Butch Cassidy Ate in My Camp

we came down
to telluride on a hairy
ride the mule strapped
with pick and ax I guided
butch to bridal veil falls he
was planning on having sundance
a hot meal but needed my skillet he
shot a rabbit in the boxed canyon said
he'd rather it be a bear I not knowing butch
had just robbed the san miguel valley bank the
sundance kid long gone with the wild bunch

I was later
to find out my
partner lula fisk
fed sundance on
the toll road opened
by otto mears which allowed
wagons where pack mules could
only go bringing big changes; I told
this story in the boarding house one
night to women who lost their men to the
gold mines one of the women asking why lula
and I just didn't take up with butch and sundance?

in june 1889 lula
took off with a woman
named etta place rumored
to have been married to sundance
the mysteries on their wanted posters
when the pinkerton detective agency notified
me to ask me about lula; lula was a lesbian with
me who often alternated girlfriends and if there
was women at the wild bunch hangout at robbers roost
in southern utah, then she was most likely there - identity
is an assuming thing mister pinkerton and that seemed to
satisfy him

it's indeed one
of the most intriguing
riddles of western history
how lula fisk and I met but nobody
wanted to know how butch cassidy
and I met or how I came about the death
certificate for etta place at fannie porter's house

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, Celebrity firebrand lesbian novelist