Maude March on the Run!

by Audrey Couloumbis

  “It's the things a man does not take into account that trip him up,” he said.

  “We need to think it through,” I said to him. “How many lawmen do you figure we have to overcome?”

  “We,” Marion said firmly, “are not overcoming anybody. Don't mess with me over this, Sallie.”

  “Do you want a molasses cookie?” I asked him, and held out the sack.

  “Believe I will,” he said.

  “A boy can go nearly anywhere and never be noticed,” I said as he took two cookies. “That's more than a man can get away with.”

  I took only one cookie, thinking to save the others for Maude.

  “What do you have in mind?” Marion said.

  “I can stand outside looking in, and nobody would think anything of it.” He chewed thoughtfully through one cookie, and then he told me what I was to look for.

  I handed him the reins to Maude's horse.

  A few minutes later, I rode past the jailhouse. I took my time, noticing an alley between the jail and the next building. No gates I could see.

  There were brass lamps hanging from the ceiling on the first floor of the jailhouse, but the windows were cloudy. Dirty, most likely. I got off my horse and put my face right against one.

  I spotted a back door. More than anything else, I saw this was just any old day to them around the desk. Others of us were having our lives ruined at their hands; they could at least put their games aside.

  I rode back to Marion. I said, “There's an alleyway and a back door. I saw four on duty.”

  “I can handle four,” he said, “if I can get the drop on them.”

  “I could get the drop on them,” I said. “They were playing cards.”

  TEN

  Y“OU WAIT HERE,” HE SAID TO ME, TAKING MY SHOTGUN.

  “That doesn't seem like the right kind of weaponry to face down four pistols.”

  “It'll pepper them all if I have to let a shot go at close range,” he said. “I'm counting on it none of them will want to catch a pellet.”

  “The fellow that had his back to the window faces the door you're going to use,” I said. “He would be the one to watch out for.” Behind these words, I was making up my mind to a thing or two.

  It was what Uncle Arlen had said exactly: Once a man has saved your life, he's family. “Tell me the truth,” I said to Marion. “Are me and Maude going to be orphans again?”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he told me.

  He rode away looking to me like a man who intended to live through something, which was as much as I could ask of him. Like I was feeling for a good-luck piece, I checked that Uncle Arlen's map was deep in my pocket.

  When I was fair to certain I wouldn't run right into the back of Marion, I squared my shoulders and headed for the jailhouse. As luck would have it, I rode up just as Maude came to the window.

  In the dark, I saw her shape only, with a pale light behind her. But it looked to me like she set her hands against the window sudden like.

  I tied our horses to a rail and tightened the cinches on both saddles. Doing this, I realized how hard I was shaking. Even my horse had the jitters.

  Not Maude's. That animal looked relaxed enough to fall asleep right there in the middle of the street. I wished some of that calm would rub off on me and my horse.

  I looked back up at the window for a long minute and then made a motion with my arm like I was swiping at bugs in the air. But I pointed my finger, trying to make Maude know she would have to take her own horse and ride off that way.

  I startled at what I guessed to be Marion's shadow slipping into that alleyway—I thought he would've been back of the jailhouse already. It wouldn't do for him to bust in without I had at least tried to provide some distraction.

  A great howling rose up in me and I let it loose. I twisted the doorknob and nearly fell inside, making a noise to raise the dead. The deputy with his back to the door turned to me. “Here now,” he said.

  The other two deputies got up, laying down their cards, and the sheriff himself pulled me more into the center of things. I let out more of a wail than I meant to.

  The first deputy said, “Is he bleeding anywheres?”

  The back door flew open and hit the wall. It was like a gunshot, the way that noise stopped my breath.

  Marion stepped inside, his hands in the air.

  No shotgun. It might could've been a trick of his own but for the look on his face that said he had fumbled again.

  My heart went out to him. I'd learned there was more to being a hero than the glory parts. The glory parts wore a little tarnish if you looked real close. It didn't make the hero any less of one.

  Another fellow came behind him, short and tough-looking. I recognized him right away for the smarter one of those boat rats from George Ray's.

  The other two stepped in behind that one, bigger rats, with guns and rifles pointing every which way. Those fellows were armed like porcupines.

  The law stood quiet, expectant.

  Even I went quiet.

  The sheriff's hand drifted toward his gun belt. “Hands up! Hold 'em high,” the little rat shouted. At the same time, another rat's rifle swiveled in our direction.

  I screamed.

  He didn't shoot but kept that dark eye trained on us. The sheriff stood undecided, his hand half on the draw.

  Upstairs, someone pounded on a door.

  That weakened the sheriff's already wavering resolve.

  “Ain't nobody going to get hurt if you don't do nothing stupid,” the little rat said. He looked ready to use his gun. He looked dead serious. With a nod, he sent one of the standing deputies back to his chair.

  Motioned to him to hold his arms higher.

  Another prisoner started thumping, and in the next moment everybody up there started a-banging on the doors. The fellow pointing a gun at us said, “Let's get on with this.”

  The little rat poked Marion hard in the back. “Collect their guns one at a time. Hold each of them by the barrel, and keep it up where I can see. Drop them in that there waste can real easy like. We wouldn't want one to go off by accident.”

