by Gene Shelton
“How you boys doing in there?” Garrett finally called.
“Pretty good.” The Kid sounded cheerful enough. “But we have no wood to get breakfast.”
“Come on out and get some, Billy,” Garrett yelled back. “Be a little sociable.”
“Can’t do it, Pat. Business is too confining right now. Haven’t got the time to run around.”
Garrett stared toward the shack for several moments. “Didn’t you fellows forget something? Like setting us afoot and driving us down the Pecos? Seems I heard that was part of your program yesterday.”
There was no answer.
Jim waited and watched, his fingers and toes numb from the unrelenting cold. He heard his belly growl and glanced at the sun. It was almost one o’clock; the men in the posse hadn’t eaten for better than twenty hours. Jim scooped a handful of snow from behind a nearby rock and shoved it into his mouth. The cold made his teeth hurt, but as the snow melted it quenched his thirst and, for a moment, quieted the rumbles in his gut.
A rifle shot from the window kicked snow and sand from the lip of the arroyo onto Jim’s hat. He poked his rifle barrel between two small rocks and fired. The slug nicked the windowsill and spanged into the interior of the house.
The posse and the outlaws settled in to the grim game of waiting each other out. From time to time a gunshot rattled the scrub brush of the arroyo or bellowed smoke from the door or window. None of the slugs hit flesh. The besiegers were well concealed in the arroyo, and the rock walls protected the besieged.
At midafternoon, Garrett cupped a hand to an ear during one of the extended lulls in the firing. “Listen close,” he said to Jim. “I hear something.”
Jim cocked his head. A moment later he heard the sound, a pecking at the back wall of the rock house.
“They’re trying to knock a hole out back there,” Garrett said. “Jim, you and Hall slip back up the arroyo a ways. Get behind the house and see if a few shots might discourage that.”
Jim backed from his position until he was able to stand. The movement brought some life back to his fingers and toes. Lee Hall stood beside him, stamping his feet and blowing on bare fingers. Hall’s hands were bluish-white in the first stage of frostbite. Jim handed him his rabbit fur-lined gloves and gestured toward a turn in the arroyo ahead.
Fifteen minutes later Jim and Hall knelt at the lip of the Taiban a stone’s throw from the back of the house. The tapping noise was louder now, carried on the drift of the wind.
Jim cocked his Winchester and hammered a slug into the back wall. Stone chips flew as the lead ricocheted and whined off into the distance. Hall’s rifle barked twice. The pecking noise stopped. “Guess they decided remodeling the place with a back door isn’t all that healthy,” Hall said with a chuckle.
The two held their position for a couple of hours and sent an occasional shot toward the back wall as a reminder. The men inside apparently had given up on that idea.
Jim heard Hall’s stomach growl. “I could eat that dead horse down there right now,” Hall said. “Only thing holds me back is a man could digest some lead first.”
In the near distance Jim saw a rider appear, leading a string of three pack animals. He recognized the rider as the rancher, Wilcox.
A short time later Garrett sent two other men to relieve Jim and Lee Hall. Barney Mason had a fire going in the arroyo. The smell of sizzling steak, potatoes and coffee set Jim’s mouth to watering. He realized the wind would carry the scent to the men in the rock house. Jim had a feeling the siege on the Taiban would end soon, and hopefully without more bloodshed. Hunger and thirst could break a man’s resolve the same as a bullet.
Jim turned to Hall as the two neared the campfire. “Lee, we better keep an eye on Mason. I’ve got a feeling he wants the Kid dead even if Billy decides to give up.”
Hall nodded in silent agreement. The two filled tin plates and squatted by the cooking fire. Within a quarter hour the edge was off their hunger. The food, fire and hot coffee chased away the worst of the cold. Jim almost felt content for the first time since he had ridden away from LX headquarters back in the Panhandle.
“East, Hall,” Garrett’s call came from above, “get up here! It looks like this dance is about over.”
Jim clambered to the lip of the arroyo and flopped into the snow, rifle at the ready.
A dirty handkerchief fluttered from the window of the rock house. “We wanna talk, Garrett,” a raspy voice called.
“That’s Rudabaugh,” Garrett muttered. “Watch him. He’s a tricky one.” He raised his voice and yelled to the cabin. “Come on out! Keep your hands empty!”
