Billy Old, Arizona Ranger

by Geff Moyer

  “How’d ya know Hickok said that?”

  “Read it in a Dime Novel.”

  “Shit,” spat Billy. “Them things are best used to wipe yer ass.”

  “Maybe so,” Jeff said with a grin, “but they’re fun readin’. Besides, a fella can’t get famous by shootin’ from a distance.”

  “Why do ya wanna get famous?”

  Jeff bit off a chunk of chew and replied, “Hundred years from now I don’t wanna be just another name on a cracked tombstone in some bone yard overgrown in weeds.”

  “Most folks are,” Billy replied with a chuckle.

  “But the ones who aren’t, the ones who leave a mark, are the ones who did something to keep from being forgotten, and most of the time it’s something good, something worthwhile.”

  Billy had to give that some heavy thinking. He’d never thought of himself as someone to leave a mark. He was just another fellow doing his job. A long silence followed as both men stared at their small fire. Finally Jeff broke the stillness.

  “Where ya from, Billy?”

  “Uvalde, Texas.”

  “Uvalde, Uvalde,” pondered Jeff. “Why do I know that name?”

  “Beats me! Only thing there is goats—goats here, goats there—whole damn town smells like goats.”

  “Goats! Sure! Angora goats! That’s it! A big bunch of all the mohair made in the U.S. comes from there. That’s why I’ve heard of it.”

  “Mohair?” What the hell’s mohair?”

  “Well,” it’s kind of a silk-like material made from the hair of Angora goats. Makes nice sweaters! Real soft! Women folk love them!”

  “What’s a Angora goat?”

  “A special kind of goat from Tibet!”

  “What’s Tibet?”

  “Little bitty country next to China.”

  “China? Ya mean them goats I growed up with were chinks?”

  “Well, their eyes are a little slanted.”

  After their laughter died Billy asked, “How the hell’d ya know that, ‘bout them goats?”

  “Few years back my pa bought six of them for our farm. I didn’t know much about raising them so I read a book.”

  “A book?” Billy was amazed. “There’s a damn book ‘bout raisin’ goats?”

  “It was just a little one,” answered Jeff as he held up his index finger and thumb and separated them by less than a quarter-of-an-inch. “Only ‘bout yay thick. We didn’t have them long. Winter took two, wolves took three, and pa gave the last one to our half breed worker. He probably ate it.”

  Billy chuckled and said, “A book ‘bout goats.”

  “Hell, they even got books about raisin’ dogs.”

  “Dogs? And folks read that shit?”

  “Yeah, folks do.”

  “Do you?”

  “I read the one about goats, didn’t I?”

  Their laughter was followed by another long silence. Billy leaned back on his saddle and relit his ivory pipe, studying this smart yet congenial fellow sitting on the other side of a fire barely big enough to roast a frog leg.

  “How’da ya ‘member all that shit?” asked Billy. “That’s crammin’ a lotta stuff inna small space; gimme a headache.”

  “There’s a lotta room up there.”

  “Guess I’m too stupid to grab it.”

  “Where do Angora goats come from?”

  “Teebet, little country next to China.”

  “See! Ya ain’t stupid! Ya learned that.”

  “Dropped my book learnin’ in the fifth grade.”

  “You don’t learn everything from books. I had a history professor in college named Colin Temple—old coot, well into his sixties, maybe seventies. Kept a spittoon right in the classroom and could hit it dead center from six feet or better. He’d spit, that wad would ping into that spittoon and when he made it he’d say, ‘Andy Jackson!’ his favorite president. When he missed, which wasn’t often, he’d say, ‘Ulysses S. Grant!’ his least favorite president. Just from those shots at that spittoon we learned the goods and bads about those two presidents. He told us some things about history a fella could never learn from books. Some of the best learnin’ comes from just listenin’.”

  Billy watched Jeff toss a few more small twigs into the flame then cup his hands over the rising heat for a moment. Maybe it was the way this fellow from Dakota talked, or the way he shaped his words, or the calmness in his voice—smooth, clear, soft, never top-lofty. Whatever it was, Billy liked it.

  “Maple?” asked Jeff as he sniffed the aroma from the pipe.

  “Yep.”

  “Nice! Covers up the horse shit!”

