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Sundance, Butch and Me

Page 21

by Judy Alter


  "Chicken salad for lunch?" she asked one day and never did understand why Sundance and I collapsed in laughter. Another time she made flan for us; neither Sundance nor Butch had ever eaten it, and Sundance claimed to love it, though Butch said a mouthful was enough for him—too slimy. I laughed at him and without meaning to hurt his feelings.

  "I guess I'm just not sophisticated," he said, pouting.

  For Christmas, Fannie had Hodge put up a cedar tree in the main parlor, and one morning when the girls were still asleep, Sundance, Butch, and I trimmed it with glass ornaments that Fannie had bought special and popcorn strands—Julie popped the corn and made poor Hodge string it. Then we carefully fastened small candleholders onto the tips of the most substantial branches and fitted candles into them, though I warned the men that we could not light them until Christmas Eve—and then we'd have to keep a bucket handy.

  "A bucket? I swear, Etta, you're getting motherly and full of precautions. That tree isn't going to catch fire! I don't want you getting to be an old lady on me." Sundance seemed only to be half joking.

  "A bucket," I said firmly. "Trees catch fire easily."

  The house had been open every night after the night of our arrival, but for Christmas Eve Fannie closed again, and we all gathered around the tree. Carefully, under my supervision, Sundance lit the candles, once asking loudly, "You got your bucket ready, Etta?"

  The new piano player—his name was Joe or Jose or some such—played "Silent Night, Holy Night," and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Sundance knew all the words to all the verses, and I had to try to follow along. I barely knew the first verses, and it made me angry. Knowing all the words seemed to represent a certain kind of polish that I still hadn't achieved.

  Butch stood on the other side of me, singing in a loud and clear baritone, and every once in a while I'd catch him looking at me. Once, when his look seemed ever so tender, I wondered if I was the one woman who could turn him from—or save him from?—Mary Boyd and all the unhappiness she meant to him. The thought made me so uncomfortable that I threw my arm around Sundance's shoulders and sang louder than ever.

  Fannie had presents for all the girls, and for Julie and Hodge. They, in turn, had gotten together to buy her a lovely ice wool shawl in her favorite shade of deep pink. She draped it lavishly around her shoulders and paraded about the parlor in an exaggerated, hip-swinging walk that made the men shout and clap, the girls giggle, and Hodge frown with disapproval.

  Fannie and I exchanged presents privately in her room—at her request. I had little for her, not from a lack of money—Sundance would have been generous. But my imagination was blank—the harder I thought, the more desperate I had become, until at last Sundance had said, almost angrily, "For God's sake, Etta, get her a tin of sweets and forget about it." I found, at a jeweler's in San Antonio, a trinket tray for her dressing table. Of silver, it was oblong, the smooth center surrounded by ornately worked rose blossoms. I had that smooth center engraved simply, "For Fannie, from Etta."

  Fannie's smile told me she was pleased. She looked at the tray, then at me, then back at the tray, holding it at arm's length as though to get a better view—and then she carefully cleared a spot for it on her dressing table. With a grand gesture, she removed the diamond watch-pin she always wore and plunked it down in the middle of the tray.

  "Looks grand, doesn't it?" she asked with a broad smile.

  I nodded. "It does, Fannie. May you have a thousand diamonds to fill it."

  She laughed aloud again. "It's about time, child, you had some diamonds. Here..." Awkwardly she thrust a small box into my hands.

  I fumbled with the ribbon, nervousness making me slow. "Now don't worry, Etta, I haven't mortgaged the place to buy this. It's just something I thought you should have."

  "It" was a magnificent brooch, an intricate working of pearls and tiny diamonds into a pattern of flowers and leaves, with gold vines twining them together. I fingered it and could say nothing. What I at last managed was neither graceful nor appropriate. "How can I wear this in a cabin in Wyoming?" I wailed.

  One of the blessings about Fannie was that she understood. A casual hand plopped itself on my shoulder, and she said slowly, "I guess I give it in the hope you won't always be in the wilds of Wyoming." Then she laughed aloud. "I expect Sundance to take you someplace wonderful someday. You can tell him I said so."

