A Bullet for Billy Read Free Page B

it had to choose its own way as well. That’s just the way life is.
    I ended up getting hired on as a deputy town marshal and tending bar in some broke dick Texas town that has since burned to the ground and never rebuilt as far as I know of. Then one day a telegram showed up for me from Dalton Stone, the father of the woman buried up on the hill next to my friend Tom Twist.
    It said in effect he’d been trying to find me ever since that day I showed him her grave and told him the story of how she and Tom were hunted down by her abusive husband and was killed by him and some of his hired men, and how much he appreciated it that I, in turn, had killed the husband, Johnny Waco, and those same hired men. He’d wanted to do something for me then but I’d refused, because I didn’t take pay for doing what was the right thing to do. He went on to say in the telegram the offer of money or whatever I needed was still standing and he’d like to hear from me and know what I was up to, that he’dfeel forever indebted to me and would I please wire him back.
    Well, I thought about it for a few days and counted what I had in my savings account—forty-four dollars and seventy-five cents—a dollar for every year I’d lived and change. I remembered there was this little place I’d seen for sale on the Rio Penasco that used to belong to Charlie Bowdre, who’d run with Billy the Kid until Garrett put a bullet in them both.
    Charlie’s place was a little run down but it had a good view of the river and the grass around it was sweet for grazing horses—a venture I thought I could do well at: catching and breaking wild horses and selling them. So I wired Mr. Stone back and thanked him and said if he wanted to do something, he might consider loaning me the money to buy the place and I’d pay him back as my horse venture grew.
    That’s how it came to pass that I’m in this place now, with horses in the corral and a woman who comes and cleans my house and has supper with me and stays the night once a week. I built a little porch on the front too. Now here was a sort of trouble I didn’t need or want at my kitchen table.
    â€œWhat is it you’re asking of me, Cap’n?”
    He leaned forward, setting his cup down, then stood and walked over to the window above thesink. He stared out for a long few moments, the sun on the glass now so that the frost was melted away.
    Without turning to look at me, he said, “This is the part that’s real bad, Jim. I have to kill one of them boys.”

Chapter Three
    I sat listening as the Cap’n explained it. All the time I’d known the Cap’n, I’d never known him to fail at anything he set his mind to, and I never saw him flinch from danger or falter under fire. But now I noticed his body tremble as he spoke.
    â€œWhat do you mean, Cap’n, say it plain.”
    He turned to face me then, his features drawn into a mask of sorrow.
    â€œThey made a big mistake, those grandsons of mine,” he began. “They crossed the border into Old Mexico and something real bad happened—a woman got raped and killed, the daughter of a Ruales general. They caught Billy and Sam at the scene. Billy confessed it was his doing and none of Sam’s. And the General would have probably let Sam ride but Billy broke out of jail, and hewas the only one got away. Sam’s still locked up down there in their calaboose. Billy made his way back across the border and wired his mother what happened, asking her to wire me and send a company of Rangers down there. I still got some contacts down there and found out who it was, this general. Just so happens I knew old Pancho Toro from back during my border days, back before he was a general or even a soldier.
    â€œWe worked the same cattle outfit together and used to drink and gamble together, both of us still green kids.”
    Cap’n shook his head, remembering.
    â€œHe