by John Vernon
"Two for five dollars."
"I will take five."
The peddler grins, wraps the glasses in tissue, bundles them with paper, ties it with string. When he hands up the package, Billy's Colt's Navy is pointed at his nose. His eyes widen, nostrils flare. His face holds the smile by force but goes dark. Billy slips the glasses inside his saddle bag.
"Hand that pistol up, too. The one in your left armpit, inside the shoulder harness. Reach inside your coat and draw it out very slow. When it's out of the holster, keep it flat against your chest. Then take it by the barrel with your left hand. Do you understand these instructions?"
He nods.
"Then reach it up to me butt-end first. And if you've ever practiced the road-agent's spin I hope to God you'll tell me first what to carve on your stone." The man hands up the gun. Good Lord, it's a Thunderer. I must have done something right. Thank you, Mother. "Close up that box." The peddler closes his box. "Go on. You can go."
"You've done worse than burgle me. You've wounded my pride, robbed me of manhood. What will I tell Cynthia?"
"Who's Cynthia?"
"My fiancée."
"Tell her you got robbed by Billy the Kid."
The man begins to hustle, pushing his cart. Billy lifts and cocks the Colt's Navy, glick, and sights clown the barrel just to see him squirm, for he keeps on looking back. He skips, he runs, he turns to the side, he jerks left and right, heaving the cart ahead. The Kid's face stays dead. He feels it like a leaden mask. He watches the peddler shrink down the road growing smaller than a cockroach.
***
IT WOULD BE nice to do Chisum some grievous bodily harm. Those chickadees over there in the tule. Suppose John Chisum was a pretty little bird and suppose that bird in the bulrushes was him—if I shot the bird, why then it would be murder.
He fires. Blasts the little birdy's head off. It's the Thunderer, he thinks. It's not me, it's the gun. He looks around at the sage, the grass, the low bluff, and spots a junco. Let's give old John another chance. He shoots again and this bird explodes. How gratifying to have a Thunderer again! Then he continues on the road into the cattle baron's ranch, soon hearing the rumble of hooves up ahead. His gunfire has brought the jinglebob cowboys galloping toward him in a large cloud of dust, about a dozen in all. They warily watch him, all having pulled their carbines and rifles out of their scabbards. "Jeffrey," says the Kid. "Andrew. Jim." He neither restrains nor hastens the easy canter of his horse.
They keep close behind as he approaches Chisum's house. The plank boards that cover its thick walls, Billy knows, are there to prevent assailants in the night from cutting gaps in the adobes. The clay roof is flat with a three-foot parapet sporting portholes, for defense. Alone in these wilds with dozens of cowboys and more or less a hundred thousand cattle to mother, Chisum is a guarded man; always has been. He's the man behind the scenes, as everyone says; he's made a habit of playing both sides against the middle. Advisor to Tunstall, partner to McSween, he nonetheless failed to come to the rescue when Mac's house was burning down. Claimed he didn't know. He'd once paid Dolan's Boys to steal horses from the Apache reservation, with Macky as his agent! The Dolanites in turn stole Chisum's cattle and altered their brands from long rails to arrows, though you couldn't alter jinglebobbed ears—you had to cut them off entirely, Billy knows—he'd done so himself. Chisum had even given the Regulators permission to steal a heifer now and then, if they were hungry or restless, since he knew they'd do it anyway. Not the steers, though; steers he could sell. How much John Chisum had to do with Billy's capture at Stinking Springs is unclear to the Kid but he has his hunches. Pat Garrett lives in Roswell, a few miles from Chisum's ranch. It was generally known that, once elected sheriff, Garrett was hired by the PSA, the Panhandle Stock Association, to capture or kill Billy the Kid, and Chisum may have thrown in with that crowd. He must have, Billy thought. Was it Chisum's idea, or Macky's—or Sue's—to offer five hundred dollars for Sheriff Brady's murder? It would be just like Chisum to bruit the notion abroad then back off as an innocent once the deed was done, for he'd never seen the money. The Kid had once threatened to shoot Chisum's cowboys at five dollars each until he reached the promised five hundred dollars, but he'd thought better of that. They shell around him now, the jinglebob waddies, hanging weights on his heels, as he climbs off his horse, as he snubs it, unlatches the gate on the fence, walks to the front gallery, knocks on Chisum's door. Cocky, yes. Hard as nails. The Kid does have something, does he not, of the air of Napoleon?
