Sundance, Butch and Me

by Judy Alter

  "No, I won't marry you." I knew deep in my soul that South America was an end. It would be Curry, or restlessness and boredom, or something else, even another woman, but Sundance was not going to settle down and live happily ever after. And when whatever tragedy loomed came to pass, I had to be able to bail myself out. I would survive, and I would not live out my life with Sundance.

  He pouted, and I know he told Butch, because Butch asked me to walk with him one day while Sundance had gone to sit in a saloon and have a beer. "In solitude," he said haughtily.

  "You know what you're doin', Etta? You hurt him a real lot."

  "He'll get over it," I said. "Once he stops being angry with me, he'll find that nothing's changed. Meantime, he's ruining our holiday in New York."

  Butch smiled and agreed, kicking some horse droppings out of my path as we crossed the street. New York amazed me. It was nothing like San Antonio, which by contrast seemed open and spacious. New York made me nervous, because it kept me in close quarters with strangers and its sounds assaulted my ears—peddlers and vendors hawking their wares, policemen shouting orders at pedestrians, drivers yelling at their horses, children calling to each other and nervous mothers calling to their children. Even at night, when I waked and stared out the window wondering about the future, the city was never quiet.

  We walked in silence for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Butch asked, "Would you marry him if he stayed in Wyoming and kept robbing trains?"

  I shook my head. "For sure not then, because I don't want to see him die. And you'd both have died if you kept that up. I guess a part of me wants always to be free to look out for me, to retreat if I have to." It was as close as I could come to honesty.

  "You don't trust Sundance? You think he'll do something without regard for you?"

  I shrugged. "Don't tell him that I didn't deny that."

  He gave me a hug, and we walked back to Mrs. Riley's, where Sundance was peering out the front window. "Where've you been?" he demanded. "I want to go out for dinner."

  In New York, we called ourselves Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place. Butch said he was James Ryan. One day Butch insisted that we go to Tiffany's, the famous jewelers.

  "We going to rob them?" Sundance asked, and for just a moment I saw a flicker in his eye. If Butch had said yes, Sundance would have been game.

  "No, we're goin' to walk in and buy something. I know exactly what I want."

  I thought about Mary Boyd and wondered that Butch would be bold enough to send her jewelry.

  The store was overwhelming, with diamonds glittering behind glass cases and snooty gentlemen in suits, with glasses perched on their noses, who asked haughtily what they could do for us. If we'd been wearing Wyoming clothes, I'd have understood, but we were in our best city clothes and looked, I thought, respectable. Butch and Sundance had on their derbies as usual.

  "I want to see a lapel watch," Butch said.

  The gentlemen seated us in plush chairs before a counter and disappeared for a minute, only to return with a tray in his hand. There were ten lapel watches, some studded with diamonds, one accented with rubies, some plain.

  Butch studied them. "I don't know. Which one do you think, Etta?"

  I was remembering Fannie's lapel pin and how much I'd always wanted one. A slight bit of jealousy lurked in my bones, but I overcame it. "I think she should have diamonds," I said. "Not too many, not too fancy, but diamonds."

  He finally settled on a gold watch with a diamond-studded filigree-like decoration at the top. "Excellent choice, sir," the salesperson said, almost bowing. "Shall we wrap it?"

  "No," Butch said, "just hand it here."

  Startled, the man took it from the tray and handed it almost reverently to Butch, who turned to me and said, "Here, Etta, here's the lapel watch you always wanted."

  "Oh, Butch!" I honestly could say no more. In minutes, with tears in my eyes, I pinned the watch on.

  "I believe," Sundance said, his voice thick with tension, "that I'd like to see a diamond stickpin."

  He bought it, and they both paid cash.

  We went from Tiffany's straight to the DeYoung Photography Studio on Broadway, where we had an appointment for a wedding photo.

  We both look solemn in the photo. Sundance is holding a top hat—replacing the derby—and wearing a black suit and tie, with just a bit of white collar showing. My dress is black, with a white jabot in front, and the lapel watch is prominent. We stand just a bit apart from each other, and I am slightly in front of Sundance. But we are looking not at each other but straight into the camera, as though staring into the future. Really, we were looking at Butch.

