Lucky Billy

by John Vernon

  Smiling, Jesse Evans still held his rifle inches from Widenmann's jiggling gut. Baker hawked, a cloud crossed the sun. Don't exhale, Billy thought, just quietly leak air. No one moved. Then it was over. As though shaking off a spell, Evans lowered his rifle, the rest looked around and holstered their guns. But Billy had noticed Matthews and Evans exchanging furtive glances and kept his hand on the Thunderer's butt just in case. Matthews announced that he and the posse would ride back to Lincoln and get further instructions from Sheriff Brady. While they climbed the barricade and returned to their horses, Billy stood and dusted off his pants, Fred continued eating, and Widenmann, shaking, turned to Dick Brewer and remonstrated with him about mollycoddling cutthroats. Brewer said, "It was all we could do. It's clear what their intentions are. They don't care about the stock. They're after Mr. Tunstall. It's a simple trick, Rob. Allow him to take those seven horses and mules then arrest him for stealing them. They'll say they were attached."

  "Where is Harry now?" Widenmann asked. "He was supposed to be here. Is he in Lincoln?" He searched Brewer's face but the latter turned away. The handsomest man in Lincoln County gazed at the last of the posse riding off, and seemed detached, unperturbed. He's a soothsayer, Billy thought.

  The soothsayer made an utterance. "I don't think he's in Lincoln. I'm not sure where he is."

  "Why did you help fortify this place if all you wish is to talk?"

  "If they come up firing, that's one thing, Rob, even if they do outnumber us. Let them take the first shot. I believe they did not intend to waste their bullets unless Mr. Tunstall was among us. They want to arrest him."

  Billy looked at Fred. "Is that what this was about?"

  "Uh-huh."

  Widenmann began to splutter. "If that's the case and they back—get back to Lincoln and find Harry gone they'll just return with more men. You know how those fiends play their cards. They want Harry to fight."

  "He's thought of asking John Chisum to borrow some of his waddies. Enough of Chisum's men combined with our hands might discourage those hotheads."

  "So he does intend to fight!"

  "He intends to prevent one. It's wise to be strong."

  "It's wiser to give no quarter, Richard. Look at me, I feel—I feel like a coward. I feel like a coward! I have the authority to arrest those cattle thieves and I haven't done it."

  "Man up, Rob."

  "Now they're getting away!"

  "Get a hold of yourself. Lower your voice. You've done dandy so far. We'll have our chance."

  The Kid watched Dick Brewer. With his strong nose, blue eyes, high brow, mop of curly hair, and iron-clamp jaw, he gave nothing away, you couldn't ruffle the man. That's the way to be. In front of him, Widenmann continued spluttering. Matthews had said he'd get instructions from Brady but Widenmann now declared he knew better, Matthews would go directly to Dolan. In that case, Rob would return to Lincoln, too, he announced to Brewer, and find Harry and get instructions from him. Meanwhile, he paced back and forth—Mr. Tunstall's only error in judgment, thought Billy. Rob took out his warrants, read and refolded them, tucked them back in his coat. He'd write a letter to the Boys, he now announced, and to no one in particular he recited its contents. "It would go like this. Dear Messrs. Evans, Baker, and Hill, you Hunde, you ... savages, if you try to collar Harry you will hear the gentle report of my gun, that is the kind of hairpin I am. How does that sound? This thing of horse thieves being on a sheriff's posse may do in some places but it has gotten thin with me. Yours truly, Robert Widenmann."

  Fred said, "Try Yours on the first dark stormy night, Rob.'"

  "'Yours on this side of hell, Rob,'" said Billy.

  "That's good," said Widenmann, pointing at the Kid. '"Yours on this side of hell, Rob.'"

  ***

  MUCH BELOVED FATHER, I am almost used up, I've just about had it, how dare you cut me short with no further emolument? I am still below par, my machinery was compelled to make forced marches from Lincoln to Roswell before going to my ranch when it should have been standing still for repairs, and when shall I ever find the time to rest up and recruit?

  Crossing the desert on horseback, Tunstall made a fist and struck his thigh with it. Mormon Pussy's withers indifferently rippled.

