Lucky Billy (17 page)

***

MARCH
6.
FRED AND BILLY
saddled up. Acting on a tip that one, maybe two, of the murderers they sought were down on the Pecos near the Peñasco, they rode out of town with Dick Brewer and the others, their number now swelled to eleven. Only Rob Widenmann stayed back in Lincoln, to hold down the fort. Fred was last in line—he ate dust. Past the stubble of cornfields, under spreading box elders and walnuts and cottonwoods that in summer created an overhead canopy blocking the sun—in March, though, they spidered the gray cloudy sky with ominous black scrawls—they rode east on the Lincoln-Roswell road and, from the rear, Fred noticed up ahead what appeared to be a snow squall. Then he saw that in passing the old Valencia ranch one of their number had taken out his skinner and ripped open some featherbeds set out to air across the fence. It was Charlie Bowdre. He spun around on his pony and raised the knife and the whole gang whooped, for this seemed quite the show. Charlie had his tail up, all of them did, he'd caught a whiff of blood, and even if it was only featherbeds, his zeal had impelled him to air out some innards. When they'd all but passed except for stolid Fred, a woman ran out of the house behind the fence, screaming in Spanish and waving her arms, to retrieve her maimed bedding.

They rode down to the Hondo, following the canyon descending through the foothills, rode until their horses were in a perfect foam and they had to stop and breathe them. The yellow-brown hills gave out at this point to a treeless plain beneath high cirrus clouds running clear to the Pecos, forty miles away. Fred imagined their prey in the unsubmissive distance seeking out their holes in apprehension of a scrape. Here come the Regulators, he thought—for that's what they called themselves, Regulators of the Law—watch out, here we come! Oh, we are ferocious. Our boss is Dick Brewer, we chose him ourselves, because he is of irreproachable character; because his good looks are the fame of the county; because his name to us is a tube of paint out of which squeeze only the truest colors; and best of all, because he'll clean your fucking plows. We are not just a duly authorized posse with a special constable, although we are that, we're a vigilance committee, we have elected officers and each of us has taken an iron-clad oath not to tattle on the others or give away our operations. We call ourselves Regulators, also Iron-Clads, but you can nominate us your ticket to hell—eleven men united by a penchant to hang lofty trees with assorted body parts.

Regulators, he thought. It sounded important. When you stopped to think about it, what exciting work this was. To know you might die in its performance only improved your flagging concentration. It's exciting to get discountenanced, abused, thrown in jail, shot at, ambushed, hung, dismembered, isn't it?—to ride around all day with a target on your back, to check all the locks, sleep with your guns. Probably the world cried out for regulating, Fred wasn't sure. For one thing, the law ought to take care of that. But the law itself could use the same medicine. The law was too patient.

Back in Lincoln, Fred knew, Macky Sween had fled. He was living in the mountains. Because the other side, too, had resorted to law and obtained an alias warrant against the lawyer for his failure to post bond on charges of embezzlement. If Mac had not departed, Sheriff Brady would have nabbed him and forced him to stew in Lincoln's underground jail for six or seven weeks until the court's spring term. And once in that jail, Fred was certain, Brady would have called in cutthroat Jesse Evans to do his part. Yet, Brady too had been arrested, by Constable Martínez, for stealing hay from Tunstall's corral to feed the Englishman's horses that Brady had attached, or so McSween claimed. He'd been forced to post bond, much to the Regulators' joy. And with the help of a military escort, Rob Widenmann had ransacked Dolan's store searching for Harry's murderers and when he couldn't find them he marched up the street, Lieutenant Goodwin and his platoon in tow, and entered Tunstall's store and routed the Dolanites with their ladders and clipboards, still attaching the merchandise. He reoccupied the store for the Tunstall-McSweens and launched his own inventory to see how much they'd stolen and made preparations to fortify the place.

So the law was on our side, thought Fred, eating some jerky as they remounted. The law was on both of our sides, he thought again, a notion that impelled him to both scowl and smile while nodding his head. They'd decided at this point to cut southeast across the plains instead of going straight to Roswell then turning south. Their way looked flat from here but all of them knew there were swells and declivities that would fatigue their horses. Nonetheless, they'd save time. It comforted Fred to think they were being rational despite the blood in their eyes, and that the law was on their side. But if the law was on Dolan's side, too, where did that leave the law? The law, Fred supposed, had always been a crafty stallion you had to break before you rode it. The law, it appeared, did not reflect what was right. If it did, one side would be the good citizens, the other the scofflaws, and you'd have moral clarity. Instead, what was right was what the law said, and both sides were right, and the way to break the law was to do whatever you damn well pleased; and the way to obey it was to be guilty.