Rudabaugh eased his way over the dead horse, hands held high. “We’ve talked it over,” Rudabaugh said. “We’ll lay down our guns and give up, but you’re gonna have to give us your word you won’t shoot.”
“You have my word,” Garrett called. Jim noticed that the sheriff did not rise to his feet in a show of trust. That would expose him to a possible shot from the house. Jim didn’t blame Garrett. Any man who trusted the Kid and his bunch was a fool first and dead second.
“You got to take us to jail in Santa Fe, not Las Vegas,” Rudabaugh said. “Them Vegas folks don’t like me just a whole helluva lot.”
Garrett scratched a long finger against a stubbled jawline. “Agreed,” he said. He turned to the Tascosa riders. “Watch out,” Garrett warned, “I wouldn’t trust these boys as far as I can throw a chuck wagon.”
Jim watched as Rudabaugh stepped back inside the house. He glanced at Barney Mason. Anticipation and what appeared to be a spark of fear put a glitter in Mason’s eyes. Jim turned his attention back to the door of the shack. One by one the fugitives came out, hands raised. There were no guns in sight. Rudabaugh came first. Garrett ticked off the names as the others emerged—Tom Pickett, Billy Wilson, and finally Billy the Kid, leading his race mare. The Kid had trouble getting the mare to jump over the dead horse, but finally managed to coax her into it. The group stopped and waited as the posse strode toward them.
Jim paid less attention to the outlaws than he did to Garrett’s brother-in-law. Barney Mason carried his Winchester in both hands, the hammer drawn to full cock. Mason started to raise the weapon. Jim whirled, his own rifle pointed dead at Mason’s chest. On Mason’s other side Lee Hall’s rifle muzzle almost touched Mason’s ear.
“Pull that trigger and we’ll kill you,” Jim snapped.
Mason’s face twisted in confusion. His eyes went wide as he stared at the bore of Jim’s rifle. “Better let me kill the little sonofabitch now, East,” Mason said. “He’s slippery. He may get away.”
“You won’t be around to find out if you don’t drop that gun,” Jim said. His tone was cold and matter-of-fact.
Mason stared at Jim for a moment, then grudgingly lowered the rifle.
The Kid chuckled softly. “Looks like they got the drop on you, Barney. You’re smart, you’ll let it slide.” The Kid’s tone turned derisive. “Barney, you never had the guts to throw down on me before. I don’t think you better try it again.”
Lee Hall plucked the rifle from Mason’s hand. Garrett had made no move to stop his brother-in-law.
Jim dismissed Mason from his mind and studied the Kid with interest. It was the first time he had seen the young gunman up close. What struck Jim the most was the Kid’s youthful appearance. He looked to be less than twenty, his mustache little more than light fuzz on his upper lip. He was slender, about a hundred forty pounds on a five-foot-eight frame, with clear blue eyes that still held a glint of humor despite the circumstances. Sandy hair fell from beneath the broad brim of Billy’s sombrero and brushed against his narrow shoulders. A slight smile tugged at his lips, baring front teeth that protruded beyond the line of his upper jaw. To Jim East, William H. Bonney looked anything but the gunman and coldblooded killer he had been made out to be.
The Kid returned Jim’s gaze. “Obliged to you, friend,” the Kid said. “Old Barney there would have killed me for sure if you hadn�
��t stopped him.”
Jim nodded an acknowledgment of the young outlaw’s comment. “Never held with shooting an unarmed prisoner,” he said.
The Kid turned to Garrett. “Pat, can you spare some of that beef and coffee? I’m hungry as a Bosque Redondo Apache after a hard winter.”
“Later, Billy,” Garrett said. “We’ll get you fed at the Wilcox place. Barney, take one of the boys and get Charlie Bowdre’s body bundled up. We’ll take him to his wife at Fort Sumner. The rest of you tie up the prisoners. Make it tight so they won’t get loose. Wilcox brought some spare horses for them.”
Jim used his own tie rope to bind the Kid. Tom Emory did the same with Rudabaugh while others tied Pickett and Wilson. Tom’s nose wrinkled in distaste as he pulled the rope tight. Jim understood why. Garrett had described Rudabaugh right. The closest the man had been to water must have been the last time he rode horseback across a creek. Rudabaugh’s body odor would have stopped a Union Pacific mainliner dead on the rails, Jim thought.
