Sundance, Butch and Me

by Judy Alter

  "Why are we suddenly in a hurry?"

  "They know it's the Wild Bunch—or think they know—and they'll be at Hole-in-the-Wall before we are if we don't hurry."

  Butch had the word before we did, and he was at Hole-in-the-Wall, with freshly saddled horses and our belongings rolled into packs on them.

  "I packed your mother's picture, Etta," he said softly, and I thanked him.

  And so the next morning we rode away from Hole-in-the-Wall, so early that light had not yet climbed over the red ridge and spread down into the valley. Even in August, the air was chilly, and I was glad for a sweater.

  We rode in silence, once again going the length of the valley—headed south this time—rather than up and over the notch, which was, even I knew logically, where the law would come from.

  "How much money did we make?" I asked, for Butch still had the loaded saddlebags.

  "Listen to her, will you!" Sundance said. "'We.'"

  Butch grinned. "She took the risk, so it's part her money. It's about six thousand, Etta, but a lot of it will have to go for O'Day's defense."

  "Defense! He got drunk, could have gotten you all caught, and you're going to defend him? I swear I will never understand you."

  "We can't let him rot in some jail for thirty years, Etta. He's one of us."

  "It's tempting, though," Sundance said through gritted teeth. "I ain't been so mad at anybody in a long time."

  "You wouldn't want us to do that to you if you got caught," Butch said mildly, and Sundance had the grace to grin. But he said, "I wouldn't have been drunk."

  We'd reached the south end of the wall, and Butch said, "I'll ride up and take me a look. Etta, can you fix us a cold breakfast?"

  I could and did, but all we had was jerky that was too spicy and hard to chew.

  We rode again after only a ten-minute rest. Butch had seen nothing from the wall, not even with the binoculars he produced, much to my surprise.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "You're sure full of questions," Sundance said, but he reached from his horse to cover my hand with his and gentle the teasing.

  "Brown's Park," Butch said, "next stop down the outlaw trail."

  "The outlaw trail?" I echoed. "What's that?"

  "An old cattle trail," Butch went on. "Now, it's known as the outlaw trail—amongst us, anyway—because it has three really good hideouts. Hole-in-the-Wall to the north, Brown's Park in the middle, and Robbers Roost to the south."

  I laughed with disbelief. "A whole trail for outlaws! You amaze me. How far does it go?"

  "From Montana down to New Mexico," Sundance said curtly, once again put out, I suspected, because Butch was explaining something to me when he thought it should have been his duty—or privilege, I didn't know which.

  "And where is Brown's Park?"

  Sundance jumped in before Butch could speak. "Straddles the Utah-Colorado line, maybe lops over a little bit into Wyoming."

  "Where will we stay? Another tent?"

  "Naw," Sundance said, "probably Jarvie's dugout." He looked quickly at me. "Sorry, Etta, I know you don't like the idea of a dugout... but it'll be all right, it really will."

  "I'm sure," I told him.

  "Kid," Butch said, shaking his head, "I don't know what you did to deserve this, but you better enjoy it while it lasts. Someday, Etta may wake up."

  I looked quickly at Butch, a dark look that threatened him into silence, and then turned the moment light with laughter. "I'm awake," I told them, "I wouldn't sleep through any of this for anything."

  * * *

  Neither Butch nor Sundance felt they could go into Rock Spring, the last sizable town we'd see in Wyoming. But they wanted badly to know what had happened at Hole-in-the-Wall, if anything. I rode into town to see what I could discover.

  "Kind of try to spruce up," Sundance said, taking the blanket roll off my horse. "You know... you look like you've been riding for days."

  "I have," I said sharply. But I combed my hair carefully, ran a wet finger over my eyebrows, pinched some color into my cheeks, and put on a fresh cotton shirt, though it was badly wrinkled by Butch's packing. I smoothed it as best I could and tied a black ribbon around the collar, thinking to draw attention away from the wrinkles.

  "I don't suppose you have an iron," I said caustically.

  Sundance laughed. "No, ma'am, I surely don't. But you look terrific."

