Billy the Kid

  Art laughed heartily. "He jokes a lot. You already know that."

  Billy searched the block face in the shadows. "I am always careful who I joke with," he said, then padded across the dirty Spanish-tile lobby floor on his blistered feet.

  In his room Billy lit the soot-encrusted glass lamp and then looked at himself in the cracked, faded mirror over the washstand. He didn't see the same old Billy Bonney, the laughing, happy fellow out of Polkton. This bleary-eyed drifter looking back at him seemed a stranger existing in the same body.

  He turned away from the mirror and sat down despondently on the edge of the lumpy bed. He thought a while, wiping sweat from under his chin. It stung. Assessing what he had, his sole possessions in life came to a weary horse, the grungy clothes on his back, a pair of scarred leather chaps, a saddle, a saddlebag, two Colt .44s, two spare cotton shirts, an ocarina, a poncho, and one pair of wormy socks. Unless he got some kind of stake, that's about all he'd ever have.

  Sorely tempted but leery of Art Smith and his two sons, Billy moved over to the window and sat on the ledge, letting the light evening breeze dry the sweat. Scanning around at the stars again, he thought about the cool Sierra Verdes—a robbery was almost worth the risk just to get out of McLean. Then he thought more about Polkton and cousin Willie. Any small luck at all, Willie would never know he'd ever been nearby participating in a robbery. And where Art wanted to stop the train was a long way from Willie, as Art had pointed out.

  Shaking his head, he mumbled to himself, "Gotta do somethin', one way or other. Gotta do it." He sighed deeply, thinking again of Willie.

  Someday Billy himself wanted to ranch, respectably, on his own spread. Or he thought he did. For months now he'd had an urge to see his own cattle stringing out down a trail toward water—September fat, ready for culling. The way it used to be at the Double W with Willie. Sleek whitefaces pawing dirt then picking up into trots; bulls rumbling behind. He wanted to stand up in the stirrups and see his own brand on grassy flats. This night, especially, the need for a new life was boring into him fiercely. He sat for almost an hour, just thinking.

  ***

  THOUGH HE WAS AS FAST as so-called greased lightnin', it hadn't occurred to Billy that he was a gunfighter until he went to work for the Cudahys. Oh, they'd told him that gunslingin' was why they'd hired him. The Mexican courts weren't too much interested in convicting cattle thieves, and the only way to stop them was to kill them.

  Billy admitted that he loved guns. He cleaned them and oiled them and babied them. His two beloved .44s were exquisitely engraved, with relief-carved pearl grips and scrollwork even on the barrels. His .44s were works of art.

  Until the Cudahys, though, he'd never killed anything but wild game. And he didn't use the .44s for that. For big game like deer and elk, he used a Model 1876 Winchester; for birds, an 1869 Smith & Wesson high-grade double-barrel shotgun inherited from his late papa. He'd sold the Winchester and the Smith & Wesson for eating money.

  But the Cudahys had paid well, a hundred U.S. dollars a month plus keep. Yet popping those poor Mexes, four of them over a year—they just kept coming back to steal the longhorns—became tiresome and was certainly no fun. And the Cudahys' demand that the bodies be taken into Durango and set upright at the Posada Duran, the town's inn, with a cardboard sign strung around their necks—LADRÓN DE LOS GANADOS (cattle thief)—wasn't Billy's idea of a nice way to spend a morning.

  One time, in the darkness, he pumped two shots into a dark form, and at dawn, when he came back to check his work, he found a boy of no more than thirteen. That day Billy collected his pay for the week and headed north for Juárez and El Paso, by way of Preso el Palmito and Chihuahua, a long ride.

  He probably would have left the Cudahys earlier than he did if it hadn't been for Helga, whose papa owned the Posada Duran. Helga was different from the other senoritas he'd met in Mexico. She spoke some English in addition to Spanish and her native German, and her honey-colored hair marked her out from the crowd. Billy came as close to being in love with Helga—true love—as he'd ever been with any girl except Kate Monroe. He promised himself he'd go back to Durango and get Helga once he got his life together again, buy some land below the border, and marry her.

