Lucky Billy (16 page)

***

"
I THOUGHT WE
could just arrest those bastards. I thought alls we need's a warrant."

"Just like Macky," Fred said.

"Don't equate me with him. He is game is not mine."

"What do you mean?" In the darkness, Fred's voice sounded even deeper: a rumble-drone filling the gorge in his throat.

"My game," said the Kid, "is to march right up to that miserable wart and shoot him in the teeth."

"You mean Morton?"

"Morton-Evans'n-Hill. James Dolan. Sheriff Brady. All of them, especially Morton. He fired the first shot at Mr. Tunstall, Fred."

"How do you know?"

"I can see it in his eyes. He's a son of a bitch. He thought I was muscling in on his girl last year at one of Dolan's cow camps."

"Morton did?"

"Yes."

"And that's why you think he fired the first shot?"

The Lincoln jail was a
chosa,
ten feet deep. No light. Heavy square timbers lined the underground wall to which their shackles were bolted. The dirt floor on which they sat was cold and smelly—the brimming thunder-mug stank—and the air felt both damp and dry in winter: damp inside bones, dry on a throat. One thing, it sobered you up pretty quick. Leaning back against the wall, their heads in a vise, their dry tongues tasting of carrion and muck, all Billy and Fred could manage was talk. Martínez was gone. Brady had returned after just a few hours and released him without a word to the others. "What about us?" Billy shouted. "I know what they're planning," he told Fred now. "They're footing up in their minds how much it costs to feed us. It would be cheaper for them to cut Juan Patrón's
acequia
and flood this damn dungeon and drown us good."

"That's one way not to have to feed prisoners," said Fred. "The other way is set them free and tell them to run and shoot them in the back. I lam Mills did that with a nigger he arrested because he didn't want to guard him all night. He had a dance to go to. What was that all about at Dolan's store?"

"What was what all about?"

"You and Billy Morton."

"He's like a little brother. He thinks the way to get your goat is to copy what you say. 'I'm Billy.' 'I'm Billy.'"

"He said it first."

"Both of us is Billies. There's plenty of Billies."

"I've been thinking about that. There's so many Billies if someone's on the dodge alls he has to do is name himself Billy. Best way to lose yourself to the law."

"That's what I did."

"Or name yourself Kid."

"I did that too."

"Billy Bevens. Heard of him?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Him and Billy Webster in Wyoming. They run with Sam Bass for a while. Bill Heffridge in Nebraska, also a Basser. Bill Bailey, shot on the street in Newton, Kansas. Curly Bill Brocius in Tombstone. Captain Billy Coe in Colorado."

"Is he kin to George and Frank?"

"Not that I know of. Billy Mullin. Billy Grounds. John Wesley Hardin's sidekick, Billy Cohron. Billy Dixon, also part of Hardin's crew. Lucky Bill Thorrington in Nevada and his chum Billy Edwards, both hung by vigilantes. Fly-specked Billy in South Dakota. There's a shitload of Billies. Wild Bill Hickok, you've heard of him."

"Of course."

"Billy Mayfield in Carson City, who carved a big hole in Sheriff Blackburn's belly. Texas Billy Thompson in Abilene. Bill Anderson in Wichita. Bill Bowen in Texas. Wild Bill Longley in Texas. Billy Sutton, also in Texas. 'I will wash my hands in Billy Sutton's blood,' said Jim Taylor, and he did, too. Billy Wren of Lampasas. Hurricane Bill Martin from Abilene. Bully Bill Brooks of Dodge City who wore a star when he wasn't stealing horses. There's a Billy the Kid in Tombstone, Billy; last name, Clairborne."

"Never heard of him."

"Billy Leroy in Colorado, also referred to as Billy the Kid. You could fool a lot of people if you called yourself that."

"I'm pretty happy with William H. Bonney."

"Where'd you get that name, anyway?"

"Picked it out of a hat. I don't know, I can't recall. There's a lot of Franks, too, ain't it?"

"I haven't made a study of that. There's a lot of Kids. Kid this, Kid that. Kid Dobbs, the Catfish Kid, Harry the Kid, the Mormon Kid, Kid Wade, Kid Vance, the Pockmarked Kid. Plenty of Kids."

"Fine with me."

"Around here there's Billy Matthews, Sheriff William Brady, Buck Morton says his name is Billy, Bill McCloskey, Billy Wier—I'm leaving some out. Billy Burt. There's Billy Campbell, the one that shot Tom King. There was Billy Wilson. He shorten Robert Casey, remember? Had to be hung twice? Now there's another Billy Wilson entirely, up to Fort Sumner. And he calls himself the Kid."