Late that afternoon they spotted some men at the mouth of the Peñasco and fired their first rounds. The Kid identified Billy Morton and Frank Baker and three more he only spottily knew racing for their horses and splashing through the Peñasco and flying south on the road alongside the Pecos. Two men split off—of no interest to the posse—and the Regulators chased Morton, Baker, and a third, Dick Lloyd, and a hundred shots were fired—Billy knew, he counted, counting calmed him down—before Lloyd's horse collapsed. They sped right past Lloyd, Lloyd was small potatoes, and pursued Billy Morton, the one who'd killed Tunstall, the one who'd leg-pulled the Kid about his new name, the one who'd mouth-lashed him last year at a cow camp for trying to steal his girl. In a thick stand of bulrushes and rivercane, Morton and Baker tried to lose themselves, but the river was behind them, they had nowhere to go. "Save your powder, boys," Dick Brewer said, dismounting and pulling out his sulphur matches. He set the dry tule on fire.

Smoke billowed. Brewer posted watches at either end of this alluvial thicket where the Pecos goosenecked. As they waited, the Kid dismounted and paced, kicked at the dirt, doffed his hat. I'm on the prod, he thought. My high brow and black Irish eyes are disordered by ire, I don't look pretty anymore. I'm a city boy who's become a stump jumper, I wear an ugly sneer! When Morton and Baker finally broke through the brush, rubbing their eyes and coughing and staggering while trying to raise their arms, Billy threw down on them and cocked his Colt's Thunderer, though it was a self-cocker. But Dick Brewer ordered him to ease the hammer back. "Hell," said the Kid, "let's finish them now." No one spoke. Brewer relieved the two men of their weapons. Morton looked cowed; with his undercooked face, he looked like a baby-cheeked blue-eyed little boy who didn't want to piss his pants. Frank Baker, on the other hand, loured at everyone with his beetling brows and enormous nose and mouth and small ears and slanted brow and hairy hands and neck. His very appearance invited them to kill him. Billy felt he could easily grant the request but Brewer spoke up. "I would have preferred that we shot it out, you cowards," Dick told the two. "But we've taken you alive and that's that."

***

ALL THE FOLLOWING DAY
, and the day after that, as they trotted up the Pecos with the prisoners in front, Billy boiled with indignation. Justice isn't justice, he thought, if you have only a taste; you've got to eat the whole pie. Bill McCloskey joined them at one of the cow camps they passed. Just two weeks ago, before Tunstall's murder, McCloskey was part of the crew at Tunstall's ranch, but he'd also been friends with Billy Morton, everyone knew that. You had to wonder what he was doing here, the Kid observed to Fred, as they rode north. Which side was McCloskey on?

Fred shrugged. Familiar ring to this question. "He's keeping an eye on us. Throwing in with his friend."

"We could disarm him."

Frank McNab, a Regulator riding on the other side of Fred, turned away and spat a long snake of tobacco juice; it balled in the dust. He was lanky and long-chinned, with a pinched, corky mouth, a high reedy voice, and a sweet or sour face, depending on the provocation. His friends had learned to beware of the sweetness. "Disarm him, hell," he said, looking back. "Just shoot the damned traitor."

When they pulled into Roswell, Billy said to Dick Brewer, "We ought to kill them today. They're just eating our food."

"I'm a constable now. I've got a job to do."

"What jail will you put them in?"

"The only one in Lincoln."

"Then you can be sure the sheriff will release them."

"In that case I'll rearrest them. Maybe next time they'd prefer to shoot it out."

"We could shoot it out now."

Tall in his saddle, straight as a snubbing post, Dick shrugged and looked away.

Morton and Baker must have heard this exchange, as Billy Morton asked permission to write a letter to his cousin. Where's your cousin? asked Brewer. In Virginia. He was educated, Morton, as the Kid knew, his family was actually Richmond blue blood. Brewer said he could write it if they read it over first, so at the P.O. in Roswell Morton asked for pen and paper, and Brewer, the Kid, and Fred read his letter, and Brewer gave him permission to mail it—for all the good it would do him, Billy thought.

