The Kid

Hostilities started with Evans urging Dolan to just get rid of Billy, and the Kid saying, “I don’t care to open our parley with a gunfight, but even if you jump me four at a time you’ll all soon find yourselves toes up.”

Tom confided to Yginio, “Billy reads shoot-em-ups.”

There seemed to be some silent calculations by the Kid’s foes, a few wary looks, and then a pacification of the mood. Jimmy Dolan asked, “So ye be wanting a peace treaty, Billy? What are ye thinking, lad?”

The Kid had in fact given it a good deal of thought and listed some imperatives. “Either side agrees not to kill anyone on the opposing. Anyone we ever called a friend is hereby included.”

Jimmy Dolan’s deepest friendships were now at Fort Stanton, so he added, “And no soldiers or officers are to be punished for any ting up to this date. We wants to keep the Army outta this.”

The Kid shrugged his agreement and continued, “We promise not to give evidence against each other in court. We guarantee to help each other avoid arrests on civil warrants, and if a fellow is jailed we’ll try to get him out.”

“The penalty for not upholding this treaty?” Jimmy asked.

“Well, it goes without saying,” said Jacob Mathews. “Killed on sight.”

There was some fretting and stewing, but first Jimmy Dolan shook the Kid’s hand and then all seven joined in liking the truce.

“I got no dog in this fight,” Billy Campbell said as though he regretted it.

Jimmy Dolan handed around a bottle of George Dickel Original Tennessee sour mash, and all but the Kid drank a jigger’s worth. “Quare chilly out here,” Jimmy said.

Jesse Evans was hugging himself as he agreed. “Colder than an old witch’s tit in a snowbank.”

Earlier, Huston Chapman had trudged to Isaac Ellis’s store at the east end of Lincoln and woke up Isaac to get a loaf of stale bread for a poultice he thought would act as a cathartic for his neuralgia. Walking back with his medicament after nine, his swollen face bandaged in gauze, he happened upon the seven in parley. J. B. Mathews just glowered, but Billy Campbell thought it hilarious to use his huge size to interfere with Chapman’s progress, swaying with intoxication as he demanded, “Who are you and where the hell you think you’re goin?”

“My name is Huston Chapman, and I am attending to my own personal affairs.”

Looking for any excuse, the infuriated Campbell yanked his gun and jabbed it into Huston Chapman’s significant belly. “You’ll have to dance for us first.”

“Oh, let him go,” sighed the Kid.

Huston Chapman took in the seven faces and said, “I do not propose to dance for a drunken, unruly mob.”

“Watch your fancy mouth,” Campbell said, “or you’ll find yourself—”

They all waited for him to finish his threat, but overindulgence in the red disturbance had stolen vocabulary from him.

Susan McSween had informed Chapman of Jimmy’s alcoholism, so he tugged his big gauze bandage aside to more clearly see his tormentor. “Am I speaking with Jimmy Dolan?”

Little Jimmy was in fact behind the lawyer, and he smirked. Evans said, “No. Just a darn good friend of his’n.”

And suddenly a swozzled Jimmy Dolan fired his pistol vaguely into the man’s overcoat. Reacting to the sudden noise, Billy Campbell fired, too, hitting the lawyer just above the navel.

The Kid glanced at Tom and Yginio in disbelief. J. B. Matthews, a half-time deputy, withdrew.

Realizing he was gutshot, Huston Chapman gazed in horror at his blackening waistcoat and exclaimed, “Oh my God, I am killed!” He fell to his knees in the frozen mud as the flash of gunpowder that singed his clothing fed into a flame. He toppled backward, and Jimmy Dolan pitilessly wasted the last of his George Dickel whiskey to fuel a full-blown fire that crept up the dying man.

Looking at Jesse Evans, Billy Campbell smiled and said, “There. We did it.”

“Good on ya,” Dolan said.

Billy Campbell faced the Kid to explain that he’d promised Lieutenant Colonel Dudley he’d kill that shyster Chapman and he’d gone and done it. His word was his bond.

With his gun still drawn, Jimmy Dolan told the Kid, Tom Folliard, and Yginio Salazar, “Join us in celebration.” There was nothing voluntary in the invitation. And the Kid, who forthrightly faced any skirmish and was affronted by every Oh-no-you-don’t, for some odd reason complied.

Huston Chapman was groaning in agony as the six went to Frank McCullum’s eatery and Jimmy ordered Olympia oysters and full glasses of rye all around. With the slightest of misgivings, he daintily lifted his own gun by the trigger guard and said, “We need someone to put this in Chapman’s hand. Like he shot first.”

Like you did with Harry, the Kid thought. “I’ll do it,” he said and took the gun as he got up from oysters and drink he hadn’t touched. And Tom Folliard figured it was an excellent occasion to visit the backyard privy. When the Kid was outside in the elements, he ran east at full speed to Isaac Ellis’s, where his horse was stabled, and Tom Folliard and Yginio Salazar were right on his heels.