Lucky Billy (26 page)

The three men were left speechless. Oddly enough, the world at their feet still swarmed with nameless spirits and imps, though the plague had now passed. The world's secret architecture had burst—its lost prayer etched on a speck of dust. Billy pictured apes, rats, and frogs boiling from the desert, teeming around him. It had something to do with his destiny, he felt, that destiny written before he was born. Composed in code, its detail was exhausting, and the president of heaven had cached it away in an underground cave and conveniently forgotten it. Each clattering hopper, born in the earth, had whispered a piece of that incomplete story but in their rush to proclaim it they'd drowned each other out. They'd produced only babble. Their dream of chaos, then, was not the world's dawn come to haunt its settled ways. It was just more noise.

The face of the world has changed since that time. It was older then; wrinkles and cracks spidered every landform; the earth carried hidden scrolls. Since then we've learned the use of machines to seal it up safely as smooth as an egg.

The boys looked around and spotted something strange: a herd of pronghorns grazing on the prairie as though not even interrupted. They were faster than the hoppers, they could have outrun them, instead they'd just ignored them—they didn't exist. The Kid began to wonder whether anything had happened.

Meanwhile, their remuda had scattered, mostly west. They could see the plumes of dust. But when they'd succeeded in rounding them up, three more were missing: a zebra dun and two sorrels. And the sun had set; it was growing dark already. Either these were especially far-ranging horses or someone'd been picking them off, Billy thought. How dare some rustler steal horses that had been already stolen fair and square by himself? This time they picketed instead of hobbling the horses, in a wide grassy swale breaking to the west, guarded on the north by a bottlecap bluff. Three or four cottonwoods, their leaves turning yellow, grew in this valley. The ground was broken here; they could camp at a distance and make a big fire so he'd think it was safe—but split a night watch from the top of the bluff.

Billy took the last watch. At dawn—pale sky, dark earth, purple ribbon where sky and earth met—he spotted a shadow approaching the horses, whose tails had started jumping. The thief was tugging at a picket when Billy scurried down, drawing his pistol. "You son of a bitch, raise up your arms. Where's the rest of my herd?"

The man backed up against the trunk of a Cottonwood, leering at the Kid. In the uncertain light, this cocky little cowboy struck a sassy pose broadcasting dissipation. Hips slung forward, arms bowed apart, one hand resting on his Winchester's barrel. He tilted his head, his mouth hung loose. The slouchy wool sweater bagged at the wrists was two sizes too large, and the buckskin vest filthy. The worst thing about him was his slack-jawed arrogance. The way his wet mouth, stained with tobacco, loosely cracked open. The fuck-you smirk. "Who the hell are you?" asked the Kid.

"A man. Who are you?"

"You can be damn well sure I am not a woman."

"I am not a woman, either. I am a man and I like bad men."

"Is that so? Then you ought to like me. I'll kill any cocksucker that dares steal my horses."

"I take what I want. I aim to steal myself a living."

"Not from me, you don't."

"I'll show you!" the man yelled. "Look at me! Look!" He began to raise his rifle.

"Lower that weapon," Billy calmly said. But he didn't feel calm. His Thunderer locked on the man's chest. The sweet feathered flags of the grama grass around them took on a red tinge as the sun broke the sky, as did the tansy asters on their dead stalks. Only ten feet away from this smirking horse thief, Billy's gun began to shake. The world had slightly turned, that's all it takes, and now someone else tastes with my tongue. The impudent shit. His arms were still spread but the Winchester's barrel now inched upward, seeking a level. "Goddamnit, what's your name?"

The man at the tree said, "I am Billy the Kid."

The Colt's Thunderer fired in rapid succession, six clustered shots in 2.8 seconds, and dust flew from the holes as though from a rug thrown over a fence. Wisps of smoke rose from the splintery hull of the man's chest. Look. He's still smirking. He's still propped against the tree. Somebody woke up the wrong man this morning. His rifle fell clatterwhack while he himself leaned against the cottonwood tree, more insolent than ever, head lolled back. Billy reloaded and gingerly approached and kicked out his ankles. He dropped straight down. The Kid leaned over and stared long and hard into his eyes, which hadn't snapped shut.

Then he fingered his sweater, thick as bear fur. I could use a good sweater what with these cool nights. He surveyed the corpse, admired the new boots. They were V cuts, sharp...

***

FRED WAITE ANNOUNCED
he'd decided to leave. He said he'd go back to Indian Territory, he was fed up with running from the law. He wanted to see his family, wanted to own his own farm. "You want, you want," said the Kid. "Why don't you just take what you want like everyone else? We've got everything here."

"Well, I'm shut of that now."

"Don't you want to get the Englishman's killers?"

"That makes me no nevermind. It's over. How come it's so important to you? He's not the only one that died."

"Mr. Tunstall was good to me. He gave me a horse, a saddle—"

"I know, a gun."

"I liked him. The man had a heart."

