Later, Pat Garrett told Ash Upson, “In our conversations, he would sometimes seem on the point of opening his heart, either in confession or justification. But it always ended in an unspoken intimation that it would all be to no avail, as no one would give him credence, and he scorned begging for sympathy.”
* * *
The Kid had been incarcerated in the Lincoln jail for just a week when, on April 28, he decided.
Sheriff Garrett was collecting county taxes in White Oaks and the Kid heard Olinger unlock the far jail to walk four Tularosa no-goods down the stairs and across to the Wortley Hotel for their evening dinner. Ben Ellis would have joined them for the free eats and to help with policing. And Gottfried Gauss was generally in his bunkhouse by six. So the Kid was alone with Jim Bell. He went to the jail bars and called downstairs, “Jim? I need to go outside.”
Jim called back. “You mean to t
he latrine?”
“Uh-huh.”
The Kid heard the high-pitched scrape of a kitchen chair on the plank floor and then heavy bootfalls as Deputy Sheriff Bell walked to the bottom of the staircase and called up, “But it’s not full night yet!”
“Still, I’m feeling an urgency.”
The deputy seemed confused in his movements as he called, “I’m fixin to be there directly. I just gotta find that dang ring of keys.” A cabinet door was opened and closed, a few drawers were pulled. “Well, finally,” Bell shouted upstairs. “Cain’t never can figure out Olinger’s mentality.” His boots rasped on the stairs as he climbed. “Whatsoever oughta be out in plain sight, he hides it.”
The Kid was standing meekly in the middle of his cell, his manacled hands held low, a smear of a smile welcoming the hatless jailer, who smiled involuntarily because that was his way, and then Bell hunted the big ring for the jail door key and rattled open the lock. The hinges were freshly oiled but still sang with his shove, and then Bell was gingerly and ever watchfully genuflecting to unfasten the padlock at the floor hitch, freeing the Kid’s shackles from their four-foot limitation.
“Like we do,” Bell said, nodding sideways. “Me behind you.”
The Kid shuffled forward and downstairs. April was chilly at that high elevation. The air was scented with juniper fireplace smoke, and he could almost see his breath. Walking into the jail latrine, he heard Bell complaining, “Look at those saddles and bridles hung up on the fence rail where any passerby could steal em. That just dills my pickle!”
The Kid shook to finish his relieving, buttoned up his trousers, and went out into sweeter air.
Bell trustingly asked, “You want some of my coffee inside? It’s already been saucered and blowed.”
“I’ll pass, thanks. It’s late.” The Kid walked back to the jail with a quicker pace as Bell again looked to the corral, worrying about the horse tack out for all to see.
And then Bell called, “Why you hurryin, Billy?”
With a two-foot chain between the shackles on his ankles the Kid could still take the sixteen stairs two at a time, and he was fast enough that the deputy was a full flight behind him. The Kid’s iron manacles were one-size-fits-all, and he hadn’t let on that his often-mocked hands were too peewee for them. He twisted his left hand out, then his right, and dangled the iron cuffs from their chain as he hid upstairs, hugging the hallway wall and hearing Bell pounding upward.
“This ain’t funny, Billy!” Bell called out, and then the Kid was in front of him on the landing and he swung his iron manacles hard into the deputy’s head, the force of the double blows gashing his scalp and fracturing his skull. “Ow!” he cried, and his hands flew up to his injury. “Why d’ja do that?” The first spurt of blood became red seaweed over his forehead and face until there was nothing but blood. Bell dizzily bent over and braced himself with his hands on his knees. “Oh my!” he said. “I’m beside myself.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Jim. I’m only trying to save my life.”
Even watching his lifeblood flood the floor, Bell still upheld that “I’m just doin my duty, Billy.” And then he looked up at the Kid, his doleful, frustrated, hazel eyes seeming puzzled by the Kid’s wrath and unfairness until he found the fierceness to lunge forward to tackle the Kid, who swiftly fended off the ever-weakening man. The deputy then went to his holster, but the Kid laid his left hand on Bell’s feeble right and with just an effortless twist yanked the .44 free.
“Hold up your hands and surrender,” the Kid said.
“Won’t do that, Billy.”
Without lifting the pistol from his hip, the Kid shot him as he turned away.
The bullet pierced under his right arm and skewered his torso. Bell glanced down at his chest and hugged its new pain with his arms as he said in astonishment at the Kid’s treachery, “You took my life!” And then he fell backward down the staircase until he could right himself and flounder to the first floor.
The gun noise traveled far, and Gottfried Gauss hurried out of his bunkhouse to see James W. Bell stagger outside, fall face-forward into the yard, and there find finality.
Upstairs, the Kid went into Sheriff Garrett’s office and got the Whitney shotgun that Olinger often left behind on the oak desk when he went out for dinner. The Kid then hurried into his cell, but with his shackles on it was like he was in a sack race. He fell down to his knees and crouched below the sash as he heard Olinger run out of Wortley’s and call to someone on Main Street, “Was that a gunshot?”
“Can’t think what else it could be,” Bonifacio Baca said.
The Kid cocked both hammers and raised up to rest Olinger’s ten-gauge on the windowsill, finding the deputy marshal below him unlatching the fence’s gate to the courthouse yard.
“Hello, Bob,” the Kid said.