“What’s holding your jerk line, son, got teeth in your saddle?”
I try to maneuver the wheelchair around, but shifting all the weight to one foot throws my balance off. My muscles begin to quiver. My back spasms and bends like a pencil ready to snap. With a last grunt, I toe the wheelchair. It spins around just as he slips off my shoulder. I lean his fall toward the chair and it catches him with a loud clang.
“Jesus-Lord have mercy, you want me to shake hands with St. Peter?”
An overwhelming dizziness flushes over me and I feel a chill like diving into a cool pool bathed in sweat. I lean against the bed, heart pounding, then sit. The bed sinks like a trampoline. I’ve just begun the long journey and I’m already too tired to continue. I turn toward my great-grandfather slumped in the wheelchair and mercifully he’s asleep—or is he? Hands shaking, I check his neck for a pulse. Where’s the jugular? I find it. He’s alive, just sleeping. Morpheus has finally come to my aid. I must move him before he wakes.
By Gods, I almost forgot the $100,000 underwear.
The front door in the second story of the courthouse opened. Out upon the porch high above the street stepped Billy the Kid. He still wore his leg irons, but the handcuffs had disappeared from his wrists; he had slipped them off without great difficulty over his remarkably small hands. The sheer bravado of his appearance was his gesture of drama. It made him a target for death from a dozen places of concealment; but no hidden foe ventured a shot to avenge Olinger and Bell. With the porch as his stage, he stood for a moment leaning upon his shotgun like an actor awaiting the applause of his audience at the close of a big scene.164
Feedback permeates an announcement from a cheap speaker horn, “Easter dinner will be served at 5:45 sharp. Those who have requested room service must fill out their meal ticket by 12:30 in order to receive dinner. No ticket will be accepted after that time. This announcement will not be repeated.”
With his lap full of old boxer shorts, no one seems to notice us as I roll him down the hall. Light blue orderlies go about their business pushing carts with breakfast trays stacked on top and steel potty pans below. Some, with rough nonchalance, pull stretchers with swinging I.V. units jabbed into pale yellow arms. A young man and woman talk, smiling and laughing as if they were in the park on a picnic rather than at work surrounded by the rotting flesh of dumped grandpappies and grannies wheezing last gasps of germ-infested air. Lying in helpless heaps beneath starch-stiff sheets, they’re like iced-souls in Dante’s ninth. Clouded eyes, frozen open, transfix upon the fluorescent phosphorescence swirling above. Reaching into the smoky hue of fogged memory, a flaccid arm grasps the air as fading faces of youth circle above in a mad dance of projected phantoms.
As we pass by, I feel heads turn and eyes clawing me and it takes all my energy to keep from shivering uncontrollably, but I don’t dare look behind for fear of being dragged back into Hades. Why doesn’t anyone say anything? Are they waiting to nab me outside as soon as I pass the final threshold?
Great-grandfather wakes up and demands, “Where am I?”
An elevator opens just in time.
Billy then addressed his audience watching intently from across the street on the porch of the Wortley hotel. “I have command of eight revolvers, six rifles, and this here shotgun courtesy of Bob Olinger who you see before you. When I grabbed Bell’s revolver, I told him that I intended only to lock him in the armory, but he ran and I had to kill him. I do not wish to kill anyone else, but I’m standing pat against the world and if anyone interferes with my escape I shall be forced to shoot him dead.”
Godfrey Gauss, the fatherly, white bearded German who was once the cook at the Tunstall ranch, had been standing there stunned before Olinger’s riddled corpse. He was about to turn and run when he heard the Kid’s voice stopping him in his tracks.
“Don’t run, Gauss. I’d never hurt you old man. I will clear out as soon as I free myself of these shackles. Pitch me up that old pick-axe lying out there and while I loosen these shackles from my legs, I want you to fetch Billy Burt’s pony from the pasture out back and saddle him.”165
The lobby is busy now and I pass through with ease as Great-grandfather sleeps peacefully, but outside, it darkens as if ready to rain. Great Zeus, please hold back the lightning! The doors present a formidable obstacle. I try to back out by propping the door open with my leg as I pull the wheelchair through. Stretching as far as I can without moving my leg, I give the chair a last pull before releasing the door, but the door swings violently, closing too quickly for the tip of Great-grandfather’s foot to clear.
