CHAPTER 17
The lowering sky above the pass had begun to color with late afternoon as Joe Noose and Bonny Kate Valance rode their horses at a relaxed pace along the natural trail. For the last hour they had traveled in safety, their transit unmolested, and Noose sensed no immediate danger in the woods around them. At least for the present. While he kept one eye peeled and one hand near his gun, Noose felt looser and began a casual banter with Bonny Kate. He admitted to himself he enjoyed talking to her. She was funny, bawdy, and ribald in conversation. In another time and place Noose might have taken a genuine shine to Bonny Kate as many men had, to their considerable disadvantage, he reminded himself. But for right now the ride and the company were pleasant enough as the traveling companions talked easily about this and that and even shared some jokes, and the cowboy grew comfortable enough to ask his prisoner something he’d been meaning to since they set out from Jackson.
“Mind if I ask you a question, Bonny Kate? Kind of personal, I reckon. Don’t have to answer if you don’t feel like it.”
“You can ask me anything you want, Joe. Not like I have any secrets worth taking to the grave.”
“Could be it’s a question can’t be answered.”
“Won’t know if I don’t hear it. Ask away.”
Noose’s brow knitted as he tried to properly word his question. He fell back on Copper to ride alongside Bonny Kate, and when he finally looked over at her saw she held his gaze honest and true. Noose spoke softly with a rough sort of kindness in his voice. “How did you go wrong, Bonny Kate? How did it all come to this? I know why men go wrong ’cause I know how men think. Reckon that’s because I am one. But I don’t lay claim to understand women, and what makes one good like Bess or bad like you. How did you go so wrong, what brought you so low?”
“If this is your idea of small talk, Joe, you need some lessons in talking to girls.” She grinned, and he laughed, embarrassed.
“Shucks, you don’t have to answer.”
She looked ahead while they rode and thought it over. “No, it’s a good question. You mean when did I make the decision to turn outlaw, to rob banks and shoot people, when did I decide this was the life for me?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t think I chose the life, Joe, I think it chose me.”
“I can understand that.”
“But when you want to know? What was my story? What was my family like? Before.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he answered.
Then the conversation took a sideways turn when Bonny Kate asked Noose an offhand question.
“What’s the story with you and that Marshal Bess back there?”
“It’s complicated.” He shrugged.
“Always is. I got time.”
“I work for her.”
“That’s all?”
“Bess has big boots to wear in town, being the only law in Jackson—one woman running the U.S. Marshal’s office, so I help her out when I can.”
“You’re a bounty hunter.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m a deputy marshal. Whatever she needs.”
“Reckon it’s handy having you around.”
“Depends on what side of the law you’re on.”
“It’s handy her having you on hers, is what I meant. A woman likes a strong man watching her back. Makes her feel protected.”
“Bess can handle herself. She’s a heck of a lady. And a hell of a marshal.”
“I can see that. A woman marshal, now, that’s damn impressive. Never met a lady marshal or sheriff once before her, not in my entire career. This may sound strange coming from me, but I say it is high time women wore a badge. If a woman had been enforcing the law, I’d have been brought to justice years ago. It’s because of all these stupid men holding lawman positions I’ve had the run I’ve had, believe it. Women are smarter than men. We’re the superior species. They say I’m historical because I’m making history being the first female outlaw to get hanged, well, that’s a lot of hooey because it don’t take no brains to get yourself killed. I just got caught, was all. Historical is your marshal friend back there. Bess Sugarland is the one who made history, becoming the first female marshal.”
Noose nodded in agreement and Bonny Kate, on a roll of rhetoric, whistled in admiration. “The guts she must have. All the crap she must have had to take from men, especially lawmen, because of her sex, her wearing that badge. Earning the respect of men like those. Hell, earning the respect of a man like you. That’s something. I take my hat off to Marshal Bess Sugarland. She’s a great lady and you can tell her I said so.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think the feeling’s mutual, Bonny Kate.”
The lady outlaw sighed, shrugged. “Sad, but I know. Stands to reason she don’t like my kind and truth be told she got good reason not to. I don’t hold that against her. But Bess and I, we got more in common than she wants to admit to herself.”
