Sundance

by David Fuller

  Etta’s head came around at the sound of her name.

  Hightower caught the motion of her head turning and he could not believe the magnitude of his luck. Longbaugh watched Hightower’s surprised, and then exultant, eyes. Hightower was a prescient genius twice in a matter of seconds. He could not have planned it more perfectly. Longbaugh’s hope of keeping her safe blew up around him. Hightower beamed.

  Hightower’s hand came up and his ecstatic finger pointed her out. Longbaugh reached Etta’s side, arm around her waist, but when he looked back, he had lost Moretti in the crowd. He had to get her out, but which way? Moretti had been right there, how in the hell did he vanish? Which way had he gone? Longbaugh had no plan this time, he was on his own and the ground was crumbling beneath his feet. Standing by his side, although she hadn’t seen Moretti, Etta understood the danger. But she knew her husband in these moments, knew how he was with danger near. She had seen Hightower pointing, so Moretti had to be there . . . and yet they still weren’t moving. Something was wrong, but she knew to trust him. Her breath caught in her throat, she leaned in close, looked at him. His eyes scanned the crowd, but where was Moretti? Then Longbaugh realized he had been scanning the far edge of the crowd, where Hightower was standing—he’d been looking too far away. Had he focused in closer, he would have seen him, because Moretti had come around a cluster of people and was charging from his right, pushing through the crowd, rushing at them, automatic pistol rising in his fist, eyes full of fury and satisfaction, scar pulsing deep blood purple, a human arrow flying at Etta, close, way too close.

  Longbaugh reacted, shielding her, turning his back to Moretti, making his body wide, driving her to the floor so that he could cover every inch of that red dress. He heard her breath go out of her as her back hit the floor. He went for his gun then, twisting to fire, hearing Etta’s voice close in his ear, “Don’t kill anyone.”

  A booming gunshot stunned the air, choked the voices, tripped the band, stopped the music. Spectators went down, dominoes flattening in every direction from the center point of the blast. The ensuing silence brought more fear than the original bang.

  He looked at the gun in his hand and saw he had not fired. He felt nothing—if a bullet had hit him, he didn’t know it, didn’t feel it. He came up on an elbow, met Etta’s gaze. She stared at him, clear-eyed and surprised. She said nothing. He thought she might have been in shock but he saw no pain, no blood, although her dress was that rich deep red. He ran his hands down her, feeling for wetness. Her palm came up to lean against his chest.

  “You hit, you hurt?”

  “No, I—don’t think so.”

  Longbaugh turned, gun firm and steady, keeping his body between Etta and the shooter. He saw him then, Moretti on his knees not twenty feet away. Still dripping rain, a small puddle collecting on the floor. Standing directly behind him was Siringo, smoke leaking out the end of his gun barrel. Moretti was motionless, pistol aimed at Longbaugh, but soft in his fingers. His eyes were dull, fury greeting surprise. Longbaugh saw no blood on Moretti’s shirt, but behind him the puddle pooled red between his legs. Moretti’s arm dropped to his side and he went over onto his face. A bloodstain spread wide across his back already wet with rain.

  The spectators stayed down in a mass cower. A few tentative heads peeked up from the floor. Others outside the room crowded in to get a look at what had happened. The secretary of war’s arms were over his head, elbows protecting his nose. Sydney Fedgit-Spense’s back held up a wall, his hands straight in front of him as if his palms could deflect bullets. The only man on his feet other than Siringo, the only one unmoved, standing there in the middle of the room, was Roosevelt. He rubbed the lens of his glasses and squinted at the scene.

  Cowering, Wisher waved his arms at Siringo. “Whatever you do, don’t shoot the art.”

  Roosevelt smiled and pointed at the Duchamp. “Actually, you can shoot that one.” A couple of spectators on the floor laughed, and their relief and amusement spread as others heard the laughter and still others asked what he’d said, and the joke spread. Teddy’s bravura gave them back their confidence, and they began to help one another to their feet.

