Astray: Stories

  She purses her dry lips.

  He chuckles.

  She considers the faces that line the bar. “Which one of these saddle bums goes by Jensen?”

  “Here’s what’s left of him.” With one finger the barkeep indicates the man sleeping half off his stool: a puddle of greasy hair, a hat tipped sideways on the wet wood.

  Mollie blows out her breath and pours herself another.

  “What d’you want with my aul pal Jensen?” demands the redhead.

  “Four days since he rode into town for supplies,” she tells him, “left his wife in an empty camp. I’m taking him back.”

  “Can’t a man spend his poke in peace?”

  She walks over to Jensen. Her hands slide into his pockets, down his legs. He grunts.

  “C’mere, wee lassie,” croons the Irishman, “don’t be wasting that on a sleeping man.” He shuffles up close behind her. “And what have you got in your pocket?”

  “A Peacemaker,” says Mollie under her breath before he can touch her. Finding Jensen’s little bag, she straightens up, and drops it on the bar.

  The barkeep’s scowl deepens as he sets it on the scales. “That won’t half cover his tab.”

  “Guess I’ll have to take up a collection, then.” She lifts the drunk’s hat and holds it out in front of the Irishman.

  “Here’s all I’ve got for you,” he says, and spits in it.

  He must not have believed her about the pistol, so she moves her coat and shows him a glimpse of its thick barrel. “In that case, should I shoot your jewels off right this minute, or would you rather help me with your aul pal here?”

  The Irishman steps back, paler under his burn. “What kind of help?”

  “Check his cayuse’s well watered.”

  While he’s outside, she goes round with the hat, laying on the charm. “Come on, men, a bit of actual? I’ve spent all mine on provisions for the Jensens,” she assures them. “Let’s clear the bum’s tab and I undertake to get him home by tomorrow, what do you say?”

  There’s protest and eye rolling and jokes about lady bountifuls, but they pay up. The Irishman comes back in and produces half a dollar.

  “Stay for a round of faro, why don’t you, Mollie,” suggests a farmer.

  She grins, hovering by the table, then shakes her head.

  She takes the unconscious Jensen by his collar and yanks him onto the floor. He’s coming to by the time she’s dragged him to the door—twisting against the light of the lamps, starting to babble—so she gets the Irishman to grab his feet. They haul him like wet washing; another two men help heave him into the saddle of his hungry-looking horse.

  She rides up alongside and plants the groggy man’s hat on his head. “Name’s Mollie Monroe,” she tells him. “Going to ride behind me without a ruckus?”

  Apparently not. She ducks away from his fist; her pony shies. “Better lash his hands to the pommel,” she tells the Irishman. “And pass me his rifle.” She ties it behind her saddle, on top of the sacks of beans and meal. She coils his horse’s rope around her wrist and murmurs “Gitty up” to her own.

  All through town Jensen curses. Damns the dust, the lingering heat of the August day, but most of all damns this half-size freak in britches, this vigilante morphodite who’s got him roped like some felon when last he heard this was the free state of Arizona. He pukes and spatters his leg.

  It’s going to be a long ride. Mollie passes the bright windows of her own saloon. Looks like George’s got his hands full this Saturday night. Shame she hasn’t time to stop in for a quick one, but it would only start a quarrel, likely.

  The lush banks of the Hassayampa drop out of sight behind them. Scattered saguaros stick up like fists against the orange evening as she heads toward Black Mountain, a road some call cursed, since a stagecoach full of passengers got themselves massacred a few winters past.

  Behind her, Jensen’s retching drily. She walks her pony back, reins in at arm’s length, and hands over the water bag.

  His eyes are red-rimmed as he drinks. “Cut me loose,” he says, half-baring his teeth, “or I swear, I won’t leave enough of you to snore.”

  Mollie keeps her grin on. “Do I look scairt?”

  “Crazy as popcorn on a stove, that’s what you look.”

  “Don’t push me, Jensen. I’d rather deliver you in one piece.” She clicks her tongue to start her pony moving again.

  “Deliver me to who?” The question comes hoarsely.

