“My brother and I,” said Melvin Jones of Tucson, “were camped at a cow ranch we had just bought over on the Gila River side of the Mogollons. Sitting by our camp fire just after dark, we heard some horses coming. Thinking it might be Indians, we grabbed our rifles and got back out of the firelight. Then somebody hollered ‘Hello’ and said they were two prospectors, and we told them to ride on up and camp with us.
“When they’d unsaddled and sat down by the fire, I looked these two ‘prospectors’ over. They didn’t know me or my brother, but I knew both of them. One was Curly Bill and the other was Russian Bill. I used to see Russian Bill around Tombstone. Curly had a bandage wrapped about his face. Jim Wallace, not long before, had shot him in the jaw in Galeyville and come near killing him. Right after the shooting, Russian Bill rode over to Galeyville from Lordsburg and nursed Curly. Now the two were looking for some quiet spot in the mountains where Curly wouldn’t be hunted and could get well undisturbed. They found the spot at a deserted sheep camp on the Negrito and stayed there three weeks. On his way out of the mountains, Curly Bill met me on the San Francisco and rode into the brush with me and helped me gather up some cattle I was driving back to our new ranch. His wound was healed, and he was all right again. I asked about his companion. ‘He’s headin’ back fer the Animas,’ Curly said.”
Russian Bill had made progress since his Tombstone exit. He had risen to a speaking part in the outlaw drama. He was a member of Curly Bill’s band. He clinked the glass of brotherhood with all the outlaws when they met in Galeyville for a carouse. When he stalked through the street in Lordsburg or Deming, awed citizens nudged one another and whispered, “Russian Bill, one of Curly Bill’s outlaws.” He was recognized everywhere as an outlaw. He posed and swaggered to his heart’s content. He bathed in glory.
But, for all his honours, Russian Bill was not happy. Though he had the reputation of being an outlaw, he himself knew he was not. Though his freebooter comrades treated him with consideration, he felt that secretly they must view him with something akin to contempt. They had records as outlaws; he had none. They rode on cattle raids into Mexico and plundered smuggler trains along the border. He stayed at the home ranch and tended the kettles or did a little nursing now and then. His spirit burned within him as he thought of himself as an outlaw who had never committed a lawless deed, a robber innocent of robberies, a lamblike bad man, a desperado guiltless of blood. He must achieve guilt of some kind—any kind so it was guilt. He must steal something, engage in some depredation, kill somebody. He did not wish to stain his soul too deeply. But if his career in the role of outlaw was to be saved from the rocks, a crime was necessary.
With his artistic future at stake, Russian Bill sallied forth and stole a horse. Very crude and amateurish and foolish was this first and last crime ever attributed to Russian Bill in the Southwest. But the horse was easy and convenient to steal. Of course Russian Bill was caught. As soon as he rode into Shakespeare, a mining town over in the Pyramids in New Mexico, Deputy Sheriff Tucker walked up to him and quietly placed him under arrest. Russian Bill was an actor. He knew nothing about stealing horses.
But, as it happened, on the same day Russian Bill was locked in jail, Sandy King, a real outlaw, who had ridden on many a freebooting expedition with Curly Bill, got drunk and shot up Shakespeare for the second time in a week. Sandy’s first performance had been excused as mere maudlin frivolity, but his second was one too many for Shakespeare, which was tough. As Sandy went galloping up and down the main street, whanging away, by and large, with his six-shooter, a mere clerk, wearing a white linen shirt with stand-up collar and tie, stepped to the door of a dry goods emporium and, with a rifle, tumbled Sandy neatly out of the saddle with a bullet through the neck. Sandy was only stunned, and as soon as he had been brought round, the Stranglers assembled in executive session in the dining room of the Pioneer House.
“But,” protested the hotel proprietor, “this ain’t no time for you boys to be deliberatin’ on a lynchin’ in my dinin’ room. I’m jest about to set supper on the table.”
“The victuals can wait,” snapped the chairman of the vigilance committee. “We’ve got important business on hand.”
With the vigilantes seated around the supper table, the Court was called to order and Sandy King was brought in.
“Tucker’s jest took up a hoss thief,” piped up a member of the committee, “and I moves, Mr. Chairman, that we takes this hoss thief’s case up at the same time.”
So, in this purely incidental way and as an afterthought, Russian Bill was also placed on trial. The evidence against both men was brief but convincing. Russian Bill was convicted of horse stealing and Sandy King of “being a damned nuisance,” both capital crimes in Shakespeare. The table and the chairs were moved over against the walls to give the vigilantes plenty of room, and the nooses were adjusted.
The bell had rung for the curtain. Russian Bill’s drama was ending. He had learned how an outlaw should swagger and pose but he had neglected to learn how an outlaw should die. His histrionic art had prescribed no rules for the proper gesture, the correct attitude, at the final tragedy. The big third-act climax had caught him unprepared. The artist in make-believe at last had come face to face with the grim, lonely reality