  “Use to watch my pa make it. He’d take tobacco leaves, we grew a little on our farm, soak them in maple syrup and let them sit in the sun fer two days. Then he’d grind them up and smoke ‘em.”

  “You do that, make your own?”

  “Naw!” All store-bought anymore!”

  Another long moment passed.

  “Think you’ll ever go back?” asked Jeff, once again being the one to crack the silence. “To Uvalde?”

  “Maybe. Heard they built an op’ry house in ninety-one. Kinda like to see it.”

  “The house or an opera?”

  “I guess if ya see one, ya gotta see t’other, doncha?”

  “Good thinkin’!”

  A few quiet moments passed then Jeff asked, “How long since you been home?”

  “Left in eighty-eight. Was fourteen!”

  “Damn! You’re a year older than me but look five years younger. What’s your secret?”

  “My ma always said I got a baby face. Hated that! My pa always said I look like my ma. Hated that, too! Ain’t it better that a boy look like his pa?”

  “Depends on whose traits are stronger,” commented Jeff. “Yer pa’s or yer ma’s.”

  “Well, them traits done decided wrong. Like I said, a boy should look like his pa. Anyways, truth is I think all that keeps me lookin’ young is beans, beer, and whores.”

  It felt like their laughter lasted close to a minute, but was again trailed by another long silence.

  “Fourteen’s pretty young to leave home,” Jeff finally remarked, hoping it might spur an explanation, but Billy just sat there puffing out clouds of smoke. Then he asked, “How long you been a Ranger?”

  “Year!”

  “What’d you do before?”

  “Just cowboyed ‘round. Did a short hitch as a deputy ‘til I signed up with the Rangers. Well, ‘cept fer some time with the Rough Riders.” He wasn’t sure why he made that last statement. It angered him that his tongue had pushed it from his mouth.

  “You fought down in Cuba?” asked Jeff, sitting up on his bedroll and freeing another stream of tobacco juice.

  “Yeah!” Billy took a double pull on his pipe and made an uneasy shift of his body.

  “With T.R.?”

  Again slightly shifting his position, Billy huffed, “The fuckin’ ol’ bear himself!”

  Jeff sensed this was a sore subject. There was reluctance, maybe disgust in Billy’s voice, but his curiosity was fired. “What was it like?”

  “Hell, Jeff, yer the college boy who’s read all them fuckin’ books, ya should know!”

  The irritation in Billy’s voice was clear as glass. If the fire would’ve been brighter Jeff probably could’ve seen the hair go up on his neck. Reclining back on his bedroll he said, “Well, I know we had four times as many killed and wounded than the Spanish.”

  “And the dumb shits still called it a victory!” blurted Billy. “All them men chargin’ up that fuckin’ hill and gettin’ cut down like hay under a sickle! It started out fine, the enlistment, I mean. We were called the First U.S. Voluntary Calvary. It was just some good ol’ boys, Texans, cowboys, Buffalo Soldiers, even a few Injuns. All of us were decent horsemen. Had to be! When that fuckin’ T.R. came on board, though, we started gettin’ in all them Eastern bluebloods. Some of them still wearin’ ‘em silly lookin’ choke-bored breeches. There was athletes like f
ootball players, baseball players, fellas whose only ridin’ was in them fuckin’—whatcha call ‘em?—poolo games! Even golfers and tennis players, and goddamn Glee Club singers! Yeah! Can ya fuckin’ believe that? Glee Club singers! Shit!” With his rant beginning to subside, Billy took a few long pulls on his pipe and just shook his head in disgust. “Buncha knotheaded dumb shits!” But that fuckin’ ol’ bear led them up that hill anyways! None of them knew how to fight. None of them knew how to die.”

  He couldn’t understand why he had let those words pour out to this new Ranger. For years his time with the Rough Riders had been a heavy stone lodged in his gut. He couldn’t puke it up, couldn’t shit it out.

  “Hell,” Billy added, I still see them legless football players and jawless glee singers in my dreams.”