  After quitting the Cudahys, Billy had arrived in El Paso at the start of the boom, when pistoleros roamed San Antonio Street and the collection of brightly lit dance halls and gambling houses and drinking places had lined both sides of the street, among them the famous Acme. It was the time of lawmen like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp and Pat Garrett and John Wesley Hardin. It was the time of Dallas Stoudenmire, a blond giant with a huge mustache. With .45s on his hips, the newly named black-frocked marshal cleaned up bad men with the Colts.

  Marshal Stoudenmire had personally escorted Billy Bonney out of town after an afternoon killing behind the Acme. Over gambling, of course. Stoudenmire couldn't figure out which man had drawn first, Billy or the unlucky fellow from Juárez who was caught cheating. It had been Billy's first real gunfight. Stoudenmire, Billy remembered, seemed to be a pretty nice lawman and had wished him luck. But he did tell Billy to ride north and never come back.

  Finally, Billy went over to the washstand and stropped his razor. He worked up a scant brown soap lather and began hacking at the brush mustache. Just shaving somehow made him feel better.

  Then he stopped on a nagging thought.

  Once, when he was about twelve, Billy had helped prop three dead men up against a shed for photographs after a Polkton posse shot them. He helped put boards under their armpits to keep them erect and then used twine to tie their heads back so everyone could see the blue puckered bullet holes. He hadn't forgotten how useless those men looked standing, dead, up against the shed. It reminded him of the Smith fellows.

  He took a long breath and cut at the mustache again.

  2

  TWO LIGHTS BURNED in the sheriff's office on the ground floor of Polkton Courthouse. Otherwise, the three-story brick building, save for a single glow in the jailer's office on the second floor, was dark and loomed ghostly. Its white wooden cupola, dormer windowed, looked like it was floating above the square stack of bricks. Polkton itself was quiet except for the usual rowdiness down on Saloon Row, near the rail tracks. Not a soul moved on Decatur, the wide main street that at noontime was a turmoil of buggies and wagons.

  Sheriff Willis Monroe had his long legs propped on the counter of his rolltop desk, hanging by the heels. Countless boot scuffs and cigarette scars along the edge of the desk hinted at the long line of previous sheriffs. Monroe's head was twisted toward old Sam Pine, his deputy. "You keep tellin' me in bits and pieces, Sam, that I'm in political trouble. Three months, you been hintin'. Now, why can't you just get it all out. Nobody's here but us. You won't hurt my feelin's."

  Balding, in galluses and a gray-striped shirt, elastic bands above his elbows, Sam was almost sixty and took care of paperwork and running the office. He'd been a hard-nosed peace officer until he got shot up when he was fifty-one. Now he was rather gentle with everyone and had turned chubby, an unfortunate circumstance due to his short stature.

  Sam removed his steel-rimmed specs. "Willie, I'd think it was evident." He pulled the cloth cover over the new typing machine. Two months old, it was his office pride. He oiled it every morning.

  "Maybe I'm not bright, Sam."

  There was a drunk slumped on the stone floor of the holding cell, across the room. He was snoring loudly. A sour-bean vomit smell wafted from the cell. Monroe looked over in irritation, then looked back at Pine.

  "All right," Sam said, nodding. "Big as you are, people thought you'd hammer some heads in. Now, my guess is that seventy percent of 'em are begin-nin' to wonder about you. Maybe you're too all-fired easygoing, Willie. Some think you're too young: boy sheriff."

  "I'm the same fellow now as I was before I was elected," Monroe replied, frowning at the charge. "I'm not gonna change." Willie was twenty-two.

  The deputy said flatly, "Well, then you s
houldn't have run."

  Willie snorted. "The only reason I did was because three or four hundred people kept proddin' my tail." He paused. "No, you know that's not the only reason. I didn't want Earl Cole to get it. He would have. That's the truth. No secret."

  Sam shook his head. "Whichever, the people aren't happy now."

  Willie's boot heels came off the desk counter, hitting the floor with an angry crunch. He swiveled around. "I want reasons, Sam."

  The older man hesitated, then nodded. "You don't jail drunks 'less they start breakin' someone's place up."

  Willie pointed a long finger. "What's that over in the cell?"

  Sam ignored him. "You bend over backwards for the Chinamen. You seem to like Mexicans. Let 'em get in trouble, an' you act like a sufferin' priest instead of a sheriff. I tell you those Chinese are gobblin' up every business in the county."

  "Laundries," Willie grunted.

  "Damn Mexes are takin' jobs from Christian cowboys..." Sam had always hated Mexicans.

