Billy the Kid (17 page)

Soon Willie stared down at the miner's stolen mare. She was dead but still hot. Dried sweat matted the dust-covered hair. The bulging gray eyes were filled with pain and fright.

Willie looked at the shreds of rawhide on her hooves. They were somehow pathetic, and he winced. It was as much for Billy as for the mare.

Mounting up again, he pulled the Winchester from its scabbard to check the action, then turned the Palouse off in the direction of Billy's boots. They led toward the river, making oversized oblong slashes in the three-inch layer of wood ash.

Billy had been running! The slashes had that frantic, hunted look.

It was a hard thing to do—take a brave man when all his resources were gone. And no matter what people thought, Billy was brave. He hadn't sat by that dead horse, waiting for what was perhaps inevitable—his capture or death.

Eyes sweeping back and forth, looking ahead from trunk to trunk, Willie went down the slope carefully, following the gouges in the black-flecked ash snow.

He reached the bank edge and angled south for more than a mile, keeping well back from the lip. He'd been thinking Billy would head that way along it. Downriver, he knew, twenty miles or so, were cattle ranches where a horse could be obtained, one way or another. Food and water, too. The other directions, across the valley and north, would take him into the desert on foot—and sure death.

Willie stopped and tied the Palouse off to a charred sapling, then drew his binoculars out and lifted the Winchester from its case. Carrying the rifle, he moved cautiously to the rim. At this point the bank was thirty or forty feet above the river. It afforded a lookout, one that might let him see Billy walking toward him.

Sprawling down he had no more than put the glasses to his eyes when he saw Billy about a thousand yards away, slogging tiredly but steadily along. His boots were dusted with gray ash almost to his knees. It was caked over his shirt and pants. But he'd washed most of it off his face in the river water. The saddlebag was draped over his left shoulder; he carried the Spencer loosely in his right hand. His steps were slow and lifeless. Yet oddly determined.

Willie put the glasses down, feeling ill, wrestling with the temptation to crawl silently away, to get on the Palouse and ride slowly back to Polkton.
Billy escaped; that was all,
he'd say. And the whole damn county was welcome to take his badge. He remounted.

Kate had been right; Big Eye had been right.
Let him get away!

But then he shook his head and sighed. It was too late to back out. Why had he tracked him eighty miles? He couldn't walk away now.

He reached for the Winchester, cocked it, and settled down with it. He waited until Billy was in the clear, about twenty-five yards away, then squeezed the trigger. The echo bounced off the river walls. It had that
va-loom, va-loom
quality and went for miles.

Sand spurted a few inches from Billy's boots, and he started to run but realized there was no cover within twenty feet. He stopped and looked up at the high bank as his old friend shouted, "Billy, the next one's in your head. You've got no place to go."

Billy stood still, eyes sweeping the riverbank, squinting along each foot of it.

Willie yelled again. "Drop that rifle into the river. Then the gun belt."

Billy was still trying to pinpoint his position, and Willie knew it. He saw Billy's rifle barrel begin to slowly angle up. He heard Billy's voice: "You're sure a persistent sonuvabitch."

Willie fired. Sand flew up between Billy's feet. He yelled frantically, "Hey, watch that thing. You can't shoot that well."

"Toss it in!" Willie shouted.

Billy shook his head in disgust but flipped the Spencer. It splashed and went under.

"Now the gun belt."

"These are good guns, Willie." There was anguish in Billy's voice. But he unhitched the belt and tossed it. The fancy .44s went in. Then his hands rose slowly. "It'll take me a week to clean 'em. Where are you up there?"

Same old unshakable Billy,
Willie thought.
He'd smoke in a powder bunker.
"I'm comin' down!" Willie yelled.

"How'd you find me back here?"

Mounting up, beginning to move, Willie shouted, "Wasn't easy! You're gettin' tricky. Puttin' that rawhide on."

Billy laughed, then looked up and down the river, knowing Willie had lost sight of him. He could hear Willie braking down the bank. Brush was snapping and the horse was kicking dirt.

Billy shouted toward the noise, "Sorry I broke up your trip to Phoenix! Tell Kate." At the same moment, he edged toward the saddlebag, hands still in the air. He used a toe to lift the flap open. His eyes were intense as he looked at the spare six-gun, listening to Willie's answer: "We have to go back. You sure messed things up in Polkton."

