Post by Freedom on Jul 30, 2012 18:05:00 GMT -5
eep.
So, this is a work in progress. It's the first chapter of a novel, which Imust will commit to finishing.
Morning sun shouted down the long dirt street running off to the heart of nowhere. A howling little breeze blew their tails sideways for the horses tied outside the false-fronted buildings. It was one of those howling little towns erected apparently at random on some windswept acreage of the American West. August was well established. Mountains were close but the trees didn't venture into town.
One building towered up to a second storey. A white-painted door was set into the naked gray wall above the side alley. This was a real door with a brass knob and white window curtains. A woman stepped through it onto the bare little landing. She caught her skirt between her knees and turned to pull the door shut with both hands against the shouldering of the wind that sent one long hard arm in fast to her room -- she distinctly heard it feel around in there and bat something off its feet to smash. She didn't look to see what that was, another past treasure in pieces on the floor, soon enough to mourn it when the day was done. She turned the lock as the latch by itself would sooner or later give in to the wind.
A skimpy rail edged the landing and the plank stairs attached to the wall and open like a skeleton between the treads. The wind reached through to stroke chill fingers up her legs and when she reached the bottom she turned and pushed into its hard belly to make her way along the boardwalk and unlock a door with "Bank" painted on the glass in wanted-poster lettering.
And there was a wanted-poster, there was always a wanted-poster, surely they were like today's milk-cartons, everyone looked at them but no one recognized a face off one. This might as well have been a face-card filched from the saloon by the wind and sent cartwheeling across the street to slap up against the wall and cling there, for the wanted man looked like nothing so much as the heartbreak Jack, his long fair curls and long sad eyes and fancy little beard and mustachios and all.
The woman passed it by without a glance.
Her name was Miss Emily Graves and she was a teller at the bank and she looked it. Thin and tall, her smoothed-back hair was severe even for her place and time; she wore pince-nez secured by a velvet ribbon; her tailor-made waist and skirt were plain and good but plain was the operative word and they weren't new, either. Closer inspection might reveal a woman a good deal younger and not nearly so plain as first supposed -- but this seldom happened. We don't look twice at a person we see every day.
And as every day she lit the fire in the stove again and made the coffee and brushed away the scouring sand that gathered on the counter and around the two brass nameplates ("Mr. Miles Jason - Teller" and "Mr. Hiram B. Arenthal - Bank Manager") and swept it off the floors; she opened the vault -- an extravagance in such a place, a safe would have done as well -- and readied the cash drawers, and spun the vault closed for another day. Mr. Arenthal and Miles Jason came through the door, both laughing but the teller laughing louder. And the day was like every other day: people came and people went, leaving money or taking some away.
Miss Graves had lapsed into a wasting grief sometime in the 'seventies, though no one had as yet noticed. She was always efficient but never brisk and many of the older customers found this soothing. Mr. Arenthal found her sadly lacking in both vim and push; Miles Jason couldn't have found her in the middle of the street at high noon.
At mid-afternoon came the busiest time at the bank: shifts changed at the saloons and the cafes, town folks had done their home chores, ranch folks had done their town chores, and people were taking care of business. Then Mr. Arenthal emerged sleek and fresh from his after-lunch nap at his desk to open the third window and hold court, the chattier customers drifting his way. This afternoon was no different. Miss Graves was efficient. Her line marched smoothly.
At the very end of the day Miss Graves looked up. Straight into the eyes of the heartbreak Jack.
She knew.
And he knew it.
Neither blinked or changed expression, though his face was white as paste and Miss Emily's white as moon dust must be. He stood there a still silent stranger, dark against the light from the door, waiting his turn at the end of the line. There was saddle-dust over him but nothing remarkable, like four or five other lean dusty fellows that day had brought -- but they knew.
How long does it take for a life to end? Just breathe out one last time, Miss Emily. When you stand between two mirrors you still see your face just once.
Miss Emily Graves pulled out her cash drawer and stepped across behind the other teller to open the vault.
