The Ballad of Black Hawk and Billy the Kid Read online

  “We should drink to his memory, then,” I said. People rarely frightened me, but I’d learned to recognize that some folks were more dangerous than others, and the ones you really had to watch out for were those who seesawed from one emotion to another in the blink of an eye. They could be your best friend one minute and stick a knife in you the next.

  She poured two large drinks and pushed one of the glasses toward me. I rarely drink, and I can honestly say I have never been drunk in my life. Drunks make mistakes, and mistakes can get you dead. However, I was not going to refuse a drink with this woman. I raised my glass. “To…?”

  “To Wild Bill Hickok,” she said, and threw back the drink in one quick swallow.

  And at that moment, I knew who she was. “You’re Calamity Jane,” I said, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, there was a touch of awe in my voice.

  2

  Black Hawk: You met Calamity Jane! You never told me that.

  Billy: Well, I’m just remembering it now. Martha Jane Cannary was her full name.

  Black Hawk: So the gun belonged to Wild Bill Hickok?

  Billy: Well…maybe. He was shot dead in 1876 in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, and he certainly used a gun like it.

  Black Hawk: I didn’t know Calamity Jane was married to him.

  Billy: She wasn’t! She just made up these wild stories. Funny thing is, she didn’t really have to. Her own life was just amazing: army scout, explorer, sharpshooter, nurse. Anyway, once she knew I recognized her—or at least knew of her—she was really nice to me. I introduced myself and we got to chatting.

  I watched her as she poured and drank three whiskeys in quick succession. I’ve seen two of those knock a strong man clean off his feet, but they seemed to have no effect on her. I hadn’t touched mine, except to bring it to my lips and pretend to drink.

  “So who would have thought it: Calamity Jane and Billy the Kid having a drink together,” she announced.

  “What are you doing this far south?”

  She shrugged, raising a stench so foul it made me tear up and almost throw up! “Working. Driving wagons mostly. I left Deadwood after the smallpox outbreak there a couple years ago.”

  “I read about that,” I said. “You nursed the sick. Saved a lot of lives.”

  She shrugged again, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. “Did what had to be done.” And then, to change the subject, she tapped the map I’d spread out over the table. “Army map. You know I rode with Custer?” she said quickly.

  “I did not know that,” I said carefully. I’d never met General Custer, and who was to say if she had either.

  “He told me I was his best scout,” she announced. “What are you looking for?”

  I pushed the scrap of paper across the table. “Just trying to match the drawing I have here with the map,” I said, trying to keep my voice as casual as possible. “I was told it’s a great place to hide out, similar to a place up in Wyoming called the Hole-in-the-Wall.”

  “I’ve heard of that place. Outlaws camp out there when things get too hot for them.” Calamity Jane leaned over my drawing, then squinted at the map. “Looks sort of familiar,” she said.

  I nodded as if it was no big deal, but my heart started to thump harder. “Things might be heating up for me soon,” I said. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and I’ve heard he’s got me in his sights.”

  Calamity Jane turned my scrap of paper around and around, puzzling over it. When she held it up to the light, I noticed that she had the most extraordinary blue eyes. “I know this place,” she muttered.

  I focused on the table, unwilling to look her in the eyes in case she caught the excitement in mine.

  And then she turned the page over and held it up to the light again. “Ah, you have it backwards. Suddenly, there was a long broad-bladed knife in her hand. I think she drew it from her boot. Holding the page to the light, she traced the outline of my drawing with the point of the knife. “See here…here…and here. I recognize those buttes.” She spun the army map on the table, pointed to the left and up with her knife, and then laid my paper drawing on top of it. Although there was a lot of white space on the map, showing that it was unexplored, a couple of the twists and lines matched almost perfectly. “That’s the Valley of the Gods in Utah.”

  She must have seen the shock on my face. She grinned, revealing teeth stained almost black by chewing tobacco. “It would be a great place to hide out, but don’t even think about going there: that’s deep into Navajo country.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I muttered.

  3

  Billy: The following morning, I rode away from Fort Sumner heading west toward Albuquerque, where I intended to stock up on supplies before striking out northwest into Utah in search of the Valley of the Gods.

  Those last few days of fall were glorious. People who’ve never been to the West think it’s nothing but deserts and rocks, but they could not be more wrong. New Mexico is beautiful at any time of the year, but…

  Black Hawk: Are you going to give a travelogue, and go over every flowering bush and plant you came across? Let’s skip ahead to when you get into Albuquerque and meet me.

  Billy: Okay, so Albuquerque is about two hundred miles west of Fort Sumner. I was riding my favorite bay mare, and I didn’t push her hard. You lose a horse or she throws a shoe out there, then unless you are within walking distance of civilization, you’re dead. I took it easy and I got into Albuquerque about a week later, just as the sun was setting, painting the place in red shadows.

  It was a pretty Spanish town, with some ancient-looking buildings—they could have been at least two hundred years old, I reckoned. I rode past an adobe Catholic church with two bell towers, where a black-robed priest swept the steps. I tipped my hat to him and he waved at me in return. On a whim, I stopped in the middle of the dusty street and leaned over the pommel.

