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Where I Got the Crazy Idea for Butch & Other Tidbits
I think I was driving back from the Southwest when I got the idea. The character came first and the book is named after her: Butch. I loved the idea of writing about a tough capable woman in the Old West, a woman who has a predilection for pretty women and hard living.
My novels are populated with GLBT characters—just like real life. Diverse sexuality is an integral and normal part of the lives of my characters. A majority of the characters in Butch are GLBT, including Butch. I didn't want any of my characters to come to harm because of their sexual orientation. I was tired of reading books or seeing movies where something awful usually happened to one of the gay characters because they were gay. Nope. That wasn't going to happen to Butch or anyone else. Crap happens to Butch, but it isn't because of her sexuality.
Butch is a flawed and capable woman, tough, sexy, and sexual, and just the kind of person I would want watching my back. She is orphaned as an infant, and then she lives for several years with Grandma Crow, a sometimes abusive woman. After Grandma Crow dies, Butch endures several years in a home for wayward boys—even though she is not a wayward boy! So when Butch is an adult and she finds people who care about her, she protects them with all her might and heart. I love that.
In some ways, Butch has similar sensibilities as Church of the Old Mermaids, even though it's different! Wayward Ranch is mentioned in The Fish Wife: An Old Mermaids Novel, and the faery sea horses mentioned in Butch are the focus of my novel The Desert Siren (which will be out this summer). I like these sly nods to the Old Mermaids.
I wrote the first chapter of Butch about four years ago. I loved it so much that I got nervous about writing it. I felt like I had to know more since the story took place in 1918. But really, I was just nervous about writing the rest of it! So I stopped.
Originally I had the story set in Taos, New Mexico. I had visited Taos and New Mexico many times, but I hadn't been in a few years and I wanted to do some research there before I started writing Butch. I didn't have the funds to travel at that time so I started a kickstarter project. Although I didn't meet my goal, the enthusiasm of my kickstarter supporters gave me the confidence I needed to finish the novel.
I also realized I didn't have to go to Taos again. I was a fiction writer: I made stuff up. I thought it would be so much more fun to have Butch take place somewhere like Taos but not quite. That's when the small town of Santa Tierra, New Mexico, came into existence. I love Santa Tierra, and I can't wait to write more Butch novels so I can go back. Oh, didn't I mention that? Yep, I have several more Butch novels planned.
Wholly Inadequate Descriptions of This Book
One Sentence Pitch
Anything can happen in Santa Tierra, New Mexico, in 1918, and often does, with Butch McLean there to witness it all and save any damsels or dudes in distress, whatever the occasion.
Cover Blurb
Santa Tierra, New Mexico, 1918
Anything can happen in the weird and wonderful town of Santa Tierra, where Butch McLean protects the residents of Wayward Ranch, finds lovin’ in the arms and up the skirts of her beloved Angel, and keeps one step ahead of the possibly supernatural jaguar who may or may not be stalking her. Come hell or high water, Butch will rescue any dude or damsel in distress with humor and aplomb.
But when Angel dumps her (for a man, no less), a wounded stranger stumbles into town, and the deputy is murdered, Butch may have more mysteries on her hands than even she can solve. Especially since she is suddenly plagued by memories of the terrible childhood years she spent at St. Anne’s Home for Wayward Boys. And to top it all off, she becomes obsessed with finding her prostitute mother’s suicide note.
Butch is not accustomed to being haunted by anything—and she is not interested in ruminating about her life—but now even the animals who cross her path tell her a time of reckoning is near. And when the mystery of the dead deputy leads to revelations about Butch’s own parentage, she might just have a shot at solving the greatest mystery of all: Who is she and why did her mother end up at the end of a rope?
Chapter One
In or around Santa Tierra, New Mexico, 1918 C.E. or thereabouts, Space and Time being a continuum and all
Butch McLean could shoot, sit a horse, spin a yarn, track a varmint or villain, and pleasure a woman better than anyone alive. Butch’s particular talents held little value for the new folks pouring into the Southwest like locusts to a barbecue, but the old-timers still appreciated and tolerated the likes of Butch McLean.
On that late night in April no one fussed much when Butch kicked open the swinging doors to Angel’s Heaven on Earth, while holding a pistol in each hand, and called out, “I am here to rescue Miss Angel. Everyone out now or I will be forced to shoot you.”
The five or so men still in the saloon left quickly, backs to the wall, watching Butch as they scurried out. Butch had been known to take potshots at more than just rabbits. Thirty seconds later, the room was clear, except for the smoke, and Angel came from around the bar, hands on her cinched waist, blond curls framing her face and tickling the top of her bosom.
Butch walked toward Angel, guns still in the air, and leaned over and kissed her pearly white neck, and then her breasts—one at a time.
“Don’t be doin’ that unless you mean it,” Angel said.
“Darlin’,” Butch said. “I always mean it. I don’t have an insincere bone in my entire body.”
“Dammit, Butch,” Angel said. “Those were paying customers. Some day I’m gonna really be in trouble and nobody will believe it!”
“Just call me the cowboy who cried wolf,” Butch said.
“Cowgirl,” Angel said.
“Aww, Angie,” Butch said as she dropped the pistols onto the bar. “I was just trying to have some fun.”
