by Judy Alter
Watching me from the bed, Sundance said dryly, "I forgot to warn you about that. You shouldn't drink water with a champagne hangover."
When I recovered, I said weakly, "I think it's worse than the chicken salad," and he laughed at me. Or with me.
* * *
One night Sundance joined a poker game in the hotel, though Butch twice warned him against it.
"I'm going to increase our investment," he said, grinning and trying to be nonchalant as he walked away. But I saw him turn and take one more look at Butch, to see how serious he was.
Butch's big hand reached out and covered mine. "You go on, Sundance. I'll just take care of Etta here."
Sundance wavered, but only an instant, and then he was gone into the men's parlor.
"I envy you and Sundance," Butch said slowly, watching him walk away. "I'd like... well, I'd like to have a woman in my life all the time—not just these stolen visits."
It was the first time he'd ever talked to me about Mary Boyd's existence.
"Tell me about her," I said.
"She's about the prettiest woman I ever saw," he said, and then caught himself suddenly, "'cept of course you, Etta. You and her, you're mighty close in looks."
"Do you mean we look alike?" I asked, laughing. "Or you can't decide which of us is better-looking?" I was joking, but there was a touch of vanity in my question.
He spoke low, quietly. "You're a mighty beautiful woman, Etta." Then he added, "So's Mary. But in lots of ways I know you better than I do her."
"Thank you, Butch," I said.
He never did tell me much more about Mary, beyond that she had married while he was in jail, and now he and she both regretted it but they were honorable people and would not tarnish her marriage vows.
"I would take my happiness where I found it," I said.
Butch looked sideways at me. "No, Etta, you wouldn't. You just think right now you would."
"Sundance would," I said.
"You're right. Sundance would."
We were both silent a minute, my thoughts on Anna Marie up in Castle Gate and Sundance's casual abandonment of her.
Then Butch spoke softly. "Etta, you know whatever Sundance does or doesn't do, I'll always look out for you. He's my best friend, and I'd do anything for him... except let you get hurt."
I reached out to take his hand. When I did, to my astonishment, I felt that same tug in my stomach that I felt when Sundance looked directly at me.
Butch and I stared long and hard at each other, and then Butch pulled his hand away, saying, "Guess we might as well turn in. Sundance'll be in there all night."
* * *
We had to leave Denver the next day. Sundance had lost everything except the money Butch had held back to pay for the hotel.
"You don't," Butch said righteously, "walk out of a hotel without paying your bill."
I had thought he'd be angry at Sundance, but when he heard of the loss Butch just shrugged and said, "Easy come, easy go."
Chapter 15
It was a long winter.
"We don't work in the winter," Sundance told me. "Too cold." He was grinning. "But not too cold for other things." He drew me into his arms, but I surprised both of us when I resisted.
"What he means," Butch said, "is that you can't plan too good in winter, 'cause you could get caught in a blizzard or something. It just ain't a good time to be robbing banks."
"I think," I said slowly, "it'd be the perfect time, because no one would expect you."
"Etta," Sundance said with exasperation, "we been doing this awhile. Trust us."
And so we settled in for the winter at Hole-in-the-Wall. Butch had brought me reading material from his last trip to Lander—stacks of old Harper's Weekly and Leslie's, three dime novels about Buffalo Bill, and a copy of Cooper's The Pioneers—and they had a chessboard, over which they spent long hours. Butch was remarkably good at that, slow and patient and thoughtful. Sundance would play for a while, then do something foolish out of his impatience. More than once, he jumped up and overturned the board.
"That," Butch said, "is a breach of manners."
"Breach? Where'd you learn that word?"
"From you."
It snowed a lot that winter, and on sunny days we played in a white wonderland. Butch didn't much like snowball fights and stayed in the cabin, but Sundance and I were like little kids. One morning early I dragged him out of bed to make a snowman. It took a lot of groaning on his part, and a lot of coaxing on mine—with some promises about what we'd do after the snowman was built—but I finally got him up and dressed. Wearing two sweaters, a split skirt, heavy wool stockings, and a hat that came down over my ears, I was so bulky I could hardly move. When I tried to walk in the boots Sundance had gotten me by mail order, I floundered and once fell.
