Authors: Theodore Taylor
Billy was startled. Not at the fact she knew a train had been stopped, but that he'd already been connected with it. Trying desperately to figure it out, he said slowly, "Word didn't used to travel that fast."
Kate frowned. "Look at you in those fancy clothes."
There was little use in denying it now, Billy decided. He knew she was wondering what to do. A hand came up to her lips. Finally she said with anguish, "Billy, you can't..." Completely unstrung, she didn't finish.
Billy chose to take advantage of her confusion. Still inspecting her, he mounted the steps. "You're gettin' prettier every year. This moonlight, you're plain beautiful."
He noticed a look of different alarm in her eyes.
"Do I kiss you, or do we jus' shake hands, Mrs. Monroe?" He grinned. "I'd like a lil' kiss."
"You haven't changed." There was a shake of head.
Billy shrugged and pecked her cheek, then stood back, beaming at her out of four days' growth of stubble.
"You can't stay here," Kate said weakly.
"Well now, why can't I?" he answered, feigning hurt. "Willie around? Where is that ol' moose? Gone to town?" He looked past her into the living room.
"He's out trying to find you."
That is odd,
Billy thought. He sensed something was wrong. "Oh? How did he know I, was back in these parts?" His eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me they rung him in on a posse?"
Feeling positive satisfaction, Kate answered crisply, "He's the sheriff now, Billy." She let the sentence hang in the air, then added, "Jack Lapham identified you."
Billy knew his mouth was unhinged. His face matched Kate's of a moment ago. Then he groped for words and found his tongue. "What ... what happened to old man Metcalf? I think you're kiddin' me."
"Metcalf was ambushed. A year ago."
"Willie's the sheriff?" Billy couldn't control his wild laughter. It came out in peals and bursts as his face turned scarlet. Willie Monroe the sheriff? He was too young to be a sheriff. Even funnier, the place he'd picked to stop a train was right under that big Monroe nose. He laughed until he had to lean against a porch post.
He squeezed out, "The sheriff here couldn't catch a cold ... or somethin' like that."
Kate remained an observant statue. "You're an outlaw. You posed as a deputy."
He took a long breath. "Just this once. Well, I mighta known. The Bonney luck. You say he's trackin' me?"
Kate nodded.
Billy laughed again at the irony of it, and then proceeded with another appraisal of Willie's wife, head to toe. She hardly looked a day older. Still a teenager, like he was.
"Please leave," she said.
It sounded weak to Billy. "You skittery on account o' Willie, or me?"
She didn't answer.
Billy smiled. "Relax, Kate. I got tracks scattered all over the Ben Moores an' up the Verdes. I went south, then north. I had a coupla other guys on my tail. Didn't know Willie was even back there. Anyway, I bet I got a full day's lead on him, even if he got my trail."
"He got it," Kate said steadily. "He has Yavapais with him."
Billy frowned slightly. That shortened the odds, but not much. From what he remembered, the Yavapais weren't all that good. He'd stay a while, then go on. Chat with Kate, find out about Willie.
He scanned around, noticing how good the house looked. "New house, an' you painted it. Everything's neat and clean." He was suddenly envious of Willie. "You gonna ask me in?"
She hesitated.
"Anybody accuses you of harborin' me, Kate, you jus' tell 'em I held a gun on you," Billy advised, taking care of that matter. "But tell Willie the truth."
Kate sighed, "All right, Billy. You must be hungry."
As they started inside, Billy said, "Matter of fact, I am." But he moved quickly past her to the center of the room, checking it, hand not too far from the right-hip .44. He wasn't concerned about Kate, but thought someone else might be around. "You alone here?"
"Yes. We have a hand, but he doesn't sleep over."
Billy nodded, relaxing. "Real female touch here," he said approvingly.
Kate's eyes widened. Same old Billy.
Billy went on bantering, "That ol' Mexican woman we had was sure a good cook. But that's about all." He noticed that Kate was staying warily by the front door, and tried to put her at ease. "Nice furniture," he said, scanning around some more. "And look at the roses."
"Yes, I grow them."
He walked over to sniff the buds as Kate crossed hurriedly behind him, heading for the kitchen.
Billy moved next to the wedding certificate and read it. He remembered misbehaving at the wedding and now felt sorry for it. He shouted toward the kitchen. "I thought maybe you an' Willie would have a kid by now. I don't see any sign o' one."
