Billy the Kid (4 page)

Thanks to Art, anyone on the SF, P & P who concerned himself with Billy this peaceful autumn morning would see a regulation peace officer in impeccable black, with a string tie lacerating a new white shirt. Billy had picked the serge outfit with utmost care while Art looked on in fascination, then paid for it. Then they'd had a Mexican silversmith make up the star, with Art permitting himself a series of hearty laughs at the thought of it. Billy's saddlebag, with one of the prized .44s in it, was by his feet. The other .44 was in his holster.

In the early morning, before leaving the hotel in Wickenburg, Billy had admired himself a good two minutes. Clean-shaven, he couldn't remember looking so good, so handsome, so genuine. Ever. He even looked like a peace officer, but wore his black hat with the rim low, to cover his face. In his black coat and black pants, he looked dandy.

The train rumbled on.

Across the aisle and down one seat, a portly well-dressed man of middle age had been staring at Billy and his prisoner. At last he leaned forward and spoke.

"What'd he do?" he asked, nodding toward Perry.

Billy regarded Perry a thoughtful moment and then turned back to the inquiring passenger. "Held a train up. He's a bad one. Mean as a rabid rat." Billy's voice was typically soft and held an edge of humor. Deep down he had sensed Perry was a spineless hulk of cowardly blubber—nothing like his father, or even reckless Joe.

"He looks bad, all right," said the portly man, then introduced himself as Rawls.

Billy estimated Rawls to be a banker or a lawyer. He certainly wasn't a rancher—his skin was too smooth, hands too pink and soft. His suit had been cut in Phoenix, maybe, and those fine boots were surely out of Tucson, made by that Italian immigrant down there. Billy looked at them enviously. But he had shining new ones, thanks to Art Smith.

"What's his name?" Rawls asked.

"He goes under a lot of false names," Billy replied, sensing Perry beginning to steam again.

"Doesn't make any difference," Rawls said after the screech trailed off. "I'm just glad you've got him." Then he frowned. "Say, I haven't seen you around these parts; Sheriff."

Billy felt a slight quiver in his gut for the first time but explained cordially, "I'm just a poor deputy, Mr. Rawls. I work that festerin' hellhole of Yuma. Jus' bringin' this stickup artist up the mountain for trial. We got him last week on the lower Colorado. He was livin' like a king down there. Had two women, a barrel o' whiskey, and anytime he got hungry rustled hisself a calf an' cut a loin off it. Havin' hisself a time."

Perry spat brown juice out the open window in disgust.

"That a fact?" Rawls nodded, scanning Perry's profile. "I'm a banker in Jerome and open the doors each day wondering if we'll make it through. I'm beginning to believe it's worse now than it was ten years ago. You lawmen have got to clean them up."

Billy found it hard to keep a straight face but said earnestly, "Mr. Rawls, we are sincerely dedicated to that."

Rawls's head snapped down in a confirming, righteous nod that quivered his jowls. Then he settled back, curiosity satisfied.

Billy looked down the length of the car a moment, then turned and settled back, too. Most aboard seemed to be townspeople, although there were a few cowhands. One mem looked like he might be a miner. There were a couple of mothers with cranky children. He made a guess that the other car was populated pretty much the same. Just folks moving around the territory for one reason or another. He hoped Art wouldn't get reckless with that scattergun.

No. 2 northbound hauled a combined express and mail car as well as the two passenger cars. They weren't as plush as the steam-heated eastern coaches he'd heard about, but the seats had padding under knobby green fabric. Oil lamps swung on gimbals from the ceiling.

Billy put his eyes on one and tried to think about going to New York or Chicago, where he'd never been, if he didn't go back to Mexico and marry Helga. With his share of the loot, why not go to London or maybe Paris with her? He'd never seen the sea. Maybe, just maybe, he should do that before he bought a ranch.
At least,
he thought,
I don't feel boxed in now—thanks, unfortunately, to Art.

Billy sighed and dug his shoulders deeper into the green pile, tipping his hat even lower over his eyes, again putting off thoughts of Art Smith somewhere up the tracks. He stared down at the black toes of his new boots. Actually, this was something like coming home, he figured. He wondered if Polkton, his place of birth, was still the same. It must have grown some in two years.

