Marisi
Ornstein
Billy walks barefoot over gravel through Pete Maxwell’s ranch, glancing to the silhouettes on the amber curtains of the adobe houses where the ranch hands live with their families.
He enters the smokehouse, slices off a strip of beef and slips out, slowly making his way along a low wall to get a better view of the house.
From behind an ancient Eucalyptus, he watches two men on Pete’s front porch smoking cigars, armed with shotguns and three pistols each.
Billy enters Pete’s house through the side door and makes his way down the hall to Pete’s bedroom. He listens outside the door a moment, then cracks the door and peers inside the dark room.
A breeze blows the curtain and a crisp slice of moonlight beams through, revealing a shadow seated in a chair by the window.
Billy squints, “¿Quién es?”
He hears the jolt of a pistol cock as a sharp flash of moonlight glints from the seven and a half inch barrel of a forty-four forty caliber Colt Single Action Army revolver, and time evanesces.
Billy shifts on his feet, “¿Quién es?”
As his eyes adjust to the dark, the face of Pat Garrett appears, “Hey now, William.”
“Hey now, Patrick. That a Marshals badge you’re wearing?”
“Fuck you.” Pat’s grin disappears, “Have a sit, Bill.”
The hammer of Pat’s Colt reverses and time kicks back into gear.
Billy sits on the side of Pete’s bed facing Pat, “Light a lamp why don’t you?”
Pat raises his hand, “Keep it dark. I got two Marshals outside.”
“Do you, now.”
“I do.”
Pat’s eyes drift to the ceiling, “Fact is, William, Governor Wallace hired me for money I already spent. I got one week to deliver you. Unofficially, I’ve been ordered to bring in a corpse.”
“My corpse have some value?”
“It does. You’d be surprised.” Pat crosses his legs, “Seems you’re too well-known and well-liked for a public trial.”
“Well known by who?”
“Lots of people, apparently. They even got a name they’re calling you.”
“What kind of name?”
“They’re calling you Billy the Kid.”
“Who the fuck is calling me that?”
“Everybody. They got dime books about you published in New York City.”
“Horse shit.”
“Nope.”
“Any of it true?”
“Nope.”
Billy falls silent for a long moment, “War’s over. Trouble’s done. They ought to leave me alone.”
“Life don’t work that way, Bill.” Pat takes a toothpick from his pocket, “You stirred the wrong pot, Billy.”
“Righteous, all them I put down. I sparked and won a bonafide fuckin war of righteous retribution. I got no care for nobody’s pot.”
“I know it. But, my knowing it don’t change nothing.” Pat shifts in his chair, “If you got an idea to get us out of this, William, speak it now.”
Billy sits up straight, “I’m gonna build roads.”
Pat shakes his head like he’s got a moth in his ear, “Roads to where?”
He smiles wide, “Roads to everywhere.”
Pat tilts his head, “What in the fuck are you talking about?”
Billy taps Pat’s knee, “I mapped a network of all the old trails and trading roads running through New Mexico, Arizona and wherever else I rambled, and marked all the rail stops. I found there are no roads connecting all them new towns popping up to none of the rail stops. Folks in them towns gonna need trading roads they can travel on. I’ve already visioned to build them, and I got a plan how to earn.”
“How?”
“That ain’t none of your business.”
Pat stares, “What do you know about building roads?”
“I know what I got to know. Far as I’m concerned, they’re already built.”
Billy’s green eyes sparkle into a smile, “I know them old roads like I know my own self. My roads gonna twist and bend and rise over rivers, gonna run smooth over mountains, cutting down time and flowing wherever the fuck they wanna flow.”
Pat hangs his hat on the bedpost, “I’m in a real tough spot here, Bill. Think of something.”
Billy leans in, “Arrange a meeting with me and the Governor. Five days, in Taos.”
Pat’s head snaps back, “How the hell would I do that?”
“Make some shit up, Pat. Tell him you shot me dead. Say you had to beat it out of town to avoid being beat to death and hung by Pete’s ranch hands. Tell him you took my corpse up to Taos so it wouldn’t be stole, me being famous and all.”
Billy winks, “Invite him to smoke a cigar over my corpse. He may find it’s worth the trip.”
“You asking me to help you assassinate Governor Wallace?”
“This ain’t about killing, it’s business. Consider the future. We ain’t nothing except what we leave to our kin. In this case, it’s a fortune to be had.”
Billy looks to his hands, “We don’t matter. All that matters is the future we create. Time spins. It goes forward and back and then forward some more, in a stream. Life’s about creating a future, Patrick. Think on it.”