  I am at death's door, he mentally scribbled, and certified dead if I don't make this effort, sitting on saddle all day and all night without food or water. I really do think I am as tough as anyone, about as tough as any cowboy and as tough as a merchant like you, Beloved Father, who has to beat out competitors just to get his share of market. Have you ever had to commit bloody murder for the sake of a sale? And what did Mother think of that? Or did you merely sit comforted by a glowing fire while your minions carried out your wishes? I've been adamant that nothing should give the other side an occasion for violence, you'd be proud of me, Father. Lots of fellows ... decent fellows ... in my shoes would not have done as much. I am of course well established, the Mexicans think that El Inglés does not dress and put on quite as much style as they would do if they vale tanto (were worth as much as he) Pero es muy buen hombre, muy rico (but he is a first-rate man and very rich). I can think in parentheses and capital letters, even italics, and translate my lingo, I have a clarity of purpose, make my points well, good points, very fine points, against ubiquitous chicanery, against thieves, desperadoes, corrupt officials, and cutthroat Irish, all of whom have had the laws altered to suit their greedy purposes. If you could realize the odds I have had against me you would be astonished that I ever made a point. I will beat them as sure as they live. As they live.

  The cold sun over Tunstall's right shoulder cast a foreshortened shadow across the yellow track. Before him, the horizon made a perfect semicircle. He was riding into sky.

  This winter is a very cold one, Mother, you would not like it. Or else being fagged out and rheumatic I feel it more than I did the last, though I'm able to drive a hard pull against the wind without using gloves so I guess I am as tough as ever. You must think of me as tough, very, very tough, and I cannot regardless be near death's door though I've suffered a good deal with rheumatism on this ride. There is a local peculiarity in the atmosphere that catches a rheumatic subject every time and my knees ached a great deal as I rode across the flatlands on the way to Chisum's ranch. I was on the qui vive, I saw their purported writ of attachment and discovered an irregularity in it and had it set aside, you'd be proud of your son. Those fellows would steal the eyes out of a man's head if he did not have them peeled all the time, they have not, however, so far scored a single point in my game. Not a single point. I made this trip to make a very fine point and I think I have made it. Chisum thinks so too. I rode clown to South Spring to ask his assistance and he generously offered it. A few of John Chisum's jinglebob cowboys would supplement my forces and protect my ranch from the best-armed posse.

  This anticipative script reassured Tunstall, though he'd not yet managed to stay the court's writ; nor had he quite arrived at Chisum's ranch. Perhaps forethought would function as a kind of charm and become self-fulfilling when he actually got there.

  Mother, please explain to Father that an additional £300 per annum for overhead would secure his investments, for the cost of doing business in a country as peculiarly circumstanced as this one couldn't possibly have been foreseen, Mother. I have so far acquired a great deal of good property that has not yet had time to turn around and pay and I am out of pocket on several turns I have not had time to work because—I mean to say—mind you, this unexpected impediment—I am working out my original plan as fast as my circumstances (which look pretty sticky) will—Did you think it would be a jolly bed of roses, Mam? I approached Chisum's ranch in the early part of morning beneath a frozen sun. Fruit trees, orchards, cottonwoods, corrals, all poor and naked in the cruel light. The adobe house seemingly abandoned with its pretil, its parapet with the portholes on top, for defense against attack. But no one was about.

  Tunstall climbed off his mare. The fifty-mile ride all the way from L
incoln couldn't possibly have been a waste of time, could it? He'd begun last night, ridden all clay today, felt dog-tired and bitter, but he would complete the gesture, by Jove, what choice did he have? He'd anticipated Chisum's generous offer too much to admit he hadn't really expected the man not to be home. When the door swung open and Jim Chisum, not John, stood there smiling—his own comic version of his brother's face dominated by the nose, smiling drearily at Tunstall—his heart shriveled in his chest.

  Less than an hour later he was back on the trail having wolfed the eggs and beans the Chisum coosie'd whipped up, having watered and fed poor Mormon Pussy, having ... come a cropper. With John Chisum not home and the jinglebob cowboys out riding the line, there was no help here and all was wrong with the world. Perhaps the cattle baron had known he was coming and conveniently vanished, now that push had come to shove and Lincoln County seemed on the verge of war. Tunstall plunged his hands into Mormon Pussy's mane heading southwest toward his own ranch, another forty miles away. The wind was from the west, deceptively slack, but he couldn't peel the cold off his ungloved hands, and how foolish of him to leave without gloves!

