SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE ORINDA
1898
I Am a True-Blue Bandit
“Stop and elevate.” Joe stood wide-legged and straight-backed in front of the horses. He cocked his Colt and held it facing skywards. “This is a robbery.” He sauntered on up to the stage and peered at the driver. “Drop your rifle, sir.”
I crouched low along the bush line, waiting for his signal. It was now or never. My hands sweat profusely, and I thought my heart might bang right through my chest. I darted forward. Three faces squished together and peered from behind the window. I dropped back on my heels and pressed my hands to my hips. “I think we might try another—”
“Get over there and get the money,” Joe barked. He put a leg up on the carriage and yanked the driver to the ground, where he pressed a boot to the man’s chest.
“He can’t breathe like that.”
Joe pointed his revolver at me. His eyes had gone wild, not staying in any one place, and when he pulled in air, he bared his teeth. “Dammit, woman.”
“All right already.” I pulled at the pistol stuck in my belt, but my hand slipped off the handle. “Dammit right back.” I wiped my palm on my chest, then took the gun and waved it at the cringers. “Get out and line up.”
The door creaked as it swung open. The first out was a fat man who kept his hands straight above his head. The man behind him wore his hair oiled back and parted in the middle, his scalp so white I had to blink against the glare. He clung to the fat fella, and both leaned forward and tumbled down in a mess of arms and legs that took a good kick or two from me to straighten up.
Joe was no help; he had knocked the driver out and was tying his legs up, which I felt was a bit overboard.
“Stand against the carriage,” I said.
The last of the three to exit gave me heartburn and a load of boiling guilt.
He took his time, careful not to catch his long gray garment under his feet. I noticed his black boots shone to a high heaven, with not one single scuff.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wu Lin.” I couldn’t look at him. Just waved my gun to where I needed him to stand.
He nodded.
“You have to put your hands up.”
“As you request.” He held them up.
His didn’t tremble, such as the other two’s did.
I sucked in a breath. “Now, shell out.”
Mr. Pudge rolled his lip. “You’re nothing but a little thing.”
I stuck the gun in his stomach. “This is a little thing, too. I can make it go off, if you wish.”
“I do not wish that.”
“Then take out your wallet and toss it on the ground.”
His skin went a motley red and gray and his eyes squinted to slits. He was trying to communicate something to the younger man next to him.
I sighed and strolled back and forth, realizing that they were terrified of me. Or the six-shooter. Or Joe with his boot on the tied-up driver’s back and his own gun aimed at the poor man’s head. I tipped my head and took a turn or two.
“I’m not going to wait all day for you to hand over your money.” I spit over my shoulder to show I was serious about this entire affair and knocked the edge of the door for good measure.
Wu Lin held out a small black leather pouch.
I did not want to take it. Of all the people that could be on this stage, he was the one I least wished. I wanted instead to ask him all that had happened and if Cullen was alive and girls had gone to safety.
He dropped the pouch to the ground and pushed it to me with his shiny boot. His mouth quivered and then he gave a shake of his head before returning his features to a calm blank. He kept his focus on the mountain beyond.
I swiped the pouch and shoved it into my pocket.
“Now see how generous he is?”
My trigger finger, growing numb, twitched. Which made the other men jump, grab out their wallets and toss them my way to skid to a stop at my feet.
“Well, then.” I bent down and flicked open the wallet that looked ready to burst. “How much is in here, Mr. Pudgeman?”
“That’s fifty-three dollars right there.” His voice took on a reedy thin timbre. “That is all I have to my name.”
The other wallet was thin.
“There’s only a couple dollars in there.” The other man’s forehead bristled with sweat.
I sank to my haunches and thumbed out the bills. I hooked my finger to it to count. “There’s seven dollars. Which is five more than you said, which makes you a liar.”
He started to hum a strange tune, and his eyes rolled back in his head before snapping to me. He swayed, his shoulders thumping the side of the coach.
I was concerned he was suffering from heat stroke, for we stood cooking in the full brunt of the afternoon sun. I surveyed the three of them, miserable and hot and penniless and scared.
