Dick grinned. “I do, would you like me to get you a copy?”
Brady’s face went cold. “No. I don’t need your warrants. I have my own.” He handed them to Dick.
Leafing through them, Dick said, “Seems like there’s one here for each of us except you, MacNab.”
“You know, since you wasn’t in town at the time,” I lied, giving the Scotsman a stern look before MacNab could correct Brady.
“Exactly,” Dick said. “The rest of us will just head on over to see Justice of the Peace Wilson with the sheriff and get this straightened out.”
“But Dick,” I started to say.
He cut me off with a look, then said, “If we want them to consider our warrants valid, then we need to treat theirs the same. Come on, Rob. Let’s get it over with.”
“Dick, you can’t be serious.”
“Let’s go,” Dick said, and though he and the rest grumbled, we all obeyed. “MacNab’ll stay here and keep an eye on things, won’t ya?”
“Yes, sir,” Frank MacNab replied.
We followed the sheriff at a distance, and I used this opportunity to state my concern. “Leavin’ just one man to protect all our interests? Sure, why not, what could go wrong?”
Noting the bite to my sarcasm, Dick said, “All the bad guys are with us. He’ll be fine.”
“All the bad guys we know are in town at the moment, that is,” I said.
“I stand corrected,” Dick responded, looking over his shoulder at MacNab. “He looks capable, and really, we’re just going across the street, Billy.”
“And we were in the same canyon with John,” I pointed out.
Dick’s face went flat and cold. “Don’t remind me.”
“I’m not tryin’ to be a pecker; I’m just pointin’ out that there could be a bigger plan in them yankin’ us away from the house all at once.”
“Damn it...” Dick said, and turned around and ran back.
“Where does he think he’s goin’?” Deputy George Peppin demanded to know.
“He heard your sister is workin’ at the brothel in town,” I said with a grin.
Peppin got into my face, but I didn’t budge. “You think you’re funny, don’t ya, Billy? But I got six pieces of lead that I bet could wipe that smile off your face.”
I stared into his eyes, such a light blue that they seemed unreal, and I wiggled the toothpick between my teeth at him. “And I got twelve. Who you think will cry for their momma first? I got ten dollars says it’s you.”
I knew exactly what Dick was doing. He was giving his pistol loaded with silver ammunition to MacNab. Thus, I held Peppin’s attention until Dick returned, then walked off. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as MacNab pretended to just be wandering, but he was definitely heading to the back of the house.
Coming out onto his front porch, Wilson said, “Well, y’all ain’t gonna fit in here. So let’s just have the sheriff, one deputy, and then Rob and Dick. You four can talk it out in here. The rest of ya, stay right where ya are.”
We all grumbled in agreement and took different sides of the porch. I stared at the McSweens’ home, waiting to see what happened, wondering if MacNab was gonna get to prove his worth today or not. Two minutes later, a shot rang out, echoing around us, but I could tell it came from behind the house.
The Regulators all started to move in that direction when the deputies pulled their guns on us.
“Where do you think y’all are goin’?” Jack Long asked.
“Seems to be gunfire behind the McSween house, sir,” Fred Waite said, politely as he could. “Don’t you think we should make sure everythin’ is all right?”
“For all you know, someone is just cleanin’ their gun. Stay where you are or we’ll open fire.”
“Billy?” Fred Waite asked me.
“He’s not the law here!” a deputy sheriff snapped at Fred.
I wasn’t, but as Dick’s number two, I did happen to be the top-ranking Regulator outside the house. In fact, I was about to tell them to stand down while I checked it out, when Wilson’s door opened.
“Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Dick said as he stepped out. Turning to us, he added, “Where’d that shot come from?”
“Behind the house,” Fred told him.
“Billy, go see what it was.”
“You got it, Constable!” I said to Dick. Then, with a wink at Peppin, just to tick him off, I ran off across the street and around the house, into the open area of the U-shaped home. There I found MacNab standing over a dying wolf, his boot firmly planted on that wolf’s throat, and Dick’s gun pointed at the furry bastard’s face as blood poured from the wound in its side.
