Etta: A Novel Page 13

  Etta placed her hand over Eleanor's. She thought then of all the undeserved benefits she had received merely because of the way she looked. How teachers had endowed her with wisdom and morality she did not possess; how men would court and compliment, all the while ignorant and uncaring as to whether she had either heart or brain.

  And then she imagined what the world was like for this extraordinary creature. Even her own family had failed to discover her courage and generosity of spirit. She could only wonder at the cruel indifference of the men whom her circle would consider suitable. Worst of all, she seemed to have taken these messages deeply to heart, where daily they became a hundred small arrows, each taking its turn at wounding her.

  “Well, then,” Etta said, “I am a respectable married woman. If you will allow it, I shall be your chaperone and accompany you on your many interesting journeys. And before you know it, your settlement girls will enjoy a supporting wage and you and I will sign the ballots together to elect a woman president!”

  The two laughed heartily. As Eleanor poured tea, Etta lied cheerfully about her life, about her Harry's cattle interests, and about the ranch they were building in Wyoming. But even in the interest of self-protection she could not manage to disguise her beginnings in Philadelphia or anything relating to her father save his name, which she now conjured as Mr. G. W. Cassidy. Somehow, Etta sensed that if this friendship were to grow there must be at least some common ground untainted by her shield of untruths. So she would cling to the one truth that was unassailable. The tale of two orphans, young and virtually alone, their mothers dead, their fathers destroyed by the same demon.

  By the time four o'clock came, Etta and Eleanor had both laughed and cried. They lingered into four-thirty and then five o'clock before Etta insisted that she must go or she might not leave at all. Eleanor reluctantly led Etta to the big hall cupboard, helped her into her coat, and then spun her gently around and took Etta's hands in hers.

  “Mrs. Place, I cannot tell you how enjoyable this afternoon has been for me. I hope you will come and see me again. That is, if you can stand the abject worship of a little sister.”

  “But would my little sister refer to me by my married name? From now on I must be Etta for you, and only Etta.”

  “And I, Eleanor to you—or even….” Eleanor's face darkened and then the huge smile spread shyly across it.

  “Yes?” said Etta. “Come now. No secrets between sisters.”

  Eleanor paused and cast down her eyes in embarrassment. “In his letters, Father used to address me as his Little Nell. He was the only one who ever called me that. No one else has even known it was his name for me. I loved him more than anyone else in my life. If someone would call me that again, it would be a great comfort.”

  Etta enfolded her companion in her arms and held her, brief and tight. “I shall be honored,” Etta whispered. “I shall be your sister and your friend. And you shall always be Little Nell to me.”

  Eleanor called for her aunt's carriage. As it rolled up to the curb, its canvas top battened down against the wind, Eleanor again took Etta's hand. “George will take you back to your hotel. And any time you wish to see me, you need only send word and he shall be there quick as Mercury.”

  With that, Etta was down the front steps and into the carriage. As she waved from the window and looked back down 37th Street, she could see her new friend raise her arm only once and then, with a gesture graceful as a swan, bring her hand lightly to her throat.

  From the

  NEW YORK WORLD

  October 25, 1901

  “WILD WEST” PROVIDES MUCH DIVERSION

  FOR NEW YORKERS

  COLONEL CODY'S SHOW FEATURES THRILLS AND SPILLS APLENTY

  COWBOYS, INDIANS, ARABS, COSSACKS, AND GAUCHOS IN CELEBRATED “CONGRESS OF ROUGH RIDERS”

  MISS ANNIE OAKLEY AMAZES WITH TRICK RIFLERY BUT LEAVES STAGE EARLY

  Madison Square Garden manifested a veritable living “dime novel” this Wednesday past as Colonel William F. Cody—better known to the public as Buffalo Bill—brought his Wild West extravaganza to New York.

  There was no shortage of thrilling exploits for the youngsters gathered therein as the famed former Indian fighter and showman brought a plethora of exciting actors to the great dirt floor of the edifice, performing feats the likes of which have never before been seen hereabouts.