"See?" he demanded. "This is a bit of damn foolishness. Let's go back to bed."
I blew smoke rings with my breath. "Of course we're not going inside! If you help me build a snowman, I'll make you an extravagant breakfast."
Sundance was meticulous about the snowman once he got started. "No, you've got to roll that smoother."
I'd rolled and rolled the large ball for the main part of the body, but no matter what I did it was lumpy. He stood watching me—and not helping.
"Can't have all those bumps on it," he said with an air of authority. "Snowmen are round and smooth."
"You start on the second ball," I ordered him, and he seemed to obey. But when I turned my back, still smoothing the first large mound of snow, something wet suddenly hit my back. As I whirled, I saw Sundance reaching into the snow for another handful. He shaped it carefully into a small ball and took aim again.
"Sundance, don't you dare!"
He laughed and sent it speeding toward me. This time it hit me square in the chest and splattered snow into my face. He laughed aloud.
"All right," I said, grabbing a handful of snow. I rolled it in my hand a little, and threw it in his direction. It disintegrated before it was a foot from me.
"Texans!" he called in glee. "Don't even know how to pack a snowball. Want me to show you?"
"No," I shouted, my dander up by now. "I don't want you to." I grabbed another handful of snow and began to shape it as I'd seen him do, but when I saw him standing there looking smug, as though he knew I wouldn't ever be able to hit him, petty anger overcame me.
"I... you show me how to pack it," I said, holding the snow in both hands and walking toward him.
He watched me, his face beaming with a know-it-all air of superiority.
When I was right in front of him, he reached for my snow and said, "You see, you got to pack it—"
Sundance never finished the sentence, because I ground the snow into his face with the palm of my hand. When I drew back, he looked like Old Man Frost.
Sputtering and yelping, he brushed at his face with a heavily gloved hand—too heavily gloved to do him much good. "That's war," he declared. "No quarter given." With that, he bent down for a handful of snow, but I, being forewarned, darted away from him and around a small bush.
He chased me as I floundered in the snow, screaming so loudly that Butch appeared at the doorway of the cabin just in time to see Sundance grab me, pull aside the scarf around my neck, and dump his handful of snow inside the back of my jacket. It was my turn to yowl in real pain.
We ended in a rolling, laughing mess on the ground, both of us covered from head to toe with snow.
"You children brush off all that snow before you come in the house," Butch said with a straight face. "And, Etta, I'm 'bout ready for breakfast."
I was tempted to tell him I was too and why didn't he cook it. But I knew that his pancakes had the texture of old rubber.
Sundance was now standing over me, where I still lay on the ground, panting half in exhaustion and half in laughter. He reached a hand to help me up.
"You need to dry out before you cook?"
I shook my head. "If I get out of this outside layer, I'l
l be fine."
So we trooped into the cabin and shed our clothes. I wasn't really fine, for the back of my sweater was wet and cold. I figured it would dry as I worked around the stove. I fixed flapjacks and sent Butch out to the shed for the sausage that was curing there. We drank countless mugs of steaming coffee, and it was noon before we finished breakfast.
Christmas found us huddled in the cabin while a blizzard raged outside. We ate canned tomatoes, biscuits, and potatoes, because neither of them had been able to hunt, and we had no presents to exchange for we'd not been even to Kaycee in weeks, not that shopping there would have been any good.
"You were any kind of useful woman, you'd have knit me a scarf," Sundance said.
"You'd never have worn anything I knit," I retorted. "But you could have thought ahead and gotten me diamonds in Denver."
"Yeah," Butch said, "but he lost the money. Remember?" He stared at Sundance, who looked uncomfortable, and then Butch burst out laughing. "Wasn't the first time you did somethin' dumb, Kid. Probably won't be the last."
"Thanks," Sundance said dryly. "I got a lot of faith in you too. Taking eight days to get back from Idaho."