  Guards clawed into the room, trying to take over. Now the room was coming back, noise returning as guards tried to understand the moment and fifty people described it all at once. Lillian Wald was calm and poised among them, and the guards felt that and flowed to her out of respect. Her version became the official one, as she brought Siringo over. Siringo spoke to them, offering his gun. Lillian pointed to Moretti and the gun in his hand. The guards took Moretti’s gun and allowed Siringo to keep his.

  Etta looked over. “Hightower.”

  Longbaugh put a hand on her to stay where she was, slipped his gun back against his low back, then rapidly crossed the room through the confusion. Hightower was getting to his feet. He smiled and shrugged, and Longbaugh smiled back as he came on. But Hightower was wise to Longbaugh’s smile and he straightened and tipped his hat, turned, and ran through the crowd as fast as he could, moving quickly for a big, bulky man. Longbaugh stopped and watched him go, and thought it was just as well. He wasn’t sure what he would have done to him if he had caught him, and Etta had said not to kill anyone.

  Wisher crawled to Fedgit-Spense’s side in the confusion, guards running past, police now arriving to sort things out. “Come with me, quickly, before they start asking questions. Fenton’s outside with the automobile.”

  Wisher hurried Fedgit-Spense through the Cubist Room, out the side exit door and into the rain.

  Longbaugh went back to Etta, sitting on the floor. He reached down to help her up. Standing together, her arms snaked around his neck and brought him close. “You didn’t go for your gun.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “You covered me.”

  “I just reacted, I had to be sure you were—”

  “You love me.”

  “Well, yes.”

  She smiled.

  “What’s that got to do with when I pulled my gun?”

  She grinned and kissed him. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.” She indicated the exit door. “They went through there, come.”

  She took his hand and pulled him toward the side exit, past the small groups of people loudly reliving the incident. Longbaugh became aware of something in the side pocket of his coat. He felt it through the fabric, and had a memory of feeling the coins sewn in the underside of his old saddle. Etta turned, saw his expression, and stopped to wait. He dug into his pocket and took out a coin that hadn’t been there earlier, gold, with the profile of Bolívar. Longbaugh looked up quickly and scanned the room, as the drop had happened inside of a moment. His eye caught a familiar shape walking away in the crowd, and he knew him, the same man who’d been waiting with a horse when Longbaugh was outside the courthouse, about to be sentenced. Longbaugh smiled and reflected that his friend had always been a quick and nimble pickpocket. Etta squeezed his hand, and now he went with her to the exit, looking one last time over his shoulder. Then they were out the side door and in the rain. Longbaugh would not see him again.

  They stopped on the sidewalk. Longbaugh glanced and saw the liver chestnut was gone, reclaimed by her owner. Wisher stood just outside the exit, his arm extended, pointing out the automobile down the block near Lexington, guiding his boss to it from a distance as Fedgit-Spense ran, glancing over his shoulder at Wisher’s pointing finger to make sure he was still going toward the right vehicle. Then his driver, Fenton, came out of the automobile and Fedgit-Spense saw him. Once Wisher knew Fedgit-Spense was taken care of, he turned to Etta and stepped in front of her to block her.

  “I think he’s had enough excitement for one night, Mrs. Matthews.”

  “I think he needs to talk to me.”

  “Have a heart, Mrs. Matthews, he disembarked an hour ago.”

  “Making the tales of his ocean voyage fresh on his mind.�
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  Siringo came out the door and Longbaugh met his eyes. Then Longbaugh turned back to watch Fedgit-Spense at the end of the street as he reached his vehicle. The chauffeur, Fenton, opened the motorcar’s back door for his boss. But Longbaugh saw they were not alone out there. A third person—not a chauffeur, as this man was hatless—lurked in the rain. Longbaugh saw his drenched shape on the far side of the motorcar. The man came around and approached Fedgit-Spense. He had been waiting all that time in the weather, allowing himself to be drenched, the fact of which alarmed Longbaugh. That meant that Prophet had had plenty of time to stew. Every moment that passed in the rain would have added to his resentment, as he was out to prove, in his strange, aberrant way, his resilience, his toughness, his willingness to absorb a physical beating from nature to prove his worth. He was demonstrating his will in order to fulfill his destiny. This, Longbaugh understood, was how Prophet perceived the world.

