The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid Page 17

  I told Susannah about my conversation with Cactus Truesdell.

  She was giving me one of those looks. “You are so gullible. To begin with, there is no way his father went to school with Billy the Kid. Billy died in the nineteenth century.”

  “It was late in the nineteenth century. Cactus is over eighty. His father was also over eighty when he died. So the two of them stretch back 160 years.”

  “Only if he fathered Cactus on his death bed. And even then he wouldn’t have been able to tell his son all those stories because he would be dead.”

  “Okay, say he was seventy when Cactus was born. I remember lots of things my father told me when I was ten, some of them on this very road on our way to a cabin.”

  “A seventy-year-old couple conceived a child?”

  “Cactus’ mother was his father’s second wife. She was a lot younger. The first wife was washed away in a flood.”

  “Likely story,” she said. “The dirty old man probably threw her in the river because he had his eye on a younger woman.”

  “If Cactus was conceived when his father was seventy,” I said, “that still reaches back to the right era.”

  “Right, an era when mountain men practiced dentistry with pistols. Face it, Hubie, that old coot was pulling your leg so hard, it’s a wonder you’re not six feet tall this morning.”

  “It doesn’t matter if everything he told me was made from whole cloth spun from imaginary thread. The important thing is he gave me a possible solution to the dilemma.”

  “The dilemma about the identity of the dead guy? That if he was from La Reina, why aren’t they worried about him? And if he wasn’t from La Reina, why was he in the ceremony? That dilemma? Because that one’s easy.” She laughed. “All we have to do is find someone who is and is not from La Reina.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  ”Exactly?”

  “Exactly. You know why Billy the Kid was in jail awaiting hanging?”

  “This is just a wild guess, Hubert, but maybe it was because he had murdered someone.”

  “No, I don’t mean what crime got him in jail. I mean how did they manage to get him in jail.”

  “I wondered about that. He was the most feared gunman in the West. He was fast on the draw, a deadly accurate shot and had nerves of steel. Plus he also had a lot of friends who would protect him. I don’t think there was a lawman alive who could’ve captured him.”

  “Right. And no one did capture him. He turned himself in.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because the Territorial Governor had promised him immunity.”

  “Lew Wallace?”

  I nodded.

  “If he had immunity, why were they planning to hang him?”

  “Because Wallace withdrew the immunity.”

  “He double-crossed him?”

  “He did. And when I started thinking about that—“

  “Wait, don’t tell me.”

  NM 244 is the back road between Cloudcroft and Ruidoso, the two major resort towns in the Sacramento mountains. It winds its way through grassy valleys between hillsides of pine and aspen.

  The truck’s big V-8 engine pulled us up the slopes effortlessly, its hum the only sound. The turning aspen leaves fluttered in a gentle breeze.

  “I’ve got it,” she said. “The dead guy was from La Reina. But he had left for some reason. He was lured back. Maybe not with a promise of immunity, but with something that convinced him to return just like the immunity convinced Billy to turn himself in.”

  “Exactly. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “So we have two things to figure out,” she said, sliding comfortably into her Nancy Drew persona. “First, why did he flee? Second, what lured him back?”

  “When Whit reported back to me after talking to his police contacts in that part of the state, he said the people they have on their missing list are people they suspect have relocated of their own volition, people running out on child support or skipping bail, things like that.”

  “Did he get their names?”

  “I don’t think so. At that point, I thought what we were looking for was someone who had disappeared for no evident reason.”

  “But he could call them back and get the names, right?”

  “I assume so. I’ll call him when we get back.”

  She reached into her purse on the seat between us and fished out her cell phone.

  “Why not call him now?” she said and handed me the phone.

  I did, and he agreed to check and get back to me. The people who read DorothyL would be proud of me.

  Sˀo Linotyusannah wanted to buy a present for her father’s upcoming birthday, so she headed for the quirky gift shops in the little village.

  I spotted a sign for Imaginary Books. Cloudcroft being a small village, I figured it was probably a place where you could order one of those electronic books Tristan reads. With no paper or ink, ‘imaginary’ is a good word for them. But the little second floor shop above the bank and next to the local newspaper, The Mountain Monthly, had real books.

  Ed the proprietor sold me two books, The Saga of Billy the Kid by Walter Noble Burns and The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid by Pat F. Garrett.

  There’s a short order station at the back of the Mountaintop Mercantile. The friendly teenager working there fixed us two green chile burritos to go, and I bought one of their fresh-baked apple pies to take to the Inchaustiguis.

  We came down the mountain and stopped to buy pistachios at McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch. It felt like we were on vacation, and we were making the most of it. Besides, pistachios are great with Gruet. Susannah took a picture of me standing under the 25 foot high pistachio made of plaster, insisting that I position myself so that the nut seemed to be growing out of my head.

  The girl has a wacky sense of humor.

  40

  The rambunctious dog that greeted us on our last visit intercepted us a half mile from the house. Susannah stopped, and he leapt into the bed of the truck where he ran from side to side as we approached the house, protecting us from varmints both left and right. The entire Inchaustigui family was on the porch.

