Sundance (33 page)

“I wouldn't throw this out just yet.”

“Oh no no no, the Ashcans are artists, Robert Henri, John Sloan. They paint the world as it really is.”

“I couldn't say what the world really is.”

“That's why we have artists, to tell you through their work.”

This guy Duchamp is telling you
, thought Longbaugh.
You're just not listening
. “I've been in prison.”

“Uh? Oh yes, of course, very good, you're a wit, addressing our emerging sensibilities. A dangerous weapon, wit, I will remember your gibe.”

“Steal it in good health.”

Wisher checked the time. “Come with me. Sydney should be here any minute. Fresh off the boat, so to speak.”

“Off the boat?”

“Just docked, saw it coming into the harbor on the way here. You
didn't know?” Loney hesitated, as if a doubt was setting in. “He's coming directly from the wharf. Doesn't want to miss a minute of this.”

“Why didn't you meet him there?”

“He needs me to catalog the art. He specifically wants to know which pieces people dislike the most. He can be very inscrutable. But I don't question, I just do my job.” Longbaugh hadn't met Fedgit-Spense, but he thought he understood what he was doing and was surprised Wisher did not. Fedgit-Spense had little respect for the unsophisticated American taste and he was using that to help guide his purchases. Anything the Americans hated must be good, and Wisher was blind to the insult. Longbaugh was caught in the irony, as he had started to like the art only because Wisher did not. “It's my understanding your Mrs. Matthews is the one meeting him.”

Longbaugh followed him through the galleries that banked Twenty-fifth Street until they had returned to the entrance. These smaller galleries held mostly American painters, and Wisher pointed out his favorite canvases from the Ashcan School as they went by.

They arrived at the arch by the entrance to wait. Wisher droned on, speaking of the American painters with affection. Longbaugh had liked their work, but was tired of Wisher's monologue, and he watched the crowd for Hightower, for Moretti. She was coming. She would come here, to this place. She was on her way.

Sydney Fedgit-Spense entered. Longbaugh knew because Wisher went for him without hesitation, leaving off in midsentence. Fedgit-Spense had a certain glow, unless it was caused by his habit of stepping into the cast of every strong overhead light. He was tall, thin, bony, with a schoolboy's straight blond hair flopping over an older man's face. His enormous nose led his skeletal frame wherever he went, and he looked as if he went wherever he pleased. After the things attributed to him, Longbaugh had expected someone more dangerous, or at least more handsome. Fedgit-Spense struggled to remove his heavy jacket, something more appropriate for a ship's deck than a rainy summer evening. Longbaugh watched Wisher flow to Fedgit-Spense, each step a metamorphosis, now the amanuensis, now the acolyte, now the apostle,
until he was alongside his superior, “Welcome back, sir,” lifting the shoulders of the jacket to allow Fedgit-Spense's arms to slip out. “Thank you, Loney, fine to be back.” “I thought you might say ‘home,' sir.” “Not that good, Loney, despite your presence.”

Longbaugh watched to see if Etta would come in with Fedgit-Spense, but Fidgy had entered alone. He looked and looked, and when the same people in the same plumage trading the same gossip and the same laughter continued to stream into the Armory, he began to think she was unreal, that everything he had heard about her had been manufactured to torment him.

Until he saw someone moving sideways against the current of the incoming crowd, back in the darkness under the arch, a woman slipping by in a blur of vermillion silk. He had a glint of recognition, the way she held her head, but . . . was he fooling himself, or had he truly recognized her? He'd been fooled before, especially when actively looking and hoping. The woman walked with her back to him, still going sideways through the crowd, different hairstyle, her dress of a color and profile he would not have expected. Had she always been so tall? He convinced himself it was not her as he started in her direction. She moved for a stairway that would take her to the floor below.

Wisher looked around for him. “Oh, by the way, Sydney, I met a friend of yours, now, where did he go?”

