Billy the Kid (16 page)

Willie jumped up to gather the bedroll and his saddle, racing toward an overhang. He threw the gear under the rock shoulder, then ran again as lightning lit up the whole east side of the humpback. He pulled the Palouse under the slant, then tucked the bedroll and saddle deeper into it as the tentative spatters of cold smoking rain hit the rocks.

***

EIGHT MILES ON
to the west, on the downslope of the third range where it slid into Benediction Valley, lightning cracked savagely, reaching toward the minerals in the earth. Billy watched bolts strike three or four times in the long, narrow stand of pines. They were parched and dried from the summer's long heat.

Flames shot into the air and the cold storm wind fanned them, sending them north along the stand by the river, sweeping with a roar. Pine top after pine top exploded until the whole slope was a fiery mass. It cast a violent red scar on the slope beneath the boiling clouds.

Billy looked out at the slanting rain from his lee of cover on the second humpback. "Do it good," he said. Following him wouldn't be easy in this storm.

The miner's sorrel was several feet away. She was a wise horse and had barely reacted to the fierce jags of lightning that had preceded the sheets of rain. They'd made five miles up the mountain since leaving the shack, and before the deluge hit.

Billy remembered these wild autumn storms, with their rumbling, blasting fireworks. They usually didn't last too long but poured water like it had no end. Another month and he would have been in snow. He was glad, too, that he was out of the gorge. In an hour it would be a water-raging mill run.

As he watched the rain, he thought maybe his luck had changed. Tracks would be washed out. Willie, or any posse, would have to ford the stream. The downpour might hold them in position all night.

Billy gathered the blanket around him and pushed his head into the vee of the saddle.

The storm passed in two hours, leaving the mountains fresh and clean. Stars came out, and on the west slope by Benediction, the fire burned through the last of the pines, leaving glowing embers and three inches of gray-white ash over five hundred acres.

At dawn the still-smoking pines stood as helpless as charred cadavers, stripped of all green, mortally wounded, giant black fingers against the new clear sky.

"
CAME SNEAKIN' IN
here last night," the miner fumed. "Held a gun on me, an' took a week's supply o' grub. My horse, too. Left me that lame one. Ever I see him again, I'll pump him full of hot metal."

"I wouldn't recommend trying," Willie said, going over to Almanac, talking to him.

It was nearing ten o'clock.

He patted his horse, looking at him for damage. He examined the hoof. The shoe had been sheared off, and there was a nasty rock cut on the hock. Otherwise the gelding was all right. Nature would take care of the hoof. He patted Almanac's flank.

"This is my animal," he said. "I'll be back to get him in a week or so."

The miner cackled. "He stole the sheriff's horse?"

At the moment Willie failed to see the humor in that theft. "How did he ride out?"

"On down this canyon. There's a trail goin' up. Pick it up 'bout a mile down."

The sun was out full, turning the range golden. Mist came off the rain-swept rocks and seeped out of the arroyos. Sparse cedar and juniper on the slopes steamed as if they baked in the heating rays concentrated on them.

The stream had widened from about three feet to a good twelve, with white water cresting over the muddy flow. It roared through the gorge beneath the miner's shack.

"Can I ford it?" Willie asked.

The miner nodded. "Right opposite the trail. Shallow there. Gravel bar. Keep to this side o' the bank till you get there, though. Watch quicksand."

Willie swung back up into the saddle, taking another look at Almanac in the feeble corral, wishing once again he had the gelding's power beneath him. "Take care of that animal. I'll repay the grain."

He rode on off, hearing the miner's shout, "You shoot that damn horse thief, not my sorrel!"

Willie didn't bother to answer the grizzled man.

***

RIGHT SHOULDER BANDAGED
, Sam Pine was sitting up in bed. Kate stood at the end of it, face drawn and eyes red from lack of sleep.

"Can't you send more men back in there, Sam?"

The deputy shook his head. "Not unless he comes out and asks for them. Knowing Willie, and knowing why he wants to take Billy alone, I doubt if he will."

"Send them anyway," Kate said harshly.

Sam tried to placate her. "Kate, why don't you go on home and—"

She interrupted with cold fury. "Sam, why don't you go to hell?"

