There were no lights on and the windows were barricaded.
Not boarded, but barricaded as though the museum was defending itself from an impending attack. And if Marjorie was
telling the truth, maybe it needed that line of defense.
I wiggled the front door, which was locked, but nothing
that would have prevented anyone with amateur lock-picking
skills and ten free minutes from circumventing. I stuck my
hands in my pockets and waited.
At ten to nine, a thirty-something man with shoulderlength sandy blond hair, tattered jeans and cowboy boots,
walked past the cannons. He nodded at me, took a ring of keys
from his pocket and unlocked the front door.
He turned to me and said, “You here for the museum?”
“Yessir,” I said.
“You a college boy?”
I smiled. “No, sir, a few years out. Just came to visit.” He
nodded, as though that was a suitable answer.
“Just give me ten minutes to open up.” He went inside
and I waited.
Twelve minutes later he propped the front door open and
waved me inside.
The museum was astonishing. It only consisted of four or
five large rooms, but each room was packed to the gills with
antique guns, bullets, cannons, actual carriages, bows and
arrows, belts, rifles and every and any other weapon that
looked like it might have been used by, or against, John
Wayne. The walls were covered with glassed-in documents
that were remarkably well-preserved, along with photos of the
writers and/or recipients of the correspondence. The air had
a musty smell, the floor speckled with sawdust.
The manager took a seat behind a counter, put his feet up
and opened a newspaper.
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“You need anything,” he said to me, “just holler.”
Behind the counter hung several replica guns that were
available for purchase. Several boxes of dead ammunition
lined the shelves. A small sign read 10 Shells For $5.
I paid the ten-dollar entrance fee. A few other visitors
ambled in after me, also happy to pay and gaze at the history
of violence.
I took a slow lap around, surveying the dozens of guns,
even running my fingers along the cannons that guarded the
entryway into each new room. One room was decorated to
resemble an Old West blacksmith’s shop, complete with anvil
and tools, bent metals and horseshoes. Along the walls were
rifle parts in various stages of development, like a before-andafter of gun manufacturing.
After sating my curiosity, I made my way around the
museum until I found the exhibit featuring the military
cavalry sword of John Chisum which Marjorie claimed was
a fake.
The sword was mounted in a glass case nearly four feet
long. The blade was slightly curved. I examined the security
glass, wondered if the sword had actually been stolen. And
if so, why it had never been reported.
Behind the sword was a black-and-white photograph
featuring a caravan of horses, and a portrait of a man who
was presumably John Chisum. A black placard above the
sword explained that Chisum was a cattle driver, and one
of the first to send a herd into New Mexico. Chisum was
a tangential part of the infamous Lincoln County Wars, a
feud between businessmen Alexander McSween and John
Tunstall and their rivals Lawrence Murphy and James
Dolan. During these wars, Chisum had been accosted by a
band of outlaws known as the Regulators. The Regulators
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were notorious cattle thieves, who pilfered from Chisum
and other herders, but were deputized after Tunstall’s murder. They hunted down the men who killed Tunstall, killing
four including a corrupt sheriff named William Brady.
According to a placard on the wall, the Regulators consisted
of men named Dick Brewer, Jim French, Frank McNab, John
Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and Henry McCarty.
Next to the name of Henry McCarty, it read: aka William
H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid.
In the very last room of the museum I found what I’d come
across the country for: an exhibit featuring the Winchester
1873.
Behind a crystal-clear glass case was mounted a pristine
Winchester, along with various posters and propaganda leaflets.
I took out the Winchester Xeroxes, compared them. The
weapon in front of me looked identical to the one on the page.
Inside the case on a poster, written in big bold letters
beneath two opposing firing pistols, were the words: Winches-
ter 1873 edition: The Gun That Won the West.
There were several bullets mounted to the display below the
weapon. A placard identified them as authentic .44-40 magnum
ammunition, the very kind used by that edition Winchester.
I compared the gun and the Xerox until I was reasonably
certain they were one and the same. Then I waited until the
museum had quieted and the manager was free of troublesome tourists. He was reading a copy of the Albuquerque
Journal, looked bored to death, but he set it on the counter
when he saw me approach.
“Help you?” he said.
I pointed at the relics lining the walls.
“This is some pretty amazing stuff,” I said, opening a
window for him.
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Jason Pinter
“Man, you don’t have to tell me that. I get a buzz just sitting
behind this desk.” The Albuquerque Journal was still splayed
open on the counter.
“No doubt,” I said absently. I nodded at the display containing Chisum’s military sword. “How’d you come upon
that beauty?”