  Chapter 25

  "You didn't tell me Butch wasn't going with us." The accusation in my tone was clear.

  Sundance did what always irritated me. He shrugged. "Why should it make a difference? You and I are going to Buenos Aires."

  "I thought...." My voice trailed off, and finally I finished lamely, "I thought we were all three going."

  "Butch will get there when he gets there. He wants to see the world."

  How, I wanted to scream, can he see the world without us?

  "He's going to Montreal and then to England," Sundance went on calmly. "Sounds like a roundabout way to get to South America to me, but it's not mine to say." Then he fixed me with a long look. "Not yours either, Etta."

  We were silent, avoiding looking at each other. Sundance got up and walked to the window of our room in Mrs. Riley's boardinghouse. Parting the curtain to look out, he asked, "Does it make a difference, Etta? Don't you want to go if it's only me?" His voice was tight.

  I answered slowly and quietly. "It makes a difference in that I'm used to the three of us being inseparable. I... it will take me a while to get used to this."

  "Used to being with me alone?" Now he turned, and I could see the bemused look on his face. "In the old days, when we got left alone at the Hole, you welcomed it."

  "And I do now, Sundance..." Well, it was only a small lie. "It's just that... South America, it's not like the Hole. It's... it's a foreign country!"

  "Was last time I checked," he said, and then he laughed and came to put his arms around me. "Etta Place, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were afraid."

  And I had thought he was afraid! Maybe to Butch I would have confessed that I was afraid to leave our country, to go somewhere where they spoke a language I barely understood, where life was bound to be different. It wasn't exactly fear, but a great doubt that lingered in my mind that following them to South America might not be the best way for me to look out for Etta Place. But my only other choice, so far as I knew, was to go back to Fannie's, and I wasn't going to do that. So South America it was—apparently without Butch.

  "Afraid?" I scoffed. "I'll show you who's afraid. You can't even speak the language, Harry Longabaugh. You'll be depending on me to tell you what to order for dinner, what time it is, even where the men's room is."

  "And you," he said, smiling broadly now, "will be depending on me to take care of you." Then he paused and said, "If you're going to give me directions, are you going to pick out banks for us?"

  I pulled away. "No more banks," I said. "You promised."

  He looked uncertain for a minute. "I was just testing you," he said. "Wanted to know if you were really ready to give it all up."

  And in that moment, I knew that Sundance would never give up robbing banks.

  There was a knock on the door, and Sundance went to open it. There stood Butch, a valise in his hand.

  "I got to be leavin'," he said, "but I just wanted you to know. I got word that Pinkertons know you're in New York, Kid. They think I'm in Minnesota or some godforsaken place, but they know you're here."

  "We sail tomorrow," Sundance said, "and we'll stay hidden until then. I'll send Etta out for groceries."

  "Good plan," Butch said as he winked at me.

  Butch's leave-taking was unsentimental, as though he were going around the block and would see us in a
few minutes. He told Sundance to check things out—I didn't know if that meant ranching, which he professed to want to do, or banks, which interested Sundance more.

  Then he turned to me.

  "Etta, you watch out for him. Without you, he's a loose cannon."

  "I already told him I'd locate the men's room for him. But he says he's going to take care of me." I bit my lip.

  "He darn well better," Butch said, and gave me a quick, brotherly hug.

  Then he was gone, and Sundance and I were left in uncomfortable silence.

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place sailed the next day, February 2, 1901, having eluded Pinkerton's men and survived on bread, cheese, and ham that I brought from the local market. Sundance swore he could have given his $1,000 for a good drink of whiskey, but I told him the market didn't carry it, and I wasn't about to venture farther.

  Once we were out to sea by a day, Sundance couldn't have cared less about that whiskey. He was wretchedly, violently seasick, too weak to lift his head from the pillow, too nauseated to swallow even the tepid water I tried to give him. I tried scraping burnt toast into a cup of tea—it was an old remedy for nausea that Fannie had taught me. She said the charcoal and tea quieted the stomach.