  Featured in the evening were the numerous members of the Wordwide Congress of Rough Riders. These include cowboys of the Western plains attired in buckskin and leather and their South American cousins known as gauchos; red savages in their curious feathered headdresses and war paint; Arab horsemen in flowing white robes, and the fur-bearing Cossacks, those fierce knights of the Russian steppes. Each man was astride a magnificent animal that was likewise attired in the decorated saddle and bridle of its native land. During their portion, the Rough Riders performed trick equestrian feats and staged mock battles for those assembled who, it can well and truly be said, were demonstrative in their hearty approval.

  Colonel Cody's troupe also treated the audience to a historically accurate re-creation of the death of Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The horseman portraying General George Armstrong Custer fair succeeded at becoming his double, and the native who dispatched him is authentically acted by a full-blooded Indian humorously named Kicking Bird. Indeed, this red man is reputed to be an actual descendant of Crazy Horse, the bloodthirsty Sioux chieftain who carried out Custer's brutal murder during the legendary massacre.

  The night's only disappointment was the curiously truncated performance of a longtime favorite, Miss Annie Oakley, of sharp-shooting fame. The diminutive Miss Oakley assayed some of her trademark manoeuveres: she shot a cigarette from a man's mouth and hit a target reflected in a mirror while aiming her rifle backward. But after only five minutes' time, she abruptly left the arena, followed closely by her husband and assistant, Mr. Frank Butler, all to the great displeasure of the throng. No explanation was evinced as to the cause of Miss Oakley's early departure.

  “Buffalo Bill's Wild West” will reside here for a fortnight and will include special children's matinees.

  LETTER TO ETTA PLACE

  234 West 12th Street, New York, N.Y.

  25 November, 1901

  Pretty,

  Know not best to write where you are. Sorry to put you in danger but pray luck holds.

  Unhappy news. We are captured, 8 November. Butch and Harry and most others by greenhorn marshal, Abilene, Kansas, Ben and me taken by Mr. Charles Siringo of Pinks, St. Louis. Fair man. Showed Ben respect. Funny. After all we did and escaped, finally done in by a bank teller name of Jaquemin. Made Ben from poster in Abilene Trust. Kind of place we used to knock over easy as knitting.

  Us inside but Curry on the run. Wouldn't know to ask God where. Whole time you gone he swearing blue to find you. Git his money.

  Have a care. Curry clever as foxes.

  My Ben got fifteen years in calaboose, me five. So you must keep his goods and mine. World being as is, probably never see you no more.

  Siringo ask me about you. Five hours over two days. Tell him shit. He brung in a artist to try and draw you from my words. Habit of quiet a fine thing.

  Only got this to you by bribing the turnkey with only thing I still got. And it still works. Ha-ha.

  Know this: Won't never forget how you kept my secrets and was my friend. Know you honest. Won't spend a penny of mine or Ben's. Don't care if you do. For all this thieving, one of us should get a good life. If it's you, good.

  As to Sundance Kid, heart shouldn't break over outlaw. Forget. Live.

  Hope they do not take you. Rope would look silly with your pretty lace. Ha-ha.

  Your friend,

  Laura Bullion

  s Christmas approached, Ettas desolation was near total. She was able to draw some comfort from the softness of the falling snow outside her window or a cup of sweet tea shared with Mrs. Taylor, but even the smallest portion of happiness requires ho
pe, and Etta was as short of that essential as she had ever been.

  The sheer number of charges against Harry Longbaugh virtually guaranteed a lengthy sentence, perhaps totaling the remaining years of his life: train and bank robbery, horse theft, fraud, property destruction. The accumulation of his calumny probably continued for pages. If his trial had not been completed by now, it soon would be, and barring a miracle or a jury addled by drink, he would surely grow old in prison.

  Worse, Etta had no direct contact with Harry. In order to assure that she remain undetected by the law or jailhouse censors, all their correspondence was conducted through Laura Bullion, and the strange code they established in her letters only added to Etta's frustration and helplessness. For a young woman in love, I hope this letter finds you well was a poor substitute for this letter arrives with all my love.

