one I saw most was he was a rustler. To me, coming from where I did, it wasn't only exciting—it was a way out, an escape. And I took it, took his name." He turned thoughtful. "But it was only part hero worship. I have enough love and respect for my family that if I'm gonna break the law, I don't want to carry the Parker name into it." This time his embarrassment seemed to come from revealing a soft spot. He looked deliberately away for a long time before he took up his story again.
In Telluride, Colorado, he was jailed for stealing a colt, but it was, he told me, a misunderstanding just like the overalls. "Made me mad all over again at those who have control... and I swore I'd get even, give some power to the little farmer like my pa."
Another night, almost out of the blue, he said, "Al Hainer and I raised horses outside Lander," continuing the story of his outlaw career as though he'd only left off five minutes before.
" 'Course, in winter, our herd didn't multiply much. Too cold for us to go out and gather in strays." He had an amused look on his face as he said it.
"You were rustling," I said.
"Lord, yes, but we only took from big ranches. Anyway, that's where we got caught for horse stealing. Don't know why it took so long, but they took two years trying us. Then, for some dad-blamed notion I still don't understand, they let Hainer go and sent me to the state penitentiary. They was all full of wanting me to stop stealing horses. Told 'em I would if they'd pay me to quit." He laughed loudly at his own joke. Then he turned solemn. "Governor finally pardoned me after I done about seven months. When that sheriff wanted to shake my hand, I refused. I figured if they were going to think of me as an outlaw, I was going to be the best outlaw in the whole northern plains states."
I began to see why Butch was the leader, and I could surely identify with his determination to be the best outlaw in the region.
"While you were languishing in that jail," Sundance broke in, "Madden and Bass and me robbed the Great Northern at Malta."
"You told me about that," I said.
"Yeah." Butch laughed. "I heard later you only got about twenty dollars and missed twenty-five thousand."
"Not true, Cassidy, and not funny either." Sundance's temper flared, and we all sat in silence for a while.
"Etta?" Sundance's voice was impatient when he spoke again. "I'm turning in. You coming?"
"Sure, Sundance," I said, reaching out for a hand to help me off the log where I'd sat too long and grown stiff. " 'Night, Butch. I want to hear more later."
Butch just grunted.
"I want to hear more later," Sundance mimicked, sitting on the stool in our tent. "You and him sure are getting thick as thieves."
"I think," I said, "that you've chosen an unfortunate figure of s
peech." I lay naked under the light blanket of summer covers, having expected him to join me in our bed. Instead I was treated to this pouting complaint.
"Well," Sundance said haughtily, "you aren't with him. You're with me. And I don't think either one of you should forget it."
He blew out the lamp, kept his back to me as he undressed, and then crawled into the covers, staying as far as possible from me.
I laughed aloud at him. "Sundance? Do you think I'd cheat on you with Butch?"
"Quit laughing," he said, but his tone was not quite so complaining.
He was being so childish that I considered turning my back to him. But I didn't. I began to rub his back. "He's a wonderful man, Sundance. I like him as much as you told me I would. But he's not you." I inched closer and closer, until my body pressed against his back. Then my hands explored his shoulders, his back, on down to his thighs.
He moved and twisted a little, and then he was turned toward me, his mouth coming down hard on mine. After a minute he rose up to say, "I... I don't want you to ever be with any other man," he said, his strength and assertiveness now returned.
I pulled his head down to my breast, and words were lost to us.
Afterward, as we lay close together, I poked him in the ribs. "You didn't really think Butch and I... I mean, really you didn't." I laughed again.
He raised on an elbow to stare deep into my face. "Don't you ever tell anyone about that," he said, and I read a threat in his voice, though I didn't know what the penalty would be for transgression. Then he lay down on his back, hands locked behind his head.
"Besides, Butch has a woman."
I was startled, a little at the news and more at the quick fire of jealousy that ran through me. I didn't want Butch Cassidy for a lover, but I didn't want to share our closeness with another woman. "Why isn't she here?"
"She married someone else while he was in jail. But he goes to see her occasionally. She wasn't tough enough."
I pondered that for a minute. Tough enough? Or maybe she was like Anna Maria Thayne—too tough, too smart to ruin her life waiting for an outlaw. Or maybe she just didn't want excitement.
"Would you wait for me?" Sundance asked.
"Depends on how long the sentence was," I said. My thoughts went back to Butch. "Those nights he just disappears—that's where he goes?"
"Doesn't take a damn detective to figure that out," he muttered, moving toward me and pushing the blanket even farther away. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
And talk was silenced again.
Later, Sundance told me that Butch had been released after more than two years in prison for stealing that colt. What Butch hadn't told me was that he'd been released on a promise never to come to Wyoming again.
"We're in Wyoming!" I said.
Sundance smiled. "So's Butch. What they don't know won't hurt them." And then he was thoughtful. "Or maybe it will. Butch carries a grudge."
* * *
Elzy Lay was more like Butch than Sundance, a tall, gentle man, soft-spoken. But like Sundance he was apparently well-educated. He always tipped his hat to me and said, " 'Morning, Etta," or, as he left, "Thanks for the meal, Etta. I'll be seein' you."
Once I asked if the baby was better, and he grinned and said, "Thriving. She's just beautiful. Doesn't cry nearly as much anymore, either. Maude's feeling a lot better too, now that she can get some sleep."
"Why don't you bring Maude and the baby with you? I'd enjoy the company of another woman around here, and I'd like to see that baby."
