The Man Who Fell from the Sky (15 page)

1899

MARY HEARD THE
horses' hooves out on the dirt road. She swished the last shirt in the washtub and ran it through the wringer that Jesse had set up on the back porch. Then she stepped outside, pinned the shirt to the line with the other shirts and jeans and unmentionables flapping behind the house, and went to see who was passing by. Not many people on the road, especially in the middle of the day. Folks in these parts didn't go visiting at high noon, not with fences to fix, cattle to round up and brand, chickens to look after. An endless stream of chores, just to stay alive, and you never knew, oh, you never knew, when the bank or the tax man would slap a piece of paper on the front door and tell you to move on. That was one worry she and Jesse no longer had, now that Butch was here.

She spotted the billowing dust as she started around the house. Coming down the ranch road were two men in floppy black hats,
rifles in scabbards next to their right legs. The horses looked winded and hard used. She had never seen either man before, and she could feel her mouth go dry. Jesse and the others were in the high pasture. Even if she rang the cowbell hanging on the front porch, it would take Jesse fifteen minutes to reach the house. And that was if he heard the bell. “Don't take chances,” he had told her. “Use the rifle if you have to.”

She ran up onto the front porch, went inside, and grabbed the Springfield off the rack by the door. She went back outside and walked to the top of the step, where the riders would be sure to see her.

“Halt,” she shouted. “Halt, I say.” The riders pulled up on the reins and the horses danced about, front hooves pawing at the dirt. “Identify yourselves.”

“Name is Siringo. Charles Siringo,” the man on the left shouted, sitting taller in the saddle. “This here's my partner. Don't mean you any harm. We come on official business.”

Mary walked down the steps, keeping the rifle trained on the man named Siringo. The faces of both men were in shadow, but everything about them looked seasoned and experienced. There was an unhurried steadiness in the way they sat the horses. They wore leather vests that hung open and exposed the sidearms on their belts.

“State your business.”

“Now, ma'am.” Siringo made as if to dismount.

“Stay where you are.” Mary moved in closer. Not too close, just enough that they could see she was serious. “Don't let anyone underestimate you,” Jesse always said. “You're the best shot in the county.” Now she could make out the faces in the shadows of the hat brims: Siringo had a long, narrow face, sunken cheeks, with a
big nose; the other man, a smoother face, round with slits of dark eyes.

The men exchanged quick sideways glances, then settled back into their saddles. Siringo said something, but his voice was low, the words lost in the breeze.

“Speak up!” This was a trick, she could feel it in her bones. He would lower his voice until she came closer, and somehow they would overpower her before she could fire.

“We're lawmen,” he shouted. “With the Pinkerton Detective Agency, here on business for the Union Pacific Railroad. You can put the rifle down. You have nothing to fear.”

“I guess I'll be making that determination.”

“You got menfolk around here?” This from the other man.

“What business would that be of yours?”

“Just thinking. Looks like a big spread for a little lady like you to run all by yourself. Might be you had some strangers stop by and offer to help out for a spell?”

Mary moved the rifle a little until it was pointed at the other man's belly. “If I had to fire this gun,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “the menfolk would be here before you knew you got hit.”

“Listen here, ma'am.” Siringo leaned forward and crossed his arms over the saddle horn. “We're here to help you. You and your menfolk could be in a lot of danger with outlaws on the loose hereabouts. You hear about the train robbery down in Wilcox?”

“What's a train robbery got to do with me?”

“I'm asking if you heard of it.”

“I heard about it in town. It still doesn't have anything to do with me or my menfolk. We got our own business to tend to.”

“Butch Cassidy, you heard of him?”

“I heard he ran a ranch around here some time ago.”

“Well, he's still got friends in these parts, and we believe Butch and his partner, the Sundance Kid, stopped off with some of those friends. Could be they're here on this spread, helping out.”