We had all been cooped up together too long, and it was only Christmas. An endless winter stretched before us.
The snow stopped by New Year's. None of us stayed up to watch in the year, but the next day we had a really good meal because Sundance brought me a fat grouse.
"To 1897," I said, lifting a shot glass of whiskey, which was all we had to toast with, "a year of success." I wouldn't have drunk champagne if it had been there. In fact, I never did drink it again in my life.
"That means," Sundance said, "that we don't get caught."
Sundance and I still left Butch the cabin and stole away to our tent, even on the coldest of nights. And Sundance could still set me on fire with his hands, his tongue, his whole body. Some days we spent as much time in bed as we did out of bed, and we rose exhausted. Butch never said a word, even in jest, but when we'd been a long time in the tent, I often avoided looking at him. He never did get to Lander that whole winter, because the weather was bad.
Butch and I had no more long talks, for Sundance was always with us, and he was petulantly jealous when Butch and I talked. But there was one night... Sundance had flat out had too much to drink, and he was slurring his words, nodding in his chair.
"I'm goin' bed," he said. "You comin'?"
There would be no passion that night, I knew. "In a minute," I said. "I'll finish cleaning up."
Without another word, Sundance staggered out the door. Sober, he would have insisted I come with him—or planted himself obstinately at the table to wait. But now he went uncomplainingly.
Butch watched him with amusement. "Sundance is okay," he said. "He just hasn't figured himself out." Then, out of nowhere, he said, "You know, Etta, you ought to go back to San Antonio."
"San Antonio?" I echoed in surprise. "To Fannie's? To the life? I would never!"
He shrugged. "Hard for me to say, but it might be better—in the long run—than staying with us. No telling what's gonna happen someday."
"What do you mean?"
"Sundance and me... we could get caught again, we could get killed." He turned and stared at me. "You could end up in jail, Etta... or worse."
"Nothing will happen to any of us," I said with a confidence that covered the tiny nagging fear in the back of my mind.
He stared at some imaginary distance. "Sundance thinks he's always gonna be the one in charge of himself," he said slowly, "just 'cause so far we've been lucky, jumpin' off trains and the like."
"You've both been in jail," I reminded him.
"Yeah," he shook his head, "but not for too long, not in bad places. It can change... something in my bones tells me it will change."
I gave him a swift hug and left for the tent. As I closed the door, I saw Butch pour himself another shot of whiskey.
I lay awake a long while that night. Beside me, Sundance was snoring loudly, but I never touched him. I was busy with my thoughts, examining Butch's grim prediction from all sides. "No," I whispered fiercely, "I won't let it happen. We won't get caught." And then I reached for Sundance, as though the reality of his body would comfort me. But stroke and whisper as I might, he never said more than "Night, Etta."
* * *
Two things broke the monotony of that winter. The first involved the Donaldsons, who lived down the road. All I really knew about them was that Sundance assured me the man was not an outlaw, and once when we rode by their cabin I saw the woman hanging out laundry with four or five stair-step children tugging at her skirts. I remember saying to Sundance, "Better her than me," to which he replied, "No babies, Etta?" and I said firmly, "No babies."
One day in March, when the sun, brighter than usual, almost began to melt the snow, the Donaldsons drove up in their wagon. I was cooking supper and thought it strange, when I looked out the window, that Mrs. Donaldson was driving the horses. Mr. Donaldson was huddled on the seat beside her, holding his left hand, which was wrapped in a cloth. Behind them, the children sat silent and impassive, even though the snow blew in their faces and they must have been near freezing.
"What's wrong?" I was out the door and down the path, oblivious to the cold. Obviously Mr. Donaldson was hurt—in this country, no woman would be driving the horses unless something was wrong with her man.
"Sam's done hurt his hand," she said, jerking her head toward her husband, who sat with his head down, silently cradling his injured hand.
"Come inside," I commanded, turning to yell, "Butch! Sundance!" They were out in the corrals, caring for the horses.
