The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

by Michael Ondaatje

  The eyes bright scales

  (watch) bullet claws coming

  at me like women fingers

  part my hair slow

  go in slow in slow

  leaving skin in a puff

  behind and the slow

  as if fire pours out

  red grey brain the hair slow

  startled by it all pour

  Miss Angela D her eyes like a boat

  on fire her throat is a kitchen

  warm on my face heaving

  my head mouth out

  she swallows your breath

  like warm tar pour

  the man in the bright tin armour star

  blurred in the dark

  saying stop jeesus jesus jesus JESUS

  *

  This nightmare by this 7 foot high doorway

  waiting for friends to come

  mine or theirs

  I am 4 feet inside the room

  in the brown cold dark

  the doorway’s slide of sun three inches from my shoes I am on the edge of the cold dark watching the white landscape in its frame

  a world that’s so precise

  every nail and cobweb

  has magnified itself to my presence

  Waiting

  nothing breaks my vision

  but flies in their black path

  like inverted stars,

  or the shock sweep of a

  bird that’s grown too hot

  and moves into the cool for an hour

  If I hold up my finger

  I blot out the horizon

  if I hold up my thumb

  I’d ignore a man who comes

  on a 3 mile trip to here

  The dog near me breathes out

  his lungs make a pattern of sound

  when he shakes

  his ears go off like whips

  he is outside the door, his mind

  clean, the heat

  floating his brain in fantasy

  I am here on the edge of sun

  that would ignite me

  looking out into pitch white

  sky and grass overdeveloped to meaninglessness

  waiting for enemies’ friends or mine

  There is nothing in my hands

  though every move I would make

  getting up slowly walking

  on the periphery of

  black to where weapons are

  is planned by my eye

  A boy blocks out the light

  in blue shirt and jeans

  his long hair over his ears

  face young like some pharoah

  I am unable to move

  with nothing in my hands

  *

  We moved in a batch now. Not just Dave Rudabaugh, Wilson and me, but also Garrett, deputies Emory and East, seven others I’d never seen and Charlie lying dead on the horse’s back, his arms and legs dangling over the side, tied, so he wouldnt fall off. A sheet covered him to stop him drying too much in the sun. That was a bad week after that. Charlie having taken my hat had got it busted to pieces, so no hat for me as we moved back and forward, side to side over the county, avoiding people and law. Lynchers were out now and, bless him, Garrett didnt want that. So we moved along the Carrizozo plains to the slopes of Oscuros, stayed one night by Chupadero mesa, back to the Carrizozo, passed the Evan tribe, followed now the telegraph to Punta de la Glorietta but over 40 lynchers there. So we moved, no hat for me, uncomfortable times for all of us.

  Horses and trains horses and trains. Dave, Wilson and me, our legs handcuffed with long 24" chains under the horse, our hands bound to the bridle. Five days like that. We had to pee as we sat, into our trousers and down the horse’s side. We slept lying forward on the horse’s neck. All they did to stop us going mad from saddle pain was alternate saddles, or let us ride bareback one day and a saddle the next. All going grey in the eyes. My horse hating me, the chain under his belly, as much as I hated him.

  On the fifth day the sun turned into a pair of hands and began to pull out the hairs in my head. Twist pluck twist pluck. In two hours I was bald, my head like a lemon. It used a fingernail and scratched a knife line from front to back on the skin. A hairline of blood bubbled up and dried. Eleven in the morning then. The sun took a towel and wiped the dried dribble off, like red powder on the towel now. Then with very thin careful fingers it began to unfold my head drawing back each layer of skin and letting it flap over my ears.

