Billy the Kid (6 page)

Willie muttered a thanks, almost feeling the thought processes in Wilson's mind—how to make this pay off. The lawyer's eyes were narrow and curtained.

Lapham tried to break the tension. "Pete, this is shocking news. Billy is only nineteen. You've got to understand about Billy and Willis."

The DA replied softly and victoriously, "I want to talk to some of the witnesses myself." He turned, starting for the stairs and his second-floor office.

Lapham called toward Wilson's back. "I'll be up in a while."

Willie was grateful for the old man's show of support. But then, he wouldn't have expected anything else from Jack Lapham. Watching the crowd disappear, Willie asked, in a monotone, "How did they ride out, Sam? Pook didn't tell me much."

"South. Four of them."

Lapham nodded in agreement, and then laughed hollowly. "You might have known Billy would pose as a deputy. Always did have a flair for the dramatic. Maybe he should have been an actor? He rode the train up from Wickenburg, Willis. Had everybody in his car turn over guns and valuables. Even got a banker to help him. Doesn't that sound like Billy? In that serge coat he even looked like a young deputy."

It did, Willie agreed, but he didn't indicate it. He examined Lapham's parchment face again, hoping for doubts. "Are you sure?"

"Sure as the sun came up this morning! I saw his face; saw him sitting that horse like they were part of the same flesh. Then I talked to the banker who helped him. He described Billy right down to the devil's lights in his eyes. Said he had a tongue like melted honey."

Willie sighed deeply and nodded.
Yep, Billy Bonney!
He turned back to Pook Pine. "Take Almanac round to the stable, will you? I'll need him soon."

The boy was pleased to serve.

Then Willie moved up the steps, dejectedly heading for his office. Pine and Lapham tagged along. Over his shoulder Willie said, "Whoever they are, they're likely headed for Mexico, just like the last bunch."

Pine responded, "I thought that right off."

Lapham came to a halt just inside the door as Willie went on over to his desk.

Lapham said, "Make an enemy of Pete Wilson, you've got one for life."

Willie glanced around. "That's the understatement of this rotten year."

Lapham laughed drily. "Politics, Willis! That's something you'll have to learn about this job. You will! It's just not chasin' outlaws."

"Not me. Anyone wants it can have it. Exceptin' Earl Cole."

Lapham came to rest by Sam's desk as the deputy sat down and began gathering the witness statements.

Lapham said, "I've known you a long time, Willis. I knew your father. And I've known Billy since he was knee-high. He was always a handful. Now he's turned outlaw." He shook his head.

Willie glanced up at the photos on the wall behind his desk. There was one of the swearing-in; one of himself and Kate; one of Billy and himself, arms affectionately draped over each other's shoulders after he'd bought the Double W; one of Billy grinning and holding a gunfighter pose, a souvenir of a turkey shoot at Placerita.

Lapham went on apologetically, "I'm very sad about this, Willis. Sad that I had to be the one to identify Billy."

"So am I" said Willie, mettle in his voice.

Lapham said, "I'll go now. Good luck. If you find him, try not to say it was me."

Willie swung his gaze back toward Lapham. "Maybe it was somebody that looked very much like Billy," he said hollowly.

The lawyer half nodded and exited.

Watching him go but thinking only of Billy, Willie muttered, "Dumb sonuvabitch." Kate hadn't stopped his cussing, though he never did it in front of her.

Smart and canny, but dumb, too, Billy was at least two people in one skin. He was laughing, charming, talkative; then he was tricky as a wild horse, capable of exploding with raw violence. Billy had never made up his mind which person he wanted to be, Willie often thought.
But now—robbing trains?

Willie moved to the gun locker to lift out a Winchester, then back to his desk to lay the .70 across it. He heard Pine asking, "You want me to go after him? We can't wait for Barnes."

Willie turned to stare at his deputy. "
Him?
You told me there were four of them." He paused, still unable to accept it. "If it is Billy, I..."

Sam said softly, "I made the offer."

His shake of head was slight. "No, Sam, I don't want you to go after him. You might come back in a wagon bed."

"He's that good?" Sam asked. Sam had been brought up from Phoenix three years before to be Metcalf's deputy, just before Metcalf was bushwhacked. He'd never met Billy.

