Billy the Kid

  Billy looked back at Art and smiled, letting every muscle in his body go lax. He decided to play it humble "I guess I'm beholden to you at that. You invited me along."

  "Very true," said Art, smiling back. "We should part friendly. So why don't you pick up your share an' ride. Well go on south. You go west, Billy. Someday we'll meet again. You did a good job, Billy Boy, by grannies."

  Billy felt wrath rising, heat coming to his temples, but he kept the smile carefully on his face. He nodded. "I am grateful. Everythin' considered, I suppose I'm most fortunate" He opened two middle buttons of his shirt and bent to begin gathering his share. "You lifted me out o' poverty—" Although his eyes were momentarily on his shirtfront, he instinctively knew Art was easing for his gun.

  Billy went on gabbing. "—opened your hearts—"

  As the hand that put the loot into the shirt came out, it held the little silver-inlaid Colt .41 caliber derringer, cocked. Billy's voice turned frigid as he finished the sentence, "—opened my eyes. Now, back up about six feet, you bastards."

  They gawked at the hole of the little gun. Art's thick palms went slowly above his head. Perry and Joe, mouths now intakes for flies, followed suit. The necklace stopped clinking.

  Billy's sudden tense laugh, almost a dry cough, caromed around the rocks. No more than ten minutes of gray light remained. Dunbar's was fading into darkness.

  Billy shook his head in mock chastisement and clucked his tongue. "Art, you should learn not to be so greedy. And to think you actually wanted to shoot me."

  Art glared back but made no answer. He'd been around enough not to challenge the gun sighted between his eyes.

  Joe asked angrily, "Pa, we gonna let him take the stuff?"

  "Shut up, Joe," Perry said.

  Pushing words through clenched teeth, Art ordered, "An' stay still, Joe. This boy's faster'n you are."

  Billy couldn't help but grin. "You better listen to your pa, Joe. Now come close together." He waited. "Little closer. That's good. Now smile, fellows."

  They did look humorous to Billy, like they were posing for one of those "caught outlaw" photographs. He quickly changed hands with the derringer and drew his right .44, dropping the small gun to the blanket. "Now we got somethin' that does command respect."

  Forcing himself to plea, Art blurted, "We'll settle for half, Billy."

  Billy's smile widened. "Sharin's the thing, I know" he said, bending slightly to pull the four corners of the blanket together, transferring the loot to the burlap bag. "I'm gettin' practiced at this..."

  "Half, Billy," Art pleaded.

  "Honesty is a virtue ... Treachery's an awful sin..."

  He saw Joe's right hand plummet down, and he flicked the .44 barely an inch. It jumped in his hand as he squeezed the trigger. Joe went backward as if chopped behind the knee, the necklace squirting into the air in an arc.

  The gun locked on a gasping Art, whose hands had automatically sunk to his waist. The hands began rising again. The boom of the gun echoed back over the taupe ridges and flats.

  Billy said hoarsely, "Now drop your belts an' kick 'em away."

  The men he'd shot in his life before today were rustlers, all on Cudahy land except that cheating Juarez man. The same thing had happened each time. They'd drawn, and instinct had moved Billy the Kid to fire, putting blinding speed and coordination into his hands and eyes. At the instant it happened, when the gun fired, he'd felt nothing. But when it was over, his body tingled, as it did now.

  Hit in the chest, Joe was groaning in the dirt.

  Billy didn't bother to look at him. He towed the burlap bag back, holding Perry and Art at bay with his right hand. Among the fresh mounts he'd picked a sleek bell mare, and reaching her, he used his left hand to stuff the saddlebag, eyes darting between the burlap bag and the two men.

  He finished and mounted, then leaned to pull the slipknot on the hitching line, loosening the other three horses. He kicked at a sorrel, and they scattered.

  Taking a last look at Art, Billy said, "Your youngest had another fault. He was impulsive." Then he galloped out between the rocks into deep twilight, vanishing. The sound of hooves diminished quickly.

  ***

  PERRY HAD GONE FOR HIS GUN, but it was tOO late. In a rage Art knelt down by Joe to rip open his blood-drenched shirt. Then he looked up and off, the blocky face maniacal in the near darkness.

  "Catch those horses, Perry," he barked. "Let's try to find a doctor. We'll take care of Billy later."