  The brain juice began to swell up. You could see the bones and grey now. The sun sat back and watched while the juice evaporated. By now the bone was dull white, all dry. When he touched the bone with his fingers it was like brushing raw nerves. He took a thin cold hand and sank it into my head down past the roof of my mouth and washed his fingers in my tongue. Down the long cool hand went scratching the freckles and warts in my throat breaking through veins like pieces of long glass tubing, touched my heart with his wrist, down he went the liquid yellow from my busted brain finally vanishing as it passed through soft warm stomach like a luscious blood wet oasis, weaving in and out of the red yellow blue green nerves moving uncertainly through wrong fissures ending pausing at cul de sacs of bone then retreating slow leaving the pain of suction then down the proper path through pyramids of bone that were there when I was born, through grooves the fingers spanning the merging paths of medians of blue matter, the long cool hand going down brushing cobwebs of nerves the horizontal pain pits, lobules gyres notches arcs tracts fissures roots’ white insulation of dead seven year cells clinging things rubbing them off on the tracts of spine down the cool precise fingers went into the cistern of bladder down the last hundred miles in a jerk breaking through my sacs of sperm got my cock in the cool fingers pulled it back up and carried it pulling pulling flabby as smoke up the path his arm had rested in and widened. He brought it up fast half tearing the roots off up the coloured bridges of fibres again, charting the slimy arm back through the pyramids up locked in his fingers up the now bleeding throat up squeezed it through the skull bones, so there I was, my cock standing out of my head. Then he brought his other hand into play I could feel the cool shadow now as he bent over me both his hands tapering into beautiful cool fingers, one hand white as new smelling paper the other 40 colours ochres blues silver from my lung gold and tangerine from the burst ear canals all that clung to him as he went in and came out.

  The hands were cold as porcelain, one was silver old bone stripped oak white eastern cigarettes white sky the eye core of sun. Two hands, one dead, one born from me, one like crystal, one like shell of snake found in spring. Burning me like dry ice.

  They picked up the fold of foreskin one hand on each side and began the slow pull back back back back down like a cap with ear winter muffs like a pair of trousers down boots and then he let go. The wind picked up, I was drowned, locked inside my skin sensitive as an hour old animal, could feel everything, I could hear everything on my skin, as I sat, like a great opaque ostrich egg on the barebacked horse. In my skin hearing Garrett’s voice near me on the skin whats wrong billy whats wrong, couldnt see him but I turned to where I knew he was. I yelled so he could hear me through the skin. Ive been fucked. Ive been fuckd Ive been fucked by Christ almighty god Ive been good and fucked by Christ. And I rolled off the horse’s back like a soft shell-less egg wrapped in thin white silk and I splashed onto the dust blind and white but the chain held my legs to the horse and I was dragged picking up dust on my wet skin as I travelled in between his four trotting legs at last thank the fucking christ, in the shade of his stomach.

  *

  Garrett moved us straight to the nearest railroad depot. We had to wait one night for the train that would take us to Mesilla where they would hold the trial. The Polk Hotel there was a bright white place with a wide courtyard and well. The deputies went down in the bucket and washed themselves. They removed Charlie off his horse. Garrett took over and washed the dried blood off the animal. Garrett ordered a box for Charlie Bowdre. Then he made me drin
k liquids and paste. They had to carry the three of us from the horses to the beds—we couldn’t walk after the week on horses. I was to share a room with Garrett and Emory.

  Your last good bed Billy, he said, pick your position. I did, face and stomach down. He chained me to the bed. He taped my fingers so thick I couldnt get them through a trigger guard even if they gave me a gun. Then he went out and looked after Wilson who had broken both ankles when the horse stumbled collapsing on his chained legs.

  It is afternoon still, the room white with light. My last white room, the sun coming through the shutters making the white walls whiter. I lie on my left cheek looking to that light. I cannot even see the door or if Emory has stayed behind. The bed vast. Went to sleep, my body melting into it. I remember once after Charlie and I stopped talking we could hear flies buzzing in their black across a room, and I remember once, one night in the open I turned to say goodnight to Charlie who was about ten yards away and there was the moon balanced perfect on his nose.