  "Because the Christian boys don't get off their wooden butts an' look for 'em," Willie stormed.

  Sam's eyes narrowed. "Okay, you gonna raise hell with me, or find out why a lot of people think you oughta step down?"

  Willie took a deep breath and settled back. "Sorry, Sam."

  "You've been sheriff nine months now. Things have happened. First one was that loco man from Deming. You let him shoot all 'round you, till he ran out o' bullets, then took him with your hands. People thought it was somethin' that night. But next day they began to wonder why you let him sling all that lead at you..."

  "He was ravin' mad; you know that."

  Sam nodded. "So were you—to let him pump out six."

  Willie threw his feet back up on the desk in frustration. The job isn't worth it. You take guff and make no money. Get shot, and there's just a line in the paper: We all hope the sheriff will recover.

  Sam droned on. "We've had two train robberies this year, an' don't have anything to show for 'em. I said we."

  Willie answered disgustedly, "Those people were from out of the territory. They came in, got it, and ran. God knows we tracked 'em far enough."

  "A lot of people don't believe that."

  "Well, they can go suck eggs."

  "What I think really did it was that Paiute."

  Willie's head snapped around. "That scrawny horse thief?"

  Sam held up a hand. "It Just takes little things, Willie. You said he got away, and I know he did. But somebody started a rumor that you felt sorry for him an' sneaked him out of town."

  Willie replied gutturally, "I did feel sorry for him. Wasn't much proof. But I didn't turn him loose."

  His eyes strayed over to the holding cell. He'd had in mind turning the drunk free after he sobered. "You want to take that one up to the prosecutor in the morning? What'll we do, make sure he gets a year for gettin' drunk?"

  Sam turned silent.

  Willie rose up tiredly and looked around. The small office on the ground floor, under the courtrooms, clerk spaces, and territorial attorney's offices, had a big safe in it for storing evidence, a gun locker, Sam's desk, Andy Barnes's desk—he was off in Albuquerque to bring a man back—two wooden filing cabinets, and a brass spittoon. Suddenly it seemed enemy ground.

  Sam watched, knowing what the sheriff was thinking: Who needs it? Sam had occasionally felt the same way himself.

  Willis Monroe was big, rangy more than heavyset, six three without boots, and no paunch. He had hands almost the size of dinner plates when his fingers were spread. Several times he'd stopped fights down on Saloon Row by simply showing up, standing there loose and looking on, those hands hanging midway down his thighs like inert mauls.

  Sun and wind had punished his face when he was a cowhand, leaving early weather wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead—creases that got deeper when he laughed, which wasn't too often. At twenty-two he was more apt to be a serious man than youthful. But the lines went well with his taffy-colored hair and brown eyes and large nose. Willie was not a candidate for anybody's beauty contest unless that beauty was found in long crags up at Granite Gap.

  Sam said, with genuine understanding, "Look, Willie, all you got to do is now an' then fix somebody's meat wagon in public. Fellow like that Deming man, blow his damn head off. Then don't feel sorry about it later."

  "That'll make 'em happy, huh?" Willie asked, staring at his deputy.

  Sam laughed softly. "Yeh. Yeh, that'll do it."

  Willie muttered, "Human wolves." He walked over and got his hat, but then lingered by Pine's desk. "You think any of this has anything to do with that ambush?"

  For some reason his shoulder had been bothering him more than usual this night. The bullet hole, back to front, was four months old. He'd been shot riding home.

  "Might," Sam said, looking up.

  "I asked you once whether or not you thought Earl Cole did it."

  "Same answer." Sam shook his head slowly. "Earl's a bad boy sometimes, but I don't think he's a bushwhacker. Too much to lose. He wants your job, Willie. He's got six thousand acres now and wants sixty thousand. He can't have your blood on his hands."

  Willie said speculatively, "Maybe he hired Frank Dobbs?" Dobbs was 9 hired gun from Tombstone who worked for Earl Cole running cattle.

  Sam said, "That's always a good guess. But can you prove it, Willie?"

  "No. But I tell you no night goes by that Cole doesn't think how much money he's lost by not bein' able to assess property like I do. He'd tax it, an' then take it at auction using a buddy to front him. You separate that part of the job from slappin' Chinese and Mexicans around, an' I'll give it to Cole tomorrow."

