The ten days of travel passed nearly as slowly as waiting for a rope in that Grand Junction cell. Even exhausted and in pain, Etta was never so glad to see the bustle of Manhattan's battery. The trip had been hell, not least because Trotsky had seen fit to visit her every night. He would sit sanctimoniously by her bed and attempt to soothe her with old Georgian folk tales that invariably concluded with the triumph of the peasants and an uplifting moral for the underdog. In return, she had left strict instructions with the purser that under no circumstances were Trotsky or his translator to know the time of her departure or the gangway from which she would exit the ship.
It had been his fear of Sundance that had induced Peg Leg Elliott to meet the vessel. With all the bad luck she brought him, Peg had resolved never to have any more truck with Etta Place. But with Curry dead and Charlie Siringo chained to a desk, the only one who could still make it hot for him was Harry. The telegram that came to McCreedy's had threatened nothing and promised him a fine reward if he would only rent a carriage and retrieve a “friend” of Etta's from the boardinghouse of a Mrs. Taylor. Following this, he was to engage an ambulance and attendants, take them to the ship, and accompany Etta to the hospital. He couldn't figure out why Sundance kept referring to him as comrade, but he knew better than to disobey. Besides, after his cowardice before the Pinkertons, Peg figured this kindness to Miss Etta might square him with the outlaw gods.
As promised, the “friend” was waiting for him on the steps of Mrs. Taylor's. She wore a dark veil and was dressed in a simple suit. During their ride it proved nearly impossible to engage her in conversation. Her hello to him had been a mere nod, and his comments about Etta's health and the current state of the weather had been met with either a terse grunt or dead silence.
When the attendants carried Etta down the gangway to the ambulance, Peg was shocked by her appearance. Her peach and rose complexion had turned pale and sallow and she seemed smaller, as if her tall robust figure had been placed in an oven to shrink. As their eyes met he found he couldn't speak but he still managed a tiny smile of reassurance. Etta returned his gesture with an exhausted wave.
The two attendants made a turn toward their waiting ambulance. Etta gazed up from her gurney to see a veiled face appear beside its door.
Her mysterious friend took her hand.
“Hello, Pretty” said Laura Bullion. “You look like hell.”
Despite her pain, Etta laughed, and while the laughter hurt the words
were reassuring. Truly, there were some things in life that did not change. The worst had to be over now, didn't it? How cruel could a surgeon's
knife be compared with an appendix inflamed by a thousand miles of
waves, railroad ties, and the fiery communist breath of the Father of the
Revolution?
arry Longbaugh imagined that in all the years they had ridden together, he had never seen Butch Cassidy ride the same horse twice.
Many times, of course, Butch had spoken of the need for different mounts for different missions: this horse for courage, that one for speed, stamina, bravery, and so on. In fact, Butch had expounded on the subject so often and at such length that once, in Wichita, Harry had crept into the local livery and replaced his friend's steed of the moment with a seventy-five-pound block of lard. Carefully immersing his friend's new hat exactly halfway into the viscous fat, he attached a note to the crisp still-exposed brim.
It read, simply, What's this horse good for?
Now, as Butch approached from the east, Harry could tell that the animal he rode had been selected for its calm. Small and unremarkable, its loping gait and down-turned head spoke of a disposition placid and reliable, a friend who wouldn't bolt at the first sign of conflict.
As their horses neared each other, Butch saluted Harry and smiled.
“Well,” Harry said. “If it isn't Santiago Maxwell.”
Butch chuckled. Even he was amused by his current alias. “You're going to like this one, H.L.,” he said. “It has everything you like. No violence, easy pickings, lots of money, and a couple capitalist villains to take off, ones you are particularly unfond of. And you don't have to shit where you sleep.”
Harry frowned and held up his hand. “I have two hundred people back at the commune,” Harry said, “and our crop's not in yet. We've had shit weather and poachers snatching our animals. My folk are facing empty bellies. So I'll thank you to skip the guessing game.”
“All right,” Butch said. “You're as much fun as ever. Anyhow, the job's a few days' ride north. Bolivia. And the suckers are Don Alejandro and his big bitch, Tigre.”
