“How’d you get them to surrender?” I asked.
“Dick told them that he meant to take them dead or alive, and comin’ from him, they knew he meant it,” Charlie said.
George took the whiskey bottle from me. “Plus, Brady promised them they wouldn’t be lynched if they surrendered, so they came out with their hands up.”
“But that’s not where the tale ends,” Charlie said. “Tunstall made it back from Las Vegas around this time and was on his way to the Hondo Valley to deliver somethin’ to Chisum when he ran into Dick and The Boys. He came to a halt and says,” Charlie stopped, stood, and put on a British accent. “Why, I thought you boys went out to round up some wild stock.’”
Doc stood. “The posse-men and Brewer laughed, as did The Boys, and Tunstall musta looked uncertain of what was goin’ on, so one of ‘em speaks back at him in the same accent.” Facing Charlie, Doc sneered like one of The Boys mighta and finished in a bad English accent, “By Jove! He don’t know if Dick has got us or if we’ve got him.”
Everyone laughed.
Continuing to play out the scene, Doc goes, “Do you got any whiskey, Englishman?”
“Merely a dram,” Charlie said, sounding just like Tunstall to my ear. “If you knew me, you would know that I don’t need any to keep my blood warm, but if you met me at Lincoln, I’d soak you if you wished.”
“We’ll be in the jug by then, but you can come soak us there,” Doc replied.
“Who was this?” I asked.
Charlie turned to me. “Tom Hill.”
“Did he ever soak ‘em?” I replied.
“He did, once, I do believe,” Charlie said, sitting back down. “I think he was tryin’ to learn where his dapple-gray mules were. He loved those two.”
“He had to know that they’d not actually be charged or held once in Brady’s custody,” I said.
“Oh, Brewer was under no illusions about what would happen when The Boys got to Lincoln,” Doc said. “He told Tunstall, ‘They’ll get out of jail sure as fate. They have more friends in the country than enemies, and you mark me, those chaps will get let out. Brady will let ‘em go for sure.’”
“That’s not what I sound like, Doc!” Brewer yelled out at us.
Everyone began to laugh.
“You sure about that?” I shouted back.
“You all can bugger off!”
“Too much time with Tunstall! Pickin’ up them British words,” Charlie teased.
George stood. “But that wasn’t the end of Tunstall’s issues or Dick’s. No sooner was Brewer back than McSween told him about how the widow Casey had left town for Texas with the cattle she’d sold to Tunstall at auction plus some others from his herd.”
“McSween was beside himself and he asked Dick what was to be done,” Charlie said. “And Dick goes—”
“I must rack out on the road again and bring ‘em back, to be sure I ain’t goin’ to see John run over,” came Dick’s deep voice from behind me.
“Thought you was goin’ to bed,” I joked.
“Well, I hate for y’all to get it wrong.”
“Okay then, what did you do?” I asked.
“I gathered a posse of fifteen men, most of which were Mexicans, and I went out after ‘em.”
I laughed. “Of course you did! But did you find ‘em?”
“Sure did. Came across them about fifteen or twenty miles across the Texas line. I demanded a portion of the cattle, explainin’ I knew they were the property of Tunstall and McSween. After some heated discussion, they let me take ‘em. I plucked four hundred head out of the herd and began to take them back to Lincoln.”
“I heard you went back the next day and threw guns down on the two Casey boys,” George said. “Brought them to Lincoln without a warrant, forcin’ them to come along.”
“I did. Figured that the Caseys might try to pull this again and the only way that wouldn’t happen would be if they were put out by the whole affair. That’s why I snatched the boys up and took ‘em with the cattle back to Lincoln and had them charged for theft.”
“But you hit a snag, didn’t ya, big fella?” Doc said. “Ya see, Billy, their mother was a day behind, chasin’ after her boys, and she just so happened to run into John Chisum and told him what Dick had done.”
Dick rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “He just had to get involved.”