Within a quarter hour the trussed prisoners were boosted onto horseback. The posse fanned out around them in guard formation as they started the ride back to the Wilcox ranch. Jim hunched deeper into his coat as he rode. The sun was dropping toward the western horizon and the cold grew longer teeth as night neared.
Finally, the lights of the Wilcox ranch house glowed gold in the darkness. By ten o’clock the prisoners had been fed. They ate like starving wolves. The outlaws didn’t seem to mind the ripe smell of Rudabaugh’s unwashed body, which seemed to grow ranker in the small confines of the warm room, but Jim wanted to escape the scent. It was like sitting in an outhouse that had never seen the touch of lime. But someone had to stand guard, and he and Lee Hall had drawn first watch. Garrett gave orders to shoot the prisoners if they tried to cause trouble, then assigned the other men to sleeping quarters in other parts of the ranch house or the barn behind the home.
Billy tried a couple of times to crack a joke or draw his guards into conversation, but failed and finally dropped off to sleep. Rudabaugh hadn’t said a word since his capture. He snored at his spot before the fire.
Jim stayed alert and watchful, his hand on the receiver of his Winchester as he studied the outlaw captives. They looked completely harmless—except for Rudabaugh—as they slept. Jim found himself wondering how many robberies, rustlings and killings had been credited to the Kid and his bunch that should have been tallied to somebody else. I expect we’ll never know for sure , he mused. He settled in to await the end of his shift, blinked against the grainy feeling of exhaustion in his eyelids, and suddenly remembered that tonight was Christmas Eve.
The realization triggered a tightness in his chest. He tried not to think of the little rented adobe in Tascosa, and Hattie, but the images wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t keep the sights and smells out of his mind—the sharp scent of the small juniper Hattie would have cut for a Christmas tree and decorated with paper chains and popcorn, the butcher paper-wrapped packages under the tree, the odor of fruitcakes and fresh bread baking in the Dutch oven on the fireplace.
And Hattie, sitting before the fire in her nightdress, her face scrubbed, brown hair smelling of rose or lilac water as if her husband could walk in the door at any moment. Jim knew she was probably even more lonely than he was. He wanted desperately to be there, to stroke the smooth curves of her cheeks, watch her eyes glitter with happiness, feel the warmth of her body and bathe away his worries in the comfort of just being close to her.
Jim finally managed to force the thoughts away. He knew Hattie would keep Christmas warm for him until this job was finished, even if it took until spring. She knew how to welcome a man home after a long, cold and dangerous trail. He sighed heavily. Tomorrow would come soon enough, and with it the ride back to Fort Sumner, the first stop on the trail back to Tascosa and home.
FOUR
Fort Sumner
December 1880
Jim East stood guard, rifle at the ready, as the Fort Sumner blacksmith drove the final rivet into the shackles that bound Billy the Kid and Dave Rudabaugh to each other. Tom Pickett and Billy Wilson, already in irons, sat nearby. They hadn’t spoken a word since their surrender on the Taiban.
The Kid looked up at Jim and grinned as if he had no worry in the world at the moment. Jim didn’t smile back. He and Billy had reached the stage where they called each other by their first names, but that didn’t mean Jim had to trust the likeable young outlaw. Even if he had been inclined to trust the Kid, he couldn’t put an ounce of faith in the man Billy was chained to.
Rudabaugh sat scowling on the hard wooden bench in Beaver Smith’s general store and muttered curses as the blacksmith gathered up his tools. Jim was certain now that Rudabaugh was a ruthless and dangerous man. He had no conscience, no remorse, and his word of honor was worth about as much as bird droppings on a pump handle.
The Kid had asked for a basin of water, a sliver of soap and a razor, and made a serious attempt to clean himself as best he could. Rudabaugh showed no such inclination. In fact, it seemed to Jim that the scraggly outlaw recoiled in horror at the sight of soap and water.
The Kid watched the blacksmith scurry out the door, then stomped his boot and giggled at the clank of chains.
“Don’t know what you’re laughin’ at, you buck-toothed little fart,” Beaver Smith growled from behind the counter. “Be a rope around your neck for sure ‘fore first grass.”
Jim glanced at the store owner. He was getting a little tired of the old man’s constant badgering of the prisoners. “Leave them alone, Smith,” he said.