They sit in silence a long moment.
Billy speaks gently, “Shoot off a couple rounds in the wall.” He points his thumb to Pete, “Pete’ll dig a grave, drop a box of dirt in the ground, plant a marker. I’ll be certified dead. Never heard from again. I’ll disappear.”
Pat squints, “Where are you gonna disappear to?”
“None of your fuckin business.” Billy’s eyes go dead, “I’ve told you all you need to know and we’re done talking. State your answer.”
Pat’s eyes widen, “My answer?”
“State your answer, Patrick.”
Billy slides the knife with the heavy wooden handle between two floorboards, close at hand, while Pat checks his right hand, measuring the distance to his Colt.
Billy stares, “Do we have a deal?”
Pat shifts in his chair, “We have a deal.”
“Why?”
“Cause I been through hell with you and I’m still alive.”
“Good choice.” Billy locks into Pat’s eyes, “Know why?”
Pat shakes his head.
“It was a good choice because them Marshals you think you got, both of them work for me.”
Pat’s right eye twitches. He turns his face away.
“I expected you tomorrow night. You’re a night early, Patrick. Why?”
“Nerves.” Pat takes a pull of rotgut from a pocket flask, “No patience.”
“Get some. Can’t trust a man with no patience.” Billy makes an adjustment in the back waistband of his trousers, “I need you to do this one task and to hold to the story of me dead in this room, and we never cross paths again. I’ll make it worth your while. Understood?”
“I got to live with being the man killed Billy the Kid?”
“Yes. So, live it large. Write a fuckin book.” He lifts his knife, “Break from the story even once to so much as your cat, you become part of the landscape.”
Pat sits with that.
Billy runs his thumb over the initials carved into the knife’s heavy wooden handle, “My father, he left this knife with my mother to give me in case he never came back from sea. I made it mine. All I got is names. Too many names.”
Pat stares at the floor.
Billy sheathes his knife and stands, “Taos. Five days. Undertaker’s shop.”
Pat stands to his full height of six foot five, his head grazing the ceiling.
Billy lights a candle and opens the curtains, signaling to the Marshals that all is well.
He points to the door frame, “Land one bullet there, chest high. Another there, in the mantle.”
Pat fluidly fires two quick bullets exactly where Billy pointed, holsters his pistol and grabs his hat.
Billy laughs, “They really are gonna beat and hang you if you don’t get gone and quick.”
Pat grabs his hat and exits, calling to the Marshals, “Get! Ride!”
Billy watches them disappear, as ranch hands are already gathered in the street, armed to the hilt.
He studies the angle of the bullet holes while flipping his knife into the air and catching it by the wooden handle, time and time again.
When he’s satisfied with his forensics, he flips his knife, catches it by the handle, and slices a surgical incision in his forearm.
Billy watches his blood pour to the floor, pooling and dripping through the floor boards, “In the long run, no matter the situation, Pete, truth always matters.”
He tears his shirt and ties a piece of fabric around his arm to stop the bleeding, as Paulita rushes into the room and into his arms, sobbing.
Billy holds her.
She stops sobbing and stomps her foot on the dirt floor, “I do not stay inside.”
“I understand.”
“I heard gunshots. Who would I be if I stayed inside?”
Billy removes his silver and turquoise squash flower necklace, “I’m sorry.” He puts the necklace on Paulita and this seems to calm her, “Never worry. Never.”
He takes a small pistol from a pouch sewn into the back of his trousers and hands it to Paulita, “Never be without a pistol. We aren’t other people anymore.”
“No? Who are we?”
“We ain’t who we are yet. We’re still who we’re gonna be.”
“You’re gonna need some dresses.” He juts his chin to Pete’s armoire, “Hey, Pete. Lend me a clean shirt? I got a meeting.”
“Take what you need.”
Billy reaches for a crisp blue shirt and gently unfolds it before gingerly putting it on and checking himself in the mirror, “Never had a blue shirt.”
“It matches your trousers.” She pushes her belly against his back and wraps her arms around him, “You look like a gentleman.”
Henry McCarty, the gentleman, wraps his arms around his wife and feels a deep warmth grow from the soles of his bare feet and straight up his spine.
He closes his eyes and breathes deep and deeper, watching the candlelight, as it backlights the veins in his eyelids, turning them into roads, expanding and intersecting off into the kaleidoscope horizon, open rolling and flowing, free as rivers, wherever the fuck they want to flow.
↓ Next