For Paulie
I
“He weren’t no great hero you know. Just flesh and blood like the rest of us. But he was my friend. And that’s all I’ll say bout that.” The old man closed the book he was readin in and leant back in his stuffchair. “But back then,” he went on, “back in the day, even with him bein the younger, he were my hero, though. And I tolt him so. And you know what he says? He says he don’t know what the word means. And he was right, I guess. I just weren’t ready to hear it right then. There was somethin, an appreciation a some kinda pilfered honor or somethin, and an appreciation a the triflin distance between right and wrong what we was livin just then. It kept tellin me, if I accept what he was sayin, if I consented to believe in it, I’d fall into some bottomless hole in the middle a myself and never find my way back out. And I did feel like he had faced up to things. I tolt him I thought he had cause. But he tolt me he thought that was a full share a Brown Swiss bullpucky, tolt me the only cause was in relation to the effect. I remember he said that, soundin all educated-like. Said there weren’t no particler cause he knew of. All he done was re-act. You know, like, to his sichyashun there. Said he weren’t never one to think bout how he might make the world a better place. Weren’t innerested in rescuin the poor and down-fallen ner nuthin. Hell, he said he never had no interest in improvin nuthin a’tall. His only interest was in gettin his needs met, the day to day of it, makin sure he saw the sun come up in the mornin. Anybody get in the way a that, they become the cause, and best a his bilities, he become the effect.”
He stood up from the stuffchair, went to the table and set his Billy book down. Had his back to me. “Nope, nope,” he says, “that whole thing bout pursuin a heroes purpose, that’s a misaccuration. Ain’t doin nuthin but chasin your tail there. Don’t for a minute let yourself get roped into thinkin thataway. Life just ain’t that poetic.”
When he went out onto the porch, I went and looked at the book. There was a pitcher a some guy in the front—the one I weren’t never sure who he was. Had a mustash what covered his mouth all the way from up under his nose to his chin. Well, I stand there for a minute lookin at him, wonderin how he fared eatin anything through all that tangle, then I just tore the page out and stuffed it in my pocket. When I follered the old man out onto the porch, he was just standin there lookin out at the sky. “So tell me how’d you come to meet up with him, again?” I says.
“Was in Silver City,” he says. “He was upchuckin in the Big Ditch—eleven o’clock in the mornin. Said somethin bout bein took for six bucks by some Mormon at the Palace Hotel the night before. I didn know who he was then, didn know he was famous-like, just felt sorry for him. Noticed he done pissed hisself and tolt him I could give him a change a clothes and a place to clean up. He was clear-headed enough, but more hungover than a wet flapjack top a green wine bottle. Well, we goes over to the camp where I was squattin and he took hisself a bath where some muddy water backed up in the dry creek. I give him a extra pair a my coveralls and a new calico shirt what I stolt back in Arkansas—was always too small for me, anyways—and he cleaned up pridy good. Had snaggle teeth, but he weren’t all that bad to look at.” The old man pushed a rusty bean can off the edge a the porch boards into the dust with his cane and went to set in his rocker. “And that’s all I’ll say bout that,” he terminated with.
I pulled up near him on the bench along the front wall to the house and leant back agin the clapbords. We both set there starin out at the tawny-brown spread a the land, the purply choya buds and the yellow fluff on the chameesa bushes what was splattered all out round the valley and on up toward the blue gob a the Sangre da Cristos. The sun was an hour or two into its downside run and it was dead still, just plain hot.
“He died so young,” the old man says. “And for nuthin. But that’s why everbody still calls him kid. Birthday was October 23rd. Never knowed what year he was born. I figure he musta been bout twenty at the end. Witch’d mean he only got maybe five, six years out on his own after his Mama died and his stepdaddy kicked him out. He tolt me his first catch-up with the law was when he was thirteen, and that was for stealin beef jerky and that there bent tennis rackit from the general store outside a Fort Bayard.”
“So, when did you apperhend on him bein who he was?”
“Well, he tolt me his name was Willam McCalister when we first meet up. That were July a ’79, two years before the end. The guy what I was sharin my tent with, he was gone, so I tolt him he was welcome to make use a the extry cot. He tolt me his stepdaddy—one, William Henry Harrison Antrim, a man he hated—lived somewhere over on Walnut Street and he come allaway from Santa Rosa to kill him. When he first said it, I didn think much bout it—he was so young, ya know. But I dunno, he mighta meant it. Everwhere we went round town that first week, he introduced hisself as somebody different—Frank Haggen, Bill Munrow, Jesse Shanks and the like. He didn have nuthin, you know. I give him the clothes on his back. But somehow he started gatherin stuff up. Got hisself a Colt Lightnin from some Mexican what said he stolt if off a Canadian MP. And then he later come up with a whole bandolier a .44 cartridges for it. So I figure he’s startin to take things serious-like. And he was serious like that mosta the time, lest he was drunk. When he got drunk, he got rowdy, sure, but he weren’t never mean. He was mostly a happy drunk. Then again, he let you know he weren’t gonna let you push him round none. And that’s all I’ll say bout that.”