  I did tell him that night, after I showed him the brooch. He admired it duly, but he was blatantly jealous. "I wanted to buy you diamonds," he said, like a little boy who wanted to bring his mother flowers.

  But then, when I told him what Fannie said, he was indignant. "She said that, did she? Well, I'll show her. I'll take you to the grandest places you can imagine, places Fannie Porter has never seen—"

  I put a finger to his lips. "Shh. This isn't a contest between the two of you," I reminded him.

  I had gotten Sundance a gold stickpin—with his money, of course—and he chortled over it, declaring we would dine out the next day so he could sport it. For me, he had a strange gift: a leather-bound book of blank pages.

  He was almost embarrassed. "I know it's not as good as Fannie's brooch," he said, "but... I thought you'd write whatever struck you about your life these days. I don't know... maybe it's a bad idea...."

  "It's a wonderful idea," I told him, and meant it. I wrote my first entry that night, while Sundance snored gently in the bed. Almost without my willing my hand what to write, I began the journal with the story of my father.

  Next morning, Sundance warned severely, "But don't ever let that fall into the wrong hands. Some law officer gets hold of a record of the Wild Bunch..."

  Butch and I also exchanged gifts—scarves! I had picked a plaid woolen scarf for him, and he had chosen a wonderful piece of smoky blue silk for me. Perfect gifts, I thought, to express our feeling of family yet love for each other—or perfect gifts to hide the feelings we each fought. I kissed his cheek soundly, and he blushed but managed to hug me. The hug we shared was just a tad longer than it should have been, but Sundance didn't see.

  Fannie's house resumed business as usual the day after Christmas, and it was busier than I thought I'd ever seen it. But beneath the flurry of daily activity was the planning for New Year's Eve—the biggest night on Fannie's calendar. There would, she told me, be champagne, and oysters on the half shell and fresh shrimp, hurried up on ice from the Gulf Coast, and dainty cakes that Julie was even now baking.

  "Can I help?"

  "No, Etta, you'd just get in the way. Julie and I are used to this."

  "Can I come to the party?"

  She looked long at me. "I guess you're old enough now," she said, smiling, "if you promise to behave."

  "It's Curry you best worry about," I said.

  She laughed—that light, forced tinkle of a laugh. "He's under control... or haven't you noticed?"

  The celebration was not nearly as much fun as I'd thought it would be when I was seventeen and peeking through curtains at the hilarity. Everyone seemed drunk and loud—including Sundance—and the champagne made me hot and sleepy. Sundance could barely drag his attention away from the girls, I thought bitterly. Looking at me rather quickly once, though, he suddenly grabbed my arm.

  "You," he announced, "need fresh air."

  Sleepy and sullen from the champagne, I resisted, pulling away from him. "Just leave me alone," I said haughtily.

  Sundance's only reaction was to laugh. "Sorry, Etta, Sundance knows best." And with that he swooped to pick me up and carry me, kicking and protesting, out the front door.

  "Shhh," he said. "Even on this street, you'll have the police on us if you don't stop yelling at me."

  That quieted me, and the cool air sobered me. It was a cold night, cold for San Antonio, and the air did feel good to me. We stood on the porch, not saying much, watching the early fireworks that shot into the air from the Mexican part of town. After ten minutes, I was wide awake, shivering, and apologetic for my b
ad disposition.

  Sundance tilted my face toward his and murmured, "You're just like most women—can't handle anything stronger than sarsaparilla."

  It wasn't exactly the most romantic thing he'd ever said to me, but I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  "All right," he said, "we can go in now."

  We returned just in time to toast in the New Year—Sundance filled my glass with barely a sip—and to shout loud boasts about what a wonderful year 1898 would be. Little did we know that for us, it would be a year on the run.

  Chapter 18

  Butch came in early one morning waving the San Antonio newspaper and shouting, "Sundance! Sundance, where the hell are you?"