Noose chuckled. “You got rocks in your head if you believe that, lady. The marshal ain’t nothing like you. She enforces the law and you break it. That’s why she’s wearing a badge and you’re wearing a rope necktie.”
“I’m serious, Joe. Bess and me, we got us plenty in common. We’re independent women who live on our terms, play by our own rules. Strong women who both distinguished themselves and made a name for ourselves in a man’s world by not letting men tell us what to do. It’s a lonely road when most of our sex get married and push out babies and end up forgotten by husbands who cheat on them with the other kind of woman that sells sex for money. Those are the two choices that a woman is born into in this life with, Joe Noose. Bonny Kate Valance and Marshal Bess Sugarland—us, we’re two of a kind. Broke the mold, you might say. Mavericks each in our own way. Free women who think for ourselves, living by our own wits God didn’t give us because there ain’t no damn God, but our mothers did. It’s a man’s world, Noose, not built for females, so take it from a woman, any way she can skin this world is her business.”
“You both have guts, it’s true. But you want to know the difference between you and Bess, Bonny Kate?”
“Yes, I do.”
“The truth?”
“No, tell me lies like every other man always has. Of course I want you to tell me the truth.”
“You make excuses for your misdeeds and try to justify your wrongs when all you care about is yourself, Bonny Kate. You don’t feel sorry for anything you’ve done, all you ever cared about was not getting caught. Bess always tries to do the right thing and makes the tough choices and decisions when it ain’t in her interest, just the opposite. She makes sacrifices and takes responsibility because that’s her duty. What Bess has, it’s called character. That ain’t a word you know the meaning of, Bonny Kate, and responsibility for other people ain’t in your vocabulary because the only thing you feel responsible for is yourself. That’s why she’s a lawman and you’re an outlaw.”
After this exchange they rode in silence for many minutes as Bonny Kate Valance fell into deep thought and introspection, reflecting on what Noose could not hazard a guess. Noose was never sure what women were thinking. But he wondered just the same. As the two companions climbed the lonely trail on saddles undulating with the steady rhythm of their horses’ steps, the sound of the hooves and exhalations of the stallions added to the sense of silence and solitude of the high elevations. It seemed like they were the only two people in the whole wide world. Noose waited for the woman to speak but had no idea what she would say when or if she said it; half the time he was amazed at what came out of the lady outlaw’s mouth—she was unpredictable, he’d give her that.
When finally Bonny Kate spoke after clearing her throat, it was in a calm and reasonable manner. “The difference between an outlaw and a lawman ain’t so large. I think you know that. Look how many outlaws became lawmen. Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp. Look at yourself. You ain’t no stranger to the wrong side of a gun.”
Noose was surprised but also wasn’t to hear Bonny Kate still justifying herself; his words had not gotten through to her and he should not have expected anything he said to change her. Some people knew the difference between right and wrong and some didn’t, and the only reason Noose did was the ugly brand on his chest that had forged a conscience into him at a young age.
“That’s true.” Noose nodded, his expression saying he wasn’t proud of it. “But I ain’t half the person Marshal Bess is and you ain’t less than half of what she is. Bess Sugarland’s better than me. And she’s better than you, too.”
As Bonny Kate perched cocked in the saddle, her blue eyes sparkled as with a saucy little smile she studied Noose. “You like her.”
“We’re friends.” When he looked over at her, Bonny Kate held his gaze in her own like a warm fist. Noose did not expect what she said next:
“She’s in love with you, you know.”
Noose was at a loss as warmth spread through his insides and flushed his face, which got suddenly hot.
“Ain’t,” was all he could say when he found the word to speak.
The lady outlaw beamed at him with a teasing affection and amusement. “I seen the way she looks at you.”
“It ain’t like that.”
“I seen the way you look at her.”
“Ain’t nothing between us.”
“Nothing but air, huh?”
“We’re just friends.” He nodded to himself. “Good friends, is all.”
She laughed as if that was absurd. “Are you really so thick skulled you can’t see how that lady feels about you?”