Sallie Chisum answers and turns beet-red. Billy once gave her "two candi hearts," as she carefully noted in the little red book she showed him in the parlor. She and the Kid had taken savage rides down the shallow Pecos holding hands on the gallop, but he's worked up now, he won't acknowledge their history. He narrows his eyes, peers across her shoulder. "Your uncle John here?" Chisum never married, though he's handsome, Billy grudges. And he's one of many men said to have used his friendship with Macky to help himself to Sue McSween.
Bootsteps in the parlor. Sallies driven-forward chin and downcurved mouth and straw-blond hair swing around and there's her uncle, who is not exactly smiling as he approaches, more like indulging amused suspicion. Mainly what you notice on John Chisum's face is his strong sharp nose and his mustache tapering to twisted ends and his squinty warm eyes. The gray-haired, flap-eared, overcooked head is what happens to cowboys who live long enough; but inside all that wreckage of skin, Billy knows, lies an angular man still softly magnetic. "I see you met our friend." Chisum points at Billy's eyes with a rolled-up newspaper.
The Kid removes his tinted spectacles. "He says he sold a bunch to your cowboys."
"He didn't sell us any. We laughed him off the place."
"May I come in?" Shit. How come he feels buffaloed?
Chisum ushers him into the parlor: tasseled sofa, horsehair chairs, filthy rag rugs, plank floor. A cast-iron stove with nickel foot-plates smells of soot and charred wood. The broken arms of a rocker beside it have been wired back on. The white walls show water stains behind framed lithographs of European monuments; the Kid spots a Greek temple. Sallie watches from the door then disappears outside. "We've just been reading about you," says her uncle. He hands Billy the paper, a Las Vegas Daily Optic, and sits on the sofa. Why is rage so fleeting? Billy's been in this parlor a thousand times before, drunk Chisum's coffee, eaten his beef. Part of the cattle baron's charm, he knows, is a distracting hospitality, a refusal to stint. Do something quick before he trundles out the food. He sits in a stuffed chair and glances at the paper. "Billy Bonney," says the heading. It's dated last week.
Socorro, N.M. May 2.—4:15 P.M.—
Advices from Lincoln bring the intelligence of the escape of "Billy, the Kid," the daring young desperado, the murderer of Bob Olinger and ]. W. Bell, officers in charge. As near as can be ascertained Billy "the Kid," was in an upstairs room in the hotel at Lincoln, and watching his opportunity, slipped his handcuffs. He then knocked Deputy Sheriff Bell down, and snatching his revolver, killed the gallant young officer dead. Bob Olinger, one of the guards, hearing the shot, and with the remark, "the Kid has tried to escape and Bell has shot him," rushed upstairs. The moment he reached the top of the stairs the Kid fired, killing him instantly. He then went downstairs and at the muzzle of the deadly six shooter forced the landlord to saddle the fastest horse in the stable, on which he mounted and made his escape. Several men were at the house at the time but dared not offer any resistance. This is the report on the street, and I think it is in the main correct.
(The report of Billy's bold dash for liberty is confirmed by a private letter from Roswell-on-the-Pecos. The break was made on Thursday night, and the information has had time to reach Las Vegas by this time. Rumors are current that after his escape, Billy killed two men who took it upon themselves to re-capture him. The men, Bell and Olinger, are well known in Las Vegas and have friends all over the Territory who should see that their horrible deaths are avenged. The governor wi
ll offer a reward for the re-capture of Kid, who was to have been executed on the 13th inst.— EDITOR OPTIC.)
"Hotel?"
"They have the courthouse confused with the Wortley," says Chisum.
"Newspaper men will print anything," says Billy. "Who wrote this letter from Roswell they talk about? You?"
"That paper came yesterday. It is four days old. This is the first I've heard of it, Kid. Did you kill two more men after you escaped?"
"Not yet. Plus, dinger got it outside, not on the stairs. With his own shotgun." The Kid scours the paper but senses Chisum watching him. "Says here Governor Wallace will offer a reward."
"He already did."
"I expected a pardon from the damn governor. I ought to kill him, too. I expected Macky Sween to pay me. Tunstall was going to hook me up with a ranch. And you—" He raises his head, elevates his voice. "You owe me money, John. I don't care how you figure it. Mac promised us three dollars a day and we never saw a cent. Well, you're his partner, ain't it? Then word came down that anyone who killed Brady would get five hundred dollars."
Chisum rolls a cigarette. His stare never threatens. The thin-lipped smile makes sense, Billy thinks; he may keep a full table but he's mean on obligations.