  Longbaugh took a step for the motorcar, but it was so far down the block that he held back, watching, knowing he would never get there in time to stop what was about to happen.

  Wisher saw Longbaugh start past him and turned to look.

  Etta looked as well and immediately understood, as she knew Prophet better than any of them. “Oh, no.”

  Wisher saw Prophet with Fedgit-Spense and his hand went up as he screamed, “Oh no no no!”

  Fenton the chauffeur also saw what was happening, but rather than help his boss, he backed away and ran the opposite direction. Longbaugh knew what Fenton had seen to make him run. Prophet held out his arms and used his soaked body to crowd Sydney Fedgit-Spense into the back of the automobile. He stayed outside, as if guarding the door. A small flame came to light, then went out in the rain. A second flame, protected somehow, stayed lit.

  Seeing this, Longbaugh could not hold back, and he started to run to close the gap between himself and the vehicle, drawing his gun.

  Etta called out to him, but he ignored her. He raised his weapon to fire, with Prophet’s head in his sights, but realized he would be firing on dynamite and at the last moment he held his shot.

  A fizzle of light. Prophet turned to face them all, with fury in his eyes. He had known they were there the entire time. His voice came from far away, yet cut the air through the heavy pounding of rain—

  “ETH-ELLLLLL!”

  —a wail of puerile, tragic want. Prophet dove into the open door of the motorcar on top of Sydney Fedgit-Spense. For a moment all was quiet except for the intense rain, then something flared yellow-red and very bright. In a shard of a second the frame of the windows and roof stood black, straight and precise, obliterated the next instant, the frame stretching, then gone, inside a yellow burst within a giant smoke ball, the first in a series of blasts that accelerated the flames spraying flat across the falling rain, while a simultaneous fireball shot up high to kiss the Armory roof.

  Longbaugh was thrown back on the sidewalk from the pressure of the blast.

  Etta watched, the light from the blast illuminating her face, her mouth set in a hard line, her eyes cold.

  Guards burst out of the side exit and gaped in the rain. Police came down the street from Lexington.

  Longbaugh came back to her side. “I’m sorry.”

  She moved into his arms, but her eyes remained grim. “We’ll never know what he was doing. All we can do is say good-bye and be done with it.”

  “Etta?”

  She turned her face up to his, and her eyes softened. Then her arms went around his waist and she held him tightly.

  Longbaugh looked at the burning motorcar. “I feel sorry for Prophet.”

  “Poor ridiculous Jonah.”

  “He did it for you.”

  “He did it for someone he created in his mind. You did it for me. You’re the one. You fought for me.”

  Longbaugh held her close. In time she would find a way to mourn them both, in her own way.

  She came out of his embrace and her eyes darkened as she looked at Wisher. “But maybe the trail doesn’t end with Fidgy.”

  Wisher was on his knees, blubbering, staring at the automobile burning in the rain, frying the last chunks of his employer. Etta showed him no mercy. “Tell me about his plans, Loney, tell me what he was doing. Do one decent thing in your life and tell me what he had planned, because I know you know.”

  Through stringing snot mixed with pelting rain, Wisher opened his mouth, ready to confess, wanting to come as clean as the rain, and then another small explosion rocked the burning vehicle and startled him, and he swallowed and looked around and realized where he was. His face changed, and he said, “I have no idea. I don’t know what he was doing.”

  “You think it makes you culpable,” said Etta.

  Longbaugh shook his head. “No. Selling the dynamite to Prophet that killed his boss makes him culpable.”

  Horror filled Wisher’s eyes. His hands went to his throat, and he began to retch. He turned and fled down the street toward Lexington Avenue. Longbaugh watched him go, and no one followed him and no one stopped him.

  Siringo pushed off the building against which he had been leaning and took a step toward Longbaugh.

  Etta now saw him up close and realized who he was. “Siringo? Charlie Siringo?” She turned to Longbaugh. “Siringo’s here?”

  “You didn’t see him inside?”

  “You were on top of me and there were a thousand people, and he’s wearing a bowler hat . . . wait, he shot Moretti?”

  “I have some news.”

  “No, you don’t, no more news, we’ve had enough news.”

  “I have to go with him.”

  She angled her suspicious head. “Why?”

