Maude March on the Run!

by Audrey Couloumbis

  “I am crazy Maude March, so don't cross me,” she shouted.

  I saw many a woman holding all manner of useful weapons grabbed up during the shooting, from peeling knife to knitting needles, but no one looked likely to cross her.

  It struck me at once that no matter how many of these women could take aim and hit their mark, they were not yet convinced of the need to shoot at anything but what could be turned into dinner.

  For their part, our men didn't look any more ready to do something than the women. Their rifles were kicked away before they could decide to reach for them.

  The odds were on this old gal's side, I feared, but I started to look for any odds that were left to be on ours. Maude didn't look dangerous in her quilt, but her face had gone from surprised to angry as Aunt Ruthie knowing there was a fox in her chicken coop.

  “Where are the rest of your men?” the old gal shouted after realizing she was holding up mostly women.

  “They're off hunting,” I said, since five men was all we had, counting me and Maude. “They're coming back directly.”

  “Let's not waste any time, then,” she said. “Give me your valuables.”

  There was not a move made.

  Part of it might have been a matter of figuring out what she was asking for, for she said “vowel-you-bulls.” This was a mite confusing to me, and may well have been for the others. But few of us, maybe none of us, had anything that fit the description. Also, the pigs kept up a noise.

  “We don't have anything,” Lucy said, her voice full of genuine confusion.

  “We are brides on the trail of grooms,” Betsy said. “What do you expect us to have?”

  “Dowries,” the old gal said promptly, and Betsy laughed. “I have two pigs,” she said, “but I beg you not to take them. They have become my pets.”

  “I have a cow,” Lucy said with a smile. “Even after this long trek, she gives enough milk to earn you twenty dollars a day. But the men will be back before you get twenty yards with her. Cows aren't built for getaways.”

  “They think we're fooling with them,” said the man with two guns. “I say we shoot one of them and change the mood.”

  There was something familiar about him, but I didn't think about it as a pig came near knocking that old gal off her feet. She shouted, “Don't make fun of me. I am a dangerous woman.”

  “I forget, what did you say your name was?” Maude asked her.

  “Mad Maude,” the other one said. “You heard a me.”

  I said, “How do we know you are who you say you are?” She said, “Did you not see my face in the newspapers all this last year?”

  “Tell me which of those Maudes you are,” Maude said, “or we may not believe you at all. Likelier you're a ninny.”

  “You look to me like a missy who likes trouble,” the other one sneered.

  “My middle name is trouble,” Maude said in a sure and certain voice. Quick as a snake, she lunged for the rifle under her blanket and loosed a cartridge.

  The old gal had just enough time to see it coming, and she let fly a bullet, but her bullet went into the dirt.

  Maude hit the pistol dead-on without touching the other Maude, and two things happened because of it. Maude's rifle cartridge ricocheted and hit another bandit in the leg with a sound like thwap! A red flower bloomed there in the blink of an eye.

  Also, the other one's pistol flew and hit the man standing nearest her, the one with two guns. It spooked him so he swung his pistols toward the old gal as he shot.

  A bullet nipped her trigger finger and whizzed so close to my arm it felt like a bee sting, the heat and the noise together.

  As I took this in, I saw Betsy leap from her wagon, her nightgown billowing around her, pantaloons ruffling, her rifle held in both hands to do her own battle. She used the rifle butt to put one of the masked men out of order with a swat to his jaw. He fell like a broken doll, and she fell to her knees to check if his heart was still beating, her face writ with regret.

  In moments when life hangs in the balance, it feels like time slows down so much you can't miss a thing. I felt certain that this would have been just as true if that bee sting had been a bullet hitting me square in the heart. I would have died instantly, but I would've known all the sides of that instant.

  The next moment wasn't slowed down at all; it may have speeded up, for there was all manner of chaos in that camp.

  Another bullet hit one of Betsy's pigs.

  The pig started squealing and running in circles, and the other pig panicked and followed it, making even more noise, if such a thing were possible.