“If they were here, I'd know it, wouldn't I?” Mary could feel her heart jumping about. She struggled to keep her words steady. Her tongue felt like a piece of wood. “I'm the one that does the cooking. I guess I know how many mouths I feed, and I'm not feeding any extra mouths.”

“You mind we have a look around?”

“You heard what I said, so ride on out of here. There aren't any outlaws on this ranch.” God! Jesse, the hired hand, Anthony, Butch, and Sundance, all of them rounding up cattle in the upper pasture. If the Pinkerton men were to ride up there, Butch and Sundance would be arrested.

Arrested! For a moment, she couldn't catch her breath. They would be killed.

Siringo was still leaning over the horn. “Maybe you didn't hear all the news in town. The Union Pacific wants these outlaws bad. They caused a lot of damage to railroad property. Blew up cars, cleaned out the safe, blew up a bridge. Cost the railroad a lot of money in repairs and canceled trains. This whole country depends on railroads. Can't have outlaws stealing and interfering with the service. So the Union Pacific is making folks a helluva offer. Reward of eight thousand dollars per head for Butch Cassidy and his gang.”

Mary realized she must have flinched, because the man went on: “You heard that right. Enough money for you and your menfolk to live happily ever after. Hell, you could buy your own island out in the ocean somewhere. No more worries.”

“I told you, there's no outlaws on this ranch. No strangers.” My
God, the reward was a fortune. Enough to tempt a lot of people to turn in Butch and Sundance. “Ride on out of here,” she said, “before I have to use this gun.”

“I don't believe you're going to shoot us.” Siringo smiled and shook his head.

Mary shifted the rifle on him and looked into the sights. He didn't move. She sighted the rifle on the high branch of the cottonwood next to the road and pulled the trigger. A gray squirrel exploded into pieces and landed in front of the horses. They reared back, ears flattened against their heads. It took a moment for the riders to steady them.

“You got two seconds to turn around and ride out of here.”

Mary kept the rifle on the two men as they turned the horses and galloped to the main road. Still she waited until they had taken the diagonal cut and headed south, past the sage-marked hillocks and the clump of willows. She stared out across the plains, hazy in the hot sun. There wouldn't be enough left of the squirrel for dinner. In the distance she could hear the muffled thuds of the horses' hooves. She kept the rifle pointed at the road. If the Pinkerton men decided to return, they would not take her by surprise.

Eventually the sounds of the hooves disappeared into the low shushing roar of the wind, and she walked back along the house to the washing tub and wringer. Ducking past the clothes that flapped on the line, she made her way to the porch and set the rifle on the table, not more than an arm's stretch away. She put another shirt into the water, still warm from perching in a stream of sunshine. In case the Pinkerton men were watching from a high bluff, she would go about her business as usual. If she saddled a horse and rode into the pasture, they would come back. Besides, Jesse would be here in another five or ten minutes, if he heard the rifle shot.

She had hung up the wet shirt when she spotted two riders coming across the north pasture, dark, blurred figures that gradually began to take shape and color. She knew Butch by the way he sat the saddle, straight-backed and shoulders squared, his body moving in rhythm with the galloping horse. Anthony rode close behind. Mary hurried over to the fence, let herself through the gate, and ran toward them.

“You okay?” Butch shouted when she was still a barn's length away. “We heard the shot.”

They pulled up beside her, and she told them about the two detectives. She was breathing hard, partly from running, partly from fright, she realized. “Pinkertons,” she said. “Man named Charles Siringo and his partner. The Union Pacific hired them to find you and Sundance. They're killers, Butch, I could smell it on them.”

Butch turned in his saddle toward the hired hand. “You take Mary back to the house. Don't leave her, in case they come back. I'm going after Sundance.”

Mary handed the rifle to Anthony and swung up behind him. “I'll take my gun back, if you please,” she said. She laid it crosswise between her and the saddle. Then she clasped her arms around his waist and held on tight as he spurred the horse into a fast gallop. Over her shoulder she could see Butch riding back across the pasture.