“Owwwww!”
The desk nurse jerks her head. Orderlies turn. The waiting room goes silent as faces pop up from magazines.
I rush Great-grandfather howling to the Pinto as countless eyes aim a fusillade at my back.
Saddling the black pony proved difficult for Gauss. The kindly cook was old and stiff and the pony, young and skittish. Meanwhile back at the courthouse, Billy gave up after painfully breaking off one leg iron. Tucking the loose end of the chain into his waistbelt, he stepped back out on the porch with two pistols, two fully loaded cartridge belts, a Winchester carbine, and Olinger’s shotgun. He sat down, leaned back and coolly rolled a cigarette. He paused from smoking to entertain his audience with songs and jokes while waiting patiently for Burt’s pony and even rose to dance a jig or two when the spirit moved him.
When Billy comes marching home again,
hurrah, hurrah,
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then,
hurrah, hurrah,
The men will cheer and the boys will shout,
the good town ladies will all turn out,
and we’ll all feel gay when
Billy comes marching home.
“Hey,” shouted the Kid to his Wortley porch audience, “did you hear the saying: a fool for luck and a poor man for children? Well, Pat Garrett takes them all in, ha, ha!”
Green grow the lilacs all sparkling with dew,
I’m lonely my darling since parting with you,
But by our next meeting I’ll hope to prove true,
and change the green lilacs to the Red, White,
and Blue.
After an hour, the pony finally grew bored with the game and gave in to Gauss. When he brought the horse around, he apologized to Billy for taking so long.
“No bother, Grandpa” replied the Kid smiling. “I’m in no hurry.”
On passing the body of Bell, the Kid said, “I’m sorry I had to kill you, but it couldn’t be helped.” Then smashing Olinger’s shotgun in two, he threw it on the mangled corpse. “You can take that to hell with you; you will hound me with it no longer.” Then he leaned over and took a gold watch and fob from the corpse’s waist. “This can go to hell with me.”
When he mounted the small horse with his load of weapons and heavy chain, the pony bucked sending Billy sprawling to the ground, but nobody in the audience dared to laugh as Billy rose quickly, Winchester cocked and level. He called one of the Wortley gallery to fetch the horse, an order promptly followed, and remounted. Before riding off into the sunset, his last words were, “Tell Billy Burt I will send his horse back to him.” Sure enough, to most everyone’s surprise, the pony arrived at the Lincoln courthouse the next morning, safe and sound, trailing its long lariat.166
I fumble keys and finally find the one for the passenger door, but it doesn’t open. The lock turns but the door latch fails to pop up. In the meantime, Great-grandfather has turned his attention from his pained foot to attempting to free himself from the chair’s grip, but can’t raise himself from the saddle. None of the keys budge the passenger door so I must chance leaving him. Rushing around the back, I bang my injured knee on the bumper and limp to the driver’s door. Spying Great-grandfather’s wheelchair shifting on the slight hill, I frantically try keys until one works. No time to lose. I swing the door open and hurl my weight through scraping my body along the steering wheel. I reach out, and bearly touch the
passenger latch. With one last push, I rock my weight forward enough to lift the latch as a searing pain runs up my left side. I look up and see Great-grandfather’s head floating passed the side windows. The hill! Bruising every vulnerable part of my body, I jostle myself back out and stumble to the back of the Pinto just in time to catch the wheelchair before it rolls down Independence Avenue. I pull him back and pry open the passenger door whose metal has caught on the front panel. Before trying to get him in, I lift a handful of underwear from his lap.
“Hey you!”
My heart jumps into my mouth. Still clutching his underwear, I look up to see a guard standing at the entrance.
“What are you doing there?”
“I’m bringing Great-grandfather home for his birthday,” and to my amazement the man just stands there. I toss the underwear in back and try to lift Great-grandfather from the chair, but he resists me with a sudden source of superhuman strength.
The guards yells, “Hey you, hold on a minute now.”
“Great-grandfather!”
He looks up to me his eyes flaring.
“Amigo,” I say, “This is Chavez. Do you want to escape from jail or go back to that hell-hole for the rest of your life?”
