I was still holding the six-shooter. The constable handed me the reins. Didn’t say nothing. As I leapt on the horse he reared and tossed me on my back. I scrabbled from under his hooves and grabbed the reins.
“Steady, big boy. I promised your boss he’ll see you soon.”
He calmed down and we lit out for San Patricio. A couple of miles out of town I dismounted at Yginio Salazar’s house. Salazar was home. I borrowed a horse. Aimed the constable’s horse toward Lincoln and swatted his rump. Then I rode to María and Manuel Montoya’s and holed up a few days while Garrett and his boys looked for me. No one’d seen me borrow Salazar’s horse, so when Garrett saw it in San Patricio he didn’t suspicion it.
Later I wished I’d kept Olinger’s shotgun. It was beautiful. I’ve never seen another like it. At the time, though, I figured it would be a liability. It would be hard enough finding shells for it, and it would attract attention.
Couldn’t believe he’d buffaloed me with it. Could of broke the stock, the dumbass.
Manuel got me another horse and returned Salazar’s. He also got a rifle and provisions enough for me to hole up till things cooled down. I rode to Portales Springs and laid up for a month. Then I went looking for Kid. Garrett’d cut him loose after Stinking Springs since Kid had no warrant on his head. I found him in San Patricio. Him and me rode to Pima County in Arizona Territory. We were gone a couple of months.
I had a girl in Fort Sumner. Paulita Maxwell. Hadn’t seen her in forever and I was getting lonesome. She was pregnant and I was the pa. Leastwise she said I was and I believed her.
“Paulita’s swelled up like a toad,” Kid said. “Can’t give you nothing. They’s plenty of señoritas here. Forget about Fort Sumner awhile.”
“Need to check on her and my boy.”
“What if it ain’t a boy?”
“Then I’ll love her like her momma.”
We were a couple of weeks reaching Fort Sumner. We rode east across New Mexico, stopping in Silver City to see old haunts and visit Aunt Cat’s grave. The site of my first theft was still there. A Chinese laundry. I’d stolen clothes. Just a dumbass kid, not more than fourteen. Got caught. We rode by the jail where I made my first escape. Up the chimney after dark. Got stuck part way up and panicked. Figured I’d be there next morning when the sheriff came in to build a fire. I could see my britches scorching, me scorching with them. Once I got my breathing back I scrabbled to the roof. I was covered with soot topping out and had a coughing fit. A couple of cowpokes on the street looked up, but I reckon I was black against the night sky. Stole a horse from a neighbor and lit out for Arizona. Ran into soldiers near the San Carlos Reservation. They had scouts with them. You may of been one of them. That was before I knew you.
The trip with Kid was the first time I’d been back to Silver City. We left there and rode to Dolan’s cow camp on the Black River, looking for trouble. A couple of Mexicans were in the bunkhouse eating tortillas and beans when we arrived. We put blankets over our heads and busted in, firing six-shooters, roaring like the wrath of God. They dropped their suppers and ran for the river. We collected their hardware and saddles and chased off their horses. We couldn’t use the saddles so we dropped them along the road as we left. Figured they’d find them in the morning. It was all in good sport. We were gratified anytime we could make mischief at Jimmy Dolan’s expense.
We left the camp and headed north to John Chisum’s ranch. Uncle John’s niece Sallie was there. She was a sight. Pretty and smart and fun. Kid and me played croquet with her. She invited us to supper. Uncle John was out on the range for a couple of days. That was alright with me. He knew about my troubles and figured I was a bandido like Garrett said I was. Sallie and me’d been sweet on one another, even after I’d met Paulita. I hoped to take advantage of it while we were alone. It was a lot easier without Uncle John about.
I spent the night with her. Kid slept in the barn. Next morning we headed north to Fort Sumner.
CHAPTER 10Fort Sumner
We had a game of poker together, and while we were playing,
I told Billy the best thing he could do was to get up and be gone
three or four years. Then he could come back and there would be nothing
said or done about what happened in the Lincoln County War.
—PAT GARRETT, AS TOLD TO JOHN P. MEADOWS, DATE UNKNOWN
IT WAS EARLY JULY WHEN Kid Antrim and me rode into Fort Sumner. The army’d left shortly after the War between the States. Back then the community around the fort was called Sunnyside, but we called it all Fort Sumner. The fort. The town. That’s what it’s still called today.