“Well, shit,” was all I could think to say.
6
Regulators Ride
Keeping his eye on the wolf, MacNab stretched his arm toward me. In his hand was the ledger book Widenmann had confiscated during the raid of the Dolan Store. “This was in his mouth as he exited the house. I’m guessin’ this is important in some way?”
I took it. “Sure is. Well done, MacNab. I knew this whole trumped up riotin’ charge seemed like an excuse to get us all away from the house.”
“You want I should finish him off?”
I was about to say no when Dick and the rest of the men came through the gate and into the patio area. “That’s up to the constable.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Dick asked.
We filled him in, and before we’d finished, Rob Widenmann stepped up and took the little book from me.
“Is this what he was takin’?” Rob asked.
“Yes, sir,” MacNab said.
“See, Dick, I told you it was bullshit,” Rob said. “I was actin’ on a warrant as a U.S. Marshal, there’s nothin’ they can do about that. It was all to try and get this back. Sons of bitches! And they sent a trained dog to do it? Just so odd.”
With that, Widenmann thundered back into the house, slamming the door shut behind him.
“What did Wilson say?” I asked.
“He could only take so much of Rob’s yellin’, so he bound it over to April term of court and told us we could go. No bail or anything, no fine.”
“I hate court,” I muttered. “Hope they don’t expect me to show up for this.”
“Kill him,” Dick said.
“What? Kill Wilson? Why? Is he a demon, too? Damn, I thought he was a good―”
“No, you idiot, the wolf, kill that before it gets too late because they come lookin’ for him.”
“Why me? MacNab can―”
“You know why. Garrett said if you built up the life energy in you, you’d have more power. Be able to do things. So, take him out.”
“Garrett just likes to hear himself talk―”
“Billy?”
“Fine.” I pulled out my silver loaded gun with the ivory handle wedged into the waistband of my pants at my back and without looking at the poor beast, shot him in the head.
The wolf demon part of him slid away, leaving only the exorcized human man lying there as naked as the day he was born. I didn’t recognize him, nor did anyone else, and I was about to ask where we should put him when the wave of his life force slammed into me, and I had to sit down on the ground.
“Billy, you all right?” Dick asked.
Giggling at my light-headedness, I fell back to lay in the grass. Running my hands through it like I was making a snow angel, I looked up at the blue of the sky and watched a bird fly by, counting the feathers on its wings, for that’s how clear he was to me.
“Billy?”
“Shhh...I’m counting feathers.”
Dick took my gun. “Get him inside. He’s useless like this.”
“What’s wrong with him?” MacNab asked, squatting down to grab an arm while Fred took my other.
“The energy of the life force makes him loopy for a few minutes, like he’s drunk as a skunk. Take him to lie down on one of the beds inside. He’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
Fred and MacNab hois
ted me up, and I looked at MacNab. “You’re a pretty boy, ya know that? We could put you in a dress and pass you off as a girl.”
“Says the man who has done that before,” Fred muttered.
“Shush, you, he’s new, he don’t need to know all the dirty laundry just yet! So, MacNab, have you ever dressed like a woman?”
Dick laughed, and it was contagious. Everyone began to as well, and I was taken into a west wing room to wait it out. Tired as I was, I nodded off, the effect wearing off in my sleep.
“Sleepin’ beauty, you gonna get up and be worth a damn around here or are you goin’ to just be a useless cur?” someone said, tapping my noggin with the butt of a pistol.
“A useless cur sounds about right,” I muttered, opening my eyes to see Dick looming over me. “Criminy, Dick, do you ya need to hover, ya big galoot? Jeez!”
Dick stood, his head almost hitting the ceiling. “I got a big boot, too, and that’s going to be on your ass if you don’t get movin’ in about thirty seconds.” He handed me my silver-bullet-filled revolver. “You got your war bag packed?”
“No. I need to go do that.”
“Best get it done now, with the lull in activity around here.”
