by Saran Essex
It was getting towards the middle of the day, and with still no sign of Lonzo, Annie and Maria, the two men sat down in the rocks at the base of Creek Hill to eat some of their food provisions. They nibbled on strips of dried meat and listened to the sound of the nearby creek for a few minutes, all the while wondering why Lonzo, Annie and Maria were late in joining them. Emmett was physically aching to see Annie again, and he stood up and began to pace up and down beside the creek.
He abruptly stopped his pacing as both he and Leroy heard a sudden rush of hoofbeats and spotted two approaching riders. The two friends smiled when they saw that the riders were Annie and Maria, and Emmett gave a yell of joy. The girls had brought a picnic basket with them, and they all four sat down on the rocks near to the creek to enjoy the contents of the basket: tasty home-made meat and vegetable pies, and apple pies, and fruit cordial to drink.
Leroy said, ‘We should leave some food for Lonzo,’ still having faith that Lonzo would put in an appearance.
They sat contentedly eating and drinking for a while, then Leroy suggested to Maria that they try some dancing.
‘Lonzo isn’t here yet . . .’ Maria began. She wasn’t sure that she even wanted to try dancing again. She had only agreed to go with Annie to meet up with Leroy, Emmett and Lonzo, and had said she would try doing some dance steps because she didn’t want to let her friend down.
‘He will be. . . .’ Leroy assured her.
Leroy pulled a protesting Maria to her feet, and on to the smooth patch of ground in front of them, and then he took her in a dance hold, and began to lead her into a waltz and talk her through the steps. He was patient and confident in his tuition, but Maria still tended to walk heavily through the steps with no sense of timing.
After about ten minutes of trying to dance with Maria, Leroy sighed to himself as he exchanged glances with Emmett and Annie. There was still no sign of Lonzo, and they couldn’t wait for much longer. Leroy knew that he would now have to play the harmonica while Emmett and Annie helped Maria with the dance steps.
Lonzo had woken before dawn. He had dressed quickly in the half-light and eaten some sourdough biscuits for breakfast. He had taken some of the biscuits with him when he left the bunkhouse, without anyone hearing him, and had gone for a ride that had taken him out of the valley and to the entrance of Red Creek Canyon. Usually when he had two days of free time to himself he would camp out for the night in the Badlands, but he had given his word to Leroy that he would play the fiddle for Maria, and it was important to him not to let Leroy down.
Lonzo climbed down from his horse to wander round the entrance to the canyon for a while, and to give his horse time to rest; then he climbed back up into the saddle, and started the ride back to Caleb Baxter’s ranch. He heard the sound of the harmonica while riding through the long grass on the northern range of the Baxter ranch land. He rode past a small bunch of foraging cattle, and then a few yards up ahead of him, near to the rocks at the base of Creek Hill, he saw the four of them: Leroy, Emmett, Annie and Maria.
Leroy was seated on one of the rocks playing the harmonica, while Emmett was dancing with Maria. Annie was sitting on a large boulder near to the creek watching them. Lonzo grinned as he guessed that the tune that Leroy was meant to be playing was ‘Oh Susanna’, but the notes were not quite right.
Annie was the first one to see Lonzo cantering up to them, and she jumped to her feet and called out a greeting to him.
Emmett and Maria stopped dancing, and Leroy ceased playing his not very melodious tune, and got up off the rock. Lonzo rode up closer to them and dismounted.
Lonzo tethered his horse to a nearby bush and smiled politely at Annie and Maria, who were both giving him rather approving looks. They had known him for about six months, which was when he had first arrived at Caleb’s ranch, and they had immediately liked his good-looks and self-assured manner, and he was always courteous to them whenever he met them. Leroy and Emmett saw the favourable looks that the girls were giving to Lonzo, and Annie’s face changed as she felt Emmett staring at her.
Lonzo nodded to Emmett before turning his attention to Leroy. He walked closer to him, and said casually, ‘Morning, Leroy,’ emphasizing the name as he smiled mockingly.
Leroy felt irritation start to rise in him at Lonzo’s mocking attitude. The man was late, and he had to know that it was now past midday – but he managed to control his annoyance, and said mildly, ‘You’re late, it’s past midday now.’
