Sundance

by David Fuller

  Longbaugh did not look away as the man died. The gentleman turned to him, as if he might be next. Longbaugh met his gaze and saw something die in there.

  The woman lurched to her feet, leaving her daughter sitting on the ground wrapped in the blanket. She moved to where their picnic basket had been overturned, picked a red apple off the ground, stood straight, then hurled it as hard as she could directly at Longbaugh. The apple fell short of where he sat on his horse. She continued to glower at him, breathing heavily, hands at her sides, her eyes full of a deep, coarse hatred.

  He turned his horse and rode away from all that.

  3

  Wilhelmina Matthews commanded her front porch like a ship’s captain on a quarterdeck, keeping Joe LeFors standing on the dirt, looking up, two members of his posse posing behind him with rifles. One of his boys rested his foot on a rock so he could lean the buttstock of his rifle on his knee and aim the barrel at heaven. The other held his across the crook of his arms with fingers folded over the magazine.

  “We have no idea, ma’am,” said LeFors, “if it’s your brother-in-law or not. But you’re his nearest relative in these parts.”

  “You brought all these men because you think it’s not him?” said Mina.

  “Only got eighteen, ma’am.”

  “Twenty,” said the man on his right.

  “Twenty, well,” said Mina, “then it’s a fair fight.”

  LeFors and his boys looked at one another, not sure if it had been a joke.

  Mina, her little sister’s name for her, struggled with her emotions, as she was a naturally obedient woman who trusted authority, yet she found these men and their mission distasteful.

  LeFors had the cocksure look of a man with a grand idea, waiting for it to pay dividends. “I could take him alone, ma’am. But I hid all those men in the trees to make sure nobody gets hurt.”

  “How very equitable of you,” said Mina coldly. She tapped her foot in annoyance, caught it, and forced herself to stop. She was unaware that her fingers continued the tapping on her upper arm to the same beat.

  “When does your husband return?”

  “My husband is deceased, Mr. LeFors.”

  “I am grieved to hear it.” He was not. “I wonder if living on a ranch this far outside Denver is safe for a woman on her own.” He leaned in so that she would not miss his meaning.

  She glared at him and he backed up in surprise. She turned away, at which LeFors waved his men back to the trees.

  Mina came in off the porch and shut the front door. Thinking she was alone, she let her body deflate, falling back against the door, hands shaking. She brought them to her face. After a moment, she lowered them, then jumped with a small shriek when she saw him leaning against the wall, in shadow between two windows, out of sight of the outdoor posse.

  “Lord have mercy!” said Mina.

  Longbaugh sensed that something other than LeFors’s presence was upsetting her, but he did not know how to ask her what it was. “Eighteen’s not enough, but twenty makes a fair fight,” he said with a half smile, trying to get on her good side.

  “How did you get in here?” she hissed, as if the posse might be listening.

  “I thought your husband was alive.”

  “He is. In Indiana with his new . . . family.” She struggled for composure. “Care to tell me how you got past all those men?”

  Longbaugh shrugged. “LeFors never was too bright.”

  “He’s a lawman, perhaps you should show him respect.”

  “Something’s wrong, Mina. What is it?”

  “You! You scared me half to death!”

  He knew better than to press her. He was silent a moment, then said, “Where is she?”

  “You are some kind of brazen, sneaking in here like this. But you always did sneak around.” There she was, the old Mina he had expected, the haughty sister-in-law who looked down on him.

  “So you’re back to being Wilhelmina Matthews. No more Mrs. Fallows.”

  She glared at him and he was sorry to have retaliated.

  “Will you at least tell me if she’s all right?” he said.

  “I’d say it’s fortunate that Mr. LeFors told me you might be alive. I would have had you for a ghost. I should call him back in right now.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “That man is a nincompoop, he doesn’t deserve to catch you. But I’d do it, Harry, I’d do it. Only she wouldn’t like it.”

  “Where is she?”

  “New York! Where you sent her!”

  “She’s still there?”

  She crossed her arms. “I do not know.” He thought her anger was forced. She may have disliked him, but once again he guessed she was covering something. He looked around to give her a moment to collect herself. He had always liked this room, large and masculine, heavy wooden furniture, a fireplace made of large stones and walls stained dark brown, although now that her husband was gone, so were the old hunting trophies. The room had been softened by flower and landscape paintings, with doilies under lamps. The foreman would have stayed to handle the ranch for her. He was a good man, and would not have left a woman to try to run it by herself. He didn’t remember the foreman’s name, and he flashed on the moment in Browns Park when he hadn’t remembered the cook’s name, then realized all that had happened only three days before.

  “You were a fool to come here, Harry.”

  “I’ll be gone soon enough. When did you last hear from her?”

  “A year, I suppose. Or two—it’s not safe here.”

  His pulse quickened. “A year or two?”

  “Does that surprise you?” Mina smiled coldly.

