They say that when Custer fell that June morning, General Crook’s Crow scouts knew of the defeat within an hour, though they were then in Wyoming, one hundred miles to the south. No one knows how they knew, unless there’s some telegraphy of the wind that the native people hear.
The news of Billy Bone’s arrest in Lincoln spread almost as fast—fast enough, at least, that by sunset of that day Katerina Garza and los Guajolotes were on their way north from San Isidro—I didn’t know that at the time, but read it years later in a feature article about Katie written after she had blown up the banana boat—and, some claim, herself, too—in Nicaragua. The writer claimed that the gang arrived the next morning, and that one caballero snuck into town disguised as a woodchopper, prepared to give the alarm if any sudden attempt was made to hang Billy. At that point I believe Katie meant to charge the crowd at the head of her men and either rescue Billy or die in the attempt.
Nothing quite so dramatic occurred, of course. News came in the morning that the circuit judge had been delayed indefinitely; he had put on his pants with a red centipede in them and had almost died from the sting.
This put a heavy burden on Tully Roebuck, who had a full jail at the time and a bitterly disappointed crowd outside it, every member of which thirsted for a few quick hangings. Tully was so short-handed that he even deputized me, but all I did during my stint as a lawman was play dominoes with Billy, and that was no fun. Billy didn’t like being chained to his bunk and was rude and quarrelsome to an unusual degree. He cheated flagrantly and asked me at least a hundred times to steal him a pistol.
Tully had left another deputy with me, a skinny fellow named Snookie Brown, and when Billy got tired of nagging me to find him a gun he set to work on Snookie.
“I’ll take my chances with nothing but a derringer,” he said several times. “Just slip me a derringer, Snook—I’ll leave for Mexico and never be seen in Lincoln County again.”
I think Snookie Brown rather liked Billy, but he was not about to be cajoled into arming him or otherwise assisting an escape.
“Can’t help you today, Bill,” Snookie said. He was laconic to a fault.
“Well, you would if you were my friend,” Billy said. He had come out of his first depression and was very far from resigned to being hanged.
“Deputy Sippy’s been your friend longer than I have,” Snookie observed truthfully.
“He’s a dern Yankee—they’re too law-abiding,” Billy remarked with a contemptuous glance at me.
“Now, Bill, Tully said not to let you charm me into supplying you no gun,” Snookie said. “There’s no harm in your trying to charm Tully, though—he’ll be back directly.”
Tully Roebuck did spend a good deal of time in the cell, chatting with Billy and even taking a hand at dominoes once in a while. Little reference was made to the killing of Bucketmouth, the banker, and the cattleman, Sam Bradley. Few locals had liked either one of them, it appeared, and no one at the jail exhibited the slightest rancor at Billy for having gunned them down.
Indeed, after twenty-four hours of high tension, the mood in Lincoln relaxed to such a point that it was difficult to remember the fatal violence that had recently occurred.
Things became so relaxed that it was hard even to stay awake through the hot days. The morning Tully deputized me he warned me against even sticking my head outside the jail unless I wanted it shot off; but by the third day, most of the folks who had drifted into town hoping for cheap entertainment had been forced to go back to earning a living. The time soon came when I could have taken a nap in the middle of the street and been in no great danger.
The situation looked so placid that Tully decided he could afford to take off for a day or two. He ran some cattle up near Encinoso and wanted to go check on them.
“Heard the judge might have to have his leg sawn off yet,” he informed Billy, Snookie, and me the morning he was ready to leave.
“I would rather take bitter poison than have a dern red centipede bite me,” Snookie said. “I don’t step into my britches without shaking them out good first.”
Billy snorted with disgust at the report of this cautious behavior. “Dern, you’re so careful I expect you’ll live to be two hundred years old, Snookie,” he said.
Then, the next morning, he killed Snookie Brown himself.