"I've met him. There was a Billy Wilson in Silver City too."

"Then you're just another Billy. Is that what you're after?"

"I don't know what I'm after."

"Men are like shadows."

"Shadows of what?"

Fred didn't answer. Billy raised his arms and waved them around to keep up the circulation.

"So which are you?" Fred asked.

"Which what?"

"Which Billy?"

"I'm the made-up one."

Both men sat in silence. After a while, Fred asked, "You don't feel like a fraud?"

"No sir."

"I do all the time."

"That doesn't mean I do."

"What's that breeze?"

"I'm moving my arms."

"Can't you keep still? You're as restless as a bedbug."

"I didn't know Billy Wilson had to be hung twice."

"This Mexican woman opens the coffin and screams he's alive. So they hang him again."

"What a way to die."

"There's worse. Being burned at the stake, I wouldn't like that."

"I saw a gambler once got his head chopped off. It took three or four good whacks. The head was still trying to scream when it was off."

"A doctor during the French Revolution measured the time a head stayed alive after it was guillotined. Some, the eyes move around, the mouth whispers something. Some of them stayed alive for fifteen seconds. But every time the doctor puts his ear to a mouth he can't quite hear the whisper. Can't make out what he's saying."

"Fred, how come you know about so many Billies? You sure as hell have quite an equipment of names."

"So do you, Kid. I've kicked around a lot. I've been all over. You pick it up gradually, all the names people say. I began in Indian Territory first, wandered to Texas."

"Did you cowboy there?"

"I never took to that life."

"Nor I."

"I hunted buffalo instead."

"What was that like?"

"A pretty good living until one morning you wake up and look around and there's no more buffalo. And just last week you saw a regular ocean of red and white carcasses rotting on the plains. I've seen their bodies so thick after being skinned it looked like a bunch of logs from a hurricane. And before that, see, when they were alive, you never saw so many buffalo. They covered the plains from here to the horizon. You'd look out there and see the ground itself moving. I suppose it never occurred to us then that we could use them all up."

"What did you have for a weapon?"

"Well, the Springfields was too much like the army. I tried that Sharps that fired the three eighty grain bullet but it wasn't accurate. They fixed it to a forty-four caliber with less lead but the trouble with that was the cartridge case leaked. It blinded some men. So they chop it down to a forty caliber and put the lead back up to three hundred and eighty with a hundred and twenty grains of powder and this one has a cartridge case that's straight instead of bottlenecked. That's the one I used. It was good. Too good. I shot and shot and never thought about a thing and eventually shot myself out of a job."

Darkness. Silence. Time either passed or found itself becalmed. When Fred spoke again a bright red mouth opened deep inside Billy's sleeping brain. "So you're from Arizona."

"Silver City, Fred. Arizona was a breather."

"I forgot Silver City."

"And Kansas before that."

"Kansas?"

"Wichita. And before that, Indiana. And New York City before Indiana. But I prefer here."

"New York? I've always heard about that place. What's it like there?"

"It's like castrating elephants."

O
UTSIDE IN THE DARK
, Juan Patrón's
acequia
thinned to a silence. The water still flowed but its unyielding sameness had drained it of sound. Like whittling a stick till there's nothing left to whittle—that's how Billy understood it. To be conscious of not consciously hearing a sound that nonetheless is somehow clearly there could drive you crazy, just the same. Best not to think about it. "Did the Greeks get paid?" he asked.

"I haven't researched that."

"First time I ever got paid for sitting in a jail."

"How much did Macky promise us?"

"Three dollars a day."

Fred had been telling him about the Trojans and the Greeks but in the middle of the night it sounded like a dream. The Kid judged it must be the middle of the night from the waves of unconsciousness lapping his mind, not from the lack of light—the jail was pitch-dark both day and night. And Fred's deep voice always sounded dreamy. The jail felt warmer now. Night air didn't penetrate its underground pit, whose uniform temperature resembled a root cellar's. The Trojans and Greeks foughten a big war and no one was paid, instead they whacked up the spoils. The Trojans were under siege in their palace and the Greeks were attacking them. "So which are we?"

"I guess we'll find out," said Fred. "We're the English, they're the Irish."

"McSween's a Scotchman."

"Same thing."

"And you're a redskin."

"My grandmother."

"A war like that your children have to finish. Tell me one thing. Who won? The Trojans or the Greeks?"