  Marion did exactly that, and all the while the pounding didn't stop. It got louder and more measured, like some of them were switching from fists to boot heels.

  Meanwhile, the little rat kept a sharp lookout for trouble; his gun moved to point at the next fellow in line for Marion's attention. As the last gun dropped into the bucket with a clatter, he said, “Good game, boys?” and swept the playing cards to the floor with his gun.

  It did my heart good to see that.

  The last rat snatched the key ring off a hook and said, “Where are you holding Black Hankie, poor innercent that he is?”

  This fellow flicked an angry glance around the room, and I made good use of his attention when it landed on me. I still had one hand to my chest, and I pointed straight to where I had no doubt Maude stood behind a locked door, right above us.

  The rat headed on upstairs, the keys jangling all the way. The little rat shouted to him, “Let them all out.”

  “You can't do that,” the sheriff said. “We've got Mad Maude up there.”

  The gun-pointing-at-us rat grinned. “Maybe you'll just chase her instead of Hankie, once we're all out of here.”

  “We'll chase Hankie,” one of the sitting deputies said in deep tones. “He's due to hang, and we wouldn't want him to miss the fun.”

  A kind of chill ran through me, making my teeth chatter. The little rat banged him on the ear with the butt of his rifle, and the deputy yowled with pain.

  With one foot, Marion scooted that bucket toward the back door. “Check their boots,” the little rat said. “Make sure there's no guns hidden there.”

  “Take them off,” Marion said, giving one of the lawmen a kick at the ankle. “Boots and britches, let's have them.”

  “Well, I won't—” the sheriff said.

  But the little rat raised the butt of his rifle again. “Yo
u heard him,” he said to the sheriff. Everybody wearing a star began to tug at their boots. To Marion, the little rat said, “Good thinking, pard.”

  I heard Maude's voice upstairs, sounding angry and confused. More than that I couldn't tell, for the pounding near drowned her out.

  The first wild desperado, white-haired and toothless, came reeling down the stairs in his socks, looking like a leaf being blown by a strong wind, and left the door open. Maude couldn't be far behind.

  “Son, you better get on your way,” Marion said to me. “I don't believe your momma would like the kinda company you're standing around with.”

  I hated to leave just then, but I knew it would make things go more smoothly if I did.

  “Hold on there, boy,” the little rat said. “I want your solemn oath you ain't gonna run out there and sound an alarum.”

  “Nosir. My solemn.” I started to back toward the door I'd come in by.

  “You look like a trustworthy fella.”

  “Yessir.” Two more steps and I stood on the boardwalk.

  ELEVEN

  NO ONE APPEARED TO HAVE NOTICED THE DOINGS AT the jailhouse. I shut the door and leaned on it. I couldn't hear the pounding outside those brick walls. I flipped the reins off the rail and got on my horse, trying to look like I had no place in particular to go, careful that no one would wonder what my hurry was. My blood was racing, and like my horse could feel it, he danced in place.

  I backed him out into the wagon traffic and rode to the corner, telling myself I wasn't going to have a long wait. Indeed, I saw some action at the jailhouse.

  The door opened and two men hopped out like rabbits, both of them carrying their boots. Didn't want to take time to put them on, I guess. They hurried off in different directions. No one paid them any mind that I could see.

  That was three fellows jail-broke so far, and done without a single gunshot fired. As I watched for Maude, that very thought went round and round in my head, not a gunshot fired.

  About the sixth time around, it was getting old and I began to feel a little ragged.

  Then shots broke out.

  At the same moment, Maude burst out of the door, her skirt swirling around the tops of her shoes.

  I stood in my stirrups and saw clearly the way she ran and perched for an instant on the hitching rail and, with a flash of white petticoat, leapt onto her horse and kicked it into a run.

  She was a sight to behold.

  Me and Maude locked eyes immediately, like she knew right where to find me. She came at me at a gallop.

  This didn't make her especially noticeable, because horses and riders alike had been startled by the shots and were jigging every which way. A frightened horse pulling an empty wagon racketed past me.

  I headed my horse in the direction we ought to go.

  More shots rang out.

  I looked back and Maude was right behind me all the way. I did not yet know what the gunshots meant, only no matter how things turned out, Maude and me were embarked on a new twist of fate.

  There was something wild in me at that moment, wild and even joyful, as my hair whipped against the back of my neck.

  Much as if every horse on the street had heard a whispering in its ear, the traffic parted to leave a clear path for us. I picked up speed, and out of all the horses jog-stepping around me, I heard only the rough rhythm of our horses' hooves, Maude's and mine.

  What a strange time for a memory to come to me, but there it was, me and Maude and Aunt Ruthie in the middle of a sunlit afternoon, daisies threaded through our hair, dandelion seeds a-floating as we spun about in dizzying circles.

  I felt back then that my chest was near to bursting with happiness. I felt the same way now, completely lost in the run of our lives. I was near to flying.

  Me and Maude were at the center of an adventure, after all, and I didn't mind it. For Marion was part of it, and Uncle Arlen wasn't all that far ahead. It didn't hurt there was no snow on the ground and months to go before we'd see another flake.

