The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western DesperadoHough, Emerson
History
The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
Hough, Emerson
Crime -- West (U.S.); Criminals -- West (U.S.); Outlaws; West (U.S.) -- History
"I got word of the Kid up here in much the way I had once before,"
resumed Garrett at length, "and I followed him, resolved to get him or
to have him get me. We rode over into the edge of the town and learned
that the Kid was there, but of course we did not know which house he was
in. Poe went in to inquire around, as he was not known there like
myself. He did not know the Kid when he saw him, nor did the Kid know
him.
"It was a glorious moonlight night; I can remember it perfectly well.
Poe and McKinney and I all met a little way out from the edge of the
place. We decided that the Kid was not far away. We went down to the
houses, and I put Poe and McKinney outside of Pete Maxwell's house and I
went inside. Right here was the door. We did not know it at that time,
but just about then the Kid was lying with his boots off in the house
of an old Mexican just across there, not very far away from Maxwell's
door. He told the Mexican, when he came in, to cook something for him to
eat. Maxwell had killed a beef not long before, and there was a quarter
hanging up under the porch out in front. After a while, the Kid got up,
got a butcher knife from the old Mexican, and concluded to go over and
cut himself off a piece of meat from the quarter at Maxwell's house.
This is how the story arose that he came into the house with his boots
in his hand to keep an appointment with a Mexican girl.
"The usual story is that I was down close to the wall behind Maxwell's
bed. This was not the case, for the bed was close against the wall. Pete
Maxwell was lying in bed, right here in this corner, as I said. I was
sitting in a chair and leaning over toward him, as I talked in a low
tone. My right side was toward him, and my revolver was on that side. I
did not know that the Kid was so close at hand, or, indeed, know for
sure that he was there in the settlement at all.
"Maxwell did not want to talk very much. He knew the Kid was there, and
knew his own danger. I was talking to him in Spanish, in a low tone of
voice, as I say, when the Kid came over here, just as I have told you.
He saw Poe and McKinney sitting right out there in the moonlight, but
did not suspect anything. '_Quien es?_'--'Who is it?'--he asked, as he
passed them. I heard him speak and saw him come backing into the room,
facing toward Poe and McKinney. He could not see me, as it was dark in
the room, but he came up to the bed where Maxwell was lying and where I
was sitting. He seemed to think something might not be quite right. He
had in his hand his revolver, a self-cocking .41. He could not see my
face, and he had not heard my voice, or he would have known me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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