We’d been holed up at the Yerby Ranch a few hours out of town, hoping things would quiet down. We knew Garrett was looking for me and he’d know I’d go to Fort Sumner to see Paulita. She lived with her brother, Pete Maxwell. Kid and me left the Yerby Ranch and rode to the Maxwells. We put up our horses in the corral. Pete saw us and came onto the porch.
“Billy! Hey, Paulita, Billy’s here.”
Pete and me shook hands.
“Garrett’s looking for you. Was here two days ago. He’ll be back. Could be this evening.”
“Yeah, Pat wants to stretch my hide but I had to see Paulita.”
“I thought you were here for the holiday.”
“Holiday?”
“Le quatorze juillet. La fête nationale. Bastille Day.”
“Sounds Frenchy.”
“It is Frenchy. I’m half French you know.”
“I missed the hoopla on the Fourth, Pete. Reckon I’ll miss the fourteenth too.”
“Not a chance. We’re celebrating.”
“How’s Paulita?”
“Fine. Took her to the doc last week. The kid’s fine too. Let’s quit jawing out here. Come inside and cool down. You introducing me to your amigo?”
“This here’s Kid Antrim. Kid, meet Pete Maxwell, son of the famous Lucien Maxwell, largest landowner in New Mexico Territory. Hell, for all I know, largest in the world.”
Pete and Paulita lived in a big house that old Lucien bought from the army years before. It was a board-and-timber two-story house, not adobe like most in the territory. Full porches on four sides. It’s gone now. Back then it was one of the biggest houses around.
“Always glad to meet a friend of Billy’s,” Pete said.
Paulita was coming out of the bedroom when we walked into the kitchen.
“Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy,” she said as she rushed to me crying. “Sheriff Garrett’s looking for you. If he finds you he’ll shoot you sure . . . I’m so happy to see you.”
“Don’t worry none, Paulita,” I said as I hugged her. “Pat ain’t near as good a lawman as he thinks. I won’t be here long. Wanted to see you and Little Billy.”
“Little Billy! You may be right. The rascal kicks like a boy.”
Kid and me spent the afternoon with Pete and Paulita. I’d like to of stayed the night but I worried that Pat might recognize our horses in Pete’s corral. Figured my best move was to stay at Celsa Gutierrez’s. Garrett’s sister-in-law. The sisters were from Fort Sumner. They had other kin there too. All friends of mine. None of them cared much for Garrett. Wasn’t sure how much Garrett’s wife cared for him either. I didn’t expect him to be showing up at Celsa’s.
When we made our goodbyes I told Paulita I’d be back for her after I’d talked with Celsa. Kid and me went to Celsa’s and put our horses in her corral. Celsa said we could stay the night in her parlor but we should be careful. By then I was so sleepy I could hardly stay awake. Celsa told me I could rest on her bed for a bit. I fell asleep and had another of my dreams about Aunt Cat. She was standing on the porch of a house I’d never seen. It was starting to rain and she was crying when I woke up.
When I came out of Celsa’s bedroom Pete was in the kitchen.
“Garrett’s back. Don’t come to the house. I’ll send Paulita after dark.”
“Thanks, Pete. I’ll stick around till morning, but I got to get out
of here. For good. I didn’t want to scare Paulita but Garrett’s a skunk bear. If I stick around, my odds of seeing next year ain’t all that favorable.”
“Where you heading, Billy?” Kid asked.
He’d come in from the corral after feeding the horses. I was at the table with Pete. Kid sat across from me.
“You coming with me?”
“I’m surprised you’d ask.”
“Can’t go back to Texas. Too many conocidos. Old Mexico maybe. Or California.”
“My father loved California,” Pete said. “He was there with Kit Carson, scouting for John Frémont. Said it had everything. Ocean. Mountains. Deserts. Trees so big you could carve a hut out of the trunk. He thought it was paradise.”
“California’s got cities you could get lost in,” Kid said. “A hundred thousand people live in San Francisco. You believe that? Saw it in the New Mexican last month. Paper showed a mule pulling a railcar up the street. We could be mule-train robbers.”
“My outlaw days are over,” I said. “Enjoyed it but it’s time to grow up.”
