Hillary Kanter - Dead Men Are Easy To Love

by Hillary Kanter

  Along the gunwale, the ship’s crew was untying the lines. I was certain Butch was onboard. I sure hoped he was. I was searching for him frantically when a great commotion broke out on the pier, punctuated by gunshots. Turning to see what the ruckus was all about, I could not believe my eyes. Below, two figures were unharnessing the horse from a carriage with several large trunks unloaded beside it. Detective Dimaio was crouched low, firing his gun at a third figure.

  Firing at Butch!

  I saw now that Butch was in the process of stealing the detective’s horse, while Harry and Etta disconnected the mount tethered to the carriage that had brought them to the harbor. The couple hopped onto the horse, which reared up in response, and then they rode bareback past my spot on the ship. Butch had also secured his own ride, and followed after them.

  It was pure chaos. People scattered along the pier like marbles on a wood floor. On deck, passengers gaped open-mouthed, pointing. Detective Dimaio fired shot after shot, and finally threw some poor slob from his horse and tore off after Butch.

  “Butch!” I screamed. “Butch, I’m up here. Up here!”

  He turned in the saddle as his horse galloped by. I ran for the gangplank, but it was already lifted. All I could do was stare helplessly down at the churning water as the great ship headed out of the harbor toward the Atlantic, bound for Buenos Aires.

  ***

  When I told the captain I’d made a mistake and had only been onboard to tell someone goodbye, he was able to telegraph another ship to collect me and return me to New York. My relief was enormous.

  But Butch had disappeared.

  A week dragged by, and I wondered if I was stuck in this world for good. Would I ever get home? Home was once again looking good to me. I wandered the streets, hoping to find Butch. I knew the money in my valise could not last forever. The crystal heart, I believed, had brought me here, but I didn’t know how to use it to get back to the present and to my life with all its amenities.

  One day, while window-shopping outside a shoe store on 18th Street, I saw a horse hitched to a post along the road. A man’s back was to me as he stroked the horse’s neck.

  “Now that’s a good boy,” I heard him say. “You look just like my boy, Shadow.”

  That voice was familiar. No, I told myself. It couldn’t be.

  The man started to walk away.

  “Excuse me. Wait a minute, sir,” I said, catching up to him, touching him on the sleeve.

  When he turned, my eyes bulged. A thick black beard and mustache covered his face, and his hair was dark, but there was no mistaking those eyes. They were as blue as I remembered.

  “Don’t I know you?” I said.

  If there was a moment of recognition, he hid it quickly. “No. I’m very sorry, ma’am. You must’ve mistaken me for somebody else.”

  As he disappeared down the street, my eyes trailed down his legs and noticed something odd. Although he wore a fine, black, pinstripe suit, he was striding away in a pair of black cowboy boots.

  “No, please! Wait a minute,” I cried.

  I ran after him, knowing it was Butch, knowing he would only be avoiding me if he feared his presence would put me in danger. I had to catch him. I could not let him get away. Picking up my pace, I tripped on a cobblestone and tumbled forward, headfirst. The hard ground rushed up to meet me, and then …

  Everything went black.

  ***

  I opened my eyes and found fuzzy faces staring down at me. As things came into focus, they became the faces of my old friend, Mindy, and our trail guide, Sammy.

  I was back where I started.

  In Sundance.

  “Are you okay?” Sammy said. “You sure gave us a scare there. Good thing I had my cell phone on me, or you’d still be lyin’ there on the ground, seein’ stars. We got you carried down the mountain on a stretcher, had you set down here at Sundance’s main entrance.”

  “I was on a horse,” I said, beginning to remember.

  “That’s right. After you fell off, Bucky ran back to the barn. He’s doin’ fine.”

  “Bucky.” That name was enough to fill in the rest of my memories. “Well, I’m glad he’s okay,” I said. “Nice horse.”