“In fact,” Doc continued, “Uncle John escorted her to Lincoln and used his influence with you to drop the charges, didn’t he?”
“Well, damn it, Doc. It wasn’t like I was plannin’ to go through with it. I just wanted to teach them boys a lesson about stealin’ other people’s property.”
“That you did, big man...that you did,” Doc said.
I stood and slapped Brewer on the shoulder. “So...what you’re sayin’ is Dick’s got the courage of a lion but the big lovin’ heart of house cat.”
Dick immediately spun me, wrapping his arm around my neck from behind, and used his other hand to mess up my hair before pulling me to the ground. “What was that you were sayin’?”
I laughed so hard, tears filled my eyes. “All right, all right! I give! Heart and soul of a fierce lion are you!”
Dick let go. “That’s more like it.”
I sat back on my bed roll and looked up at him. “I’ll say this, I bet them kids never stole livestock again! You may have a big heart, but you can be scary when you have to be. I wish I’d been there to see you arrest ‘em. It woulda been a hoot!”
March, 1949
The loud crack of fifteen racked pool balls breaking pulled me from my memories. Glancing over, I was a bit shocked to note that the person who’d broke them so forcefully was a woman. She was about my height with dark hair pulled back into a French braid and skin the lovely color of someone from parents of different races. She was a slip of a girl, likely in her mid to late thirties, and while I watched, she called a pocket and hit a solid in. I stood and wandered over as she did that again, and only missing by a smidgen on her third.
“All yours, Sam,” she said, her voice holding a slight Irish lilt to it.
“Damn it, Rose, ya left me with nothin’,” her opponent complained.
“Not if you know what you’re doin’,” she replied.
I chuckled, which got Sam’s attention.
“Somethin’ funny, pretty boy?”
I didn’t reply, as I didn’t think he was talking to me. But when his buddy gave me a shove from behind, I clued in.
“I’m talkin’ to you, blondie.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “My hair is light golden brown, thank you, and yes, somethin’ is funny.”
“Oh?” Sam retorted.
“She’s not wrong. You have a few shots, but you’d have to really know the game and how to use the bumpers to your advantage to do ‘em.”
“Care to show me how, hotshot?”
“No way in hell. Those are my coins sittin’ there, so I’m next. I want to see if she can whoop my ass.”
“Oh, you think I’m gonna lose, do ya?” Sam asked.
“Look at the table,” I said. When he didn’t seem to get what I was sayin, I followed my comment up with, “Yes. Now play and prove me wrong.”
There was a moment where it appeared they were considering kicking my ass instead, but he finally just chalked the end of his cue and took his shot, missing by more than he should have.
Rose stepped up and gave me a flirty look before calling a pocket, sinking her next ball, then another, and then the eight-ball.
I downed the rest of my drink and set the glass down. “I rest my case.”
Sam shoved his pool cue at his friend and took a step toward me like he was going to challenge me to a fight. “How about I show you my case.”
Purposefully, I put my hands in my pockets in such a way as to reveal the badge I’d clipped to my belt. “I really wouldn’t.”
Sam’s buddy, the same man I’d seen smoking out front when I arrived, grabbe
d his arm. “Horse feathers, he’s a cop.”
“No...but you’re close. Still wanna show me your case?”
“Come on, Sam, let’s go,” his buddy said.
Reluctantly, Sam backed up and walked off. His pal gently set the pool cue on the table, and with a nod at me, they left.
“Well, you sure do know how to enter a game with flair,” Rose said. “Rack ‘em.”
“You won the last game, that’s your honor, ma’am.”
“And I say, rack ‘em.”
I snagged the triangular rack. “All right, I’ll do as the lady says.” Placing the balls into it, I added, “William Kidwell, but you can call me Billy or Will if you’d like.”
“Rose McMasters, nice to meet ya. So, if you’re not a cop, what are ya?”
I could tell the whole room was listening, so I quickly weighed the options and decided it’d be best to be up front. “Fed,” I told her as I carefully lifted the rack from the balls and put it away.