“Grow up? You know lots a growed outlaws. How you going to feed yourself?”
“I wasn’t no outlaw working for John Tunstall. You weren’t neither when you were working for the Coes. Me and you could work a ranch together. I could be a marshal in California. Like Garrett. I’m a fair cook. I cooked for a hotel in Arizona Territory a while back. I could play monte. Like Bill Hickok. Maybe earn enough to buy my own spread. There’re lots I could do. But there’s one thing I won’t do no more. Outlawing.”
“Sure. Be like Hickok,” Pete said. “Face down on a poker table with a bullet in your back.”
“I’ll tell you, boys, I’ve a better chance catching a bullet as an outlaw than as a gambler. Besides, from what I hear it wasn’t poker that brought Hickok down. Jack McCall said he was avenging his brother.”
Didn’t want to say anything to Pete and Kid, especially after Kid said he’d go with me, but I’d been considering Tombstone in Arizona Territory. Doc Holliday was there. I’d run into him in a card game a few months earlier. He said Wyatt Earp was in Tombstone. Earp said the town was sitting on a silver strike bigger than the Comstock lode. Grubbers were making fortunes, gamblers even more. I could play monte. But grubbing for silver was the bigger attraction. I could disappear for months in the Mules. No one’d know I was there. It’s beautiful country. I was there once when I was working in Arizona. The time I ran into you and Tom Horn on the San Carlos. But I figured Pete or Kid would laugh at me being a grubber. Besides, Kid probably wouldn’t go with me to Tombstone. He hated Chiricahua country. Gerónimo plum terrified him.
Pete suggested I head up the Río Chama.
“There’s a small mission half a day’s ride from Abiquiu,” he said. “If it’s still there. Black Monks.”
“You mean like buffalo soldiers?”
“No. Monks wearing black robes. But they’re not Black Robes. They’re called Black Monks. Like hermits. Hardly anybody knows the place. You could hide out there till you get your bearings.”
“Black Monks. Never heard of them.”
“They’d been on the Chama a year or two when I met them. Living in jacales. Planning on building a church. Jicarillas helped them. Showed them how to garden. Supplied them with game.”
The idea of hermits living in the desert surrounded by hostiles sounded crazy. After the Comanches killed my ma and pa I went to live with Aunt Cat. She brought me up Catholic. I knew Black Robes were Jesuits. Black Monks were a mystery.
“How’d you know about them,” I asked.
“Ran into them when I was in the military under Kit Carson. Beginning of the Long Walk campaign. We were rounding up Indians, Navajo mostly, moving them here. I was with a detail hunting strays on the Río Chama when we found the monks. Stayed with them a few days.”
“I heard the Injuns didn’t stay long,” Kid said.
“Carson knew more about Navajos than his commanders did. They couldn’t grow crops. They were herders, not farmers. The military finally turned them loose and shut down the fort. A couple of years later Pap bought the buildings. This house was officers’ quarters. Our stable was the old quartermaster building.”
Pete was quiet a few moments, then said, “The Long Walk and their stay here were pure hell for the Navajos. They called it nadahadziidaa—the time we were afraid.”
“You speak Navajo?”
“I know a few words. That one stuck.”
We talked late into the afternoon. The baile was cranking up on the old parade ground. Someone played “La Marseillaise” on a fiddle. When it was over the singing and dancing began. I hadn’t fully decided where I was headed in the morning but I was leaning toward California. It promised a clean break. Paulita couldn’t come, but I could return for her once the baby was born and the heat’d cooled. The more I thought about it the better it sounded.
“What do you think, Kid?” I finally said. “Ready to light out for California?”
“Hell yes.”
“The Spanish Trail runs from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. Folks don’t use it much anymore, but I reckon we won’t get too lost long as we keep going west. Could look at the Chama country along the way. Do a little prospecting for Navajo gold. Sound good to you?”
“You bet.”
That pretty much settled it.
CHAPTER 11Antrim
Garrett was pretty well shook up, as he didn’t want it said
that he had killed the wrong man.
—PETE MAXWELL, AS TOLD TO BUNDY AVANTS, DATE UNKNOWN
AFTER A WHILE THE FIDDLE stopped and harp music kicked in. I’d never heard a harp. It was sad. Beautiful. Not what you’d expect at a baile. I looked at Pete.
