The Gospel According to Billy the Kid

by Dennis McCarthy

  When we got back to the parlor others were picking up pieces of skull and mopping the floor. Kid was cussing hisself.

  “I should of seen him. He saw Cullins.”

  “He didn’t see Cullins,” I said. “It was dumbass luck. You couldn’t of seen him if you were staring at him.”

  But I was talking to the breeze.

  The good humor in the room was gone. No one said much the rest of the evening. After dark, Salazar and me went out the back to move Cullins to the stable. Kid came with us.

  We told Mac we’d keep watch in case someone snuck up during the night. I volunteered for the first watch. That gave me time to think. Didn’t know where this battle was headed but Mac wouldn’t be much help. Someone had to take charge.

  We’d laid our bedrolls between the house and the stable. When the moon rose high enough to flood the bedrolls I went over to Kid to wake him for the second watch. He was already awake. Salazar and me moved our bedrolls into the shadows and laid down again. We passed the night in quiet. When I awoke at first light Kid was sitting up. Salazar was still asleep.

  Sue came out of the kitchen with a bucket, headed for the Bonito.

  “I’ve got Arbuckle’s on the stove if anyone’s interested,” she said.

  “You’re an angel, Miz Sue,” Kid said. “I’ve been drinking boiled sagebrush since I run into Billy.”

  “Sagebrush? I reckon you don’t like my biscuits either,” I said.

  “Biscuits, Billy?” Sue said. “Would you bake some for us?”

  “Be happy to.”

  “Wonderful. The stove’s hot. Oh, and there’s a keg of gunpowder in the stable. Mac’s afraid Dolan’s men may steal it. Would one of you boys bring it to the house?”

  “I’ll get it, ma’am,” I said, “but won’t it be a hazard inside?”

  “Mac says put it in the wardrobe in the bedroom. It should be okay there.”

  I washed up then went to the stable and got the gunpowder. Town was quiet. Elizabeth and Minnie were working in the kitchen when I came back. I set the keg in Mac’s wardrobe. Mac was still asleep. Bodies littering the parlor floor leaned against one another like hogs at a trough. Some were groaning. Some were snoring. A hard day lay ahead.

  CHAPTER 8McSween

  If it is within your power to loan me one of your howitzers,

  I am of the opinion that parties for whom I have warrants

  would surrender without a shot being fired.

  —SHERIFF GEORGE W. PEPPIN, LETTER TO COL. NATHAN DUDLEY, JULY 16, 1878

  THE SECOND DAY WAS MUCH like the first. Gunfire and smoke, but no casualties. Acrid air hung over the town. Some of the boys had coughing fits. In the afternoon a couple of deputy sheriffs pounded on Mac’s door.

  “Open up, McSween. We got a warrant for your arrest. Warrants for Brown and Bonney too.”

  As Mac opened the door he said, “And we have warrants for your men.”

  “Show me your warrants,” one of the deputies said.

  “They’re in our guns, cocksuckers,” Rob Widenmann yelled across the room.

  “Our warrants came from the justice of the peace,” Mac said. “Your warrants from Judge Bristol are worthless. If they aren’t void already they will be shortly. Have you talked to Frank Angel? He’s the lawyer Washington sent to investigate this travesty. He assures me that the governor and Judge Bristol are being removed. He says the governor’s administration is responsible for more corruption, fraud, and murder than any administration in the history of the United States. Of course, if you gentlemen want to step inside you can serve your warrants. I’m sure the boys will be accommodating.”

  “Let’s go, Jack,” the deputy said. “I knew this was a waste of time.”

  As the deputies headed toward the Wortley Hotel they kept looking over their shoulders until they were out of sight.

  “Cocksucker?” one of the boys asked.

  “Heard it from a kid in Santa Fe,” Widenmann said.

  Late that afternoon a buffalo soldier rode up Main Street. Someone fired at him from close range. A warning shot. Either that or the shooter couldn’t hit a house if he was in it. Next day Dudley sent a detail into town to ferret out the shooter. They stopped at Mac’s door.