  ***

  ABOUT TEN O'CLOCK, when the three-quarter moon, just risen, made the harsh country ivory and pillow soft, Billy was hidden back in a canyon. He hadn't lighted a fire. Boots off, he'd bedded down for the night, the .44s on each side of him at hip level. He'd eaten some jerked beef and was waiting for uneasy sleep.

  Windless chill had spread over the low mountains and ivory light began defining brush clumps along the lips of the draw. There were stirrings and rustlings along the sharp banks of the water-cut vee. Not far away, coyotes made themselves known.

  Billy looked at the wide sky, shivering suddenly. Some of it was the penetrating chill; some was the fact that he realized he was alone again. There had been many people along the way over the past two years, but often, at moments like this, it seemed he'd been alone since leaving Willis Monroe and the Double W. And Kate. Only Helga was in his life, and she was far away.

  8

  KATE MONROE was down on the living room floor, talking to herself. Parts of a new wringer from wondrous Chicago were littered about her. The lamp by her knees cast a warm glow on the assembly instruction sheet. She was perplexed by the diagram.

  At nineteen Kate Monroe was a very pretty girl. Her hair was straw colored in the summer, for she was outdoors a lot, but turned honey when snows hit the Tuckamore. It was long, and she wore it grasped at the nape of her neck with a bone clasp. Shaken out and loose, as it was now, it framed her face perfectly.

  Kate had an open, sunny face; it hid well the two sharp recent tragedies in her young life. Her mother had died recently back in Missouri. And then there was the tragedy she shared with Willis. The death of their baby. She rarely spoke of either.

  Ever since her husband had been elected sheriff, Kate had done much of the work around the ranch, even bossing Gonzalvo, their only regular hand. Simply stated, Willis, as an arm of the law, wasn't there very often, except for roundups. But then Kate had always done for herself, teaching students who were sometimes her own age. The pioneer blood of her grandparents flowed strong in her veins. She'd never been weak, never been afraid of a man's work. Yet she was entirely feminine.

  "Insert Roller A into handle arm ... Roller B goes into...," she was saying as Cotton and Duke sounded off. Kate glanced up, certain that her husband was causing the ruckus. The dogs had a special way of barking when he came home.

  The room was nicely furnished. A big grandfather clock, made in England and passed down through the Monroe family, dominated it and ticked away soberly. Kate had acquired a black leather roll-arm couch and a chair to match. There was a marble-topped table with a rose vase on it. On one wall were large gold-framed pictures of her late parents. On another was a photo of her wedding day, below which hung a framed flowery certificate pronouncing Willis Monroe and Kathryn Mills to be man and wife. Willie was very proud of this living room. There wasn't a nicer one in the area.

  Her husband crossed the porch heavily and came in, dropping his hat and jacket to the chair. She couldn't decide whether he looked tired or grim. Perhaps both. He seemed unhappy. He bent down to kiss her, and then sighed guiltily at the wringer parts. "I'll do that for you in a day or two." Four trackers waited for him beyond the split-rail fence.

  Kate surveyed her work again and replied, "If I can find Bolt D, then I..." She stopped and looked up at him. She asked innocently, "You get the drunks put away?"

  "What drunks?" Willie asked, frowning. He'd forgotten what he'd told her after Pook had ridden up. He had far too much on his mind to remem
ber what he'd said, almost absentmindedly, in the early afternoon.

  Kate sat back on her haunches. "Those men that pointed their bottles to stop a train. You told me you were going into town because some drunks got out of hand."

  Willie remembered and flushed. He sighed bleakly. "All right, Kate." He began to move toward the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt on the way, wondering how to tell her about Billy.

  "Why do you lie to me?" she called after him. It was an exasperated tone rather than one of accusation. "Pook told me about the train."

  Willie tossed the answer across his shoulder. "So you wouldn't worry." He went on into the bedroom.

  Kate rose to follow and stood in the doorway, staring at her husband, now peeling out of the cotton shirt. "Never entered my mind, Willis." She'd never called him Willie. "Now, the fact that the last sheriff—"

  "Please, Kate. Not tonight." There was a bite in his voice as he pegged the shirt.

  It wasn't worth a fight, she decided. She shrugged and asked, "You want supper?"