Longbaugh reached the top of the stairs as she reached the bottom. The lights were dim there, to dissuade the crowd from venturing down. He still had not gotten a look at her face, and he saw her turn to the left. He faltered, as if his legs were made of heavy liquid, but he forced himself to press on, holding the handrail for balance, going down as quickly as he could manage, watching his feet on the stairs, as he did not trust his step. He opened his mouth to call her name, but no sound came.

He reached the bottom of the stairs. The area was dark. There were apparently large rooms to the right as he saw arrows on the wall next to signs that read
BOWLING ALLEYS
and
RIFLE RANGES
. He concentrated
on the hallway and saw her at the far end, in shadow, passing through a doorway, closing the door behind her.

He followed her down the hall. It wasn't her, he knew it wasn't her, this had to be another Ethel Matthews, it was a misunderstanding and he was chasing his imagination. He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. It clearly could not be her. He turned it, and the door opened quietly.

The room was dark. He heard her over there, shaking rain from her hair. She clicked on a lamp and a small cone of light illuminated a desk and her silhouette. Her back was to him as she opened a desk drawer and took out papers. He tried to speak but again he had no voice. He froze, sharing a room with her while she thought she was alone. All he could manage was to close the door behind him.

She turned at the sound. The light from the lamp lit a dark red sleeve, the curls of her hair, the underside of her chin, the lower part of her cheek.

They entered a microscopic slice of time that seemed to drag for an age, eyes connected.

He stood there, the ex-convict, the old lover chasing her through the new city, pathetic with hope, reckless with nostalgia and unrequited need.

A microscopic slice of time congested with thoughts.

Tell me. One way or the other, tell me, say it
.

What is in your heart
?

Not a full second had passed when she took that step toward him, leaving the light behind her, and there in the shadow she smiled.

“Hello, Sundance.”

She came across the room as if the light propelled her forward, and he was lost to her, as that was all of it, he knew everything in that first honest step. She came to him and he caught her, wrapped her in his grateful arms, heart pounding against her scent, kissing her familiar lips, and feeling her excellent laugh bubble up in her breast.

They rushed to be together, making up for lost time, to prove that
this moment was real and true, amazed to be holding each other, the years spent apart now slipping into an envelope that sealed behind them, as they touched that special one known from a thousand dreams and now made flesh, palms touching, fingers interlaced.

She grinned with the joy of discovery, her fingers inching back his bowler, fondling the fabric of his suit, the soft collar of his shirt.

His lips near her ear. “It's you.”

Curling her arms back around him, she felt it against his low back and laughed aloud. “Sweetheart, you're packing.”

“You've been associating with a bad lot. Thought I'd bring a friend.”

“I'm well away from those people.”

He leaned his head so she could see his eyes. “No. You're not. They're coming.”

“But—”

“I wasn't quick enough. They're coming tonight. For you.”

She took a full breath and held it a moment, her eyes looking over his shoulder. “I should never have used my name.”

“I was too slow. I only found out after someone else put it together.”

“But you found me, so it was worth it.”

He touched her left hand, felt the wedding ring on her finger, and smiled. Mrs. Matthews. Then he affected a lopsided grin. “So. No corset.”

“Nope.”

“And that's a dress.”

“That's red, Kid, and I knew you'd come.”

“I wasn't sure you'd still want us.”

“Yes you were.”

His breath caught in his chest and he felt his smile tingle his fingertips and support his knees. The right answer. “Okay. Yes, okay.”

She moved to adjust his collar, fingernail rubbing at her own lipstick, when she felt the bandanna.

“What's this?”

“The old one was lost at Henry Street.”

“This is no good.”

She loosened his four-in-hand, opened his collar, and pulled the too-green too-new bandanna away from his neck as if it must never be allowed to touch him again. He was surprised by the intensity of her dislike.

“Wrong color,” she said.

She held it with two fingers over the wastebasket and let it drop.