  “We’ve got company,” Kid said. “That captain from the fort. He’s horn-mad. Should I let him in?”

  “I’ll talk to him outside,” Mac said as he opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, Captain. What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. McSween, I’m Captain George Purington, Ninth Cavalry, Fort Stanton. Yesterday your sheriff sent a letter to the commanding officer at Fort Stanton. He asked to borrow a howitzer to defend himself and his men. You may know, sir, that Congress last month passed the Posse Comitatus Act forbidding the United States Army from interfering in civilian matters. The commander had no choice but to deny the request. Last evening one of my troopers rode into Lincoln to deliver the commander’s answer. While he was riding up Main Street, one of your men fired upon him. Fortunately he was not hit and he was able to deliver his message. Who shot at the trooper, sir?”

  “No idea, Captain. All I can tell you is that it wasn’t one of my men.”

  “Don’t you have men at some of these other buildings?”

  “I do.”

  “Then how can you be so sure?”

  “Captain, I can speak only for the men in my house. But if any of my men from any building shot at one of your men, that trooper wouldn’t be here today. Besides, we have no fight with the United States Army, and we don’t want to start one. Why would we fire on a trooper?”

  “He brought back a letter saying one of your men did it.”

  “Ah, the letter came from the sheriff or James Dolan. Am I right?”

  “The sheriff.”

  “Okay then. If you’re looking for someone who would fire at close range and intentionally miss a trooper riding through town, you can report to your commander that the shooter was one of Dolan’s men. Dolan wants you in this tempest, and he wants you on his side. Preferably with your howitzer.”

  “Ever the lawyer aren’t you, McSween. My man said he thought it was one of your men.”

  “He didn’t see the shooter though did he. I’ll bet he knew the contents of the sheriff’s letter too. But, of course, that didn’t influence his thinking. Good day, sir.”

  The captain started to say something but spun round and marched back to the street. He spoke to a buffalo soldier then mounted his horse. The soldiers jerked their horses around and cantered back toward Fort Stanton. The buffalo soldier who was bringing up the rear watched us until the detail passed the Wortley Hotel. That was the last we heard of the affair.

  Not much happened the next couple of days. We exchanged fire but no one was hit. Of an evening after supper Sue played the piano. Kid and me joined in on cowboy favorites like “Streets of Laredo” and “Goodbye, Old Paint.”

  “This is no morgue, señora,” José Chavez said one evening. “Billy and Kid know only grave songs. Can you play ‘Cielito Lindo’?”

  Sue complied and played a bouncy version. José and his cousin sang the verses. Kid and me chimed in on the chorus.

  Ay, ay, ay, ay,

  Canta, no llores,

  Porque cantando se alegran,

  Cielito lindo, los corazones.

  José was right. After Sue quit playing we could hear Mexicans from Montaño’s singing well into the night.

  While we were eating dinner on the fourth day Henry Brown asked Sue about her life before Mac and her came to Lincoln.

  “Billy says you grew up in Gettysburg, Miz Sue. I figure you was too young to remember the battle.”

  “You’re a sweet boy, Henry, but I remember it alright,” Sue said. “I lost my best friend. A beautiful bay with a white mane and tail. My grandfather had given her to me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Confederate raiders took her. They showed up a couple of days before the battle. Daddy saw them coming and tol
d me to take the horses to a cave below the barn. Mother fixed the soldiers a big breakfast. While they were eating one of their horses whinnied. Ours answered. When the soldiers left they took ours.”

  “My pap was there but he’d never talk about it. What was it like?”

  “We lived a couple of miles from Culp’s Hill, where the worst of the fighting was. Stray bullets broke windows in the farmhouse. We hardly slept. I’d pop up in bed if I heard a board creak. The last day was a deluge. It was the Fourth of July. The soldiers wanted to go home. Toward the end of the day they did. It was all so pointless. Eight thousand men died. The stench afterward was horrible. Bodies were barely buried. Dogs dug them up. A week after the battle my beagle brought home the cannon bone of a horse. Most of the meat still attached. I left home a few weeks later. My brother said bones turned up in the fields for years.”

  “You must of been skeered.”

