by Tony Masero
It was only eight miles from Lincoln down to San Patricio, which stood on the northern bank of the river so his ride had been an easy one across country.
The village of San Patricio was a small place on the Rio Ruidoso that had first been settled some twenty years previous. There were only a total of fifteen flat-roofed and simple adobe habitations that made up the village and they were overlooked by the wood and stucco belfry of the church, which stood on a rise surrounded by some grass and scrub trees. It was the tower that first caught Slade’s eye as he stood on the hills overlooking the pale dust of El Valle on the approach. The boxed white-painted tower with the main entrance doorway stood maybe twenty feet or so high with a smaller pinnacled tower atop of that carrying the cross, the ridged and sloping roof of the main body of the church stretched away behind the tower.
The sun was high now and he felt its raw energy burning into his back through his jacket as he studied the village. If it was me, he considered, I’d be up in that church tower keeping an eye out through that set of arched openings there.
There was no way around it though, the land around was flat and open and he was forced to make his ride down across a rolling plain that gave full view from the village.
It was quiet on the village streets. With the sun being high most of the people were inside out of the intensity of the day and to Slade’s eye the place appeared like a ghost town. He wound his way slowly through the deserted streets between the houses where scraps of washing hung disconsolately on lines and were the only signs of life.
The cantina was half way to the church and it had a canvas shade set up on hefty poles outside which doubled as hitching rails. The wood was sun bleached, dried and cracked and a few ponies and mules stood with their heads hanging and only their tails moving against the flies.
Slade decided this was a good place to start and he dismounted and tied off his pony with the others.
The doorway was wide open and Slade walked straight in.
A long, low room confronted him. There was a bar that fronted some empty shelves and a lone Mexican barman poring over a slate and scribbling on it with a hunk of chalk. The rear of the room was lost in shadow and a crowd of noisy cowboys were back there drinking.
The small figure that caught Slade’s eye was sitting alone at a round table facing the doorway with a bottle and two glasses in front of him. At his thigh a .50 caliber Sharps rifle leaned against the table edge.
Spectacles flashed in reflected sunlight from the street as Charlie Willows looked up.
‘Afternoon, Marshal,’ he said, his face expressionless.
‘You’re the man?’ Slade asked, stepping automatically to one side of the open doorway.
‘I’m the one you want to see,’ Willows confessed.
‘The railroad agent?’
‘The very same. Can I interest you in a drink, Marshal?’
‘No, I give it up.’
‘How very admirable,’ said Willows easily as he reached up and poured himself a glass. ‘I’m glad to see you took me at my word and came alone.’
‘You were watching from the church tower?’
‘Of course. Now if the pleasantries are aside can we get down to business? You have want I want?’
Slade moved over and sat down in front of Willows, keeping the bright sunlight from outside into the small man’s eyes.
‘Well, you sure had me fooled,’ Slade admitted. ‘You being all meek and mild up there in the mountains, too shit scared to come on down from your hiding place.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ Willows smiled slightly. ‘It was a good way of keeping an eye on things from a distance. Pity that fool Rio and his boys couldn’t do anything right. I trust you’ve sorted out the pack of them.’
Slade nodded affirmation. ‘My woman and the boy?’ he asked.
‘They’re fine. So far anyway. Do you have the plans or know where they are?’
‘Yes, it turned out you plugged the wrong Caulfield.’
‘I did? How unfortunate. I expended a lot of energy chasing on your tail once you had left me. I knew the opportunity was too good to miss; you’d never place me as being the one to shoot the rancher if I followed you in. Seeing as no one else could come up with the plans it seemed best to at least shut him up for good. Once I found out Friday didn’t have them then it had to be Caulfield despite all his pleas of innocence.’
‘He gave them to his son to hide.’
‘Ah,’ sighed Willows, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he sipped his glass. ‘Awful stuff,’ he complained. ‘Yes, its been a long haul. Signing on with Friday as his clerk months ago just so I could keep close watch on the surveyor team. Amazing, how boring playing the meek little clerk can be.’