The Donaldsons trooped into the house, and at a motion from their mother, the children silently lined themselves up against one wall. When she said, "Sit," they did.
"Let me see your hand," I said.
Mr. Donaldson peeled off the layers of dirty sheeting to reveal a forefinger swollen to twice its size and black on the tip. His hand was puffy, and red streaks led from the finger toward his wrist.
"What... what happened?" I fought for control, willing myself to quell the nausea that rose in my throat.
"Mashed it with the hammer," he said tersely. "Four days ago. It ain't gettin' any better."
And it's not going to, I thought, praying that Butch and Sundance would come through the door. "Have you put hot packs on it?" That was a suggestion born of desperation—I had no idea whether or not hot packs would help. It was simply a cure—for something—that I'd heard.
Mrs. Donaldson nodded. "Packed it in snow. Then put hot packs on it. Just keeps getting worse 'n' worse." Her look was grim.
"What's goin' on?" Butch burst through the door, then stopped suddenly when he saw Donaldson's outstretched hand. "What'd ya do?"
Donaldson, tight-lipped, repeated the story, and Butch bent closer to examine the finger. Behind him, Sundance peered over his shoulder.
"I can take care of that," Sundance said with a kind of cheerful confidence. "Just give me a minute." He rummaged in some cabinets, got out what appeared to be pieces of sheeting, cleaner than what Donaldson had been using. Then he turned back.
"I've heard all my life that you got to tell if blood poisoning has set in."
Butch was watching Sundance warily, and I, somehow forewarned, backed away from the table where Donaldson sat.
"Thing to do," Sundance went on, "is have the patient put his hand out on wood—table here will do. Just kind of pull that finger apart from the others. Then the patient—that's you, Donaldson—has got to look at the sun. Somehow the rays of the sun go in your body, and if you don't look—but I do—I'll be able to tell if there's blood poisoning. Mrs. Donaldson, you best look at the sun too."
By now I knew that something awful was going to happen, and I couldn't believe that both of them obediently looked out the south window of the cabin, Donaldson even bending his head down a little to get a direct view of the sun.
When Sundance took the cleaver
from the wall—the one I used to cut up small game—I clapped a hand over my mouth just in time to quiet a scream. Butch was silent, but his eyes were wide and unbelieving.
Within a second, it was done. Sundance lopped the finger off below the second joint. Donaldson yelped in pain, then demanded, "What the..." And the children began to wail in fright. Instead of comforting them, Mrs. Donaldson almost curtly ordered them to be quiet, and they, apparently used to such orders, silenced immediately.
"Gangrene," Sundance said calmly. "It was either that or you take about a week to die. You want to quarrel?" He was busy wrapping the sheeting around the stump of finger. "Etta, bring me a needle and thread."
But I had fled the cabin. For one awful moment, when that cleaver descended and the blood spurted, I saw Pa again, saw him lying on the floor bleeding, heard him say "A man has his needs."
The moment passed—Pa disappeared again into the recesses of my mind—and a few minutes in the cold revived me. When I went back inside, Sundance had pulled skin up over the stump of the finger and stitched it. He was pouring whiskey over it as I came in. Then he wrapped the finger again in a piece of clean sheeting.
"Here," Sundance said, holding forth the bottle of whiskey. "Take a good slug of this. Matter of fact, take the whole bottle with you."
We gave them coffee and some com bread left from breakfast, and the children ate ravenously but silently. There was no talk in the cabin. Mr. Donaldson was pretty much stunned, though he managed to mutter, "Thanks to you. I'm obliged." And Mrs. Donaldson just nodded her thanks.
"Get him to Kaycee to the doctor," Sundance said to the woman. "That was just a stopgap. He needs real care. See those streaks running up his hand...?"
Mrs. Donaldson nodded solemnly and motioned for the children to climb into the wagon. I shaded my eyes against the sun shining off the snow and watched them disappear down the road.
"Sundance, we have to go check on them in a day or two," I said as soon as they were gone. "Those children are hungry... and they're too quiet."
