by David Fuller
He returned to Manhattan. He felt none of the elation he had experienced when he learned Etta had survived the Triangle fire. He did not know where to file his personal responsibility for E’s death. He did not even know her name.
The lonely darkness remained with him, despite the fact that it had not been Etta.
He was not ready to confront Hightower. He didn’t know if he could control himself. He walked, not aware of how far he had already walked that day, not noticing the ache in his side or the blisters on his feet. He did not know how long he walked before he came upon a bar with a name that caused him to stop. After he read and reread the sign to be sure he was not mistaken, he came very close to smiling. Here was an astounding coincidence. He entered the place as if it was a beacon from his past as well as an invitation to drown his immediate future. The name had meaning only to him, as it had likely been intended to celebrate the obscurity of the location. He was surprised to find it clean and modern. He sat alone at a table in the back, as far from the other patrons as possible. The first glass of liquor did not dull his brain as quickly as he hoped, and he ordered a second and waited for senselessness.
A man came in and sat at the next table in the chair directly behind Longbaugh. Longbaugh paid him no mind. He was in the grip of whiskey by then, and although the man had a familiar look, Longbaugh did not at that moment fully trust his instincts. He also did not trust his ears when the man said, “Hello, Harry.”
The voice was familiar, too familiar to be real. He considered, ran it through his aural memory, and chose to ignore it.
“Harry,” the man said again, and this time Longbaugh turned in his seat to look over his shoulder.
“Of course,” said Longbaugh when he recognized him. He laughed softly, shaking his head in wonder. The darkness lifted.
“I thought you’d get around to coming here once you saw the name,” said the man who had called him Harry.
“It was pure dumb luck that I found it. Wait, you didn’t name it yourself, did you? Do you own this place, the new Hole in the Wall? Just like you to thumb it at them.”
“I don’t do that anymore. I dumb-lucked into it just like you. Started coming here the last few months. Had half an eye out for you. Thought you might wander in.”
“Slow down, how’d you even know I’d come east?” Longbaugh turned his chair so they were sitting side by side, looking out at the room.
“Didn’t. Not saying I expected you, I just imagined it so often that I started to believe it. Then I was on the street and overheard two geniuses trying to outscare each other about some ghost they’d seen, said he had a fast gun and deliberate manner—probably not their exact words—one body, one bullet, and cool as rain in the Rockies. I knew it could only be you. Not a more obvious signature if you’d autographed their ears.”
“You being the one guy who knew I wasn’t dead.”
“The very one.”
“So all this time I’ve wondered, who the hell did they shoot down there?”
“You mean if it wasn’t us.”
Longbaugh grinned. “Yeah, if it wasn’t us.”
“You didn’t know ’em. Coupla prairie dogs in the wrong country in the wrong decade, wasn’t worth the lead to bring ’em down. Although it worked out all right for you and me.”
“Were they playacting, trying to be us?” Longbaugh was remembering Sandy the cook and his friend John.
“Nope. Just a couple of bank-robbing fools from Oklahoma. The locals heard we were in country, so if an American picked his nose, it had to be us. They’re romantic that way.”
Longbaugh shook his head, grinning idiotically at his friend. “Robert Leroy Parker.”
Parker grinned back. “Harry Alonzo Longbaugh. When’s the last time we saw each other?”
“Union Pacific to Salt Lake City. Sorry, on top of a Union Pacific Pullman parlor car on the way to Salt Lake City.”
“It was after that.”
“No, they had me after that.”
“You gave yourself up, they didn’t have you. And it was while you were being transferred to the courthouse.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“There was a moment it was just you and a deputy. I had a mount ready. Why didn’t you slip the cuffs?”
“Same reason I let them take me.”
Parker waited.
“The whole thing was a crap run of luck,” said Longbaugh. “I was coming back to Etta, turned the horse in at the livery, I didn’t notice the blanket slide off the Union Pacific money bag, and these boys rode in and saw it. Turned out they were with the posse that had just given up on us. Suddenly there were a cool dozen of them looking at the bag and looking at me.”
Parker shook his head. “Crap luck, all right.”
“I could see Etta in the big window of the hotel, and she knew. Was about to make a fuss, so I gave myself up.”
“They didn’t recognize you? Just saw the bag?”
Longbaugh shrugged. “Gave them a false name.”
“And you didn’t mention me.”
“Never came up.”
“They never found out your real name?”
“Never bothered to check. And none of the old lawmen were there to tell them different. Booked me under Alonzo, tried me under Alonzo, and wrote it down in the ledger at Rawlins. Rawlins was brand new that year, they were busy getting the place up and running, and bringing all the prisoners over from Laramie. Nobody looked at me twice, I was caught in the shuffle. Bureaucracy can be your friend.”
Parker was amazed. “You did it to protect her.”
“Long as they didn’t know me, they couldn’t know about her.”
“Newspapers kept reporting that we were still riding together. Couldn’t figure out where they got that.”
“They’re romantic that way.”