  Sundance was as a matter of fact still in bed, and so was I. We were in the room adjacent to Fannie's, the room that had been mine when I lived there and was now, for the time being, ours.

  Butch pounded on the door. "This country's goin' to war," he shouted.

  "Who they going to fight?" Sundance asked lazily, winking at me. "East against West this time? We'll win."

  "Come on, Sundance, this is serious. Get out here."

  Resignedly, Sundance pulled on his long johns and then a pair of pants. With a kiss for me and a suggestion I put on my wrapper and come see about the fuss, he left.

  I found them in the dining room a few minutes later. Fannie had joined them, and she and Sundance were listening to a wound-up Butch.

  "We can fight for our country," he said, "and that'll erase all the things they think we did. We'll be honorable citizens again."

  Sundance looked at me. "The Spanish, it seems, have blown up one of our ships—the Maine—in Havana." He shook his head. "Just when I'd been thinking Havana might be a good place for us to go."

  "It is a good place," Butch insisted, "to fight."

  Butch kept talking about the sinking of the Maine for days and was only distracted when he received a copy of the Lander newspaper. "Outlaws Kill Rancher." The byline said it was from Vernal, Utah, and we knew immediately that it was Brown's Park, though the best geographical description given was "the base of the Douglas Mountains." Vaguely the article said that a posse had cornered three outlaws and in the gun battle a rancher named Valentine Hoy was killed.

  "Did you know him?" I asked.

  Both men nodded. "He was all right," Butch said. "We stayed clear of him, and he stayed clear of us, and we howdyed when we met in town. No reason to shoot him. It's gonna make things worse than ever up there."

  Fannie rolled her eyes heavenward. "That mean you're staying here forever?"

  I knew she was joking, but Sundance's nerves were too raw with the news from Brown's Park. "We're paying you well, aren't we?"

  "Sundance," I said that night, "we got to go. We can't stay here at Fannie's any longer."

  "You, too?" he asked, and for once there was bitterness, not laughter, in his tone. "We're payin' the old... we're payin' her, and we can stay. We got no place else to go except maybe Fort Worth. We can't go back north, Etta, whether you understand that or not."

  "What I understand," I said, my tone matching his, "is that innocent men are being killed in your place, and you're too damn comfortable in San Antonio to do anything about it."

  "You want me to go up there, wave a white hanky in the air, and say, 'Here I am, boys! Come get me!'?"

  "I want you to act like a man and take some responsibility for a mess you've created," I said angrily. And then, almost spitefully, "Butch's idea about serving your country might not be so bad."

  "They'd hang us before they'd enlist us," he said, his voice now weary instead of bitter.

  "You haven't killed anyone, so they wouldn't hang you. And they might let you enlist instead of serving time."

  "They try to put me in prison, I will have killed someone," he said ominously, "and then they'll hang me. I can see it all happening." He was looking far away, as though watching a scene in the future play itself out.

  Curry was not as cautious as Sundance. He left San Antonio soon after the New Year, impatient, he said, with inactivity.

  "I didn't think you were very inactive," Butch said with a look that was the closest he would ever come to a leer.

  Curry ignored him. "You can stay here all winter, do nothing," he said scornfully. "Me, I got to see what's goin' on up north."

  "You go on back," Butch said quietly, "and see how things are. Spread the word we'll meet in..." He paused to think for a moment. "Steamboat Springs, late March."

  Curry nodded and picked up his blanket roll to head for the door. Sundance's voice stopped him.

  "Curry, you do anything dumb, I swear we'll leave you to hang."

  He was indignant. "I ain't gonna do anything dumb," he protested.

  "Watch your temper, then," Butch said, his voice quieter than Sundance's but still commanding.

  Curry shrugged and left the dining room, where we'd all just finished breakfast.

  Annie had watched Curry with calculating eyes during his speech but said not a word. Later she admitted to anger at his leaving but said, "A whore can't be too demanding, I guess. Maybe he'll be back."

  "And would you go with him, Annie? He's a killer." The words were out of my mouth before I realized that I sounded just like Fannie.

  "You went with Sundance, didn't you? Of course, I'd go north with him if he asked me."