I knew what that fear was like.
I peered back at Joe. “Let him up.”
Joe pulled him upright and shoved him against a wheel. “Stay.” He jogged over and stuffed the wallets into a pack he’d slung around his neck.
“Turn around and face the stage,” I barked. “No one move for ten minutes.”
I stuffed the gun into my belt. Joe and I scrambled up the hill and jogged over to spy. Wu Lin moved first, sprinting to the driver to untie him, then joining the other men as they fell over each other trying to get back on the stage. The driver shoveled up his rifle and climbed back up to his perch. He peered up the mountain and took a wide shot before grabbing the reins and snapping them down, setting the horses into full flight. The dust swirled under their hooves and spit out behind the coach wheels.
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re headed right on down to town.”
“Yeah.”
I smacked him on the arm. Then I punched him.
He held a hand to his mouth. “What the hell?”
“You are the sorriest, stupidest, dumbest, mud-brained, son of a damn vacant-headed horny toad.”
“You just hit me.”
I swung another punch. “The traces, Joe.” I clamped my teeth and punched my own head. I pulled off my hat and smacked it to the ground, then shoved it back on again. “You were supposed to cut the traces.”
* * *
Joe’s mistake gave the driver ample time to drop the passengers and sic the law on us. Twice I’d seen the tops of their hats and the sheen off their guns. There was not much opportunity to reflect on our lack of plan. After a desperate grapple up the mountain and crisscrossing the same damn path so many times I grew weary of seeing it, we found ourselves well and truly lost.
The sun dropped like a ball and not a slice of moonlight shone into the deep gulch we pulled up in. My horse’s ribs heaved under me. She needed a breather, so I slung my leg over her neck and slid off.
Joe turned his horse in circles, the poor creature panting and reluctantly turning at the “Move about,” Joe barked.
“We have to stop, Joe.”
He gave a hard kick against the poor horse’s ribcage, hard enough I felt it in my own. I jogged over and yanked at his reins. “Get down. Let her rest.”
“I hear ’em down below. You hear ’em, Ruby?” He dug in his heels and spun away from me, pacing back and forth, the two of them bounding up one side of the gulch to slide down and do it all over on the other side.
My horse, who I named Poke, lowered her head in exhaustion and gave no fight when I hobbled her.
“Are you thirsty?” I unplugged my canteen and took out one of the tin bowls from the knapsack tied to the back of the saddle. Poke took a good long drink. I unsaddled her, running my hand along her withers same as Pip used to do to thank Big Henry for being a good damn horse.
Her skin rippled at my touch, ending in her shaking her shoulders and stomping a back hoof. She gave a long deep-chested sigh and didn’t lift her head; just took a hobbled step towards the one bit of grass she could nibble on.
“They’re going to find us, Ruby.”
“It’ll be your fault.” I lugged up the saddle and moved it to a place with a fewer rocks than where I stood.
“This whole thing is your fault,” he said. “And when they find us and we get hauled to prison I’m going to state that fact as such.”
I thomped up a ways and unbuttoned my trousers to pee. “You’re going to kill your horse. Then what’ll you do?” I let go a breath of relief, then buttoned up and jumped down directly in front of his path. “We need to get to Superior then out to the train. And I’m not taking you on the back of my horse, so get the hell off yours so we can sleep some.”
He sniffed. “All right, then.”
“Don’t put your saddle next to mine. You just go on over to the other side and take care of your own damn self.”
“You’re what’s called a witch.”
I had no need to continue the conversation, so returned to my encampment. I unbuckled and rolled out a wool blanket and wrapped it around me like a cocoon. I sank down and dropped my head to the saddle seat.
The temperature made a steep dive. I shivered and pulled the blanket up to my chin. Above, the sky was so deep it looked like infinity, and all the stars glowed like chipped ice. It reminded me of the first night I slept out in Orinda, after I’d left Frank and taken that train to wherever it went and got off where it ended up. That roiled my stomach and brought me to a few tears. “I’d like to mail Mr. Wu Lin back his money.”
There were scruffing noises and a groan. “Two dollars and fifty cents of that is mine.”