  *

  It is the order of the court that you

  be taken to Lincoln and confined to

  jail until May 13th and that on that

  day between the hours of sunrise

  and noon you be hanged on the gallows

  until you are dead dead dead

  And may God have mercy on your soul

  said Judge Warren H. Bristol

  THE TEXAS STAR MARCH 1881

  THE KID TELLS ALL

  EXCLUSIVE JAIL INTERVIEW!

  INTERVIEWER: Billy…

  BONNEY: Mr. Bonney please.

  I: Mr. Bonney, I am from the Texas Star. You are now how old?

  B: 21.

  I: When is your birthday?

  B: November 23rd. On that lap I’ll be 22.

  I: You were reported as saying, as adding, to that phrase— ‘If I make it’ when asked that question before.

  B: Well, sometimes I feel more confident than at others.

  I: And you feel alright now …

  B: Yes, I’m ok now.

  I: Mr. Bonney, when you rejected Governor Houston’s offer of an amnesty, were you aware of the possibility that your life would continue the way it has?

  B: Well, I don’t know; Charlie, Charlie Bowdre that is, said then that I was a fool not to grab what I could out of old Houston. But what the hell. It didn’t mean too much then anyway. All Houston was offering me was protection from the law, and at that time the law had no quarrels with me, so it seemed rather silly.

  STOLEN CATTLE IN MY BED

  I: But you were wanted for cattle rustling weren’t you?

  B: Yes, but, well let me put it this way. I could only be arrested if they had proof, definite proof, not just stories. They had to practically catch me with stolen cattle in my bed. And when you rustle, you can see law coming a good two miles away. All I had to do was ride off in the opposite direction and that would have been that.

  I: But couldn’t they catch you with them when you sold them?

  B: Well I don’t do, I didn’t do the selling—I sold them off before they reached the market.

  I: How were, or with whom were you able to do that?

  B: I’d rather not mention names if you don’t mind.

  (Here Mr. Bonney withdrew a black cigarette, lit it, and grinned charmingly, then retreated behind his enigmatic half smile, a smile which was on the verge of one. These smiles of ‘Billy the Kid’ are well known and have become legendary among his friends in this area. Sheriff Garrett has an explanation for this:

  “Billy has a denture system which is prominent, buck teeth you at the paper would call it. So that even when he has no intention of smiling his teeth force his mouth into a half grin. Because of this, people are always amazed at his high spirits in a time of stress.” Mrs. Celsa Gutierrez adds to this:

  FED HIM TEQUILA

  “When Billy was 18, a man named John Rapsey (‘…. head’ as he was affectionately called afterwards) broke his (Billy’s) nose with a bottle. Billy was knocked unconscious and Rapsey escaped. Bowdre who was with him, to ease the pain when he came to, fed him some tequila, made him drunk. Billy didn’t get his nose fixed for three days as Bowdre accompanying him on the tequila also got drunk and forgot all about the broken nose. As a result, when Billy finally got to Sumner to get it fixed his breathing channels, or whatever, were clogged. After that he rarely breathed through his nose again, and breathed by sucking the air in through his mouth, or through his teeth as it seemed. If you were near him when he was breathing heavily—when excited or running, you could hear this hissing noise which was quite loud.”)

  B: Anyway, Houston offered me protection from the law, and the only law I knew in Fort Sumner was the Murphy faction which would certainly not uphold Houston if they found me in a dark street without guns. (Laugh)

  I: Did you get on well with Houston?

  B : He was ok.

  I: What do you mean by that?

  B : Just that he was straight about it all. I mean he was disappointed of course that I couldn’t agree, but I think he saw my point. I don’t think he thought much of Murphy’s men, or trusted them either.

  I: But right now you’ve threatened to kill him if you escape this hanging?

  B: WHEN I escape, yes.

  I: Why?