"There's a grave out back."
Billy winced, frowning off toward the kitchen. He felt badly. "I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't know" He wondered how Willie had taken the loss. Willie had said he wanted to have kids, wanted a boy.
He moved again to stand in the kitchen doorway, watching as she put leftover biscuits into the warmer section of the iron stove. She'd already placed a skillet on it.
Billy asked casually, "Wasn't Willie satisfied with ranchin'?"
Kate spilled some grease into the skillet. "He still ranches when he isn't out chasing..."
Billy smiled thinly, "...outlaws like me?"
Kate jiggled the grate arm to knock ashes down, then shoved in three lengths of wood. "We needed a good sheriff."
"An' you like bein' the sheriff's wife?"
Anger mounting, Kate turned to look at him. "No thanks, Billy. I don't like being the sheriff's wife."
She shifted to the sink board, determined to feed him quickly and make him leave.
Billy was suddenly amused. "I think
that you think
that I don't like you."
Kate was starting to peel boiled potatoes. "I stepped in between Damon and Pythias."
"Who are they?" Billy squinted.
Kate's laugh was brittle. "A juggling act. They play all the better saloons."
Although he didn't understand what she was talking about, Billy felt the sarcasm. He shrugged. It didn't make any difference who Damon and Pythias were.
"I'll fry these for you," she said, hands busy.
"They'll be tasty. Willie wrote me down in Mexico that you were a good cook."
Kate's knife kept a steady rhythm. The peelings fell away. She made no reply.
He continued to look at her, speculating on what their life might be like if she'd married him. "'Less he's changed, Willie can be pretty dull sometimes."
"So can I."
Billy grinned and walked across the floor to her. "I jus' doubt that." He came to a position beside her, standing with his back against the sink board. He searched her face. "I've often wondered why you an' I didn't hook up. We're the same age. I didn't try very hard, I admit. I didn't try at all, I guess."
Kate kept her attention on the potatoes. "Hook up to a kite when there's no string on it?"
Billy arched his brows. "Might have been a fun ride, Kate."
She turned full face to him. "I love Willis."
Billy regarded her and nodded. "He's lovable."
He suddenly felt grimy and rubbed his beard. "Think he'd mind if I used his razor?"
Kate replied coldly, "I don't know."
"Well, at least, Kate, he'd let me water my damn horse."
Kate murmured, "Use his razor," tossing a peeled spud into the bowl.
Billy snorted with frustration and started for the door but had an urge to stick another pin in. "You ought to get a new stove. We got that one secondhand when we built that pine-board shack out there." He couldn't resist reminding her of the old days.
Kate turned to stare at him. "I can trust this one. Like Willie, it stays around and doesn't get into trouble." She flipped another potato, much in the manner that Billy had flipped her wedding ring two years before.
Billy was planted in the center of the living room, gazing around again. There'd been two bunks, a few wooden chairs, and a battered table in the shack where they'd lived before Kate arrived. There'd been good times in it. Kate even had done away with his antlers, he noticed. She'd probably put them out in the barn.
Billy glanced toward the kitchen, thinking she should have seen the old place some Saturday nightsâa couple of hardworking cowboys drunk and flopping around.
Where were the chairs, the old table?
He yelled toward the kitchen, "Willie's probably a deacon, too."
"Yes, he is, Billy."
He caught the smile in her voice. "Godalmighty," he moaned.
Deacon Monroe.
He shook his head in disgust, sighed, and scratched around his ribs, wishing Willie were there Then he went on out the front door and led the mare around the house to the trough, unsaddling her.
He couldn't help but wonder what all she'd done to Willie. Maybe he'd be a total stranger? Maybe it was best he never saw him again. Coping with her, an educated woman with a smart tongue, he'd have to be different now. Billy sighed once more.
He found the feed bin and poured a bucket; then, finishing with the horse, he headed back for the house, trying to think of something else to say that would nettle her.
His eye caught an object about fifty feet from the barn. The moonlight illuminated it. He recalled Kate saying there was a grave out back.
He hesitated a moment, and then went over to stand by the tiny mound, looking down. Striking a match, he bent over. In the flare he read the etched granite slab:
WILLIAM BONNEY MONROE. BORN, JANUARY
22, 1879.