“Sometimes you are more of an asshole than any man I know,” Angel said. “The law is gonna put you in jail if you keep doing this kind of thing. Just wait until I close up and you can sneak in the back like all my other girls do. Now I’m gonna let the boys back in.” She started walking toward the door.
“Let me take a trip up your dress first,” Butch said.
Angel laughed.
“I’ll be glad to,” she said. “After the boys finish their drinks. Now you can either stay here and be good or come back later and be bad.” She opened the door and leaned outside. “Come on in, boys. She promises not to pistol-whip anybody.”
Doc Broome stumbled in first, followed by Merle T. Connelly and Johnny Jack.
Butch sighed and turned back to the bar. This was not the ending to the night she had envisioned. Butch started to pick up her revolvers, but Angel slapped her hands down on them, pulled them away, and slipped them out of sight behind the bar.
“You can get them later,” she said. “You know I don’t allow weapons in my establishment.”
“Well, then,” Butch said, “I had better leave, since my body is a weapon. A weapon of love.”
Hearing all this—since Butch did not understand the concept of a whisper—Johnny Jack and Merle laughed as they climbed back onto their bar stools.
Butch leaned close to Johnny Jack’s right ear. “You remember, don’t you, Jay Jay?”
Merle and Angel stopped and stared at Johnny Jack, whose dark skin was turning darker.
“He was a lot better lookin’ back then,” Butch said, “and I was a lot less particular.”
With that, Butch staggered out of the bar. Or maybe she swaggered. It depended upon who you asked. Memories fog the truth, distort it, amplify it. Or expose it. But everyone appeared to be in good spirits, especially Butch, when she left Angel’s Heaven on Earth. Rosey stood next to someone’s automobile, her black and white coat nearly fluorescent in the moonlight. Her white tail swept across her black rump. Butch patted Rosey’s almost all-white face. Black circled her left eye, and white spread across her neck, barrel, and flank and down her left rear leg like a kind of jagged almost horse-shaped white continent across the sea of black horse.
“I need to take a leak, Rosey. Then we’ll be on our way. Or maybe not. Where’s George? Have you seen George? Oh fer chrissakes, I’m talking to a horse’s rear end.” She giggled. “Not so much different than talking to a man.”
Butch had come into town earlier with George, but he had business at the other end of this street a few blocks from the plaza. The nearly full moon lit up the ramshackle wooden buildings that seemed to lean one against the other. On the few occasions Butch actually noticed this particular bent to the buildings—like now—she wondered what kept them up. “Whiskey, of course,” Butch whispered. “We all need something to keep us standing.”
She breathed deeply. A romp with Angel would have been fun, but this night air was bracing, nearly knocking the drunk off of her. She gazed up at the clear dark sky. The stars shivered and winked. She could hear the whisper of the acequia madre even though it was some distance away. She grinned. The full moon, silence, and alcohol made her senses preternatural. A chorus of coyotes began yipping at the moon. Someone was shouting out in the desert. Butch listened. Crazy Betty. Could be yelling at the coyotes or the moon. Or space aliens. Who knew? Her shouts died away.
The cottonwood trees across the street and down a bit stood tall and nearly bare in the moonlight, like tangled members of a Day of the Dead tableau, or a Danse Macabre. Despite this, the air smelled of spring the way only New Mexican air can: like dust, peppers, and the color blue.
Butch started to walk away from the buildings and into the night, forgetting why she was there, only wanting to get closer to the sound of the coyotes and the mother ditch. Suddenly the north sky lightened, and Butch looked up. A shooting star streaked across the sky. Butch laughed. If Crazy Betty saw that falling star she’d be full of space alien stories for days.
Butch heard a woman cry out in the darkness. Instantly she ran toward the sound, up over a silver rise and then down again. Running in the desert was plain stupid; running at night in the desert was a death wish. However, Butch could never resist the cry of a woman in trouble. And she was drunk.
Suddenly, she ran right into a person. They both fell back onto the ground. Butch jumped instantly to her feet. Nothing or no one was going to catch her on the ground: not a scorpion, rattler, or a man, certainly.
The body she knocked into was a bit slower getting up off the ground.
“Are you all right?” Butch asked. Butch always talked in a kind of drawl. Not Texan. Good Lord, no. Not Southern. Kind of Mexican, Native American, and plain American all rolled into one.
She reached her hand out. The man stood on his own, quickly dusting off his chaps with one arm; he kept the other arm bent at his side. He wore ammo belts crossed over his chest like a Mexican bandito; a cowboy hat shaded his face from Butch.
“You Pancho Villa or something?” Butch asked.
The man tried to step around her. Butch moved to block him.
“I heard a woman cry out,” Butch said, noticing a black shape on the ground near a medium-sized paloverde whose yellow flowers looked bright white in the darkness. “That her?”
The man shook his head. “I was the one who yelled,” he said, his English accented. Mexican. Clipped almost. From the upper class?
“I was thrown from my horse and was trying to get my bearings. I stumbled over that—that body. I yelled.” He hesitated. “Like a woman. My voice . . . rises when I am . . . afraid.”
“Happens to the best of us,” Butch said. “I scream like a woman, too. Nothing wrong with that.”