*   *   *

IN THE KITCHEN
she made sandwiches from the beef she had roasted yesterday and the week's supply of bread she had baked this morning. She wrapped the sandwiches in packing paper and put them in two canvas saddlebags. Then she added hardtack, oranges, a
loaf of bread, two jars of beans, and peaches she had put up last fall. She filled tin bottles with fresh spring water and laid them on top. Enough food, she hoped, to get Butch and Sundance to the Wyoming border and all the way into Brown's Park. Not even Pinkerton detectives would lay siege to Brown's Park. Or maybe Butch and Sundance would head to the Hole in the Wall in the Bighorn Mountains. Another place where they would be safe.

She saw the three riders out in the pasture: Butch in the lead, Jesse close behind, and Sundance in the rear. Anthony opened the gate for the riders, who slowed the horses into the yard and dismounted. They stood there talking, making plans. Butch would have already formed one in his mind, she was sure. He would know which direction they had to go in order to avoid the Pinkertons, who had ridden south. While she had prepared the saddlebags, Anthony had saddled fresh horses. Now he led them out of the barn. Butch and Sundance would ride their own horses, with two fresh horses roped behind.

She knew all this, standing by the half-dry laundry on the line, watching with one hand shading her face, because it had happened before. She had never been sure when Butch would leave. Looping through her mind was what she did know, had always known: Butch didn't like good-byes, so he just left. She picked up the saddlebags, carried them out into the yard, and set them on the ground by the horses.

“You have to go,” she said to Butch.

He nodded. “Pinkertons never give up. We have to stay ahead of them.”

“It's because of the money, just like I said. The minute Jesse took that money to the bank, somebody figured out where he must've gotten it. The railroad put a big price on your heads.”

When she told him the amount, Butch whistled. “Makes me think about turning myself in,” he said. “Now don't you blame Jesse for saving the ranch. He did it for you.” He held her eyes a long moment until she thought she could read the real meaning in what he had said:
I did it for you
.

“We wish you luck,” Jesse was saying. “You've been a big help to us. Which way you think you'll go?”

Butch looked around, as if spies might be hiding in the grass. There were only the five of them, Butch and Sundance, she and Jesse, and Anthony. “I reckon we'll go where the wind blows,” he said.

Jesse took her arm and walked her across the yard to the house. It was as it should be, she thought, she and Jesse alone in the house, Anthony helping on the ranch. She had never thought she'd see Butch Cassidy again. After he had gotten out of prison, he rode off. Didn't even come by to say his good-byes. It was his way.

She sank down at the kitchen table as Jesse poured two big mugs of coffee. “Those boys'll be fine,” he said when he set the mug in front of her, but the way he said it, she knew he was trying to cheer her up. And maybe cheer up himself. “Looks like they're about ready to take off.” Jesse was at the window, looking out. Then he set his mug down and went back outside.

Mary stayed at the table and sipped at the coffee. She had said her good-byes years ago. Let him go with the Great Spirit.

She got to her feet at the sound of boots on the back step. The screened door flew open and Butch hurled himself inside. “I want to leave you something.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and spread it flat on the table. She knew in an instant what it was: the pencil marks, pressed down hard, that resembled four trees set in the four corners. On the south tree was
what looked like a horseshoe. Beyond the north tree was a clump of boulders that lifted off the top of the page. Over to the right, the banks of a lake and an odd, squiggly line, like a strip of land jutting into the lake. Yesterday morning, he was gone when she had served breakfast. She thought he had left forever, but by midafternoon, he was back, and she had understood.

“You want me to keep this safe for you?” If the Pinkertons found him, they would find the map, and they would take the treasure.

“If you and Jesse need the money, you know where it is.”

“I would never take it,” Mary said. “It's yours, and I hope someday you will come back to claim it.”

“Maybe so. But you promise me, Mary, you'll use it if you need it. You'll keep your ranch and take good care of yourself and Jesse. You promise?” He was smiling at her, and she had never been able to resist that smile. She promised.

“HEARD ANYTHING MORE
from the anonymous caller?”