"I didn't get that far."

"You never get that far, Fred."

"Alls you ever want to know is how it turned out. That's not what's important."

***

"You have family in Indian Territory, Fred?"

"Yes."

"Brothers or sisters?"

"Two sisters. What about you?"

"I got an older brother in Texas."

"What's his name?"

"Josie. Are your parents still alive?"

"Yes."

"Both? Your ma?"

"That's what I said."

"What about your pa?"

"Last I heard."

***

"
THAT MAN YOU
killed, Kid."

"What about him?"

"Did you watch him die?"

"I told you, I lit out. It took him a while."

"I'd much rather get it over with myself."

"So would I."

"How come you shot him in the gut?"

"It was the only place available. His knees were on my arms. The bastard was bending over me, Fred. I'll tell you one thing."

"What?"

"I ever get shot there, do me in the head."

"That would be my choice, too."

***

"
WE ARE CUTTHROATS
in this town. We'll do anything for money."

"Well, they're cutthroats, too. They're bloodthirsty animals."

"It won't come to any good."

"No, it won't. If the sun blew up, that would solve all our problems."

Did Fred really say that? Billy grew confused. The mind fog washed back and he thought he was sleeping when a scald of light burst behind his eyes. Not the sun blowing up, just the trapdoor flying open. Sam Perry, one of Brady's deputies, lowered a ladder. "You boys can go."

"Who sprung us?" asked Fred.

"No one. We were drying you out on account of public drunkenness."

Billy climbed up first. "Where's my Winchester?"

"Confiscated by Brady."

"He can't do that."

"Of course he can, he's the sheriff."

Lincoln was overcast but still blinded the Kid when he stepped into the street. It was afternoon already, they'd missed Tunstall's funeral. He learned this when José Chavez y Chavez, riding out of town, told them they'd gotten out of digging a hole. Billy didn't find this funny. You throw in with the law, try to serve a legal warrant, and wind up unable to pay your respects to the man who gave you your horse and handsome saddle and the rifle now in Sheriff Brady's possession—the man who promised you a ranch! They headed for McSween's, passing José Monta~o's, Saturnino Baca's. Outside the Torreón, originally built to watch for raiding Indians, four Apaches from the reservation sat behind a pile of deer and antelope hides and bickered with a Mex, who sorted through the skins. A fifth Apache had been pulled aside by soldiers who were asking for his pass. He pretended not to understand. "Pass.
Pass!
To leave the reservation!" The impatient lieutenant shouting at the Apache was Millard Goodwin, who nodded at Fred and Billy. "We'll be there shortly."

Once they were out of earshot, Billy asked Fred: "Be where?"

"Something must be up."

At McSween's, in the kitchen, everyone was present—Dick Brewer, John Middleton, Henry Brown, plus some newcomers, townspeople and local ranchers sympathetic to their cause. While Fred and Billy were in jail last night, these men had attended a meeting at Macky's house then stayed on to join up. "Join what?" asked the Kid. Rolling his big shoulders, swinging his long arms, McSween approached the two liberated prisoners and embraced each one. Martínez, he told them, returned his papers unserved; but honest Dick Brewer, true as steel—tall, handsome, and square—marched back to Justice Wilson, who wrote out a new set of warrants and appointed Dick himself as a special constable empowered to arrest Tunstall's murderers. And these men here were now his deputies. "What about us?" Billy couldn't bleach the impatience from his voice.

"Raise your right hands."

So the law had recrudesced and Billy and Fred were its deputies, too, and even U.S. Deputy Marshal Rob Widenmann appeared at the door between the sitting room and kitchen, cartridge belts slung over his shoulders, pen and paper in hand—he'd been writing more letters to London—and announced that he also had warrants to serve and that Lieutenant Goodwin, having no choice, had agreed to assist him in searching Dolan's store, also Tunstall's—still under occupation—for John Tunstall's killers. Behind Rob, when he entered, pausing at the door, was Tunstall's bulldog, Punch. With rheumy eyes, wheezing, he surveyed the room for food, sniffed Billy's foot, and settled with a grunt, rear legs first, on a filthy rag rug. Rob had often told the story, with fondness and a chuckle, of the time he once overcoddled Harry when the latter felt poorly, and Harry grew impatient and set Punch on Rob for not ceasing his treatment, and the poor dog, confused, barked and slobbered at Rob with Harry holding him back and Rob shouting hysterically, "Call him off, for pity's sake!" and Harry laughing all the while.