Now it was Harry who smiled.
Since the day the commune was founded, no one had resisted its mission more than Don Alejandro Espinoza, a proud and stubborn caballero who had made it his business not only to prevent his campesinos from deserting to Harry's socialist paradise but also to try to kidnap back every poor wretch he believed rightfully his. Three times, the white-haired don had led midnight raids upon the compound, scattering people and livestock that would often take days to recover. Espinoza had even instructed his minions to burn the makeshift schoolhouse, traumatizing the children and causing over twenty terrified families to flee the commune's protection and return to servitude.
But if the master was bad, the servant was worse. Don Alejandro's right hand was a former bandito known throughout Cholio as El Tigre. He was as tall as Ben Kilpatrick, but heavy and blockish, a bank vault in a gold sombrero. It was the Tiger who was usually sent to carry out the strategies of his patrón. He did so with relish, wasting no opportunity to destroy or kill, duties he preferred to carry out with his bare hands. One day in the plaza, Etta had actually witnessed him snap a man's leg with a single pull.
More than once, Harry had attempted to assassinate El Tigre, but the henchman never ventured abroad without a cordon of personal lieutenants supplemented by assorted federales. Reaching the villain on his own ground was nearly impossible. The hacienda of Don Alejandro was a virtual fortress, defended by gun turrets and surrounded by sentries.
“What's the play?”
“It's crackerjack,” Butch said. “A mule train. Tomorrow. Right on the outskirts of Alpoca. In that train is somewheres around eighty thousand pesos, paper and gold. Now, I knew you wouldn't want it if it was payroll for the poor folks of Alejandro's mine. Once we take it, that's what they'll claim it is, because the don hasn't paid a centavo of tax on it. But my informants in the capitol tell me it's all rents: payment from your campesino friends for the hovels and garden plots and shitholes that ol' Al lets them live in.”
“We figure to run into Tigre and the boys?”
“That's what's so beautiful,” Butch said. “Since no one would take it for anything more than a caravan carrying pickaxes and spades and such, it's hardly guarded at all: a couple scared rabbits in sombreros. I even know which mule holds the swag. All we need do is tie up a few citizens, scare holy hell out of the rest, and fetch the mule along. You get enough dinero for your people to make it through growing season; I get enough for a ticket to Texas. And the best part is, we both get to aggravate Alejandro and the Tiger and they'll never even know it was us.”
“Texas? Butch Cassidy go los Estados Unidos?”
“I'm fed up with it here, Harry. At this point, I'm ready to take my chances with Charlie Siringo.”
“Who am I this time?”
“Enrique Brown, anybody asks. Same as you was in Cochabamba.”
Harry nodded and reached down to adjust his bandolero. “Once we're clear, how long before you make it home?”
“No grass under these boots,” Butch said. “One-third for me, two-thirds for them women and babies of yours, and I'll be singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ about as well as I ever did.”
Harry gazed off toward a mountain and sighed. “When you get there, send word to Etta. Tell her I'm well, that we stole this mule, and there's no hurry for her treasure. Find out how she fared with the surgeons and then get hold of me. You
know how.”
Butch grinned. “No big kiss? No I love you, dear darling? No my heart withers here like a parch-ed cactus?”
Harry turned his dark stare toward his partner. “Which mule?”
“Second row, left side. Black nose and ears.”
The Sundance Kid spurred his horse west toward Alpoca. His partner pulled alongside. Butch laughed at the darkness in Harry's face but soon, and for reasons he could not name, turned quiet himself. At a heart-shaped rock, they turned to the north and broke into a trot. Before long, they were engulfed in dust, galloping toward the easiest pickings of their lives.
From
EL DIARIO
La Paz, Bolivia, March 25, 1909
(translated from the Spanish)
YANKEE BANDITS KILLED AFTER MINE ROBBERY
AMERICANS TAKE LIVES OF FEDERAL SOLDIER, CIVILIAN IN DEADLY SIEGE
STOLEN MULE LEADS TO FIREFIGHT AND DEATH OF ROBBERS!