  Mindy leaned over me. “Hey, Ariel. I’m glad that you’re back with us. You were mumbling and moaning, and it got me really worried. Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” I said groggily. Touching my forehead, I felt a tender lump, but nothing seemed broken. I was no worse for wear, just a bit sore. “I did have a really weird dream, though.” Man had I ever.

  As Mindy helped me through the lobby, back toward our room, the front desk clerk called us over.

  “All of Sundance is talking about that little spill you took,” the man said. “The manager wanted me to tell you that all your meals are on the house, on account of your accident.”

  I guess they could smell a lawsuit.

  “And, oh, by the way,” he added, “do you know the story about Sammy? He probably never told you, since he’s a little embarrassed by it, but look at that picture on the wall.” He pointed at an old, framed photograph of a man, and at the silver pistol displayed underneath. “Our Sammy here, he’s supposed to be the great grandson of Butch Cassidy.”

  My mouth went dry. I recognized the gun.

  “Most people don’t believe it, but I can see the resemblance, can’t you? The story goes that Butch met some young woman in New York, fell in love with her, and then ran off to South America with the Sundance Kid. The woman disappeared, never to be seen again. The word’s always been that Butch and Sundance were killed in a shoot-out, down in Bolivia, but there’s never been any real proof. There’s another story that says he wasn’t killed, that he came back to the United States, changed his name, and maybe had plastic surgery so he wouldn’t be recognized. He came back, some say, to look for the woman he’d fallen in love with and lost in New York. When he found her, they moved to Seattle, got married, had a son, and lived for quite a few years in quiet solitude.”

  “Wow, what a story,” Mindy said. “Is any of it true?”

  I already had my suspicions.

  “Could be,” the clerk responded. “Nobody knows for sure. But a woman claiming to be his wife, if you believe the second story, brought their child here to Utah.”

  Just then, Sammy walked through the door. “Hey,” he said, waving something in his hand. “One of those boys out there found this in the stretcher and thought it might be yours, Ariel. Did you lose this?”

  “What is it?” I said.

  He placed it in my hand. It was a ring.

  “This isn’t mine.”

  “It says somethin’ on the inside of the band, but without my glasses I can’t read it,” Sammy said.

  “Wait a minute. I think it does say something on there.” Squinting my eyes, I held the yellow diamond ring up to the light and saw these words etched clearly on the back:

  Love, James.

  THE THERAPY CHRONICLES:

  Part Three

  Another Friday therapy session.

  There is no future living in the past.

  However, I find myself anxious and obsessing about Ernest Hemingway. Of all the dead men, I’m drawn most to him. Not sure why, but he is the sexiest to me, and I can’t seem to get him out of my blood.

  And then there’s Mr. Perfect. He’s in the here and now.

  Am I in love with two men? One dead, one living, and both unavailable? Like I said before, I guess you can’t get more unavailable than dead.

  I let Mr. Perfect hypnotize me today. He’s been wanting to do so for some time now, to try and shed some light on my long-standing sleep disorder, and its origins. I’m such an insomniac that I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a decent night’s sleep, even in the womb.

  “You are getting sleepier,” he said, “and sleepier.”

  Next thing I know, I’m passed out on a hard-leather couch, which is funny considering I can’t even sleep on my 600-thread-count cotton sheets and
TempurPedic mattress. That’s all that I remember until two loud hand-claps woke me up.

  “What happened?” I was beyond disoriented.

  “Well, something pretty interesting, but I’m not really sure what it means.” That got my attention. “Ariel, I asked you to think back and tell me anything that was bothering you, that you may have subconsciously buried in your past.” He stared down again at his pad of notes.

  I felt a lump in my throat. What was he about to reveal?

  “You started talking about a whole bunch of men you’d met recently, from what I could make out of it …”

  Gulp.

  “You were mumbling a lot, but let’s see, there was something about Ernest, and how you didn’t mean to fall in love with him, and about some painting that Vincent Van Gogh threw out of a window, and a canary-diamond ring you gave back to Beethoven, and … Does any of this mean anything to you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  Oh, God. Was that all of it?

