Sundance, Butch and Me

by Judy Alter

  Once I reached level ground, I sat still on my horse and let the man approach me. Behind me, I thought I could feel three sets of eyes riveting into my back and three rifles trained on the man approaching me.

  He came slowly, deliberately, showing no sign of nervousness or fear, and for that I admired him. Although I'd expected to feel nervous myself, I felt as calm as I had at the bank in Belle Fourche. It struck me, though, that Sundance had not suspected he was bringing along a female who would take these risks, and in that way I was a disappointment to him. The thought almost made me smile—which would have been the wrong thing to do.

  The bounty hunter stopped some thirty feet from me and raised his hat ever so slightly. "Ma'am? I... I didn't expect a lady."

  "Well," I said lamely, "here I am. What can we do for you?"

  "Name's John Ward, ma'am. Sheriff John Ward out of Wyoming. I come for Butch Cassidy."

  It sounded threatening, and I almost turned to the boys with our prearranged signal—a hand to my hat. But I managed to calm myself and ask, "What for?"

  "Governor Richards wants to talk to him."

  "The governor of Wyoming?" I hooted. "I'm sure he does, but Butch doesn't want to talk from inside a jail cell."

  "No jail cell, ma'am. He'll meet Cassidy at the time and place of his choosing. I'm to make the arrangements. Governor Richards, he wants to strike a deal."

  "A deal?" I repeated, confused. Surely this was not the result of that governors' conference we'd heard about it. They would never have all agreed to a deal. Richards must be acting alone, and that, I thought, was a sign in our favor.

  "Yes, ma'am. There's got to be some way to stop Cassidy and the others from robbing everything in sight."

  I stared at him. He was older than Butch and Sundance by a lot, and his face was beginning to sag at the jowls and in pouches underneath his eyes. His mouth drooped, as though he was tired—which I guess he was after chasing us so long and sitting alone out on the prairie. But his eyes looked straight at me... and they looked believable.

  "There are three rifles trained on you," I said.

  He nodded. "I figured as much."

  "Throw your guns down," I said, mostly because it sounded like what I thought I should say.

  "Throw my guns down? In the dirt? And ruin them?" He looked at me as though I were crazy.

  I thought desperately for a minute. Then I said, "Don't move. I'm going to ride around behind you."

  "You gonna shoot me in the back?" He winked as he said it, for he knew I wasn't.

  "No. I'm going to watch you take your guns out of the holsters and put them in your saddlebags—carefully."

  We accomplished that tricky maneuver, though it did occur to me that the men at the notch must be having fits, wondering what I was doing—and judging me a fool.

  Still behind him, I said, "All right. Ride forward slowly, toward the notch in the wall."

  He did, and when we were close enough, Butch and Sundance stepped out, rifles held to the side but in easy reach. Kilpatrick had disappeared—in fact, he disappeared so thoroughly that we didn't see him again. Sundance told me later that the idea of the law frightened him, and when I rode out on the plain, he said he was going to get Delia and leave by the north end of the valley.

  Butch and Sundance howdyed with Sheriff Ward. It seems Butch knew him, and within minutes the two of them were sitting on the rocks, talking about old times and outlaws they'd known. Sundance and I stood awkwardly around, though Sundance kept his rifle handy.

  Finally Butch said, "Why you here, John?"

  "Richards wants to talk to you. Alone."

  "Who guarantees my safety?"

  "I do." It was said straightforward, as though the speaker knew that Butch needed no further guarantee.

  "Your word's been good," Butch said. "I set the place and time."

  Ward nodded, and they worked it out. It was arranged that Butch would meet the governor—who was to come unescorted—so many miles beyond a certain whistle-stop in southwestern Wyoming. Butch described the spot exactly, down to the trail that led there and the rocks and lone tree at the place. He set the time for 3:00 A.M. five nights from then.

  The two of them shook hands again. Ward tipped his hat to me and said, "Lady, you got one lot of nerve for a woman. I'm pleased to have met you." He'd never asked my name and I hadn't told him. I figured he knew who Sundance was, but no words had been exchanged between the two of them.

  That night I said, "Butch, are you really going?"

