“What’s prodigious mean?” Ellis asked.
“Would he generally hit what he aimed at?”
“Oh, you bet. With either hand!”
“Were you on Main Street in Lincoln that April first?’
“I was.”
“Sheriff Brady was in front of you? Walking toward the former convent?”
“Seemed to be.”
“And then he was shot down?”
“And don’t forget George Hindman, too.”
“Could you hazard a guess as to how many shots were fired in the altercation?”
“Oh, twenty or thirty seemed like.”
“You saw the shootists?”
“I did.”
“Was anyone in this courtroom among them?”
“Yes.”
“Would you point him out to us, please?”
Isaac Ellis reluctantly shot his left index finger toward the Kid. The Kid waved back.
“And you knew him to call himself William Bonney?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Was there a reason for his act of vengeance?”
“Oh, I reckon.”
Newcomb made an inquiry about a conversation Ellis had with the defendant in July 1879, when he was jailed in Lincoln.
Ellis said he’d gone to Juan Patrón’s house to play cards with the Kid.
“And he gave you his excuse for the killing?”
“Said they was in a civil war and he was just a soldier in it.”
“Kid Bonney hated Bill Brady, didn’t he?”
“Well, Bill, he had John Tunstall murdered.”
Simon Newcomb faced the jury. “Witness has stated a personal estimation of the facts that is without foundation and is not material to this trial.” And then he turned again to Isaac Ellis. “Have you heard of ‘malice aforethought’?”
“No. But I can guess at it.”
“It has to do with predetermination. You decide something needs to be done, and then you do it. In this case, the act your friend Billy premeditated—cold-blooded murder—was villainous and based on sheer hatred, hence the malice aforethought.”