cleaning the area up—of us supposedly. No I don’t think much of him now.
I: He’s said that he gave you all plenty of opportunity to get out of New Mexico before he began hunting you.
B: Yeahhhh but one) you don’t go around using mutual friends to trap an old friend and two) I love the country around here and Fort Sumner…all my friends are here. I’d go now, cos some I thought were friends were really pretty hypocritical.
A PRETTY GOOD DANCER
I: What about pastimes? Did you have many when you were free? Did you like books, music, dancing?
B : Dancing I like, I’m a pretty good dancer. Fond of music too. There’s a Canadian group, a sort of orchestra, that is the best. Great. Heard them often when I was up there trying to get hold of a man who went by the name of Captain P___.* Never found him. But that group will be remembered a long time.
I: How about you, do you think you will last in people’s memories?
B : I’ll be with the world till she dies.
I : But what do you think you’ll be remembered as? I mean don’t you think that already several feel you are morally vulgar? I mean all these editorials about you….
B : Well…editorials. A friend of Garrett’s, Mr. Cassavates or something, said something bout editorials. He said editorials don’t do anything they just make people feel guilty.
I: That’s rather good.
B: Yes. It is.
*
Am the dartboard
for your midnight blood
the bones’ moment
of perfect movement
that waits to be thrown
magnetic into combat
a pencil
harnessing my face
goes stumbling into dots
*
No the escape was no surprise to me. I expected it. I really did, we all did I suppose. And it is now in retrospect difficult to describe. You’ve probably read the picture books anyway, of how he did it. What he did was to seduce young Bell into a cardgame, shot him, then shot Ollinger returning from lunch. Nobody cared about Ollinger, but Bell was liked. You know how Ollinger used to kill people? He’d go up to them about to shake hands, then grab their right hand with his left, lift out his pistol and fire into the chest. He had hated Billy ever since the Lincoln County War. So Bell and Ollinger died and Billy escaped. Also on the way out of town he hit a man named Ellery Fleck in the face, with his rifle, for no reason at all. He was probably elated.
One funny thing happened apparently (I was out of town). Billy’s hands were still chained, and jumping onto a horse to escape he lost his balance and fell off—right in front of the crowd who refused to do anything but watch. In that crowd nobody cracked a smile. Three or four kids helped him catch the horse and held it while he got on carefully. Then with the rifle cradled in his arms he made the horse walk slowly over Ollinger’s body and went.
*
MISS SALLIE CHISUM:
As far as dress was concerned
he always looked as if
he had just stepped out of a bandbox.
In broadbrimmed white hat
dark coat and vest
grey trousers worn over his boots
a grey flannel shirt
and black four-in-hand tie
and sometimes—would you believe it?—a flower in
his lapel.
I suppose it sounds absurd to speak
of such a character as a gentleman,
but from beginning to end
of our long relationship,
in all his personal relations with me,
he was the pink of politeness
and as courteous a little gentleman
as I ever met.
*
(Garrett had stuffed birds. Not just the stringy Mexican vultures but huge exotic things. We would sometimes be with him when they arrived. He would have them sent to him frozen in boxes. The box was wooden, a crate really, and with great care after bringing it back from the station, he would remove the nails. He first took out the 8" of small crushed ice and said look. And it would be a white seagull. It was beautifully spread in the ice, not a feather out of place, its claws extended and brittle from the freezing. Garrett melted it and split it with a narrow knife, parting the feathers first, and with a rubber glove in his right hand removed
I: He’s said that he gave you all plenty of opportunity to get out of New Mexico before he began hunting you.
B: Yeahhhh but one) you don’t go around using mutual friends to trap an old friend and two) I love the country around here and Fort Sumner…all my friends are here. I’d go now, cos some I thought were friends were really pretty hypocritical.
A PRETTY GOOD DANCER
I: What about pastimes? Did you have many when you were free? Did you like books, music, dancing?
B : Dancing I like, I’m a pretty good dancer. Fond of music too. There’s a Canadian group, a sort of orchestra, that is the best. Great. Heard them often when I was up there trying to get hold of a man who went by the name of Captain P___.* Never found him. But that group will be remembered a long time.
I: How about you, do you think you will last in people’s memories?
B : I’ll be with the world till she dies.
I : But what do you think you’ll be remembered as? I mean don’t you think that already several feel you are morally vulgar? I mean all these editorials about you….
B : Well…editorials. A friend of Garrett’s, Mr. Cassavates or something, said something bout editorials. He said editorials don’t do anything they just make people feel guilty.
I: That’s rather good.
B: Yes. It is.
*
Am the dartboard
for your midnight blood
the bones’ moment
of perfect movement
that waits to be thrown
magnetic into combat
a pencil
harnessing my face
goes stumbling into dots
*
No the escape was no surprise to me. I expected it. I really did, we all did I suppose. And it is now in retrospect difficult to describe. You’ve probably read the picture books anyway, of how he did it. What he did was to seduce young Bell into a cardgame, shot him, then shot Ollinger returning from lunch. Nobody cared about Ollinger, but Bell was liked. You know how Ollinger used to kill people? He’d go up to them about to shake hands, then grab their right hand with his left, lift out his pistol and fire into the chest. He had hated Billy ever since the Lincoln County War. So Bell and Ollinger died and Billy escaped. Also on the way out of town he hit a man named Ellery Fleck in the face, with his rifle, for no reason at all. He was probably elated.
One funny thing happened apparently (I was out of town). Billy’s hands were still chained, and jumping onto a horse to escape he lost his balance and fell off—right in front of the crowd who refused to do anything but watch. In that crowd nobody cracked a smile. Three or four kids helped him catch the horse and held it while he got on carefully. Then with the rifle cradled in his arms he made the horse walk slowly over Ollinger’s body and went.
*
MISS SALLIE CHISUM:
As far as dress was concerned
he always looked as if
he had just stepped out of a bandbox.
In broadbrimmed white hat
dark coat and vest
grey trousers worn over his boots
a grey flannel shirt
and black four-in-hand tie
and sometimes—would you believe it?—a flower in
his lapel.
I suppose it sounds absurd to speak
of such a character as a gentleman,
but from beginning to end
of our long relationship,
in all his personal relations with me,
he was the pink of politeness
and as courteous a little gentleman
as I ever met.
*
(Garrett had stuffed birds. Not just the stringy Mexican vultures but huge exotic things. We would sometimes be with him when they arrived. He would have them sent to him frozen in boxes. The box was wooden, a crate really, and with great care after bringing it back from the station, he would remove the nails. He first took out the 8" of small crushed ice and said look. And it would be a white seagull. It was beautifully spread in the ice, not a feather out of place, its claws extended and brittle from the freezing. Garrett melted it and split it with a narrow knife, parting the feathers first, and with a rubber glove in his right hand removed
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