“Was you round when he got kilt?”
“Depends what you mean by round. I was stayin at a ranchette outside a place what they now call Agudo, on the Achison, Topeka and Santa Fe run, six or seven mile outa Fort Sumner. I didn get word bout him dyin till two days after. A Sunday it was. When I get there to Fort Sumner, he’s already in the ground. Buried him that Saturday. Weren’t nuthin goin on there, but I didn know did Sherriff Garrett know who I was or not, so I weren’t gonna hang about. There was a man at the grave, had a pachuco style felt hat, black. Wore a green vest with a string tie and a black longcoat. Mighta been Navajo. I don’t think he was Mescalaro. Come in a three-wheeled Benz Motorwagen and just stood there over the grave. I reckon he was prayin on him. It was a ranch hand what tolt me bout him dyin, so I hada take his word. The grave was fresh, so somebody got buriet there. Whether it was him or not, I couldn say. At this junction, I’m deposed to believe it was, though.”
When the old man’s tabby cat jumps up next to me on the bench, I reach out and nudge it a bit behind the ears.
“That’s Florencio. He took charge a things round here after you left.”
“I ain’t crazy bout a cat,” I finally declared to him.
“Don’t feel no need to stay there settin with him then.”
The cat jumps down, I stretch my legs out on the porch boards, and the old man keeps his peace. But I hada ask, “ So did he kill his stepdaddy, this here Willam Henry Harrison?”
“Antrim,” he added on.
“Right,” I says.
“That part’s important, boy. He got named after the eleventh president of these here United States, who turned out to be the shortest president in the history a these states—bein as he wouldn wear neither hat nor gloves in the rain when he was speechifyin his naugral dress for six hours to a mob a wigs on the steps a the Washington Monument. Got sick and died, right there on the steps.”
“So he died a natural causes then?”
“No, you lunkhead, that’s the president I’m talkin bout there.”
“Yeah, yeah, OK. So did he kill Antrim then, or not?”
“That I dunno. Never met his stepdaddy when we was skulkin round Silver City. Mighta, tho. I never got involved in none a that. I weren’t always with him back in the beginnin. Harrison, what the kid called him. Claimed he was one sumbitch.”
The sky looked like a blue enamel cook pot fulla still water. The Rhode Island red come pantin up through the dust, up into the porch shade and stood there tiltin his head at me, starin. Three a the leghorns clucked and fussed off by the barn. I thought bout pullin my boots off and itchin my feet some, but decidet I needed to be gettin long. “Think I’m gonna be gettin long,” I says.
The old man didn say nuthin at first. Then he says, “Well, you know you always welcome for a come-see. Your bruther, not so much.”
“Yeah, he knows that, Daddy,” I says. “He won’t be botherin you none.” I stood up and went back in the house to fetch my bundle. Stopped for a minute to look at the tennis rackit hangin there under the shotgun over the farplace. The warped handle on it was crookt worse than a broke hind leg on a kyote, and mosta the strings was sprung out of it. I grab my kit, shake my head at the mystery of it all and go back out to the porch.
“See you got a new mare,” the old man says.
“Yeah, Sally, she’s most lenient. Only gets her tail in a twist when they’s kids runnin round her. And she don’t much like the new blacksmith in town.”
“We all got our displeasantries.”
When I go to the barn, Sally, she’s standin there with her head hangin and her eyes half closed. I give her a quick brush, saddle her up and tie my bundle down. Figure to be back in town by sunset.
II
Things was quiet in the alley when I get there. Weren’t no light to see by. I tie up old Sally and climb the stairs to The Diamond Dollar. Things is slumberin inside as well. Cyril, the bartender, as always, he’s got his foot up on a stool behind the bar. He nods to me when he sees who it is. The one lone stranger standin at the far end with his back to me turns his head to see who it was comin in. Didn say nuthin. Weren’t nobody at the card table.