  Longbaugh said nothing. She would be pleased to think that her baby sister was out of touch with the man Mina disliked.

  “Fine. Stay and risk yourself. I’d feel sorry for you, except for what they told me.”

  “What did LeFors say?”

  “He said that you killed a boy.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s it, that’s all? No explanation? No justification?”

  Longbaugh said nothing.

  Her voice softened, impressed that he made no excuses. “I’ve never thought of you as a killer, Harry.”

  “I want to find her. If she’s done with me, she needs to say so.”

  Mina watched him in the shadow. “Apparently the newspapers were mistaken about South America.”

  Again he said nothing. Etta had told her early on that he was in prison, but Mina’s response had been so full of I-told-you-sos that Etta had told her nothing more. Mina must have assumed he’d been released. When the newspapers said he was dead, she had no reason not to believe it.

  Mina stared at him a long moment. Then, without warning, she walked into the next room. Through the open door, he watched her search for something. She opened a drawer, and he realized the drawer was full of her sister’s things. He saw Mina pull out and set aside a collection of papers she had saved, work done by Etta’s former pupils. While he was curious as to why Mina had kept them, seeing them again carried him back to an earlier time.

  When he first met Etta, she had been a schoolteacher. He had been impressed by her intelligence, knowing how limited opportunities were for smart women, particularly in the West. He thought back to the day they met. Etta had been astonished by him, this interesting, handsome cowboy who also happened to rob banks and trains. Longbaugh wasn’t astonished in the least. He had known her immediately, believing that he had met the right one. He wondered why she didn’t know it, too. At the time, she had been engaged in a flirtation with a clever young fellow who was a teacher in a nearby town. Longbaugh thought the flirtation irrelevant, as chemistry was chemistry. But he did wonder why, for her, it came down to a choice between men rather than the thunderbolt it had been for him. That lack of perception on her part
was the first warning sign, and he took a mental step back.

  The other man appeared to be the very model of civility and stability, too good to be true, and then he was indeed too good to be true, as she discovered he was married. Even so, young Etta had managed to convince herself that, to be modern, perhaps a married man was what she was supposed to want. Longbaugh considered that a second warning sign, and took another mental step back.

  By now, Longbaugh knew she was too young for him. Chemistry was not enough for him to lose his heart, and the thunderbolt did not saddle him with an emotional obligation. Surveying her with a cool head, he acknowledged issues of timing and age compatibility. He rationalized now, thinking it was a great deal to ask, even of a mature woman, that a female member of polite society might commit to a man whose very name was associated with a life on the outside of that society.

  It was time to get on his horse and ride away fast. He was more than ready to do just that. He knew it was the wise move. And yet, he did not. Something about her potential kept him there.

  But potential could only be fulfilled by time and patience, and that was not in the cards for a man in his occupation. So he pressed the matter and put her to the test, fully expecting her to fail. Recklessly, he took her to visit a bank in a neighboring town, not to rob it, but to show her how he might go about robbing it. He wanted to know her reaction.

  He parked their carriage off the main street. She was appropriately curious and excited as they approached the bank, and seemed to be taking in all the details, as if this was a onetime event and she wanted to be sure to remember it all for her diary. Once inside, bad luck struck immediately, as he was recognized. He showed no panic. But Etta was anxious for him and wanted to get him away. Enjoying her display of nerves, he lingered to watch the whispered news of his identity pass from teller to teller. He was flattered to be recognized, and further flattered to see her impressed by his fame. Finally, he led her to a side door to the hallway that would take them out through the back. But once away from bank employees and customers, she took his hand and pulled him toward the stairs. She wanted to go up. It seemed a questionable move, but he saw something in her eyes. He took a chance and, again recklessly, went along. Armed lawmen burst into the bank through the front, met a roomful of excited wagging fingers pointing out the outlaw’s escape route, rushed out the side door into the hallway, past the stairs, to the rear door, where they came face-to-face with more lawmen.

  Now on the roof, Etta led Longbaugh to the ledge, where it was but a small jump to the roof of the next building. As they leapt together, she jubilantly tossed her hat high in the air. It fell in the exact wrong place, dropping between the buildings all the way to the alley below.

  She looked at her hat two stories down in the dirt, and he heard for the first time that special laugh that he would later learn was just for him. She smoothed her hair, gathered in her mirth, took his arm, and soberly led him down the stairs into the general store. They went out the front door while the owner and his customers were glued to the big window, seeking a glimpse of the famous outlaw who had been recognized in the bank next door. She pulled against his arm to go back for her hat, but people were coming out now and he met her eye with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She immediately understood and went with him the opposite direction, across the street and around the corner to their carriage. No one noticed them ride away.

  Etta was hooked. But so was he. Before they had entered the bank, when he thought she was simply trying to memorize the moment, she was appraising the landscape. She had seen that the roof of the general store was the same height as the bank and the buildings had been built close together. She had formulated an escape plan when he hadn’t imagined they would need one. She was thinking more like the Kid than the Kid. From that moment on, they were together.