Parker thumped the table with his fist in amusement. He took a swallow from his glass.
Parker turned contemplative. “It changed after that. Got harder. Railroads got madder, went after the gang like they meant it. Got so frustrated, I came up with a crackpot theory about running to South America. Pretty soon it got so bad, it didn’t seem so crackpot anymore.”
“So you really went down there.”
“And was living a perfectly respectable life.”
“I am interested in your definition of ‘respectable.’”
“I swear, Harry, I was on my best behavior. Then word came we were dead. Now that was interesting. I figured they might stop looking for us, long as I didn’t happen to lift my skirt in front of them. Seemed like a pretty good time to leave South America.”
“I love it when you lift your skirt.”
“But before I left I went and visited the town where we died. Now, that’s a thing to do. The whole time I felt like a wandering spirit. Seemed like my head was floating a couple feet over my body, like no one could see me. Hard to explain.”
Not so hard, thought Longbaugh, remembering how it had been in prison when he had heard of his own death. And Parker’s.
“You know they bury people on top of each other down there?” said Parker.
“Cozy.”
“Left a clue or two to convince any official snoop that it really had been us. Then, good-bye, Bolivia.”
“I still say you were the smart one, Parker.”
“Smart like being back in the Hole in the Wall Saloon with you?”
“Point taken.”
“We were lucky, of course.”
“Were we? How so?”
“Dying in South America. That’s a long way. No one to prove it wasn’t so.”
“Although there are those who know.”
“A handful. And they’re not sure.”
“Oh, did I mention? Siringo’s in town.”
Parker’s entire body tensed. “
You did not. Does he know we’re alive?”
“He knows I am.”
“Why’s he here?”
“Looking for me.”
“A handful and one. Funny way to keep a low profile, Harry.”
“Not for lack of trying. And you can relax, Bobby, he’s not waiting outside.”
Parker snorted, but he did slacken his shoulders. “Why’s he want you? Didn’t you do your time?”
“Twelve years. Got out and some kid was waiting.”
“Oh. That.”
“That.”
“There are benefits to being dead. No one wants to prove anything over your corpse.”
“Tell that to the kid.”
A pause slipped into their conversation, although neither man showed any inclination to leave. They continued to sit side by side, but both of them angled their chairs so only the hind legs were on the floor and their backs were against the wall behind them.
“Sure are a lot of people inventing us since we died.”
Parker nodded. “No shit.”
“Ever find it hard to be someone else?”
“Nah. I like it, it’s good for me.” Parker drummed his fingers on the wall behind him. “The gang got to be too big a responsibility once the law got close. You?”
“Can’t seem to get out of my own way.”
Parker was matter-of-fact. “Because you got something special. That limits you.”
“How you figure?”
“Fastest gun I ever saw. Like having a tail or wings, something you can’t hide.”
“I’m not that fast.”
“Pretty fast.”
“I keep telling you, it’s about patience, nobody knows how to shoot.”
Parker laughed. “You do keep telling me.”
“And they come after me.”
“You always say that, too. But you never back off or go halfway. Too much pride, Kid. It limits you. Oh, I don’t blame you. If I was that good, I’d be the same way. And now you’re the Ghost, got a whole new myth around your neck, like a nervous noose.”
“You find that funny.”
“I do, a little. But that’s you, like it or not. People always tell you who they are, all you have to do is listen.”
“What if I told you I want to be anonymous?”
“I’d say you can’t help it. You may want to be anonymous but you’re a legend all over again. Can’t escape your nature, Kid. Now, me, I got nothing special. I wasn’t fast or handsome. I’m getting good at being somebody else.”
Parker stood up then and went to the bar, returning a minute later with a full bottle. This time he sat at Longbaugh’s table across from him, filled their glasses, and set the bottle in front of his friend.
“Nice to talk,” said Parker.
“Same.”
Parker looked off, as if it had been awkward to make such a personal admission, and now he had to somehow pretend he hadn’t done it.
“So how’s Etta?”
“Haven’t seen her.”
“How’s that?”
Longbaugh inspected the bottle. “Is this Kentucky or Tennessee?”
“You two split?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
Parker shook his head in amazement. “Well, if that isn’t the most asinine thing. She was devoted to you, Harry. How do you not know where she is?”
“I didn’t want her waiting around Wyoming.”
“So, what, you sent her to New York?”
“Actually, yes.”
“She get lost?”
“Stopped writing.”
Parker was contemplative. “Something of a surprise.”
“That she stopped writing? I’d say it was.”
“Not that. You. Sending her away. Pretty damn gracious of you.”
“What, I’m not gracious?”
“One of the most gracious sons of bitches I know, but this is about Etta.”
“I’m not gracious about Etta?” He didn’t know whether to be angry or amused.
“Took guts on your part. No offense, Harry, but I always thought you liked her being your little girl.”
“Well, my little girl found a little mischief.”
The light went on for Parker. “You’re looking for her, which is why you’re still in town, which is why you’re not running from Siringo.”