Neither Miles Jason nor Mr. Arenthal paid her any mind -- it was early yet, a bit, yet not too early: if not usual, still it was not remarkable for one or the other of them to count and partially empty a full cash drawer on a busy day.
In the vault she efficiently -- even briskly -- prepared two canvas bags: into the smaller she counted bills and coins and, taking a pencil out of the cup, wrote rapidly down the back of a blank receipt and put that in as well, and tied it up; and into the big sack she packed all the rest of the cash. It fastened with a buckle. She took her own thirteen gold Liberties out of the paper box on the back shelf and tied them into the reticule at her waist.
There were now seven persons in the bank -- Miss Graves stepping to the vault door behind Mr. Jason counting down the money of a customer just turning away; Mr. Arenthal to her left with his customer; a third customer, standing with his head down consulting his bank-book -- and the other, the stranger with his burnt-black eyes, still the last in line. He wore an old-fashioned citified coat, brown wool with a chalk stripe, longish and nipped at the waist.
Mr. Arenthal laughed widely at his own joke and began another.
The last customer but two raised his head from his bank-book and stepped up to Mr. Jason as the clock struck four. In through the door behind the stranger came the little boy who ran messages about all afternoon, making his usual prompt appearance. Nice Miss Graves the lady teller beckoned him to the back of the bank.
The stranger's eyes flicked to the boy and then to the woman who did not look at him now. The manager and his customer laughed again and the customer began his escape. The teller opened his cash drawer.
"Here," said Miss Graves, handing the smaller sack to the boy and pointing at the back door, "run this over to your mother."
He frowned a little -- this was odd -- but she just looked at him like a grown-up and he trotted off. "Yes, ma'am."
Their transactions finished, the last customers but one left the bank together, and Mr. Arenthal turned to say something to Miles to find him lifting his fingers and then his hands and then his arms up off the counter into the air. A very large-bore revolver pointed steadily at his middle. Arenthal's arms jerked above his head as if on strings.
"Lock the door, miss, won't you," requested the last customer of Miss Graves.
Arenthal rattled out, "NO, Emily! don't do a thing he says!"
"I like that," remarked the stranger, "advising an unarmed woman to defy a desperado with a gun in his hand. Step into the vault, Sir Walter. You too, Sancho . . . D’you not know who I'm talking to? Get the hell into the vault there, the both of you."
Miss Emily Graves locked the front door.
Arenthal was spluttering, "We can't open the vault! Because the vault is on a time lock! which is controlled by the telegraph line! so none of us can open it before tomorrow morning!"
"Is that so." The stranger could see into the vault's gaping door.
"And Miles has triggered the silent alarm!"
"Has he now. Miss Emily, is there a silent alarm in this bank that I must shoot Miles here for triggering?"
Shaking her head Miss Emily said, "The lines blew down three days ago."
The stranger stuck his long right arm and the .45 straight out at Arenthal's face and bellowed, "SHOW ME HOW BRAVE YOU ARE NOW YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The walls rang. "YOU TELL EMILY TO OPEN THAT GOD DAMNED VAULT!"
"Do it Emily do it open the vault!"
"Good boy. Now tell her to put all the money in a big sack."
"Do what he says Emily!"
"And don't!" -- a rockslide noise petrified them as magically a second pistol covered Mr. Jason, who had twitched -- "you let that cross your mind again, Miles."
Emily stepped out of the vault with the bag in her hands. The stranger glanced at her and she was looking at him.
"Now," he said. "The two of you gentlemen shake hands. Do it! right hands, right now, clasp them, do it!" Fuddled, they reached forward and each grasped the other's sweaty hand. "Very nice. Now waltz yourselves right on into the vault -- one-two-three, one-two-three -- very good."
"What about Emily?" asked the manager.
"What about her!" The stranger came over the counter like death and the bankers danced as one to the back of the vault. "D'you suggest I lock her in there to smother with you, you swine? Think I'd trust you with her at all, lovely girl like this? Eh?"