  She’s sorely tempted not to answer; to let Jensen spend a few minutes—even hours—recollecting his enemies. Instead, she says over her shoulder, “Your wife.”

  “How the blazes do you know my wife?” he demands, bends to puke again but there’s nothing in it.

  She reins in, lets him catch up. “I was riding by a mine shaft this morning, your boy was down it, his mama was screaming for him to climb out. Fine pair you’ve got, and another one coming any day, looks like; she can hardly get around. They’ll be a big help with the prospecting in another few years, that’s if any of them last that long.”

  “What do you know about prospecting?” he asks with venom.

  She rides on. “Oh, me and George Monroe have staked claims all over these hills. Once I sold a bonanza for twenty-five hundred dollar, blew it all in a week!”

  “I’ve heard of Monroe,” concedes Jensen. “But I never heard tell he was married.”

  She sets her teeth. Hasn’t she a right to the name after all these years? “Mrs. Jensen seems a nice piece of Mexican calico,” she throws over her shoulder.

  “Is she paying you?” Jensen wants to know.

  “Ha! With what?”

  He doesn’t speak again.

  She turns off the road onto a dry wash, heading south into the foothills. The night is crisp now, stars pricking a black sky. She glances back, and Jensen’s dropped his head on his bound hands. She’s suddenly beat.

  The man’s no help to her; slumps against the furrowed trunk of a cottonwood as she stokes the fire with what dried dung she can find. “Never thought we’d run out of bison shit,” she remarks, “but now they’ve got those excursion trains, shoot from the windows, you ever hear of such a thing?”

  No response. Not even when Mollie serves up her famous stew. (She’s cooked for fifty at a time, and never heard any complaints.) She undoes the knot that holds Jensen’s wrists together, but keeps her pistol handy. The plate shudders in his hands. A cool northern breeze angles off the mountains, which are only starless patches on the sky. Jensen suddenly lurches to his feet and goes behind a saguaro. Got the trots, Mollie reckons; that’s the end of many a spree. When he comes back, he crouches and breaks off a corner from the nearest outcropping, peers at it; one of those prospector’s habits.

  Mollie binds his hands again, adds a rope around his ankle, and throws him a blanket before she settles down on her bedroll with the horses’ ropes under her. The pistol digs into her hip as she drops into sleep.

  In the gray dawn, the end of Jensen’s rope lies blackened in the ashes. “Well, that’s just daisy,” Mollie mutters, through a yawn. She’s mildly impressed, though he didn’t manage to sneak his horse away from her, or his rifle.

  She follows his tracks back toward Wickenburg, catching up with him in a quarter of an hour. From a distance, he looks like some mad preacher, stalking along with joined hands.

  Mollie reins in beside him. He’s got a healthier color than yesterday, at least. He stops, panting slightly.

  “Care to ride?” she asks, indicating his horse.

  “Care to go fuck yourself?”

  Men often think to scandalize her, which is funny. As if, under the buckskins, there’s still some fragile lady, trembling at each dirty word.

  “You’re a cross-grained son of a bitch, aren’t you?” she remarks, putting Jensen on a long rope. “Don’t seem to care how hungry that family of yours gets. Course, all alone in that godforsaken camp since Tuesday, they could have been scalped by now.”


  His eyes glitter. “No Apaches left south of Prescott.”

  “Yeah, sure, except for the odd renegade in the hills. Or of course any white desperadoes who might see Mrs. J’s fire, they’d be sure to treat her like gentlemen.”

  She lets him mull that over. Clicks to her horse, moving off at a walk so Jensen has to stumble along behind. If this takes three days, he’ll just have to tell his wife they went the long way.

  He jerks, drags his feet, curses.

  At one point he trips and can’t seem to get to his feet again. For a minute she lets the horse pull him along in the dust—but he won’t be much good to Mrs. J. all shredded, so Mollie calls a halt. “Get on your cayuse, or we’re gonna be baking out here all week.”

  It could go either way.

  But Jensen climbs up into the saddle, and on they ride. Southwest, keeping Twin Peaks on the right and Vulture Peak on the left.

  “Old Vulture’s given up over thirty million dollars in gold,” Mollie remarks.

  “Not to me, she hasn’t.”