"You hardly even knew him."

"I knew him good enough. He had polish. He was different."

"He wasn't that different to you and me, Kid. He was after the same things. So was James Dolan. Stick it to the Mexes. Make yourself all the
dinero
you can. Get rich and get out."

"That's not true. He was good to the Mexes. He let them buy things on tick."

"So did Dolan. The difference was Mr. Tunstall never lived long enough to take it out on their hides like Dolan did."

"How can you say that? Goddamnit, Fred, to hear you talk, you'd think there's nothing good in the world."

"There's good in the world and there's bad in the world and they're wound up together. You know the buffalo bird? The one that lays an egg in some other bird's nest? The other eggs in the nest are half the size of this monster but their mother's got to feed it once the scummy thing hatches. All it does is squawk and eat all the food and starve out her own chicks. The good feeds the bad and the bad grows fat. But it's part of the family. Inseparable."

"You say the damnedest things."

"Do I, now? You're the one that switched sides."

"Suck my dick, Fred! I thought you were my friend."

"I'm sorry, Kid. I was just saying."

"What the hell does switching sides have to do with anything?"

"Well, you wouldn't have done it without you divided the world in equal parts. Good and bad, white and black. That's not a regular world."

Fred and Billy's horses rubber-nosed each other, facing at an angle. Their riders fell silent. They were just a few miles from the Fort Sumner road where the shortcut to Los Portales forked east. Tom O'Folliard climbed off his horse and walked him a ways, making a circle. Clouds had blown in, threatening rain. A chill was in the air, they'd pulled on their gloves. Under a wide and endless gray sky, the yellow earth rippled and spread to the horizon, barren and flat. More rocks here than dirt, more dirt than vegetation. Fred swiveled his head, took in the wasted plains. "Well, Kid. I'm sorry. You know how it goes. I'm out to find some good, too. I just haven't found it here."

"Forget good. I'm after justice."

"Good luck on that."

"Alls I ever did was shoot a few people."

"I know, I know. You never wanted to hurt them."

"I've learned a lot, Fred."

"I have, too. The main thing I've learned is how to live with myself."

"Yes." Billy coughed; sighed. He turned away. "Well." He sighed again—blew out a tub of air. "It was a time, wasn't it?" He turned back and watched Fred, whose eyebrows had furrowed. With his mustache, they made a big X across his face. His startled scowl hadn't changed since they'd met—he always looked mad yet never got mad. "You have to say that, Fred. Good or bad, it was a time. Don't you think it was a time?"

"I suppose."

"It was. You gotta say it."

"Was what?"

"Quite the time."

"You make it sound like it's over."

"Go on. It was a time."

Fred paused. "'It was a time.'"

"Sometimes don't it all seem like a dream?"

"You want me to say that, too?"

The Kid couldn't help it, he felt his eyes widen like a little boy's, looking at Fred.

"Okay, okay. It feels like a dream. Where'd you get that sweater?"

"I've always had it."

Fred swung his horse around and made toward Los Portales leaving Billy feeling irked, uncompleted. When he was fifty feet away he turned and waved his hat without stopping. "Adios, boys!"

"Hey, Fred, hold up! I was wondering something."

"What?"

The Kid had to holler. "Was that you with Sue McSween the night before Macky died?"

Fred was still trotting off. A wind had come up. "What did you say?" he shouted as he diminished.

"
You and Sue McSween!
"

He scowled and repeated, "Me and Sue?" and stopped and said something but the wind intercepted and blew it away. Then he turned and Billy watched him grow smaller out there below the world's turning rim. He thought about how Fred often went missing when the shooting began. He'd taken the wagon road, splitting from the group, when Tunstall was shot. He did put a bullet into Morton and Baker at Blackwater Draw after they were dead—or did he? He could have shot into the ground. He could have missed Brady. And he'd slipped out of Macky's house after boarding Sue—if that was him in Sue's room. He grew smaller and smaller, small as a chigger out there on the desert, and finally vanished. The Kid turned his horse and made for Fort Sumner and never thought of him again.

Mesilla Independent,
January 11, 1879
Lincoln, New Mexico

Gentlemen: I see by an article in your paper in which you predict that the peace in this country is by no means assured, Sirs, if you will be so kind as to publish this answer to your article I will state that to the best of my knowledge that there are no serious troubles existing in the county at the moment.

I speak from personal knowledge when I say that many persons of the two parties heretofore at war with each other are getting together and settling all old difficulties, several such reconciliations having taken place in my office within the last few days, and through my advice have become friends again and as far as I can judge it is the intention of all parties to use their best efforts to settle and forget old quarrels and disputes, and again become friends and aid the enforcement of the law. Our board of County Commissioners has been in session four days regulating the County. The corn contractors are filling their contracts with fine American corn such as this country can boast of raising in great abundance. I can safely say that we are now enjoying peace and plenty and those who doubt it can come and see for themselves.