“But you are a woman,” the man said.
“That’s a fact,” Butch said, “I am pleased to report.”
She kept her eye on Bandito as she went toward the body. She squatted next to it. A man. She found his arm and felt for a pulse at his wrist.
“He’s not dead,” Butch said.
“Shit.” The English word out of the man’s mouth sounded desperate.
Butch stood and looked at Bandito.
“You wanna tell me something about this?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know you. I don’t know him.”
Butch could see Bandito’s arm now in the moonlight. Part of his sleeve was dark.
“He shot you?” Butch said. “I didn’t hear a shot. Looks like you’re bleeding kind of heavy.”
“He shot me some time back,” Bandito said quickly, as though relieved to speak of it. “He and his compañero have been tracking me. My ex-wife’s husband won’t let me have my son, Frederico. He’s four years old. He needs his—he needs his father. I went to Mexico to get him back, and my ex-wife’s husband sent his thugs after me after I made a . . . fuss.”
Butch chuckled. “A fuss, eh? I kinda like making a fuss myself.” Something about this young man tickled her. Like Angel’s blond curls. “So there’s two of them? Where’s the other one?”
“I fell from my horse. And I found this man who was tracking me. I hit him with a rock from behind. I don’t know where the other man is.”
Butch tried to remember if she had seen any strangers at Angel’s. The man on the ground moaned.
“Come on,” Butch said to Bandito. “I guess I better get you outta here. The doc is drunker than I am, so I’ll take you home. TomA and Trick will either cure you or kill ya.”
“I’d prefer the cure,” Bandito said.
“Wouldn’t we all.”
Butch and Bandito went over the rise and down again, toward Rosey. Butch untied the horse and got up into the saddle. She reached her arm down and helped the man up behind her.
“I’m Butch McLean, by the way,” Butch said as she turned Rosey around. She gently kicked the horse into a gallop.
“I’m Mateo Cruz,” the man said.
“Yeah, well, hang on, Bandito,” Butch said. “We’re gonna get out of Dodge.”
A moment later, the darkness swallowed the trio.
Mateo Cruz’s grip on Butch’s waist began to weaken as they neared their destination. In the distance, Butch could see the soft glow of the lantern TomA had left outside the gate of Wayward Ranch, the former home of St. Anne’s Home for Wayward Boys.
“We’re almost there,” Butch said, gripping Bandito’s good arm that loosely held onto Butch’s waist.
Butch reached for one of her pistols to shoot it off to let TomA or someone know that she needed help, and then she remembered she had left her pistols at Angel’s.
Rosey trotted up to the closed wooden gate. Butch leaned over and grabbed the clapper of the bell and rang it.
Bandito slumped against Butch.
“Sorry, Bandito,” Butch said. “You ain’t my type. At least not tonight. I was in the mood for some Angel. But what the hell, put you in a dress and we’ll see what we can work out.”
The gate opened, and TomA and Patrick—Trick—were soon next to Rosey.
“Shot,” Butch said as the two men reached up to pull the nearly unconscious man off the horse. “Doc was drunk.”
The thin TomA hooked one of Bandito’s arms around his neck, and Trick, who was slightly bigger, put the other arm around his neck. They half-carried and half-dragged Mateo Cruz toward the Big House.
Butch rode Rosey through the open gates, then jumped down, picked up the lantern TomA and Trick had left on the ground, then pulled the gate shut. She made certain the gate was closed tight, the latch in place. After all, it was her responsibility: She was the head of security at Wayward.
“Come, Rocinante,” she said to the paint. “If I stall long enough I won’t have to watch all the bloody bits.”
The horse followed Butch away from the Big House, past the casita, chapel, and bunkhouse to the corral. Butch set the lantern on top of a fence post. She could hear the horses chewing in the corral, saw their dark shapes under the moon. One horse let out a short whinny. Rosey answered it.
Butch undid the cinch strap and pulled the saddle and blanket off Rosey and set them just inside the barn.
“I’ll take care of her.” Hunter stepped out of the shadows.
“She’s been ridden hard,” Butch said. “She needs to walk it off.”
“Whoa!” Hunter said as she came closer to Butch. “Smells like you need to walk it off, too.” The girl waved her hand in front of her face.
“You need to have more respect for your elders, child,” Butch said as she started to walk toward the Big House. “Or I’ll tell you-know-who that you were out communin’ with nature again.”
“Go ahead,” Hunter said. “Seventeen is old enough.”
“Old enough for what?” Butch stopped and turned around. That didn’t sound good.
“For everything,” Hunter said. Her arm moved up and down as she curried the horse.
Butch walked back to Hunter and Rosey.
“What’s goin’ on?” Butch asked. “Something happen? I thought you were out doing the wild with Jimmy.”
Hunter stopped and looked at Butch. “That’s all I meant. TomA and Trick like Jimmy. You know that. So it would be all right to tell them.”
Butch took the girl’s chin in her hand and gently turned it toward the light. Her face was dirty, and she had a red spot over her left cheekbone.
“What happened? Did Jimmy hit you? I’ll kill him.” She reached for her guns. Still at Angel’s. “Goddamn it.”