I sat up with a groan. “Did I really tell MacNab he was pretty?”
Dick covered a laugh with a cough. “You did.”
“Shoot me.”
“You’d just heal. Come on.”
I stood and followed Dick out to the parlor where I found all the Regulators wearing skirts and bonnets over their attire. They all started to wave hankies at me and bat their eyes, cooing my name.
“I hate all of you,” I said, then started to laugh as I got a good look at John Middleton. He might’ve only been twenty-four years of age, but he was a tall, heavyset, swarthy man with black hair and eyes, plus a large handlebar mustache. To see him in a skirt and a lady’s bonnet was unbelievably funny. Wiping tears, I said, “John, that is not a good look for you...but MacNab, it’s good to see I was right.”
Everyone laughed, and Charlie came up to me. “I told you he could take a joke!”
I smiled. “The mustache really makes the outfit, Charlie...”
“Ya think?”
I knew he was the one that put them up to it. I didn’t even need to ask. Because of that, I grabbed him and kissed him on the lips with a real loud smack. “Stunning, just stunning!” To see the startled face of my best pal made me laugh so hard there were tears running down my face as the men around us applauded.
With a bow, I left the room out the front door and headed to the small place I shared with Fred Waite so I could pack. War bags tended to hold an extra set of clothing or two, extra ammunition, playing cards, bill of sale for your horse, a musical instrument if portable like my harmonica, precious letters or things from your sweetheart if you had one, and maybe a few spare parts for your saddle or anything horse related you might need. I was in the process of packing it as Fred walked in, this time without the skirt and bonnet.
“That’s a better look for you, but I think that’s just due to the mustache you got goin’ on.”
Fred grinned and smoothed his long ‘stache out to the sides with pride. “I’m considerin’ growin’ a goatee to go with it, but just this line under my bottom lip. What do ya think?”
I looked at Fred, who was half Anglo and half Indian, his features a perfect mix of both, giving him the high cheekbones you saw on a lot of the Chickasaw. “You know you’re askin’ the man who can barely grow chin hairs, right?”
Fred started to pack. “Are you bitter right now, my brother?”
“Ha! Hell, no. You all have to shave every day. I just wake up this pretty.”
“Even with those teeth of yours?”
“Especially with them,” I said with a grin, showing off my two front teeth that stuck out due to the ones next to them that’d grown in mostly behind the fronts.
With a snort of laughter, Fred leaned forward and pulled something out of his bag. “You are not pretty; this is though.” He tossed the item at me. “Smell that.”
I caught it and made the mistake of leaning too close, forgetting my sense of smell would be more acute, and sneezed.
“What did you do, snort the thing up your nose?”
“Still gettin’ use to these enhanced senses.” I took a lighter whiff of the scarf, and it did smell nice. “Your lady friend, I take it?” I tossed it back to him.
“Yes. But she is promised to some man her daddy wants her to marry. I’m hopin’ to change his mind.”
It was good that the rest of the Regulators could think about the other aspects of their life during all of this. I was having a hard time doing that. But if the last hour had helped remind me of anything, it was that I needed to not only focus on revenge. Problem was, it was my mission to kill these demons, and anything else was secondary, which was sad because I did like the ladies...a few in particular.
“Billy! Where’d you go?”
I snapped out of it. “Nowhere, sorry.”
Fred tucked the keepsake into his war bag and tied it closed. “Come on, let’s head on back and get our horses ready.”
“Yeah, good idea. Who knows when we’ll be back home.”
We left town on March second around five in the morning, working our way down the Pecos Valley, and for the first few days, there wasn’t much to do but ride, talk, and play friendly games of monte. We also took turns arm wrestling, competing in acts of brute strength, and then of course we’d shoot at stuff to pass the time. The first two I normally bow out of, but considering I had two souls in me, we wanted to see how much I could do.
Interestingly enough, I was now strong enough to beat Brewer in arm wrestling and lift more than John Middleton. That said, while my strength wasn’t supernatural yet, my hearing, sense of smell, and vision were a bit off the charts. I could see better in the dark, smell things I often wish I couldn’t, and I was needing cotton in my ears at night to drown out the snoring of some of my compadrés.