  Sue didn’t answer. She was looking at Cullins’ bloodstain on the floor.

  “You were skeered weren’t you?”

  “Not as bad as this.”

  Sue’d seemed in good spirits most of the time. She joked with the boys over meals and she enjoyed playing the piano of an evening, but maybe she was crumbling under the strain. The mood among most of the boys was good. We had Dolan’s boys outnumbered. We had enough food and ammunition to hold off a siege. Mac was the real problem. He couldn’t see an end to it. He couldn’t stop whining.

  “What happens when we run out of supplies? Dolan has an open supply route. He can hold us off for weeks. Months. Years even.”

  “It won’t come to that,” I said.

  “What if it does?”

  I respected Mac but he was wearing on me. Affecting the boys too. He took to praying out loud at night. Don’t get me wrong, amigo. I got nothing against prayer. But out loud when boys are trying to sleep?

  Long about noon the fifth day the Fort Stanton commander marched up Main Street with thirty or forty troopers and a howitzer and a Gatling gun. Dolan’s boys took advantage of the disruption to improve their positions. Some moved into the Sisneros house across the street. Another group moved into Mac’s stable, closing off our retreat.

  The commander said he was there to protect women and children, but he aimed the howitzer at Montaño’s and the Gatling gun at Mac’s. He told his troopers to shoot anyone who fired at them. Over the next hour compañeros slipped out the back of Montaño’s and disappeared into the cornfield.

  It was quiet most of the afternoon. We weren’t willing to open fire with the Gatling gun bearing on us. I figured Dolan’s boys weren’t either until a black flag appeared on the Wortley Hotel. When Mac saw the flag he wrote a note to the commander. He asked me to read it to the boys.

  General, sir. Would you have the kindness to tell me why soldiers surround my house? Before blowing up my property I would like to know the reason. The constable is here and has warrants for the arrest of the sheriff and posse for murder and larceny. Respectfully, A. A. McSween.

  “Sounds good,” I said. “The commander’s no general, but no harm calling him one.”

  Mac handed the note to his niece Minnie.

  “Honey, take this to the soldiers across the street. Tell them to give it to the general in charge.”

  Minnie was terrified.

  “Hold on, Mac,” I said. “Send one of the boys out. Send me.”

  “It’s okay,” Mac said. “Someone will shoot you. No one’ll bother a little girl.”

  He turned to Minnie.

  “You’ll be safe, honey.”

  “You can say she’s safe, Mac,” I said. “But she don’t know it.”

  Mac wasn’t listening. He cracked the door for her to slip through.

  “Don’t run. Act normal and give it to the first soldier you see.”

  Minnie held back from the doorway, clutching a rag doll to her chest. Mac pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her.

  “Wave this over your head. It means you’re coming in peace. No one will harm you.”

  “Baby Jesus, protect me,” she said as she stuck her hand through the doorway, waving the handkerchief as hard as she could.

  She hesitated a moment, then slipped outside. The street went quiet as she crossed it, waving her white flag overhead and holding the doll next to her face. The noise in the soldiers’ camp ceased. The town went quiet. Mac opened the door wide so the boys could watch. Minnie walked up to the nearest trooper and handed him the note. She spoke to him, then turned and slowly walked back, still waving her little flag and clutching her doll.

  When she came through the door the room erupted. Mac grabbed her in a bear hug. She grinned at the applause. Kid went into the kitchen to tell Elizabeth.

  “My big brave beautiful little girl,” Mac said.

  Elizabeth ran into the parlor and yanked Minnie away.

  “What have you done!”

  Mac tried to explain but Elizabeth would hear none of it.

  “You should be ashamed, asking a little girl to do what you’re too cowardly to do. Don’t ever risk my baby again.”

  Elizabeth pulled Minnie into the kitchen. Mac sank into a chair.

  A short while later a trooper came across the street. Kid opened the door and the trooper handed him a note.

  A. A. McSween, sir. I am directed by the Commanding Officer to inform you that no troops have surrounded your house and that he desires to hold no correspondence with you. He directed me to say that if you desire to blow up your house he has no objection, providing you do not injure any of his command by doing so.