“Jimmy wouldn’t hurt me, Butch,” Hunter said. “You know that. I tripped. I was trying to get back to the house before . . . before they figured out I was gone, and I tripped and fell.”
Butch squinted. “I’ve known you since you were born,” she said. “I’ve always known when you were lying. Always.”
Hunter looked at her. “So? Am I lying?”
They stared at each other for several seconds. Breathless.
“Oh hell,” Butch said, letting out her breath. “I don’t know. I was bluffin’. You sure you all right? Want Trick to look you over?”
“Geez, Butch. You’re worse than an old woman. I tripped is all. I’m all right.”
“Well, how about I go shoot Jimmy anyway? Your daddies would probably give me a raise. You’re too young.” She started to walk away again.
“How old were you?” Hunter asked.
“Jesus, girl. You want to have that discussion now? I’ve got a man in the house with a bullet hole in his arm.”
“Yeah. So? I’ve known you since I was born, nearly. You hate the sight of blood.”
“I don’t so much hate it,” Butch said. “I just don’t want to get in the way while Patrick works his healing charms.”
“You could bullshit the skin off a rattlesnake, but you can’t bullshit me,” Hunter said.
“Watch your mouth, girl,” Butch said. “Awright. I’ll tell you. When I was staying here, when it was still St. Anne’s and my momma was long ago hanged and dead and Grandma Crow was dead and they brought me here, I had to learn to fend for myself to survive those nuns and those boys. I was ten and the boys were all . . . wayward.”
“Horny as hell?”
“That, too. Before long I had to fight off their advances. That’s how I learned to fight. I kicked, gouged, and cursed my way out of more than one encounter. Then Sister Jeanmarie—she was Irish—came along and she showed me how to really fight. And how to shoot. She also kept me out of the dormitory and living with the nuns. Sometimes that sick fuck Sister Claw and Father Brufield had me inside the dormitory as a temptation for his boys to resist, he said. But that’s another story.”
“Yes, it is,” Hunter said. “I asked about your first time having sex, not the first time someone tried to rape you. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to scare me. But Jimmy doesn’t scare me. He’s very gentle.”
“Oh Christ, sister. I do not want to talk about this.”
“Since when? Your conquests are legendary.”
“That’s just bragging,” Butch said, leaning against the fence. “But talking about the first time. Hmm.” She shook her head. “The first time I was kissed proper was under that old cottonwood in back of the chapel here. Her name was Suzanne. I was thirteen and she was about the same age, maybe a little older. She wanted to practice on me before she kissed her boyfriend. At least that’s what she said. She was quite enthusiastic. That’s all I’ll say. Except that her lips were so soft. So soft. Like when your lips first touch a peach. That soft peach fuzz. Mmmmm. Suzanne.”
“Butch, not your first kiss. Your first time having sex.”
“That is a story for another night,” she said. “Now walk that horse.” Butch pushed away from the fence. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure,” Hunter said.
“You know you can always come to me,” Butch said. “About anything. I’ll help. I might make fun of you first. But I’ll help you out eventually.”
“Go away,” Hunter said. “I hope that man’s wound is really bloody. Gory. I hope you faint.”
“Honey, I don’t faint,” she said. “How could a woman be a woman if she fainted every time she saw blood? Wouldn’t that be inconvenient. And ain’t that a terrible thing to wish on a man. A bloody wound.” Butch slapped the girl on the butt. “See you later, kid.”
Butch walked to the back of the Big House, ran up the short stack of steps, opened the thick wooden kitchen door, and went inside.
Mateo Cruz sat at the long wooden table, his left arm resting on the table while Trick wrapped it in gauze, a wash bowl with a bloody cloth swimming in hot water and a bottle of alcohol nearby. TomA sat by the huge kiva fireplace where a small fire snapped around green wood. On the other side of the room, Maria stood at a counter, spooning what looked like chicken verde onto two plates.
Cruz glanced at Butch, then looked quickly away.
“What are you doing here this late, darlin’?” Butch asked as she walked over to Maria and sat at a stool at the counter. Maria dropped a fork onto one of the plates, then pushed it across the counter to Butch.
“Satisfying your every whim,” Maria said.
“Hardly,” Butch said. She took a bite of the chicken verde. “You are a goddess, Maria. Javier at a card game?”
She nodded. “At our house. Let him wake up in the morning surrounded by their mess and clean it up. Not me. Have you seen Jimmy?”
Butch shook her head.
“You’re lucky,” Trick said to Bandito. “It’s just a graze. A deep graze, but it’ll heal. Probably have a scar and you might lose some muscle strength.”
Butch looked over at them. In the golden light of the lamps and fire, Bandito looked even younger than Butch had first guessed. He still had cheek fuzz rather than stubble. Twenty? Twenty-five? Already with a kid and an ex-wife? And running for his life. He had a more complicated life than Butch’s. Not that her life was really that complicated. Kind of routine actually, when she thought about it.
“Butch,” TomA said, “please tell me you did not have anything to do with this.”
“If I’d a shot him, he’d be dead,” Butch said.
“Really?” TomA said. “Last I saw you target practicing, you couldn’t hit a broad standing at the side of a barn, let alone a man in the dark.”