Ted Gianelli nodded Vicky into a hard-backed chair, inched past the desk in the closet-sized office, and dropped into his chair. He clasped his hands over his stomach, a calm, unhurried look about the man, the inexhaustible patience of an experienced investigator. The music of an opera drifted across the office.
Rigoletto
, Vicky guessed, although she didn't recognize the aria.

“I'm here about Ruth Walking Bear,” Vicky said. She perched on the chair and allowed the music to wash over her. Feeling calmer, more settled. She had waited in the parking lot a good fifteen minutes, watching the vehicles streaming down the street, unsure of what Ruth might be driving. The sun beating down, white clouds skimming through the blue sky. There was no sign of Ruth. Finally she had gone into the small entry, pushed the button on the metal communicator in the wall, and said she was here to see
Agent Gianelli. A few moments later, she was following the agent down the long corridor to his office in the back.

Now she told the agent that someone had broken into Ruth's house and ransacked it. Ruth should be here, she was thinking, telling her own story.

Gianelli's eyebrows lifted a quarter inch. “She report it to the tribal cops?”

Vicky said she wasn't sure.

The fed leaned into the laptop, tapped a few keys, and stared at the screen. “Reported at two forty-five this morning. Officers responded at three fifteen. No sign of burglar. Homeowner said nothing had been stolen. She believes dead husband's cousins, Bernie and Big Man White Horse, are responsible.”

He looked up, and Vicky said: “I think Bernie's husband was looking for the map.” She could still see the couple seated across from her, the greed flashing in their eyes. The hard look of disgust when she told them she couldn't help them. And Big Man saying there were other ways to get the map. “Bernie took Ruth out last night and kept her out late. Ruth thinks she was giving Big Man time to ransack the house. Any results from forensics?”

Gianelli drew in his cheeks as if he were sucking on a cigar. “Paper dates from the last part of the nineteenth century. Not enough pencil traces to provide a conclusive date. So the scrap of paper doesn't prove anything definite. Pencil marks could be from last week.”

“Or from the 1890s. If the pencil marks can't be dated, then we don't know when they were made.”

The fed beat a rhythm with his pen on the desk, and Vicky went on: “It's possible Robert had the original map drawn by Butch Cassidy, and Big Man was desperate to find it. Which means . . .”
She had his full attention; she could feel the intensity in his gaze. “Whoever ransacked the house didn't know the map could have been destroyed.”

Gianelli was nodding, his gaze still fastened on her. Finally he said, “The anonymous caller called Father John this morning. If a lawyer can't spur us in the right direction, he thinks a priest might be able to.”

Vicky looked away. It made sense the caller would get in touch with John O'Malley. The caller was desperate and frightened. He needed help, and that's what her people did when they were butting their heads against the wall of white officialdom, the impersonal, automatic machinery of the law—they called the white man they could trust.

“Even if the burglar didn't know the map had been destroyed,” Gianelli was saying, “it doesn't mean he wasn't at the lake. He could be the anonymous witness if”—he lifted his hands—“Robert was murdered. The coroner says there is little evidence of trauma, but Robert was wearing a bulky vest that could have prevented any bruising. There was muddy debris under his fingernails, but that could have resulted from his trying to lift himself out of the lake. We haven't found any real evidence he was murdered.”

He waved a hand now and started to his feet. Vicky remained seated. “There's only one reason anyone would destroy the map.”

Gianelli dropped back down, curiosity working through his expression. “Are you going to tell me that Robert found the treasure and somebody killed him for it? What's the killer going to do with gold coins and bills from the 1890s? The minute he walks into a bank or visits a coin dealer, questions will be raised. Word will get out, people will know an old treasure had been found. Quite a risk to take, when the guy might be involved in murder.”

Vicky took a moment before she said, “He won't do anything. Not until the investigation is closed and Robert's death is declared an accident. Then he'll go to another state and cash in a treasure where no one is likely to connect it to Butch Cassidy or Robert's death.”