A stolen mule led to the pursuit and subsequent deaths of two American bandits who had attempted to escape from federal troops after the holdup of a mine caravan near Alpoca on Wednesday.
The activities of the two gunmen have plagued the southwestern part of the country for over two years. According to the mine's owner, the pair successfully robbed the mine's payroll from a mule train en route to Tupiza and made off with over 80,000 pesos in cash and gold.
The two men also stole a silver-gray mule from the train. At around three in the afternoon, the robbers arrived in the barrio of San Vicente, 15 miles west of the holdup scene. Señor Cruz Alvarez de Alonso, the owner of the local hotel, recognized the mule as belonging to the mining company and, seeing it without its rightful owner, suspected it had been stolen. While the gringos ate in his restaurant, Señor Alvarez rode to find a federal cavalry company who were encamped 10 miles east of La Paz.
When the federales arrived in Tupiza, they confronted the desperadoes, who were found smoking cigars on the patio of the hotel. It was then that one of them, a tall dark-haired fellow with a black mustache, shot and killed a large hulking man who was later said to work for the mine's owner. At the same time, his smaller fair-haired companion fixed at a soldier. Witnesses said the soldier spun around and fell dead in the dust.
Thus began a siege that lasted from late afternoon until far into the night. Soldiers surrounded the patio, keeping up a nearly continuous volume of fire. Others of their comrades threw brushwood torches into the hotel's yard, attempting to smoke the bandits out.
At about eight in the evening, his ammunition running low, the tall dark man made for two Winchester rifles that lay just across the patio area. As he picked them up and dashed back toward his partner, he was shot several times and killed instantly. His friend apparently used the last of his bullets to end his own life. At dawn, the soldiers found his lifeless body slumped behind a barricade of chairs and tables.
Mr. James K. Hutcheon of the Aramayo Transport Company identified the two as Enrique Brown and Santiago Maxwell. Hutcheon said they had worked for him as foremen of his wagon train. He added that they were fine responsible employees who always performed their tasks well. He noted that Maxwell especially was always available to aid fellow workers with moral support and even loans of money.
The bodies of the bandits will be on display at the Plaza de Tupiza until four o'clock tomorrow. General José Carlos de Ochoa said that he hopes the public sight of the decomposing Americans will serve as a lesson to any and all criminals operating in the region, especially foreigners.
From the
JOURNAL OF LORINDA REESE JAMESON
2 May 1909
Denver, Colorado
Diary,
It astonishes me how little Colorado changes. It is as rocky and mountainous and dusty as I recall, and I love it as well as ever. I thank God for this consistency. It brings comfort to me when all else in my life has changed.
My dear brave outlaw, my protector and champion, is dead, fallen to federal guns in Bolivia. He risked his life on one last robbery so he might maintain his dream of a land of equals in a place where one soul may still own another and where a child's very bread can be taken from his mouth by the whim of another's avarice.
Ever since that day, my life has been a contest with despair. I have been unable to sit or stand, read or eat. Once I received the news of his death and that of our dear Butch Cassidy, I have wanted only to ride: to mount a horse and ride and never stop, to ride that animal to death and mount the next one and the next and gallop into infinity until every horse in the world was gone and I had become a ghost.
Had I still been in the outlaw lands perhaps I could approach such a fantasy. But in New York City all I could manage was to hire whatever poor mount was available in the stables of Central Park and walk him along its winding trails, incautious of policemen and heedless of capture. Thus isolated, I did not have to explain my tears to anyone. Horses don't evince concern, and women cry enough as it is.
But this is hardly the worst of it. Sometimes I believe the only thing that can equal my yearning for Harry Longbaugh is my anger at him: that he should be shot down under a stupid alias like Enrique Brown in the course of a routine robbery. I am livid that he had so little patience and faith in me that he could not wait until I recovered and returned with the money to keep his precious commune alive.
Then, in the midst of my wrath, I will spy his photograph, the double portrait taken of us by Mr. Stieglitz, a lifetime ago. I will beg forgiveness from his rough spirit and vow to continue his work, using my purloined treasure to bring justice to the meek as he would have wished.