  He pictured himself alone on the prairie as though inching across the face of the moon. In fact, he was alone on the prairie. And indeed, it resembled the face of the moon in its yellow-brown featureless vapidity.

  By early afternoon the flat land had opened up, the hills begun to rise. He dropped into the canyon though he knew he was climbing it, the entire folded land rolling up from this point. The wind was now unforgiving and bitter; his hands had grown numb. The sky was the blue of solid ice in the mountains. You can fancy me nearly perished with cold, having a pretty tough time all around, Father. All this stealing of my property has put me back terribly. These are surely matters that a comfortable squire like you have always been has no conception of, in your warm feather bed. In your paneled office. In your coach and four with blanket and fur hat and the hand- and foot-warmers full of hot coals. The cost of securing investments in a land lawless as to business, though holding up a painted picture of judges and warrants and writs and other documents universally known to be farcical is ... is ... I must say ... It is a byword among these parts, hem hem, that men expect to be paid, and well paid at that, for going on the warpath. Just like you, Papa. When I get my dander up, I'm liberal but prejudiced, charming but arrogant, humble but righteous, the spitting image of my pater. I've been known to win favor and popularity while seemingly indifferent, above the fray if you please. Not at all, not at all. I came here because it's where California was twenty years ago, the idea being to strike while the iron's ... to get in on the ground...

  He nearly fell off Mormon Pussy but clung to her mane. When his eyes flew open they were facing the sun, cold as a pearl yet sharper than an ice pick. Every joint, every fiber of muscle in his limbs felt hung with sordid weights. Back and forth his mind slogged like an angry piece of music, soothing itself, lashing out, licking wounds, indulging the brutal yet comfortable sorrow of his sole forbidden fruit, self-pity. John Henry Tunstall, upright and square, on the finest California saddle you could imagine, with his blankets rolled and tied and his mahogany travel box nattily secured, in English riding pants and leggings, big-hearted, free—a fine-looking chap, forthright yet modest—but regrettably the victim of Irish savagery and greed...

  The sun looked to be an hour from setting now. The trail dipsy-doodled up over ridges, back clown across the river. Cannonball-sized rocks in the riverbed with platforms of ice and tents of snow between them. His resolve began to stiffen. He counted the times his trail crossed the river, after twelve he'd be there. Here, the river had cut a brown corrugated wall at the base of one hill and he found himself ascending through white earth, then red, then dun-colored, brown, then back clown through white. The dry brown grass in alluvial valleys was a foot high in places, forage enough for a hundred thousand cattle. We're rich, Beloved Father! He crested a rise and looked clown at bare cottonwoods and his bunkered ranch house. Meager as it was, nonetheless it made a start. And the boys there squatting around a merry fire, his faithful honest gunmen for three dollars a day. And the wide rising valley of brown and yellow earth swaled by the river and filled with dying sunlight.

  ***

  BILLY COULDN'T BELIEVE how ravaged his boss looked, how changed and beaten down. If you rode a hundred miles nonstop for two days you'd look wappered, too, said Fred. "His spirit's beat," said the Kid. "Look at him there with his head in his hands."

  Tunstall raised his head and stared into the fire. He'd aged, Billy thought, his mouth appeared crusty, his eyes were dark and sleepy, and the flesh on his face looked as though you could just pull it off piece by piece. He was only, what?—twenty-three or -four years old. His corrugated hair fell in corkscrews to his ears and his fair cheeks and the bottom slope of chin showed erratic burrs of hair. It could be his heart was weak. When your heart's weak your head begins to falter and your strength goes away. The living breathing shadow who used to be Mr. Tunstall had already announced he wouldn't countenance bloodshed. We'll give up the damn horses, he'd said—surrender them to Brady. If we have to fight this out we'll do so in the courts. "Don't worry, boys. We'll best those cowards yet. It may take a while."

  Rob Widenmann, too, had recently arrived, having failed to find Tunstall in Lincoln. He listened to his friend and his gospel of surrender with obvious dismay. Like Tunstall, he'd been two long days on the road but this seemed to stir him up instead of weigh him down. Billy thought they compensated for each other; Rob did his damnedest to become Tunstall's courage. I Ie slapped his own shoulders, fisted the air, began uncompleted thoughts of justice and defiance with words like By George, then looked sheepishly at "Harry."