Two of the cowboys clattered over to the bar from the rear of the room, they were laughing and had obviously had a few drinks too many inside themselves already.
‘Hey, Willows!’ called one. ‘You want to get in on this? We’ve got a bet going here.’
‘Come on over, Billy,’ said Willows, without turning. ‘I want you to meet someone.’
Billy the Kid strolled over, his rowel spurs dragging across the boarded floor. He was a young looking long-jawed man of average height and slight build, with pale blue eyes and prominent front teeth behind lips that parted in an easy and confident grin. He wore a battered sombrero and dusty clothes that had done some hard riding. A pistol and ammunition belt hung at his waist and to Slade’s eye they looked as if they had done some hard travelling too.
‘This here is Marshal Slade,’ Willows introduced with a thin smile.
‘Howdy, Marshal,’ said Billy amenably. ‘You ain’t here to see me, I hope. Y’see, me and Wilson over there,’ he indicated the other man at the bar. ‘We got a bet going. First man to kill someone today pays for the drinks.’
‘I ain’t here for you Bill,’ Slade admitted.
‘Come on, Billy,’ Wilson called loudly from the bar, where the desultory barkeeper was pouring out a row of drinks. ‘I’m setting them up here.’
‘Be right there,’ Billy answered. ‘See you around, Marshal.’ He gave Slade a sly grin and cocked an eyebrow cheekily.
‘Maybe,’ Slade allowed.
‘A wild bunch,’ Willows said once the gunman had left them. ‘But necessary for my venture.’
‘You’ll be using them to force folks to sell up before the railroad comes through?’
‘Encourage is a better word, I think,’ smirked Willows.
There was a lot of noise now coming from the rear of the room as the drink took hold and recklessness ensued. Wilson set up a row of empty glasses along the bar top and began potting at them one by one with his pistol. The terrified bartender forgot about his accounts and disappeared from view below the bar.
Hiccupping with laughter, Wilson did not miss a glass and each one exploded in a shattered cloud of slivers, the noise deafening in the low ceilinged room. With five glasses down he turned and pointed his pistol at the Kid with a glint in his eye. There was one bullet left in the chamber as he cocked back the hammer.
Even Slade, who was no laggard himself, was impressed by the speed of the Kid’s draw. In a flash the pistol was in his hand and two shells placed in Wilson’s chest in an instant. It was hard for Slade to determine whether Wilson had been fooling around or had some serious intent on Billy’s life but it made little difference as he flew from his seat, and lay on his back on the floor breathing his last.
The Kid was over him in a moment the still smoking gun in his hand.
‘Don’t you even whisper you’ll be buying drinks over a dead man,’ he said to Wilson’s face as the dying man’s eyes rolled up and he slipped away.
Billy stepped back and sat down again. ‘Guess it’s my round, boys,’ he said with a laugh. The others of his party joined in and they all returned to their drinking, ignoring the veil of gun smoke hanging in the air and the corpse spread out on the floor beside them.
Slade’s eyes slid back to W
illows, ‘I need to see my people first.’
‘They’re up at the church. You can go get them when I have the plans in my hand.’
‘I’ve got them to hand, don’t you worry.’
‘Well, go fetch them, Marshal. Please don’t try anything, you can see I have plenty of support here.’
Slade pushed back his chair noisily and stood up, he eyed Willows balefully. ‘I’m going up to the church. I’ll go see if the woman and boy are alright, then you can have your precious papers.’
Willows shrugged, ‘You don’t believe me when I say that they’re alright?’
Slade shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘You’re a back shooter. A crawl in the night kind of killer. You make other men do your dirty work for you and lean on folks from afar. Why the hell should I trust you?’
Willows puffed air in exasperated irritation, ‘Go on then. You’re not going anywhere else with that open plain out there and this long rifle in my hand. So, go get your precious little family but I want to see those maps on this table in front of me when you come back down that hill.’