Billy grabbed the six-gun and ran for the cover of a bankside boulder, scooping up the saddlebag. "I didn't have much to gain. Ask Pete Wilson."

He saw Willie's hat bob above the brush a few feet from the river's edge. Crouching behind the boulder, Billy kept up the chatter. "Ought to get some civilization in this country. Hang men by their feet 'stead o' their necks." Then Billy laughed.

Willie slid the last few feet to the river floor and looked north.

Billy was gone.

Willie shouted angrily, "Come on, Billy. We can't play games now. You got nothin' to shoot with, an' if I got to knock you out, I can do it. You couldn't fight your way out of a straw basket." On foot he began to move forward, holding the Winchester at alert.

As he passed the boulder, putting his back to it, he heard Billy's voice. It was quiet but full of warning. "Willie, don't turn around. Just drop the rifle."

Willie turned his head. He saw Billy's gun pointed between his eyes. He was dumbfounded. "Where'd you get that?"

Billy laughed softly. "How they ever elected you sheriff? I got it from your deputy."

"As you said," Willie sighed. "I'm persistent."

He dropped the rifle to the bank, then unhooked his gun belt, suddenly feeling a tremendous weight off him. He'd tried as hard as any mortal could to take Billy. He hadn't succeeded. Now let Wilson send his posse to hell and gone.

Billy bent down to scoop up the gun belt, strapping it on with one hand. Then he reached for Willie's Winchester. "All I want is your horse."

Willie's laugh had a hopeless texture. "I'm findin' you pretty hard on horses." But he felt solid relief. He could go up and sit by that expired sorrel mare and his saddle until the posse came. The scene would tell its own story. He'd sleep for two days. By then Billy would be so deep in the desert....

Billy smiled. "How 'bout comin' with me?"

"What'll we do? Leave Kate and buy another ranch?"

"Yeh, why not?" Billy grinned. "But we can't leave Kate."

Downriver a rifle barked in mysterious attack. The Palouse whinnied fright and pain, then plunged into the green water, trailing red. It wobbled sideways in shock, splashing, then charged out again in wild panic. The rifle boomed. The horse shivered, going down on its forelegs in a praying position.

Billy and the sheriff bounded behind the boulder as a bullet skimmed off it from upriver.

Awestruck, Billy blurted, "What in the...?" and winged a shot in that direction in pure reflex, twisting back as a rifle popped downriver, notching the rock above his head.

"Both ways," Willie shouted—stunned at the continuous attack.

They scrambled up the bank to get out of the crossfire, Billy carrying his saddlebag. Boots raising white spurts, they dodged into the black sticks of burnt pines.

Then quiet settled.

BEHIND A CHARRED TRUNK
, Billy breathed out accusingly, "What's that all about?" He pushed the Winchester to Willie.

Willie frowned toward the Benediction banks, upriver, catching his wind. First he thought of Wilson, then of Clem Bates, then of Cole and Dobbs and the Polkton wolf pack. "A posse, maybe." He yelled out to his attackers, "Who is it?"

Only the Benediction's gurgle answered.

"This is Sheriff Monroe..."

Art's voice rose out of the river hollow like a banshee call. "Billy Bonn-e-e-e-e..."

Billy listened to the fading echo in complete disbelief, then slowly rotated his head to Willie. His laugh was weak and dry. "That's no posse, Willie."

"Well, who the hell are they? Why are they shootin'?"

Billy sighed. "Those friends you asked me about."

"The Williamses?"

Billy nodded with chagrin, almost apologetically, as another slug lifted ash near the trunk. It ricocheted to pick up a puff sixty feet away. "Used to call themselves Smith. They gave me some money. Now, I guess, they want it back."

Willie scanned the fire-ravaged, ash-snowed slope. Except for the heavier trunks, there was no protection. It was studded with sooted rocks, but none were more than a foot high. There was no protection at the far edge of the stand. The land simply sloped up to the low mountain crest. The knee-high brush there couldn't stop bird shot. He felt Billy's nudge and turned his head.

At each end of the pine stand, men were dismounting. TWo to the south, two to the north. They scurried behind trunks. Willie lifted the Winchester and rapped a shot downriver toward a fleeting form.

Billy thought he saw Perry's hulk.

"Better not waste 'em," Billy said tensely. He pulled Sam Pine's gun from his waist, passing it over.

Downriver, Art yelled again. He wasn't visible, but his voice floated over the ash wastes. "Sheriff, send Billy Bonney out with his hands up. You can ride back to Polkton. Make sure that saddlebag comes out with Bonney."

