Lucky Billy

by John Vernon

  Dogs barked. Homeowners barred their doors and closed their shutters. Sheriff Kimbrell had heard the promiscuous firing and lit out for Fort Stanton to request assistance of the military.

  As the two gangs clamored toward futility, the Kid spotted in the shadows a noodle-limbed man with a lantern in his one arm dashing past beneath the trees. Billy Campbell stopped him. "Who the hell are you and where are you going?"

  "My name is Chapman and I am attending to my business."

  The Kid held back behind those who surrounded Sue McSween's lawyer, cringing on the man's behalf. The other Regulators lingered at the edges. Tom O'Folliard slipped away into the dark. Underlit by his lantern, Chapman looked ridiculous. He'd poulticed one side of his face with bread, the downroping bandages holding it in place lurid and loose; they resembled flayed skin. He set the lantern down with his one arm and scowled at the men, impatiently blinking.

  "Well, Mr. Chapman, will you celebrate with us?" Campbell drew his pistol and pointed it at Chapman, waving the barrel in interrogatory circles inches from his chest.

  "I don't propose to celebrate with a drunken mob."

  "Watch how you talk. We'll make you, goddamnit." Chapman tugged his cataplasm; it evidently obscured his view. It looked hastily wrapped and the Kid guessed he'd been racing from the apothecary home to Sue's ministering arms. Campbell poked him with the gun. Chapman didn't flinch, though his eyes widened. They appeared to turn yellow in the waxy light. "You're just cake on both sides, ain't it?" said Campbell.

  "You can't scare me, boys. You've tried it before. I presume your name is Dolan? You with the gun?"

  "You're not talking to Dolan," Jesse Evans said. "But this man is a damned good friend of James Dolan."

  Before the Kid could stop him, short-stuff James Dolan, showing his teeth, stepped forward in his oversized tent-coat and fired point-blank at Chapman, flaming the dark. Billy Campbell fired, too, the shots rang as one. Campbell's pistol downpoured smoke and Chapman cried out, "My God. I am killed!" In the moment it took him to topple over backwards his clothes caught fire from the flash of the powder. The burning wool stank. The men standing there gave him some space, all looking down at the spectacle. He burned on his back on a dark street in Lincoln, the fire already charring his flesh, and the nauseating smell nearly made Billy retch.

  They repaired to McCullum's, ate oysters, drank beer. By now, all the Regulators had vanished save the Kid. "I promised my God and General Dudley that I would kill Chapman before he made more trouble, and now it's done," said Billy Campbell. He was shaking, fired up. Seated at the round table, James Dolan reached down, pulled up his pant leg, and produced a pistol. He offered it to Walz. "Go out there and put this in his hand." Walz looked disgusted and sniffed and turned his head.

  "I'll do it," said the Kid.

  Dolan grinned. He handed Billy the derringer and the latter jumped up, scrambled to the door, and ran out to the road. Chapman's whole body was in flames by now, lighting up the faces of children and dogs at the side of the street who had gathered to watch. Billy raced up the road in the opposite direction to where Tom O'Fol-liard held the reins of his horse. They rode out of town east, heading for San Pat. Five miles from Lincoln, he heaved the derringer in the river.

  ***

  San Patricio

  Lincoln County

  Thursday 7th 1879

  To his Excellency, General Lew Wallace,

  Governor of New Mexico.

  Dear Sir:

  I have heard that you will give one thousand $ dollars for my body which as I can understand it means alive as a Witness. I know it is as a witness against those that Murdered Mr. Chapman, if it was so as that I could appear at Court I could give the desired information, but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because my Enemies would Kill me. the day Mr. Chapman was murdered I was in Lincoln, at the request of good Citizens to meet Mr. J.J. Dolan, to meet as Friends, so as to be able to lay aside our arms and go to Work. I was present when Mr. Chapman was Murdered and know who did it and if it were not for those indictments I would have made it clear before now. if it is in your power to Annully those indictments I hope you will do so as to give me a chance to explain, please send me an annser telling me what you can do You can send annser by bearer I have no Wish to fight any more indeed I have not raised an arm since Your proclamation, as to my Character I refer to any of the Citizens, for the majority of them are my Friends and have been helping me all they could. I am called Kid Antrim but Antrim is my stepfathers name. Waiting for an annser I remain Your Obedeint Servant,

