Saddle Dust

Chapter 10

The lightning and rain hides the heavy, wet sound of several pairs of boots squelching over the muddy cobblestone outside of the now quiet saloon. A heavy fist pounds on the thin yellow, wooden door which gives no answer. Several men's voices, muttering discontentedly, and thenâ€"
Casey slowly sits up in bed. Her eyes are sharp and clear and focus intently on the opposite wall. Her ears almost seem to twitch like some wild dog's.
Downstairs, a man quietly protests but is quickly convinced to "Shut the hell up or else."
In her and Anita's room, Casey opens her mouth as if to say something, but then shuts it again. She tilts her head to the right. Anita stirs in her sleep, but Casey remains focused on something else. Casey hears something that sounds like a shoe stuffing wood, and she flinches as if reacting to some invisible hand. Anita wakes groggily and looks at Casey through bleary, sleep heavy eyes.
"Casey, what's it…? You're alright. Itwwas jus' a dream or sm'thn…" She trails off as she begins to drift back to sleep again.
"No." Casey's voice is low and so quiet, Anita almost misses it, but as soon as she hears it, she knows something is seriously wrong. She sits up, now wide awake, and looks at Casey, panic and worry in her eyes.
"What is it? Are you alright? It's alright. I'm here." Has she been drinking again? Oh Lord, she'd better not' ve been. Shit…I don't know what I'd do if she gets out of control again… Anita puts a hand on Casey's arm in an attempt to steady not just Casey, but herself as well. Her throat feels dry and she almost can't get the words out.
"Casey, it's me, Anita. I'm here. There's nothing here."
Anita releases a contained breath of air when she senses that the hand Casey places over her own is the hand of a sane woman, not the other thing Casey becomes when she's had a drink. Then the hand tightens, firmly, but not enough to hurt Anita. Casey turns to her and puts a finger to her mouth, signaling her to stay quiet. Casey slides her feet to the ground and crosses the room to where her and Anita's things hang from the backs of the room's two chairs, fully dry now. She signals Anita to get dressed, and hands her her duster.
"What's wrong?" Anita mouths to Casey. Casey finishes stepping into her jeans and buckling her holsters in place. It must be bad if she feels she needs guns…
"Ra..."
Anita strains to hear what Casey whispered, but she can't. "What?" She mouths back. Casey seems to hear something and she whips around to face the door. When she turns back, her face is ghostly white and she looks afraid. This scares Anita.
"It's a raid."
Oh. OH. Anita gets ready faster than she has ever in her entire life. Casey passes her her revolver, and tosses the saddle bags to Anita.
"Leave the trunk. We gotta get the hell out of here. Now." Anita nods, feeling the color beginning to drain from her own face. She slips the revolver into the pocket of her duster, and follows Casey to the door. Casey puts her ear to the wood, draws a revolver, nods to Anita, and quickly but quietly swings the door open into the room. She pokes her head out into the hallway and does a quick check. Seeing that it's clear, she gestures for Anita to follow. Casey follows the barrel of her revolver as she arcs it down the dim hallway to the staircase. At the top of the stairs she peeks down into the saloon floor below, and jumps back against the wall. Anita raises her eyebrows and looks at her questioningly.
"Not good. They're over at the bar now searching it for some reason, probably for names, but they'll be up here next to start arresting people."
Casey peaks around the corner again. Behind one or two of the closed doors, Anita can hear shuffling and wonders if their residents have caught on to the presence of lawmen and Pinkerton's below.
"Is there another way out?"
Casey shakes her head. "We'll just have to sneak down the stairs and run like hell. You got your gun?"
Anita takes it out of her duster, spins the carousel to check that it's full, and snaps it back in place. She nods once to Casey.
"Good."
Casey begins creeping towards the top of the stairs again and Anita follows, close behind. A small square of the saloon floor is visible to Anita and what she sees makes her stomach lurch. Two of the waiters lie deadâ€" brutalized and strangled on the ground, their faces twisted like knots in a tree from their final seconds of struggle.
"Don't look."
Anita picks a spot on the back of Casey's neck and doesn't let her eyes wander from it. While she is afraid, her breathing is steady and she feels in control of herself. Infact, she feels in control of everything and wouldn't be surprised that if she started shooting, she would have complete control of just exactly where that bullet went.
They have reached the halfway point of the stairs where they will become visible to the lawmen below. Casey quickens her pace and tries to keep her footsteps hushed on the stairs. Somehow, they reach the bottom without being noticed. Casey and Anita quickly make their way over to the hallway which leads out to the false front of the saloon and are just about to slip around the corner when a shout turns the sweat on their necks into ice.
"HEY! There's two of 'em runnin' out! Get 'em boys! Get 'em!"
"Run."