Willie said to Billy, "That's an interesting proposition."

Billy shouted to Art, "I like it out here. But I need company."

After a moment Art shouted, "Billy, we got you cornered."

"Well, come in an' git us then," Billy answered.

Willie nodded toward two tall trunks that were about forty feet away, separated by eight or ten feet. They had girth, enough to tuck shoulders and head behind without exposing rump.

Billy returned the nod. "Take the one to the left. I got the Williamses on this side."

Willie checked the load in Sam's gun. Two shots were gone. "You deserve 'em," he said. "Got any .70s in that bag?"

Billy shook his head. "Just for the Spencer. Pretty smart o' you to make me toss it in the river."

Willie replied with an apologetic shrug. "See you later," he murmured, sprinting for the trunk, seeing Billy move out of the corner of his eye. Rifles crashed from both ends, filling the air with char chunks.

He made it to the trunk and saw Billy pull up at his. Then a voice cut across the spicules from the north. "Let me know when you're ready, Art." A hacking cough drifted behind it.

Willie furrowed his forehead.
Dobbs? Yes, by god, Dobbs!
His shoulder suddenly itched in that curious psychology of a once-hurt animal. Then a feeling of grim satisfaction coursed through him. "This trip might be worth it, after all." Rid the earth of Dobbs.

"Glad you think so," Billy said.

Willie threw a glance at Billy. He was hugging the trunk, the .45 extended.

"By grannies, let's go, boys!" came Art's yell.

Bodies began to move on each end of the stand, forms that darted soundlessly across the bed of ashes from trunk to trunk.

Willie strained his eyes upriver over the Winchester. One man seemed to be moving straight-line forward; another was angling upslope for a position. If they got into it, they'd have a partial cross fire. Willie shifted the .70 and shot at the zagging figure angling toward the crest, away from Benediction waters. The man stopped behind a trunk.

Then Willie saw the skinny frame of Dobbs dart from cover to cover, straight on. Willie moved around the trunk. From up the slope, there was a pop, then wood exploded over his head, spattering blackened sap into his face. He moved back again.

Billy hadn't fired.

Willie said, "Why'd you have to come to the Benediction, you idiot?"

Billy was watching downriver. "I'd bet this was once a picnic ground." He stepped away from the pine and his .45 roared. There was a yell down the stand—the yell of a man blown open.

They heard Art shout anxiously, "Perry?" Perry was no longer alive.

Billy jumped to cover again. "I think I got that big bastard. What's one from four?"

"Used, to be three," Willie rasped, seeing Dobbs plunge between two trees about fifty feet away.

Willie rammed Sam Pine's gun into his waist at the navel, wet his finger, and tapped the Winchester barrel in a marksman's routine. "I hope I'm gonna bring it down to two."

With a contained snarl, he jumped out from behind the trunk and ran twenty feet, keeping his eyes locked on the twin trunks ahead. Then he dropped into the ash as Dobbs stepped out and fired. Willie had already yanked on the Winchester trigger and saw Dobbs's feet leave the ground. The hit man went back spread-eagled like a man falling from a tree, wood ash splattering up as his shoulder blades hit it.

Willie was up again, running, as Kelcey, on a high angle now, slammed four shots that took out wood and whined dead into the Benediction.

Willie rolled and hit the ash blanket beside Dobbs. He was sticky red from his belly to his chin. Dobbs's mouth was open, and he sucked for air with a guttural sound. Blood began to trickle out of it, and pink foam bubbles blew at his nostrils. The dying man's narrow face was sprinkled with ash.

Willie placed the Winchester barrel against Dobbs's temple. Even an almost-dead man understands a steel hole.

"Cole pay you to kill me?"

Dobbs turned foggy eyes to Willie. With a whimper he nodded.

"Did Wilson have a land deal with Cole?"

"I ... don't..." The rest was a red wet sigh, and Dobbs relaxed completely.

Willie looked up the slope but couldn't see the rifleman. He rolled away from Dobbs's body and stood up, ducking behind a trunk. There was no movement on the upper slope. He looked downriver.

Billy was still standing in the same position by his trunk, biding his time It suddenly struck Willie that Billy, at this moment, was as nerveless as the charred bark beside him. Billy had lit up, and was puffing fatalistically. He called over casually, "You git that feller?"