Read Online The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael Ondaatje
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scar on Maxwell’s face that stayed with him all his life.
*
outside
the outline of houses
Garrett running from a door
—all seen sliding round
the screen of a horse’s eye
NOW dead centre in the square is Garrett with Poe—hands in back pockets—argues, nodding his head and then ALL TURNING as the naked arm, the arm from the body, breaks through the window. The window—what remains between the splits—reflecting all the moving too.
Gutierrez goes to hold the arm but it is manic, breaks her second finger. His veins that controlled triggers—now tearing all they touch.
*
The end of it, lying at the wall
the bullet itch frozen in my head
my right arm is through the glass pane
and the cut veins awake me
so I can watch inside and through the window
Garrett’s voice going Billy Billy
and the other two dancing circles
saying we got him we got him the little shrunk bugger
the pain at my armpit I’m glad for
keeping me alive at the bone
and suns coming up everywhere out of the walls and floors
Garrett’s jaw and stomach thousands
of lovely perfect sun balls
breaking at each other click
click click click like Saturday morning pistol cleaning
when the bullets hop across the bed sheet and bounce and click
click and you toss them across the floor like…up in the air
and see how many you can catch in one hand the left
oranges reeling across the room and I KNOW I KNOW
it is my brain coming out like red grass
this breaking where red things wade
*
PAULITA MAXWELL.
An old story that identifies me as Billy the Kid’s sweetheart has been going the rounds for many years. Perhaps it honours me; perhaps not; it depends on how you feel about it. But I was not Billy the Kid’s sweetheart I liked him very much—oh, yes—but I did not love him. He was a nice boy, at least to me, courteous, gallant, always respectful. I used to meet him at dances; he was of course often at our home. But he and I had not thought of marriage.
There was a story that Billy and I had laid our plans to elope to old Mexico and had fixed the date for the night just after that on which he was killed. There was another tale that we proposed to elope riding double on one horse. Neither story was true and the one about eloping on one horse was a joke. Pete Maxwell, my brother, had more horses than he knew what to do with, and if Billy and I had wanted to set off for the Rio Grande by the light of the moon, you may depend upon it we would at least have had separate mounts. I did not need to put my arms around any man’s waist to keep from falling off a horse. Not I. I was, if you please, brought up in the saddle, and plumed myself on my horsemanship.
*
Imagine if you dug him up and brought him out. You’d see very little. There’d be the buck teeth. Perhaps Garrett’s bullet no longer in thick wet flesh would roll in the skull like a marble. From the head there’d be a trail of vertebrae like a row of pearl buttons off a rich coat down to the pelvis. The arms would be cramped on the edge of what was the box. And a pair of handcuffs holding ridiculously the fine ankle bones. (Even though dead they buried him in leg irons). There would be the silver from the toe of each boot.
His legend a jungle sleep
Billy the Kid and the Princess
The Castel of the Spanish girl called ‘La Princesa’ towered above the broad fertile valley…in the looming hills there were gold and silver mines…Truly, the man chosen to rule beside the loveliest woman in Mexico would be a king. The girl had chosen William H. Bonney to reign with her…but a massive brute named Toro Cuneo craved that honor …
There’d been a cattle war in Jackson County…. He’d settled a beef with three gunquick brothers near Tucson…and he was weary of gunthunder and sudden death! Billy the Kid turned his cayuse south…splashed across the drought dried Rio Grande…and let the sun bake the tension out of his mind and body.
“See them sawtooth peaks, Caballo? There’s a little
*
outside
the outline of houses
Garrett running from a door
—all seen sliding round
the screen of a horse’s eye
NOW dead centre in the square is Garrett with Poe—hands in back pockets—argues, nodding his head and then ALL TURNING as the naked arm, the arm from the body, breaks through the window. The window—what remains between the splits—reflecting all the moving too.
Gutierrez goes to hold the arm but it is manic, breaks her second finger. His veins that controlled triggers—now tearing all they touch.
*
The end of it, lying at the wall
the bullet itch frozen in my head
my right arm is through the glass pane
and the cut veins awake me
so I can watch inside and through the window
Garrett’s voice going Billy Billy
and the other two dancing circles
saying we got him we got him the little shrunk bugger
the pain at my armpit I’m glad for
keeping me alive at the bone
and suns coming up everywhere out of the walls and floors
Garrett’s jaw and stomach thousands
of lovely perfect sun balls
breaking at each other click
click click click like Saturday morning pistol cleaning
when the bullets hop across the bed sheet and bounce and click
click and you toss them across the floor like…up in the air
and see how many you can catch in one hand the left
oranges reeling across the room and I KNOW I KNOW
it is my brain coming out like red grass
this breaking where red things wade
*
PAULITA MAXWELL.
An old story that identifies me as Billy the Kid’s sweetheart has been going the rounds for many years. Perhaps it honours me; perhaps not; it depends on how you feel about it. But I was not Billy the Kid’s sweetheart I liked him very much—oh, yes—but I did not love him. He was a nice boy, at least to me, courteous, gallant, always respectful. I used to meet him at dances; he was of course often at our home. But he and I had not thought of marriage.
There was a story that Billy and I had laid our plans to elope to old Mexico and had fixed the date for the night just after that on which he was killed. There was another tale that we proposed to elope riding double on one horse. Neither story was true and the one about eloping on one horse was a joke. Pete Maxwell, my brother, had more horses than he knew what to do with, and if Billy and I had wanted to set off for the Rio Grande by the light of the moon, you may depend upon it we would at least have had separate mounts. I did not need to put my arms around any man’s waist to keep from falling off a horse. Not I. I was, if you please, brought up in the saddle, and plumed myself on my horsemanship.
*
Imagine if you dug him up and brought him out. You’d see very little. There’d be the buck teeth. Perhaps Garrett’s bullet no longer in thick wet flesh would roll in the skull like a marble. From the head there’d be a trail of vertebrae like a row of pearl buttons off a rich coat down to the pelvis. The arms would be cramped on the edge of what was the box. And a pair of handcuffs holding ridiculously the fine ankle bones. (Even though dead they buried him in leg irons). There would be the silver from the toe of each boot.
His legend a jungle sleep
Billy the Kid and the Princess
The Castel of the Spanish girl called ‘La Princesa’ towered above the broad fertile valley…in the looming hills there were gold and silver mines…Truly, the man chosen to rule beside the loveliest woman in Mexico would be a king. The girl had chosen William H. Bonney to reign with her…but a massive brute named Toro Cuneo craved that honor …
There’d been a cattle war in Jackson County…. He’d settled a beef with three gunquick brothers near Tucson…and he was weary of gunthunder and sudden death! Billy the Kid turned his cayuse south…splashed across the drought dried Rio Grande…and let the sun bake the tension out of his mind and body.
“See them sawtooth peaks, Caballo? There’s a little
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