  Willie shook his head. "I stopped by Fong's on the way here and got a sandwich."

  As he turned toward her, she spotted the chest bruises from Earl Cole's boot heels. They were blue-black now. "What happened to your chest?"

  He looked down, suddenly aware of them. "Nothin' fatal. They'll be gone in a day or two."

  Kate went to him, laughing in frustration. "Now I'll bet you're going to tell me a cow kicked you." She inspected them as he started to move away. "Stand still, Willis," she ordered. "You can't go to bed like that."

  "Kate, I'm not going to bed."

  Kate wasn't paying attention. She just assumed he was in for the night. She went to the bureau top to lift off a bottle of Sloan's Liniment. As she crossed back to him, she said chidingly, "People who tell lies should be punished. I hope some skin comes off."

  Willie eyed her as, with a soft rag, she daubed the stinging liniment on his chest.

  She looked closer at the bruises. "I think that cow wore boots. These are heel marks, aren't they? Is that part of a sheriff's job—let people walk on you?"

  Willie didn't have time to answer. Outside, the pack mule must have banged against a tracker's horse, and the tracker yelled gutturally, in Yavapai, for the mule to settle down.

  Kate looked toward the front with a questioning frown. "Someone's out there."

  Willie acknowledged, "Trackers. I have to leave in a few minutes."

  Kate's head came around slowly. Her eyes held a mixture of concern and disappointment. "Well," she sighed, "we've got an ambusher's bullet hole here not four months old." She touched the ugly pink and blue scar on his left shoulder.

  She went on, "How about one in this side, Willis? Or maybe one right here in the middle. A nice, clean widow-maker like Metcalf got."

  Willie wasn't really listening. He studied her and then said, "Kate, Billy was one of them. He's robbing now."

  Kate was stunned. Her hand dropped limply to her side. The strength seemed to drain from her. Barely audible, she said, "I don't believe it."

  "Neither did I. But Jack Lapham saw him. I've got to take Jack's word. He knows Billy too well to make that kind of mistake."

  Kate shook her head, still refusing to believe it. "Billy's in Mexico. In Durango! That last letter..."

  "...was a year ago."

  Kate backed up to the bed and sat down, lowering the liniment bottle. She'd always had mixed feelings about Billy Bonney. He was a romantic threat while Willis was courting her, an uncomfortable presence the week he'd stayed at the ranch after the wedding. Still, it was hard not to like him. But a holdup? It didn't seem possible.

  Willie began donning a woolen shirt. It would be cold in the Verdes Mountains, and on down into the Ben Moores. "He got on at Wickenburg with another man; posed as a deputy." Willie laughed hollowly. "Sounds like Billy, doesn't it?"

  Kate sat shaking her head. "And he'd have to pick these hills? You might know, he'd have to do it here."

  "He knows most every rock, creek, and hill of it," Willie said, lifting a poncho off a peg, then moving to the corner of the room for his bedroll.

  "Doesn't he also know you're the sheriff?"

  "He's been out of touch. I'll have to ask him—if I can catch him."

  He started for the front door and Kate fell in behind. Near the door, a strange look on her face, she said, "I hope you don't catch him."

  Willie was startled. It wasn't the proper thing for a sheriff's wife to say, even if she thought it.

  Kate read his eyes and clarified softly, "For your sake. He's a better shot."

  Willie had been thinking of that, off and on. "You don't have to remind me," he replied, then moved a step to kiss her.

  They clung together silently and then Kate murmured, "I nip at you, stick pins in you, rub sand in your craw, but I do love you and worry. I want you to know that, Willis."

  He responded by placing his cheek fiercely against hers, and then went out into the night to join Big Eye and the other trackers.

  9

  UNDER THE NOON SUN, walking gingerly, leading the listless bell mare, Billy came out of the arroyo, surprised to find an adobe tucked in the lee of its two hills. He wasn't familiar with this area.

  He made a reconnaissance on the crude one-room shelter, wondering what it was doing out there at the end of the narrow rock cut. It squatted in brown silence, fenced by ragged lengths of ocotillo. There was some sparse green around it, a few willows, some cactus. It was neat and spoke of a woman's hand. There was a pigpen, a few scrawny chickens, and a cooking oven in the yard. A wash line was anchored to a willow and ran to the adobe corner. There was probably a well nearby.