Anita doesn't need to be told to run. She and Casey sprint down the hallway, gunshots and pounding feet following them out into the false front of the saloon. The door is shut, so Casey turns around and braces her gun up in her hand, aiming it towards the approaching footsteps.
"Get the door, and duck down." Anita dodges around Casey and slams her entire body weight into the door. It doesn't budge.
"It's stuck."
Casey fires at the first figure to step into sight. The man jerks back and falls to the floor, screaming and writhing over the bullet lodged deeply into his right hip.
"Hold back boys till we know who we've got!" A voice further back in the hallway shouts. "The bastards ain't gettin' out nohow."
"Yes we are." Anita growls and shoots the lock of the door. It takes two bullets for the door's lock to break apart and tumble to the ground with a musical, metallic chink. Casey and Anita shove through the door sending it reeling back on its hinges, and run outside.
"Git the hell out there!" A voice yells from behind them, and more gunshots follow.
Three lawmen stand guard outside and are surprised by Casey and Anita's sudden appearance. They both freeze, and stare at the lawmen who stare back at them with mirrored shock.
Anita unloads two bullets at the lawmen's feet, startling Casey back into action.
"This way!"
"HEY! It's Casey Long! Wyatt! It's Longabaugh and some other woman!"
The other two lawmen spring into action and begin to chase after the two running outlaws.
"Go straight and hide under the train bridge that's about a half mile up. Try to act as calm as you can. They're not after you, they'll just think you're some working girl at the saloon. Give it an hour or two, then I'll meet you over at the mill station across the river."
Anita looks at Casey, worry in her eyes but exhilaration bright on her face.
"What about you?"
"I'm going to take a left. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to take any of 'em on. I'm just gonna go this way and I'll meet you at the mill. If neither of us hears from the other before this time tomorrow, get the hell out, alright?"
Anita nods once and bolts on ahead in the direction of the train bridge. Casey slows to a trot and darts into a small passageway. She stands flat against the wall, and watches the hem of Anita's deep green dress flutter away into the haze. She hears the footsteps of the lawmen approaching at a trot. It sounds like two, maybe three or them. Their voices are blanketed and dulled in the now misty rain.
"Which way'd you see her go?"
"She went up ahead with another womanâ€" she was wearing a green dress."
"What the hell? Who was the woman Long was with?"
"Why'd you think I would know? It don't matter nohow."
"It does matter. That woman in the dress fired at Wyatt an' me, not Long!"
"Oh shit. She another one of them damned gal guys?"
"We should check it out because if she is, it might not be too late to get her back. For Long, it's much too late. Wyatt, you take the woman in the dress. I think she went up ahead, and I don't think she'll put up much of a fight. Poor thing's probably terrified. Me an' Beckham'll try an' track down Long."
Casey hears a set of footsteps slap away from the pack on the uneven wet cobblestones at an alarmingly fast clip. Holy shit damn…he'll get Anita.
The other two sets of footsteps slow to a walk.
"She ran off this way, but I just don't believe she'd stick around with whoever she was with if she thought there was trouble…"
The first voice trails off.
"There's just too many damn alleys and little holes for her to slip into. She's like a goddamned serpent or something."
"You got that right."
Casey hears the lawmen's footsteps crunch to a halt just short of the entrance to her hiding place. She drops a bullet into one of the empty slots in the carousel and snaps it shut. The passageway leading behind her is blocked with leaves and empty cans and newspapers and other trash. It would be hard for her to climb back further and see if there was an escape without alerting the men to her presence. The walls in front and behind her are too smooth and tall to reasonably climb. She re-settles her hat on her head, and peeks out from around the corner. One of the lawmen sees her, and his mouth forms an O of surprise. Casey doesn't give him a chance to reach for his gun. She pulls the trigger, and the man's screams are cut off by a steady stream of blood which begins to run down from just above the collar of his shirt. He claws at the base of his neck, and collapses to the ground, kicking at air. He sputters and begins to choke on his own blood.
The remaining lawman fires at Casey, and she feels the bullet pass through the tail of her duster, missing her side by just a few inches. Casey grins at the man and fires twice at his feet, turning away from him and sprinting in the direction the third lawman, Wyatt, ran off in.
As her feet pound the mostly deserted street, her own words from long ago keep pace with the beating of her heart. Even if they done me wrong…even ifâ€"
"They're gonna do Anita wrong."
She bares her teeth at the words and shoves them into a trunk with a thick metal band running around its midsection. Her feet slap against the wet cobblestones at a more desperate pace. She hears the lawman, Wyatt, up ahead.
