Charlie Bowdre

Billy's left hand was a creature separate from the rest of him. He didn’t use it to do anything but shoot. Like he had a funny way of eating where he'd put down his fork to cut his meat with his right hand and then put the knife down and pick up his fork again with his right hand to eat it. It was ghostly white, because he'd always wear a glove on it if there was no danger of bein' in a gunfight. An arm or leg that's sprained or broken and layin' unused for a long time can grow skinny and weak and I reckon Billy figured on that because he'd do exercises with his hand, the fingers all swimming and curling around into each other like a hydra. With a rifle, I'm close to as good as you get, but I'd seen Billy kill more men with a pistol than he had years alive on this Earth.

There were four of us running, Me, Dave Rudabaugh, Billy Wilson and William Bonney or Billy the Kid as he is more famously known. We had tried to get Garrett that morning but after Tom O'Folliard and Tom Pickett got killed we took off and rode all day until we got to the rock house, a cattle driver's cabin that is made from rocks. We didn't know that Pat had such a large posse chasing us or we would have kept riding through the night, but not knowin' that we figured the rock house was a pretty good spot to make a stand if the need be.

Just a few short years ago Fort Sumner was a quiet little town. Farmers, sheep ranchers, trappers and a few independent miners out in the desert. Then the dude, John Tunstall, rolled into town and he teamed up with McSween and they began to do battle with the resident land barons, Murphy and Dolan. As they went about the business of dividing up the territory between them, neither side ever seemed quite satisfied with how things would settle out and they kept at it until Fort Sumner and Lincoln County were fully involved in a range war. First we were recruited by Murphy and then by Tunstall, but now Tunstall was dead, shot in the back by Murphy and his men. How they had hooted and hollered afterwards, even going so far as to defile John's remains. It turned my stomach, Billy’s too. John had been very good to us. After he was gone, McSween was soon to follow. He was killed running from his house with the rest of us after they had set it on fire.

The cabin is about fifty yards from the bush and looks down across some rolling hills and grassland. I take a slug of whiskey and look out into the twilight at the hills, not so much at the hills themselves but at the folds between them, deepened by the water flowing downhill over the thousands of years. I let a fancy take shape where I imagine the hills are just a bunched up brown blanket and wonder what new forms might take shape if the blanket were pulled straight and let to settle again.

After consolidated their hold on power by killing McSween, Murphy and Dolan turned their attention to cleaning up the county. That meant getting rid of our element. They had tolerated us for a while, even got a judge to offer us clemency if we would move back East. Tom O'Folliard and I had gone away for a while to see if the heat would die down, but when I came back Billy was in jail. I helped bust him out of there with Dave Rudabaugh and they went back to rustlin' cattle for a while, but things really turned bad for us after we ambushed and killed Bill Brady and one of his deputies, as revenge for them killin' Tunstall. Billy had killed Sheriff Brady careful, he being a former friend; shootin' him above the heart so that he wouldn’t last more than a few moments, but most people just said it was done in cold blood.

In the morning we're the first up and Dave asks me to get some snow to melt for coffee. The cold mountain air is bracing and I take a deep breath as I step out the door. I hear a big tree branch crack in the wind and that same strong gust picks me up like a giant hand and lifts me right back into the cabin. Billy's kneeling over me saying something, but he's so small and far away that I can't hear him. He's tying something to my stomach, but I'm worried I might pee on his hands because for some reason I'm going in my pants. Billy watch your hands! He turns and says something to Dan and they bring me some whiskey, but I just want water but they make me drink the whiskey and then they bring the water. Billy says to press on the cloth he's tied to my groin with one of his satchel belts. They sit me up and sling a rifle around my neck to hold with my left hand. Billy looks right into me with those osprey eyes, I can tell he's going to say something serious. You're killed Charlie. Those murderers did it to you, but now you can go out there and take some of them with you.

When Pat Garrett first came to Fort Sumner, he'd been out starving on the range so long that his face had a funny angular look to it and he being so tall and with those wooden teeth, we laughed out loud at the sight of him, me and Angela D., Billy’s girl at that time. Pat was always a good guy to have around if you were drinking or playing cards. He had a million facts and figures stored in that head of his. He knew things from zoology, botany, geography, history, you name it and Pat would have something intelligent or witty to say about it. He could drink until morning and not get drunk. Pat could always find a way to emphasize with someone down on their luck and was never cynical or high minded about someone who found themselves unable to get out of a bad situation. We all palled around quite a bit back in those days but I don't think any of us ever felt truly close to Pat. He always seemed to be sizing up the situation and you along with it. Someone once told me he knew French, but I never heard him speak a word of it.

Pat calls out to us. He tells us to surrender because he says our horses are gone and there is no chance of escape. Billy and Dave help me to my feet and Billy pushes me out the door. Go get 'em Charlie! Get 'em! I have one hand on my gut and the other holding the rifle pointed at Garrett and his men. I fire a couple shots as I come out the door so that they'll keep their heads down. They're all crouched down in this hollow out of sight except for Garrett, he just sits there, looking straight at us. God I'm so thirsty. I think about bending down to scoop up some snow but my guts hurt so much I'm afraid they'll spill out all over the place if I let go of the cloth. I just keep trying to get to where Pat and his men are. It's something, something other than the pain that is going right through into the centre of me. I hear someone fire over my shoulder from the rock house behind me, but they only hit the top of Garrett's rifle strap and his gun falls to the ground. When he bends down to pick it up I notice that the top of someone's head is showing above the hollow that's behind him. The straggly blond hair belongs to Jim French. I'm pretty good at shooting from the hip with a rifle and as I squeeze the trigger I watch the top of Jim's head slice off. This brings a hail of fire from both directions. One takes the bicep of my right arm off. Luckily the rifle is in my left but now I can't press the cloth to my guts. I can feel myself breaking apart. The rifle flashes allow me to locate two more of Pat's men, but I don't have the strength left to aim and my shots echo harmlessly into the distance. It does make them duck their heads down again and the shooting stops.

As bad as things were for us after we killed Brady, they did offer us another clemency deal. This one would be signed by Governor Lew Wallace and even included jobs out East as part of the bargain. I seriously thought about taking it but in the end Billy talked me into staying a while longer. I was married now besides and had a good job with the Maxwells so it was kind of hard to just leave. Billy was making good money rustling horses and cattle at that time but I think the real reason he wanted to stay was that he was sweet on Pete Maxwell's sister, even though I'm sure Pete didn't want him coming around. Eventually they got tired of waiting. This time they made Pat Garrett a marshal and he sent us a letter asking us to leave the territory or he was going to come out after us. Tom O'Folliard came back around Christmas and we all decided we had better try to get Garrett first. Tom, as he was the best shot with a rifle, was riding point as we came into town and they shot him on his horse. Pat ordered him down but he said, I'm killed, I can't get down without help. He was dead before they got him to the ground. Then Tom Pickett got killed and we decided we better make tracks. Garrett set out after us with twenty men.

Now I'm almost at Pat and everything is real quiet. I hear someone calling my name from back in the cabin and as I look back I see a red line in the snow, straight as a razor going back there. I laugh and suddenly I'm glad they made me take that drink. I take a few more steps and fall into Pat’s arms. My guts     open up wet and slimy onto his new dungarees. Hi Pat. Hi Charlie. He's smoking a cheroot and he holds it to my lips. The smoke feels good filling my lungs instead of air. I let it out with my last breath and watch it fly up into the morning sky.