DIED, MARCH
12, 1879.
As the flame touched his fingers and went out, Billy barely felt the pain.
Willie had a son who died in less than two months, and he'd named him after me.
Face tortured, his head came slowly around. He looked toward the house. Kate's shadow behind it, he saw the kitchen curtain fall back into place. She'd been watching him.
William Bonney Monroe.
There were fried beef slices, warmed home fries, biscuits, and a mug of coffee on the table. Kate stayed at the sink board, her back to it, well away from him.
"You know," Billy said, subdued, "nothin' seemed to go right after I left you an' Willie. I seen the inside of too many saloons, Kate."
"We didn't chase you off," she answered with sincerity.
Billy smiled over sadly. "No, but that week I was here the view was awful clear. You movin' around in that ol' shack, livin' in there with Willie. Me sleeping on the ground outside. Sometimes I'd hear your voice..." He laughed at himself. "I got a whiff o' perfume that last day. Iâ"
Kate was touched, he saw.
"Well, it's hard on a man like me. You understand"
She nodded, then said reflectively, "If they could take half of you and half of Willis, mash you up into one human being, it'd be something."
Billy laughed at the idea of it. Aiming his fork at a beef slice, he suggested, "Maybe it'd be best to take only a quarter o' me."
Kate smiled and waited until he swallowed the meat, then asked, "What happened, Billy?"
"Long story," he said. "I stayed around Durango for a while. Worked a year down there, goin' after rustlers, shootin' them. Then just drifted the last year. Down on my luck, I mean it." He wouldn't tell her he'd killed a cardsharp in El Paso.
Kate said, "But you didn't need to pull a gun, rob a train. You know Willis would have lent you money."
Billy put his fork down. "This is the first time I ever robbed anyone. I swear that. An' you can tell Willie I didn't mean to put him in a bind. Last thing I'd do. Oh, I was in a little trouble now an' then, Kate." He paused. "After this is over, I'llâ"
Kate broke in, shaking her head. "You sound like you know you'll get away."
Billy nodded while clearing his mouth of food. "These fellows I met in McLean said they wanted to hit the train up here but didn't know the country, so Iâ"
"So you just stuck guns in people's faces." Kate was appalled.
Billy frowned at her. "Kate, there's enough money in that saddlebag out there to buy a ranch."
She laughed barrenly. "Well, at least you had a purpose."
Billy nodded emphatically. "Soon's it's safe, an' after I go to California, I swear I'm headin' for Durango. I'll buy a ranch, an' maybe even get married. I got a girl there, Helga. You an' Willie can come down. Like old times. We'll have a few beers and some laughs."
Kate said hopelessly, "He'll keep lookin' for you, Billy. Those times ended on the railroad tracks."
Buttering a biscuit, Billy grinned confidently. "Just this once, I think he'll look the other way."
WILLIE AND THE TRACKERS
had reached the fork in the wagon road, reined up, and were viewing the dim lights of the Double W, about a thousand yards away.
Big Eye mused, enjoying himself once again on this white man's outing, "Now he wouldn't go to your place, would he, Sheriff?"
Willie stared at the low outline of his own ranch house. With disbelief he answered, "Billy Bonney? No! No, Big Eye, he wouldn't do that."
All day they'd followed the bell mare tracks north, flanking the Ben Moores, then cutting west a bit, climbing again into the Sierra Greens, skirting Polkton well after dark.
Willie's astonishment had grown with each mile, after Big Eye found the prints on the low mountain overlooking the short grass basin, four miles south of the arroyo. Early morning on, he'd twisted and turned the intriguing thought that Billy might head for the Double W. The kid was crazy enough to do it.
Since he couldn't ride two ways at once, Willie had decided to let the other two robbers go. The law, especially Pete Wilson, would want local boy Billy alive, if they had a choice, Willie knew. Maybe he was learning something about politics? He'd wire on to the border to have lookouts set up for the other two. They were likely trekking steadily south toward Mexico.
While he felt anger, mixed with some humiliationâwhat train robber ever paid the tracking sheriff a visit?âhe also had to give Billy a measure of respect for sheer audacity. On the ride up, he'd even permitted himself a wry smile or two over the possibility of Billy's direction.