Hearing this from another woman, even a bad one like Bonny Kate, made Joe Noose’s heart lift in a way he didn’t understand but he showed no expression or tried not to. “She’s way too good for the likes of me.”
“You both are meant to be together, Joe. You do know that. If any two people in this world were made for each other, it’s you and Bess.”
He shifted awkwardly in the saddle, lips unable to form words.
“Why ain’t you made a move on her?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Joe, that part of what goes on between men and women ain’t complicated at all.”
“I took something from Bess she can’t get back.”
“Her heart?”
“Her father.”
“You killed her father?”
“Not me personally. But I might just as well have.” Noose looked ahead into the distance while he spoke but Bonny Kate could tell he was looking into the past as she watched him from her saddle. “Few months back, I disputed an illegal bounty claim made by that man Frank Butler and his boys. I had taken the fugitive in alive but the Butler Gang sneaked up and shot him then stole the body from me and took it to the Hoback U.S. Marshal’s office to claim the reward. Just should have let it go. That’s what I should have done. But the bounty was mine because I’d caught the guy. So I didn’t let it go. Mostly, it was because Butler murdered this man in cold blood for no damn reason since I had captured the fugitive alive and unharmed. Butler probably figured it didn’t make no difference because it was a dead-or-alive bounty but what he did was illegal and it was murder, pure and simple.
“Like I said, Bonny Kate, I didn’t let it go because it didn’t seem right. I followed them bounty killers to Hoback, where Bess’s father was the marshal and she was his deputy and I brought the dispute to them, told the marshal the truth of what Butler done, just not figuring . . .” Noose trailed off. “Doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t figure, because on the spot Butler shot that marshal and framed me for his death, getting a fat reward put on my head and he and his gang rode after me to collect. I killed ’em all, but Bess lost her dad and she got shot and it’s all my fault.”
“You were trying to do the right thing, sounds to me.” Bonny Kate was a good listener when she wanted to be.
“I’m responsible for Marshal Nate Sugarland getting murdered and even though I brought the men responsible to account, that won’t bring Bess’s dad back. That’s on me.”
“I don’t think she blames you, Joe.”
“She should.”
“That’s the past. It’s history. You and her now, that’s the present.”
“I have to do right by Bess, got me an obligation to do what her father would have done now he ain’t here.”
“You ain’t her dad, you’re a man, a man who can love Bess and that’s what she wants, you damn fool.”
“I need to make it up to her, even if I never can.”
“You think too much!” Rolling her eyes, Bonny Kate shook her head in exasperation. “Screw all that thinkin’ an’ hesitatin’ nonsense. You gotta take what you want in this life. You love that woman. You know you do. She loves you. Take her. It’s what she wants you to do, even if she ain’t got the guts to say it.”
In the saddle across from her, he just sighed and looked straight ahead, staring into space.
“You hear old Bonny Kate, Joe. You drop me off at the gallows then ride straight back to Jackson and marry that woman.”
“I ain’t the marrying kind.”
“When you find a woman like Bess, you hold on and don’t let go, Joe, don’t ever let her go.” Bonny Kate’s eyes were tearing up, filled with emotion. It seemed important to her that Joe and Bess found love.
Noose looked at her, unsure of how to react to the raw, exposed look he saw in her eyes. He didn’t know why Bonny Kate was saying all this or what she was getting at. So she spelled it out for him: “If there is any reason for you and me to be sharing this last ride, Joe, any reason fate brought us together, any higher purpose to our paths crossing, if there be anything for someone like me to impart to someone like you, it is this: to tell you to love that woman hard as she loves you until you draw your very last breath. Don’t let her get away. Don’t let that one go, Joe.”
Noose watched her a long moment and didn’t blink. “What do you know about love?”
Bonny Kate dropped her eyes, embarrassed of exposing her true feelings. “I know what it’s like not to have love. There, I done said my piece, Joe, and if you’re too dumb to take the gift of a condemned woman’s advice then you’re stupid. All men are stupid. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I done if men wasn’t so stupid.”
They rode on into woods in silence but something had changed between them as the roof of the sky began to dim.