  Jeff stirred the fire and said, “That ol’ professor I told ya about—Colin Temple—he fought in the ‘War of Northern Aggression,’ as he used to call it. He told us about other fellows who fought in it who hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in twenty years, fellows who’d fall to the ground at loud noises, fellows who used to wake up stabbing their wives with a rusty bayonet in the middle of night. Things like that can fuck you up in your head. But you made it back in one piece and you won. That’s what counts.” Jeff warmed his hands again and began humming “Red River Valley.”

  March, 1909

  A church with a recent bath of whitewash was the first thing that welcomed Billy to Los Pozos. It gave off an eerie angelic glow in the afternoon sun. He also noticed there was no trash in the streets, not even dog shit. A few children were counting and playing escondidas. He saw that many adobes had also been freshly whitewashed. The corral was placed on the north side so the pushy south wind would carry its stench away from town. He couldn’t imagine a pig like Tomás Amador being content here. It was too clean, too nice, and far too quiet.

  Then a bullet blew off his hat.

  He dove off Orion and landed hard on his belly, but with gun in hand. Two more bullets struck the ground in front of his face, spraying dead earth into his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  “Vete al diablo, Ranger!” screamed a policeman as he ran up the street towards Billy, a pistola in each hand. He fired wildly on the run and again screamed, “Vete al diablo, Ranger!” Tomás Amador had spotted the black horse with the white star on its forehead just minutes after the two had ridden into town.

  The earth that coated Billy’s tongue and filled his nose was turning to a choking mass. His eyes watered and burned as he kept spitting out more mud and dirt and firing wildly at the charging man. Amador was firing downward, which usually was an advantage, but what the Mexican policeman forgot was that running on an afternoon’s worth of tequila wouldn’t help his aim.

  Billy had the advantage.

  One of his bullets hit the beaner’s left forearm. It didn’t even slow him down. He kept coming, kept running, kept shooting, kept yelling. The tequila had deadened his pain.

  Amador had the advantage.

  Lead was striking all around him, pelting his face with more Sonora dirt. At a distance of about twenty feet he saw a red hole appear two inches above the bridge of Amador’s nose. Since Billy was firing upward, a lucky shot had found the top of the policeman’s forehead and cleaved his skull open clear down to brain matter. His entire body lifted two feet into the air, floated backwards, and plowed onto the earth with a heavy thud. Then all was quiet. Billy spat out a mouthful of mud and jumped up. Wiping the sweat and dirt from his face with his bandana, he hurried over to the very dead Mexican policeman.

  “Goddamn me!” he shouted and kicked up some dirt. Trying to question this hombre on the whereabouts of the others, and just who the hell Victoriano was, would prove a hitch with half his head missing.

  A voice came from behind. “Holster the weapon, Señor!”

  Billy froze.

  The voice sternly repeated itself. “Holster the weapon, Señor! NOW!”

  Billy carefully bedded his Smith & Wesson and turned slowly. It was another Mexican policeman, but the man wasn’t even holding a weapon. His pistola was buckled inside his service holster. He was also clean shaven, which was a rare practice with Mexican police. His hair was neatly trimmed and tucked under his cap. His uniform was crisp, not sweaty and soiled. He didn’t even smell.

  “Self defense, so adios, Señor,” the man insisted.

  Billy realized this was the fellow who answered his telegram with the five word message, “Still here, still a puerco.” He pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and flipped it to him.

  “Plant him,” he ordered.

  With a half grin the officer flipped the coin back to Billy and said, “It is on me, Señor.”

  As Billy leaned over to pick up his newly ventilated John B a familiar pain shot through his jaw: that hellacious first sign of a tooth going bad. He’d had a few yanked before and wasn’t looking forward to what could trail this ache. When he straightened up the pain fled. He sighed in relief. Climbing back on Orion, he stole a side glance down at Amador’s body. A thousand flies had already turned his red cleaved head into a black, writhing mass. “Funny,” he thought as he gazed at the dead policeman, “Just kilt a man and I ain’t feelin’ poorly ‘bout it.”

  “Adios, Señor,” repeated the policeman.