  Eleanor was her only solace. She could, of course, never reveal the true source of her sadness, confiding in her friend that it was merely the absence of her “Mr. Place” that prompted the frequent onrush of tears.

  The two women saw each other first once a week, then twice, and finally nearly every day. They took long walks through Central Park and skated on its frozen pond. They ate sweet rolls and drank Turkish coffee in tiny Village restaurants. They were content to be silent as they brushed each other's hair to glistening, one hundred strokes and more. And they talked: first about things small or jolly—music, art, horses—and then about their fathers, who, each in his way, willingly took leave of this world; David Jameson by a pistol to the temple, Elliott Roosevelt by demons in a bottle.

  Only later came the far more painful subject of their mothers. Etta had only known hers from a few photographs but had inherited her magnificence and then some. Eleanor had known her mother well enough to realize that she would be found forever wanting for not matching her in beauty. They laughed at their mutual finishing of sentences and cried through smiles and intertwined fingers.

  But as elated as she was by her new friendship, as the weeks went by Etta found herself increasingly concerned with the practical. How ironic it seemed that she, the holder of a fortune buried in Colorado, was growing increasingly short of funds. The classes she taught in English Pronouncement at Rivington Street were some of the finest hours she had spent in her young life, but they offered no compensation. And, with the law and Pinkertons everywhere, it would have been worse than foolhardy to dip into the Brooklyn goods. Soon, she knew, it would be necessary to find employment of some kind. But who would have work for a girl fit only to break horses and rob trains?

  In the event, that employment came to her in a ball of flesh and leather hurtling through the door of a saloon.

  She had only just kissed Eleanor goodbye on the steps of the settlement house, turned right up Orchard and left on Houston when a man flew through the swinging doors of the bar. As he sailed through the air, his fist caught the large bow that decorated the hip of her greatcoat. The two fell hard into the dirty snow; she fuming in rage at the indignity, he clearly in no mood to apologize.

  As they rose from the slush she recognized him at once. He was a lot less sunburned than she remembered and his usual alcohol flush was gone. But it was him, all right. There was no mistaking the squinty eyes and the lick of dirty-blond hair that fell across his forehead. His clothes were cleaner than she had ever seen them and his hat shinier, but this was Frank Elliott, sure as sunrise, Peg Leg himself. When he was riding with the Bunch, no one ever commented upon the nickname or why it had been given to a man with two good legs. It was one of many things never explained. Laura Bullion had one theory. In her laconic way, she had intimated that a whore from Albuquerque had told her that it had to do with his “stature” as a man or, more accurately, his stature somewhere between man and mule.

  As surprised as he was to see her, Peg Leg was even more astonished when she clapped her hand firmly over his mouth. “Greet me, Peg,” she said, “but speak neither too loudly nor too clearly.”

  “Whatever you say, Miss Etta,” he mumbled through her fingers.

  She lowered her hand to her side and suggested that they repair to a local tearoom. Peg Leg seemed little the worse for the bum's rush, but then he had always been the sort who could fall from a horse, a coal car, or a two-story building and walk away whole. Butch liked to say it was because his brain didn't function well enough to tell his body it should be hurt.

  Back at Hole-in-the-Wall, Peg had never shown any interest in male fashion. But as Etta accompanied him down the street she marveled at his gear. He wore a Stetson beaver sombrero with a black and gold band. His coat was of natural buckskin festooned with fringe about the breast and down each arm. The leather of the chaps concealed dungarees of corduroy striped with silk brocade, and the ensemble was completed by timber-rattler boots, each sporting a silver spur at the heel and matching tip at the toe.

  A few blocks up Houston, they came to a small dingy café. The waiter led them to a table and Etta ordered tea and cream cakes. Peg allowed as he had never had tea, as he heard it was a drink only for ladies. Etta assured him that, here in New York, men drank tea as well as women. Reluctantly, Peg agreed to try a sip, but not too much. Overindulgence, someone had told him, could cause a man to shrivel some.