“Now that’s interesting,” she said, tossing the chalk to me.
Catching it, I picked up the pool cue and began to apply chalk to the tip. “Why’s that?”
“No reason,” she said, and it sounded like a lie.
Grabbing the cue ball on my way around the table, I purposefully stood close enough to feel her body heat. Looking into her light green eyes, I said, “I doubt you say anything without a reason, Miss Rose.”
Her body temp rose as her cheeks flushed just a bit. I grinned and headed to the end of the table, setting the cue ball in position.
Leaning down, I took aim. “If I win, you tell me the reason. Deal?”
A nervous laugh skittered out of her, but when I lifted my eyes up to find hers, she said, “Okay, and if I win, you tell me why you’re here.”
A big grin filled my face. “You’re on.” Without looking away from her, I hit the cue ball, and it smashed into the balls at the other end, sending two solids into pockets. “Looks like you’re stripes.”
26
The Battle At Blazer’s Mill
April, 1878
Just before noon on April fourth, we arrived at Blazer’s Mill, located on a hillside halfway between Lincoln and Tularosa. Dr. Joseph H. Blazer, a retired dentist, owned the mill and had turned the land it was on into a little village of its own. Other than the sawmill, there was a roadhouse where you could get food, rest your horses, and stay the night if need be. If the county’s Indian Agent, Fred Godfroy, a Murphy/Dolan supporter, hadn’t lived on this property, it would’ve been a perfect spot to take a rest, but I was leery.
“We sure it’s safe to stop here?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” George Coe asked.
“Well, in case y’all have forgotten, Fred Godfroy is a big supporter of The House, and he lives here with his family,” I said, pointing at the older and smaller building of the pair of two-story buildings on the property. “In fact, his wife runs the roadhouse, cookin’ and such.”
“So?” Dick said. “There’s fifteen of us and one of him. I think we’re okay.”
“They have a telegraph machine here, Dick,” I reminded him. “And soldiers aren’t far from this location either. We might be smart to keep on movin’.”
Frank Coe heard us and rode up next to me. “We’ve known Doc Blazer for years, Billy. We’re fine. Besides, Fred Godfroy might be a tool of The House, but his wife is lovely and an amazin’ cook...and I’m starvin’!”
The others laughed and agreed, so I was overruled.
Dick dismounted and ran into the two-story adobe roadhouse to make sure they could accommodate all of us for lunch. The Blazers had originally lived in this home but had recently built a three-story home to its right, which was where they lived now.
While the boys waited on Brewer, I rode Colonel to inspect the area on the other side of the road. Looking down the hill at the creek, I counted eight small, adobe homes on the property. These likely housed those who worked at the mill, blacksmith shop, and the post office with the store located on the back of the two-story roadhouse.
I was watching the paddle wheel of the sawmill gently turn through the water of the stream when Dick exited.
“She can accommodate us, so I put in an order for us,” he said. With a nod toward the plank corral, he added, “We’ll let the doc’s son take care of the horses for us while we eat. Almer is a good kid.”
We rode across the bridge and handed the horses off to Almer and two other teenage boys, Si Maxwell and Willie Pitts. While they took care of our ponies, we hung out front by the creek until Doctor Blazer himself came out to tell us the meal was ready.
Blazer was a tall man with broad shoulders and a wide chest, both of which made him appear taller and more upright. In the bright sunshine, his thick, well-groomed beard was a shade darker than his short hair, the latter of which had this tendency to naturally stand up on end before sweeping back from a high forehead.
Dressed for a day of working outside, Blazer leaned against the wide adobe archway at the south entrance as we approached, saying, “No guns inside, house rules and you know it.”
“That we do, Joe,” Dick said before turning to all of us. “Boys, leave your guns.” The men grumbled but removed their belts and weapons as Dick continued, “A couple of us might as well stand guard while the others eat, though, if we got the enemy nearby and us goin’ in without our weapons.”