"You can't do this," came the voice from the dark.
The stranger's pistol barrel snicked on the steel door and grated a little as he pushed it ever so slowly shut. The bankers' last view of him was an ever-narrowing segment of his long hard face and at last one long hard eye. "Don't shout," he murmured tenderly as the door whispered shut, "don't waste that precious air." They heard the tumblers as he spun the dial.
The stranger faced Emily behind the counter. He took a step. Rat-a-tat! at the door and a galvanic response lifted both his boots off the floor.
"Mr. Arenthal?" came a man's voice from without. They heard him try the door. "Mr. Jason?"
"The deputy," said Emily.
Came harder rapping. "Miss Graves?"
"Go along there," she pointed. "Those stairs lead out to the roof. Y -- "
He took her arm in one hand and the back of her neck in the other and pulled her up against him and kissed her on the mouth. He smelled of dust, and wind and blood. She hung motionless in his hands and felt all her life force gather in her belly and her lips where they touched him.
"Mr. Arenthal!" Very sharp rapping indeed. "Mr. Jason!"
The bank robber and Miss Graves stared at each other; his red tongue appeared between his scarlet lips to draw back the lower one, which he bit; then he spun up the stairs without a word, the skirts of his coat flipping back and the big bag of money in his hand.
Miss Graves unlocked the door and made a little extra out of blinking at the deputy's upraised hand.
"Pardon me, Miss Graves," he scowled, "but is everything all right in there?" She was tall enough that her eyes were level with his. She smiled at him, a small smile, and he squinted at her, awaiting a secret signal.
But she only answered mildly, "Oh! yes, I'm so sorry, Mr. Gilroy,” moving back as she spoke, "please excuse me for making you wait. Mr. Arenthal was called away, and he said that Mr. Jason might be excused as well, and I was as far in the back as I could possibly get, up on the stepladder. I'm so sorry." The door swung open as always
Mr. Gilroy stepped in and frowned around the room. "So nothing's wrong, then?" He glanced behind the door, and leaned a little to the side to look up the stairs. "I wondered when I had to knock all that time. No trouble?" He waited.
"No, Mr. Gilroy, no trouble at all. I apologize again for making you wait." The bank was silent and tidy.
"That's fine, ma'am -- as long as there's no trouble." He stared at her, plain Miss Graves, and she gazed pleasantly back, her eyes as always a little removed by her spectacles. "Well," he said. She smiled, pleasantly. "Well, then. I guess that's all now."
"Thank you, Mr. Gilroy. "
"Yes, ma'am."
She locked the door behind him and returned to the spot behind the counter where she had spent uncounted eons of her life, took pen and paper and wrote, "3 left 36, 2 right 17, 3 left again 27, right 12." Fetching the paste-pot, she liberally coated the back of this missive and stuck it to the door of the vault. She stared at the other cash drawers, then jerked them open and counted out to herself the exact difference between Miles' wage and her own, from the beginning of his tenure to date. She stowed the folding money in her bodice and the gold and silver in her reticule. Then she walked out of the bank, leaving the front door, for the first and last time, open wide; and as she stepped to the edge of the boardwalk she recalled with pleasure that she was wearing her mother's pearls under her collar.
Shouts were faintly heard from down the block and around the corner; Mr. Gilroy went charging across the street towards the commotion. She heard shooting, and the clatter of galloping hooves. She pinched her spectacles as firmly as possible onto the bridge of her nose.
A big bay horse bounded out of the lane, bank robber aboard, and wheeled up the street in her direction instead of down it and away. She regretted her new chemise, lace-trimmed and never worn and folded away in the dark of her dressing-table drawer, and time began to move quite slowly as the bank robber raced towards her; she saw his eyes plainly as he leaned her way, she saw his hand in the sunlight reaching out to her, fingers wide. She had plenty of time to understand how many steps to take backwards and when to sprint forward and reach out and launch herself just like a bird and then she was airborne -- his iron hand around her arm pivoted her into the sky, her petticoat flurried about her knees, she lit with a bruising jolt on the back of his saddle and her arms twisted themselves tight around his waist.