“John Chisum,” he said without thinking. “One of the most
influential cattle drivers in U.S. history. Blazed the Chisum
trail from Paris, Texas, all the way to the Pecos Valley. You
know John Wayne himself played John Chisum in a movie?”
“No messing? Which one?”
“Was called Chisum. ”
“Guess that makes sense.”
“Anyway, when Mr. Chisum passed on, died in Eureka
Springs, his great granddaughter endowed this museum with
the sword. D’you know Chisum’s only children were born to
him by a slave girl he owned?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“’At’s a true fact.”
“Sword like that,” I said, “probably worth, what, few
grand?” I saw the man’s eyes twitch, and he looked down for
a split second.
“Try a few hundred grand. The country’s swarming with
collectors of old Western antiques. ’Course most of ’em call
it memorabilia, like a freaking baseball card. Most of ’em
wouldn’t know a Winchester from Worcestershire sauce, and
I never heard of a baseball card used in a gunfight.”
“Speaking of antiques,” I said. “Is that a real Winchester
’73 on the wall?”
The man’s chest puffed out with pride.
“You’re darn right it is. Gun that won the West, gun that
made this country what it is today. Winchester made over
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seven hundred thousand of those darlin’s back in the day.
Nowadays, a ’73 in working condition goes for upward of six
figures on the open market.”
“Bet it goes for even more on the closed market,” I said.
The man winked at me, smirked.
“You’d probably be right there.”
“Can’t imagine the security you must have in place to
keep valuables like that. I mean, there must be a few million
dollars’ worth of memorabilia here.” The man bristled.
“We take the proper precautions,” he said.
“Have you ever had a break-in? A robbery?”
The man took a split second too long to say, “Never.”
“That Winchester,” I said. “How long have you kept that
particular rifle in this museum?”
He took several seconds to say, “I reckon upward of ten
years.”
“And you’ve never been robbed.”
Finally he took a step back, eyed me suspiciously. “Mind
if I ask what you’re asking all these questions fer?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I reached into my bag, pulled out the
tape recorder and notepad first, and then my press identification. “Henry Parker. Pleasure to meet you. I’m a reporter
with the New York Gazette. And I don’t think that Winchester in your case is authentic. In fact, I’m willing to bet the gun
that’s supposed to be in that case is the same one used in three
recent murders in New York this past week.”
The blood drained from the man’s face, and his jaw
dropped just a bit. “Murders, you’re sayin’? I read something
in the papers, that pretty blond girl…”
“Athena Paradis,” I said.
“She was killed by a—” he nodded his head toward the
Winchester case “—model ’73?”
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I said nothing, turned on the tape recorder. “That’s a replica
Winchester in your case, isn’t it? Where’s the original?”
“I’d like you to leave right now.”
“If your Winchester was stolen, I need to know now. We
need to alert the authorities in New York. More lives are in
danger. Someone is using your gun and—”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said, and picked up
the phone. I had seconds before he called the cops and I was
done. I looked at the nameplate. It read Rex Sheehan.
“Rex,” I said. His eyes met mine. “Even if you call the
cops, at the very least they’ll want to run tests on the gun. If
you tell me now, at least we can try to keep some people
alive.” Rex put down the phone. He bowed his head and
crossed himself.
“I wanted to tell someone,” he said solemnly. “But we
don’t have the money for security. We’re not a governmentfunded museum like that fancy one down at New Mexico
State. We get by on donations. And if you look around, I don’t
need to tell you we’re not exactly the Met here.”
“So somebody broke in and stole the gun,” I said. “Did
they steal anything else?”
He shook his head. His lip trembled. I felt sorry for him.
“Please don’t tell anyone this,” he said. “If people find out
we’re displaying a fake they’ll just stop coming altogether.
Besides, it doesn’t really matter, does it? If people think it’s
real, who gets hurt?”
“There are three dead people in New York who can answer
that better than me.”
Rex bowed his head.
“But it still doesn’t add up,” I said. “1873 Winchesters are
a rare model, but not extinct, right?”
“No, there’s a few still out there. Collectors, mostly.”
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“So why come all the way out to Fort Sumner, New
Mexico? Why would someone rob a museum when there had
to be easier ways?”
Again Rex said nothing.
“Tell me about the gun,” I said. “It’s not just a model 1873,
is it? There’s something else.” The man nodded.
“The gun that was stolen,” he sobbed, “the one you’re
saying was used in those murders, well it belonged to William
H. Bonney. Most people know him as Billy the Kid.”
25
Paulina Cole wrote long into the night.