Butch raised an eyebrow. “Normally I would shoot you for such blatant disrespect, but I left my pistols at the gates of heaven.”
“Beneath Angel’s skirts?”
“Something like that.”
“Keep this wound clean,” Trick said to Mateo. “I’ll change the dressing tomorrow.”
Maria took the other plate over to the table and put it in front of Mateo.
Trick patted Mateo’s arm lightly, then picked up the wash basin and left the room.
“Where you come from, Mateo Cruz?” Maria asked in Spanish.
“Chihuahua,” Cruz said.
“You are a long way from home,” Maria continued in Spanish.
Butch and TomA glanced at each other. Had Maria forgotten they spoke Spanish too?
“As are you,” Cruz said.
“I was born here,” Maria said. “And I don’t like strangers tracking blood to our door. Then all kinds of trouble starts sniffing around.”
“Hey, Maria,” Butch said. “You keep flirting with him, I’ll be forced to tell Javier.”
Maria looked over at Butch, seemingly startled. TomA got up from the fire and sat at the table with Cruz. Maria went back to the counter.
“What’s eating you?” Butch asked Maria quietly. “We have strangers showing up here every day.”
It was that kind of place, a ranch but also a way station of sorts—or a sanctuary—where artists, misfits, and other lost souls came to sit for a spell. Or as TomA often put it, “Where queers have no fears.”
Maria opened the door on the wooden stove and peered inside for a moment. Then she slammed it shut. It popped open. She shut it again, this time more carefully.
“Here,” Butch said, pushing the plate toward her. “Why don’t you eat some of your own cooking? It’s mighty tasty.”
Maria stared at her. Butch smiled and handed her the fork. The older woman took it and made a stab at the chicken and came up with a bite.
“Isn’t that better?”
“Something is not right,” Maria said. “I can feel it.”
“It’s only the full moon,” Butch said.
Butch had known Maria since a group of white people had dropped Butch off at the front door of St. Anne’s School for Wayward Boys. Sister Michael Joseph Tom Dick and Harry or whatever her name was—Butch thought of her as Sister Claw—had stood next to Butch as the white people in the wagon left them in the dust, her hand on Butch’s shoulder, her fingers digging into her like a vise. Later that day after Sister Claw forced Butch to put on a dress, Butch ran away to the kitchen where Maria stood behind the counter slapping flat bread dough back and forth between her hands. Maria was probably twenty years old then, maybe younger.
“You are the new one,” Maria had said. “You must be hungry.”
Butch had pulled out a wooden chair and sat at the table. A few minutes later, Maria set a plate of blue corn tortillas, spotted beans, and squash in front of her.
“Don’t tell the Father or Mother,” Maria said. “They think the blue corn is poison. Of course they think anything to do with the Indians is poison. What’s your name?”
“Butch,” she said.
Maria went back to making flat bread at the counter. “Your mother named you Butch? Did the women bless you with corn pollen at dawn as the sun came up?”
“My mother was white,” Butch said. “And a whore. She killed herself when I was a baby. I’ve eaten food like this at the Pueblo with my grandma.”
“Some day you should have the blessing,” Maria said. “I can make you another plate if you’re still hungry, Butch.”
“Her name is not Butch.” Sister Claw came into the kitchen then, her hands hidden within the folds of her habit. “She won’t tell me her true name. I have consulted with Father Brufield, and we have agreed we will call you Mary until we find out what your Christian name is.”
“I am not a Christian,” Butch said, “and my name is not Mary.”
Sister Claw’s hand came out of cloth, slapped Butch across the face, and withdrew into the fabric once again so quickly that Butch thought she had imagined it—until her face began pulsing with the red mark Sister Claw’s hand had left behind.
“Sister Michael Joseph!” Maria said.
“My hand is an extension of God’s love,” Sister Claw said. “She has been living as a heathen long enough. It’s time she became civilized, like all the boys here. It is our duty and responsibility.”
Sister Claw turned and left the room. Butch listened to the whisper of the cloth as she went and knew she should memorize that sound, become alert to it.
Maria said, “They’re not all like her. And she doesn’t mean to be so heartless. It’s just that she was born without one.”
Butch smiled and finished her meal. She took the dress off soon after that. She walked about the place in her underwear. The boys laughed and pointed. Sister Claw and Father Brufield beat the crap out of her. She persisted. Every time they put a dress on her, she took it off, ripped it to shreds, and walked around in her undergarments. Then they whipped her. Finally one of the nuns suggested a compromise: Butch could wear pants except when she went to church. Then she had to put on a dress. She agreed, and the beatings stopped. For the most part. And the kitchen—with Maria in it—became Butch’s sanctuary.
Now Trick returned to the kitchen. “It’s time for bed,” he said. “TomA, you’ve been up since before dawn.”
“Painting, love,” TomA said. “It’s not like I was working.” He grinned, stood, and stretched. Trick took one of TomA’s hands in his and kissed the top of it.
“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” TomA said to Cruz, “although we’re going to have to put you up in the attic. We’re expecting a full house after the ditch cleaning for the Wayward Art Spectacle. You’re welcome to stay for that.”
Butch groaned.
The three men looked at her.
“Nothing more boring than listening to a bunch of men discuss art. Women, yes, maybe. Then at least there’d be something beautiful to look at.”