And off they went down the middle of the street through the middle of town, bullets whining and zinging all around them and shattering out the windows of lawful establishments, townspeople shouting and dashing into the street. One brave soul even planted himself right out in front of them with arms outstretched to block their way, but they never slowed a bit -- indeed it was doubtful whether any of the fugitives even saw him except the bay, who simply breasted the hero out of their way. They veered down a side-lane, thundered up an alley, jumped a fence and ducked some washing on a line, sailed over another fence and lit out across the sagebrush, never to be seen again.
It became a town legend, The Day Miss Graves Ran Away with The Bank Robber, and those who actually saw them racket past took pride in saying so, and many of those who hadn't said they had just the same. Many of those who saw it thought her leg in its black stocking clinging to the galloping horse was quite surprisingly shapely. And as to how a posse of armed men on fresh horses could possibly lose a single doubly-burdened bay gelding -- indeed, triply burdened, for a big sack of cash weighs a lot -- in all those miles of howling desolation, well, opinions differ to this day.
#
Penciled note from Miss Emily Graves to Mrs. Mae Norman, widow:
Dearest Mae --
Will be unable to join you for dinner tonight.
Enclosed sum totals savings of yourself & Mrs. Larsen, Mr. Hayward, & the Misses Miller.
Come directly to the bank upon receipt taking care as there may be shooting and before he can do another thing take Mr. Gilroy by the hand and look into his eyes and explain to him that Mr. Arenthal never received any wire from Kansas City and Mr. Posvar's will was never proved -- the gold is still in Mr. Arenthal's own safe.
Recall those lines of John Donne's that we yearned over so as girls and have dared to scoff at since:
"Their eye-beams twisted and did thread
their eyes upon one double string . . ."
We were as wise in our innocence as Mr. Donne, Mae.
I love you like a sister, and you have always been the finest and dearest friend anyone could hope to have in this life.
Yours ever,
Emily
So, this is a work in progress. It's the first chapter of a novel, which I
Morning sun shouted down the long dirt street running off to the heart of nowhere. A howling little breeze blew their tails sideways for the horses tied outside the false-fronted buildings. It was one of those howling little towns erected apparently at random on some windswept acreage of the American West. August was well established. Mountains were close but the trees didn't venture into town.
One building towered up to a second storey. A white-painted door was set into the naked gray wall above the side alley. This was a real door with a brass knob and white window curtains. A woman stepped through it onto the bare little landing. She caught her skirt between her knees and turned to pull the door shut with both hands against the shouldering of the wind that sent one long hard arm in fast to her room -- she distinctly heard it feel around in there and bat something off its feet to smash. She didn't look to see what that was, another past treasure in pieces on the floor, soon enough to mourn it when the day was done. She turned the lock as the latch by itself would sooner or later give in to the wind.
A skimpy rail edged the landing and the plank stairs attached to the wall and open like a skeleton between the treads. The wind reached through to stroke chill fingers up her legs and when she reached the bottom she turned and pushed into its hard belly to make her way along the boardwalk and unlock a door with "Bank" painted on the glass in wanted-poster lettering.
And there was a wanted-poster, there was always a wanted-poster, surely they were like today's milk-cartons, everyone looked at them but no one recognized a face off one. This might as well have been a face-card filched from the saloon by the wind and sent cartwheeling across the street to slap up against the wall and cling there, for the wanted man looked like nothing so much as the heartbreak Jack, his long fair curls and long sad eyes and fancy little beard and mustachios and all.
The woman passed it by without a glance.
Her name was Miss Emily Graves and she was a teller at the bank and she looked it. Thin and tall, her smoothed-back hair was severe even for her place and time; she wore pince-nez secured by a velvet ribbon; her tailor-made waist and skirt were plain and good but plain was the operative word and they weren't new, either. Closer inspection might reveal a woman a good deal younger and not nearly so plain as first supposed -- but this seldom happened. We don't look twice at a person we see every day.