“¡Chavez!”
“Let me help you El Chivato. You are weak from the rotten food they have fed you all these years.”
“Chavez, I knew you’d come.”
Smiling with toothless glee, he puts an arm on my shoulder and finds enough strength to help me get him in.
The guard shouts, “Hey, I said wait!”
I kick the wheelchair away, rush around to the other side, and wedge myself between the steering wheel and driver’s seat.
“Stop, I said, Stop!”
My right glove gets caught on the windshield wiper lever and I drop the keys. Frantically, I rip the glove off and search for the key ring. I locate it but bump the back of my head on the steering wheel. I jam the keys into the ignition and, miraculously, the motor starts right up. Helios smiles upon us as the sun suddenly breaks out from the clouds and shines off Allamanda’s dappled hood.
“Giddiyap,” Great-grandfather yells.
I slip it into drive and spin the wheels before jerking into traffic without looking. A bus screeches to a halt directly behind us and I hear the crunch of metal as cars plow into it, but there’s no time to look back. We rumble beneath the bridge, make a quick u-turn, and swerve onto the West Side Highway heading South by Southwest.
Image Gallery
ENDNOTES
1. Walter Noble Burns, The Saga Of Billy The Kid, ch. 17: A Little Game Of Monte.
2. Burns.
3. Burns.
4. Burns.
5. Burns.
6. Burns.
7. Burns.
8. W.J. “Sorghum” Smith of Two Guns, Arizona, as collected by Geraldine Frances Prescott, 1938, for the Federal Writers Outreach Program. As the Foreman at Fort Grant in 1876, Smith gave young Henry Antrim his first job as a teamster driving a mule wagon hauling logs. This is the earliest known reference to Henry William Antrim as “kid.” Henry Antrim had not yet taken to calling himself William or Billy.
9. Deathbed statement by Frank P. Cahill recorded by the Arizona Weekly Star, August 23, 1877.
10. James W. Boorman, Real Cowboys Love Horses, Dogs and Women (In That Order): A Dictionary of Cowboy Myths, Sayings, and Tall Tales. Part II: Sayings.
11. Patrick F. Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, The Noted Desperado of the Southwest, ch. 22: Liberty over Mangled Corpses. Believed to have been ghost written by Marshall Ashmun Upson or “Ash,” an itinerant journalist, drunk, and clerk for Garrett sheriff’s office, The Authentic Life was advertised as “a faithful and interesting narrative By Pat F. Garrett sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., by whom he was finally hunted down & captured by killing him.” Historians give the book the dubious distinction of being responsible not only for saving Billy the Kid from becoming just a footnote in history, but for most of the false information concerning the “Boy Bandit” repeated in countless dime novels, movies, and even historical texts.
12. Anthony B. Conner of Silver City, New Mexico (collected by Geraldine F. Prescott, 1937, Federal Works Outreach Project).
This is an updated revision of the original tape recently uncovered in the basement archives of the Library of Congress. The pauses, interruptions, and natural language of the original interview have been restored to give a more genuine picture of the famed outlaw. Unfortunately, other FWOP tapes could not be retrieved at this time and subsequent references to the tapes will be presented as transcribed. In future editions of this novel we hope to present the originals.
13. FWOP.
14. FWOP.
15. FWOP.
16. FWOP.
17. Previous seven headlines, circa 1990’s, taken from various New York City newspapers, none worthy of note.
18. Steven and David Buchanan, “Billy the Kid: The Early Years,” The Historical West.
19. Buchanan.
20. Buchanan.
21. Buchanan.
22. Buchanan.
23. Buchanan.
24. Barbara “Ma’am” Jones of Carlsbad, New Mexico as collected by Evan K. Marshal, FWOP, 1938.
25. FWOP.
26. FWOP.
27. Boorman, Real Cowboys.
28. FWOP.
29. Bob Dylan, Billy, from the soundtrack album for the movie Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. Although it is well documented that Billy rarely, if ever, drank, Kris Kristofferson, a rather ragged and old version of the Kid, choose to enliven his portrayal of the boy bandit with heavy doses of liquor and slurred speech.