Slade turned his back on Willows and walked out through the open door. He was very conscious of his broad back and the target it made and he felt the skin crawl on his neck as he stepped over to his pony. With no show of his latent fears, Slade mounted and forced himself to head at a walking pace along to the end of the street and onto the track that led up to the church. He followed the winding path and stepped down at the church door.
Jane and Peter were inside, she holding him tightly and sitting in one of the pews before the altar. A friar sat alongside them offering some words of consolation. He was a handsome man wearing the brown robes of a Franciscan, his head shaved in a neat circle of black hair. He stood up as Slade entered and stepped into the aisle.
‘What is it you seek, my son?’ he asked.
At his question, Jane looked around. ‘Jack!’ she cried. ‘You’re here, thank God.’
Slade walked swiftly down the aisle to them, the scent of incense and burning candles strong in his nostrils.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes, we’re fine,’ Jane answered quickly. ‘That man Willows, he took Petey and held a gun to his head. He forced us to come, I thought he meant to kill you,’ she cried, finally breaking down and throwing herself into his arms.
‘He does,’ Slade admitted. ‘But settle down, we ain’t dead yet.’
‘The friar here’s been most kind,’ she said, releasing Slade from her embrace. ‘If it hadn’t been for him I think I would have busted down completely.’
Slade turned to the monk, ‘I’m obliged, sir,’ he said.
‘Father Sombrano,’ the priest said in introduction, offering his hand.
‘Jack Slade. You have another way out of here, Father?’ Slade asked as they shook.
‘There is a side entrance over there,’ Sombrano said, indicating a door beside the altar. ‘It leads to the sacristy and there is a way out through there.’
Slade saw Peter watching him with round, worried eyes, ‘It’s the man,’ the boy stuttered, almost in tears. ‘He’s come.’
‘Yes, he’s the man, Petey. I know it,’ Slade knelt down level with the boy, still seated in the pew.
‘Will he shoot us like he did my Pa?’ Peter asked in a trembling voice.
Jane started forward ready to take him up in her arms and comfort him but Slade held her back. ‘Listen, Petey,’ he said. ‘We’re not dead yet. There’s always a chance if you can keep your head, so don’t give in to those tears. Be smart, hold your head up and keep your wits about you and we’ll pull through.’
‘How can we?’ Jane complained. ‘He’s got a whole bunch of gunsels down there with him. Can’t you just give him what he wants? He said you had some papers he needs.’
Slade stood up, ‘He’ll kill us anyway, we know too much. No, we have to find a way out of here.’
‘There’s nowhere to run to, my son,’ said the priest. ‘It is all open ground around here. You can hide in the church but they would only come in after you.’
‘My horse is out front, Father. Can you bring it around to that side door?’
‘Of course.’
‘Okay, here’s what we do. Jane, you and Peter take the pony and angle off behind the church, keep it between you and the village street. Get as far away as fast as you can. Willows has a Sharps rifle with him, it’s accurate for five hundred yards, maybe if he’s lucky he’ll hit something at a thousand. But he can only fire one shot at a time before reloading, so if you light out at speed you can probably outrun him.’
‘But what about you?’
‘I’m going back down there.’ He turned to the priest, ‘Father, I’ll come out with you and take a bag from my saddle pouches, then you take the pony around. When Jane and the boy are safely off, I want you to go up into that tower and ring that bell as if all of Vittorio’s Apaches were coming through. Can you do that?’
‘If it will help.’
‘It will….’
Jane was clutching his arm, ‘No, Jack. Don’t do it. Come with us, we’ll all make it out together.’
‘Won’t happen, honey. That bastard will bring us down for sure. No, I’ll give him his papers and maybe a little something else as well.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked with a worried frown.
‘Just do like I say. Do it, baby. Go take Peter to safety.’