  “Under arrest.”

  “No. Not so, this cannot be.” She moved then, right between them and put her arms around Longbaugh as if to hide him, to hug him so tight as to make him disappear, as if she could keep him out of Siringo’s hands by the sheer force of her will. Longbaugh felt her arms under his coat, felt her strength and power, and maybe that was all he was going to get, the memory of the fierce way she held on to him.

  Then he felt her take his Peacemaker.

  His words came as if his shadow were whispering. “Etta, stop—”

  She whirled to face Siringo. Holding the gun expertly in both hands, she pointed it at Siringo’s chest.

  “You may have saved my life, Charlie Siringo, but if you think you’re going to take him away, then you shouldn’t have bothered.”

  Longbaugh watched as if the impossible was happening in front of his eyes. “Etta . . .”

  “He’s mine, Charlie. You can’t have him. I’ve been without him too long. I’ve got him back and you want to take him away, and I just can’t have that.”

  Longbaugh looked at Siringo’s expressionless face, and knew his calm was not good. He looked at Etta holding the gun like that, and knew he had to put a stop to it. Her finger tensed, as if she was about to squeeze, and he stepped in front of the barrel. For a moment he thought he’d made a mistake, that she would be unable to control herself in time. But her trembling hand relaxed and her finger came away from the trigger.

  “You can’t,” he said. “You cannot do this, and you know it. It will make things worse. And anyway, you have your work.”

  She was enraged. “Someone else can take up the cause, because if it’s a decision, then there’s no decision, because I won’t lose you again.”

  Longbaugh moved his hand slowly and his palm surrounded the cylinder and he took the gun out of her hand.

  She faltered in the rain. “Oh, Harry.”

  “I gave my word of honor.”

  “God damn your word of honor.”

  “I know. But that’s why you love me so much.”

  Longbaugh turned, but before he offered the gun to Siringo, he turned back to her.

  “
Say good-bye to me.”

  “No.”

  “Do it. Say good-bye now. You may not get another chance.”

  “I refuse.”

  Longbaugh shook his head, turned, and held the butt end of the gun out to Siringo.

  Siringo looked at it a long moment before he took it in his hands. He held it but did not aim it with deliberation. “There’s a problem here.”

  “No, Charlie, there’s no problem, the deal was for me, and here I am. I know she pointed a gun at you, but you can’t take her in.”

  “If he’s taking you, Harry, he may as well take me.”

  Longbaugh ignored her. “I understand threatening a lawman is serious business, but that wasn’t what happened, that wasn’t what you saw.”

  Siringo showed nothing. “Problem is . . .”

  “A little room here, Charlie.”

  “Problem is, I’ve been looking for Harry Longbaugh, an outlaw of some renown, fellow I knew out West some time ago. I even used to ride with him. Did me a favor once, but I never got the chance to thank him. Heard he might still be alive, despite some international news report of his death. Heard he might have been in prison during that time, and when he got out, some kid came after him. That kid didn’t make it.”

  “A kid?” said Etta. “Oh, Harry, why do they always come after you? Why can’t they leave you alone?”

  Siringo went on. “Thought I’d better check, so I went after him. Followed him out of Wyoming, and on the off chance he’d gone east, I came to New York, spent weeks here convinced he was around.”

  Etta said, “You know he would never kill a kid unless it was self-defense, you know that.”

  “Turns out the rumors were true.”

  “You can’t possibly believe he’s a killer.”

  “Son of a bitch died in Argentina.”

  “You know it wasn’t, wait, what?” She looked from Longbaugh’s face to Siringo’s face. It took a moment, but then a fraction of a smile slipped between her lips. “Bolivia.”

  Siringo looked down at Longbaugh’s Colt Peacemaker. “Probably should have known all along,” said Siringo. Longbaugh looked at the gun as well, then looked over at Etta. He heard the words but seemed incapable of understanding them, as they were making no sense. She seemed to understand, and was doing her best to disguise her smile. She was having a difficult time. Siringo said, “No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want to, certain things are just physically impossible.” Longbaugh looked at him, and because he never in his life expected a break from anyone, it sounded like Siringo was speaking a foreign language.