  “Hi, Mr. Inchaustigui,” I said.

  “Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, Hubie, so you might as well start calling me Gus.”

  I swallowed hard and shook his hand.

  After all the handshakes and hugs, Susannah and her parents went inside. Mark and Matt stayed on the porch with me.

  “We’ll give you a hand with the luggage,” Matt said.

  As we headed back to the truck, Mark said. “We’ve put you two in the front guestroom. We’re sort of old-fashioned, but after our little talk, we decided it’s okay if you two bunk together.”

  “Oh,” I said quickly, “we don’t do that.”

  Smiles of relief spread across their faces.

  “I guess you’re old-fashioned yourself,” said Matt. “That’s great to hear.”

  “I knew we were right about you,” added Mark, patting me on the shoulder, “You’re a straight shooter, Hubie.”

  I felt like a complete phony as I trailed behind them up onto the porch and into the house. If I were really a straight shooter, I would have set the record straight right then and there. But I couldn’t. I know it makes little sense, but I thought I’d be stepping on Susannah’s toes and hurting her feelings if I disavowed any romance between us. It was her family. I had to discuss it with her first and trust her to handle it correctly.

  Matt and Mark carried the two suitcases. I carried the pie. Given the way they had looked at it, I knew it would never see the morrow.

  I got the front guestroom. Susannah got the room she grew up in. After we’d washed off the road dust, we gathered in the living room. Matt and Mark had beer, Susannah and Hilary had wine. Gus and I had whiskey over ice.

  It wasn’t as good as High West Rocky Mountain Rye 21 Year Old, but it also didn’t cost $130 a bottle, which is what I later discovered to be
the price of High West.

  I told him it was good whiskey and asked what brand it was. He handed me the bottle of Don Quijote Blue Corn Bourbon. Made in New Mexico, obviously. Where else would they make bourbon from blue corn?

  I love blue corn, and it doesn’t bother me that the dishes I make with it are blue. That just shows they have that good juju that’s in blueberries and other wonder foods. Personally, I pay little attention to that stuff. I just eat what’s fresh and tastes good.

  But I have to say I was glad the whiskey was not blue.

  What I was not glad about was Gus hoisting his glass and saying, “A toast – to Hubie and Susannah.”

  After a second round of drinks with a lot of reminiscing and banter among the Inchaustiguis, we made our way to the dining room where a table sagged under the weight of a bowl of salad, a plate of fresh-baked bread, a bowl of redskinned potatoes, a platter of roasted ears of corn, a big bowl of thick dark gravy and a roast that must have weighed fifteen pounds.

  The roast was narrow on the end where a bone protruded and basketball-sized at the other end. It looked like a drumstick from a pterodactyl, which would be a good Scrabble word if you ever faced a situation where you needed one that starts with ‘pt’.

  The bowls were passed around family-style. I gave myself diet-sized helpings of potatoes and salad and one ear of corn. I passed on the bread.

  Then Gus asked me to hand him my plate because he was carving.

  “I see you left a lot of room on your plate for the lamb,” he said and sawed off a caveman portion.

  I’ve never liked gravy, but when the gravy boat left my hand, it had been reduced from a boat to a small canoe. The consistency was standard for gravy, which is to say it had the mouthfeel of warm glue. But the taste was okay – herbs, garlic and something pungent like Worchestershire.

  I cut a tidbit of lamb and dredged it through the gravy. The texture was like beef, but there was an odd taste, like beef from a steer with a hormone imbalance. I was able to finish the lamb. The gravy helped.

  Susannah’s smirks did not. I was beginning to suspect her hand in this menu.

  The pie never had a chance. I should have bought two.

  They turned in early in rancher style. Probably had to get up early to milk the sheep.

  I read the Walter Noble Burns book and discovered a Billy the Kid far

  different from the popular legend.

  41

  Breakfast at the Inchaustigui ranch is designed to sustain the body for a long day of digging fence post holes and dragging calves out of mud bogs.

  I’m not sure they actually do those things, but the eggs, bacon, sausage and biscuits had me ready to give it a try.

  And I could have used the exercise. Days of sitting in a truck interrupted only by stops for high-calorie food had me struggling with the top button of my blue jeans.

  The truck had taken us to Rio Doloroso where we discovered an empty grave, to La Reina where we discovered that Alvar Nuñez was Father Jerome and to Lincoln County where I discovered Cactus Truesdell.

  I asked Susannah to keep it for one more trip.

  “To?”

  I stood there by her car but didn’t say anything.

  “You want to go back to that cliff dwelling,” she said.

  “Not to it. Just by it.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she said.

  “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” I said once we were on pavement and headed back to Albuquerque.

  I could see the mischief in her eyes even in profile.

  “Would that be a lamb bone?” she asked in her little-miss-innocent voice.

  “You set me up. Me, your best friend. Do I give you margaritas made with mixto tequila? Do I give you salsa made with canned tomatoes? Stop laughing. It’s difficult to scold you when you’re laughing.”

  “Admit it, you liked it. You ate every bite of that huge piece.”

  “Only because I didn’t want to offend your mom.”