“Women come, too,” TomA said. “Don’t listen to her. It’s quite stimulating. She loves it.”
“By the way,” Trick said, “Jezebel might be back in the area.”
“What?” Butch said.
“Javier heard it from one of the men at the card game,” Maria said. “A couple of calves were taken from the Foster ranch.”
Butch shook her head. “Naw. Just some tourist or Easterner who doesn’t know the difference between an Appaloosa and a jaguar.”
“Anyway,” Trick said. “Could you check it out? She does have a habit of showing up where you are.”
“Not true,” Butch said. “Whoever told you that is a liar.”
“You told us,” Trick said.
“See what I mean?”
“Take Mr. Cruz up to his room, will you?” TomA said. “I am a bit tired and those stairs are hard on my knees. Put him in the one at the west end. The door to the other room sticks. If you see Hunter, please tell her to get to bed.”
Trick put his arm across TomA’s shoulders, and they left the room. TomA appeared to be limping a bit. Butch started to say something and then stopped. Hunter was right; she was acting like a worried old lady.
“You ready, Bandito?”
Cruz stood. “That was very good, Señora Maria. Thank you.”
“Why do you need all those bullets?” Maria asked. “You look like you are dressed for a war.”
“It is just the style where I come from,” Cruz said.
“The style of bandits, you mean,” Maria said. “We don’t allow guns in this house.”
Cruz glanced at Butch.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” she said. “I left my guns in town. Some uppity woman took them from me.”
“As you can see,” Cruz said, “I have no guns, only bullets. The guns were in my saddlebags.”
Maria picked up the dish from the table. “Drink that tea,” Maria said. “You think I made it for my health? No. It’s for yours. It will help with the pain.”
Cruz picked up the cup and gulped the tea. Then he set the cup back on the table. Maria picked it up and went back to the sink.
“I’ll show you your room,” Butch said, and she led the man out of the kitchen and down the long hallway.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way of going back and finding my horse?” Cruz asked as they walked into the Big Room.
“What kind of horse is it?” Butch asked. “I’ll put the word out in the morning.” She picked up the lamp on the low table next to the leather sofa.
“An Appaloosa I—I found,” he said.
They climbed a set of stairs that led to the second floor.
“A gelding, stallion, mare?”
Cruz frowned. “I don’t really know.”
What kind of person didn’t know what kind of animal they were riding?
“You are a strange bird,” Butch said.
They walked down a long narrow hallway and then up a short stairway to the upper floor. Every time Butch came up to these rooms she thought about Sister Claw and Father Brufield. They locked her up here—in the punishment room—after her beatings because they knew she could not bear being kept indoors in such a small space.
They never found out that she had quickly figured out how to escape her prison and wander freely through the nearly empty house.
Butch shook her head. That was ancient history, and she was not one of those whiners who spent time ruminating about her past.
“If your horse is a stallion, he’s probably gone to find a mare,” Butch said. “If it’s a mare, she’s probably looking for food and water. Gelding might stay right where he dropped you.”
“He didn’t drop me,” he said. “I fell. I’m not a true horseman.”
“Honestly? I wouldn’t have guessed,” Butch said. Her sarcasm was lost on the bandito.
The light from the lamp barely made a dent in the close stuffy darkness of the top floor. Butch walked down the hall without a glance toward the punishment room and opened the door to the other room. The lamp illuminated a small bed and tiny dresser. Butch set the lamp on the dresser and went to the window. It looked out over the silvery desert. She pushed the window open.
“There’s a little night air for ya,” Butch said.
Butch heard a scraping sound. She looked toward the open door.
“What was that?” she asked.
Cruz shrugged. “Sounded like it was close by.”
They walked out into the narrow hall. Butch went to the punishment room door, turned the handle, and pushed on the door. It wouldn’t open. She couldn’t tell if it was locked or stuck, like TomA had said. She stood still for a moment and listened.
“Maybe a rat or squirrel,” Butch said as she walked back to Cruz’s room.
“Or a madwoman in the attic,” Cruz said.
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever read Jane Eyre?” Cruz asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Butch said, “I have not. That been translated into Spanish?”
“I read it in English,” he said.
“Do tell?” Butch could speak and understand Spanish fluently, but she could barely read it.
“Jane Eyre is a governess to a rich older man’s charge,” Cruz said. “They live in a mansion and sometimes when she’s on the upper floors, Jane hears strange noises. She falls in love with the man, Rochester, and he with her. On their wedding day, just as she is about to say her vows, a man stops the wedding and declares Rochester is already married. His first wife is insane, and Rochester has her locked in the attic.”
“Sounds like a good story,” Butch said. “Especially if Jane rescues the first wife in the attic, and they run off together.”
Cruz laughed. “That is not quite what happens. Jane does leave the man. The wife gets loose and burns down the mansion, crippling and blinding the man. Jane Eyre returns then, and they live happily ever after.”
“Happily ever after?” Butch shook her head. “I like my version better.”
“I think I might, too,” he said. “Although when I was younger I felt sorry for the man. Now I am not quite so sympathetic.”
Butch’s mother’s name was Jane. Maybe she had run afoul of her own Rochester. Only she hadn’t made it out alive.