  Holding on to Orion’s reins, Billy turned the horse to the left, then to the right, then back to the left, and back again to the right. Then it hit him. His lack of smarts had left his ass puckering in the wind. He had plunged head first into this pursuit of Amador without even thinking about his next move. The word “knothead” swirled around his head. He knew he had just enough supplies to get back to Nogales, but none of the men he was after were there. They were cowering under the rocks that covered thousands of miles of Sonora County. He wanted to ask the clean policeman something, anything, but what, he had no clue. He scolded himself again, “Knothead, stupid knothead!” For the first time in years he had no assignment, no destination, no plan. Not even a home to return to. He knew Jeff would’ve planned his next move. Jeff was smart. Jeff would’ve wounded Amador just enough to bring him down, but he was a better shot and a quicker thinker, even flat on the ground. Orion snorted in frustration, anxious for a direction to take his rider.

  Sensing his hesitation, the policeman repeated for the third time, “Adios, Señor,” and smacked Orion’s butt.

  By no choice of their own, Billy and Orion were heading south, deeper into Sonora County. Again he cursed his ignorance.

  February, 1906

  “Why the hell’d ya go and volunteer us fer this crap?” Billy bitched at his friend.

  “What’re ya complainin’ about?” responded Jeff. “It’s easy duty and we’re inside. Besides, I thought you could use the extra pay now that you’re a married man.”

  “Ain’t I gone enough from Anna without you addin’ an extra night?”

  “Then look at it this way: we’re learnin’ somethin’.”

  “Learnin’?” miffed a frustrated Billy. “Learnin’ what? I don’t un’erstand a fuckin’ word ‘em flannel-mouthed fat asses are sayin.’ Judikal recall? Woman’s sufferin’? What sufferin’s are bein’ brung down on what woman, and who’s bringin’ it?”

  He and Jeff were positioned inside the entrance of the Nogales town hall staring at the backs of about twenty well-dressed fat asses seated facing a small platform. On the platform were three other fat asses with hind ends overflowing their three chairs. The group had been palavering about Arizona becoming a state. The even fatter asses up in Washington had dubbed Arizona as “a crude land of scoundrels, ne’er-do-wells, and savages” and wanted to make New Mexico and Arizona one state. The people of the Territory of Arizona felt they had earned their own identity. Aware of the town’s reputation, the men who had come down from the Territorial seat had requested some Rangers for protection. Captain Wheeler figured this could be something his only college-educated Ranger might find interesting. He offered the extra-duty-extra-pay job to
Jeff, who readily volunteered Billy to come along.

  “Judicial recall,” explained Jeff, “simply means that we’d have the right to fire judges who aren’t doin’ a good job. Women’s suffrage means givin’ women the right to vote.”

  Billy was stunned. “Women wanna vote?”

  “Sure!”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? They live in this country, too.”

  “Anna ain’t ne’er said nothin’ ‘bout wantin’ to vote.”

  “You ever ask her?”

  “No.”

  “Do!”

  After another moment Billy asked, “Whores, too?”

  “Whores, too,” Jeff answered with a chuckle.

  “Then why the hell are ‘em fat asses coyotin’ ‘round like that? Why don’t they just spit it out in a way us stupid folks can un’erstand?”

  “Damn it, Billy, you’re not stupid! Stop sayin’ ya are!”

  “Fifth grade, Jeff,” Billy fired back in a frustrated state of self-loathing. “Fifth fuckin’ grade.”

  “See that?” declared Jeff. You knew right where to put the word ‘fuckin.’ Right after fifth and right before grade! Fifth fuckin’ grade.”

  Baffled, he looked at Jeff for a moment then said, “Shut the fuck up!”

  With a big tobacco stained grin, Jeff stated, “Got that one right, too!”

  Laughing too loud earned the Rangers several chiding glances from various well-dressed fat asses. To one who held his nasty glare a bit too long, both Rangers presented their middle fingers. A week later they were summoned into the captain’s office. Wheeler was mad as a pissed-on turtle as he waved a letter in their faces.

  “That little gesture ya pulled at the meetin’ last week got me this,” he fired at them. “Do either of ya knotheads know who Henry Ashurst is?”

  Billy and Jeff glanced at each other then gave Wheeler a clueless shrug of their shoulders.

  “He’s the Coconino Country District Attorney,” hissed Wheeler, “and he don’t ‘preciate bein’ given the high sign by two a my Rangers.”

  “Why are you upset ‘bout what some fella clear up in Coconino County thinks, Cap’n?” asked Jeff.