My plan now is to find among the rich those few who see how the greed of their class is destroying the country that allowed them to prosper. Etta Place, as much as I have loved her, is fast becoming an obstacle to those plans. My next role will need to be far more conventional and genteel if I am to rob these fat marks in such a way as to benefit others. And who better to play this new part than one who was raised for the role? I can pour tea in the proper way and speak to these worthies in sentences perfumed with the subtleties of our class. My weapon now will be the tongue, not the gun, and the beneficiaries will be not some ragtag bandits, but the starving of the slums.
Still, here in Colorado, my mission was plain and crass: I had come to locate my treasure and retrieve it. If only I were in better condition to do so. Barely two weeks out of hospital, I truly looked as terrible as I felt. My waist had dwindled to a kindling stick, my eyes were sunken in pits of gray, my clothing swam on me as I rode these lonely trails, and I nearly swooned with the weakness besetting my limbs.
Oh, how I wished for the strength and stamina of Bellerophon on this ride! My rented horse was as pokey as molasses, and there were moments when I thought I would never reach my hiding place.
And had it not been for the assistance of my beloved Hantaywee I might have been proven right.
She was a sight I shall never forget. Seated atop a magnificent red and white paint, her hair flew in the wind like a flock of blackbirds. Her garments were no longer rags but the raiment of a woman of status and privilege. Her dress was of white buckskin, fringed at the arms and shoulders, each tendril terminating at a single red jewel. Girding her neck and waist was a network of small beads in half a dozen shapes, forming a myriad of sacred patterns: crimson, turquoise, and the yellow of new corn. Beneath the dress she wore fringed trousers, and on her tiny feet were moccasins of the same white hide, each toe decorated with beaded flowers in what seemed a hundred colors.
At her first sight of me, she galloped forward. Her hair and fringes and feathers took the wind and she became a vision from a savage dream: a warrior woman, stunning and unstoppable. Could this really be the pathetic Little Snake my brave Harry had rescued from that devil Curry, the mute victim who could be comforted only by lullabies intended for the most helpless of infants?
Still, this was not the end of my amazements. As Hantaywee halted her pony she smiled and called out to me. “Hello,
Wiwastelca! Is Hantaywee, your daughter! Hello! Hello!”
I replied in kind and, dismounting, we embraced. It was only then I noticed the small bulge beneath the dress and realized that my little friend and the good Dave Atkins had been busy at their marriage.
Her smile broadening, Hantaywee took my hand and placed it on her belly. We laughed and wept. “Wiwastelca,” she cried. “I am soon mother, Mother so you are grandmother!”
I begged her to slow down so I could follow. And then I tried to pronounce her new name for me and failed. I soon learned that in the Lakota language “Wiwastelca” means “beautiful woman.” People had been kind enough to call me this before, but never had I felt so highly complimented. Then, in a stream of broken words, Hantaywee informed me that she and Dave were married a moon after they left Hole-in-the-Wall (by whom I couldn't imagine). They had taken her fry-bread recipes to El Paso and now employed people numbering the fingers on both her hands in the preparation and delivery of her trademark delicacies. Soon they were to open what I could only surmise was a restaurant. The baby would be born with the snow.
This was the happiest I had been in many months. Happy in a way I thought I could never be again. A new life would soon begin that would never have seen the light of this world had it not been for my beloved and his rescue of a wretched slave. For a moment, I dared to think of the child growing inside her as not only hers and Dave's but in some way mine and Harry's, and that single thought became the first beacon to pierce the darkness that had enveloped me.
I told Hantaywee that the little man who had caused her so much pain was dead, his spirit gone to the white man's hell. He could never find her or hurt her again. Then I could feel my new happiness fade as I informed her of the death of Sundance, the one who had rescued her and loved me. Now it was her turn to give comfort, and she held me close for a long time.
At length, business intruded. I wiped my eyes and said we must now search for the money I had secreted in this place; without it many would go hungry, but if it could be found, children would eat and learn and honor the memory of Harry Longbaugh.
Etta: A Novel Page 26