Outside the dog began barking.
“I better go see what’s bothering Archie,” Butch said. “When he was young, he’d bark at anything. Now that he’s old, he doesn’t usually bark at anything.”
“Thank you for all you have done for me,” Cruz said. “I appreciate it.”
“Any time,” Butch said. She glanced at Cruz, smiled uncomfortably, then hurried down the dark hall and stairs. He had a nice looking face, this Cruz fellah, and—quite frankly—a nice ass. She had not been attracted to an ass of that persuasion since she saw George coming out of the water a few years ago, his long black hair touching the top of his backside, and she had gasped at his beauty and had been glad (once again) that she was not a male and could easily hide her desire. She had been uncomfortable around him for many days afterward. Until he belched. Or farted. Or something. And she stopped lusting after him. He was just a guy. Sometimes she wished she was more attracted to more men more often. It would be easier. Women were a pain in the ass. Too much courting required. Which was probably why she had taken up with Johnny Jack for a short time a long while ago. And she had crossed to the other side on a few other occasions.
Why was she even thinking about this? Still drunk. Still unsatisfied. Angel had invited her to come back later. Maybe now was later.
She walked through the kitchen. Maria was gone. Archie still barked. Butch reached for her guns.
“Goddamn it!” she said when she realized they were still gone.
She stepped out the back door into darkness. Suddenly George was there beside her, carrying a lamp and a rifle. He tossed Butch the rifle and pulled out his pistol from its holster.
“Heard Jezebel is back in the area,” George said. “Where’d you go anyway? I was looking for you in town.”
“Long story,” she said. “I’ll believe Jezebel is back when I see her.”
They walked toward the chicken house which was not far from the Big House. Butch heard the kitchen door open. She turned. Hunter stood on the steps.
“Don’t shoot it if it’s a coyote,” Hunter shouted as Butch and George walked toward the coop that was near the backside of the house. “Or a mountain lion!”
“We promise to give whatever it is a stern warning, darlin’,” Butch said.
As they got closer to the chicken house, Butch could hear the chickens squawking.
“Archie!” George called to the dog. “What do you see?”
The dog ran up to George, wagging his tail. George and Butch walked around to the front of the chicken house. Archie loped away to Hunter. The door to the chicken house was open.
George took the lantern and looked inside. The chickens chuck-chucked at him. “Nothing dead.” He counted. “But one is missing. Isn’t this door supposed to be latched?”
“At night,” Butch said. Even so, they had a tall fence around the back to keep the critters away from the vegetable garden and the chickens. Butch squatted on the ground and looked for prints.
“I smell cat,” George said as he stepped out of the chicken house and closed the door.
“Is this your Indian seventh sense or something? I thought you told me all that mystic stuff was bullshit.”
“You can’t smell anything because you’ve got the stink on you,” George said.
“But cat?” Butch said, standing. “A lot of trouble for a mouthful.”
They walked a bit until they were looking up at the branches of a cottonwood tree leaning over the fence. A coyote wouldn’t climb a tree, but a mountain lion would. They had never had trouble from a mountain lion. Not this close to the house, not in April.
“Could be Jezebel,” George said. “You know what they say.”
“I don’t know who the fuck they are,” Butch said, “but they’re wrong. Animals don’t visit revenge upon people. People are the only ones who do that kind of shit.”
“I’m with you on that, Butch,” George said as they stood staring at the cottonwood in the darkness, “but you did kill one of her cubs.”
“I don’t believe I did,” Butch said. “Goddamn it.”
George laughed. “All right, we’ll ignore the evidence for a minute. Maybe she wants you to hunt down the real killer and bring him to justice.”
“You assume the killer is a he? Women can be as cruel as men.”
“Witness you with your lovers.”
“I am not cruel. I’m—”
“Inattentive? Indifferent? Inaccessible?”
“Jesus, George. I’ve got a hangover and I’m still drunk. Now you’re ragging on me about how I treat women. What’s your problem?”
“Just secretly in love with you, I guess,” he said, “and wish you’d treat me so bad.”
Butch looked over at him. He laughed.
“Nothing else we can do right now,” he said. “Call it a night? I got some coffee on the stove in the casita.”
They turned and walked back toward the Big House.
“Hey, I found this amazing-looking Appaloosa wandering around in the desert near Angel’s,” George said. “I tied it up near the saloon, but I’m hoping the owner doesn’t show up. I was going to go back in the morning and get it.”
“I know who owns it,” Butch said. “He’s here. Some guy shot him. Bandito. Er, Mateo Cruz. He claims his ex-wife’s new husband sent some goons after him. Sounds pretty strange since he looks about two years old. Not old enough to have an ex-wife and a kid. I found one of the guys he said was following him. He had knocked him out with a rock. He thought he’d killed him, but he hadn’t. The guy will wake up with a bad headache. I told Bandito I’d try to find his horse. He seems . . . a bit lost. I think I’ll ride in and get the horse now.” Maybe she could make a quick stop at Angie’s on the way back. “You wanna come? I need to stop by Angie’s and pick up my guns anyway.”
“Yeah, right,” George said. “I’m not sitting on my horse waiting for you all night again.”