“Turlough O’Carolan,” he said. “A blind Irish harpist. I met him on the plaza in Santa Fe playing for pesos. Invited him over. He rode in on a horse. By himself. Pretty good trick for a blind man.”
Pete got up to leave.
“Better check on the party. I’ll send Paulita after dark.”
Jesus Silva showed up a little later. He knew both me and Pat were in town. He figured his house was safer than Celsa’s. Kid and me talked it over and decided he was right.
When Celsa came into the kitchen I told her we were leaving.
“Tell Paulita,” I said.
“Ser prudente.”
We slipped out the back and went to Jesus’ choza three doors away. We left our horses in Celsa’s corral. Later that night Kid said he was hungry.
“I got frijoles,” Jesus said.
“Ain’t you got carne?” Kid said. “I been eating frijoles and tortillas near a week.”
“Only frijoles. Señor Pete has carne on his pórtico. Que no le importará.”
“Will you cook it?”
“A bad idea,” I said. “Someone could recognize you.”
“I ain’t Mex. Can’t live on frijoles and tortillas ever day.”
“Aqui,” Jesus said as he handed Kid a knife. “You get Señor Pete’s carne and I will cook it.”
Kid took the knife and a candle and went out. The only sound from the parade ground was a mournful tune from the harp. Jesus lit a fire in the woodstove. I leaned back in my chair against the wall. Kid hadn’t been gone but a few minutes when I heard a gunshot. I jerked upright and nearly fell out of the chair. Grabbed my Colt and ran out. The gunfire came from Pete’s direction. The moon was high. I could see pretty good. I went through the gate into Pete’s backyard. Someone was in the shadows beside the house. A side of beef was hanging on a porch beam. Kid’s candle was on the rail a few feet away. Kid was lying on the porch. I felt a sharp pain in my jaw. A bullet struck me in the cheek and knocked out a couple of teeth. Another bullet hit me in the shoulder. I turned and ran behind a row of casas, throwing lead over my shoulder. Blood was running down my throat, gagging me.
Another bullet creased my head like a hot poker. I fell forward into the dirt. Couldn’t think straight but figured if I laid there I’
d be dead for sure. My mouth was clogged with blood. I spit out a tooth and stumbled past more casas. Could hardly see where I was going for the blood in my eyes. All I could think was, run.
The music’d stopped. Folks on the parade ground were yelling. Lights appeared in windows. A door opened. Jesus’ sister grabbed my arm and pulled me in. I fell into her kitchen and passed out. When I came to I was on the floor. Jesus’ sister was putting beef tallow on my head to stop the bleeding. She’d seared my shoulder and wrapped it with a rag. Celsa was there too.
“Can you hear, Bilito? Can you hear?”
My head was reeling and I wasn’t for sure who was calling me. It took a bit before the words made sense. Celsa said Pat was holed up in Pete’s house, afraid to come out or let anyone in. He knew it was Kid he’d killed. Jesus was building a coffin. Others were digging a grave. Pat wanted Kid in the ground before daylight.
“I’m kinda shot up, Celsa. How bad?”
“You okay. Bullets go through. I think they hit nothing bad. Nothing is broken.”
Her words were encouraging but Celsa was crying.
“I busted some teeth.”
“I think your teeth bleed the most. Holes they heal. Frank Lobato will take you to his sheep camp. You stay till you can ride. Then you go far away. Away from New Mexico. Go. Go. If Patricio finds you he will kill you for sure. Don’t come back. La muerte awaits you here.”
A few minutes later Frank was at the door.
“Tengo su caballo,” he whispered into the house.
“Ayuda a Bilito a subirse a su caballo,” Celsa said.
Frank came into the kitchen. He stood at my head and slipped his hands under my shoulders, then he sat me up on the floor. I near passed out from the pain. He slid his hands around my chest and clasped them together, then he pulled me straight up from the back. It was all I could do to keep my legs rigid and the vomit inside. Celsa reached around my waist. Frank and her walked me out to Buck and hoisted me up. Ain’t sure I ever hurt more.
“My six-shooter. Where’s my six-shooter?”
The Gospel According to Billy the Kid Page 8