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ME AND BILLY THE KID

By J.A. Fulkerson

SECOND EPISODE

I heard one man call out “There he is, over by that big mesquite bush. Don’t let him get away, Baker.”

     I hoped they weren’t talking about me. I wiggled further back into the bushes.

     Two more shots rang out. “I got him, Bill. I got his big bay horse he always bragged so much about, too.” His laugh sounded like a maniac to me.

     “Let’s get back to town and let Brady know he doesn’t have to worry about Tunstall any more.”

     I heard horses’ hooves pound the dirt and move away from me. When I couldn’t hear them any more, I rose up and looked through the top of the bushes. I couldn’t see anyone in sight.

     I sat there in the dirt beside the road and tried to figure out what had just happened. I recognized the name Tunstall from stories I’d read about the old West. But there was no way I could actually have witnessed something that happened in the 1880s. That was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? Sure, John Tunstall really had been ambushed and murdered outside a little town in Lincoln County, New Mexico. But I wasn’t even born then so I couldn’t have been there to see it happen.

     My mind was going crazy trying to figure this out. I decided to head down the road toward town. At least I guessed the direction the riders went led to town.

     I entered town on a dusty, rutted street lined with old wooden buildings that hadn’t seen a coat of paint in years, if ever. On one side of the street there was a two-story building with wooden staircases up to the second floor from each side. The sign hanging below the landing at the top of the stairs read Lincoln County Court House. When I stepped up onto the plank sidewalk, my foot kicked something lying on the sidewalk. I picked up a handgun. Not just any gun, but a six shooter like I’d seen in a western museum once. I wondered who the pistol had belonged to. Or maybe it was just a stage prop for a movie they were making. They make a lot of movies in New Mexico. That’s it, I thought. I’m in the middle of some movie they’re making. That has to be what’s going on.

     Just then three young guys came up behind me. They had come into town from the opposite direction while I was checking out the court house.

     “Well, look at that, Frank,” one of the guys said with a chuckle. “What kind of clothes is he wearing?” He pushed back the brim of his cowboy hat with the barrel of his pistol.

     I glanced down at what I was wearing. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” I asked. Just because I wasn’t in costume like them with their beat up cowboy boots and neckerchiefs and all. I was beginning to get a funny feeling now.

     “What kind of shoes are those?” the second guy asked.

     I looked at my Nikes and wondered what kind of backwoods guys these three were. Then things began to fit together. The rutted dirt street, the Court House, no modern-day cars, the old six shooter I found. I dropped the pistol like it was suddenly red hot. This wasn’t a movie set after all, was it? But it had to be. There was no other explanation for all of this.

     “Where’d you get those clothes?” the one called Frank asked.

     I looked again at my clothes. Nikes weren’t even invented in the old days. And my tank top probably looked like underwear to these guys.

     “Probably some kind of dandy from back east,” the third guy said.

     I looked at him and nearly choked. The third member of the group looked exactly like the old ferrotype picture of Billy the Kid.

     “I know you,” I said before I could think about it.

     “Yeah? How d’ya know me?”

     I got pretty nervous as Billy scratched his chin with the barrel of his pistol. “I mean I’ve seen that picture of you with the rifle. You’re Billy – William Bonney.”

     “You know us, too? We’re the Coe Brothers. I’m Frank and he’s George.

     This is just nuts, I thought. This can’t be happening. I knew Billy and the Coe Brothers worked on John Tunstall’s ranch, but . . .  And that reminded me of what I had seen back on the road to town.

     “Hey, you guys know your boss, Mr. Tunstall’s, been shot?”

     Billy and the Coe brothers looked at each other and then turned back to me. “Hey, that ain’t funny,” Billy said and looked like he was going to point his gun at me.

     “I’m not trying to be funny. I saw it back there on the road.”

     “You saw someone shoot Tunstall and they just let you go?” Frank sneered.

     “No, they didn’t see me. I was hiding behind some bushes. I know who it was, too.”

     “Frank, run down to the saloon and see if it’s true,” Billy ordered.

     Frank ran down the street while Billy and George questioned me.

     “It was a couple of guys named Morton and Baker. And Sheriff Brady’s in on it, too.”

     “If that’s true,” George said to Billy, “they’ll try to put the blame on you.”

     “I ain’t so sure this – what’s your name, any way?”

     “Rob Kingsley,” I answered, but I don’t think he really cared.

     “I ain’t so sure Rob here ain’t tryin’ to put somethin’ over on us.”

     Just then Frank Coe ran back up the street. “It’s true, Billy. Tunstall’s been killed.”

     Billy looked really sad. I think he must have liked John Tunstall or liked working for him. Billy slapped me on my back and said, “Well, one thing’s for sure. We gotta get this boy out of sight and into some real clothes. Can’t have folks thinking our friend here some kind of crazy guy. You got a horse somewhere?”