And as every day she lit the fire in the stove again and made the coffee and brushed away the scouring sand that gathered on the counter and around the two brass nameplates ("Mr. Miles Jason - Teller" and "Mr. Hiram B. Arenthal - Bank Manager") and swept it off the floors; she opened the vault -- an extravagance in such a place, a safe would have done as well -- and readied the cash drawers, and spun the vault closed for another day. Mr. Arenthal and Miles Jason came through the door, both laughing but the teller laughing louder. And the day was like every other day: people came and people went, leaving money or taking some away.
Miss Graves had lapsed into a wasting grief sometime in the 'seventies, though no one had as yet noticed. She was always efficient but never brisk and many of the older customers found this soothing. Mr. Arenthal found her sadly lacking in both vim and push; Miles Jason couldn't have found her in the middle of the street at high noon.
At mid-afternoon came the busiest time at the bank: shifts changed at the saloons and the cafes, town folks had done their home chores, ranch folks had done their town chores, and people were taking care of business. Then Mr. Arenthal emerged sleek and fresh from his after-lunch nap at his desk to open the third window and hold court, the chattier customers drifting his way. This afternoon was no different. Miss Graves was efficient. Her line marched smoothly.
At the very end of the day Miss Graves looked up. Straight into the eyes of the heartbreak Jack.
She knew.
And he knew it.
Neither blinked or changed expression, though his face was white as paste and Miss Emily's white as moon dust must be. He stood there a still silent stranger, dark against the light from the door, waiting his turn at the end of the line. There was saddle-dust over him but nothing remarkable, like four or five other lean dusty fellows that day had brought -- but they knew.
How long does it take for a life to end? Just breathe out one last time, Miss Emily. When you stand between two mirrors you still see your face just once.
Miss Emily Graves pulled out her cash drawer and stepped across behind the other teller to open the vault.
Neither Miles Jason nor Mr. Arenthal paid her any mind -- it was early yet, a bit, yet not too early: if not usual, still it was not remarkable for one or the other of them to count and partially empty a full cash drawer on a busy day.
In the vault she efficiently -- even briskly -- prepared two canvas bags: into the smaller she counted bills and coins and, taking a pencil out of the cup, wrote rapidly down the back of a blank receipt and put that in as well, and tied it up; and into the big sack she packed all the rest of the cash. It fastened with a buckle. She took her own thirteen gold Liberties out of the paper box on the back shelf and tied them into the reticule at her waist.
There were now seven persons in the bank -- Miss Graves stepping to the vault door behind Mr. Jason counting down the money of a customer just turning away; Mr. Arenthal to her left with his customer; a third customer, standing with his head down consulting his bank-book -- and the other, the stranger with his burnt-black eyes, still the last in line. He wore an old-fashioned citified coat, brown wool with a chalk stripe, longish and nipped at the waist.
Mr. Arenthal laughed widely at his own joke and began another.
The last customer but two raised his head from his bank-book and stepped up to Mr. Jason as the clock struck four. In through the door behind the stranger came the little boy who ran messages about all afternoon, making his usual prompt appearance. Nice Miss Graves the lady teller beckoned him to the back of the bank.
The stranger's eyes flicked to the boy and then to the woman who did not look at him now. The manager and his customer laughed again and the customer began his escape. The teller opened his cash drawer.
"Here," said Miss Graves, handing the smaller sack to the boy and pointing at the back door, "run this over to your mother."
He frowned a little -- this was odd -- but she just looked at him like a grown-up and he trotted off. "Yes, ma'am."
Their transactions finished, the last customers but one left the bank together, and Mr. Arenthal turned to say something to Miles to find him lifting his fingers and then his hands and then his arms up off the counter into the air. A very large-bore revolver pointed steadily at his middle. Arenthal's arms jerked above his head as if on strings.
"Lock the door, miss, won't you," requested the last customer of Miss Graves.