  Edgy and tired, he stood another moment gazing back north to the low bluffs on either side of the arroyo. He'd awakened before dawn to start off again; he guessed he'd made about twenty-five miles in the dragging hours since then. He wasn't certain, though. The arroyo had been protective but slow going.

  He believed he had a two- to three-hour lead on Art, if the Texan was still of mind to track. Even if they'd left Joe behind, which was doubtful, they wouldn't have traveled all night with the wounded boy, he reasoned. Yet there was no way of knowing what Art was thinking or doing. From what little Billy knew of him, he wasn't apt to give up easily.

  Suddenly, Billy was aware of eyes. He looked around. An attractive dark-haired woman had moved into the doorway of the adobe and was watching him with curiosity. She did not seem frightened. She looked to be in her early thirties.

  Billy smiled at her and called out, "Spare some water?"

  She nodded. The gringo was handsome, dressed so well.

  There was a wooden tub about sixty feet from the adobe, willow shaded. He walked the mare toward it, and then sampled it with a finger. It tasted heavily of gypsum but seemed all right. There were burro prints around the tub. "This water okay?"

  The woman didn't answer immediately. A few small birds sang in the tree; the hog had awakened, coming out from shade, and was grunting. Billy waited.

  Finally, she said, "No hablo inglés." Her feet were bare. He wondered if anyone else was home.

  He nodded and let the horse drink, and then stuck his head into the tub. The water felt good and revived him. He rinsed his mouth, then tied the horse off in willow shade, unsaddling her, glancing again at the woman. She made no move from the doorway.

  He began walking toward her, passing the laundry line. There were a few of her things on it, but the largest item was a huge pair of well-worn peon pants. Billy paused at the sight of them. Whoever wore them had a butt as big as hay bales.

  Laying on his widest grin possible, he said, "Big, huh? ¿Muy grande?" He sensed she was friendly. He knew a little Spanish.

  "Sí, señor" the woman answered, eyes still laden with inquiry.

  "Husband? Esposo?"

  She laughed warmly. "No, señor. ¡Padre!"

  "Padre, huh?" Billy laughed, too, and pointed to the adobe."Padre aquí? Papa, here?" The burro was
n't to be seen.

  She tittered at Billy's attempts at Spanish. "No, señor. Padre tiene mucho trabajo veinte kilómetros."

  Billy sorted it out. Papa wasn't home. He was working some twelve miles away. That would be in Colterville. Or near it. Copper mining. Luck of several kinds was holding. "¿Solamente? You? Alone?"

  She nodded, eyes now becoming thoughtful.

  Billy looked around. It was a monumentally godforsaken place. Likely, few riders ever straggled by. The woman would talk to an owl if it dropped in.

  Billy pointed to his mouth. "I'm hungry." He rubbed his belly. "Mi barriga es vacío."

  She laughed hard at the terrible Spanish and then said graciously, "Entre, señor."

  Grinning, Billy answered, "Don't mind if I do," and followed her in.

  He sat down on a homemade cowhide chair and watched her. She seemed pleased, happy for company. "Name? ¿Nombre?"

  She was lifting a muslin cover off a pot. He smelled beans. She turned slightly. "Adriana."

  "Adriana muy hermosa. Very beautiful," he said, all the while telling himself he was a fool. He should eat and be on his way. And she wasn't all that pretty. Yet he couldn't resist flattering her.

  She laughed but primped, straightening her hair a bit, smoothing her blouse.

  He watched while she fixed a meal of frijoles and cold corn tortillas. Why was it, he thought, that so often he had trouble with males but seldom any with females? He had incredible luck with the ladies, such as now—although never with Kate Monroe. A smile, a few compliments, a little appreciation—that was all it ever took. Except with Kate.

  Billy had another thought and returned to the yard. He fished around in the loot and came up with a diamond stickpin worth a lot. Train loot. It flashed in the bright sun. What did it matter that it was made for a man's tie?

  Inside the adobe he crossed to her and then pinned it on her blouse, while she murmured in Spanish, dark complexion turning darker. Billy stood back and grinned.

  Adriana served the meal, then watched as he ate, now and then fingering the stickpin. Once, she went outside to bring back a gourd of water. But she seemed content to watch and smile as he tried to talk to her in Spanish.