  We had camped some five miles out of town, and I rode that distance slowly, so as to appear casual and unhurried when I reached town—rather than frantic and on a lathered horse. Rock Spring was not large, and I wondered if it was even big enough for news—if there was any—to have reached it. The land around was barren and brown, with craggy hills bare of trees. A sense of desolation sat over the whole town. I was heartfelt glad I was only passing through.

  It was midday, but there were a few people on the boardwalks, none of them hurrying. The August sun must have warmed them as it had me. Ahead on my left was the bank, a brick structure with double doors—I tried to appraise it as Sundance would but could reach no conclusions. At least it wasn't across from the sheriff's office.

  The mercantile store lay beyond and across the wide, dusty street. I pulled my horse to a stop in front of the hitching post and dismounted, trying to be oblivious of one or two hard stares. Surely it wasn't unusual to see a woman in a split skirt riding astride in this town—yet the one or two women I saw had full skirts and dainty hats, and carried parasols. I was definitely not from the town.

  In the store, I browsed for a moment, trying to quiet my beating heart. The unbidden thought came to me that the storekeeper would alert the sheriff who would arrest me and throw me in jail forever—or until I told him where to find Butch and Sundance. Get hold of yourself, Etta! I lectured silently.

  "Help you, ma'am?"

  "Oh, yes sir, thank you." I turned my warmest smile on the man who approached me. He wore a dark canvas apron over denim pants and a chambray shirt, and little round glasses perched on his nose, about halfway to his eyes. His hair was thinning—he was almost bald—and his ears stood out almost at angles from his head. Clearly he was a storekeeper. But just as clearly he was friendly and not one bit suspicious.

  "New in town?" he asked.

  "Ah... just passing through," I said. "My husband, he had to stay to fix a wagon wheel—we're camped north of here, some ten miles." In truth, we were five miles south—I thought my deception clever. Later Sundance would deride my naiveté.

  "We need some coffee... and, ah, canned tomatoes. And I," I blushed, "would like some Lydia Pinkham's pills, please."

  He looked understanding and sympathetic, as though we shared a secret. "Yes, ma'am. Fix you right up."

  I wondered how he meant that.

  "We've been traveling so," I said conversationally—he was my friend now, wasn't he?—"that we hardly know what's goin' on in the world. Have we missed anything important?"

  He shook his head with a smile. "No, ma'am. No major disasters I know of. Country hasn't gone to war, praise be to God, and the bank hasn't been held up in two years."

  I tinkled a little laugh. "Goodness, and you think that's good fortune?"

  "Sure is," he said, "what with that Wild Bunch on the loose. Never know where they'll strike. But I guess they got some of 'em the other day. Word is they shot and killed two men at Hole-in-the-Wall."

  My heart lurched, and I could feel my face getting red. Feigning interest in a bolt of material, I turned to finger it, even as I said, "That so? Well, I suppose it was deserved...." My voice trailed off, then came back stronger. "Is there a newspaper in town?"

  "Yes, ma'am. We've got this week's paper right here. Just came out today. I can add it to your purchases."

  "Thank you," I said.

  I paid in cash—was it traceable to the Belle Fourche bank?—and then, as my new friend loaded my things, reminded him, "I'm ahorseback. The wagon... my husband's fixing it."

  "Oh, of course," he said. "Here,
I can fix these in a roll and tie it behind your saddle."

  I rode away after profuse thanks and turned once to watch him standing in the street, hand shielding his eyes against the sun's glare, watching me. Was it friendly... or suspicious? I would never know.

  But I did know I dared not ride fast—and I had trapped myself into having to ride north for a bit, before I could head south. My detour north and then back around the town added a good hour to my journey, and late-afternoon shadows were beginning to fall when I finally rode into our camp.

  Sundance was pacing furiously, and the minute he saw me, his fear turned to anger. "Where've you been? You find some storekeeper down there you liked?"

  I felt as though he'd slapped me, and I sat silently on my horse looking down at him. We were at an impasse. He stood, arms akimbo in anger, staring at me. It was, of course, Butch who defused the situation.

  "Let me help you down, Etta. Kid, you get those things out of that pack."

  His face still angry, Sundance did as he was told, and I found myself off the horse, standing next to Butch, his comforting arm around me.