A knock and the door swings open from the porch. It's a Chisum waddie, cradling his rifle. "Everything all right?"
"Yes, Frank."
"We're outside, Mr. Chisum."
"That's fine. There's no problem."
Like the late Macky Sween, Chisum never goes armed, he leaves that to others. In Billy's estimation, this also indicates pride; he thinks he can soft-mouth his way out of anything. He's one of those men who even while he talks you'd swear he was winking. He pretends to be on your side no matter what. "Now, Kid, listen up. If you talked about it till your hair was white as mine, you still couldn't convince me that I owed you money." He lights up his cigarette, draws on it easy, allows the smoke to scarf evenly from his wide mouth.
"We risked our damn lives. We murdered men for you."
"And I let you hole up here. I gave you whatever you needed on credit and never asked to be paid."
"Never asked to be paid! Never asked to be paid!" The Kid pulls his Thunderer and glares at the trim face, the slack-skinned chin and neck. Chisum's disconcerting secret is that he's thin and wiry and a hard worker, yet a voluptuary. The way he lights a cigarette, his care with the smoke, his flat-ass way of walking. He performs every action with forethought and precision and always a know-it-all smile on his face. Even now, with the Kid throwing down on him, he crosses his legs, leans back on the sofa.
This is John Chisum. The famous cattle baron. An idol of clay.
An entire slice of time has gone missing, it appears, for Billy's arm is around Chisum's neck and the barrel of his Thunderer inside the man's ear. They're sprawled on the tasseled blue sofa, legs tangled, boots kicking to get a purchase on the floor. "It was you who betrayed me!"
Chisum's face is red; he is still trying to smile, eyes darting around. "Betrayed you? I never betrayed you, son. You wouldn't shoot an honest man, would you? A man who always looked you square in the eye?" His breath comes in gulps, he's talking in gasps. "I know you've killed a few men but they needed killing."
"You son of a bitch. You're the cause of plenty of dead men yourself. All better than you."
"I always looked out for your welfare, Kid. Don't equate me with Wallace." I lis broken voice chokes and he looks pathetic—this large man in the smaller one's grip. His thin hair's going bald. Billy manages to stand, Chisum's point)' head locked against his hip, his gun still inside that rowboat ear. "When they run McSween and you boys out of Lincoln, where did you stay? Here. I fed you, I gave you the run of the place. Ease up a bit, would you?" Billy eases up. "I'll write to the papers. I'll write to the governor, remind him about the promises he made." The Kid lets go and Chisum drops, his large ear glowing red. Billy storms to the door, bolstering his weapon. "You're not even worth killing, you bastard. I'll take it out on your cattle."
Riding north to Fort Sumner, he feels slimy, soiled, for menacing Chisum. He was right, he'd helped them out. Not enough, though. And he hadn't betrayed him to Garrett, he couldn't have, for he'd never got on with the PSA. The Kid remembers now, when Tunstall was alive, John Chisum railing against those Texas stockmen, who'd plagued him with lawsuits. He'd looked the other way when Billy sparked Sallie, though they'd stopped short of doing the natural thing, much to Sallie's regret. It was owing to her uncle. Billy used to admire him. His heart continues its plunge yet the rage mounts. He almost wishes Chisum had been the Judas, then he could have killed him. On an impulse, he gropes for John Meadows's biscuits inside his saddle bag and runs across a packed meal: salted beef, bread, a tin of sardines. Inside a fold of paper is twenty-five dollars. Sallie, of course.
He rides in the shallows of the river instead of on the road. Keeps listening for Chisum's cowboys behind. The world slides past without him. A turtle bellies down the bank into the Pecos. The bluff above the river, the lowering clouds, the sand dunes, the mud.
At Bosque Grande, he sleeps on his saddle at the edge of the trees. Here, the river widens, the grama grass thickens. Blue moonlight seeps through the outpouring branches. He double-wraps his blanket but the cold chills his bones, cold earth pouring into him, deep as an ice pick. In the gray-blue morning, the trees drip with fog rising from the river. Bosky used to be a beautiful spot but now it looks dead in this corpse-light. Everything shagged with icy gray drip.