“No chance of that,” Butch said. “The night is just about over.”
The Appaloosa was still standing in front of Angel’s, tied to the post. Butch and George got off their horses and looked at the pony. No one else was about. No lights. No sounds.
“I’ll go in and get my pistols,” Butch said.
“I’ll take the pony and start back to the ranch,” George said.
“You’ll miss my great wit on the way home if you leave without me. You know you will.”
Butch tried the saloon door, but it was locked. She went around the back and tried the door that led to Angel’s apartment. It opened easily. Butch smiled. At last. She could almost feel Angel’s skin against hers. Could imagine falling to sleep in her arms on her bed—which was much more comfortable than Butch’s raggedy ass bed in the casita. She was about to shout her arrival when it occurred to her Angel might be asleep. She would be considerate and keep her voice down. And then she’d tell Angel how considerate she’d been when she woke her up to make love to her.
Butch walked softly down the hall to the bedroom. The door was open, and she could see by the lantern light that Angel was in bed.
And Merle T. Connelly was on top of her.
“Oh shit, Angie,” Butch said, standing in the doorway.
“Butch!” Angel said, pulling up the covers as Merle climbed off her and sat next to her, shaking his head.
“I’ve seen you naked, sugar,” Butch said. “No sense covering up now. Merle T. Connelly? That’s disgusting.”
“Don’t shoot me, Butch,” he said.
Butch reached for her guns. “Goddamn it. I gotta get those things back. I ain’t gonna shoot you. Angie, I knew you had other lovers. But this one? He’s got a dick.”
“He’s not a dick!”
“I said he has a dick, Angel,” Butch said.
“So do you!” she said. “You just can’t see yours. Except when you’re waving around those pistols.”
“Let’s not get insulting,” Butch said, “so we can end this peacefully.”
Butch turned away and walked toward the door that opened into the saloon. Why did it have to be Merle T. Connelly? Something about him always got on her nerves. He reminded her too much of the boys at St. Anne’s Home for Wayward Boys, especially the ones who were always trying to start a fight and then blaming her when the nuns came running. And as far as Butch could tell, Connelly didn’t work for a living; he lived off his daddy’s income.
A moment later, she heard Angel’s bare feet on the floor behind her.
“He wants to get married,” Angel said. “And have children. He’s stable. He’s constant. Goddamn it, Butch. Look at me.
Butch stopped and turned to face Angel in the dark. They stared at each other.
“Well, don’t you have anything to say?” Angel asked.
“I’ll miss you, darlin’,” Butch said, “and I wish you all the best. Now I’m gonna get my . . . cold hard guns and go on home.”
She turned and pushed the door open and stepped into the saloon. It still smelled of beer and smoke. She had the room memorized. Even in the dark she could easily walk to the break in the bar and reach around for her guns. Which she did.
Then, without a backward glance, she went to the front door, unlocked it, and went through it to where George was getting on his horse. He held the reins of the Appaloosa in one hand and the reins of his horse in the other.
“That was quick,” George said. “Even for you.”
Butch didn’t say anything. She got back on Rosey.
They headed away from town. The night was graying into morning. Some warbler began to sing, but Butch could not quite place it. Her drunk was now almost completely gone.
What a waste of whiskey the night had been.
They traveled in silence as the gray night turned to gold green day. The sky became that perfect blue Butch had never seen any other place except in a New Mexican sky.
“George,” Butch said, “did you ever wonder where the hell your life is going?”
“No,” he said. “And neither do you. You need to listen to the dawn.”
“I’ve got a hangover, and I haven’t even slept yet.”
“Some corn pollen crushed on your forehead,” he said. “A prayer to the directions. A dip in the water. You’d come to your senses.”
For a moment, Butch imagined herself next to the water, beside Sacred Lake, naked, awaiting the dawn, awaiting the plunge into the icy water.
“Things are changing,” Butch said. “I can feel it. And you know that’s sayin’ something because I don’t feel nothing.” She laughed. George was silent.
“I found Angel in bed with Merle T. Connelly,” Butch said.
“That could not have been an attractive picture,” George said.
Butch laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. She was mad at me. I don’t think I understand women, George. At all.”
“I don’t know what to say to that, Butch.”
Butch heard an automobile horn behind her.
Deputy Martin Paper drove up next to them. They reined the horses to a stop.
“You hear?” Martin asked.
“Hear what?” Butch said. “It’s the butt crack of dawn. All I hear are the birds and the ringing in my ears.”
“Found a dead man just over the hill,” Martin said, pointing behind him, out the window. “Sheriff’s over there right now. Told me to go look for anything suspicious. The man was shot through the heart. Or the liver. Heart’s in the middle, right? Or is that the stomach? Anyway, they’re already talking about renaming that place Dead Man Gulch. Has quite a ring, doesn’t it? And won’t that be ironic? I mean finding a dead man there.”
Butch and George looked at each other.
“Who exactly did you fuck to get that badge?” Butch asked.
“Gotta go,” Martin said. “Nice Appaloosa.”
He drove away. Butch pulled her neckerchief up around her nose and mouth.
“Those things stink,” she said. “Should be a law against them.”
“I suppose that dead man is your unconscious man,” George said.
“I suppose he is.”