‘Oh, is it?’ Lonzo said with fake surprise. His mocking smile changed to more of a grin as he asked, ‘Am I right in thinking that it was “Oh Susanna” that you were playing on the harmonica?’
Leroy refused to let Lonzo rile him further, and said with a grin, ‘Hadn’t you better get started on playing your fiddle?’
Amusement glimmered for an instant in Lonzo’s eyes, then he went across to where his horse was tethered. He took a small fiddle and a bow out of his saddle-bags; the fiddle had been made out of a cigar box. He sat down unhurriedly on a rock near to where Leroy stood, and held the fiddle against his chest instead of under his chin. He drew the horsehair bow across the strings, and while Leroy and the others watched him, started to play.
They heard a horrid, screeching sound, and Lonzo gave a low chuckle at the stunned looks on the faces of Leroy and the other three. Then he drew the bow across the strings again, and started to play a waltz tune. He played with a supple and light bowing stroke and the notes were perfect. He chuckled again, as though amused by the fact that he had surprised them all.
Emmett, Annie and Maria started to laugh with some relief as they realized that Lonzo had only been trying to fool them.
‘By jingo!’ Leroy burst out with a huge smile on his face, ‘You got a sense of humour, what other secrets are you hiding?’
Lonzo’s eyes turned grave for a second. He was hiding a huge secret: no one at the ranch knew that he was the Sundance Kid, and he wanted to keep it that way. Emmett, Annie and Maria were still laughing, and only Leroy had noticed the way Lonzo’s eyes had briefly changed; he wondered what else the enigmatic man was hiding.
Emmett took Annie in his arms and began to dance the waltz with her. They looked very happy together, and Leroy felt a sudden and fleeting sadness as he thought about Amy, the girl he had left behind. Then he sensed Lonzo’s curious eyes on him, and knew that he had noticed his momentary sadness. He quickly put Amy out of his mind and turned to Maria, swiftly drawing her into his arms to dance the waltz.
Maria was anxious and awkward at first, but Leroy’s casual manner soon put her at ease. She gradually began to relax as she danced. Lonzo played another waltz tune, then a polka and some square dancing tunes while the others danced to the music, and both Emmett and Annie, and even Lonzo, noticed how happy and confident Maria was beginning to look as she danced with Leroy. Her awkwardness seemed to have gone.
As Lonzo sat drawing his bow skilfully across the strings of the cigar-box fiddle and watching the others dancing, he felt like having some fun of his own. Leroy had been right, he did have a sense of humour, but it was a very mischievous, almost wicked one. He wanted to do something to annoy Leroy, but only in a friendly, prankish way – he didn’t want to provoke the fierce anger in Leroy that he had aroused before.
Smiling mischievously to himself, Lonzo suddenly stopped playing, immediately compelling the others to stop dancing and look questioningly at him. Unconcerned by their questioning looks, Lonzo got up off the rock, and holding the fiddle in one hand, walked across to Leroy and Maria, and said to Leroy, ‘I reckon it’s my turn to dance with Maria now, I know some square dances that I can show her!’
But Leroy felt that he was making progress with Maria, and told Lonzo in a pleasant tone to stick to playing the fiddle. At which Lonzo grinned, and said, ‘It’s up to Maria whether she wants to dance with me!’
Leroy scowled, and he and Lonzo started to argue – though not aggressively – and while arguing, they began to step away from the othe
rs, and closer to the edge of the low bank of the creek. Emmett, Annie and Maria watched them in surprise at first, but then their surprise turned to laughter, as they were behaving just like two little boys quarrelling over a toy.
As he argued with Lonzo, Leroy suddenly became aware of the laughter coming from the three onlookers, and realized, with some disgust at himself, how pointless the argument with Lonzo was – and with that realization came the knowledge that Lonzo had yet again managed to irritate him.
Leroy felt angry at himself and Lonzo, and abruptly ended the argument by telling Lonzo to do as he liked. He turned away from him intending to stride away, but he turned so abruptly that his feet slipped on the edge of the bank, and he started to fall over backwards into the creek.
Lonzo made a grab for him, but he was still holding the fiddle and bow in one hand, and he missed. Leroy fell into the creek with a yell and a huge splash, landing with a jolt on his back. The creek was not too deep, but he still got soaked, and some of the sharp rocks scattered along the bed of the creek grazed his back.
He pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked up at Lonzo. There was a hint of laughter in Lonzo’s eyes as he stood at the edge of the creek looking down on Leroy.
‘Are you hurt?’ Lonzo had the decency to ask, but his tone held no real concern, and the laughter was still in his eyes. Leroy somehow stopped himself from giving an unpleasant reply.
Lonzo grinned. He was about to jump into the creek to help Leroy out of the water, but Emmett, Annie and Maria had hurried over to join them, and it was Emmett who waded in to help Leroy to his feet and out of the creek. Leroy’s clothes were soaked, and his body felt bruised and sore in places. Annie and Maria were sympathetic, but Leroy was sure that he could still see a hint of mirth in Lonzo’s eyes.
Emmett started to dab at Leroy’s wet clothes with his bandanna, and as he did so, Leroy said to Lonzo in irritation, ‘You are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever met!’
He sounded really annoyed, but Emmett, who was standing next to him and still dabbing at his clothes, noticed that his partner was trying to hide a smile. Emmett shot a quick look at Lonzo, expecting him to give a harsh reply to Leroy, but he was surprised to see that Lonzo was looking at Leroy with what appeared to be a friendly glint in his usually cold eyes.
The glint of friendliness in Lonzo’s eyes disappeared almost straightaway, but Emmett felt certain that he had seen it, and he realized in that instant that not only did Leroy feel a strange kind of kinship with Lonzo, but that Lonzo also felt a liking for Leroy.
Lonzo saw the surprise on Emmett’s face, and he knew that for maybe half a second he had let some emotion show in his eyes. He felt embarrassed, and he wanted to get away quickly. He turned abruptly from the creek, pushed his way past Annie and Maria, and strode hurriedly over to the bush where his horse was tethered. But Maria ran up to him before he could get on it, and gave him the remainder of the pies, wrapped in tissue paper, from out of the picnic basket, and told him that Leroy had insisted on saving some of the food for him.
Lonzo gave her a brief smile as he took the food from her, and placed it, together with his fiddle and bow, in his saddle-bags. Then he jumped on his horse, and without a glance at any of the others, rode away.
Leroy watched him ride away with a sigh and a shake of his head.
CHAPTER 7
Three days later, in the early evening, the dance to celebrate Dinah’s birthday was held in the eating house of Jeremiah and Dinah Baxter. The festivities were in the long dining room, and there was already a merry atmosphere, with the people of the valley enjoying the dancing and the food and drinks. A bulbous-shaped wood-burning stove stood at one corner of the room, and four large glass oil lamps spaced a few feet apart were hanging from ropes attached to wooden beams along the centre of the ceiling.
The room had been arranged to allow space in the centre for dancing, with tables and chairs spread out along one side. Sitting at some of the tables were groups of homesteaders and ranchers from all over the valley.
On the opposite side of the room, to the right of the entrance door, were three long tables. Two of the tables were laden with tasty home-made food. On the third table was a pail of beer and beer glasses, and two large punch-bowls with serving spoons and glasses. One of the punch-bowls was non-alcoholic. There was also whiskey to drink, but that would have to be paid for. Serving the whiskey, and keeping an eye on the food and drink, was Warren Baxter, the youngest son of Jeremiah and Dinah.
The musicians were two men playing fiddles, and two other men playing banjos, and they were standing at the far end of the room. Some of the ranch hands and homesteaders were already slightly drunk; their voices, accompanied by raucous laugher, were loud above the music. A slow waltz was being played, and several couples were dancing together in the middle of the room. Among the dancers were Jeremiah and Dinah Baxter (who were hosting the dance), and Caleb Baxter and his wife Elizabeth, a slim, blonde-haired lady. Jeremiah was tall and sinewy like his younger brother, Caleb. His wife, Dinah, looked a lot like their daughter, Annie, with the same curly brown hair.
Leroy and Emmett entered through the doorway just as the waltz music finished, and Emmett immediately spotted Annie and Maria. The young ladies were walking towards the food and drink tables, and they were both looking very attractive. Annie was wearing a long lilac dress, and her long, curly brown hair was piled up neatly on top of her head. Maria’s long black hair was tied back with a ribbon, and she wore a long lemon and white dress. Emmett hurried over to intercept them, while Leroy lingered by the doorway.
The music started up again. Emmett took hold of Annie’s hand, and after asking Maria to excuse them, he led her on to the dance floor. Maria walked on over to the food and drink tables; she glanced briefly at the two tables filled with the food, and then moved on to the third table, which was the drinks table, and where Warren was serving the whiskey. She was looking with interest at the alcoholic punch-bowl when Leroy went over to her. He was just going to ask her to dance with him when his attention was turned to someone else.
Leroy had not seen Lonzo enter the eating house – he didn’t even know he was there until he suddenly appeared at the drinks table a few feet away from where Leroy was standing with Maria, and asked Warren to pour him a whiskey.
While Warren poured the whiskey, Lonzo turned his head to look at Leroy and Maria. He said with a mocking grin to Leroy, ‘Evening, Leroy’ – he emphasized the name – ‘You fallen into any creeks lately?’
They had been working on different ranges, and had not seen much of each other since Leroy had fallen in the creek. Leroy gave Lonzo an annoyed look. Lonzo grinned again, then he smiled at Maria before taking some coins from out of a pocket in his pants to pay for the whiskey. Leroy reluctantly moved away from Maria and walked over to him. He said, ‘We have a deal, remember? I’m paying.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Lonzo said, and his eyes sparkled mischievously as he looked at Leroy, ‘I forgot. . . .’
Leroy grunted, ‘I doubt that. . . .’
The sparkle was still in Lonzo’s eyes as he shrugged, and said, ‘Well, maybe you can buy just this one drink for me, then we’ll forget about the deal. . . .’
Leroy stared at him, puzzled by his words.
Lonzo gave a short laugh, ‘Despite what you might think, I ain’t completely heartless – and just in case you think I’m treating you like some kind of a fool – let’s call it a kind of favour, a favour from me to you. . . .’
Lonzo then left Leroy to pay for the whiskey, and walked over to Maria, who was still standing by the punch-bowl. He asked her to dance with him. She nodded, and walked quite confidently on to the dance floor ahead of him. Leroy and Lonzo both noticed the confident poise with which Maria walked. She no longer seemed to be worried about looking like a clumsy fool on the dance floor. Lonzo stopped to give a slight wink to Leroy before following her.
Leroy felt a little irked. He had wanted to dance with Maria, and Lon
zo’s wink told him that Lonzo must have guessed what was in his mind.
The musicians were playing a polka. Maria was a little awkward on her feet at first, but Lonzo said to her, ‘Just listen to the music and remember the steps that Leroy showed you a couple of days ago, and you’ll be fine.’
Maria smiled, and feeling encouraged by Lonzo, she soon overcame her clumsiness, and danced with faultless timing to the music.
Leroy stood by the drinks table, watching Lonzo and Maria dancing, and he felt his slight displeasure disappearing. Lonzo was a good dancer, and Maria, he was glad to see, looked like a natural dancer. It was almost impossible to believe that she had been worried about people laughing at her. Maria’s parents and other family members were sitting with a group of homesteaders, and they were surprised, along with a lot of other people in the room, to see how elegant and confident she was in her dancing.
Warren’s voice broke into Leroy’s thoughts: he was asking about Lonzo’s glass of whiskey. Leroy sighed – it didn’t look as if Lonzo was in any hurry to come back and drink it.
‘Keep it,’ he said to Warren, ‘until Lonzo comes back for it.’ Then he went over to the pail of beer, dipped a ladle into it and filled a glass. Carefully avoiding the dancers, he made his way over to the other side of the room and sat down at one of the tables. But several of the rowdy ranchers and homesteaders sitting at the tables further up from him called out a greeting, and he went over and chatted to some of them. He was liked by almost everyone in the valley because of his friendly, helpful nature.
The night wore on, and more ranch hands entered the eating house, including Deke Hogan and Marvin Kilbey. These two went straight over to the table with the pail of beer on it, dipped two glasses into the pail and filled them, then crossed the floor to the tables to sit down. Hogan scowled at Leroy as he walked past him, but Kilbey chose to sit down at Leroy’s table.