Late that evening he rides into Fort Sumner and crosses the parade grounds past the old barracks, past the quartermaster's storehouse, toward Pete Maxwell's house. Pete lives in the former officers' quarters converted by his late father into a home, and approaching the picket fence around the house the Kid hears music from the dance hall. Must be the weekend; they're having a baile. The fence extends past both house and dance hall all the way to the orchard. Red storms of dried chilis hang from Pete's covered porch next to a side of beef. Billy snubs his horse on the road, opens the gate, climbs the steps. His friend answers the knock in bare feet and drawers; he's just lit his lamp; the twilight now creeps inside his corner bedroom and fills its nooks and pockets with shadows.
They embrace but Billy feels Pete's heart isn't in it. He's tall but dumpy, with lynx-whiskers thinly fringing his lip-top. Pete is not exactly a desperate character with hard ways and steely eyes. His gaze won't meet Billy's, keeps sliding to the side. "Jesus, Kid, how come you came back here?"
"Because of the food. I'm tired of canned salmon."
"Garrett's bound to find you here."
"Assuming I stay."
"Where would you go?"
"There's sheep camps all around."
Pete pulls on his britches and thumbs the suspenders up across his shoulders. Just throws on a jacket across the wool flannel undershirt. Sits on his bed and pulls on his boots. Both men know why Billy came.
"Is Paulita at the baile?"
"She's dressing up for it. Deluvina's helping her."
"Is she showing yet?"
"I'm afraid so, Kid."
"She shouldn't go."
"She always does."
Billy looks around. "Sounds like quite a kick-up they're having."
"The usual."
The Kid blurts out all at once, "Goddamnit, Pete, this is my family. You, me, Paulita, Juan, Jesús Silva. That's why I came back."
Pete says nothing.
"You'd think I'd be welcomed."
"I remember when you were nothing. Just a boy."
Billy hesitates. "What are you saying? Are you saying I got too big for my britches?"
"I'm not saying jack."
"You wouldn't betray me, would you, Pete?"
"I'd sooner shoot my own mother."
"Do you think I'm still a boy? Is that it?"
"Hell's bells, Kid, take it easy, would you? I think you're my friend. You know what one of the papers reported? Said you dyed your skin and let your be
ard grow so's you'd look like a greaser."
"You mean since I escaped? I grew a beard in a week?"
"You can't believe a word they say."
"Do you have that paper here?"
"Not that one. I got others. Go ahead, cut your own throat." Pete waves at the round oak table by his bed, and Billy thumbs through a stack of Optics, all filled with the Kid, or Billy the Kid, or Billy Bonney and his daring escape.
Las Vegas Daily Optic, Wednesday, May 4, 1881:
* * *
THE DARE DEVIL DESPERADO
The tragedy at Lincoln on the night of the 28th ult., in which two men were killed and a notorious outlaw escaped from justice, is greatly to be regretted, for many reasons. Two efficient officers, in the discharge of their duties, were cut down in the prime of rife manhood, and while death is ever sad, this picture of ruthless murder in a stronghold dedicated to justice, is sad beyond portrayal by our weak words. To this young demon, death is but a name for a condition beyond our knowledge, and not a direful means whereby the hopes and aspirations of the soul are ended. To him the drooping forms of widows and the tearstained eyes of orphans, give no token of the anguish within. Older in crime than Mathusala was in days, he is at once the terror and the disgrace of New Mexico. For years a flagrant violator of every law, and a murderer from infancy, he has, until within the last six months, undisturbed by efforts at His arrest, enjoyed the privileges of a tyrant. His name has long been the synonym of all that is malignant and cruel, and yet such is the inconsistency of human action, that his friends and admirers have been neither lacking in applause nor weak in numbers. Urged by a spirit as hideous as hell, lie has well nigh exhausted the boldness of courage and the ingenuity of cunning to inflict suffering upon all around him. With a heart untouched to pity by misfortune, and with a character possessing the attributes of the damned, he has reveled in brutal murder and gloried in his shame. He has broken more loving hearts and filled more untimely graves than he has lived years, and that he is again turned loose like some devouring beast upon the public is cause at once for consternation and regret. For a few brief months he was confined, but regaining his freedom by a daring unequaled before, his unnatural desire to murder again is manifested in the killing of William Matthews and an unknown man, prompted by no motive save the black malice burning in his heart. With an impudence stimulated by past immunity he has singled out the distinguished executive of this Territory as the next victim of his wrath, and has boldly declared his intention of murdering him. Can such things be in a country where law and order presumably prevail? In the name of all the citizens of New Mexico; in the name of its interest and good name; in the name of children made orphans and wives made widows by this fiend; and in the name of that army of specters who accuse him from the other shore, we call upon all the officers of the Territory to unite in his re-capture.