  There was still a good deal of traffic abroad at the edge of the district, but no one looked at us. When two horses passed each other, the dust raised to choke a person.

  We didn't amble, but we didn't push the horses hard. We knew to save them in case we needed to get some more speed out of them later.

  Maude pulled up beside me, and I saw her usually neat hair was all afly. She said, “You weren't with those men.”

  My breath caught. I saw right off the flaw in our planning. Maude had strong notions about right and wrong, and jail-break would just naturally fall into line with her idea of wrong.

  “Marion and me had to throw in with them at the last moment, more like.”

  “What does that mean?” Maude said.

  “It means we got there, and they got there at the same time, with a plan of their own,” I said. “We couldn't ask them to come back later.”

  She shushed me and waited till we had a little distance between ourselves and any other rider. “It bothers me to think of you talking with them,” she said.

  “I didn't talk to them.” Maude could be worse than Aunt Ruthie for wanting to be sure she had raised me to know better. But it did seem to me a jailbreak ought not to have rules of conduct. “They came in the back with Marion. He didn't look like he was on speaking terms with them.”

  Maude said, “I wish you weren't mixed up in this.”

  “I know that. But I couldn't leave you in there. Nor could Marion.”

  “It's still wrong, what you did, Sallie. What we did.”

  I said to her, “Did anybody get shot?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “I didn't hang around long enough to find out.”

  This made me grin. I didn't let Maude see it.

  She said, “Do you think the sheriff and his deputies were doing the shooting?”

  “I believe all their guns were in the waste can.”

  Maude said, “Chances are good they'd be gunning for the one that made them shuck their pants.”

  I flinched on hearing this. But I kept quiet. Maude might turn around and go back, and we couldn't afford a change of mind. I kept quiet for probably three minutes. Three long minutes.

  I watched back along the trail.

  “Marion won't come the same way we're riding,” Maude said in the tone of a big sister who has done this a thousand times before. “He'll work his way around to us. Are we headed west?”

  “Yep, we're following Uncle Arlen's map.”

  “He'll catch up,” Maude said.

  TWELVE

  ANOTHER HORSE PULLED UP CLOSE BEHIND US AND stayed there. This wasn't so unusual, since lone riders at night did tend to clump together. Me and Maude let our talk die down.

  It was a fair part of an hour later before we could talk freely again. Maude had been doing some thinking of her own. She said, “I saw you come in, and only a minute or two later this rough-looking fellow opens my door. Why didn't he open the other fellow's door?”

  “How was he to know who was behind each door?” I said. I wouldn't admit to any communication with them at all.

  “He acted like he knew me from somewhere.”

  “You waited on them at George Ray's,” I said. “Besides that, the sheriff dropped a word about you being up there.”

  “Big mouth,” Maude said of the sheriff. “As for those others, I served them beans and a slab of corn bread, and they wanted to break me out of jail?”

  “They let you all out. They're Black Hankie's gang,” I said in a near whisper. Voices carry on the night air, and another rider was approaching, going toward Independence.

  “I believe he's an innocent victim of circumstance, like you. Black Hankie, I mean,” I said when we were alone again. This may have stretched the truth, but I couldn't think of a better time to do it.

  Maude waited until that rider had passed us by. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I overheard them at George Ray's.”

  “I just wish Marion hadn't le
t you take part in this,” Maude said.

  “He didn't; I let myself in on it,” I said, forgetting to keep my voice down. “We don't know for sure that Marion or Uncle Arlen is safe, either one. Don't be mad till you know for sure we ain't alone in the world again, for Pete's sake.”

  It could be argued we were foolish to stick to the trail, knowing a posse would sooner or later come down the same road. But we were sure of our direction, and we made good time.

  The moon gave off just enough shine to make gopher holes of every pocket of shadow, which would've slowed us down considerable had we ridden off-trail. Low bushes looked very like something crouching there.

  We continued a brisk pace and stayed alert. We rode till we hadn't seen anyone ahead of us or behind us for some time; we were near to being alone on the road.

  The good side of this was, neither Maude's wild red hair nor her manner of riding were so likely to be noticed in the dark. Maude had gone back to riding like a boy. Once daylight came, she was someone who was bound to be noticed.

  When we came upon a creek, we drew up to let the horses drink. Maude said, “Someone had peed on the mattress. I couldn't sit on it.”

  “You couldn't stay in there.”

  “I couldn't have gone without you, either,” Maude said. “Not even knowing Uncle Arlen needed my help.”

  “Our help,” I said, and Maude grinned.

  I thought things were going good, in a way. Maude was free and as ready as me to beat it for Colorado Territory. “I saved the last three molasses cookies for you,” I said, and held the sack out to her. She took two and motioned at me to take the other one.

  Maude said, “They talked about hanging me. Like the other one.”

  “Black Hankie, you mean.” It bothered me to think of her listening to talk like that. “Did you tell them your reputation is undeserved?”

  “I did,” she said. “It gave them a good laugh.”

  “How'd they know to find you at George Ray's, do you think?”

  “Somebody saw my face on the newspaper under their plate and realized I'd served them their dinner,” Maude said.