She then gathered up the fabric of her dress to mid-thigh to reveal her petticoat. It was cream colored and constructed in two parts, the main section running from waist to just below the knee, and a bottom piece that fell almost to her ankle. Connecting the two parts was a series of evenly spaced fabric strips sewn to connect top and bottom with an open space in between. Weaving in and out of that open space was a decorative ribbon. An olive-colored ribbon. She took hold of one end and pulled the whole length of it out. His fingers went instinctively to his pocket where he kept the other pieces.

She let her dress drop back over the petticoat, brought the ribbon to his shoulders, and he felt her fingers slide the ribbon around his neck and feed the ends down inside his shirt to lie flat against his chest. The electric touch of her fingers stayed on the back of his neck, and the ribbon was alive against his skin. “That will have to do until we get a new one.”

He drew the smaller ribbon pieces from his pocket. “Mystery solved.”

“I needed something you'd recognize.”

“I didn't, at first.”

“Ran out of time that day. Just hoped you'd see them.”

“You were so sure I'd know what they meant?”

“I bought this petticoat because of that ribbon. Only you would recognize the color.”

He laughed. “We can discuss all this later, right now we have to go before they get here.”

She looked at him seriously. “I can't leave the Armory.”

“Don't worry, I'll get you out.”

“No, I mean there's something I have to do here.”

“Wait, no. Etta, your life is at stake.”

“I know.”

“And I just found you.”

“I know.”

He fought himself, trying not to say the things that came to his mind, trying not to be unhappy. He had found her and she was all he hoped she would be, except she was also intransigent, with an agenda that did not immediately include rekindling the marriage after the years they had been apart. He was here now, he had found her in time to get her out of danger, and she refused to go. He knew times were changing, it was everywhere and touched everything, but was it so absolute that a man was expected to let his woman willingly throw herself into the line of fire? He tried to hold his tongue but the words stumbled out. “I'm finally here after all this time, can't you let this go?”

“Are you asking me? Because this is something I have to do.”

“Putting yourself in danger?”

She put her hands on his jaw, fingers on his cheeks. She touched the olive ribbon through the shirt fabric. She traced fingertips through his hair at the back of his neck. She looked him steadily in the eye, and he knew this was not up for discussion. “I have never wanted to run away more than I do right now. Be with you, run back to all that we are together. But there are things I learned once I got here. Maybe I didn't want to know them, but once you know, you can't just stop knowing because you wish you didn't.”

He nodded. He wished he could disagree.

“I didn't know if I'd ever see you again,” she said, “and until now I didn't realize how terribly I've missed you, and I was already missing you more than I could bear. But some things you have to see through.”

She was certain, mature, and strong. That was no surprise, as he had been hearing about her from everyone he'd met along the way, but he hadn't expected it to be this way after he found her. He had thought she would see him and need him and go back to the good way it was. Good, except for maybe the railroads and the law on his tail. Good, except for maybe needing to use an alias and watching his back every day of his life. He was impressed by what she had become, without wanting to be
impressed. Conversely, her strength made him want to protect her that much more.

He did the best he could. “I know you understand the danger, I've tracked you from Lillian to Queenie to Moretti, then Prophet to this Fidgy. You know how much Moretti wants a piece of you, and he's damn close. Whatever you're trying to do, you can't finish it if you're dead, and Moretti will not let go.
Come
with me.”

“There's more going on than you know. More even than I know.”

“I want you safe, if I'd been here earlier, maybe I could have protected you, or, I don't know, maybe I have it backward, but you have to understand, it's not like I'm trying to keep you my little girl—”

Her smile came up sideways. “Your little girl?”

“That was just, after talking to, never, never mind, forget all that.”

She touched his cheek. “Sweetheart. I'm in this because of you.”

“I don't understand.”

“When you wouldn't see me that day at Rawlins, when you sent the guard with the letter, you hurt me. But then I understood. It was a gift. You sent me to New York, and I realized you did it because you trusted me. I could take risks, because you trusted me.”