Arenthal rattled out, "NO, Emily! don't do a thing he says!"
"I like that," remarked the stranger, "advising an unarmed woman to defy a desperado with a gun in his hand. Step into the vault, Sir Walter. You too, Sancho . . . D’you not know who I'm talking to? Get the hell into the vault there, the both of you."
Miss Emily Graves locked the front door.
Arenthal was spluttering, "We can't open the vault! Because the vault is on a time lock! which is controlled by the telegraph line! so none of us can open it before tomorrow morning!"
"Is that so." The stranger could see into the vault's gaping door.
"And Miles has triggered the silent alarm!"
"Has he now. Miss Emily, is there a silent alarm in this bank that I must shoot Miles here for triggering?"
Shaking her head Miss Emily said, "The lines blew down three days ago."
The stranger stuck his long right arm and the .45 straight out at Arenthal's face and bellowed, "SHOW ME HOW BRAVE YOU ARE NOW YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The walls rang. "YOU TELL EMILY TO OPEN THAT GOD DAMNED VAULT!"
"Do it Emily do it open the vault!"
"Good boy. Now tell her to put all the money in a big sack."
"Do what he says Emily!"
"And don't!" -- a rockslide noise petrified them as magically a second pistol covered Mr. Jason, who had twitched -- "you let that cross your mind again, Miles."
Emily stepped out of the vault with the bag in her hands. The stranger glanced at her and she was looking at him.
"Now," he said. "The two of you gentlemen shake hands. Do it! right hands, right now, clasp them, do it!" Fuddled, they reached forward and each grasped the other's sweaty hand. "Very nice. Now waltz yourselves right on into the vault -- one-two-three, one-two-three -- very good."
"What about Emily?" asked the manager.
"What about her!" The stranger came over the counter like death and the bankers danced as one to the back of the vault. "D'you suggest I lock her in there to smother with you, you swine? Think I'd trust you with her at all, lovely girl like this? Eh?"
"You can't do this," came the voice from the dark.
The stranger's pistol barrel snicked on the steel door and grated a little as he pushed it ever so slowly shut. The bankers' last view of him was an ever-narrowing segment of his long hard face and at last one long hard eye. "Don't shout," he murmured tenderly as the door whispered shut, "don't waste that precious air." They heard the tumblers as he spun the dial.
The stranger faced Emily behind the counter. He took a step. Rat-a-tat! at the door and a galvanic response lifted both his boots off the floor.
"Mr. Arenthal?" came a man's voice from without. They heard him try the door. "Mr. Jason?"
"The deputy," said Emily.
Came harder rapping. "Miss Graves?"
"Go along there," she pointed. "Those stairs lead out to the roof. Y -- "
He took her arm in one hand and the back of her neck in the other and pulled her up against him and kissed her on the mouth. He smelled of dust, and wind and blood. She hung motionless in his hands and felt all her life force gather in her belly and her lips where they touched him.
"Mr. Arenthal!" Very sharp rapping indeed. "Mr. Jason!"
The bank robber and Miss Graves stared at each other; his red tongue appeared between his scarlet lips to draw back the lower one, which he bit; then he spun up the stairs without a word, the skirts of his coat flipping back and the big bag of money in his hand.
Miss Graves unlocked the door and made a little extra out of blinking at the deputy's upraised hand.
"Pardon me, Miss Graves," he scowled, "but is everything all right in there?" She was tall enough that her eyes were level with his. She smiled at him, a small smile, and he squinted at her, awaiting a secret signal.
But she only answered mildly, "Oh! yes, I'm so sorry, Mr. Gilroy,” moving back as she spoke, "please excuse me for making you wait. Mr. Arenthal was called away, and he said that Mr. Jason might be excused as well, and I was as far in the back as I could possibly get, up on the stepladder. I'm so sorry." The door swung open as always
Mr. Gilroy stepped in and frowned around the room. "So nothing's wrong, then?" He glanced behind the door, and leaned a little to the side to look up the stairs. "I wondered when I had to knock all that time. No trouble?" He waited.