One night when Middleton was exceptionally sawing logs, I awoke with a grumble, turned over, and in the distance noticed Brewer pacing about. He was rotating his left shoulder again and appeared to be in pain, which was bothersome. He shouldn’t still be sore unless he’d torn something. I considered getting up and confronting him, but I let it be, drifting back off to sleep.
Waking up on March sixth, I was beginning to think we were chasing our tails when our luck changed. Riding just below the crossing on the Peñasco, we noticed some men sitting on the bank of the river. When we got closer, I recognized one of them.
“Dick, that’s Buck Morton, the man who shot John.”
“Let’s go have a chat with them then, shall we?”
We urged our horses into a cantor toward the five men at the river, causing them to notice us, mount their horses, and get moving.
“Word travels fast if they’re runnin’,” Charlie yelled out to me.
This didn’t surprise me at all. We’d been on the road for four days, and people have nothing better to do than talk.
Dick shouted words of encouragement so his horse would pick up speed, and we all followed suit. Gaining on them, the five men split, three going one way and two another. With one hand motion, Dick indicated for us all to stay on the group of three that held Morton.
Dirt flew, filling the air around our party with choking dust as we rode at breakneck speed toward them. Each of us pulled the scarf we wore around our neck up over our nose and mouth so we could breathe easier. The loud thundering of horse hooves pounded like a steady heartbeat as we crossed over the plains, excitement of the chase coursing through our veins.
This was it! We were finally close to getting justice for Tunstall! I rode like the devil was on my back, passing others until I caught up with Brewer. We rode side by side, gaining on them.
By now I could tell who was with Morton: Frank Baker and Dick Lloyd. I shouted this out to Brewer just as they fired on us. Eagerly returning it, I w
atched a few lead bullets hit them without much reaction on their part. That’s when I knew.
“We need silver!” I yelled out.
“What?” Dick shouted back at me.
I pulled my ivory-handled revolver and showed it to him. Everyone knew I kept silver in that gun, so as I pulled it and showed it to Brewer, all those who saw me firing with it understood.
The headlong pursuit became a running firefight and Lloyd’s horse, too tired to keep up, gave out and came to halt. Without even a look to one another to verify our next move, the Regulators ignored him and stayed focused on Morton and Baker.
We were beginning to really gain when their horses gave out like Lloyd’s had. Jumping off their exhausted mounts, the two men ran for a large patch of tule reeds to make their stand.
“Can’t see ‘em in there, Captain,” Fred said.
“And it’s not safe to follow in after ‘em,” I pointed out so none of the boys would get a stupid idea.
Dick nodded, and we followed him as he rode up to where Morton and Baker had gone in, all ten of us gathering up just out of range of their six-shooters.
“So, what now?” MacNab asked.
“We kill ‘em,” I said.
“We force them out into the open,” Dick said, giving me a look.
“Okay, then we kill ‘em,” I said.
“No, we arrest them.”
I looked at Dick in confusion for a moment. “Pardon me for sayin’ this, but that’s pointless. The minute we turn them over to Brady, they’ll be let go. Hell, those sons of bitches will probably never even have to stand trial if the Santa Fe Ring is involved.”
“He’s right,” Charlie chimed in. “This would all be for nothin’. That warrant you hold is just paper; it can’t make them pay for what they did.”
“And a quick death is enough punishment?” Dick asked.
“You want them to rot in jail, I take it?” I said. “They’ll get out just like the Boys did before. So what ya gonna choose?”
Dick was up against a wall, being squeezed by his moral code and the truth as it stood before him. He placed both of his large hands on his rifle that lay across his lap. Then, without warning, he lifted it and fired into the reeds. Raising his deep voice, he said, “William Scott ‘Buck’ Morton and Frank Baker, I hold warrants for your arrest regarding the murder of John Henry Tunstall. Surrender or we’ll burn you out!”
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 7