  Betsy stood up and swung her rifle, catching the two-gunner in the midsection. He sat down hard. Betsy swung back the other way, and her rifle butt clipped another of those fellows on the chin, laying him out cold. This time Betsy didn't worry about them.

  Our men had been at some disadvantage when the rebellion began, since the guns were mostly trained on them. But they didn't slouch once things went wild. They were helped by the women, all of them eager to get in one good wallop they could brag about.

  Guns went off, and dirt spurted up in little fountains. The pigs went on with that ear-piercing shrill noise that was more alarming than gunshots.

  This was not quite matched by the women's shrieks as the last fellow was jumped before he could make up his mind who to shoot—he didn't stand a chance. Two of the women sat on him and another began to bind his wrists tightly with her knitting yarn.

  Two men were trying to take down the other Maude, who was turning in a circle, swinging her pistol as if she couldn't decide where to shoot first.

  When she stopped circling, her gun was pointing at my Maude. Marion stepped forward and punched her in the nose.

  She went over like a felled tree.

  FORTY-FIVE

  AND STILL IT WAS A SCENE OF UTTER MAYHEM.

  The old gal and two of her men and one pig were hurt bad enough to bleed, and I was only barely missed, and of course there was the dead chicken from the start. The uninjured pig raced around in a panic without a care for knocking into people or running them over.

  The other one, hurt, lurched about doing nearly as much damage. Betsy followed this piglet, which didn't stop making that shrill squealing noise. Unable to catch it, Betsy wailed like a boat horn, just those kinds of long, deep, repeated blasts, with an indrawn breath in between them.

  Betsy was bad, but pig screams are truly a thing to wear on the nerves.

  Women were darting about in all directions. They looked ready enough, but I couldn't say whether they were doing any good at all, for I was fighting a strange dizziness.

  I went around collecting the outlaws' guns. I moved all the rifles that were lying about to a place where the old gal or one of her henchmen weren't going to get their hands on them if we didn't watch them every second.

  Then I had to sit down.

  With the help of one of the men who had been leading the wagons, Betsy's injured pig was fought to the ground. And once it lay on its side, shrieking, it took the help of three women to hold it there till a rope could be twisted around its feet. My Maude was among these people who were managing the pig.

  Betsy's uninjured pig, still on the move, didn't stop squealing and ran full over the other Maude with its little pointy hooves as she lay helpless in the dirt. Baby pigs they were, but they weren't lightweights. That old gal's internals had to fend for themselves. Everybody looked busy enough without trying to bag a pig.

  Lucy had already begun to deal with the other injuries. She was quick to stop the bleeding from that gal's shortened trigger finger and to shout things about caring for the fellow who had been hit in the leg.

  And there was more to come.

  For when Marion pulled the kerchief off the two-gunner, it turned out to be none other than—

  One of those boat rats. The short, smart one.

  The injured pig now lay trussed, but not quietly. My Maude bent for her rifle, causing a few others to come to
a standstill. But Maude didn't shoot, she clopped that running pig square on the forehead with the butt of her rifle.

  The noise was cut by half immediately.

  “You're her, aren't you?” the boat rat said to my Maude, and he could be heard. “You're Mad Maude, after all.”

  “Knot him up tight, ladies,” Maude said, as if she hadn't noticed.

  “Tie him to the wagon wheels till morning,” Young Etta said. She wasn't in the least timid in the midst of so much going on.

  But everyone else, save the injured pig, had gone quiet, as if the boat rat's voice had carried directly to their ears before all other sound. They all looked at Maude.

  Betsy's nightgown was dustied up, but she was otherwise none the worse for wear. She said, “Tell us, Maude, if what he says is true. That you are the woman on those posters.”

  “It's me on the first posters,” Maude said, and for the first time she didn't look as if she minded it. “The accusations aren't true. I didn't rob the bank. Well, except we did take the horses, but they were returned.”

