t’s an odd thing but, as I get older, the recent past I fades—the names of my great grandchildren, what I read in the newspaper about world events a month ago, who came to visit me last week—becomes like smudged pictures, a child’s crude drawing in broad crayons. Some of the pictures I can make out if I squint hard, others are just meaningless collections of fuzzy lines. At the same time, the distant past, the years more than seven decades ago when I was a young boy, leap into my mind with crystal clarity. The people I met in those days, friends and enemies—Wellington, Santiago, Bill, Victorio, Ghost Moon, even my beloved horse, 1 john wilson Coronado—take on the aura of legend. They are sharper and more real in my mind than the cheerful nurse who tends to my daily needs and gabbles on about her latest boyfriend as she plumps my pillows, draws my drapes and brings my meals. The meals are disgusting, tasteless slop. I’ve asked for tortillas, beans, spicy stew and a drink of the mescal I shared with Santiago so many times, but she just laughs and tells me that my mashed carrots are good for me. That’s a joke, I’m ninety years old, why should I care what’s good for me? Bill never did, and he was eighteen when I knew him. I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill lately. I knew him as Bill Bonney, but he had many names: Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, El Chavito. The world knows him today as Billy the Kid. I think continually about the times our paths crossed in Lincoln County seventy-three years ago. For five months our stories, our fates, were inter- twined, whether I wanted them to be or not. I’ve told many people those stories, my kids and grandkids, casual acquaintances, newspapermen, but there’s one story about him I’ve never told anyone. I guess I’m ashamed of my part in it, but there’s not much time left. If I’m ever going to tell it, it’d better be now. 2 desert legends When I said goodbye to Bill in the summer of 1878, surrounded by the bodies and fires of the Lincoln County War, I was convinced I would never see him again. I certainly hoped not; death seemed to follow wherever Bill went, and I’d had enough of that. I heard about him, of course, in newspapers and dime novels. And some of it might even have been true. I was drifting around, doing odd jobs and wondering what to do with the rest of my life. In the spring of 1881, I landed on a ranch outside Las Cruces. One day, I read that Pat Garrett, the new sheriff of Lincoln, had captured Bill at Stinking Springs and that he was being held in the jail up at Santa Fe. It seemed like Bill was almost royalty, holding court in his jail cell, being interviewed by reporters, writing to the governor and granting audiences with local dignitaries. I smiled at that. Bill would be in his element, charming the curious who came to peer at him through the cell bars. For the three months that Bill was in Santa Fe, I followed his story as if it were a novel. My interest in him revived. In March, I learned that he was to be brought down to Mesilla for trial, less than a half day’s ride from where I was working. 3 john wilson Bill coming so close made me nervous, but I convinced myself that I had no need to go into Mesilla. I would stay on the ranch and read about the trial in the newspapers. And I did for the first two weeks of April as Bill was acquitted of the murder of Buckshot Roberts. Then, on April 10, one of the ranch hands rides up to the bunkhouse as we’re settling down for dinner. “They found him guilty of Sheriff Brady’s murder,” he yells as he dismounts and barges through the open door. “I met a fella on the trail who was in the court- house yesterday. He told me.” “They gonna hang him?” a man asks through a mouthful of beans. “Don’t know,” the cowboy shrugs. “Sentencing’s on Wednesday.” “It ain’t fair,” another man says. “I heard there was seven or eight men shot Brady from ambush. How come Billy’s the only one ever charged with murder?” “I heard,” someone else contributes, “that Brady weren’t killed right off. The Kid steps out from hiding, cool as you please, and shoots Brady in the head in cold blood. Shot Hindeman too, I heard.” A gabble of voices breaks out, each with a different version of events. I sit silently, the only man in the 4 desert legends room who knows what happened when Brady was shot. I should, I was there. “They’ll hang him fer sure,” a louder voice interrupts my memories. “They’ll never hang Billy the Kid,” someone else says. “He’s broken out of every jail in the Territory. He’ll break out of this one as well.” I leave the speculation and step out into the evening air. For the first time realization dawns that Bill really will hang this time. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, if not for Brady, then for enough other times I can recall. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but a part of me is sorry. His story, complex and violent as it was, is a part of my story and I can’t deny that. Then I decide I’ll go into town on Wednesday to see the sentencing. I have to, all stories need an ending. The courtroom is packed with a cross section of New Mexico. Filthy cowboys straight off the range stand shoulder-to-shoulder with slick, well-dressed gamblers. Mexicans holding wide sombreros by their sides jostle Apache warriors wrapped in brightly colored blankets. The bearded and balding Judge Bristol presides behind 5 john wilson a broad desk set up on a crude platform, and assorted lawyers occupy a rough table before him. Bill sits on a regular parlor chair to one side, wrists and ankles shackled together. He’s slouching to one side, holding his head in a cupped hand. There’s a sullen look on his face, and he takes no interest in the proceedings going on around him. Bill looks older than I remember, still boyish but with a coarseness to his features that wasn’t there before. Judge Bristol raps the desk with his gavel and the murmurs of conversation die away. “The defendant will rise,” he says. Bill slouches to his feet and stands staring at the floor in front of him. “Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?” Bristol asks. The only response he gets is the merest shake of the head. “In that case, I direct that you, William Bonney, alias the Kid, alias William Antrim, be turned over to the sheriff of Lincoln County to be confined in jail in that town until May thirteenth next, on which date, between the hours of nine am and three pm, you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead.” Even though the sentence surprises no one, a buzz of conversation runs round the room. Bill’s eyes don’t even flicker at the news of when he is to die. 6 desert legends A huge man steps forward, roughly grabs Bill’s shackles and hauls him forward. It’s almost comic to see the slight Bill beside such a giant. “Who’s that?” I ask the man beside me. “That’s Deputy Bob Olinger,” the man replies. “He hates Billy something fierce. Reckon he’ll be smiling when the Kid swings.” Olinger pushes Bill through the crowd toward the door. They pass within a couple of feet of where I am standing. As he draws level, Bill suddenly looks up and meets my eye. He winks and his face breaks into a broad grin. Suddenly he’s the cheerful, charming kid I met on the trail to Lincoln so long ago. “Come visit me in Lincoln, Jim,” he says in a low voice, “but make it quick.” Then, with a shove from Olinger, he’s gone. “What’d he say?” the man beside me asks. “Didn’t catch it,” I reply and push my way out of the courthouse. I stand in the street, as the audience streams out around me, everyone talking excitedly about the sentence. Bill is already back in the small jail next door. I’m surprised that he recognized me and bothered that he talked to me. I had planned to stand anonymously in the crowd and watch. But then Bill never was one to let people 7 john wilson do what they wanted. A swirl of confused emotions runs through me. I had thought today would be an ending, a final severing of my relationship with Bill, but it’s not. His invitation to visit him in Lincoln and that smile of his brings the past vividly to life. This is not an ending, it’s a new beginning. I curse under my breath and kick the dirt. I need to think, but deep down inside I know what I will do. I come into Lincoln from the south, past the old court- house, Squire Wilson’s house and the low veranda of the Tunstall store.