  Not so with Sundance. He took a small sip, spat it out, and managed to whisper, "You're trying to kill me."

  Sundance stayed in his bunk the whole long trip, though by the time we neared Buenos Aires, he could take a little chicken soup or oatmeal. But after he ate, he had to lie flat on his back for a long time.

  Whenever I could leave Sundance—I almost said escape from—I roamed the decks of the ship. I loved the strong ocean winds that tore at my hair and sent my skirts billowing out behind me, and I marveled at that endless expanse of water, especially when a brilliant orange sun set at the western horizon in the evenings. The captain kindly invited me to his table, with muttered condolences about Mr. Place's ill health, and I dined on all manner of delicacies, though I was always surprised at what foods they were able to keep on board the ship. When I reported on this dinner or that to Sundance, he simply groaned. Once he muttered, "He wants to sleep with you."

  "What?" I said, my voice louder than I meant.

  "The captain," he said. "He wants to sleep with you."

  "Sundance, you better stay sick this whole voyage," I threatened, "because I will not have you insulting the man who has befriended me in your absence."

  Fortunately the two never met until we were disembarking at Buenos Aires. The captain shook hands with Sundance and offered his sympathy for the difficult journey.

  "It's nothing," Sundance said, waving a hand and trying hard to regain his usual casual self-possession. "My wife will have me well in no time."

  "I'm sure," the captain said wryly.

  As we stepped off the gangplank onto solid ground, I turned to look at the captain and saw him still staring after us. Sundance was right about the man's intentions, and I knew it. The thought gave me a little glow of pleasure and then a serious doubt—would I have been better off to have stayed on that luxurious ship?

  I had tried to drag Sundance out onto the deck when the ship passed Montevideo and sailed up the Rio de la Plata, with Uruguay on one side and Argentina on the other. There was, I thought, something majestic about that wide river—many times wider than the Mississippi—and that one lone hill that seemed to stand guard over it on the Uruguay side. The lighthouse perched on top of the hill looked like a child's toy, and I was sorry it was not night so that I could see its blinking light.

  * * *

  We were in Buenos Aires for three months—at least I was. Sundance kept leaving on trips of three, four, or seven days.

  "Looking for land to buy," he explained, but I watched carefully when he came back to see that he wasn't suddenly spending money like a drunken sailor.

  "You think I've been robbing banks, don't you?" he asked one night as we sat in the bar at the Hotel Europa where we were staying.

  "Not necessarily," I replied warily. Then, laughing, "But it did cross my mind."

  Sundance turned serious. "Etta, Etta. I don't know what's happened between us, but do you really have such a low opinion of me that you think I'd rob a bank without Butch—behind his back, as it were? For that matter, do you think I'd not tell you?"

  I felt foolish and said nothing.

  Then he laughed. "Besides, how dumb do you think I am? Dumb enough to rob a bank alone?"

  "I guess I'm just nervous or... oh, I don't know. Sundance, I'm sorry I didn't trust you."

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "That's the whole point," he said. "You didn't trust me. Apology accepted... but the insult will linger."

  That night we each slept far on the side of the bed, careful not to touch each other.

  Buenos Aires was a fascinating city. I needn't have worried about Sundance's poor Spanish, for the city was full of Brits, all speaking the Queen's English. Because we were staying at the city's finest hotel and because my husband—Harry A. Place—had opened a rather large account in one of the city's banks, we were soon courted by high society. That meant wealthy English ranchers who had vast ranches—they called them estancias—in a region known as Tierra del Fuego or the lake district. They named these areas Rio Negro and Chubut, and I never let on that I was thoroughly puzzled.

  As I danced with this Englishman and that or sipped tea with their wives—who led incredibly dull lives and were limited in their interests, to my mind—my thoughts often wandered to Butch. I wondered where he was, what he was doing, and—heaven help me—who he was doing it with. Sundance was probably in more peril, riding the pampas or plains, but I rarely gave his safety a thought.