"George! I got her! I gotâ€""
Casey's body weight slams into him, and Wyatt loses his grip on Anita's arms. She breaks free, and picks up her dropped gun. Casey wrestles Wyatt's tall, lanky frame to the ground and twists his arms back painfully (Anita notes that Casey holds the man the same way she held her at their first coach robbery just a few weeks ago).
"Let go you damned bitch! You've been runnin' from us for a long time, and from God for even longer. My men'll be here shortly, and they'll set you straight. You'll be swinging down to Hell soon enough."
Casey buries her fingers on her free hand in his hair and pulls his head back away from the ground. He strains to see her from the corner of one eye, and what he sees makes him wet his pants just a little. Casey's face is stony and unrelenting. She isn't playing, and Wyatt knows he's made a big mistake.
"You're sure one to talk, ain'tcha?" Casey brings his face down onto the cobblestones. Not hard enough to knock him out, but hard enough for stars to flick across his vision and for a metallic taste to fill his mouth.
"Let me tell you something, Wyatt, you've got your face in the mud right now, and your arm's pinned."
Wyatt feels something shift under his chest. It almost feels like a small, thick piece of paper. He wonders vaguely if he'll live long enough to see what it is. Above him, Casey continues her stream of threats.
"You're one of them damned Pinkerton's, ain't you? Well…"
Wyatt feels his lip split and a tooth bury itself in the side of his cheek at his next contact with the ground.
"Tell the rest of your boys that I'll be ready for them if they try anything. Although, I doubt one of your boys back there'll be in any sort of shape to do much of anything."
Casey's laugh is harsh and papery.
"But you get the idea."
"Casey, I see a lamp coming." Casey looks up and sees that there is not just one lamp bobbing haphazardly in her and Anita's direction, but two. She nods.
"Looks like you're gonna be a lucky bastard today Mr. Wyatt."
Casey releases him and kicks him hard in the side. Wyatt hears the dry crunching of a rib shattering in his chest.
"Let's get the hell out of here."
Casey and Anita turn, and run down the road for a little until they are sure the lawmen can't see where they are. Then, they cut left down an alley and make their way towards the flour mill's train dock where a sleeping train sits in the rain. Casey and Anita slip into a car that is half full of flour bags ready to go to market, and settle down in an inconspicuous corner behind a particularly large wall of the flour bags.
"Where can we go now?" Anita is biting her lip and her hands tremble slightly. Casey wraps an arm around her, pulling Anita to her and letting the trembling in her own body slowly disappear.
"Back to San Dimas. Back to the saloon. There ain't any good saloons or anyplace around here to hole up in. They ain't looking for us in California."
"That sounds wonderful."
Silence.
"Did you have to kill the lawmen back there?"
Casey stares off at the far wall of the train car, and the image of the man choking on his own bloodâ€" kicking and gasping for air, glides through her mind like some unwelcome, gruesome fantom.
"No." She answers softly. She feels Anita's hand wrap gently around one of her own. It's steady and
"You did what you had to do."

Three lawmen, George included, find lawman Wyatt lying on the ground, gasping for air and clutching a square of photo paper. Despite his obvious pain and shallow breathing (indicating a broken rib), he has a triumphant expression on his face.
"Holy hell, what in the blazes she do to yah?"
The lawmen help their comrade to his feet.
"It ain't what she did to me, it's what we're gonna be able to do to her now we know Long's back in business with a partner."
"What? What'd you mean?"
Wyatt holds out the square of paper, the grin spreading wider on his face.
George takes the paper and looks at it, astonished. He flips it over, reads the back, and then looks at the front again. Finally, he speaks.
"I can't believe she'd actually do something like that. I mean…this is just reckless. Even her and the other woman's names' on the back."
Wyatt shrugs.
"All outlaws get to the point in their careers where they start getting careless. You know it just as well as I do. Better in fact. Maybe Ms. Long is just getting cocky and she's distracted because she's runnin' with another outlaw now."
George looks at the stolid faces of Casey and Anita again before flipping the photo over again.
"Casey Long and Anita Romero, One of the other lawmen takes the photo from George.
"Casey Long and Anita Romero…Long and Romero… Long, Romero…"
The lawman looks up at George.
"I know Ms. Long. I had some trouble with her in Dodge City a little while back. Killed three men in cold blood. If you don't mind, detective, I'd be much obliged if you'd let me take this one on. It's a…well, it's of a rather personal nature to me."
George nods.
"Of course you can take the case! After such a sterling record working to bring down the countless outlaws of this country, I couldn't deny you the opportunity to do Pinkerton's a service."
The lawman bows his head.
"Thank you sir."
"Don't mention it, Hadley. I expect good things from you."

Casey and Anita remained stowed away on the train for a full day, jumping off just a few miles before it reached its next stop. They walked the six miles to the station which they located just inside South Dakota. There, they purchased tickets west, and traveled back to California.