  Mollie’s watching the horizon for dust storms. Below them the Sonoran desert stretches away, already shimmering. Jensen’s botched escape has cost them an hour, so they have to ride hard in the heat of the afternoon to have any chance of reaching the camp by nightfall. A little scrub oak and piñon juniper for shade, but every crick they pass is dry; Mollie doles out the water bag sparingly. It’s too hot to talk; she rubs her gritty eyes and urges her pony on.

  “Come on,” says Jensen suddenly, “has my wife promised you something she’s got stashed away, from her papa?”

  “She’s got nothing,” says Mollie, “except another little Jensen about to carve its way out of her.”

  He stares. “You some class of do-gooder?”

  “It was a slack week.”

  The fact is, she does make a habit of this kind of thing. Hears of a man sick in camp, rides out with medicine and rabbit soup. Adventure’s scarce since the Indian Wars ended.

  As darkness moves over the hills, she decides they must be another hour from Jensen’s camp, and it isn’t worth breaking her pony’s leg.

  She likes to sing while she’s cooking. Jensen pulls a face: “Somebody forgot to grease the wagon.”

  When she serves up the doings, he holds out his bound hands. “Let me hold my fork.”

  “Not till you’re home.”

  “For blazes’ sake, I’m not some lost steer.”

  “A steer would have more sense.”

  It may be foolish, but she undoes the knot anyway. Jensen flexes his hands, shakes them, rubs them where they’re chafed.

  Mollie doles out a small measure of whiskey. “Here’s how,” she says, for a toast.

  They swap tales of veins and lodes they have known, as sailors talk of their ships.

  “I wear the clothes that fit the work,” says Mollie, “but they get me arrested every now and then.”

  “Arrested?”

  “Impersonating a man, so-called.”

  “Huh.” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t mistake you.”

  They have a cigarillo each. Jensen’s followed gold all over the map: Nevada, Boise, Salt Lake City. Got bit by a rattlesnake one time. “Never gone looking for a bullet,” he mentions, “but I’ve always thought that if one happened my way, it wouldn’t make no odds.”

  She leans to top up his mug.

  “I still reckon you’re getting something out of this business,” he says suddenly.

  For a minute she thinks “this business” means life. Then she gets it, almost laughs, lets out a long sigh instead. “Well, I can’t fool you, Jensen. Your wife did promise me something I’ve always had a hankering for.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Something you’ll hardly miss.”

  “What is it?”

  Very quiet. “A child.”

  The fire crackles. Jensen stares at her over his smeared plate. His mouth moves before he speaks. The word comes out hoarse. “Which one?”

  She would have liked to keep it up a bit longer but she can’t stop the sound, it bubbles up, it whoops out into the starry night.

  Jensen’s plate is overturned, he’s jumped the fire, he’s on top of her. “You dyed-in-the-wool bastard.”

  Mollie’s helpless with glee. “Which one?” is all she can squeak: “Which one?”

  His hands are on her throat. She can’t reach her Peacemaker, this could very well be the end of Mollie Monroe, the all too likely squalid end for a woman of her peculiarities, left throttled by a dying campfire, but still she can’t stop laughing.

  Jensen’s teeth are very close to hers. They’ve stopped moving. “You’re as ugly as a burnt boot,” he informs her.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Face like a dime’s worth of dog meat.”

  Mollie lets out a small groan. “Oh, fish or cut bait, won’t you?”

  She pulls down her own pants before he can. He goes at her hammer and tongs. Like a wolf, like she likes it. His flesh a stone pounding her to dust. Sand in her face and her own gun bruising her thigh.

  They sleep back-to-back for heat.

  Up before the sun. The mountains stand gray and saw-toothed. Mollie doesn’t make coffee. They pack in silence, without looking at each other, like two old prospectors. Jensen takes back his rifle.

  When the little camp comes into sight around a bend, she says, “Hey! Finally shed of you. You going to do the clean thing now, make the bettermost of it?”

  He speaks between his teeth. “Next time you set yourself up for judge and jury—”

  “Christ almighty,” she says, “who am I to judge? I’ve woken up in my own puke on a poker table.”

  He’s looking right past her at the tent with the fire smoking outside it.