He lowered his eyes and watched his toe draw a circle in the dirt. "She doesn't know... where I go when I come here. She... she wouldn't understand." Then, in a rush, as though it explained all, he added, "She was raised a strict Mormon."
"Why do you do it, then?"
Elzy sighed. "You always keep thinking that the next big strike is going to get you out of it. After that bank... or that train... or that herd of horses... you're going to have enough to go somewhere new, start over again, and live like an honest man."
"And are you.'" I asked.
He shook his head. "Probably not. Probably most of us will be killed doing this... and I'll leave Maude behind, for her family to say, 'I told you so,' and I'll leave that baby...." His voice broke, and he turned away from me.
Later, when I asked him to play on his guitar, he chose "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
* * *
They were planning something. Elzy Lay came by more frequently, and he, Butch, Sundance, and Kid Curry would sit around the scarred board table in the cabin. Sometimes when I was outside I could hear their voices raised, often with a touch of anger, but whenever I went into the cabin, they stopped talking. I would see maps spread out on the table before them, with penciled lines showing the way they planned to get from here to there, but I never got a close look at the maps. Elzy always took them with him when he left.
One night as they sat around the kitchen table, I deliberately busied myself at the rough shelf where I cooked, dried dishes, and did all those other domestic things.
"Get her outta here," Curry muttered to Sundance.
I looked long at Sundance, and he simply ducked his head.
"Etta can stay," Butch said.
Curry stood up so fast his stool went over backward. "Then I ain't," he said, and stormed out the door.
Just as Sundance murmured "Good riddance," Butch said, "He'll be back."
I hoped Sundance was right.
"If we hide horses off the trail here, about ten miles from Montpelier... ," Butch said, and they were poring over their map again. This time I stood and listened and studied the maps.
Chapter 14
I went to Butch, not to Sundance, and later that made Sundance angry again. But I knew that Sundance would agree with me when he was in front of me and then hang his head and look at the floor in front of Butch and the others. "Butch, I want to go with you to Montpelier."
He didn't laugh like that was the funniest joke he'd ever heard, and he wasn't patronizing. "I know you do, Etta," he said soberly. "I been thinking about it."
"And?"
"I don't know. More than the thing about you bein' a woman, it's kind of like havin' a new man along. Boys don't know you that well. But we can't leave you here...'less one of us stays. And I know you want to go."
"Sounds like it would be easiest to take me with you," I said practically.
This time a grin covered that wide face. "One thing about you, Etta, you got it all figured out way ahead of the rest of us. Let me think on it a day."
Sundance had been out in the brush corral, feeding the horses, while Butch and I stood outside the cabin and talked.
When he headed our way, Butch turned and went into the house.
"What you and Butch talking about so seriously?" he asked, laughing as though it were a joke.
"Montpelier," I said.
It was no longer a joke to him. "What about it?"
"I want to go."
One of Sundance's rare bursts of anger flew over him. "I thought you and I would talk about that first." His voice was low and even, a bad sign in him.
I shrugged. "I knew what you'd say. 'It's all right with me, Etta, but the others...'"
"What did Butch say?"
"That it's a lot more complicated than that." I turned and went into the cabin to start supper, and for the remainder of the day Sundance and I avoided each other.
That night, Curry returned, sullen, silent, and angry. But he was back. When they gathered at the table, he said nothing until Butch announced, "Etta's goin' with us. She'll hold the horses at the first change."
Curry exploded in a rage. "You can't take a whore with us! I ain't goin'!"
"That's right," Butch said calmly. "You're not going, Curry. You're goin' to stay here and watch the place."
I had to turn my face to hide both my pleasure and my amusement that someone would be appointed to "watch the place." What was to watch? I didn't know, of course, that Cur
ry's assignment would be to watch for law officers.
"You see anything out of line, you'll know where to find us." His finger traced a route on a map.
"I—" Curry began to protest.
"Shut up, Curry," Sundance said. "You heard Butch."
"And you," Curry said, a tone of threat in every word, "brought that whore here."
It was another of those quick, instinctive moves on my part. I had been disjointing a prairie hen for stew. Coming from behind Curry, I took the knife, still dripping chicken blood and entrails, and pressed it to his throat. "Don't call me a whore ever again," I said, letting him just barely feel the pressure of the knife.
Elzy and Butch were openmouthed, but Sundance, in his calmest voice, said, "She knows how to use it, Curry. Believe me, she does."
As quickly as I had threatened him, I moved away and washed the knife so that I could continue cleaning the hen. Behind me was a great silence.
That night, when we were alone in the tent, I moved toward Sundance, expecting passion. But he backed away.
"Etta, someday you're going to push one of them too far. You'll get in trouble you don't expect. I just hope you don't take me with you."
In that instant I had a very clear picture of Sundance's loyalty: It was to himself. Whatever existed between us was not the kind of love that drew Butch to Lander yet kept him, from respect and concern, always at a distance from the woman he loved. Standing there, staring at Sundance, who was watching me warily, I thought about leaving, going back to San Antonio.
But I hadn't been to Montpelier yet, I hadn't ridden with them and known the excitement of the chase. And truth to tell, I didn't want to leave Sundance.
He was by now sitting on the edge of the bedroll, taking off his shoes. I sat next to him and wordlessly slipped my hand into his shirt, loosened his belt, and moved my hand downward. We began the deliberately slow ritual of undressing each other, a ritual that always ended in frantic haste.
That was why I stayed with Harry Longabaugh.
* * *
We left the next morning. All Butch said to me was, "It'll be a hard ride, Etta."