  When he was in the city, we had passionate nights, and we enjoyed each other's company. Sundance liked being "Mr. Place," the rich American who was looking for an estancia, and he played the role to the hilt. I liked being the American wife, presumably from high society, and having everyone vie for my attention. We were a good pair, good foils for each other, and sometimes late at night we'd fall across the bed in laughter imagining the Brit's astonished indignation if they ever found out they were talking to outlaws.

  One proper though overweight gentleman, a Mr. Trevalyen, asked me once about outlaws. "We have heard," he said, "that they are a great problem in your western provinces."

  "States," I corrected him, and then seemed to dismiss the subject. "They prey on banks and trains, not ordinary citizens," I said. "Do you not have the same problem here?"

  He shook his head emphatically. "No, we have bandidos who will stop travelers, but no one dares to rob a bank."

  Don't tell that to Sundance, I thought.

  All in all, I enjoyed my time in Buenos Aires. It was rather like spending three months in the Brown's Hotel in Denver. After two days, Butch would have hated it. After three months I began to worry about Butch, but I had made myself a steely promise that I would not mention him to Sundance, would not let him know when I worried. So it was Sundance who first began to worry aloud.

  "Damn fool, off traipsin' around the world. He think we're just going to sit on our behinds and wait for him until it pleases him to appear?"

  "Maybe Pinkerton caught him," I suggested, hating the words.

  "Naw, Butch is too smart. And besides, it would have made the headlines even down here. Likely he's having the time of his life."

  "Aren't you?" I asked.

  "Me? Oh, sure. I'm with the woman I love, who doesn't trust me, and I'm riding all over Argentina looking for land, and I'm hot and I want a drink of whiskey."

  "Me, too," I said.

  Sundance turned sweet—something he did less these days—and covered my hand with his. "I found some land last week," he said.

  "Last week? And you're just now telling me?"

  He shrugged. "I'm not sure how you'll like it. It's remote, and you... you're liking life in the city."

  This time I was the one who shrugged. "I'd give it up," I said
, and then added, "to be with you." But inside I wasn't sure I would. In Buenos Aires, alone, I could make a life for myself.

  Several wealthy ranchers had almost openly asked me to be their mistress, and I could always become the Buenos Aires equivalent of Fannie. Neither of those ideas appealed to me, and I searched my mind for other opportunities. A fine dress store? Sundance had always picked my expensive clothes. A fine restaurant? My cooking was strictly country style—corn bread and beans, not haute cuisine. In some senses I was trapped by myself.

  But Sundance knew none of that. He thought only that I wanted to go anywhere with him. "Good girl," he said, heartily pleased. "This is in Chubut Province, a place called Cholila. It's just this side of the Andes, halfway down to the tip of Argentina."

  "Halfway to the end of the world," I said. "How far from here?"

  He avoided my eyes. "Sixteen hundred miles, give or take a little." Then, persuasively, he added, "Pinkertons will never find it." He was silent for a long time, and then he said, his voice tentative, "Etta? We could... ah... leave instructions for Butch and go on."

  "If that Frank Dimaio from Pinkertons can't find it, neither can Butch. We're not leaving without him." I said it decisively, and Sundance turned angry.

  "Butch," he said. "Which one of us are you with?"

  "Sundance," I replied wearily, "let's not have that argument again. I'm with you, and you know it. I'm Mrs. Harry Place. But I won't leave Butch. And you wouldn't either."

  "I know," he said, and called for another drink.

  Butch arrived about two weeks after that conversation, banging on the door of our suite in the middle of the night and, once entered, grinning as though he'd been gone only a day.

  "Damn," Sundance said without rising from the bed, "you stay away forever, and then you come back just when I don't want to see you."

  Butch looked instantly hurt. "I thought you'd be asleep," he said.

  "That's what I meant," Sundance told him.

  "Turn your back," I told Butch, and he did while I slipped into a robe.