  He sat at the table, holding an untouched shot of straight whiskey. After a long minute, he said slowly, "Yeah. I'm going."

  "Why?" I demanded angrily.

  Sundance looked warily at me, as though to ask why I was so upset.

  Late that night, when we lay a distance apart in our tent, he did ask. "Why're you so upset about Butch goin' to meet the governor?"

  "I... he..." I stumbled for words. "What if he doesn't come back?"

  Sundance propped himself up on one elbow to look at me. "Well," he said slowly, "that's always a possibility. It's also a possibility every time I ride away from you. But I'm not sure you'd look that way."

  "I would," I hedged. "I worry about both of you."

  He looked long at me. "You ought," he said with emphasis, "worry more about me. Makes me wonder."

  "Wonder what?" I said faintly.

  "What your feelings are for Butch," he said flatly.

  How could I explain what I myself didn't understand? And how could I make Sundance believe that he was the one who roused my passion, no matter what I felt for Butch. "He's... he's like my brother," I said lamely. "You don't understand," I added. And neither do I, I thought.

  And he replied, "No, I don't." Then he turned his back on me, and we both pretended to sleep.

  The strain between us was evident the next day. Even Butch asked, "Hey, what's the matter here?" But neither of us told him. How could we?

  Butch left three days later. He would stop to see Mary Boyd in Lander on his way, even though it took him slightly in the wrong direction. I packed some food for him—cold biscuits, a little side meat, boiled potatoes, a slice of sweet potato pie. Into his provisions I tucked a sack of coffee, a couple tins of sardines, and a can of tomatoes.

  "He's not going to the North Pole," Sundance said, as he sat at the table sipping coffee and watching me. "He'll probably be fed... along the way." He meant, of course, in Lander.

  "You never know," I said softly, "if he'll have to wait for the governor."

  Sundance spit the end of a toothpick into the spittoon—a gesture he knew particularly annoyed me. "Doubt he'll wait long. Richards isn't there when he's supposed to be, Butch'll leave."

  When he left, Butch kept saying, "You two be all right? Somethin's... ah, I don't know... somethin's troublin' you."

  "Not a thing," Sundance said heartily. "We're just dead sure you're doing the dumbest thing you've ever yet done. But don't worry, Butch, I'll visit you in the state penitentiary."

  Butch grinned and held out a hand. "Thanks. Good to know I have friends." Then he turned to me. "Try to put up with him for my sake, Etta." He gave me a soft club on the shoulder, the way men often do with each other. It was a gesture from one friend to another—Butch knew exactly what was wrong, and he was doing what he could to dispel it.

  Sundance didn't miss a thing. "Etta and me are going to have a honeymoon," he said, "once we finally get the place to ourselves."

  I was quiet.

  Once Butch was gone, there was no more talk of a honeymoon. We went silently through the day. Sundance chopped wood, a chore he usually avoided but one that kept him out of the cabin, and I spent the day baking more light bread than we'd ever eat. I began to pray for a cold spell so it would keep for a while. We ate a quiet meal of probably the same things Butch ate on the trail—sidemeat and boiled potatoes—and then we took our coffee outside, where we sat and stared at a clear, star-studded sky.

  "There's the Big Dipper,"
I said, pointing.

  Sundance grunted.

  "I always liked to make up my own figures and stories, rather than the ones astrologers talk about. See over there? Those stars are the shape of Texas."

  He grunted again, and I pulled my shawl closer around me. It wasn't only the evening chill that was making me cold.

  Pretty soon, Sundance said elaborately, "Well, I'm turning in" and left me alone under all those stars. There was no way I could puzzle out the whole answer to the tangle of Sundance, Butch, and me, but as I sat there, I thought I had it pretty well figured out in my mind. I did love both men, but with love that was so different that it was apples and oranges. The wild side of me, the outlaw side, the part Mama would never understand, belonged to Sundance. The part of me that was Mama treasured Butch. No, that was too simple. Maybe Butch was the protective father I'd never had, while Sundance was... ah, he was my lover. What I had to do was convince Sundance.