Sam was shocked. The women he thought well of never swore. And he'd never heard the former teacher swear before. He was speechless.

She stood staring at him. "If that shocks you, I'll really cut loose. I know all the words."

Sam cleared his throat. "Well, Wilson's posse will leave here tomorrow morning. Barnes is gettin' back on the train today. He'll lead it."

Moving toward the door, Kate said, "And it'll take them three days to catch up. All of you make me sick."

The door closed with a bang.

***

THE MINER'S SORREL
was sure-footed but too old for any speed. Billy had decided to pace her out for emergency and for the stretch across the desert. He'd picked his way up the second range without once touching spurs to her.

Although he'd looked back countless times, seeing nothing, Billy could almost feel the big man's presence on his tail, sitting high, somber, single-minded. He'd be coaxing a horse upward in a soft voice, eyes set on the terrain ahead, never even considering an ambush—which Billy had thought about, but only briefly. Winging him to put him out of action. A last resort.

Billy discounted any brilliant moves. Willie trying to circle out in front was almost an impossibility. The man could telegraph ahead to Nevada or California peace officers to set a trap, squeeze from both sides. But that wasn't Willie's method. Relentless plodding was, and it began to unnerve Billy.

About noon, near the razorback of the second range, Billy stopped to bind the sorrel's hooves with the squares of rawhide from Beckmann's. It didn't take long to finish the job. Then he led the weary mare thirty or forty feet.

The earth was turning softer and would get like flour once he was into the mesa ahead. Sharply defined shoe prints could draw a steady line to his neck. Billy looked back at the marks. Now there were only round depressions in his wake, easy enough to blot out. Once he'd heard about a man who had turned his horses' shoes backward to fool trackers. But this rawhide was simpler. He also hoped for more rain.

He walked the sorrel to where he'd started, broke a scrub pine branch off, remounted, then towed the branch behind the red-brown rump for almost a quarter of a mile.

Finally, heaving the branch away, he said softly, "That'll be enough to confuse you for a while, Deacon Monroe."

Then he reined up over the crest, chuckling. He did not laugh long. Not a quarter way down the mountain, the sorrel began showing her years and weakness.

***

WILLIE GOT DOWN
on his knees to search the earth on the trail. Then he walked a few hundred feet up it. There was no doubt that Billy had dragged a branch, because the twig marks were clearly on the ground. Yet there was not even a thin sign of shoes mixed under the wavering scratches.

Willie pondered a moment longer, thinking that Billy might have decided to leave the trail, breaking south along the range crest. He aimed the binoculars that way but picked up nothing except two grazing antelope. Puzzled, he mounted again and trotted on.

Soon the wavering branch marks ceased, and Willie looked down at a series of round depressions that led away up to the crest. Dismounting once more, he ran his fingers around the concave marks. Then it dawned on him. The rawhide! He laughed in admiration and climbed back on the Palouse, galloping the sturdy horse to the crest. At this point the grade was shallow.

Breaking over it, with the barren, dusty mesa suddenly spreading out before him, his eyes caught a slow-moving plume of dust midway across. It crept along. He adjusted the binoculars and saw Billy Bonney at last.

Willie murmured, "You should have stayed up high," then spurred off, sending the Palouse downslope.

***

IT WAS ABOUT ONE O'CLOCK
when Billy, just before dropping into the dry creek cut on the west side of the mesa, turned once again to look back. A stick of dust was streaking toward him, coming fast. A single cone of it. The distance was too far to pick him out, but the fact that it
was
a lone rider didn't leave much to guess.
Willie Monroe.

Staring at the low cone of shimmering dust, Billy lingered on the bluff of the cut, suddenly furious. Then he shouted in frustration, "Dumb mule-head! Go back! Don't make me kill you!"

The yellow inverted cone of dust came steadily onward.

Cursing, Billy angled down the loose sand mesa bank and plunged into the draw that sliced between it and the next low mountain range. The bed, cobble-stoned with rocks, led north and south, before a long curve took it in the direction of a canyon and on to the Benediction. Its ragged banks showed signs of wild torrents in the runoffs. But now it was a damp ghost creek.