She wrote until the other offices at the Dispatch were dark,
until her colleagues had long ago gone home and surrendered to the comfort of a glass of wine and their inviting beds.
She sewed together the interview like a trained surgeon, connecting arteries, nerves and capillaries together to create one
body of work that would pump blood and live just the way
she wanted it to. Read the way she wanted it to.
She could picture Mya Loverne’s face, that poor, destroyed
face, the shell of a girl whose life’s flame had been snuffed
out long before its time. So many factors had driven Mya to
the brink. Thanks to her father’s chummy relationship with
most gossip columnists, the majority of his philandering never
made it to the printed page. That didn’t mean it didn’t ruin
many a dinner conversation, estrange a daughter in the midst
of the most difficult time of her life. Now it was time to
collect on that debt. Mya had suffered terribly. But through
pain she would regain her life. She was the victim. And the
culprit was not only her lech of a father, but Henry Parker, as
well.
Henry had fractured Mya, literally and figuratively. All her
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165
troubles since the dissolution of their relationship had applied
leverage to that emotional fracture, spreading it until she
cracked open fully.
Paulina had dozens of pages scattered about her desk, three
empty cups of coffee strewn about. She picked up the pages,
plucked a sentence from different ones, felt her collar begin to
burn when she read over all the stories about Henry she’d written last year. Henry, who came to New York as Jack O’Donnell and Wallace Langston’s golden boy. Who was accused of
murder and embarrassed the profession she’d devoted her life
to. If payback was a bitch, Paulina was its mother.
And just like Henry struck the flint that burned Mya, this
story was the spark that would burn down the New York
Gazette. The kindling was there, David Loverne a juicy log,
and she was going to blast that place apart.
Fuck Wallace.
Fuck Harvey Hillerman.
Fuck Jack O’Donnell.
Fuck Henry Parker and everything he was.
But for now, she had to keep working. Soon the paper
would be printed. Soon enough, she would burn their whole
house to the ground.
Just several blocks away, at a desk cracked and worn with
age, an old man sat typing. The desk was covered in coffee
stains and pencil markings, its owner never bothering to clean
them, believing they added personality. The corkboard above
his computer was adorned with pictures, awards, plaques,
books with his name printed on the spine, and a life dedicated
to his craft. It was here that Jack O’Donnell put the finishing
touches on his story for
the next day’s Gazette.
When the story was done, after he’d saved it on his word
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Jason Pinter
processor, made sure he’d written enough inches, and combed
through to minimize any errors that would drive his editors
crazy, Jack O’Donnell sat back in his chair. He pulled a flask
of Jack Daniel’s from his leather briefcase and took a sip. It
was a good story, one that dropped a potential bombshell on
the Paradis investigation. No other paper had this. It was a
Gazette exclusive.
After fifty years in news, his body still tingled at the thrill
of a good story.
Before sending it off, Jack put the final touch on the article.
Underneath the byline Jack added: With additional reporting
by Henry Parker.
And come morning, the sparks would fly.
26
I stared at the weak metal fence which contained three graves
resting side-by-side, one of which belonged to the outlaw
known as Billy the Kid. The fence was in the middle of a large
patch of dirt, surrounded by piles of flowers, photographs and
even bullets. Never had I seen such gestures for such a shoddy
excuse for a tomb.
A headstone sat behind the graves, three names engraved
on it. The stone looked fairly well-maintained, as opposed to
the rest of the mausoleum.
“The headstone’s been stolen three times since 1940,” Rex
said. “At some point they figured it cost more to guard the
darn thing than it did to throw up a new headstone. That’s why
you see here a gate my eight-year-old niece could pry apart.”
“Kind of like the security system in your museum,” I said,
with more than a hint of sarcasm. Inside the cage were three
burial mounds, side by side. At the far end of the enclosure
was one large headstone engraved with three epitaphs.
“That’s Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, on the ends,”
Rex said. “Friends of the Kid. Billy, he’s in the middle grave.”
A marker sat in front of the graves. It was carved in bronze,
about two feet tall, with a triangular top. It read:
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Jason Pinter
THE KID
Born Nov. 23, 1860
Killed July 14, 1881
BANDIT KING
HE DIED AS HE HAD LIVED
Quarters were sprinkled atop the earth. “Tributes,” Rex
said. On the headstone was chiseled one word, Pals. Above
the headstone was a garish yellow sign that read Replica.
And according to dozens of signs, brochures and tourist
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