     I shook my head. It was hard enough for me to figure out how I got here, much less how I could have gotten a horse into this nightmare.

     “Okay, we’ll get you one, won’t we, boys?” The Coe brothers nodded and grinned back at Billy.

     I had no doubt about that. Billy wasn’t exactly a stranger to horse thievery and before I knew it I was sitting on a black and white paint horse, riding out of town with them. I hoped they wouldn’t ride too fast. I didn’t want to admit it to them, but I’ve never even touched a horse before.

     We spent the night in an old abandoned barn a few miles out of town. I still had no clue about how or why I got here, but I began to feel like I belonged. And I enjoyed the feeling I got from their acceptance of me. I finally belonged for the first time I could remember. No one pushed me around or tried to run my life. I was one of the guys, even if they probably were outlaws.

     “Hey, Billy,” I ventured as we sat on bales of old hay and passed around a bottle that one of them had suddenly produced. “You know someone named Pat Garrett?”

     “Yeah. He’s a bartender at that saloon back in town. How do you know him?”

      “I don’t. Not really,” I answered quickly. “I just heard the name somewhere. He ever talk about running for Sheriff?”

     Frank choked on a swig he had just taken from the bottle. His brother, George, burst into laughter. Billy stared at me like he still had suspicions about me.

     “You’re one strange guy,” he said. You just drop into

town from out of nowhere and all of a sudden you know

everyone and everything.”

     “Not really. I just hear things that stick in my head.” That much was really true, in a way. I do a lot of reading, especially about Billy the Kid. “From what I’ve heard, you ought to watch out for him.”

     Billy looked at me and shook his head. I decided to let the conversation drop. I wandered around the barn and pretended to be interested in the rusting tack that hung on the railings of the horse corrals. I wondered what kind of horses used to be kept there. I imagined kids my age might have ridden them or even worked a herd of cattle like Billy did.

     I passed by the open door and glanced out. I ducked back against the wall and slid down to the ground and rolled in the dirt away from the doorway. “There’s someone out there,” I whispered. “I heard a noise.”

NEXT EPISODE - WHO FINDS BILLY THE KID WITH ROB?

“I heard a noise.”

Billy tossed me a gun. I recognized it as the one I had picked up in front of the Court House. Frank and George crawled into the corrals and covered themselves with hay. I rolled into a corner on the opposite side of the barn. Billy stood to one side of the doorway, his back pressed flat against the wall with his pistol pointed toward the doorway. Muffled footsteps sounded outside the barn and seemed to be moving slowly closer. My shallow breathing sounded like a tornado in my ears. I raised my head just enough to see the doorway where a pistol pointed inside. I saw Billy ready to take on the gunman.

     “Well, come on in, Sheriff,” Billy said when Sheriff Brady stood just inside the barn. “I thought you was some desperado come to shoot it out with me. Come on in.” Billy holstered his gun, but Sheriff Brady kept his aimed at Billy.

     “This isn’t a social call, Billy. I’ve got to take you in.”

     Billy slapped his knee and laughed. “Sure, Sheriff. What for? Did you catch me spittin’ on the street?”

     “Come on, Billy. I’ve got witnesses say you shot John Tunstall.”

     Sheriff Brady took Billy’s gun, tied his hands behind his back, and led him out of the barn. When they were gone, Frank and George came out of their hiding places

      I joined them in the middle of the barn.

     “We gotta get him out,” George said. “Anyone got any ideas?”

Early the next morning we sneaked behind the general store. The jail cells were on the second floor of the building so we couldn’t reach Billy’s cell. Instead we took turns throwing rocks up toward the barred windows. Finally Billy looked out the window and grinned at us.

     I picked up another rock, tied a note to it, and pitched it up toward Billy’s window. The note had only one word on it: privy. Billy read it and signaled to us that he understood.

     The three of us made our way to the privy next to the Court House. We hid a gun wrapped in a newspaper under a loose plank in the floor and hid behind a large mesquite bush about two hundred yards away.

Three hours later we were still hiding when we heard voices near the privy. Frank peeked through the bush and saw Billy and a deputy coming across the street. Billy’s sense of humor had the deputy laughing as they got close to the privy. The deputy looked inside but didn’t see anything wrong. Billy went inside and shut the door. We got ready to jump the deputy and help Billy escape, but we didn’t have to. Billy dashed from the privy, pointed the gun at the deputy, and fired point blank. The deputy dropped to the ground, adding another victim to Billy’s legendary tally. I hadn’t stopped to think what Billy might do with the gun. I guess I just thought he’d wave it in the deputy’s face to scare him. When I saw him shoot the deputy, I almost lost my breakfast. George grabbed the keys from the deputy’s jeans and unlocked the handcuffs. He shoved the handcuffs at me. “Here’s a souvenir for you,” he said and laughed.

     “Let’s get out of here,” Frank said and he grabbed my arm and dragged me through the underbrush toward the waiting horses.

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