  “Let’s see,” he said, again flipping another page on the yellow legal pad. “I had to write very fast because it all came out in a stream of consciousness. Oh, yes. Clark Gable was standing naked on a window ledge, and then there was other gibberish about Butch Cassidy abandoning you in Central Park. And there was one more person. Hmm. Oh, here it is—can’t read my own writing. You were babbling something about Lindbergh being a Nazi.”

  “Really,” I said, pasting on an incredulous look.

  “Does that mean anything to you?”

  I shook my head.

  “If I believed in past-life regression, which I don’t,” he said, “this concept might intrigue me, but my notion of what was happening is that you were tapping into dreams of some sort. Sometimes this stuff happens with hypnotism, particularly when a person has experienced a vivid or profound dream. That’s the only thing I can make of it.”

  I blinked. “Uh … Oh yeah, now I do seem to remember. I did actually have a really strange dream last night, and I think a lot of those people were in it. It was so vivid … You’re right. But it’s kinda jumbled in my brain right now.”

  “Good. That’s what I thought.” He looked at his watch.

  It was the end of our time, thank God.

  “Let’s try this again when we meet next week, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Okay.”

  Saved by the bell.

  Chapter Ten

  SAYONNARA HEART

  It had been some time now since my last escapade with one Butch Cassidy, and I was beginning to wonder if the quartz heart had finally lost its power. I was about to find out something altogether different.

  It was five o’clock on Halloween evening, and an early snow was falling on Manhattan. I had intended to work on my piece for Men’s Health, titled, “The Top Five Things that Turn Off a Woman on a Date.” With my vast wealth of knowledge, it was easy to write, but my dumb-ass computer went down.

  My, how I hated technology at times. Is it just me, or do all these things designed to make things faster and easier actually do neither? Yes, in my opinion, we’ve been duped by the powers-that-be, in this techno-illogical—world.

  Shit. I would have to finish the piece longhand.

  I was feeling antsy, and my thoughts were blank. I showered and changed clothes. I needed to do something—get outside, take a walk, whatever. Maybe that would knock the I-don’t-give-a-damn out of my brain.

  Carrying my notebook in case I had any brilliant brainstorms, I headed to Elaine’s Restaurant on Eighty-eighth Street.

  New Yorkers all know the place. It has been a landmark for forty years, a Mecca for movie stars, literary lions, financial scions and politicians, for the famous, the near-famous, and the infamous. It was named after Elaine Kaufman, and she liked writers. Woody Allen, it’s said, ate dinner there every single night for ten years. Well, if it was good enough for Woody, it was good enough for me.

  Snowflakes whirled, landing lightly atop my head as I walked up Second Avenue. The sky was turning ink-gray, and kids in Halloween costumes monopolized the crowded sidewalk, darting and dodging back and forth. One dressed like a bat practically knocked me over, and I thought of my episode with Vlad Dracul and his psycho brother. They would have fit right in tonight.

  I pushed through the door at Elaine’s, dreaming about the cosmopolitan or two that awaited me. I brushed snow from my hair. A shelf over the coat rack displayed new books by her regulars, and I hoped mine would join their ranks someday.

  Ah yes. Elaine’s was the place for wishful drinking.

  The place had been transformed. I wasn’t sure if it was for a private party or what, but black and orange helium balloons were everywhere, tied to the backs of chairs, and some had escaped their moorings and now bobbed along the ceiling. The speakers were blaring Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” People crowded the establishment, seated at tables covered with red checkered tablecloths. Many were in costume.

  I headed to the bar, claiming the one vacant spot at the end. I ordered my usual cosmopolitan from Tom Carney the bartender. While I worked on my piece, I ordered another. With the alcohol softening the hard edges of the day, I began to feel almost human again.

  Engrossed in my work, I didn’t look up for what seemed like hours. In reality, it was closer to twenty or thirty minutes. When I came up for air, I could not have been more shocked if the mayor of New York City had just flashed me. In fact, a vampire was seated on the barstool beside me, sipping at a blood-red tinted drink. Okay, I told myself. So what? This was Halloween. No big deal.