  “Well, Peg,” Etta said, placing a napkin in his lap, “either you've taken someone off big or you and the boys have found my goods and made the split. Never have I seen so fancy a cowboy.”

  Peg Leg looked wounded. “No, none of that, Miss Etta. I been working legit, and that's a fact. I bought these duds with wages such as a honest man can earn.”

  “Where in the world could you possibly have made enough money to buy such an outfit? Those boots alone are two months' salary for a gentleman of your skills and education.”

  “But I don't need no skills of education, Miss Etta. I'm in the show business.”

  It was Etta's turn to be astonished. “The show business? I knew you could do rope tricks and tell funny stories, but I never quite pictured you performing the works of Shakespeare.”

  Peg Leg blushed. He was amazed to find Etta Place in New York City and more than a little flattered that a woman of her beauty and grace (and Sundance's woman in the bargain) would invite him to a table of any kind.

  “I'm no actor, nor singer neither. I'm currently in the legal employ of Colonel William F. Cody and the famous Buffalo Bill's Wild West. We're touring the country and selling out the house at the Square Garden. Depending on the time of day or the degree of another man's drunkenness or illness, I can be any one of the Congress of Rough Riders.”

  Etta laughed for what felt like the first time in a year.

  “No, Miss Etta, it's true. I been a Ay-rab tribesman, a Confederate and a Union soldier, a Tartar, and a Cossack, as well as a cowboy like myself, roping and riding. I get treated awful good, Miss Etta, and the colonel pays me as befitting my expertness. Outside of Harry and Butch, he is the best man I ever knew. And the show we put on! Why, only last night me and my fellows enacted the whole Battle of the Little Big Horn with twenty redskins and Kicking Bird hisself making pretend to be Crazy Horse.”

  “It must be thrilling to ride every day and every night!” Etta said, her eyes shining. “Lord, it sounds wonderful.”

  “I been to France and England and Russia, too. Them people was nice, and apart from the food I had myself a time.” Peg Leg reached for a cream cake. “But Miss Etta, what are you doing here? Is the Kid with you?”

  Etta cast her eyes down. She would have liked to unburden herself to this simple boy but could not bear to explain her love's imprisonment. Besides, the Philadelphian in her had decided it was none of his business.

  “No, Peg, I'm afraid Harry is still in Colorado. He'll join me here in a few months' time. Meanwhile, I could very much use a job. Could I dare hope that you might speak to your Colonel Cody on my behalf? You know I have some degree of riding and shooting skill. But I would muck the stables just to earn my own supper and inhale the scent of live ho
rseflesh once more.”

  Peg Leg swallowed a second cake nearly whole. The tea sat before him, steaming and untouched, as an eager grin spread across his face. Etta was comforted by that smile. It was the same one she had seen on Peg every time he leaped from his horse into an engineer's compartment or asked a bank teller politely if he had said his prayers that morning.

  “Miss Etta, your timing could not be better. We are going to have some trouble replacing a lady performer what has walked out this very day. The colonel is pulling out that long hair of his, trying to find a lady who can handle iron even half as good. You knocking me down in New York? I swear, it's a miracle.

  “But if I was to secure you employment, you would have to be ready to leave here right quick, as we are headed south in about two days. I do believe the colonel would like to make your acquaintance, and I would not be surprised if he did take you on. We would have to make an appointment with his people on the double.”

  “Then see him I shall.”

  As they rose, Peg Leg took the last two remaining cream cakes and a white napkin from the table. Wiping the last few flakes of sugar from his face, he pocketed the linen in his vest. Then, with Miss Etta Place on his arm, he exited the café, looking left and right, hoping to see the eyes of envy upon him.

  Outside, on Houston Street, he helped Etta aboard a horse trolley. As the driver rang the bell and the car began its journey uptown, Peg Leg Elliott sighed. Already he could picture her, calm and polite, pistol in hand, robbing all the passengers.

  From the

  PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER