When he came out he held up his hands for Pablo to shackle them and he looked into Pablo’s eyes but Pablo’s eyes did not want to meet his. Pablo replaced his gun in the scabbard and put the warm shackles on the Kid’s wrists. This is the time, thought the Kid. Try not to fall if you get hit. It doesn’t matter if I’m hit as long as I don’t go down, as long as I can reach that door and come out of there with a gun in my hand. He thought: When you get to that stone before the doorway do it. He looked into Pablo’s eyes again but Pablo’s eyes did not meet his. I must keep looking into his eyes, he thought, I must make him wonder why I’m doing it. He lingered a little, but seeing that Pablo’s eyes would not meet his he went ahead of him, carrying his shackled wrists in front of his stomach, shuffling along with his shackled ankles, and now he knew that he must not look back, must not look back even if he suspected that Pablo’s gun was out and pointing. There was nothing now he could do except to forget Pablo entirely, forget Nika, forget Lon over in Charley’s, forget what day it was, the heat, the drowsiness, and why he was doing this. There was only the small pleasant thing to do—to reach the small gray stone about a yard from the doorsill, sitting there like an old toad, to pretend to stumble on it, to go headlong as though in a play, to run crouching through the doorway and headlong up the stairs, never hurrying, going with care so as not to stumble. For if he stumbled he would never get another chance. There was only one, not two, in a million.
When he came to the stone he stumbled and ran into the house and up the stairs and when he reached the stairhead he ran to the door and threw his shoulder against it twice and it flew open as he had expected. He felt wonderfully lucky that he had gauged it right and he knew now that he couldn’t miss, that his luck was holding up and that the whole town could not hold him that day against his will. When the door flew open he caught an image in his mind of all that fresh-cut lumber waiting and then of the new gallows waiting and he smiled and wondered what was keeping Pablo, not knowing that Pablo had stumbled just as he had pretended to stumble, as though in a necessary act of imitation.
He glanced at the hot room and saw the guns lying on the table, picked one up, spun the chambers, saw it was loaded, cocked the hammer and moved lithely into the corridor. It was just then that Pablo saw him. He could have cut Pablo down easily but he had figured on Pablo’s being frightened and had decided not to shoot unless necessary, he had figured that Pablo’s being frightened might save Pablo’s life. But then Pablo turned and ran and then it was out of the Kid’s hands. Pablo had made a mistake and now there was nothing the Kid could do. He ran down the corridor to the stairhead and saw Pablo going full tilt down the stairs and he fired before he knew it, fired without aiming, and the ball as usual knew where to go, it spoke for the Kid as they all did, hit Pablo in the back just slightly above the heart, while Pablo was in the air running and leaping, and when the Kid saw the dark spot appear on Pablo’s back he did not wait to see what Pablo did, he knew that his relations with Pablo were ended and that Pablo would have no more troubles in this world, and so he turned from the stairhead and ran back into the gunroom and picked up Lon Dedrick’s sweet English shotgun.
*
He had not figured on the cards turning up this way but now that they had it was all right with him and he knew what his next move must be. He knew Lon inside out. He knew what Lon would do. Lon would figure on his escaping into the back yard, where the outhouse was, avoiding the open plaza, and he would come running down around the north side of the adobe to stop him, knowing he could not travel fast in his irons. That was why he waited for him in the gunroom. He could kill Lon with one of the Winchesters or even with the forty-five which had killed Pablo, but it was not in the cards, the cards said he must kill him with his own sweet English shotgun. He felt wonderful standing in the gunroom, peering out the window, waiting. This was his day and he could not miss no matter how hard he tried. It was wonderful to be waiting to kill Lon Dedrick.
He could kill him with a barrelful so that Lon would never know what hit him but that was not the way it was going to be. It was important to let Lon know who killed him and how. Otherwise the fun was gone out of it. There were many ways to kill a man but this was the sweetest. You had to let him know the truth of what happened. You had to give him that last moment of truth before you killed him.
He did not mind the shackles or the jail or the town. He knew he had won and that nothing could stop him. He was no longer a kid, he was feeling his age, and he had been loving and drinking too much for his good but he was still all right on his legs and in the quick thinking and the shot that had killed Pablo had been as good as ever and now he had won and he was going to show this town how to make a getaway and he knew that no one would try to stop him, knowing that this was his day.
It was too bad about Pablo, whom he could see lying in the sun on the plaza, lying on his face, his arms outstretched, the fingers like claws, a little blood on the gray shirt on his back. Pablo oughtn’t to have run. He ought to have controlled his legs. That little lack of control could cost a man his life. That was why it was important to be ice-cold in your mind and heart when the bad moments came. Soon there was going to be a bad one for Lon Dedrick. It was going to be interesting to see how much control Lon would have.
He could see Lon running out of Charley’s, the forty-five in his hand. He could imagine those thin bluish legs in Lon’s trousers, carrying the paunch, and he could imagine the breasts bobbling in that run. He could see Lon’s dark hair, long, flying, and the small upturned nose and the cleft chin and the open collar of his shirt, and the glint of the sun on the forty-five. He got the shotgun ready, pointing the barrel through the broken dusty pane, covering Lon all the way, ready to kill him if he swerved off but knowing that he would come close, come just under the window. Lon could not possibly see him in that room, with the dusty panes and the light so bright on the plaza.
He saw Lon’s face when he caught sight of Pablo, saw it twitch with fear and saw the gun hand leap up, as if to shoot at the dead man, heard him curse and saw him scan the adobe quickly, still running. Someone cried out, “The Kid’s killed Patron!” It was an old man’s voice. Lon started at the sound. His luck was running out fast while the Kid’s was very good that day. Another voice called out, “The Kid’s killed Patron!” But no one ventured out onto that plaza except Lon, whose job it was to come get him. Lon wasn’t happy about this. His eyes showed fear and his cleft chin looked as if he had spilled milk on it. I’ll bet he wishes he had this shotgun, thought the Kid.
“Hi Lon,” he said mildly through the broken pane.
Lon was just below him, holding the forty-five ready. He looked up, saw the Kid’s face, saw the black muzzles facing him and cried, staggering back, “He’s killed me too!”
The Kid pulled the trigger of one barrel.
*
It had been a good meal and Lon had eaten well. Meat loaf, creamed onions, baked potato, string beans, white bread and black coffee. Lon used to say, “When I eat I got the whole world buried.” He was not much of a talker when he ate. Not much of a thinker either. When he ate that meal he did not think of the Kid or Pablo or Dad or his other prisoners. Eating was a full-time occupation for Lon.
He was having his coffee when he heard the shot across the plaza. “Hell!” he cried. “That greaser’s killed him!” And, knowing his other prisoners would not have the guts to escape, he drew his gun, rushed out of Charley’s into the dazzling light and ran toward the jail. He thought he saw something lying to the left of the door but was not certain. And then he heard an old man’s voice shout, “The Kid’s killed Patron!” and he thought, “That’s shit.” But the peculiar stillness of the plaza stopped him. If Pablo had killed the Kid he would have come out onto the plaza and shown himself, yet the plaza was empty and the jail very still. And then, coming closer to the house, he made out Pablo lying in front of it.
Somebody shouted, “The Kid’s killed Patron.”
Lon was under the nor
th upper room of the jail when he heard someone say, “Hi Lon.”
He knew from that moment that he was dead and he wished with all his life that he could do it over again, the coming out of Charley’s and crossing the plaza, for he knew he had made a mortal mistake. And then, glancing up to where the voice had come from, he saw the black muzzles eyeing him and he urinated in his trousers. Staggering back, he cried, “He’s killed me too!”
And then the Kid pulled the trigger and the hammer came flipping down on the charge and the charge blew the nine buckshot down the long barrel and at the muzzle’s end they scattered and all nine hit Lon on the left side of his stomach, shredding it, and it was like nine white-hot pokers going inside him and he screamed a long high-pitched scream and screamed again as he was falling and grabbed at his stomach and tried to scream but couldn’t and fell to his knees and pitched onto his face and lay in a pool of blood, thinking he was out on the sea in a skiff in a high wind under the overhanging rocks, smelling the stink of the seawolves. Then the skiff filled with water and the water got into his lungs and, gasping for breath, he knew he was dying. And then, in a flash, he saw himself as if from a great distance, standing on the plaza on that hot bright morning, standing under the window, and saw himself get shot and the bitterness of it was that the Kid had outlived him, and he thought, I’m killed, the son of a bitch has killed me, they’ll all be saying he killed me. So long you shits, you’re shits all of you. Ma, you fix it like you always do. He urinated again and began to dream but the dreams were mixed up and he was too tired to straighten them out and at last, drooling blood and pumping blood from his nostrils, he stopped dreaming and it was over.
The Kid walked down the corridor, down the stairs, out onto the plaza, aimed the gun and blew part of Lon’s head off with the other nine buckshot. Then he broke the gun against the ground and threw the pieces onto Lon, saying, “Here Lon here’s your shotgun.” And he stood there looking at him but he was not smiling. It’s a fact he hated that Lon Dedrick as much as he had hated any man.
6
That was how the Kid escaped. There are some other details but they are not important—how he got the keys off Patron and unlocked his shackles; went to the gunroom and got two gunbelts and another forty-five; went down to the stable, saddled up and left that town in his dust. The plaza was as empty as a graveyard at midnight. Nobody felt like calling the Kid’s hand.
He made for the Punta, where Harvey French, Bob Emory and I were lying low. We had been spending most of our time in the hills but on this Friday we had come down for the change. There was great excitement all over the place. We got bedrolls, food, guns, ammunition and a bag of gold coins we had hidden away; also a fresh horse for the Kid. We made for the wagon road. As we neared the plaza he pulled up, turning to me casually.
“Where’s Nika?” he asked.
I was expecting to hear him ask that. She was not around the Punta that afternoon.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her around today,” I said. He cut off toward the plaza and looked in at her adobe, then rode over to Francesca Zamora’s, the old Indian woman. Francesca did not know either. She was about to tell him something but I made a motion of my hand which the Kid did not see and she did not tell him the thing which I myself would have to tell him in a day or two. As we wheeled and galloped off she cried out something which we could not make out.
The thing I knew and which everybody knew was that Nika Machado had got herself married while the Kid was in jail. I was afraid of what he might do if he found out there. I was afraid he might go in and kill Miguel Gomez and maybe kill her too. If he did we’d have a free-for-all and the chances are we would not get off the Punta alive. Miguel had asked Nika to marry him when he was sure he was dying. She had. I didn’t know the particulars but I knew these facts were true. Maybe I could have smuggled the information to the Kid in the jail and maybe not, but I didn’t try, seeing as how it could have done him no good and might have done him some harm. The Kid would be sore at me for holding out on him but I had no choice. We had to get going and to get going pronto. As we galloped out some of the natives waved and shouted and some stood and stared, knowing what Nika had done and wondering, probably, if the Kid knew.
As soon as we stopped to rest our horses we wanted to hear how he had escaped. We stood around him, grinning, and threw questions at him but all he said was, “You muchachos sure are nosy.” He lifted a whiskey bottle to his mouth, drank, said “Kiss me baby” and passed the bottle around.
“Kiss me baby,” we said and took a swig. Then he told us the story. We sure laughed when we heard it. I just doubled up when I heard how good old Lon had taken it. That story added years to my life. We stood there swigging on a high bluff above the sea and talked about Dad and how the ranchers would hound him out of the country and how life was good for us but not so good for Lon and Pablo and Dad. Man we sure as hell laughed and slapped each other on the back. And Harvey he’d hop up and do a jig.
It was great to have the Kid back. We couldn’t believe our luck. We had been waiting for him to hang and now here he was, in the flesh and raring to go. He was like a spring that’s suddenly cut loose. You could see what it meant to him to be free again—the way he ate and drank, laughed, whooped, slapped us on the back, did a jig now and then, jumped on his horse, the way his eyes shone and his muscles humped. He was going to make up for lost time, I could see that.
“We ought to stick around here and shoot Dad in the ass,” he said. “What do you say Harvey?”
But Harvey thought it was kind of risky at the moment.
“We’ll be back,” said the Kid. “We’ll tree this country.”
“Hell all it needs is lightning bugs and corncobs to stampede those poodles,” I said.
“Tonight we’ll kill ourselves a yearling and eat beef straight. How about it boys?” asked the Kid.
“It’s great to have you back,” Harvey said.
“What do you say we go to old Mex and have some fun?” asked the Kid.
Harvey and I liked the idea but Bob said nothing.
“What you got on your mind Bob?” asked the Kid.
“I think you ought to hide out in the hills,” Bob said.
“Why? What’s wrong with old Mex?”
“We can lose ourselves in the hills,” Bob said. “Take good care of ourselves in there. When this thing blows over we can go south. But right now Dad’ll be telegraphing to all that country below.”
“You aiming to jinx me Bob?” asked the Kid.
“You know me better than that,” said Bob.
“Do I?”
“Well if you don’t know me by now you never will,” said Bob.
We decided to go to old Mex. Later that afternoon Bob and I were riding abreast and the Kid and Harvey were riding up ahead.
Bob said, “Me jinxing him.”
“Forget it,” I said.
“What’s got into him?”
“Forget it Bob,” I said.
“It’s that Nika who’s jinxing him.”
“His luck was never better. Forget it Bob. Forget it,” I said.
*
It was still early afternoon when we had set out. We headed for the Rancho El Sur country, where we had often rustled cattle. It was not easy going. Up and down: even though we hugged the coast as much as we could. Up the shoulder of one golden hill and then down to a creek or a canyon; then up again, twisting, heading seaward, then inland, but always trying to strike south as nearly straight as we could. The sea was always there with us, or almost always, and it was never dead gray or dead blue but very blue or very green. When you saw it from high up it looked calm but when you saw it from beach level the heaving and the swells reminded you it was no lake you were looking at. The hills were on our left. In the hills there was plenty of game, also lion, bear and boar. We were always fording creeks and picking our way across canyons. I can remember some of the names—Wildcat, Malpaso, Joshua and Sierra creeks; Granite, Palo Colorado and Wi
ldcat canyons. We carried field glasses with which we surveyed the country ahead, the hills and canyons and the long beaches. And we kept checking the country behind us for any signs of a posse. But we were traveling fast, our horses were fresh and we had a good start and so we did not really think the posses would catch us.
When we hit the Rancho El Sur it made us sad to pass through it without taking something. It was one of those huge ranchos where it was no trick at all to help yourself. Lots of cattle lived and died without ever seeing a man and there were no fences. We would go in and cut out what we wanted and move north again, changing brands in one of the canyons. We could dispose of our haul with no trouble, our connections in this respect being of the best.
The Kid sang a lot as we rode along. I reckon he liked that country better than any he had ever known, although to tell the truth I don’t know exactly what other country he’d known. He never said much about his past and what he did say sounded as if he was kidding us. I heard it said that he was mixed up in the Lincoln County War, also in some of the Tombstone and Trinidad doings but I don’t know for sure. I even heard a story once that he was born in Boston, was sent to the House of Refuge as a child and bound out to a western farmer, from whom he escaped. But it sounds like bull to me.
The first part of the trip we did not cut inland but when we thought we might be approaching settlements we did, although we knew that nobody we might meet would know what had happened, because they did not have a telegraph line running down this stretch of coast for about a hundred and fifty miles, the line going down the valley road, the old Camino Real, and hitting the coast at around San Luis Obispo—the Bishop. Still, it would look funny, the Kid’s being on the loose. We figured that everybody round about would know that he was due to hang. But if we met somebody who wanted trouble we could give it to them. We were lugging a whole traveling armory. The horses were carrying a load and they knew it. We figured on getting fresh ones from friends all down the line or stealing what we needed.
The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones Page 7