  But then I saw the others.

  Next to the vampire sat Ludwig Von Beethoven, watching me with those dark, magnetic eyes of his. I recognized his sea-green frock coat, with the gold buckles and matching breeches.

  Vincent Van Gogh was next in the row, dressed in a poor painter’s smock, holding an artist’s palette.

  Ernest Hemingway was there too, wearing khakis, drinking a strawberry daiquiri, and talking animatedly with Clark Gable, who sported a mustache and a black hat, just like from Gone with the Wind.

  Not to be left out, Charles Lindbergh inserted occasional comments in their conversation. He was outfitted in flying attire, complete with aviator cap and goggles.

  Butch Cassidy was on the furthest barstool, tall and self-assured in his cowboy boots and spurs. He looked content to nurse his drink.

  It was like a roll call of my love life from the past—the very distant past—and the most logical explanation was that Halloween costumers had joined me for a drink. But the likelihood of these specific individuals, in these highly detailed costumes, arriving at this point of time, at this location …

  No, that stretched belief.

  Two other options assaulted my consciousness. Either I had lost my grip on reality or someone had slipped LSD into my drink. And neither of those scenarios boded well for me.

  “Tom?” I motioned to the bartender. “Can you tell me today’s date?”

  “October 31st,” he answered. “Halloween.”

  My voice quivered as I whispered in his ear. “Tom, do you recognize any of these guys sitting at the bar?”

  “If by ‘guys’ you mean those two ladies down at the end, well, no, I’ve never seen them before.”

  “You don’t see a vampire sitting here next to me?”

  “A vampire? No.”

  “How about any other guys dressed in weird get-ups?”

  “Well, it is Halloween.” He gave me an odd look, surely assuming I was off my rocker. “But from where I stand, I’d say you’re drinking alone. I don’t see any bloody fangs or Dracula wannabes.”

  I shot another glance around the bar. I saw some men and women dressed in modern clothes, verifying that I was here in the present, in New York City. I had not traveled back again. This was my real world. My thoughts were interrupted by the vampire at my shoulder.

  “Good evening, Ariel,” he said. “You’re looking beautiful tonight.”

  I turned, and when our eyes locked,
I broke into a cold sweat.

  “I told you one day I’d come to America,” Vlad Dracul said, smiling with bared fangs.

  Yikes! That was it.

  I leaped up. I had to get out of there.

  Making a beeline for the restroom, I seemed to move in slow motion. It was like having a bad dream in which you try to run with feet that are heavy as lead. To reach my destination, I had to go the entire length of the bar. One by one, each of the seven dead men I’d loved turned to watch me walk past. Any moment, I swear, I expected to hear the well-known theme music of The Twilight Zone.

  “Ariel,” Beethoven said, rising to bow. “I hope you got my letter and the Canary diamond ring I left for you.”

  I kept walking.

  “Did you receive the painting I sent you?” asked Van Gogh, brushing my arm.

  I kept going.

  “Let me buy you a daiquiri, Ariel,” Ernest Hemingway offered. “How’s your book coming along?”

  Do not stop, I told myself.

  “Yes,” Clark chimed in. “You going to let me read that new one you’re writing?”

  Just a few more steps.

  “Look what I found,” Lindbergh said, grinning as he dangled in front of me the iron swastika cross that I’d tossed over the railing of the ship.

  I was almost to the restroom.

  “Ariel, I’m back from Buenos Aires. Whaddya say we take in a show?” asked Butch Cassidy.

  I shoved through the door of the ladies’ room and splashed ice-cold water in my face, hoping to break whatever spell I was under. Were my eyes and ears deceiving me? Was this another one of my crazy journeys, only with a different twist? I was breathing hard, shaking like a leaf. I pinched my arm to see if I was dreaming.

  Nope. No such luck.

  “Okay,” I said aloud, gazing into the mirror. “It’s Halloween. Those are just guys in costumes. When I leave here, everything will be back to normal.”