  Mollie reins in her horse. Turns to undo the packs of supplies.

  “Will you have some breakfast?” His eyes are scanning the rocks for his children.

  “I won’t.”

  He shakes her hand.

  “Give my respects to Monroe.”

  “And mine to Mrs. Jensen.” Mollie clicks her tongue to her horse, turns back toward Wickenburg.

  The Long Way Home

  Mollie (born Mary) Sanger, born somewhere in New England in 1836 or perhaps 1846, arrived in Arizona as the wife of a lieutenant in the mid-1860s but soon paired up with George Monroe and worked as a prospector, cowboy, cook, and saloonkeeper. This story, about a (possibly apocryphal) incident from the early 1870s in which she dragged a prospector back to his family, draws on two articles, “Mollie Monroe: Memorable, ‘Crazy’ Character of Early Prescott,” in Sharlot Hall Museum: Days Past (November 2, 1997), and Nell Simcox’s “The Story of Mollie Monroe: Girl Cowboy,” in Real West Magazine (April 1983).

  A few years later, Mollie moved from Wickenburg back to Prescott (apparently without George Monroe). In 1877 she was the first woman in Arizona committed for insanity, which probably translates as cross-dressing, promiscuity, and alcoholism. In 1895 Mollie Monroe escaped from Phoenix Asylum and roamed the desert for four days, surviving on one bottle of water and a few crackers, before being recaptured by Indian trackers. After a quarter century of confinement, she died in 1902.

  CHICAGO

  1876

  THE BODY SWAP

  A rainy October night at the Hub on Chicago’s West Madison Street. Mullen, the jewel-eyed little barman, smoothes his thick mustache and tops up Morrissey’s glass. He leans one elbow on the sodden plank bar, considers the young man, then jerks his head toward the back. Morrissey has been fraternizing at the Hub for some weeks, telling stories of his time in Wisconsin State, but this is the first time Mullen’s invited him into his office.

  It’s as plain as the front but smells better. There’s a sad-eyed character there already, sandy beard half-covering impassive features. “Hughes,” says Mullen, with only a trace of a brogue, “this is Morrissey that I was telling you of.”

  The older man sticks out his hand.

  Morrissey shakes i
t, and accepts a broken-backed chair. “So what’s on?”

  Hughes looks sideways at the Hub’s proprietor. “He knows nothing?”

  “I could hardly go into it at the bar.” Mullen sits down and pours three shots.

  “I’m hoping you gentleman have a mind to bring me in on some business,” Morrissey volunteers.

  “What kind of business?” asks the older man.

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Hughes. The coney trade, the bogus; shoving the queer.”

  “Knowing the lingo doesn’t mean knowing the business,” observes Hughes.

  “I never claimed to. The proverbial blank slate, that’s me. You need a shover, is that it? I could pass bad bills with a straight face.”

  Hughes releases a sigh like air from a tire. “The business is all done in.”

  Morrissey looks taken aback. “You say?”

  “Time was, there was more queer than good floating round Illinois,” Hughes laments. “With all those newfangled notes and greenbacks the Government printed during the War between the States, who could tell bogus at a glance? But since they formed this Secret Service to crack down on us, trade’s turned tight as blazes.”

  “It used to be you could bribe them to turn a blind eye,” Mullen contributes, “but these days …”

  “And now they’ve banged up our Michelangelo.”

  The young man blinks at Hughes. “Your—”

  “Ever hear of Ben Boyd?”

  “Can’t say as how I have,” admits Morrissey.

  Another sigh. “In any other field of art or industry, the man’s name would be on every child’s tongue. But Boyd works on the quiet, like some angel.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Ben Boyd is only the greatest living engraver of queer. Living or dead,” Hughes insists.

  “We’ve never met him in the flesh,” Mullen adds.

  “But by his works we know him.”

  “You’d swear you’re looking at a genuine silk-thread Federal banknote,” Mullen tells Morrissey. “Big Jim wholesales them all over the Mid West. You know Big Jim?”

  “Well, sure; I know of him.” Big Jim Kinealy is the Hub’s silent partner, the mover behind all business conducted in this room.