  BOTH SIDES GUILTY

  B : Well, I’ve been through all this before. I’ve already made a statement. But anyway, again. In my trial three weeks ago, the charge that was brought against me was for shooting Sheriff Clark, etc. Now Houston offered me parole, or amnesty or whatever after this shooting. As you know there were no real witnesses of any murder on my part after that incident. But the fact is that the Clark shooting took place during the Lincoln County war—when EVERYBODY was shooting. I mean no one brought charges against those who shot McSween or Tunstall. Now Houston when he spoke to me admitted that, while he couldn’t condone what was done during those three days, he understood that both sides were guilty, and like a state of war there was no criminal punishment that could be genuinely brought against me without bringing it against everyone connected with that war. Two wrongs make a right, right? Now they find that because they cannot charge me with anything else that’ll stick they charge me for something that happened during a war. A fact that your Governor Houston realises and I’m sure privately admits and still won’t do anything about.

  I: Why do you suppose he doesn’t do anything to pardon you now?

  B: (Snorting) Well I suppose he’s been wished into thinking that I’ve been pretty nasty since. But the point is that there is no legal proof to all this later stuff. The evidence used was unconstitutional.

  SLIP ME A GUN

  I: Do you have a lawyer, I mean working on an appeal now?

  B: Slip me a gun and I will have— don’t print that.

  I: Mr. Bonney, or may I call you Billy …

  B: No.

  I: Mr. Bonney, do you believe in God?

  B: No.

  I: Why not, and for how long haven’t you?

  I PRAYED EVERY DAY

  B : Well I did for a long time, I mean in a superstitious way, same way I believe in luck for instance. I couldn’t take the risk you see. Like never wearing anything yellow. So before big fights, or even the most minor as well as the really easy ones. I used to cross myself and say, “God please don’t let me die today.” I did this fast though so no one would see me, see what I was doing. I did this pretty well every day from the age of 12 till I was 18. When I was 18, I had a shooting match with Tom O’Folliard, the prize was a horse. Now it was with rifles and Tom is excellent with them and I wanted that horse very much. I prayed every day. Then I lost the bet with Tom. I: Do you worry about what will happen after death now you don’t believe in God?

  B: Well I try to avoid it. Though I suppose not. I guess they’ll just put you in a box and you will stay there forever. There’ll be nothing else. The only thing I wish is that I could hear what people say afterwards. I’d really like that. You know, I’d li
ke to be invisible watching what happens to people when I am not around. I suppose you think that’s simple minded.

  I: Are you happy, or at least were you happy? Did you have any reason for going on living, or were you just experimenting?

  ABOUT TO GET MARRIED?

  B: I don’t know whether I’m happy or not. But in the end that is all that’s important—t hat you keep testing yourself, as you say— experimenting on how good you are, and you can’t do that when you want to lose.

  I: Is that all you looked forward to?

  B: Yes I suppose so.

  I: Is it true that you were going to get married and move east when you were arrested?

  B: As I say I don’t want to cause trouble, and though I’m not saying about the first part of the question, I had intended to leave the area cos people kept coming up to me and saying I was going to get it for what I had done to their friends. Bob Ollinger who’s worked his way into being my jailer. He had a close friend who was killed in the Lincoln County war.

  I: Who do you consider your friends now, now that Bowdre and O’Folliard are dead?

  B: Well I have some. Dave Rudabaugh wherever he is. I guess he’s locked up too somewhere. They won’t tell me. A couple of guys here and there. A couple of ladies.

  I: Garrett?

  B: Well Pat’s right now a…. head. We used to be friends as you probably know. He’s got senile. He’s getting a lot of money for cleaning the area up—of us supposedly. No I don’t think much of him now.

  I: He’s said that he gave you all plenty of opportunity to get out of New Mexico before he began hunting you.

  B: Yeahhhh but one) you don’t go around using mutual friends to trap an old friend and two) I love the country around here and Fort Sumner…all my friends are here. I’d go now, cos some I thought were friends were really pretty hypocritical.