It’s gone midnight when the door to Pete Maxwell’s room smashes open an’ Bonney crashes in — his back to the room. His is pistol is drawn and trained on the men on the porch outside. Maxwell is shrouded in the dark against the wall. Beside him is Sherrif Garrett, lurkin’ like a filthy gutter snake.
‘Who are these guys, Pete?’ Bonney calls out.
The ‘guys’ are Garrett’s deputies. They’re as ugly as homemade sin an’ twice as mean. But useless at keepin’ watch by all accounts. Bonney ain’t expectin’ anyone, least of all these deputies, so he keeps them in his sight as he backs into the room barefoot. He’d cut an’ run if he knew what was waiting for him.
‘That’s him!’ Pete blurts out, like some pansy-ass kid.
Bonney turns an' squints into the dark. ‘Who is it?’ he calls out.
The low moon sets Bonney’s outline in the doorway, fine as cream gravy. He’s a sittin’ duck. When Pete an' Garrett give up nothing but silence, Bonney calls out again, his voice raised this time. ‘Who is it?’
Garrett answers by cockin’ his colt. It’s a nervous, clumsy kind of draw an’ the metal snaps like blue lightnin’.
Bonney flinches. Is that when he twigs? Or it was when he got stony silence in reply to all his hollerin’? Or maybe it was when he spied them deputies on the porch? Whenever it was, he sees where this is headin’. But he’ll be wonderin’ why. There’s always a ‘why’.
Pete and Bonney go way back, an’ there was never any hard feelin’ atween them. Pete had even given Bonney a place to hole up until the heat died down over them killin’s in Lincoln County, so maybe Bonney is thinking that the $500 bounty is what has changed things. It’s no lie that that kind of tin can make friends turn faster than a cow catching fire, but that ain’t it. It’s down to secrets. Secrets that’s been kept from Pete, an’ secrets that need to be kept from gettin’ loose. Pete had gotten wind of where his sister Paulita had been spendin’ her nights of late. He’d heard about the liquor an’ the canoodlin’. He’d heard other whispers too, the ones about her being with child.
Bonney turns an’ aims his pistol into the dark of the room, but Garrett has the drop. A bullet cracks the silence, lightin’ up the walls like spittin’ fire, an’ catchin' Bonney clean in the chest. The shot spins him, sendin’ his left arm up an’ over his head. A devil’s dance in the moonlight. Then he gives a grunt an' slumps against the door. Garrett gets off a second shot but it whistles past Bonney into the night. Bonney stays like that against the door for an age, peaceful like. As if he’s restin’. His pistol held limp. Garrett narrows his eyes to shoot again but Bonney’s legs give out an’ he thumps to the floor.
‘I think I got him,’ Garrett mutters. There’s surprise in his words.
None of them move until the hole in Bonney’s chest stops hissin’.
With the deed done, Pete leaves to fetch Paulita. While he’s gone, Garrett an’ his deputies take their souvenirs; snippin' off a finger apiece, Garrett pocketin’ the trigger finger. When Pete returns he clears the room and leaves Paulita so as she can say her goodbyes.
William H. Bonney, aka Henry McCarthy, aka Billy the Kid. Wanted dead or alive. Better dead. The dead always take their secrets with them.