  “They say you shot a man in cold blood,” Lucy said.

  “I shot him,” I said. This appeared to flummox even the hurt pig, for it went quiet, and I didn't have to yell to make myself heard when I added, “It wasn't cold-blooded. Only accidental.”

  There was another moment of pure stone silence, and then Betsy said, “Well, that's going to make an interesting story, one of these evenings.” With that, everyone turned back to what they had been doing before.

  The boat rat and the other fairly uninjured bandit were tied to the wagon wheels. There was some spirited discussion about the best technique for securing bandits to wagon wheels.

  The pig that Maude had knocked cold staggered to its feet. The leg-shot fellow started to do some screaming as the slug was plucked from his thigh. The other Maude's finger was bandaged tightly, and she was tied to the wagon with her arm straight up in the air.

  The pigs commenced their noise. This last, because Betsy went back to digging the bullet out of the one pig's haunch, and when one squealed, they both squealed. But the wobbly one squealed something more quietly, and Maude let it be.

  Young Etta tugged at my sleeve and said, “You've been hit.”

  There was blood staining my shirtsleeve. Now she brought it to my attention, my arm did ache some. Maude saw what we were about, and between them, Maude and Young Etta rolled up my sleeve, decided the bullet just grazed me, and cleaned it up with soap and water.

  I couldn't get over it. I was shot, and the soap and water was the worst of it. Stung worse than the bullet. A bit of Maude's petticoat made a bandage for me, and she tore another.

  But then Young Etta made Maude put it back into her sack. “It's a pretty thing, too nice for the likes of them. We can bandage them with strips from an old sheet.”

  I took that piece and put it in my pocket, in case the one I wore got dirty. I still wasn't big on hand washing, but I had learned this much from Dr. Aldoradondo.

  By the time I was taken care of, the pigs were quieted. Betsy reported that Posey was going to be fine. The slug had not hit any vitals. By then, that Maude was well recovered enough to air her complaints.

  “You shot off my trigger finger,” she said to the boat rat with a reasonable degree of resentment. Her nose had swollen some, and she sounded like she had a cold in her head.

  “Bad timing,” he said with a shrug.

  There were the gang's horses to be brought in and wiped down and picketed. The children were read stories and sung lullabies and fed sweets, all in hopes of getting them back to bed.

  “It's time we got some sleep around here,” Betsy said. “I don't want to hear a peep out of any of you, for I'll use the butt of that rifle to silence you the way Maude did my Petunia.”

  Maude said, “Sorry, Betsy.” “You're forgiven,” Betsy said. “Any rate, what's good enough for Petunia is good enough for these ones.”

  This proved enough of a threat, for there was not a peep out of any of them. Marion and the two wagon leaders set themselves up under the trees. Me and Maude put our bedrolls outside the circle of the wagons, near the horses and Lucy's cow. The dog came to curl up at Maude's feet.

  A momma sang a lullaby from inside one of the wagons, putting most of that camp to sleep. I couldn't lay still; I had a lot to think about. All these Maudes, for one thing.

  I parked myself against a wagon wheel directly across from the other Maude. “What's your real name?” I asked her after a time of us staring at each other.

  “Mary Rose,” she said.

  “Very pretty,” Aunt Ruthie said. She looked at me. “Isn't that a pretty name for a woman?”

  “It'll do,” I said, because I didn't want to be won over by a name.

  I did realize I had fallen asleep, for that was ever where I came across Aunt Ruthie anymore. Also because she was at the water's edge, a sparkling blue water I hadn't seen anywhere else.

  Being asleep, I couldn't be sure I had that answer from the crazy Maude or from a dream of her. But here was Aunt Ruthie showing me a forgiving heart, and this interested me more. “When did you get so softhearted?”

  “I was ever softhearted,” Aunt Ruthie said.

  “I didn't know that.”

  “There's a lesson for you.”

