The Kid

and doghouse stirrups creaked whenever he shifted his weight. Off in the distance there were galleons of shock-white cumulus clouds gathering in the wide sky’s cerulean harbor, and their azure shadows floated over the flatlands. Billy surprised himself by saying, “I love it here. I’ll never leave.”

And Harry smiled. “Nor shall I.”

* * *

Even at fifty-five, the white-bearded German, Gottfried Gauss, seemed too old and fat and harmless to harass, which is why John Tunstall had him stay behind at his hovel of a ranch house. And Gauss was squatting to tend a Dutch oven on a hissing fire outside when he heard the far-off racket of thirty horses and riders galloping toward the Los Feliz and stood with his hands on his aproned hips. Although he was so nearsighted that he often failed to make out faces less than five yards away, the cook recognized some of the gang called the Boys, but there were so many others with whom he wasn’t familiar, their horses panting, neighing, shaking their manes, and bumping as the jammed intruders sought and lost ground with each other. And then Jimmy Dolan rode up and loomed over the cook from his fourteen-hand pinto, his face scarlet with windburn and fury. “We’re a posse duly authorized by Sheriff Brady,” he said. “Where’s your boss?”

“A-vay,” Gauss said and flung a hand northward. “Lincoln.”

“He just left?”

“A-vile ago.”

“Who all’s with him in the beyont?”

“His hired hands.”

“I needs a number.”

Gauss counted no more than one right hand of fingers and said, “Five.”

Jimmy told Jesse Evans, “We don’t all need to go, then.” And so he called out names: Jesse Evans, Frank Baker, and Tom Hill of the Boys. Deputy George Hindman of Lincoln. And Andrew “Buckshot” Roberts, Robert Beckwith, John Wallace Olinger, and William S. “Buck” Morton of the just plain ornery.

Gottfried Gauss would later testify that he heard Buck Morton cry out, “Hurry up, boys. My knife is sharp and I feel like a scalping.” And then Dolan and his handpicked men vigorously raced toward the Ham Mills trail while those now with nothing to do shoed and curried their horses or partook of the old cook’s food.

* * *

Around five o’clock and still ten miles from Lincoln, Widenmann rode back to Tunstall and said, “Vee haf seen a flock of wild turkeys. Would you like a goot dinner?”

“Capital idea,” Harry said. And he told Rob to go off on the hunt, he’d mind the horses.

The Kid was two hundred yards behind, riding drag with John Middleton, who was claiming there was a twelve-hundred-dollar reward for his hide in Texas. And Billy said, “Well, if you die, and I hope you never do, I’ll try to collect it.”

“At least I’d be good for somethin,” the horse thief said.

Off to the Kid’s right and far ahead, Brewer and Widenmann were in a kind of steeplechase over sagebrush and rills and runnels, hollering and laughing as they fired their pistols at wild turkeys that hopped aside or ran in a zigzagging way or flew in an ungainly flapping of wings that seemed to be without practice. And then the Kid heard galloping and spun in his saddle to see nine riders racing like floodwater over a hillcrest, firearms in their hands and lifting and holding on him. He saw spurts of smoke from the guns before he heard the gun reports, and then there was a sizzle as one bullet flew past his head.

Widenmann and Brewer were still lost in their childish joy in the canyon, hurrahing and circling as the wild turkeys succeeded in evading their horse-jolted and horse-waggled aims in the scrub oak and chaparral. The Kid spurred his gray to warn them and looked over his shoulder to see that a trio of pursuers were in a sprint right behind him, though their mounts seemed to be hard-used and tiring, a pinto whose owner was Jimmy Dolan being one of them. The Kid cried out to his friends and frantically waved both arms. Brewer noticed and frowned at the ruckus, then wheeled his horse around and fired his gun before ducking behind his horse’s head when a fresh volley answered him. Widenmann hurried for a hillside that was jagged with tombstones of rock, and Brewer and the Kid did, too, jumping down from their steeds and hiding, then raising to shoot at the villains who’d grandly called themselves a posse.

The Kid called to Brewer, “Is that Buck Morton?”

Brewer shouted over the gun noise, “And Jesse Evans, I think.”

The Kid said to himself, “We used to be friends.”

John Middleton had seen that John Tunstall was far enough ahead to not recognize what was going on, so he sprinted his horse forward with half the posse in flagging pursuit and now getting out of pistol range, their horses were so done in. Middleton sang out, “Mr. Tunstall! Hey! Look here!”

Tunstall turned in his saddle. “What, John?”

“For God’s sake, follow me!”

Tunstall seemed not to get why his hired hands were fleeing. “What, John?” he called again. And then he appeared to recognize Jesse Evans running hard at him, guns no longer firing, and since they’d joked and shared a flask of whiskey when Jesse was in the Lincoln jail, Tunstall must have thought Evans was delivering a helpful message, for instead of galloping away he swerved Colonel around and loped toward the three men, a free hand raised up in hello or do-not-be-afraid.

The trio halted and instructed each other as Tunstall trotted forward with a friendly smile for Evans and some familiar faces, including the frowning one of Tom Hill.

His heart racing, the Kid stood up from the cold protection of a doghouse of stone, seeing the separated gang of Jimmy Dolan, George Hindman, and others skirt their horses around and away from Harry’s cowering ranch hands and head toward a trio some hundred yards off that seemed to be formally waiting for the genial Englishman. His horse Colonel nearly touched the nose of the horse of Buck Morton as greetings seemed to be exchanged. There followed a stillness, as if a secret judicial deliberation was going on, as if they were waiting for a verdict. And then the Kid watched in horror as Morton just calmly lifted his pistol and shot Harry in his chest. The force of it slammed him into a fall from his horse, and he was as quiet on the earth as a heap of coats.

Wanting to answer but realizing their guns would just spit up dirt at that range, Widenmann, Brewer, and the Kid could do nothing but hate as Tom Hill jumped down and, because his own gun was shelled out, took the Colt Peacemaker from the Englishman’s holster and, for officious assurance, executed John H. Tunstall with a shot through his head.