  He was asleep when I crawled into our tent, and I forgot my nightly ritual of lighting the lantern and reading before I went to sleep. Slowly I pulled off my clothes and hung them on the tent's lone chair, piece by piece. Then I pulled the covers back and slid in next to him. He never moved.

  I curled myself around his body, though his back was to me, and began to stroke—his shoulders, then down his back, across his stomach, and down until I toyed with his private parts. Then he moaned, not with the sound of someone coming awake but that of a man roused to passion.

  "Harry Longabaugh!" I exclaimed angrily. "You were awake all the time! Why didn't you tell me?"

  "You wouldn't have done that if I had," he replied, turning to reach for me. Then it was Sundance who did the stroking, and I who moaned with wanting. He teased and played with my desire, as though he were testing me, until at last I could stand it no more and cried out. Then we rolled together in a frenzy that had nothing to do with Butch or Mama or the world outside—it was just Sundance and me.

  Panting, I said, "Don't you ever think I want anyone but you," and he, equally winded, managed to reply, "If this is what that thought gets me, I may think it every day."

  Had I the energy, I would have hit him.

  Later I thought about the differences between wanting and loving.

  * * *

  We began that familiar watch at the notch when Butch had been gone six days—three to get there, and three to get back, allowing of course for Lander. Before, Sundance was the one who watched; now it was me, while Sundance begged off to go hunting or take a nap and often tried to distract me.

  When he asked, "Don't you want to ride up into the mountains," I merely shook my head, and he went alone. But peace had been restored between us, and it was all right for him to ride off and for me to watch for Butch. Sundance didn't really understand, but he was no longer threatened, and he knew, somehow, that I had to watch.

  Butch didn't come on the sixth day, nor on the seventh, not on the eighth. I began to pick at my food and to wake during the night, imagining him in some Wyoming jail.

  "Etta?" Sundance raised up in bed. "You've got to sleep... and to get hold of yourself. Whatever happened to him, we can't help it. And he knows that."

  Unspoken, it was that lecture about the dangers and realities of outlaw life—and behind it lay the fact that it could as easily have been Sundance who disappeared into the great void of Wyoming without a trace. Sundance accepted that for himself. I couldn't accept it for either one of them.

  * * *

  Butch came home on the tenth day, and Sundance said to him, "I sure as hell am glad you're here. Another two days and I'd have had to bury Etta for lack of sleep and food. Worst of it was, she kept me awake all night too." He stubbed his toe into the dirt and followed it with his eyes, refusing to look at Butch.

  "Nice to know I'm missed," Butch said lightly. Then he looked directly at me and said, with a great seriousness in his voice, "Thanks for worrying about me, Etta. It's nice to have good women worry about a man."

  I heard the plural and knew that Mary Boyd, too, had worried. I wished I knew her. But then I would have wanted to shake her for marrying someone else, for consigning Butch to the single life he led, for not recognizing that when two people are drawn to each other the way they were it was almost a sin not to act on it. But then, if she'd acted on it, where would I stand with Butch. In my tangled thoughts, I liked him better single, even while I thought that life wrong for him.

  "Well," Sundance yawned, "you gonna tell us what took you so damn long?"

  Butch grinned. "Maybe, maybe not."

  The governor, it seemed, had stood him up. "I sat out there by those rocks all night, and he never showed. So come morning, I moved on. Figured he'd had his chance. But it made me kind of sad, made me lose faith in politicians."

  Did I see a grin as he said that?

  "Come to find out days later there was track out, and he couldn't get through. Heard he wanted to arrange another meeting, but you know some things can't be done twice. What was it Shakespeare wrote, 'There is a tide in the affairs of men...'?"

  I stared openmouthed at him. Who would ever have expected Butch Cassidy to quote Julius Caesar? When I collected my senses, I asked, "What would you have said to him if he had been there?"

  Again that familiar grin appeared. "I'd have told him that no train or bank in Wyoming would ever be robbed by the Wild Bunch if he'd promise to call off the vigilantes and law-enforcement folks who are looking for us."

  "Trouble with that," Sundance said, "is that we can't guarantee what a bunch of amateurs do. Someone we don't know would rob a bank, and then there'd be all hell break loose because you broke your promise. Besides, when you called that meeting fifty men showed up and they all thought they were the Wild Bunch. We can't control that many."

