The Life and Death of Sally Brand, Part 1

Mobile, in the fine state of Alabama, I was Lila Lee Montgomery. Through the music houses of Baton Rouge, Vicksburg and Charleston, I was the darling of every full-growned Southern man with two working eyes and a beating heart.

On my best nights, they had to keep the constable on hand in case the crowd rioted, and they did, honey. Yes, indeed. But it was a hard life, too. So when a fellow who looked good from every angle come along, I let him have me for his very own wife. We came west to Arizona, Tom Randall and me, Lila Randall, in 1880, and settled on the Babo.

I'm making this here writing as true as I know how, except about Tom. I will not dirty his name before the girls, so I'll just say he changed, the way a man does sometimes.

When he ran into trouble keeping current on our bills, he hooked up with Nate Wallace and his good-for-nothing sons. They spent their time branding other men's cattle, robbing folks and generally behaving like a pestilence. I begged Tom to quit, but something was busted inside him.

One day Tom was breaking a horse and got throwed. When I reached him, his head was open and he was near gone, but he whispered about a paper stashed in my old makeup box. After his burial, I opened it and found a map to a cave in the Whetstone Mountains above here. I went there and found a bunch of gold coins, some folding money and rings and other jewelry.

Well, shave my legs with the general's saber, my own dearest was stealing from Wallace and hiding his take in that old cave.

Two days after Tom was in the ground, that Wallace came 'round throwing out his boasts.

"Far as you can see a calf wearing my brand, that's my land," he said. "That means Six Springs, too."

"Ain't for sale," I said.

He looked around greedily. "How's a lil' gal like you gonna run a farm like this here?"

He was right about that. I would've lost the place if it wasn't for Mary Peel and her mama, Emma, two fine Mississippi ladies. I took them in as boarders. Mary was a small He knocked me DOWN and thumped on me, hard. Somehow I got my derringer out from under my skirt and pointed it at his pie shelf.

gal, not more than 90 pounds, but she had a heart like a horse. She taught school in Tombstone and became my closest friend. She took a real shine to Nell and Jane, too.

Emma had been a nurse at a Confederateate field hospital and came out of it with her head on crooked. She spent her time setting on the porch with her 12-gauge and a plug of tobacco in her cheek, spitting at ants. When she hit one, she'd let out a Rebel yell that like to knock down the barn. She was a cartridge shorter than 5 feet and about as wide as a mud wagon.

The other thing about Emma was the big trunk she kept, filled up with clothes, dishes and such, and a human skeletonthe bones of her departed husband, Jack, late of Jeb Stuart's heroic troop. When Emma returned home after Appomattox, she found Jack dead, and with all the hoo-ha in her brain from them Yankee cannons, she couldn't bear to part with him, so into the trunk he went. Don't think that's so unusual, honey. Every good Southern woman has something special stashed in her keepsake cedar. Anyway, the bunch of us there at Six Springs, we became a real family, only it was all ladies. Well, except for Jack. Then one day I went and shot Riley Bing in Tombstone.

After filling the wagon with supplies that day, I told the girls to wait in Naylor's store while I enjoyed a cigar and a whiskey at the Oriental Saloon. I learned to smoke and drink on stage and never could see why it was only men had the right. Riley, he commenced to blaspheme me and my girls. When I couldn't hear another word, I slugged him. He knocked me down and thumped on me, hard. Somehow I got my derringer out from under my skirt and pointed it at his pie shelf.

"Stay put or I'll shoot for sure, Riley Bing," I warned. Everyone in the place was shouting, and with me being a woman, he wasn't about to all of a sudden get smart and stop. He kept coming, and I kept my promise.

Did I mention that Riley was brother to Nelson Bing, Tombstone's chief of police, and brother to Frank Bing, undertaker, and nephew to Harley Grand, the judge? I stood no chance of claiming self-defense against that bunch, so I jumped on a horse and rode away. Even as I whipped that mount, I knew I should turn around and face it, for the kids anyway. But I didn't. You can judge me how you like, but that's exactly what I done.

If not for Wesley King Sharp, who was in Tombstone that day, I never would've acquired the name Sally Brand. Sharp was a best-selling pulp writer, and he turned mystory into the most fabulous pack of lies you ever heard. Called me a 5-foot-2-inch blond firebrand named Sally Brand with cobalt-blue eyes and a temper as red as the blood on the floor of the Oriental.