Willie laughed feebly and broke the Winchester down to load it. In his memory was one afternoon on the outskirts of Greeley when Billy shot three times at a poster nailed to a tree. The shots had come so fast, they made a continuous sound. Willie had thought the bullets went wild until Billy said, with a curious smile, "Look at the nail." It had been driven in. A tap of the poster, and it drifted to the ground.

Willie murmured, "He's good, Sam. Very good."

Pine was thoughtful a moment, then nodded at the Winchester. "What'll happen when you get a sight on him? Kinda hard to shoot family, I imagine."

"
Them
, dammit!" Willie stormed, losing his temper for the second time in the afternoon.

"Them," Sam repeated, realizing the pressure.

Willie cooled off instantly. "I don't know. He's unpredictable Who'd think he'd ever stop a train? Anyway, he just won't roll over."

Sam nodded reflectively, then asked, "What can I do?"

"Load me four days of supplies on a mule. I'll get some trackers from Kumquikit. No dogs this time. I'll ride back this way."

Sam nodded again and put on his specs to spend ten minutes reading the witness statements out loud while Willie moved restlessly around the office, listening and frowning. He noticed there wasn't much difference in any of the descriptions of Billy. The husky, shackled robber on the train with Billy didn't ring a bell from past robberies. Neither did the two masked men. They were likely from outside of Arizona.

Sam finished by asking, "That sound like Billy?"

"Yeh."

"Any guesses why he did it?"

"Not for kicks. Grayson said they got over twelve thousand. Split that four ways. Not bad for an hour's work."

Sam watched as the tall man dropped two extra boxes of the .70 grain loads into the flap of his saddlebag, lifted a worn and scarred leather jacket off a chair—the Verdes night would be chill—and then scooped the Winchester up.

He went out without further talk.

***

IN PETE WILSON'S OFFICE
a little later, Earl Cole said, "This ought to do Monroe in."

Wilson replied, "That's what you said last time."

"People around here aren't going to stand for three train robberies. Two were one too many. Monroe's a goner, I tell you, Pete."

The prosecuting attorney stared at the big rancher. "You couldn't beat him in the election. I think you tried to have him killed. Your man, Dobbs. That's just a guess, Earl..."

"You guessed wrong. I'll get him out of that office fair an' square."

Wilson laughed. "How do you intend to do that?"

"I'm organizing a freelance posse tonight to find and kill Billy Bonney. We'll ride early in the morning."

"Good luck," Wilson said.

THE FOUR RIDERS,
Billy now in the lead, picked their way down the narrow old Apache trail as the sun began to turn the pines into long dark fingers. The sky was deepening to the east. They'd stopped to count the loot, twelve thousand in cash and maybe a thousand in jewelry.

Billy felt good. It was over and he'd never do it again. Never. No one had been shot. He felt no particular guilt. His share would come to about three thousand plus a few hundred in jewelry, enough to buy some grazing land.

The late afternoon high-country breeze was sailing across the slopes, cooling rapidly, holding sweat down on men and horses. After they left Dunbar's Rocks, it would be hot riding through the rugged mesa and desert land, and he was all for tackling it at night. But he thought he'd bring that up when they got to the rocks.

Letting his big bay feel its own way down the little-used trail, Billy viewed the countryside with deep pleasure. He'd missed it very much in Mexico and along the heat-lashed border. He swayed with the forward motion of the saddle, sitting liquid, listening to the jingles and creak of leather behind him, the harsh breathing of the horses.

The mountains undulated ahead, growing hazy where they dipped into valleys. Head bobbing, he gazed at the mesquite ridges and flats, the sharp canyons that stretched almost endlessly to the horizon, which was becoming shadowy. It was land to make a man humble, he thought.

Earlier, Billy had been uncomfortable about riding the lead, his back an easy target for either Joe or Perry. Or the old man, for that matter; he seemed to favor shotguns.

But then he reasoned they'd never find Dunbar's, where the fresh horses were waiting, without him. The massive rocks were a good two miles off the trail, pretty much hidden by a pair of sandstone shoulders. Billy knew them well. Easily they'd get to them by sundown, or before.

Art yelled harshly from behind, "Let's git some speed on, Billy Boy. It's three days to the border."