George Coe spoke up, knocking dirt from his boots, “I’ll be one of the two, Dick.”
Middleton smoothed his handlebar mustache and said, “I’m not as hungry as the rest of ya are at the moment. I can eat after y’all are done.”
George then chimed in with, “Just make sure whoever finishes first comes out to take our places. I love me some of Mrs. Godfroy’s cooking!”
Dick grinned as he removed his gun belt lined with cartridges. “You got it.”
I was never comfortable without my gun on me, but currently my hunger was stronger than my desire to keep my weapons on me. I took my belt off, set it aside along with my Winchester, and followed the rest of the team through the south entrance. Hanging a right into the dining room, I looked out the window, for I had a bad feeling about this I couldn’t shake. If I were making bets right then and bet on us, I had a feeling I’d lose, and I hate losing.
March, 1949
I set a drink down in front of Rose at the bar. Sitting on the stool beside her, I grinned. “Here you go.”
“You won the game. Shouldn’t I be the one buyin’ you a drink?” she said.
“You only lost one more game than I did,” I said, trying to make her feel better.
After I won the first game, she’d challenged me to best out of three, which had become best of five, finally relenting after I sank the eight ball first on our fifth game, my third win.
“Too true,” she said, and drank some of the beer I’d sat before her.
“Ya know what? I’ll still answer your question, but you have to honestly answer mine after that. Deal?”
With a coy look, she drank again before saying, “All right.”
I set my whiskey down. “I’m here lookin’ for a friend of mine who has gone missin’. Name is Fletcher, and I know he came through here not long ago. He stayed with Ms. Lois Gutierrez, and she told me this place had a pool table. Now, I know Fletcher like a brother, and he loves to play pool, so I came out this way to see if anyone might have seen him.”
“And you figured since I was sharkin’ the boys that Fletch woulda played me for a challenge, like you did.”
I winked at her. “You’re on the money, darlin’. So, did you? Is that the reason you said it was interestin’ that I was here?”
“Why would you say that?” she said, looking a tad uncomfortable, yet covering it with a playful look in her eyes.
“For starters, ‘cause ya called him Fletch, not Fletcher like I did, and I know he tells folks to call him that. Secondly, he’s Irish, like you, so you’d have zeroed in on him in a heartbeat
the minute you heard him talk.”
Her face flushed a bit, and she drank. Setting the bottle down, she slowly wove her fingers together and rested her hands on the bar in front of her. “I’m only half Irish.”
I grinned. “Still...he’d have heard it.”
She casually looked around the bar to see who was near us, which was no one since it was close to closing time. With a sigh, she said, “Yeah, I met Fletcher. We got to know each other a little bit, and he told me who he was.”
“Did he tell ya why he was here?”
“You mean his hunt for that New York mobster? Yeah, he told me. But that was only after I mentioned Mr. Magoon as the other New Yorker who’d been around recently. It’s not like we get a lot of New Yorkers here in Carrizozo, New Mexico. You’re the third in two months—that’s more than likely been here in three years.”
“You have a point. Are you the one that pointed him to Las Cruces then?”
“Yes. Seymour said he was headin’ that way to make it rich in gamblin’. I told him he should stick to pool sharkin’, but he just laughed, sayin’ I didn’t know where the real money was.”
“Did he, by any chance, say who he was goin’ to be meeting up in Las Cruces?”
“Seymour did mention a guy, but all I remembered was the name Sandman, so that’s what I gave Fletch.”
“We’re closin’ up in a few minutes,” the bartender said.
I pulled out some money for a tip and placed it on the bar. “Come on, I’ll walk ya to your car. It’s late.”
“I can promise you, Agent Kidwell, I know how to handle myself.”
“I’m sure you do, but I’m still walkin’ ya to your car.”
With an eye roll, she got down off the stool. “Fine. Night, Pete!”
“Night, Rose!”
With a wave at the bartender, I opened the door for her, and we stepped out into the chill of a March evening in New Mexico.
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 29