  “Good evening, Padre.”

  He rested both hands on the broom and nodded at me. He was tall and whip thin, burnt brown by the sun, face creased in a hundred different lines. The black robes suggested that he was a Jesuit, and I knew from experience that you didn’t want to tangle with them. I saw his gaze rove over me, taking in the brace of pistols tucked in my belt and the Winchester rifle in its scabbard on my saddle. “Just passing through, Padre,” I said quickly, before he got the wrong idea and thought I was there to cause trouble. “I am wondering if you could recommend some place I could get supplies. Heading out west for a few days.”

  Clutching the broom in both hands, the priest came down the steps and stepped right up to me. He was even taller than I’d first thought, and hard living was written all over his face, especially his nose, which looked like it had been broken at least twice. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle, and I thought I detected a trace of a French accent.

  “You’re the second person today to ask me that very question,” he said.

  “Guess there’s a lot of people heading west,” I suggested.

  The priest shook his head. “Not usually.”

  Now, one of the reasons I’ve stayed alive so long is that I tend not to believe in coincidences. I get that from my mother. She clung to the Catholic faith she’d grown up with in Ireland. It gave her great comfort, especially in the last four months of her life, when she was bedridden, dying of consumption. I’d read the Bible to her and she’d recite her Rosary, moving the beads through stiff fingers, starting the prayers in English and finishing in the Irish of her childhood. There are no coincidences, she told me more than once. There’s only God’s plan, and sometimes that plan is revealed in what seem like coincidences. Never ignore a coincidence, Harry, she’d said to me. That’s God speaking to you.

  So when the priest said that someone else was heading out west…well, that was hardly surprising. The West was opening
up all the time; there was a huge movement of people from coast to coast. But when the priest said that the other person had also asked him for directions…now, that was the coincidence I didn’t quite believe.

  “Friend of yours?” the Jesuit asked.

  “No, Padre. I’m alone.”

  “None of us are ever truly alone,” he said with a smile.

  Before he could give me a lecture on God or angels, I asked him, “And did you have any advice for this other traveler?”

  He pointed with the broom. “Same as I’m about to give you: go down here, then head over to the left, toward the Barelas District. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway got a line through here earlier in the year, and there’s a bunch of stores opened up around the station. Head down to Fourth Street; you’ll find everything you need there.”

  “Thank you, Padre. Much obliged.”

  “Nothing west of here but pain and death,” the priest said.

  “I appreciate the warning.”

  “Not a warning. A promise. You’re riding into Navajo territory. There’s reservations out that way, filled with people pushed off their own land and forced to settle where they do not belong. You don’t want to go and antagonize them.”

  “I’ll steer well clear of trouble,” I said.

  The priest smiled, and it looked as if about twenty years fell off his face. “Boy, you look like someone who’s been running toward trouble his entire life.”

  “It does seem to find me,” I admitted.

  “I’ll say a prayer for you,” he said, turning away. “And if you come back through Albuquerque, maybe you’ll swing on by and let me know you survived.”

  “I’ll do that, Padre.”

  “Take care of yourself, Billy.” He saw the look of surprise on my face. “Oh, and I’d steer clear of the sheriff’s office. There’s some Wanted posters there with your name and likeness all over them.”

  “Much obliged.” I tipped my hat to him and urged my horse down the street. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or upset that my fame had spread so far. Pleased, I think.

  4

  Billy: I smelled the fight before I heard it.

  Even more than the stink of unwashed men, there is a special odor to fear, a foul thin metallic stench. Before I heard the meaty thump of fists on flesh or the smack of leather—a boot, a belt?—on skin, I knew as I rode down the narrow alleyway that I would find myself in the midst of a fight. I suppose if I’d been careful or cautious, I would have turned my horse around and went the other way. But I’ve always been more curious than cautious. The padre had said I looked like I’d spent my life running toward trouble, but he was wrong—I’d just been curious.

  Black Hawk: Let’s face it, Billy: curiosity always got you into trouble; you were always sticking your nose into other people’s business.

  Billy: Well, I was right. When I rounded the corner, I found four men surrounding a fifth. I have only the vaguest memory of how they were dressed—I think one was wearing an old army uniform; another might have been a down-at-heel cowboy wearing a battered sombrero, and two looked like they were shopkeepers or barmen, with aprons around their waists.

  Black Hawk: Are you sure there were only four? I think there may have been more. Also, you haven’t described the most interesting person there.

  Billy: My eye was immediately drawn to the fifth man, in the middle of the group. He was Native American, though he wore nothing to indicate his tribe. He was not above middle height, dressed head to foot in buckskins but wearing army boots. His skin was a rich copper, turned almost metallic by the fading sunlight, his long face dominated by a hook of a nose. His head was shaved except for a knot of jet-black hair that spilled from the top of his head and fell to his spine.

  Black Hawk: No mention of how handsome he was?

  Billy: The four men surrounding him were armed with clubs and knives, and one had a whip curled around his shoulder. The Native American’s hands were empty.