  FORTY-SIX

  OVER BREAKFAST, MARION ASKED BETSY WHAT SHE and the others planned to do with our night visitors. “I don't rightly know,” she said.

  “We might could take them on to Fort Dodge for you,” he said in a reluctant tone. He pointed to the rat. “But it wouldn't go well for our Maude over there, because that one knows her.”

  “Now, I wouldn't ask you to do that,” Betsy said. “But what do you think is the best way to manage them? We can't keep them tied to the wheels.”

  “Here,” the other Maude complained. “You can't be planning to hold on to us and let the real Mad Maude ride off scot-free.”

  “It's not my Maude who came in here and tore up every-one's sleep,” I said to her. “It's you and yours, and I'll have you watch how you talk about my sister.”

  The old gal wasn't easily discouraged. She said, “That sister of yours has ruined my career with that ill-timed shot. I'm too old for most trades, save teaching Sunday school.”

  “That's a good one, I hear,” Lucy said. “You might consider it.”

  “It don't pay all that well,” the other Maude said in a growly voice, “even if I were suited to it, which I'm not.”

  “The rewards are greater than you think,” Young Etta said. “If you were to marry, you might not worry so much about what kind of work suited you. You would be too busy for such thoughts, and sitting down to teach Sunday school would hold more appeal.”

  “That doesn't sound like much of a recommendation to me,” another of the women said.

  But the other Maude said, “Who would marry me?”

  “There's a good question,” the boat rat said, and I realized suddenly he didn't like this gal. I considered this to be a point in his favor. Not that I liked him much. Only I did remember listening to him at George Ray's and knowing him to be a cut above the others.

  She gave him back a look of “you'll be sorry,” but her one arm was tied upright to the wagon wheel, and her other hand was tied to her leg just to keep her out of trouble. She didn't look to be much of a threat.

  Young Etta talked as if she hadn't noticed any of this. “Who would marry me, either? No one, so far. But then, the war has thinned the men's ranks. I'm going west, where there are more of them, and maybe I'll have better luck.”

  “I would change my ways for that kind of luck,” the other Maude said. “This rough life isn't working out, now my trigger finger is gone.”

  From here, the conversation took a surprising turn, the women asking each other whether those visitors looked repentant enough to suit all.

  “If it's a good man you girls are looking for, I'm a good man,” the leg-shot fellow said. “Don't judge me
by the company I'm keeping just now.”

  “It's not your company but your actions I question,” Young Etta said.

  “You look to be of doubtful quality,” Lucy said. “But we have a ways to go. You might could ride alongside the wagon, offering your protection.”

  “What about her?” one of the women said, pointing to the other Maude. That creature stuck her tongue out at us.

  “She's more doubtful yet,” Lucy said. “We don't even know what her true name is.”

  “Mary Rose,” I said. I did find in myself a soft spot for her. Not a very large spot, however.

  Betsy was much of the same mind. She said, “If the others agree, we could try and see if these ruffians can be turned out good. As for her, I would keep her tied a while longer.”

  The weak-chinned fellow Betsy had felled with her rifle butt listened more especially to this conversation. “I can be turned out,” he said. “I used to be a fine fellow and could be again.”

  I'd by this time scraped my plate clean and washed it. The Maude question wasn't yet decided, but the men's likely fates interested them all. I heard one woman mention another of them as someone who could straighten a fellow out in no time. It was said she had buried three husbands already, of overwork.

  Betsy said, “Don't give her the best one if she's going to run him out that fast anyway.”

  I suspected they were biting off more than they could chew. I went over to the boat rat. He had a plate on his lap and one hand freed to eat from it. “Where are your other fellows?”

  “Scattered, now that Hankie's dead.”

  “We heard he was shot in the sheriff's office and then read in the paper he was shot off his horse.”

  “That's right, he was killed twice,” he said.

  “Maybe the time has come to change your ways,” I said, and left him to think on it.

  I settled myself near Marion. “What do you make of this?” I asked him. “They're taking these characters to their bosom.”