  "You can't even control Curry," I said, my tone tinged with bitterness.

  Butch looked at me a moment, startled. Then he said, "I s'pose you're right."

  I didn't know if he was answering Sundance or me—or both of us.

  After a minute, Butch brightened. "But it don't matter. I didn't have to make that promise, so now every train and bank in Wyoming is fair game."

  "Did you," Sundance asked, "once promise the governor of that same state that if he'd let you out of jail, you'd never enter Wyoming again?"

  Butch nodded. "But that was a different governor. I'm not bound by that anymore."

  "All right!" Sundance danced a jig around me, and then Butch joined him, and the two of them high-stepped all around that little cabin, sometimes whirling me into their dance. When at last they stopped, we all three collapsed in laughter.

  Later, Butch said, "Governor Adams of Colorado is in on it now. Hired a bounty hunter to find me. And I thought Colorado was safe territory!"

  "A real bounty hunter this time?" I asked, remembering we had thought that of Sheriff Ward.

  "Yeah, a real one. Well, sort of. A real one, but not a real smart one."

  "Wonderful," Sundance said. "What we need is a dumb bounty hunter who will shoot anybody he sees."

  "This one's dumber than that," Butch said. "He'll tell anyone he sees all he knows. He told me all about searching for Butch Cassidy."

  We were dissolved in laughter again. Finally Sundance managed to ask, "He told you? Where?"

  "Bar in Rock Springs. Never recognized me. Never even came close. Thought my name was Jim Lowe."

  "Why'd he think that?" I asked.

  "Because that's what I told him," Butch answered simply.

  Much to Sundance's disgust, Butch had not killed, beaten, or otherwise harmed the nameless bounty hunter—"They're the scum of the earth!" Sundance protested—but had sent a wire to the governor of Colorado, explaining just how useless his bounty hunter was.

  Sundance crowed with laughter. "That's making the governor eat humble pie."

  Butch sobered. "Yeah, but it's not a good sign, Sundance. We're gonna have to move on, take some serious steps, go into hiding."

  It appeared tha
t going into hiding—and taking new identities—was no problem for them. What they didn't know was what to do with me. The debate raged furiously over my head, as though I had no say in my own life.

  "She can go to Fannie's," Sundance said. "Fannie'd be glad to have her."

  "I won't go to Fannie's," I said with determination.

  "Etta, be reasonable, you can't stay here." Sundance threw a look toward Butch that said, Help me with this irrational woman. Make her see some sense.

  I remembered the last time he'd told me I couldn't stay at Hole-in-the-Wall. He'd been right then, and I knew he was right now, but that didn't mean I needed to go to Fannie's. "Where are you going?" I asked.

  Butch stammered. "I got a job at a ranch in New Mexico—French's WS. Told them I'd bring a crew with me."

  "A crew?" I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Sundance, standing in the doorway with his back to me, threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, and Butch raised himself from the table where he'd been seated, eating the apple cobbler I'd fixed for supper.

  "You know," Butch said, half apologetically, "Sundance and Elzy."

  "And," I asked archly, "did you say to whoever is hiring you that you were bringing the Wild Bunch?"

  "Aw, Etta," Butch said, his voice pleading, "I hired on as Jim Lowe. Told 'em I was bringing Harry Parker, that's Sundance, and William Lawson... that's Elzy."

  "And Logan?" I asked.

  Sundance avoided me completely, and Butch looked sheepish. "Yeah," he said, "and Curry. Gonna call him Jim Logan. Clever, huh?"

  I stood with my back against the worktable where I'd prepared so many meals for them, my arms folded defiantly across my chest. I knew my eyes were burning a hole in Sundance, for he wouldn't look at me.

  "All right, I'm... Elizabeth Parker, Harry's sister."

  Sundance snorted. "You're being really difficult, you know. She is, isn't she, Butch?"

  Butch didn't want to get into that argument, but he said, "We... well, we can't just show up with a woman at a ranch. They don't have no quarters.... I mean, Etta, it just isn't done."

  "What's the nearest town?" I asked.