Rounding a sharp bend to the north, Billy made a decision. The sorrel was too beat to run any appreciable way. She'd give up and fall to her knees at anything more than a slow trot; her heart would pop. There was nothing to do but hole up and hope that Willie would turn south.

If he did not turn south ... maybe a gunfight?

Billy leaped off and led the horse back up the mesa bank to a series of eroded sinks. He tied her off, then ripped out brush to place it along the sink edge, facing the creek, hiding his horse. Running back down to the bed, where the sorrel's depressions vanished into smooth round rocks, he began retracing his steps, using a branch to dust away the hoof and boot prints.

Satisfied that he'd covered them, he scrambled back into the sink and led the mare to the far edge, where short grass clumped. He hobbled her, then returned to the brush barricade on the outer edge. He settled down and sighted his Spencer into the bed, cocking it. He suddenly became aware of how tired he was. His deputy coat was dusty.

There was no sound except the buzzing of insects, the tiny clicks of lizards, and the light keening of breeze across the still mesa. The sorrel stood with lowered head, her coat glistening and foamed. He'd soon have to put her out of misery's grasp. He'd have to walk.

Since he first saw the dust cone and convinced himself it was Willie, Billy had not felt the heat. But now it seared him. The sink was like a furnace and the barrel of the Spencer was off a forge. Billy stared across the sink and down, through the web of brush. He took the coat off.

If he stops and turns and comes up the bank, shoot him carefully,
he told himself.
His right arm. No other place. Cripple him. Don't kill him. You can do that! You know how! Willie's no match with a gun.

He wiped sweat from his eyes and tried to swallow, but his mouth was sawdust dry.
Make yourself think he is someone else,
he told himself.
He is one of those poor Mexican rustlers down on Cudahy, wanting only enough meat for food.

Then Billy tried to clear his mind. There was that good ranch land outside of Durango. Fifty cents a hectare. He'd buy calves from Cudahy to get started. He wanted badly to swallow, but the mesa dust had dried up his saliva. He took a deep breath and waited. His left hand held the saddlebag, loot still inside.

The thud of hooves broke the stillness, and Billy tensed over the Spencer. Then he heard Willie's horse scuffling down the long bank. There was a moment of silence again, then the ring of iron on rocks as the horse slowly advanced up the cut.

God, he's coming this way,
Billy thought.

The ringing sound grew closer, and then Willie Monroe rounded the bend, leading the Appaloosa, dusted and tense, looking down for rocks that had been turned or scarred. He was putting his attention on the streambed, the rocks.

Billy held his breath and heard his own heart in his ears. He wiped the palm of his right hand, and then whisked at the sweat covering his forehead. It stung his eyes. He lowered the Spencer a notch, lining up the bead on the fleshy part of the upper arm. Thirty yards separated them. An easy shot!

Willie stopped, looking around, even peering suspiciously toward the sinks from beneath his hat brim. Billy could see the wide frown on his dusty face, but then made himself sharpen his eyes on the upper arm, unwilling to look at the face.

"Billy!" Sheriff Monroe shouted sharply.

The shout stayed lodged in the cut for a long time, then billowed up and echoed back.

The sheriff stood still. Billy had to think of him as any lawman, not someone he loved.

Impossible!
Billy lifted his eyes to stare at the old familiar face again. The big man shrank in size and dropped age, becoming ten years old, a sputtering boy with green cow dung on his face. Harmless.

Looking puzzled, Willie began moving again, going on up the tight cut, walking awkwardly on the cobblestones. Soon the sink edge blocked him from view. Now all Billy could hear was the iron clink of horse shoes and the lighter, flatter sound of leather heels on stone.

Sweat-drenched, Billy lowered his head to the stock, not certain there was any bone or muscle in his body. He rolled away from the gun position, slipping down, pulling the weapon with him, and then stayed motionless on his back, staring straight up into cloudless cobalt. He decided to run again.

He stayed in the sink until he was certain Willie had gone a long way up the creek cut, then he got up and went in the opposite direction.

***

WILLIE'S EYES LIFTED WEST
, across the moist, gray ash wastes of the pine stand. The burnt trees stretched all the way to the slow-moving green waters, down a long, gentle incline. Charred spicules with stunted skeletal arms, they were a dead army lined up for an assault on the river's life. He kept on looking for Billy.