  Dusk. Overhead, the sky had gone pale with a few strewn stars but their house and barricade of heavy earthen sacks now lay at the bottom of featureless dark. In this dogmatic solitude, the utter silence of the universe was commonplace and enduring. As darkness spread, Brewer divvied up a watch in case the Dolanites tried a night raid.

  Billy took the second shift. While the men behind him snored, he sat on the barricade facing a crushing excess of stars. They made the planet seem irrelevant, a mere swirl of shadows. His Winchester lay on his lap. A few of the men slept inside the ranch house, the rest between the barricade and the front door. Footsteps scraped; someone was up. A shape propped its elbows on the wall beside the Kid and took a deep breath. "I can't sleep," said Tunstall. "It's remarkable. I've been on the road for two entire days and am thoroughly exhausted yet sleep eludes me."

  "Sometimes you're so tired you come out the other side."

  "Yes, that's it. I feel utterly depleted yet I'm wide awake. The night air feels so intensely cold and pure it's almost absurd. Do you mind if I stand here? I'll keep my voice low. The cold for some reason hardly seems cold at all. Aren't you tired, I ask myself. Tired? The devil!" Tunstall's fist thumped the barricade; it made a distant sound. His mouth moved queerly in its gunny sack of darkness, and his voice sounded corky, very British, and twangless yet fitful in the way it randomly pinched words. "There's a kind of madness in scraping back and forth across desert wastes ten thousand miles from home, in quest of what?—I could have married any number of widows back in England if it's money I wanted. Leave those pigs to their wallowing, I said to myself, the pigs who marry wealthy widows. There's more credit for a man when he makes his own way, on his own hook. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "Sure."

  "Don't you worry, Kid. We've hit a rough patch but we'll be out of it soon. No need for gunplay. Is it Antrim or Bonney? I get them mixed up."

  "Bonney."

  "Upon my word, I have faith in our future just as strong as ever. This is a country where penniless shepherds become millionaires. I met one in California, a former bankrupt named Hollister, who at the outset had just a few acres. With every penny he could spare he bought more land and stocked it with sheep. I dare say he's now worth more than three million dollars. He did nothing
that is not as well within my reach. I'll be as rich as him and not before long. I look around, I look—on the miseries of others and compare them to my own and regard myself as fortunate. Old chap, I tell myself, these may be rough times but you'll get your turn of luck before very long. Really, luck seems to follow me wherever I go."

  "The same goes for me. I'm generally lucky. Only, luck mostly happens when you don't need it. When you need it, it jumps to some other lucky fellow standing nearby."

  "As at the gaming tables? So luck is paradoxical, eh? You may be right, Kid."

  Billy said nothing. He didn't wish to give away not being acquainted with the word paradoxical.

  "We make a pair, don't we? Smart chap. We'll win this game yet." Tunstall's head shook in the dark as though expelling doubt. The Kid couldn't help it, he felt like a schoolboy whose brand-new teacher was boarding at his house and wished to make the lad's acquaintance. "Look at you, you were born in this country. Were you born in this country?"

  "Born in New York, come west with my mother."

  "New York? Is that so? I landed in New York on the liner Calabria when I was nineteen years old. Fearfully ill on that voyage from England—thought I would die. Thank God for champagne!—it settles the stomach, fortifies the heart. I stayed in the St. Nicholas on Broadway."

  "I've been on Broadway."

  "Splendid pile, upon my word. A fine bath apparatus. Had my first warm bath in ten days there. Have you been inside it?"

  "I was just a boy."

  "Gad, they had everything. A hairdresser, hosier, glover, hatter, a billiards room with eight tables. A lift going up and down all the day. A marvelous façade, elegant, yes? Upon my word, what a splendid city! The tide of life on Broadway goes at a racing speed. Our Cheapside in London proceeds at such a pace, but your horses are better—I saw that in New York and think it even more true in New Mexico. I suppose you can see that I'm no mindless Chauvin. The first time I walked down Broadway I thought all the men had a restless, hungry look."