  I wanted to shout, There's a difference! Can't you tell? Sundance and Butch are good men—they just happen to rob banks.

  Curry is a mean, dishonest, untrustworthy... outlaw! It would have done no good, and I kept my peace.

  Fannie and I were in her bedroom late one afternoon, sipping hot tea that Hodge had brought to ward off the chill of a late-season Texas norther. It was early March, almost time for us to head out for Steamboat Springs, and I'd found myself spending more and more time with Fannie lately. I felt a fondness for her—and a gratitude I would never put into words—and I didn't know when, if ever, I'd see her again.

  "Fannie," I asked, "what are you going to do when you leave here?"

  "Leave here?" she squawked indignantly, "I'm not leaving. You are."

  "I know, but someday... when you're, well, too old..."

  "For the life?" She laughed heartily. "Honey, I'm already too old. But I ain't got the sense to quit." Then she sobered, stirring her tea and staring down into the cup as though the leaves would give her a message. "I... I guess I'll go back to Stephenville, have me a little house with a garden and some chickens...."

  "And all the neighborhood children will call you Aunt Fannie and beg you to make them cookies," I said, laughing at the image.

  She was ever so slightly offended. "That just might be, Etta, it just might. What are you going to do?" She turned the tables on me, knowing full well that the reason for my question had less to do with her future than it did with my own. "You gonna follow Sundance forever?"

  I stood up, nearly knocking my cup over, and began to finger the tatted cloth on her dressing table. "Sundance says he won't do this forever... can't. Maybe we'll settle down... in Stephenville," I said with a forced laugh, "and raise our children next door to you, so they'll know their Aunt Fannie."

  "That's not gonna happen and you know it," she said, putting into words what I already knew. "The world's not gonna let Butch and Sundance retire peaceably."

  "I... I heard them talk about South America," I said lamely. "Maybe there...."

  "Maybe," she said, though her tone was full of doubt. Then she put her teacup carefully aside, pushed herself up from the chaise, and came to stand before me. She had to tilt her head up a little to look me square in the eye, but she did, demanding, "Have you ever figured out who you are, Etta Place?"

  "I... I'm an outlaw's woman," I stammered.

  "Balderdash!" she said.

  My eyes avoided hers, and I fought the temptation to leave the room. "I'm... I'm a girl who killed her father and who's still wanted by the Texas law," I said.

  "You sure don't know yoursel
f, Etta Place. How well do you know Butch and Sundance?"

  "Pretty well," I countered angrily. I didn't want to have to tell her that I knew that Sundance would always look out for Sundance, but Butch would look out for me if he had to. Biting my lip hard, I told myself I could look out for myself. Butch would never have to take care of me.

  "You don't want to hear this," Fannie said softly, "but more than you'll ever admit, you're your mother's daughter, who wants to raise babies and cook for them and have that tiny house you talk about in Stephenville."

  I left the room in a hurry, angry that Fannie would see in me that soft side that I tried to hide even from myself. Behind me, Fannie stood shaking her head.

  When I opened the door to the boudoir, we could hear raucous noise coming from the parlor. Fannie rushed by me, and I followed her as she stormed into the room, demanding of no one in particular, "Now what the devil is going on?"

  Sundance and Butch were singing a maudlin rendition of "The Girl I Left Behind," while Annie clapped and cheered, and Joe pounded the piano keys. Sundance had appropriated a large hat with a peacock feather from somewhere and wore it perched on the top of his head, though it twice fell forward over his face. In wild pantomime, he acted the part of the girl left behind—complete with wringing hands and desperate facial expressions—while Butch overplayed the part of the heartless and inconstant lover, though he must have left six times while we watched.

  I wondered that Annie could laugh, for it was clear they were playing with the idea of Curry leaving her behind. But she laughed harder than anyone, and I liked her better for it. I looked at Sundance and thought, By God, someday when you leave me, I'll laugh too.

  "Sundance?" I said, my tone a perfect imitation of Fannie's what-the-hell-is-going-on-here? tone.

 

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