  "What buggered you?" he asked.

  "The storekeeper... he talked about the Wild Bunch, says they shot and killed two of them at Hole-in-the-Wall."

  Now they both stopped dead and stared at me. "You sure?" Sundance asked.

  I nodded, angry that he would think I made it up—or misheard what the man said to me.

  Butch let his breath out slowly. "There wasn't anybody there what was with the gang. They've killed two innocent men... I wonder to God who they were."

  Suddenly I felt sick. "What if it was... you know, what's his name? The man whose thumb you cut off, Sundance?"

  Sundance looked as stricken as I was. "No," he said, "it can't be.... I mean, why would they shoot a man with little kids?"

  It was Butch, though, who put into words what we all thought. "Please, God, let them not have killed innocent people in our place."

  I pulled the weekly paper out and we scanned it, but there was nothing about shooting outlaws at Hole-in-the-Wall. We never would know who they shot.

  Butch turned away, leaving us together, and Sundance looked at me from under lowered eyes for a long time. I stood perfectly still as he came toward me, his voice soft, as though he were gentling a wild mare.

  "Etta," he whispered, "I was so frightened when you were gone so long. I began to think I shouldn't have sent you into town.... I thought of all kinds of things that could have happened to you. I'm sorry. I guess I just don't have a handle on my temper."

  It was a big apology from him, and I knew it. I also knew better than to dwell on it. "I was scared too," I told him, "scared somehow I had an invisible sign on me that said, 'I'm with the Wild Bunch.' I even thought maybe they'd throw me in jail until I told them where you were." I laughed a little now at the silliness of it in retrospect.

  He smiled just a bit. "I'd have busted you out, you know."

  And then we were in each other's arms, kissing with a passion we hadn't shared since before Belle Fourche.

  There was a soft cough behind us. "Etta," Butch said plaintively, "I'm starving." But the look on his face made it clear that he was pleased with our reconciliation.

  We lay in our separate bedrolls that night, nestled close together, with Butch discreetly on the other side of the small fire they'd dared to build. "Will that Jarvis's or whoever's cabin have two rooms?" I asked.

  He grinned and reached his head toward mine, his arms buried in his bedroll. "Might," he said. "Why?"

  "I'd like some privacy," I told him unblinkingly.

  He chuckled. "I'll see that we get it."

  * * *

  Brown's Park wasn't a lot different from Hole-in-the-Wall. Oh, maybe it was more lush, set in a great forest. But the ground near the dugout was scrubby bare and uncared for, and the dugout itself was, if anything, less inviting than the cabin. The only thing really to be said for it was that the Green River ran nearby, strong and burbling—a real river, as opposed to Blue Creek.

  John Jarvie's dugout was empty—and, as I said, most discouraging. Built into the side of a rise in the land, it had a flat graveled roof, flat board walls inside and out, and a dirt floor. The furniture was like that we'd left behind—a scarred table that was obviously homemade, some rickety chairs that would have sat uneven on the best of wood floors and were worse on the dirt, an open fireplace for cooking, with a cast-iron Dutch oven lying amid old coals and a pot on a hook hanging above it. I'd have to scrub them both thoroughly before I'd use them.

  That night we'd cook over an outdoor fire, as though we were camping.

  "Where's Jarvis?" I asked.

  "Jarvie," Sundance said impatiently, "John Jarvie. He's almost never here. We're just welcome to stop. And we do."

  It was a strange arrangement to me. I sent them off to catch a fish or shoot a rabbit or do something so we'd have more than johnnycake and hardtack for dinner.

  Sundance came back triumphantly waving a string of trout, though Butch was right behind him, protesting, "I caught two of those, Etta. One for you and one for me!"

  I kissed Butch first and then Sundance, and said, "I'll eat one from each of you."

  * * *

  It was a bad fall, beginning with the news—brought by Butch from a foray into the town of Maybell, Colorado, where there was, he said, no danger of his presence being reported—that someone named Bob Meeks had been caught for the Montpelier robbery and been sentenced to thirty-five years.

  "Thirty-five years," I breathed, aghast. "He'll be an old man before he gets out!"