"No, Mr. Gilroy, no trouble at all. I apologize again for making you wait." The bank was silent and tidy.
"That's fine, ma'am -- as long as there's no trouble." He stared at her, plain Miss Graves, and she gazed pleasantly back, her eyes as always a little removed by her spectacles. "Well," he said. She smiled, pleasantly. "Well, then. I guess that's all now."
"Thank you, Mr. Gilroy. "
"Yes, ma'am."
She locked the door behind him and returned to the spot behind the counter where she had spent uncounted eons of her life, took pen and paper and wrote, "3 left 36, 2 right 17, 3 left again 27, right 12." Fetching the paste-pot, she liberally coated the back of this missive and stuck it to the door of the vault. She stared at the other cash drawers, then jerked them open and counted out to herself the exact difference between Miles' wage and her own, from the beginning of his tenure to date. She stowed the folding money in her bodice and the gold and silver in her reticule. Then she walked out of the bank, leaving the front door, for the first and last time, open wide; and as she stepped to the edge of the boardwalk she recalled with pleasure that she was wearing her mother's pearls under her collar.
Shouts were faintly heard from down the block and around the corner; Mr. Gilroy went charging across the street towards the commotion. She heard shooting, and the clatter of galloping hooves. She pinched her spectacles as firmly as possible onto the bridge of her nose.
A big bay horse bounded out of the lane, bank robber aboard, and wheeled up the street in her direction instead of down it and away. She regretted her new chemise, lace-trimmed and never worn and folded away in the dark of her dressing-table drawer, and time began to move quite slowly as the bank robber raced towards her; she saw his eyes plainly as he leaned her way, she saw his hand in the sunlight reaching out to her, fingers wide. She had plenty of time to understand how many steps to take backwards and when to sprint forward and reach out and launch herself just like a bird and then she was airborne -- his iron hand around her arm pivoted her into the sky, her petticoat flurried about her knees, she lit with a bruising jolt on the back of his saddle and her arms twisted themselves tight around his waist.
And off they went down the middle of the street through the middle of town, bullets whining and zinging all around them and shattering out the windows of lawful establishments, townspeople shouting and dashing into the street. One brave soul even planted himself right out in front of them with arms outstretched to block their way, but they never slowed a bit -- indeed it was doubtful whether any of the fugitives even saw him except the bay, who simply breasted the hero out of their way. They veered down a side-lane, thundered up an alley, jumped a fence and ducked some washing on a line, sailed over another fence and lit out across the sagebrush, never to be seen again.
It became a town legend, The Day Miss Graves Ran Away with The Bank Robber, and those who actually saw them racket past took pride in saying so, and many of those who hadn't said they had just the same. Many of those who saw it thought her leg in its black stocking clinging to the galloping horse was quite surprisingly shapely. And as to how a posse of armed men on fresh horses could possibly lose a single doubly-burdened bay gelding -- indeed, triply burdened, for a big sack of cash weighs a lot -- in all those miles of howling desolation, well, opinions differ to this day.
#
Penciled note from Miss Emily Graves to Mrs. Mae Norman, widow:
Dearest Mae --
Will be unable to join you for dinner tonight.
Enclosed sum totals savings of yourself & Mrs. Larsen, Mr. Hayward, & the Misses Miller.
Come directly to the bank upon receipt taking care as there may be shooting and before he can do another thing take Mr. Gilroy by the hand and look into his eyes and explain to him that Mr. Arenthal never received any wire from Kansas City and Mr. Posvar's will was never proved -- the gold is still in Mr. Arenthal's own safe.
Recall those lines of John Donne's that we yearned over so as girls and have dared to scoff at since:
"Their eye-beams twisted and did thread
their eyes upon one double string . . ."
We were as wise in our innocence as Mr. Donne, Mae.
I love you like a sister, and you have always been the finest and dearest friend anyone could hope to have in this life.
Yours ever,
Emily