30. Bob Dylan.
31. Bob Dylan.
32. Marshall R. Nutley, “Billy the Kid, Fact or Fiction?,” The Western Revisionist.
33. Billy Dean, Billy the Kid, Liberty Records. This instant classic is accompanied by a fine video as well.
34. Nutley.
35. Billy Dean.
36. Billy Dean.
37. Donald Clint, The Lincoln County War: A Narrative, ch. 5: The Youngest Volunteer.
38. Clint.
39. Clint.
40. Clint.
41. Clint.
42. Winfred Wilson Smith, Range War: The Settling of Lincoln County, ch. 2: A Challenge to Chisum.
43. Smith, ch. 3: Enter the Englishman.
44. Frank B. Coe, “A Friend Comes to the Defense of Notorious Billy the Kid,” El Paso Times. Frank and his cousin George were members of the original Regulators formed to seek vengeance upon “The House” for its crimes against the local citizenry. They pursued farming and ranching interests after Governor Wallace granted amnesty to all those who would lay down their arms.
45. Thomas Milton Seagraves, “Billy the Kid and the Myth of History,” The American Mind.
46. Seagraves.
47. Seagraves.
48. Seagraves.
49. Billy the Kid Wanted Dead Or Alive, Empire Pictures, 1939.
50. Seagraves.
51. Billy the Kid Wanted …
52. Miguel Antonio Otero, The Real Billy the Kid with New Light on the Lincoln County War, ch. 2 bibliography. The former New Mexico Governor (and grandson of Pete Maxwell’s ranch foreman at Fort Sumner, Vincente Otero, who knew Billy well) wrote this book as a reaction to the inconsistencies in Walter Noble Burn’s version of events and his research, much of it first hand, did uncover previously unknown details about the Kid’s life. He conducted a wealth of useful interviews with old timers that, while of questionable accuracy, provide a real flavor of the times. Although the ex-governor performed a public service in this matter, it is widely recognized today that in spite of his improved version of events, his book still repeated much of the false information and myths concerning the Kid that were already in circulation at the time.
53. Otero.
54. Otero.
55. Andre Vignette, The Tragic Short Life of Billy the Kid, ch. 9 An Orphan Again.
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56. Vignette.
57. Vignette.
58. Vignette.
59. Vignette.
60. Vignette.
61. Covington William Dear, “The Lincoln County War: It’s Role in Settling the West (Part One),” The Western Revisionist.
62. Marshall Ashmun Upson, The Tragedy of Billy The Kid, Act II. This recently discovered original manuscript of Upson’s play was performed at the Abbott Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 14, 1906, the 25th anniversary of the death of Billy the Kid. Hoping to cash in on the legend he started when he ghost-wrote Garrett’s The Authentic life, Upson may have also been trying to correct his previous myth-making by attempting to be more faithful to the actually facts as he knew them now that most of the key players were safely dead and buried. He failed on both accounts. The play closed after one performance. A heavy drinker, he died a pauper of consumption a few months later.
63. Upson.
64. Upson.
65. Upson.
66. Upson.
67. Upson.
68. Upson.
69. Martin Chavez (distant relative of Jose Chavez y Chávez) based on the transcripts from a 1926 interview conducted in Sante Fe, New Mexico, by Miguel Antonio Otero for The Real Billy The Kid.
70. Chávez via Otero.
71. Add Casey, Roswell, New Mexico, 1938 (EKM/FWOP).
72. FWOP.
73. WKZY, “Morning News Update,” Radio Broadcast, New York, 14, July 1965.
74. WKZY.
75. WKZY.
76. Dean, “The Lincoln County War (Part Two).”
77. Vignette, The Tragic Last Days, ch. 13: The Flames of Hell.
78. Dean.
79. Vignette.
80. Dean.
81. Vignette.
82. Dean.
83. Vignette.
84. Dean.
85. Vignette.
86. Vignette.
87. Vignette.
88. Vignette.
89. The Holy Bible: King James Version, LEVITICUS 16:2.
90. Smith, ch. 11: Exit the Major.
91. LEVITICUS 16:5.
92. Burns, Saga, ch. 14: A Belle of Old Fort Sumner.
Billy’s Blues Page 16