  Butch and Sundance both tried to shrug it off, but I could see in their eyes that they were stunned.

  "He didn't even do it," Butch protested. "He wasn't there."

  "Can we bust him out?" Sundance asked, and I could tell he was serious.

  "Of the state penitentiary in Idaho? You crazy?" Butch looked astounded.

  "Well," Sundance conceded, "maybe that wasn't a good idea."

  "Will he tell them it was you?" I asked.

  Butch shook his head again. "Nope, he won't." He seemed very sure, but I wasn't. If I were in jail, I'd have done anything—honest, dishonest, loyal, disloyal—to get out, or at least I thought I would.

  Sundance must have been having the same thoughts about being in jail. "I'd escape, or make them shoot me," Sundance said. "No way I'd spend thirty-five years sitting in a jail."

  Butch looked long and hard at him, and at last Sundance returned his look. As I stood watching both of them, it occurred to me that more than surprised, more than angry, they were afraid. They would never have admitted it, and I would never have brought it up.

  The news got worse in November when Kid Curry found us at Brown's Park. He was once again on the run.

  "What happened to your arm?" Butch asked him bluntly.

  Curry raised his right hand—his gun hand—to reveal a large scar, still new enough to be angry and red. "Shot," he said in disgust. "Shot went through my horse—killed 'im—and got me in the wrist."

  "Can you shoot?" Sundance asked.

  Curry shook his head. "Not now... but it'll come, I know it will. I keep practicing to keep it limber."

  And probably, I thought, irritating it so the muscles wouldn't heal. But I wouldn't put myself in sympathy with Kid Curry.

  When his story came out, none of us had sympathy for him. It seems he and Walt Puteney and another man whose name I don't remember decided to rob the bank at Red Lodge, Montana. Knowing the city marshal and considering him a friend, they invited him to leave town before the trouble started—a bit of stupid impudence that left me speechless and apparently did much the same for the marshal, for he alerted the sheriff and the three were ambushed before they ever had a chance to rob the bank. The other two were captured immediately: Curry, his horse and himself shot, rode about a mile before his horse dropped dead. Then he too was arrested, and all three were taken to the Deadwood jail, where O'Day was already await
ing trial, having been taken there from Belle Fourche.

  "So why aren't you still in jail?" Sundance asked suspiciously.

  Curry began to swagger a little in the telling. "Broke out," he said with pride.

  Butch asked, "How?"

  Curry told his tale with glowing pride. "Jailer and his wife, they came to feed us. We jumped 'em."

  "You jumped a woman?" Sundance was incredulous.

  Now defensive, Curry said, "Well, it was that or rot in that in jail. We didn't hurt her bad."

  Later we would learn that was an understatement, and that they had indeed beaten both the jailer and his wife severely. Beating a jailer, Butch and Sundance could understand—jailers, like outlaws, took the risks that went with their jobs. But a woman? It didn't sit well with either of them. But at that moment, they were still curious.

  "How'd you get away?"

  "Horses waiting," Curry said. "Never mind who. But Puteney and O'Day, they got captured again. Imagine they'll be looking at a long stretch now."

  "Yeah," Butch said bitterly, "because you beat a woman."

  "I wasn't the only one hittin' on her!"

  Curry's protests fell on deaf ears. All Butch could say was, "We got to get some way of defending them. We need to plan." And then he and Sundance pulled stools up to the table, maps spread in front of them, and began to plan.

  Curry, pacing the floor between the table and the door, threw me a dirty look. "You still lettin' that whore know everything we do?" he asked.

  Sundance's voice was steel. "Don't ever call her that again, Curry, or I swear, I'll kill you myself. Save the marshals the trouble."

  Curry laughed too loudly, as though laughing the threat away.

  I left them, muttering over their maps, and went to bed, though I didn't sleep. Distantly I heard their low talk and wondered if Sundance would leave. When he came to bed, I whispered, "Do you have to leave?"

  "No, Butch will go." He kissed me lightly but made no further gesture in my direction.

  Butch left the next morning, and when I asked, Sundance said tersely, "He'll find a friend... someone who can take the money into Thermopolis and hire a good lawyer for them. It's the least we can do... and all we can do."