The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (8 page)

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(Garrett had stuffed birds. Not just the stringy Mexican vultures but huge exotic things. We would sometimes be with him when they arrived. He would have them sent to him frozen in boxes. The box was wooden, a crate really, and with great care after bringing it back from the station, he would remove the nails. He first took out the
8"
of small crushed ice and said look. And it would be a white seagull. It was beautifully spread in the ice, not a feather out of place, its claws extended and brittle from the freezing. Garrett melted it and split it with a narrow knife, parting the feathers first, and with a rubber glove in his right hand removed the body. He then washed the rotted blood from the wings, the outside, and then took it out onto the verandah to dry.)

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MISS SALLIE CHISUM: PAT GARRETT

BILLY THE KID & PAT GARRETT — SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

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Sound up. Loud and vibrating in the room. My ears picking up the hum of flies across the room. The mattress under Pete Maxwell shifting its straw, each blade loud in its clear flick against another. Even the now and then crack at the glass as the day’s heat evaporates from the window against the dark of the desert.

And then that breathing, not Maxwell’s but
the other’s.
The breathing precise but forced into quiet but regular streams. Think of the dark air going up through the nose, down to the stomach rolling around on itself, and then up and out like a fountain spilling through his teeth hissssssssssssssssssssssssss

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In the final minutes. It is Texas midnight. A large large square, well and buckets centre. The houses and sheds in rows making up the square. The long narrow porch running all around. Up to the well rides Pat Garrett and deputies Poe and Mackinnon. Scuffling slow, smoking as they dismount gentle and leave the horses and walk to the large hut which is Maxwell’s room. They pass the dog.

This is a diagram then of Maxwell’s, Pete Maxwell’s, room. Bed here against the wall, here’s the window where he put his hand through. And here, along here, is the porch. While this, about 20 yards away, is the Gutierrez home. Garrett, Poe, and Mackinnon stop near Maxwell’s door. On some vague tip Garrett has come to ask Maxwell where he thinks Billy is hiding out—where in the territory is he—he’s been escaped 3 months and nobody’s seen him. Garrett leaves the deputies sitting smoking on the porch, flicks away his own cigar and goes into the dark room where Maxwell is asleep

Meanwhile Billy is just yards away drinking with Celsa Gutierrez. He came in about an hour ago, he wears only his trousers and guns, hot night. They decide she will cook him something and he offers to go cut some meat. Carrying a knife in his left hand, and barefoot, he is up and begins walking towards the ice house. Passing the Maxwell room he sees the two men outside. Quien es? They do not answer. Again the question. No answer. Billy backs off the porch into Maxwell’s room and heads towards his friend sleeping. In the dark room Garrett has wakened and is questioning the dazed Maxwell. In fact as Billy enters he is crouching by Maxwell’s bed. Quienes son esos hombres afuera, Pete?

Garrett recognises the voice. He does the one thing that will save him. Quietly, with his long legs, he climbs over Maxwell’s body and gets into bed between Maxwell and the wall. With his rifle in his hands he watches the darkness, trying to make out the shape that is moving towards him. Billy moves over barefoot and asks Pete again. Quienes son esos hombres afuera?

Maxwell doesn’t say a word. He can feel Garrett’s oiled rifle barrel leaning against his cheek. Billy shakes Maxwell’s shoulder and then he hears the other person’s breathing. As the only other woman on the ranch, apart from Celsa Gutierrez is Paulita Maxwell—Pete’s sister—he doesn’t know what to think. Paulita? Pete Maxwell gives a nervous giggle full of fear which Billy mistakes for embarrassment. Paulita! Jesus Christ. He leans forward again and moves his hands down the bed and then feels a man’s boots. O my god Pete quien es?

He is beginning to move back a couple of yards in amazement. Garrett is about to burst out laughing so he fires, leaving a powder scar on Maxwell’s face that stayed with him all his life.

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NOW
dead centre in the square is Garrett with Poe—hands in back pockets—argues, nodding his head and then
ALL TURNING
as the naked arm, the arm from the body, breaks through the window. The window—what remains between the splits—reflecting all the moving too.

Gutierrez goes to hold the arm but it is manic, breaks her second finger. His veins that controlled triggers—now tearing all they touch.

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The end of it, lying at the wall
the bullet itch frozen in my head

my right arm is through the glass pane
and the cut veins awake me
so I can watch inside and through the window

Garrett’s voice going Billy Billy
and the other two dancing circles
saying we got him we got him the little shrunk bugger

the pain at my armpit I’m glad for
keeping me alive at the bone
and suns coming up everywhere out of the walls and floors
Garrett’s jaw and stomach thousands

of lovely perfect sun balls
breaking at each other click
click click click like Saturday morning pistol cleaning
when the bullets hop across the bed sheet and bounce and click

click and you toss them across the floor like…up in the air
and see how many you can catch in one hand the left

oranges reeling across the room and
I KNOW I KNOW
it is my brain coming out like red grass
this breaking where red things wade

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PAULITA MAXWELL.

An old story that identifies me as Billy the Kid’s sweetheart has been going the rounds for many years. Perhaps it honours me; perhaps not; it depends on how you feel about it. But I was not Billy the Kid’s sweetheart I liked him very much—oh, yes—but I did not love him. He was a nice boy, at least to me, courteous, gallant, always respectful. I used to meet him at dances; he was of course often at our home. But he and I had not thought of marriage.

There was a story that Billy and I had laid our plans to elope to old Mexico and had fixed the date for the night just after that on which he was killed. There was another tale that we proposed to elope riding double on one horse. Neither story was true and the one about eloping on one horse was a joke. Pete Maxwell, my brother, had more horses than he knew what to do with, and if Billy and I had wanted to set off for the Rio Grande by the light of the moon, you may depend upon it we would at least have had separate mounts. I did not need to put my arms around any man’s waist to keep from falling off a horse. Not I. I was, if you please, brought up in the saddle, and plumed myself on my horsemanship.

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Imagine if you dug him up and brought him out. You’d see very little. There’d be the buck teeth. Perhaps Garrett’s bullet no longer in thick wet flesh would roll in the skull like a marble. From the head there’d be a trail of vertebrae like a row of pearl buttons off a rich coat down to the pelvis. The arms would be cramped on the edge of what was the box. And a pair of handcuffs holding ridiculously the fine ankle bones. (Even though dead they buried him in leg irons). There would be the silver from the toe of each boot.

His legend a jungle sleep