  W. H. Bonney

  Lincoln, March 15, 1879

  W. H. Bonney.

  Come to the house of old Squire Wilson (not the lawyer) at nine (9) o'clock next Monday night alone. I don't mean his office, but his residence. Follow along the foot of the mountains south of the town, come in on that side, and knock on the east door. I have authority to exempt you from prosecution, if you will testify to what you say you know.

  The object of the meeting at Squire Wilson's is to arrange the matter in a way to make your life safe. To do that the utmost secrecy is to be used. So come alone. Don't tell anybody—not a living soul—where you are coming or the object. If you could trust Jesse Evans, you can trust me.

  Lew Wallace

  14. 1879

  Wallace

  MARCH 17. NINE P.M. J. B. Wilson's squalid one-room jacal in the trees behind the courthouse. Old man Wilson sprawled on his bed, Governor Lew Wallace majestically seated in a chair beside it. The shutters clown and latched, to cut the cold. On the table by Wallace a coal oil lamp that cast a feeble yellow light. Trash on the plank floor: newspapers, oily sardine cans, a hoe, discarded shirts, one boot. Even for the governor, Wilson hadn't picked up. Why clean if it only gets dirty the next day? Wilson wore filthy pants but a fresh collar, tie, and black jacket, his marrying clothes, for he was justice of the peace.

  Wallace sat there in a dark broadcloth suit with papers in his hand and glasses on his nose, a portrait of himself. The Civil War general wore a thick dark goatee shaped like an iron wedge. Heavy broad mustache, bare spidered cheeks, high forehead, a thin rage of graying hair thrown across the brow. Tall and wide of beam, he heavily stood and marched to the door and peered out into the night. When he sat down again, his piercing right eye, the black one, the sentry, stayed fixed on that door. His attention was divided; he was like two people. Wallace had a theory about our double nature— the real and the acquired. The latter was garniture, the former foundational. The latter was invariably the result of education, but the former, like the divinity of Christ, as his novel-in-progress dutifully explained, was what we are at the core. And at his core, Wallace was an artist. This could be seen in the sensuous lips barely visible through the mass of facial hair, or noted in the large Roman nose and finely drawn nostrils, gaunt cheeks, sculpted ears. The sensitive might also have detected its hint in the dreamy left eye, the bland one, like a woman's, which displayed a pregnant absence, for it did not see this world, the yellow-gray room filled with trash, the old man on his filthy blankets audibly gumming a barely cooked chicken held by greasy fingers. Instead, it inwardly surveyed a scene as exotic as a harem: the market at Joppa. It conjured up balconies, gardens, silken tents. It sketched for a rude audience the donkeys dozing under panniers full of lentils, onions, beans, and cucumbers; the sandals and un-dyed blankets of the merchants; the earthen jars of the veiled women, the produce from Galilee, the half-naked children, their brown bodies, raisin eyes, and thick black hair attesting to the blood of Israel. Plus the brawny fellows with their dirty tunics, the bottles of wine lashed on their backs, and the doves and ducks, the singing bulbul, or nightingale, perched on a fig tree—Wait. This was daylight. Scratch the nightingale. Or perhaps ... yes, a bird market, why not? That's the ticket, bright birds in bamboo cages. Buyers, whose purchases fluttered in their nets, scattering colored feathers, seldom failed to think
of the perilous lives of the brave birdcatchers, who boldly climbed cliffs, hung by a single hand and foot from a precipice, or swung in a basket down the mountain's craggy face.