Billy shouted back, without turning, "You afraid of a lil' ol' posse, Art? Man with your experience? Rest your fears! The sheriff in Polkton mus' be seventy now. Weary ol' man. Phil Metcalf. Never was much of a sheriff. Couldn't catch rain in a storm." Then Billy laughed at his own words.

The laughter echoed across the mountains.

Art yelled angrily, "This ain't no joke we're on, Billy Boy, although you been actin' like it. Git goin', man."

***

WILLIE TROTTED ALMANAC
toward the Yavapai village, deep in thoughts of Billy Bonney. He boiled at his cousin, yet he also felt a growing, gnawing remorse.

He knew Billy's constant need for funds. Of certainty, Billy had long ago gambled away any cash from the Cudahy people. He wasn't good at cards. Or he'd spent It on any pretty female face and receptive eyes that maneuvered by. Dollars flew from his pockets like flushed quail, and pride wouldn't let him ask any man for another stake.

So perhaps Pete Wilson had been right about the trouble at El Paso, Willie reluctantly decided. If Billy was desperate for cash, who knew what he'd do.

There were so many memories; he and Billy went back so far. The memories kept creeping out. After all, they'd grown up together.
People will have to understand that now,
Willie thought. It would be no blood hunt. He wanted Billy alive for a fair trial.

The wagon road toward the Yavapai wickiups wound down from Polkton plateau through grazing land, skirting a bend of the Tuscum River for a ways. There seemed to be reminders at every mile that fell under Almanac's loping hooves, like the white school building they'd both attended on the outskirts of town. Glancing at it, he could almost hear Billy's panicked cry of "Hey, Willie!" and feel himself launch toward the backs of four boys about to pound sap out of Mrs. Bonney's only son. The kid had never been very good with his fists.

The serene Tuscum, the color of creamed coffee and willow-snagged, brought back another sharp memory. His throat caught. Off and on, over the years, he'd thought about that one beautiful summer afternoon. Billy had been nine or ten. They'd been swimming, buck naked, in a muddy creek.

On the slick bank, Billy had shouted, "Willie, lookit me, I'm a goldurned frog," then hit the water in a splatting belly bust.

As Billy's grinning face broke surface, Willie had said, "Billy, frogs don't belly bust like that."

Billy's head went under and came up again, spurting a stream. "Then I'm a goldurned fountain, a-spittin' at the world."

That was always his problem, Willie believed: spitting at the world. Always, it seemed, the world just spit back. It was a wonder Billy even was still alive.

Yet, in all probability, Willie knew, if Kate Mills hadn't come along, they'd both still be ranching above Tuckamore Creek, taking weekly runs through Saloon Row, where Billy in his cups would inevitably take on a miner, then need rescue.

Kate had been the turning point. Billy had finally viewed her as a plague come to visit. No man in his right mind got married until he was forty, Billy had declared.

Willie remembered the wedding morning when Billy, as sullen best man, flipped the ring as if it were a coin toss. Then he'd gone away on a week's drunk. Returning, he moped around another week, finally to say, "I'm headed to Mexico."

And that's how they'd parted.

Much later Willie had thought about Billy's departure and suspected that Billy had fallen in love with Kate Mills. As a seventeen-year-old bride, she'd been closer in age to Billy.

Willie rode steadily on toward the hogans in shallowing light, the palomino dipping his head to grab at grass that curled over the wagon ruts in places.

Whatever their memories, whatever their bond, Willie knew he'd have to get Billy and bring him back if it was humanly possible. It wasn't in his makeup to do anything else. And that was something Billy would have to understand. Then it occurred to him for the first time that Billy didn't know he'd pinned on a star.

Willie grunted hopelessly and upped the horse to a gallop.

***

AS IT TURNED TWILIGHT
, Willie said to Kumquikit, the venerable elder of the local Yavapais, "Not six. Four trackers on the best horses you've got." He held up four fingers because the old man didn't hear too well. "Two dollars a day and grub."

The Apaches had better trackers, but it would have taken him another six hours to round them up. He'd used the Yavapais once before.

Kumquikit shrewdly kept his face a blank.

Willie repeated himself. Several of the Indians had lit pine-knot torches that cast a mellow glow in front of the hogans. Several women peered out, bashful children at their knees.

Finally the old man said stolidly, "Three dollar."