She nodded acceptance with a look of determined resignation. ‘Alright, Jack. I understand. Remember I love you though, I want you coming back to me.’
Slade took the priest’s arm and they walked up the aisle and out of the church. As Slade took the papers from his saddlebag, he turned to the priest. ‘Thanks for all you’ve done for them, Father. See my people off then ring that bell to hell and gone if you will?’
‘I rather think it should be to heaven,’ said the priest with a sad smile. ‘But bless you, my son and go with God.’
With the satchel in hand, Slade turned away and began his walk down the hill.
It was the longest walk Slade had ever made and as he approached the street and the bell began to toll behind him he felt the hot midday sun play on his back and prayed he would make it through long enough to see it setting that night.
The ringing bell brought up its clatter and the sound played hollowly across the whole town, bringing people in trepidation from their homes as they heard what sounded like an alarm call. Many of the peons took one look at the solitary lawman walking down the middle of their Main Street and dived back indoors, slamming doors and windows behind them.
Slade walked on, a determined grimness fixing his features. He was Jack Slade, U.S. Marshal and he breathed deep feeling the power the realization brought him. He was a justified representative of the law truly back now on track and vested with purpose and the confidence that this was the job he did best. The killing fire built up in him. It ran like needle pricks down his limbs and he loosened his fingers as they hung over the butt of his Colt.
He watched the cantina entrance as Willows stepped out, the Sharps in his hand. The small man looked up the street towards the church with a curious frown, his spectacles flashing in the sunlight. Then he focused on the figure of Slade walking steadily towards him.
‘You got them, Slade?’ he called.
Slade stopped fifteen feet away. ‘I’ve got them, you want them? Come get them,’ he said, upending the bag and letting the plans fly out and flutter in the air. They fell in a cloud around Slade and he saw Willow’s face alter into a twist of anger.
The sound of hooves pounding came distantly from beyond the hillside and at that moment the Kid and his gang tumbled out and stood in a group under the porch sheet of the cantina.
Willows began to raise the Sharps, cocking it as it came.
Slade made his draw. It was a perfect, fast and fluid movement, he leant back slightly, tilting his body to allow the Colt to clear the holster and come up centered on Willows. The
gun bucked in his hand and Willows turned his head slightly to one side. He did not move, standing up straight, the Sharps still half way to its firing position.
Slade stepped forward, left hand fanning the hammer fast as he came. Each shot blasting a hole in Willow’s face. The shattered spectacles jumped away as the head turned into a mushy ball of exploding components. Pieces of flesh and bone flew from the shattered skull in a mist of red. With a slow twist, Willows half turned as his legs went from under him and his almost headless body fell.
The gun was empty and Slade stood in the center of the street, shaking out brass shell casings and slowly reloading from his belt. He looked across at the Kid.
‘You want to make something of this, Billy?’ he asked.
The Kid snorted a laugh. ‘Boy, you are quick, Marshal. I have to give it to you, that was the damndest draw I’ve ever seen.’
He stood studying Slade, one hand on his hip, the other resting against one of the poles outside the cantina. Then he shrugged, ‘Come on, boys,’ he said. ‘We’re all done here. There ain’t nothing but a heap of litter lying on this street.’
Slade watched them go, he looked down at the remains of the railroad agent for a brief second before bending and picking up the scattered sheets of paper.
Historical Notes
For the purist amongst the readers I have played with the timeline of actual events to create a flow in the storyline and some factual events are out of place.
The timing takes place between 1880 and 1881 after the end of the Lincoln County War, which occurred between February and July of 1878 and in which Billy the Kid participated.
As aficionados will know, William Henry McCarty Jr., alias William H Bonney, and also by the name of Henry Antrim when his mother remarried, lived from November 1859 until July of 1881. The Kid was twenty-one years old when he was shot and killed by Pat Garrett, having killed his first man at age eighteen and despite exaggerated claims a more conservative estimate of perhaps four or nine others in between.