FICTION

"She puffed calmly on her cigar and called out her man," Sharp wrote. "When Bing rose to meet her, she dropped the cigar on the floor and snuffed it with the toe of her lace-up boots. Then her miniature killer roared, and she dropped Bing with a single shot."

The story made me famous. Again. Before long, every range hero with a sidearm was wanting to make his name by hunting me down. Only way I knew to stay alive was to learn to use a Colt revolver and keep moving.

I'm proud to say I never killed anyone else. But I robbed quite a few people, and I reckon I scared some years off 'em. Mary took over raising the girls at Six Springs, and I sent the money I stole to her, using the return address "Katie Peel, Silver City, New Mexico." Mary had told me of her sister, who'd died young of the consumption in Mississippi. Not many people knew about Katie, so Mary realized from the first telegram it was me.

Through her telegrams I found out about Wallace keeping after Mary about Six Springs. She held him off at first, then a bad drought set in, bringing wolves down out of the mountains to water, and Wallace's cat-tle were getting eaten up. That drew down on his patience, and now he was promising to come with guns instead of a pen.

The deadline was tomorrow, August 7, 1887. I had to take my chances.

I spurred my horse, Cinnamon, down the hill toward home. The girls came running when they heard the hooves and, land sakes, how they'd grown. A mother of identical twins will always say she can tell her kids apart, but I hesitated. They stood look-ing up at me-7 years old, tall like their daddy, squinting into the sun.

"Morning," I said, still not knowing who was who.

They didn't recognize me either. Four years is a long time, and they were barely 3 when I left. Their long brown hair looked just-brushed and shiny. Their eyes were big and blue like mine, and the mouths running wide across their faces curled up at the ends in a way that'd give 'em trouble with the boys before long. But their cheeks were still round and babylike and colorful as a fall day.

"You must be Miss Katie," one of them said, and I knew right away it was Nell. Evenin the cradle, she was the one to take charge. "It's me," I said. "All the way from Silver City, New Mexico."

"Mary's been waiting on you. Go on in. Jane and me here, we'll put up your horse." "Thanks, Nell," I said. I promise you that was the hardest thing I ever done, speaking them words without crying.

After Mary put the girls to bed, we sat on the porch, along with Emma. Monsoon clouds had rolled through the valley, and the night smelled of a sweet rain that would never fall.

"I'm curious about something," Mary said. "What'd you think about all them nights running from the law?"

"First thing was how much I missed the kids," I said. "It was truly down in my soul." I pulled off my hat and shook my head, letting my hair tumble free. "The other thing was how much of a blasted curse this here blond hair is."

Mary laughed. "I thought you loved your hair," she said.

Emma had fallen asleep with the shotgun against her thigh. She snored like a full-growed steamboat.

"You think Sharp would've seen fit to lie about me if I had brown hair?" "Suppose not," Mary said."

"He wouldn't-a took notice. And neither would them fools who think his words are scripture. I bet Riley would've let me be, too. This hair made me an outlaw, sure as I'm setting here."

"Tomorrow it comes off," Mary said.

"At noon tomorrow we'll meet Nate Wallace. I don't guess he'll be late neither." "If this plan of ours don't work, you could die for real," Mary said.

A silence fell between us. Emma shifted in her seat and snored even louder.

"You'll look out after the girls?" I asked. "Lila, I'm insulted you raised the subject." I rolled a cigarette and blew the smoke across the moon. Emma was really calling the hogs now.

"I believe I will be needing some lively redemption no matter what the day holds," I said.... AHThe conclusion of this story will appear in next month's issue.

VERTICAL VIEWS

As a boy I did a lot of looking up. Growing up in flat farm country, I had a fascination with tall things, like the towering grain elevators and huge cottonwood trees. The vertical nature of my world captured my imagination then and now. Vertical panoramas seem at odds with the vastness of the Grand Canyon and other scenes spread out along the Arizona horizon. But my panoramic camera's viewfinder becomes a hammer and chisel, sculpting a slice from each scene. I create horizontal images as well, but for me there is an enchantment with an upright world. From Lake Powell, across the Mogollon Plateau and down through the Sonoran Desert, the subjects stand all around me. I call them "Vertical Arizona."