The fed lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “For how long? A hundred years? Folks have trekked through the Wind Rivers looking for buried treasure based on a rumor that an outlaw had hidden his loot hereabouts.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands over the desk. The edge formed a crease across the front of his shirt. “Everybody loves the old outlaws of the West like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Why? Because they outwitted the law? That's part of it. But the most important thing is, they robbed the banks and railroads that ordinary folks considered bloodsuckers. So folks cheered them on. They were heroes. And they live on because no one wanted them to die in a shoot-out in Bolivia. I'm sure you've heard stories about Butch visiting friends in Fremont County in the 1930s. That is all they are, Vicky. Stories of treasure buried by an outlaw who never died.”

He stood up this time and made a point of checking his watch. “Sorry, Vicky. I've got an appointment, so unless there is something else . . .”

Vicky got to her feet. “You'll be the first one I call.”

*   *   *

SHE HAD TO
shield the phone from the sun in order to read the text message from Annie. “Father John called.” Still gripping the phone in one hand, Vicky crossed the parking lot to the Ford, started the engine, and rolled down the windows. Heat emanated off the leather seats and accumulated in the air like a compressed fireball.
She tapped on John O'Malley's name and waited a half minute until the buzzing noise sounded. Then the familiar voice was on the other end: “Vicky. Thanks for getting back to me.” She asked if he had time for lunch. He was about to head to Ethete to visit elders at the senior center, he said, but he could meet her first. She suggested the restaurant at the casino.

*   *   *

VICKY FOLLOWED BLUE
Sky Highway north, then zigzagged east toward Ethete when she spotted the crowds ahead, the traffic stalled. She slowed behind a pickup and looked out the open window. The documentary film crew, filming horseback riders trotting over the prairie, crossing the road, and trotting on toward the mountains.

The line of traffic began inching forward along the road the riders had crossed. She started to follow the pickup truck when a man stepped out and held up a red stop sign. She slammed on the brake and rapped her fingers on the steering wheel. No telling how long the delay would be.

The riders were coming back. No special order now, no cameras trained on them, and she understood the director must have decided to reshoot the scene. One of the riders looked like Butch Cassidy, broad shouldered, muscular, and confident in the saddle, blond hair escaping from the rim of his cowboy hat. She must have seen a photo of the man, she was thinking, or maybe the actor crossing the road just happened to look the way she imagined Butch Cassidy. Riding close behind was a thin, smaller man, darker complexioned, impatience stamped on his features. Sundance Kid, most likely. She wondered if the real Sundance had looked as surly and restless. Other men followed, and on their faces, the haunted, desperate looks of men on the run.

A short gap, then another group galloped past: Arapahos,
riding tall and easy in the saddle, the horses at their command. They were good with horses, her people. Experts. She recognized several of the men from the powwows, and a few had been at Ruth's the day Robert died. Dallas Spotted Deer rode past. Then he spurred the horse and galloped around the other Arapahos. In the last bunch of riders was Eldon Lone Bear, staring straight ahead, as if the road that interrupted the endless prairies had never existed.

Behind them rode a bunch of cowboys, silver badges on their shirts glinting in the sun, holsters moving up and down on their hips. Still more cowboys followed, horses snorting and prancing. And in the rear, two official-looking men with broad cowboy hats, holstered guns, rifles in scabbards.

She put the scene together now: they were filming a getaway following a robbery, Butch and the gang on the run, and behind them a posse of deputies and civilians and finally, Pinkerton agents. She tried to remember what she had read about Butch Cassidy, how Pinkerton agents had tracked him and Sundance to Bolivia. But Butch had once been part of this place, a friend to her people. Riding behind the outlaws came Arapaho warriors. Shielding Butch from the posses and Pinkertons. Throwing them off the trail.

Finally, all the riders crossed to the other side, and the man stepped back and turned his sign around: Slow. Vicky inched forward, then pressed down on the accelerator and drove toward Ethete.