  One of the two shopkeepers darted in. He was carrying a long club, which looked like it had once been the leg of a chair. He raised his arm, but the Native American, instead of stepping back from the blow, moved forward. I didn’t see the shopkeeper’s hand move, but I heard the sound—like a breaking branch. The buckskin-wearing man’s right fist was planted solidly in the middle of the shopkeeper’s chest. He went down like a felled tree.

  The second shopkeeper moved forward more cautiously. His apron had probably never been white, but it was stained and bloody. He was carrying a meat cleaver, which, along with the apron, suggested he was the local butcher. And he knew how to handle a knife. He tossed the blade from one hand to the other, spinning it so that it caught the light. I’ve seen knife fighters do that: while you’re distracted by the fancy sparkling blade, they’re moving in to stick you with it.

  And while he was coming in from the front, the attacker wearing the army uniform was shuffling around to try to take a position behind the Native American. He was holding one of those long knives that looked like it had started life as a sword but had been cut down into a big chunk of metal. Jim Bowie had made them famous maybe fifty years previously, but I always through they were too big and unwieldy to be useful. The third attacker, the cowboy in the sombrero, was uncoiling the bullwhip from his shoulder.

  I was watching the Native American. I could see a hatchet on his left hip and a long bone-handled knife tucked into his belt on his right, but he made no move to draw them.

  The butcher moved in fast, the meat cleaver swinging before him in a deadly horizontal arc.

  The Native American’s left leg shot out, the flat of his foot connecting solidly with the butcher’s knee. The pop of leather against kneecap was as loud as a gunshot, and the big man dropped to his damaged knee, knife flying from his hand. The Native American stepped in and hit him once, a closed fist just over his left ear, driving him into the dirt. He was snoring the moment he hit the ground.

  The Native American turned, taking in the two men on either side of him, and then he raised his head and looked directly at me, even though I was sitting in the long shadow cast by a building. I knew, in that moment, that he was somehow aware that I was there.

  Black Hawk: You had been on the road for a week, Billy. I could smell you and the horse. And one of you smelled worse than the other.

  Billy: The attacker in the soiled army uniform lunged forward, leading with the point of the long knife. The Native American spun to face him, and suddenly his knife and his hatchet were in his hands. He hooked the head of the hatchet around the soldier’s knife and twisted it to one side, stepped right up close to his attacker, and hit him solidly between the eyes with his knife’s bone handle. The man grunted once and collapsed in a heap.

  I heard the crack the instant the Native American’s hatchet went flying from his left hand. Another crack and his knife was snatched from his right. The attacker with the whip was clearly an expert. I’ve seen them before: cowboys and muleskinners who wielded an eight- or ten-foot length of braided cowhide with incredible skill. They could pluck a fly out of the air and slice a piece of fruit in half, or delicately peel it. It was a terrible weapon, because there was no defense against it. If you put your hands up to protect yourself, the corded tip of the whip, the cracker, would cut your fingers to the bone.

  The Native American took a step back, almost stumbling on the prone body of the army soldier, trying to put as much distance between himself and the last attacker. But he wasn’t fast enough. The whip cracked and a long white tear appeared in his buckskin jerkin. The supple leather took most of the force, but I knew the blow must have stung. I watched the cowboy draw back his arm and grin, and it was an ugly sight.

  I’d seen enough.

  There is a distinctive click-clack sound when you work the lever on a Winchester 73. It catches people’s a
ttention. The cowboy with the whip hadn’t realized I was there and almost jumped with fright. The Native American didn’t move. I eased my horse out of the alleyway. The rifle was resting across my saddle, pointing in the general direction of the cowboy.

  “Trouble?” I asked.

  “Stay out of this. It’s none of your business,” the cowboy said, and despite the sombrero, his accent was pure Louisiana.

  “I see four against one,” I said. “Doesn’t seem right to me.” I leaned over my saddle to look at the three bodies on the ground. “You probably should have brought more men. What did he do?”

  “Disrespected us,” the cowboy said.

  “Yeah, you look like the sort of person who commands respect,” I said. I turned to look at the Native American. His head moved in a minute gesture of thanks and then his eyes dropped to the ground. I followed his gaze. Resting at his feet was the overlong knife the soldier had dropped.

  “Now why don’t you back away and let me finish this,” the cowboy demanded.

  “Finish what?”

  “Teaching this Native American some manners.”

  “Didn’t work out too well for your three companions,” I remarked.

  He shifted his wrist and the whip writhed on the ground like a snake. “They just didn’t have the right tools for the job. This here bullwhip will take care of business.”

  “I’ll just set back here and watch you work,” I said. The cowboy nodded, thinking I was talking to him, but I saw the Native American grin. He knew I was addressing him. I backed my mare into the alleyway and waited. If things got out of control, I’d have no hesitation in putting a bullet into the cowboy’s leg.

  It was all over in a minute.

  The cowboy drew back his whip, the leather hissing over the ground, and then, just as he was raising his arm to bring it forward, the Native American dug the toe of his leather boot under the long knife on the ground. A flick of his ankle sent the knife into the air. He snatched it in midair and brought it up before his face just as the whip cracked and darted toward his head.