“You have no charity.”
Some rocks tumbled on a ridge above us. Poke lifted her head and gave a snort.
I froze solid. My heart thudded hard as a stick against a drum. Anything could be above us: mountain lion, javelina, old trapper. The law. Cullen.
Joe clicked his gun. “I will shoot.”
Poke swung her head around and sniffed the air. She stepped back, swayed forward, her hobbled front legs crippling an escape.
I lowered the blanket and crawled on my knees until I could reach her and remove the ties. “Please don’t run,” I whispered.
She didn’t. Just shivered and pawed.
I sunk back and wished I hadn’t put my gun in the saddlebag. Not that it would do any good.
I hadn’t loaded it.
* * *
The next thing I knew, the cold was more dreadful than it had been, and my eyes blinked open to lumpy low clouds and a spritz of rain on my cheek. I found myself bound in my blanket and Joe’s plaid one, which he must have given me during the night.
The horses nibbled at some plant a few yards down the way.
Joe, stalwart guard, slept with his head thrown back and his mouth open wide enough to catch the Gila monsters that caught the flies. Drizzle beaded on his skin and along his mustache. He cradled his gun on his chest, his palms crossed over the cylinder and trigger and the barrel aimed dangerously at his manly parts.
It would not do well to startle him.
I got on my knees and crept to him, leaning over to his ear. “Good morning, Joe.” I blew a breath.
His hand jerked to swipe at the tickle, which gave me enough time to pick up the gun.
He smacked his lips and ran his tongue over the white salt on them. He opened a red-rimmed eye. “It’s drizzling.”
“It’ll be a cooler ride.” I put the gun on the ground next to him and headed for the horses. “They’re going to need some real hay. Maybe there’s a ranch where we can steal some—”
Joe’s gaze snapped to the right. He jumped up, tore by me, then skittered to a stop to grab my arm.
I stumbled forward. “What are you doing?”
He pulled a bridle and reins from my saddle horn and tossed them to me. “Come on.”
“I need my saddle. Joe, stop.”
“They’re watching, Ruby. They’re just up the hill.” Joe picked me up around the waist and raced to the horses. He lugged me onto Poke’s back, bridled her, and took one leap to his own horse, looping the reins around his neck and reaching to drag on the bridle.
“You got to hang on, Ruby.”
I grabbed the mane and the reins with both hands and screwed my eyes shut.
Just relax and trust, Ruby.
I opened my eyes, thinking I could see Pip next to me, her sombrero tipped back, hands on her hips, boots dusty.
You should have stayed a trick rider, Pip.
Some things just don’t go the way you want, do they?
My throat closed up because she wasn’t there.
Five horses lunged up the incline, five riders spurring them on. One split off and charged in pursuit of Joe while the other four surrounded Poke and me. I do not know which of us gave up first. The poor horse dropped her head, and I lifted my hands above mine.
“Hold your breath. I am guilty of whatever you’re about to say.”
* * *
They caught Joe the day after my trial ended. His trial began and ended in half a day. Joe refused to talk to me, though we were two cells apart while awaiting transport to our sundry prisons. The jail keeper peered in at me on my last night there, spitting a plug of tobacco on the floor by his feet and scruffing the neck of his mangy hound. “People don’t learn, do they? You may want to be Pearl Hart,” he drawled. “But she’s a spitfire tiger cat. You’re just a teeny, miniscule nothing.”
“I have no idea who you’re referring to.” I crossed one leg over the other and turned a shoulder him.
“Meow.” He ambled away, taking his snot-nosed dog with him.
“You know who he’s on about, Joe?”
“I am not talking to you.”
“Be that way then.”
“I will.”
“I wrote my sister,” I said.
“Did you?”
“She’s not happy.”
“No, I don’t suppose she is.”
* * *
I had also written a letter to Pip and sent it General Post. I’m sorry for being such a coward. But there was no answer to it or any other I sent explaining my side of things.
Seven months later, I received a gift, but no card to identify the giver. It was an intricate bentwood cage and inside, curled up asleep and cute as the dickens, a tiny baby raccoon.