“Leave ‘em alone, hell!” Smith snorted. “This bunch has been helpin’ theirselves to anything they want in my store for months and they ain’t paid for nothin’ yet. ‘Charge it,’ they says. I’m half a mind to take it out’n their hides.”
Jim pinned a steady glare on the old man’s face. “You really want to do that, I’ll call that blacksmith back in here and cut them loose. Then you can have at it.”
Smith’s swarthy face flushed in anger, but Jim could see the fear just beneath the surface of the old man’s chestnut-colored eyes. Smith’s untrimmed beard twitched as he grumbled something and turned away.
Jim dismissed Smith from his mind as Pat Garrett strode into the store, Lee Hall trailing behind. “We’ll stand guard for a spell, Jim,” Garrett said. “I want you and Bausman to take Charlie Bowdre’s body over to his wife.” Garrett shook his head. “It’s a shame about Charlie. I liked the kid. Talked to him just a few weeks ago and he sounded like he wanted to quit the outlaw business.”
Jim shouldered his rifle and strode outside. Bowdre’s body lay board-stiff, wrapped to the neck in a blanket in a wagon borrowed from Wilcox. Bausman waited by the wagon, taking the final drag from a smoke. Jim stowed his rifle under the wagon seat, waited until the stocky Bausman climbed aboard, and clucked the horses into motion.
Ten minutes later Jim and Bausman swung down from the wagon in front of the old hospital building where Bowdre’s wife lived. Bausman knocked on the door and called out. There was no answer. “Maybe she’s not home,” Bausman said with a shrug. “Guess we’ll just have to leave old Charlie here and send word with the Messkins to find her.”
Jim and Bausman wrestled the awkward bundle from the wagon, Jim holding the dead man’s shoulders while Bausman handled the feet. Charlie Bowdre seemed a lot heavier in death than he had looked in life, Jim thought as he bumped the unlatched door open with a hip. Jim stepped through the doorway—and something slammed into the side of his head. He staggered, lost his grip on Bowdre’s body. The dead man fell to the floor with a solid thump. The unexpected blow jarred Jim’s eyes out of focus, but he sensed a movement, threw up a hand, and took a solid and painful whack on his forearm.
“Hey! Hold it!” Bausman yelled. He lunged past Jim and grabbed at the hazy figure. Jim’s Spanish wasn’t all that good, but he picked up enough words from all the yelling and screeching to realize he wasn’t being invited to any Sunday
social. His vision gradually cleared. Bausman stood before him, a powerful arm wrapped around a woman’s waist. He held her off the floor as she kicked at his shins and screamed curses. Bausman’s free hand gripped the staff of the branding iron Charlie Bowdre’s widow had used to whack Jim alongside the head.
“You all right, Jim?” Bausman’s voice carried over the steady stream of Mexican curses.
Jim rubbed a hand above his ear and felt a knot begin to form. There was no blood. It seemed to Jim that half his head had been knocked askew. “I’m all right, Luis,” he said. “I guess she’s got a right to be a little upset. Let her go.”
Bausman did.
It looked for a moment like that was a mistake.
Bowdre’s wife lunged again at Jim, swinging the branding iron. Jim ducked, grabbed the iron and wrenched it from her hand as Bausman all but tackled the woman from behind.
Jim glanced at Charlie Bowdre’s frozen body dumped unceremoniously face down on the floor, then at the woman Bausman held. “Missus Bowdre, I’m truly sorry about Charlie,” he said in his awkward Spanish. He became aware of a ringing in his ears and the start of a real wosshopper of a headache. He stooped to retrieve the hat knocked from his head by the iron, then cocked an eyebrow at Bausman.
“Luis,” he said as he tossed the branding iron into a far corner of the room, “I think we better try to get out of here before somebody gets hurt. Like you and me.”
“Ready when you are, Jim.” A grin creased Bausman’s broad face.
“Let’s go!”
Bausman shoved the woman aside. Both men sprinted for the door. The unending string of Mexican profanity followed. Jim vaulted into the wagon, picked up the reins and had whipped the team into a run by the time the back of Bausman’s britches hit the wagon seat. Jim glanced back over his shoulder as he pulled the horses into a tight turn and headed back up the road toward town.