  Mac exploded. “Sonofabitch! Sonofabitch!”

  That afternoon a pall hung over the parlor during supper. Mac looked low as a horntoad, his plate untouched.

  “Whadda you think, Billy?” Kid said. “I was feeling good afore the army brought in them cannons. The boys have abandoned Montaño’s. Should we clear out?”

  “Won’t be easy. Dolan’s boys are watching the back door. Best chance is after dark before the moon is up.”

  About then Sue ran into the parlor crying, “Lord help us, the kitchen’s on fire!”

  Kid and me raced into the kitchen. Smoke was pouring over the top of the back door. Flames were licking the latillas.

  “Water! Quick!”

  Elizabeth pulled a pan from the stove and handed it to Kid. He threw the water onto the vigas. Flames guttered then flared again.

  “More! We need more!”

  “That’s all we have!”

  “They must of snuck up from the stable,” Kid said. “We’re in a snake pit now.”

  “Fire’ll take the house,” I said. “You ladies take the kids and leave. Now.”

  “I’m not leaving Mac,” Sue said. “Elizabeth, you take the children and go.”

  “I won’t go without you,” Elizabeth said, and that was that.

  Kid and me and some of the boys grabbed rugs, coats, anything at hand to beat back the flames. It was a losing proposition. The flames advanced overhead through the kitchen and into Mac and Sue’s bedroom. We retreated from room to room as the ceilings gave way. When the burning latillas fell they set the floors on fire.

  I’d forgotten about the keg of gunpowder in the wardrobe until it blew. The explosion ripped a hole into the plaza between the wings of the house. The whole town must of heard it. We’d abandoned the bedroom before it blew. No one was hurt.

  “Sue, Elizabeth, you’ve got to get your family out of here,” I said. “If the fire holds off we’ll make a break for it after dark. There’ll be gunfire for sure. If you leave now you can walk out in daylight. In safety. Do it for the kids.”

  “What about Mac?”

  He was in a corner of the parlor, curled up like a baby.

  “Mac’ll come with us. If he leaves now he’ll be shot for sure and you ladies’ll be caught in the crossfire.”

  “Will you take care of him, Billy?”

  “He’ll be at my side.”

  “Bless you. Godspeed.
”

  Sue hugged me and kissed me on the mouth. She went over to Mac and took his face in her hands and kissed him. He was crying. Kid opened the front door wide enough for the ladies to slip through. Sue stuck her arm out and waved a handkerchief. She stepped out the door. The street went quiet. Sue motioned to her sister. Elizabeth and the children walked out behind her, Minnie carrying her doll.

  When the parlor ceiling began to burn, the smoke and heat forced us into the Shield side of the house. Falling embers turned Mac’s library into an inferno. We were in the Shields’ bedroom when Sue’s piano exploded. Piano wires popped like a Gatling gun. The fire was moving faster. I figured we’d run out of rooms before we’d run out of daylight but I kept my concerns to myself.

  It was dusk when we moved into the Shields’ kitchen. We’d long since run out of things to fight the fire. We bided our time, waiting for the dark to clear a path to the river. We stayed in the house till our skin was near scorched.

  “We wait much longer our gooses’ll be cooked,” I said. “We’ll be easy targets getting out the door but the night’ll swallow us. A few of you come with me. I’ll make a break for the store. We’ll keep Dolan’s boys pinned down in the stable while the rest of you crawl along the wall. When you get to the coop, run for the gate.”

  “I’m with you, Billy,” Kid said.

  José Chavez and three others also volunteered.

  “Druther you stay behind, Kid. Look after Mac. I promised Sue to keep him with me but he’ll have a better chance with you.”

  The backyard was lit up but the Río Bonito was hidden in the night. Five of us burst through the back door, firing into the stable as we ran. Half a dozen steps out we met return fire. I zigzagged toward Tunstall’s Store. One of the boys was in front of me when we reached the side gate between the house and the store. He was hit and he fell into the gate, knocking it open. I ran through it and into the store. The rest were right behind me. None of us was hit.