  Mina had found the old letters under the student papers in the drawer, and she came back to him with one of the letters in hand. He understood something then. Etta had, rather casually, left those old school papers with her sister years ago. It was Mina who had decided they were precious. They were not precious to Etta, but as a part of her baby sister’s past, Mina cherished them. His heart ached for Mina’s love. He recognized the envelope Mina carried, but was surprised to see it torn open and smudged with fingerprints. He saw the handwriting and recognized that as well.

  Mina looked sadly at the envelope. “This was her last letter. It came two years ago.”

  So Etta had stopped writing Mina as well. It gave him a moment of comfort, until he realized it suggested another possibility.

  “You think Etta’s dead,” said Longbaugh.

  “No one thinks she’s dead, and her name is Ethel!” Her rage was quick and inappropriate, and he knew it had nothing to do with her sister’s nickname. “Despite the Pinkertons writing her name wrong, which you and she thought was so funny!”

  “Tell me now. What’s wrong, Mina?”

  Mina was ashamed of her outburst, ashamed that there was something else, and ashamed that he had seen through her to know it. She shook her head back and forth.

  “Men came. Two years ago. They had this letter.”

  “What men? Who were they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What were they like?”

  “They were like big monkeys in suits,” she said belligerently.

  “Were they local, had you seen them before?”

  “No.” She sagged. “From back East, maybe. They had accents of some sort. They frightened me, Harry. They frightened me and I never heard from Ethel again.”

  Longbaugh looked at the letter in her hands. “Is there anything in there that tells you what it was about?”

  “Do you truly imagine I did not read it carefully? It’s one more in her series of newsy letters.”

  “Did you write her back, did you ask?”

  “All my letters were returned.”

  “All right. All right.”

  They were quiet then, across the room from each other, Longbaugh still in shadow.

  “Are you hungry?” she said, as if remembering her manners.

  “Kind of you.”

  “I’d fix a plate for the Kaiser himself if he was cold and lonely and happened to knock on my door.”

  “I didn’t knock and it’s quite pleasant out there.”

  “You’re here because you’re family.”

  “Thank you.” After her small kindness, he thought to return it. “I don’t know who they were, Mina, but I’ll find out.”

  Mina perused the letter. “She was associated with do-gooders, Henry Street something, it’s somewhere in here, Settlement, Henry Street Settlement. A woman created it, apparently some kind of nurse.”

  “Lillian Wald, and she started it to help immigrants.”

  “Oh. So Ethel wrote you about that as well.”

  He saw the return address on the envelope. There she had written “Etta Place.” Place was Longbaugh’s mother’s maiden name, an alias that provided protection from the authorities. Longbaugh realized Etta had been cruel to use that name on letters to her sister, which meant she was still angry that Mina didn’t approve of him. Etta could hold a grudge.

  “Most of her letters were about the Settlement. I can’t imagine why it meant so much to her. After all, it is in a tenement.” Mina shuddered. “But she did like to shock me. Don’t argue, Harry, it’s not my imagination, she avoided personal feelings when she wrote to me. I suspect she thought I would judge her. But now she may be in trouble.”

  Longbaugh was sorry for Mina’s pain.

  “She loves you,” he said. “You’re her big sister. She doesn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You always had her heart, Harry. I tried to protect her from the bad things she loved, but you had her heart.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “It doesn’t matt
er now.” Mina turned away.

  Longbaugh knew that it did matter.

  “I’m afraid for her,” said Mina. “Maybe this time it’s good that you are who you are, maybe you can do something. I know I can’t.”

  Mina turned back and offered him the letter. Her lower eyelids held back her tears, just the way her sister’s did when she was about to cry, but he had no empathy, as he was greedy to hold Etta’s words in his hands.

  Seeing the smudged, torn envelope up close made something rise in his blood. He knew Mina had not defaced the letter. Someone else had treated it shabbily, and probably not the two men who had come to threaten her. It was as if Etta herself had been violated. He feared for Etta and what the last two years had brought. He turned his attention to the letter itself.

  It was written just after her last letter to him. He brought the pages to his nose and breathed her scent, stronger here than in the letters she had sent him, but he had left those envelopes open too many times. The special hold she had on him returned in a rush of thrill and melancholy, and his cheeks burned. He had a terrible premonition that she was dead, and that if he didn’t preserve her smell in this letter, she would be lost to him forever.

  “Where will you go?” said Mina.

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “Will you find her?”

  He said nothing.

  “Did you actually kill that boy?”

  Again he said nothing.

  She stared at him, somehow knowing there was more to the story than what LeFors had told her.

  “If you didn’t go to South America, why do they say you’re dead?”

  “I used a different name in prison. And I’m guessing Parker went down there with some of the other boys, so they thought it was me.”

  “Parker?”

  “Cassidy. Butch. His real name was Robert Parker.”