His boyhood days had been grand up to the buggy accident that took his papa's life. He'd been so proud of his papa, the best gunsmith in the whole world. He'd made a .44 for the president as well as for the king of England. Papa was Polkton's claim to fame.

The first time Billy had ever pulled a trigger was when he was four and Papa held Billy's small hands in his own as the gun jumped and made his ears ring. By the time he was seven, Billy could outshoot most of the men in town. Papa said, "Billy, you're a true artist!" Then that runaway horse tipped the buggy when Billy was eight, breaking his heart.

Two years later Billy's mama married a blacksmith, a friend of his late papa's. Stern and strict, with a bad temper, the blacksmith took an immediate dislike to his new stepson. Then Billy's mother died of lobar pneumonia, and he had to be rescued by cousin Willie's widowed papa, the judge.

Billy was almost as good with horses and rounding up cattle as he was with guns. He got into a rodeo up in Prescott when he was twelve, in the junior competition, and the newspaper said, "Keep an eye on this kid; he rides like he has glue on his bottom." He'd inherited his mother's good looks but not her Irish red hair and green eyes. He had a large portion of her wry sense of humor, and it had gotten him into trouble on numerous occasions.

His thoughts wandered back to Willie, and he smiled beneath the hat brim, remembering him warmly.

Oh hell,
Billy thought. Then he solemnly promised himself he'd look Willie up the next time he was anywhere near the Verdes. No matter if it was twenty years hence.

A barn came into distant view and Billy suddenly remembered a day when he was about twelve. He'd often wished he'd had a picture of that day. Willie had thrown a bucket of whitewash at the same time Billy had slammed a cow pie into Willie's face.
Fwwwwwhap!
Willie with green mush all over his face, Billy dripping whitewash. They both rolled in the dirt, laughing. Those were fine boyhood days.

Then he had another funny memory, and forgetting he was still ironed to Perry, he slapped his knee, jerking Perry's forearm. Perry lunged around, slamming both arms to the seat back ahead, pop-eyed with anger. He snarled quietly, "Do that agin an' I'll trow you crost this car."

For a few seconds, Billy's eyes were icy, but then he fought down his temper. "We'd go together, pardner," he murmured. Some skin had come off his own wrist, he knew. "Behave yourself," he added softly.

Reaching the edge of a wide green flat, the train had begun to pick up speed. Then the whistle hooted with urgency. There was a fire on the track ahead.

***

THE STACK OF PUNK-DRY
cordwood, piled eight feet or more and doused with coal oil, flamed and crackled, sending up sheets of flecked brown smoke. It straddled the tracks. The wood was stashed at fifty-mile intervals for feeding the always-hungry tenders of the SF, P&P trains.

Joe was having trouble mounting again. His black big-rumped mare was spooking, eyes dancing with fear of the flames.

"Now?" Joe shouted anxiously, looking at his father. He whipsawed the frightened mare another thirty or forty feet from the fire.

Art, on the loose dirt bank above the tracks, where he impassively watched the train draw closer, yelled back, "I'll let you know." He had a long tether on an extra pair of good saddle horses for Billy and Perry, and he cursed at the animals to hold still as smoke dirtied the sky over the plateau. A rolled-up burlap bag to hold the loot was strapped to the saddle of one horse. Billy had sold his roan in Wickenburg.

Art had begun to worry about this job, mainly because of Billy. That Billy, as good as he was with a gun, as cool a boy as he was, had an unpredictable streak in him. A man like that couldn't really be trusted for work like this. At the last moment, he might change his mind. Perry and Joe were right. He'd been a fool to take Billy. He might have to kill him.
Later!

Usually, Art preferred simplicity. His liking, over two uncaught years in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Mexico, was to look it over, lay out an escape route, make sure fresh horses were thirty miles ahead, then use guns and dynamite to do the rest. Fancy schemes like this one were apt to go wrong. Yet he could only blame himself. He'd just gotten tired of doing things the same old way.

As the whistle hooted again, worry etched Art's face.
Worst mistake of all,
he now thought,
was talking Billy into that fool deputy sheriff getup.
No, maybe his own idea of having Perry go along as a prisoner was worse. No matter, it was an idiot's plan. Not clean and simple.

As much as anything, he felt he'd lost control. Billy and Perry were supposed to take care of the gun-toting conductor in Wickenburg, make sure he didn't get on the train. Yet there was no guarantee he wasn't aboard. Billy had also made the arrangements for fresh horses to be waiting at Dunbar's Rocks, wherever they were. But there was no guarantee of them, either.