Roswell, New Mexico
March 8, 1878

H. H. Marshall
Richmond, Virginia

Dear cousin Henry,

The 6th of March I was arrested by a Constable party-accused of the murder of Tunstall. Nearly all the sheriff's party fired at him and it is impossible for any one to say who killed him. When the party which came to arrest me and one man who was with me first saw us about one hundred yards distant we started in another direction when they (eleven in number) fired nearly one hundred shots at us. We ran about five miles when both of our horses fell and we made a stand when they came up they told us if we would give up they would not harm us; after talking awhile we gave up our arms and were made prisoners. There was one man in the party who wanted to kill me after I had surrendered, and was restrained with the greatest difficulty by others of the party. The constable himself said he was sorry we gave up as he had not wished to take us alive. We arrived here last night en route to Lincoln. I have heard that we were not to be taken alive to that place. I am not at all afraid of their killing me, but if they should do so I wish that the matter should be investigated and the parties dealt with according to law. If you do not hear from me in four days after receipt of this I would like you to make inquiries about the affair.

Your cousin Billy

They rode out of Roswell on a cold blue day a little past noon. Morton kept saying it wasn't just him, it was the whole damn crew that had killed Mr. Tunstall. But Billy Bonney knew better: the other Dolanites had scattered Tunstall's friends while Morton-Evans'n-Hill accosted the Englishman.

Frost on the ground. The earth crepitated beneath their mounts' hooves. The fine ash and powder of frozen winter growth along the edge of the road bleached its shoulders white. The road itself was muck-skinned with ice beneath the hard mud. Yet the sun burned their necks.

Ten miles west of Roswell they turned up a trail to Blackwater Draw, the army's shortcut to Fort Stanton. It bypassed Lincoln but you could double-back to town along the Bonito. The Kid wondered why they were taking this route and caught up with Brewer. "If the Dolanites send a rescue party out from Lincoln, they'll miss us," Dick explained.

And if we kill Morton and Baker, no one will hear the gunshots.

Billy kept his trap shut. He felt jumpy, alert. The solution to jitters was anger, he knew, anger always whipped fear. He, as Fred had, thought of the law—and of justice, what is justice? The question had festered since McSween raised it. Justice was when you did unto others what they did unto you. You paid them back in kind. Can the law do that? The law is too big even for its own britches. The law is a coat that fits all sizes so fits no one at all. It has too many buttons. The law had deputized them, issued their warrants, and restrained Dick Brewer, yet it had failed to restrain the other side. Alexander McSween believed in the law but he'd run off from an alias writ. Sometimes the only go was to tear off the law, pop all its buttons. The law had no feelings—it was cold as to justice. When you got your mad up the last thing you wished to have in your hand was a goddamn law book. And Billy was mad, he was so full of mad he felt seared of himself. He was trembling, he noticed, and tried to calm down. At the same time, he thought, surprising himself, he was making distinctions. Distinctions are important. I'm making a distinction between the law and justice. I le laughed out loud.

Beside him, Fred glanced at his friend and smiled.

Those men, including Morton, didn't just kill Mr. Tunstall, they shot him off his horse, grabbed his own gun, put two bullets in the dying man's head, and for good measure bashed in his skull. They covered Mr. Tunstall, a respectable man, a man with polish, with his sweaty horse blanket. They stole his saddle. They shot his horse, too, and stuffed the Englishman's California hat beneath its head for a pillow. It wasn't only a murder, it was a taunting execution, it made death into mockery. And, watching Billy Morton, who looked pale this afternoon, who squitched at the sun beneath his John B., the Kid worked himself up into hating the bastard, hating him worse than he ever had before, hating him to a hair because he would kill him.

Cinchweed, sage, yucca, grass, cholla. As they climbed, the brown grass rattled when they passed, the clear air grew warmer. Dick Brewer rode ahead, then came Frank McNab beside Bill McCloskey. Fred and Billy followed with the captives close behind, and the other Regulators brought up the rear. They passed rising hills, the Kid looked around, he'd been here before. Blackwater Draw never did seem to start before it deepened around you; a furrow in the earth, the stray lost cliff, some cottonwoods and junipers springing from folds. The snakes in his head made his thoughts scatter. When he saw the cottonwoods clustered in arroyos he thought of pubic hair that grows in damp creases; of human bodies and their soft folds, of their foggy, vague, futile resistance to force. Skin was a barrier for the eye, nothing else. The softest touch kills. If it wasn't for the atmospheric pressure, Fred once had told him, you would likely explode just from swatting a mosquito.