Read Online Sundance by David Fuller - Free Book Online Page B

had so little respect for LeFors that he said, “Alonzo,” and smiled.
    â€œMuch obliged, Mr. Alonzo.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    A T THE LIVERY by the train depot, he watched a stableman from a distance to see how he was with the horses. When it became clear that the horses trusted him, Longbaugh approached him. He offered the stableman the horse named Felon as long as he agreed to not use a spade bit, in fact to use no bit on him at all for at least a week so the horse’s mouth could heal. He left his saddle behind as well, now empty of coins with the seam restitched.
    He knew that after LeFors told Siringo about the man named Alonzo that LeFors would again be exposed for exactly what he was. He did not expect it to make Siringo mad. He thought he was leaving all of that behind when he went to catch a train going east.

4

    T he train traveled out of the light into a blackness that seemed endless. Longbaugh suspected they were not just in a tunnel but burrowing underground. The other passengers, however, were passive to the point of cataleptic. He asked a conductor, who then bragged on his own personal connection to the modern marvels of the industrial world, explaining they were in a tunnel that had been dug directly beneath the Hudson River. Longbaugh glanced up at the ceiling of the passenger car and pictured water over his head.
    As there was nothing to see out the windows, his thoughts turned to the journey she had taken to get here, years ahead of him. She had traveled by train as well.
    Etta had lived in Rawlins and taught in the school so she could visit him in prison regularly. But he knew she could not keep her life in stasis to wait for him.
    Their conversations would follow a pattern. She would sit opposite him on visiting day, and inside he would rejoice. But he would try to appear solemn.
    â€œYou have to stop coming,” he would say.
    â€œI will,” she would say.
    â€œYou’re staying in Wyoming just to see me once a week.”
    â€œI suppose I am.”
    â€œYou mustn’t.”
    â€œNext week I’ll stop.”
    â€œI can stay in my cell. I can refuse to see you.”
    â€œThen that’s what you should do.”
    Then they would talk about anything and everything, but he would become solemn again when it was time for her to leave.
    â€œDon’t come back next week.”
    â€œAll right,” she would say with a smile. “I won’t.”
    And the next week she’d be there to meet him.
    He’d be solemn again, disguising his absolute delight.
    â€œYou have to stop coming here.”
    â€œI know, you’re right, and I will,” she’d say.
    â€œYou can’t keep doing this. Get away from Wyoming. Live for both of us.”
    â€œI’m already making plans,” she’d say.
    Then they’d start talking. Every week she tried to wear something new or do something different with her hair. He’d always see it and compliment her, and it always pleased her that he was paying attention.
    This went on for years. But over time he knew that as important as it was for him, it was no good for her.
    One day she visited and he wasn’t there to see her. He asked a guard to hand her a letter he had written.
    It was a good letter. He had spent the entire week writing it and at the last second had almost not had the will to send it with the guard. But somehow, during what would have been their hour together, he had sat, very still, on the cot in his cell, imagining her reading it, then imagining what their conversation would have been if he’d been there with her when she read it.
    She would have said, “This is a good letter.”
    â€œThen you’ll leave? You’ll go to New York?”
    â€œYes. I’ll go tomorrow.”
    â€œYou’ll really go?”
    â€œOf course I will.”
    And then she would have come back to the prison the next week.
    At the end of visiting