  She was still laughing. “You ate so much lamb you couldn’t even finish your potatoes or your corn. You actually liked it.”

  After she finally stopped laughing, I told her about the Walter Noble Burns book.

  “So the locals considered Billy the Kid a hero?” she asked.

  “Most of them. Especially the Hispanics.”

  “Why?”

  “You know about the Lincoln County War, right?”

  “Some. We studied it in school, and part of it took place on our land.”

  “Then you know the gang led by Murphy and Dolan ran Lincoln county like a fiefdom. Murphy had the only store, so any business transaction went though him. They controlled the sheriff and the court. One resident was quoted in the book as saying, ‘They intimidated, oppressed, and crushed people who were obliged to deal with them’.”

  “And most of those people were Hispanic?”

  “Right. The Dolan and Murphy gang were Johnny-come-lately gringos who basically took over the area and treated the original inhabitants, both Hispanics and Indians, as peons. Then the powerful Texas cattleman John Chisum brought a large herd up from Texas, creating competition for the Murphy faction. Murphy’s lawyer, a man of principle named McSween, was fed up with Murphy’s crooked ways, so he went to work for Chisum. Billy the Kid also quit the Murphy gang and went over to Chisum. And the Chisum camp was strengthened when an eccentric Englishman named John Tunstall bought a ranch in the area and allied himself with Chisum. In addition to ranching, Tunstall set up a mercantile store in competition with Murphy. The locals abandoned Murphy’s store because Tunstall offered decent prices and fair dealings.”

  “And that’s why they killed him,” she said.

  “Yes. They trumped up some phony charge against him and sent a posse of drunken hooligans to arrest him. They found Tunstall riding among his cattle. Tunstall saw them coming and rode over to greet them. ‘Howdy, boys,’ he said, and they shot him in the head. He was unarmed. In fact, he had never carried a gun in his life. Then for good measure, they used a big rock to smash in his skull, killed his horse and lined the two up together on the ground.”

  “How can people do things like that?”

  “I have no idea. When Billy the Kid found Tunstall, he vowed to kill every man who had anything to do with the murder.”

  “Tunstall’s murder set off the Lincoln County War,” she said.

  “Yes, and led to Billy the Kid’s reputation as a killer. But from his point of view – and the point of view of the locals – he was just avenging a friend. It’s normally wrong to take the law into your own hands, but what do you do when the law is in the hands of the bad guys?”

  Susannah told me about some cattle rustled by Billy from a herd Murphy was running on a spread near Progresso that he had no right to use. The land belonged to an Hispanic family, but they dared not complain for fear of retribution. Some of Murphy’s men were positioned to ambush Billy when he drove the cattle south to Lincoln. But a friend from Progresso named Ponciano Chavez alerted Billy. So he drove the cattle northwest around Jumanes Knob then south, blazing a trail through Rogers canyon and Deuson Draw that the Inchaustiguis still use today to drive their cattle and sheep to the lower ground on the south of their ranch.

  I eventually worked up the nerve to broach the subject I had been dreading.

  “What did you think of the toast your dad made to the two of us?”

  “Typical dad. He loves to make toasts and announcements.”

  “When I greeted him on the porch, he said he and I were going to be seeing a lot of each other, so I should call him Gus.”

  “Yep. He’s not one for formalities.”

  Hmm. Either she hadn’t picked up on what I took to be her family’s misinterpretation of our relationship, or I was the one who had misinterpreted. So I went to the one statement that seemed the most obvious.

  “When Matt and Mark got our luggage out of the truck, Mark sai
d, ‘We’ve put you two in the front guestroom. We’re sort of old-fashioned, but we decided it’s okay if you two bunk together’.”

  “Sure. They know we shared a room at the Lawrence Ranch, and I told them we would both be in the Apple House down in San Patricio.” She laughed. “I guess they decided you’re not a threat to my honor.”

  This was harder than I expected.

  I decided to abandon my futile effort to convince her that her family

  thought we were an item.

  42

  Whit Fletcher came to my shop about an hour after Susannah dropped me off.

  His first words were, “You got any coffee?”

  The next words out of his mouth – not counting the disparaging ones he leveled at the coffee – were ‘Carlos Campos Castillo’.

  “You remember that name?” he asked.

  “I remember all three of them, but I can’t swear that was the order they were in. I have them written down somewhere.”

  “It was on the list you gave me.”

  “If you say so. The only thing I can remember without consulting my list is that there were three individuals with a total of nine names, six of which were apellidos.”

  He frowned, whether at the word ‘apellidos’ or at the coffee I can’t say.

  “I talked to the sheriff up there after your call. Turns out this Castillo is on their missing persons list, but they ain’t looking for him because they think they know the reason he left town.“

  Whit was on the case. I got him on it by hinting there might be a valuable pot or two in the cliff dwelling. But I had gone over it with a fine-toothed rebar and knew full well there was not so much as a shard. I was worried about not being able to deliver the goods.

  “Actually,” I said, “you should call him Campos.“

  He pulled out his pocket notebook and looked at it. “Says here‘Carlos Campos Castillo’, so Castillo is his last name.”