“I am running from Siringo. I just happen to be running right in front of him.”
Longbaugh saw Parker was about to say more, then saw him swallow his words. Longbaugh couldn’t face telling him the full story. It made him weak inside, having lost her, weaker still being unable to find her. And the story itself was complex and unfinished, so he had yet to discern its shape. But in life, stories are always defined after the fact. Longbaugh was unprepared to revisit the many roads he had taken, as he himself wasn’t sure which of the offshoots could still prove important.
Parker’s expression changed to one of curiosity. “You remember how you let Siringo go?”
“I didn’t let him go, you let him go.”
“That’s a technicality. I had him boxed in. And I was mad enough to kill him.”
“I remember.”
“He wouldn’t be here now if I had. You see where I’m going? It was because of you. Logan told me Charles Carter was Charlie Siringo, and you said no. You said you’d met Siringo years before and Carter wasn’t him. So I let him go.”
“That sounds about right.”
“But it was Siringo. And I still don’t see why you did it.”
Longbaugh scratched his chin and shrugged. “Well, for one thing, I liked him. And second, you’re not a murderer.”
Parker was quiet for a while then, thinking all of it through. He pulled a gold coin out of his coat pocket and ran it back and forth along his fingers like a magician. Twice he almost spoke up, but each time he went back into his own head, running it around, remembering those days and what they meant to him now. Longbaugh noticed the coin was a boliviano, with a man’s profile. He tried to think of the name of the hero of the country, then felt stupid as he remembered the country was called Bolivia, so the man was Simón Bolívar.
Longbaugh was thinking about things as well, and when he thought Parker had had enough time to forgive him and let go of his frustration, he looked at him ruefully. “My little girl. Funny way to put it. You really think that’s how I saw her?”
Parker was tactful. “Maybe not.”
Longbaugh poured again, overfilling the glasses, as if he didn’t want to leave any behind, but there was still plenty left in the bottle.
Longbaugh shook his head grimly. “Once you’ve been with someone a while, you get an idea of how people see the two of you together.”
“Go on, you two were close . . .”
“Funny to find out how people actually see you.”
Parker waved that off. “Quit that.”
“You’re not so much a couple, really. Just two different humans sharing time together. When it comes to knowing what’s in someone’s heart, you’re only guessing.”
“Brother, we don’t know what’s in our own hearts.”
“Makes you wonder what it is keeps folks together. Maybe our women stay with us because they’re flattered by how we see them, as if it’s how they like to see themselves. But I guess that’s just another guess.”
Parker kept trying to shift his friend’s mood. “Or maybe they like us for reasons we can’t understand. Lord forbid if I ever understood what any woman ever saw in me.”
Longbaugh finally caught Parker’s tone and forced himself to lighten up. “You’re the original mystery, Butch.”
Parker tried to end it, by being sincere and supportive. “Just because people change doesn’t mean she’s changed about you.”
Longbaugh’
s face clouded over. “Hard to know anything when you’re surrounded by silence.”
Parker stayed quiet this time, recognizing his mistake. He absently toyed with the gold coin a while. When he spoke again, he had moved on. He talked about old friends, droning on in monologue. Parker knew who in the gang had lived, who was in jail, who had tried to go straight.
“Too bad we have to stay dead,” said Parker. “The West has this city by the balls. We could make some serious money. Look what they’ve done with our stories. Would’ve taken an extra forty years to do all those things they said we did. They make us out to be heroes. It’s like they need us to teach them how to be men.”
“I thought the Wobblies were doing that.”
“That’s it, they are! You got it exactly. And that’s the West. Big Bill Haywood’s from Utah, you think that Stetson’s a costume?”
“I read one of those dime novels about us.”
“I bet you died in a foreign land.”
“Heroically.”
“Manly guns blazing.”
“Truth is, I don’t miss the West.”
“Why would you, they threw you in the clink. But that wasn’t really the fault of the West, was it? That was the big eastern railroads.”
Longbaugh grinned. “You blame everything on the railroads.”
“Bet your ass I do. They came after us, they hurt my feelings. But we got their attention. Made our own myth, robbed them blind, took back part of what they’d stolen from everyone else.”
“Give up, Parker, we weren’t Robin Hoods.”
“Easterners don’t know that. They’ll believe anything you say happened on that side of the Mississippi. Riddle me this, who was the bigger thief, the railroads or us?”
“You could rationalize an earthquake.”
“Which is a damn valuable skill to have. The railroads stole with both hands, and the government let ’em do it. Just as long as they connected the oceans.”
“Didn’t stop them from coming after us.”
“Proving they’re greedy bastards. Couldn’t even share with a couple of nice fellows like us.”
Longbaugh grinned. “You do go on.”
Neither of them reached for the bottle again. Whiskey still beckoned from their glasses, but they were done. The bar was empty of other customers, and the bartender was asleep on a stool, leaning back against a shelf. The thin, gray dawn brought an even light to the front window, slowly seeming to dim the electric bulbs.