  Wallace had also demonstrated in his novel, in the part he'd just begun—Book Eighth—that most of us lack hearts roomy enough for more than one absorbing passion. In one passion's blaze others may live but only as lesser lights. This came from experience. His passion lay halfway across the world, in the ancient civilizations of Rome and Judea; in Roman coliseums, chariot races, the gladiatorial combat, slave ships, pirates, the gastronomy of figs, and ultimately in the coming of the Christ. But not in this alkali wasteland of New Mexico, in these mountains grim and fixed as walls of adamant, in these horrible dust storms and hideous people, bedraggled and unfriendly, dirty, always babbling. They bent over their hoes, they ate the bitter dust, they cowered in their wagons. They found themselves at the mercy of outlaws who held life cheap and did nothing about it; instead they wanted him to bring them peace and order.

  They judged General Wallace harshly in the war. At Shiloh, it was said, his division arrived at the battle so late the Union army nearly lost. He was relieved of his command, unfairly, unjustly, and had bristled ever since at the thought that he'd been scapegoated. He bristled now in his chair at the prospect, once again, of being blamed if the lawlessness in New Mexico continued, and consulted the scribbled pages in his hand, then pulled out his pocket watch; nearly nine-thirty. Squire Wilson, beside him, tossed his chicken bones on the floor, wiped his fingers on his blankets. Wallace fiercely reassumed his eagle look and watched the door and listened for footsteps. The mail-order kitchen chair in which he sat, with the flimsy arms, was carved with eastern squirrels. Ah, by Bacchus! he thought. Is he not handsome? And how splendid his chariot!

  "He'll be late," said Wilson.

  "He is late," said Wallace. From his leather portfolio, he pulled out more paper and with his Faber began a furious assault. Yes, a bird market...

  When the knock finally came it was several hours later. Squire Wilson unbarred the door, swung it open. The Kid slunk in, wary, eyes searching the room. "I was to meet the governor here."

  "I am here."

  In Billy's left hand was his Colt's Thunderer, in his right the Winchester. "Your note promised absolute protection."

  "I have been true to my promise. This man and myself are the only persons present."

  Billy nodded at Wilson, who grinned, showing gaps in his nubby yellow teeth. "Squire." This was the same J. B. Wilson who'd issued the warrants the Kid and Fred served on the Dolanite faction before landing in jail; the same justice of the peace fired by Governor Axtell only to be reinstated later; the same old man wounded in the buttocks in his onion patch when the Regulators shot Brady.

  Wallace stood to shake his guest's hand, who first leaned his rifle against the foot of Wilson's bed and bolstered bis pistol. He wrapped both of his hands around Billy's one, he wasn't certain why. A sudden rush of fatherly feeling for someone he thought would look brutish and imposing and instead was just a boy? He'd expected Ben-Hur, the eponymous hero of his novel-in-progress, or maybe Mallach or Messala, and got this comely-looking creature instead; got Jesus, not a hulking exotic. "You call yourself William Bonney? The Kid?"

  "Yes."

  "The newspapers have christened you 'Billy the Kid.'"

  "They're always trying to pick a fuss. They prank up their stories."

  "But you are the notorious brigand they write of? The young daredevil whose escape from a burning house surrounded by gunmen is still on everyone's lips?"

  Billy shrugged.

  "How did you do it?"

  "Luck as much as anything."

  "It took considerable bravado."

  "I didn't have much choice."

  "And you're the one who shot Morris Bernstein?"

  "That wasn't me. That was some other Billy. The papers said I robbed a buckboard down in Texas, too, but that was someone else that took my name."

  "How do I know you didn't take his name?"

  "You don't."

  "Did you shoot William Brady?"

  "That's what the warrant says."

  "And Andrew A. Roberts?"

  Billy glanced away.

  "Please sit." The Kid took off his hat and, hat on knees, sat on a kitchen chair facing the governor, who—thoughtfully, gently—tapped his massy brow. "I cannot help thinking—I mean to say, in my work, the most loathsome, wretched, appalling specimens of humanity parade before my desk. This nationality is like a hive of human bees. The vermin almost devour me. You've seen them yourself, I don't doubt. I cannot help thinking that you are above the norm. I know to what extremity you've been reduced. You have it in your power to—to clear your name."