Art snarled at the nervous horses and clubbed his shying mount with a fist.

In the past there had been just the three of them. They'd done fine robbing, making thousands. He made up his mind that that's the way it would be in the future—if they did another job. No more gun-happy clowns like Billy Bonney.

Art blew out an angry breath and then sharpened his eyes on the approaching train.

***

IN THE CAB
, engineer Eric Mapes, a wiry, peppery Missourian who'd been on the Polkton run two years, jerked the whistle cord and began slowing, mumbling to himself. He'd lay a bet on what was ahead. The grade was practically flat by marker 416.

Pulling his florid face back in, the white-haired railroader shouted to his fireman, "Big blaze blockin' the track! A holdup, sure as hell. I saw a sheriff get into number one. Go back an' tell him."

The stoking bar hit the grates. Blake, the fireman, nodded, then scrambled up over wood lengths in the tender. His patched behind disappeared over the brink of the mail car as he crawled along the swaying walkway on the roof of the cars.

Ever since leaving Wickenburg, Mapes had been uneasy but didn't know exactly why. For one thing it wasn't like Cassell, the conductor, to miss the train. In fact, he couldn't remember Cassell ever being a minute late, let alone missing a train. But after waiting half an hour, Mapes had pulled out.

The brakeman, Hardy, was substituting for Cassell, but he'd be about as much good in a holdup as a june bug in molasses. He'd hide when he heard the first shot. Or he'd scamper off into the woods.

Mapes stuck his head out again. There was nothing but writhing fire up the rails. That hill of cordwood didn't just topple to the tracks and start burning, he was convinced. And there wasn't a lad anywhere along the line mean enough to pull a prank like that.

***

BILLY GLANCED AT PERRY
. The Texan was wound tight.

"Let's get 'em off," Billy said.

Perry lifted his wrists, eyes nervous.

Rawls couldn't wait to get into the act as Billy rose, temporarily reshackling Perry to the iron frame of the seat arm ahead. The banker shouted importantly, "Everybody, we got a deputy with us."

Billy frowned, trying to make a quick judgment of the situation. No, it would be better if the banker
did
get himself involved. He might be of use.

Billy nodded. "That's right, jus' keep calm. We don't want nobody to get hurt. You got any guns, pass 'em up here to me. This gentleman'll help me."

The passengers were puzzled. Billy didn't blame them. People didn't ordinarily let their guns go, even to a deputy. It was a wise and natural reaction.

He waited until he saw the first gun start forward, then bent across Perry to look up the tracks. He caught Perry's harsh whisper, "I'm a sittin' duck. Anythin' goes wrong, you'll git it first."

"Don't get squirrelly," Billy advised, leaning out the window to watch the fire.

Roaring forty feet high, the fire wouldn't bother the engine. But it would eat the wooden floors out of the rest of the cars at slow speed. The train had to stop! Billy felt it slow to a creep, jerking as the engineer reduced the throttle.

Feeling the brakes set, Billy nodded in satisfaction and returned to the aisle, picking up a passenger blanket that He had stored in the seat beside him. He dropped it to the center of the aisle, calling out, "I'll protect your valuables, too! Drop 'em in the blanket."

Art had guffawed at the idea of that. Billy was clever.

Rawls shouted, "Do as the sheriff says!" and contributed his wallet.

Billy glanced at him with utter appreciation. There was always a Rawls around, any town, any train. God put them on earth to do questionable good. They always ended up making a mess.

Somehow none of this seemed real to Billy. Maybe he'd wake up in a room of the Posada Duran with Helga. That was it. He'd had a long tequila dream and had never even been in McLean.

The passengers were now scurrying forward, dropping rings, wallets, and watches into the blanket. They came like sheep. Rawls helped.

"That's the way, folks," Billy said approvingly.

Art was right. This
was
better than ranching. "Just remember who belongs to what. We wouldn't want you to lose anything."

The train jarred to a full stop.

As Mapes swung down, Art and Joe, faces covered with red bandannas they'd bought at Sills in Wickenburg, charged out from behind the blazing pile, skirting it, Art towing the whinnying horses. Joe war-whooped and sent a shot into the air.