  "Never happen," said Sam. "I been in the territory sixteen years an' the sheriff's always been the tax collector an' auctioneer, any county. Some got rich."

  "Little good it did Sheriff Metcalf."

  Sam nodded. "He was bushwhacked, too. Maybe you ought to start ridin' with your ass facin' the horse's head."

  Willie laughed heartily and stretched. "Thanks for the talk, Sam. See you tomorrow." He paused a moment. "Reckon Earl Cole got rid of Metcalf?"

  Sam shrugged.

  The tall man went out the back door, trying to hide the funk he was in, and strode to the stable. He slung a saddle up on Almanac, carrying the blanket with it, then murmured to the strapping gelding and got a fling of white head. He cinched the saddle down, mounted, and rode out of the courthouse stable.

  He let Almanac set the pace. The big horse settled to a steady, easy trot. Strong-hocked, heavy-muscled with a fine, silky coat, he seemed glad to be off and away, head high, tail flowing gracefully.

  Willie thought: If sheriffing means busting Chinese necks or shooting up some poor lunatic out of a crazy house, then they can gladly have it. Their terms.

  The quarter moon had risen.

  Willie always felt a sense of serenity riding the winding road toward the Double W. He tried to put out of his mind any chance of another bullet crashing into his back. If Cole had really engineered it, with Dobbs pulling the trigger, he'd try another way next time. The Cave Flat rancher was shrewd, if little else.

  Willie was sure that on that bushwhack night he'd heard a cough above the clop-clop of Almanac before the shot rang out and that bullet hit him. It had been moonlit like tonight, and he was certain he would have been hit by the second shot if Almanac hadn't veered and plunged off the trail. Supposedly, Dobbs had come to Arizona to get rid of his cough.

  Cottonwoods and willows jumped out at him now and then, shadowy in the silver light. An antelope spooked ahead, flashing away. Almanac broke trot, and then regained it. There wasn't prettier country anywhere in Arizona Territory, he often thought. Nor was there a better small spread than his DW, above Tuckamore Creek.

  High-tabled in the granite mountains, the DW grass sometimes grew so tall it would lick the spurs of a rider. The upper meadows were thick with it, and it filled in shallow valleys and swales down to the Tuckamore. The water wa
s swift but low and seldom claimed a calf, even in spring runoffs. Summer and fall rains merely quickened the clear water, freshening the already pine-cleansed air.

  Timber—plenty for homes and stores in Polkton, which was growing steadily due to the mines—stood on the slopes above the upper meadows in blue-green patches. On south and over east were pockets of copper, lead, and zinc, even a little gold and silver. In the distance, above red slits of canyons brush-choked with catclaw for bulls to sharpen their horns, were peaks that climbed twelve or thirteen thousand feet, usually snowcapped. Between were stark buttes.

  The first time that Willis Monroe had seen Tuckamore Flats, six years before, riding stirrup to stirrup with cousin Billy Bonney, he'd declared it was where he wanted to be. That was all right with Billy because he liked the sight of it, too. Billy just hadn't planned on settling down so soon.

  Willie had inherited four thousand dollars from his late father, Judge Willis Walker Monroe, and with it bought the Tuckamore land. He decided the cattle brand would be two Ws, big end to big end—the Double W. He worked it with kid Billy.

  3

  BILLY COULDN'T HELP but think of Willie and Kate as the train wound slowly upward. At Wickenburg he'd stayed at the back of the station platform as Polkton passengers got aboard. With his luck Willie and Kate might have been traveling this day. But he didn't recognize anyone from Polkton—although some of the passengers might have gotten on before Wickenburg.

  He'd always had a crush on Kate, who was a schoolteacher when he'd first met her and worked at the dry goods store in the summers. A pretty blond with long legs, almost as tall as Billy, she seemed too nice and refined for the likes of Willis Monroe. She wore silk stockings and white gloves to church. She and his cousin hadn't had more than three or four dates before she got Willie to go with her.

  She'd come to Polkton from a little town in Missouri, brought out by her preacher brother. She'd finished a year of college back there, which was enough to qualify her for an Arizona teaching job. She'd lived with her brother and his family until she found another teacher to share a cottage. Once, Billy thought he had a chance with her when she suggested that he come to the church picnic—only to find that she'd brought along her seventeen-year-old teaching mate to meet him. What he wanted from Kate Mills was a kiss.