  "That's all I want."

  "When I came to this territory, I found that the law was practically a nullity and had no way of asserting itself. Even a governor's powers are limited. I could not possibly have stopped the troubles in this place by civil means. I needed the military. I am a military man. I have never heard music as fascinating and grand as that of a battle. But your military here is one more faction, I am afraid it's taken sides."

  "You can say that again."

  "The president has agreed to declare martial law if all else fails. In my view, it should have been done long ago. There have been more than a hundred murders in this county alone in the last year. I have found that every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico. Still, permit me to think—I judge from your appearance—that your motives have not been without honor. This country was not made for civilized men. It is a wilderness without the manna, shall we say?"

  "Sure."

  "Yet, it contains some of the best grazing lands in the whole United States. The outlaws and rustlers will lose in the long run. The people of America need beef. It is inevitable that land holdings will become larger and beef production rationalized and made more efficient. With peace and the restoration of law, this territory will prosper, and I am determined that it do so. We were making progress; your wars in this county seemed to be over. Then Attorney Chapman was shot. It was cold-blooded murder. I knew the man, we'd met several times and corresponded extensively. In truth, he'd fired a salvo of letters at me and at others demanding Colonel Dudley's arrest. Perhaps he made himself a target. But the very public nature of this crime is all the more reason to arrest its perpetrators. We are at the pivot point. I wish to put an absolute stop to the resurgence of your deplorable 'wars,' and I intend to use every means at my disposal. Here is my offer: testify before the grand jury and a court of law—convict the murderers of Huston Chapman—and I will let you go scot-free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds."

  Wallace watched Billy glance around the room. Squire Wilson had fallen asleep on the covers of his bed. It was cold in this shack. The governor stood, slipped his overcoat off the chair back, and wrapped it around himself. "If I do that, they'll kill me," said the Kid.

  "We can prevent it. I have a plan. We seize you while you're sleeping. To all appearances, this capture will be genuine." Wallace sat.

  "Who does the seizing?"

  "You may choose the men."

  "You ought to go ahead and get Jimmy Dolan before you seize me. He and Campbell done it."

  "Campbell and Evans are locked up now."

  "Not for long. They're bound to escape. And when they do, you won't easily find them. Watch the Fritz place, Baca's ranch, the brewery. They'll either go to Seven Rivers or the Jicarilla Mountains. Also, what I want you to do when you arrest me is put me in irons."

  "I understand. You're afraid of the loss of your reputation as a desperate man. Are you still bent on vengeance?"

  "I'm tired of all the killing."

  "Why is it you know so much about these people?"

  "I ran with them once."

  "And now you've changed your mind? You were on their side once and you had a change of heart and now you think them bad characters?"
<
br />   "I thought they were bad a long time ago."

  "Are they angry at your—your turnaround?"

  "Not unless they find out about this. What's that you're writing down?"

  "The information you've given me about Dolan and Campbell." Wallace stared at the Kid with his black eye, the sentry, but the other was drifting. This precious specimen before him had killed how many men? The papers said one for every year of his life but of course they overstated. "Your duty is plain," he mumbled while writing, but even as he spoke he felt a touch of disdain. The Kid looked leery. He'd placed his hat on the floor, his knee jacked up and down, he kept swiveling his head. "We will put you in irons if that is your wish. Don't you worry about it. We'll hold you at Fort Stanton, how's that? Surely, that will not injure you in the public estimation."

  "The only thing I'm afraid of on the fort is they could poison me there. Or shoot me through a window at night. I am not afraid to die like a man fighting but I would not like to be killed like a dog unarmed."

  "I'll arrange that no harm come to you."

  "Arrest Tom, too."

  "Tom?"

  "Tom O'Folliard. There's indictments for him. He'd be lost without me."

  "Are you still bent on vengeance?" Wallace asked him again. "I've been told all this began when you swore to kill the murderers of a man named Tunstall."

  "That's right. They murdered him, see, and I could have prevented it. I should of stopped them. Mr. Tunstall was a respectable man. He treated me square."