I pull up, take my hat off and set her down on the bar. Cyril come over with a nice cool drippy glass a beer and a bottle and I shove my lucky Jefferson at him. He gives it a look-see and shakes his head. When he brung my change, he asked me how it was with the new mare. I tolt him same as I tolt the old man and he went back to his place beside the stool. Started polishin glasses.
“LaRoyce been in?” I says.
“Naw, he never comes in here. You keepin company over that-a-way?”
I knew he was gonna ask me that, cause a the squabble I got into with Lester, LaRoyce’s oldest. “Naw,” I says. “Got a job a work with him is all.”
Cyril, he don’t say no more. I was feelin itchy, bein it’s a Sunday and all, so I says to the feller down the bar, “My Daddy knew Billy the kid.”
“That right?” this stranger says.
“That’s right. My Daddy kin read, ya know.” I reach into my pocket, take the wrinkled pitcher what I pinched outa the book, grab my glass and my bottle and head down his way. I flatten out the pitcher on the bar and deal it over to him. “Yup, that right there, that’s Billy the kid’s stepdaddy,” I says, “one, William Henry Harrison Antrim. People don’t know this, but he was president back when.” And without even lookin, I stab my finger down on Antrim’s ear in the pitcher.
Now this here stranger, he weren’t the usual punter come into the Diamond. He was kinda dressy-like. Had a press suit with a crease in his pants and a fancy tie. Smelt like witch-hazel and lemons. Wore a brown felt derby with a rolled brim what didn have no dust on it. “Hmmm,” all he says.
“What’s your name, then?” I ask him.
“Nate,” all he says.
“Well, what are you doin in here, Nate?”
“Having a drink and minding my own business.” He says it same way Cyril talks, smidgy schoolin-talk like, but even more so.
“That right?” I says, bein polite-like. “Well whadya think bout what I just tolt ya?”
“Not much,” he says.
“Well what is it you do, then, Nate?” I ask him, even more polite this time.
“I’m a wayfaring philosopher.”
“That right?”
But he stops right there, don’t say nuthin futher. He takes a sip a his beer and sets the glass down, kinda limp-like. A philosopher, I’m thinkin. Well what in hell? Ain’t never had one a them in here. “So philosopher me somethin,” I says, still bein respectable-polite.
Well, he stands there—been leanin his elbows on the bar all this time—straits his back up and puts both hands on the bar. Now that’s when I’m noticin this here’s a tall feller. He turns his head, lookin down at the pitcher settin there on the bar and says, “Interesting.” All he says, just like that. Then he just stands there starin at the pitcher.
“Innerestin. That all you can say?” I says.
“Well, friend, I could say more.”
“Well, why doncha, then?”
“OK,” he says. “I’m gonna tell you something, and you can take it for what it’s worth. But it’s true, this thing I’m gonna tell you. It’s the absolute truth. And that’s a very interesting proposition, because there’s not a lot of people in the world who will do that for you—not because they don’t want to, understand, but because they don’t always know the truth, themselves. So what I’m saying is that there’s a lot I don’t know, but about this,” and here he targets his finger down onto the pitcher same as I did, “about this right here, I do know. And I’m gonna reveal what I know to you. And it’s entirely up to you whether you accept it or not. Are you ready?”
Well, I’m standin there thinkin to myself, yessir, this dam well is innerestin. “OK,” I says, “tell me this here absolute truth then.”
“That’s not William Bonnie’s stepfather.”
Well, I had to admit, he could be right. The old man never tolt me who the guy in the pitcher was, exacly. I just judged it from the look of him. Decidet he had to be him. Got it in my head somehow that he was Amstrum. So, OK, I’m thinkin, see what this rascal here has to say bout it. “And how you think you know what your sayin there is the absolute truth?” I says to him.
“Because that’s a photograph of Frederich Nietzsche, taken in 1882. Says so right there.” And he sets his finger back down on some printin right there under where the guy’s been cut off at the ribs in the pitcher.
I look over at Cyril and push the pitcher over his way. He departs his stool, doodles on over and takes a peak. “Yup,” he says. “Not sure about the spelling, but it definitely don’t say anything about Antrim—William, Harry or otherwise. Looks like Freder-itch Nitz . . . Nitz-shee or somethin.” And he turns and goes back to his stool.
“I can read some, you know,” I tell this guy. “Just not them kinda small print words like that. Can’t see em is all.”
And that there turned out to be one innerestin evenin. Me and that there feller—name a Hinman, Georgie Hinman—me and him, we had ourseves a lengthy twister. Turned out he played piano and we sang us ever last song he knowed, from Jimmy Crack Corn to Johnny Come Marchin Home.
III
Next mornin, I get to thinkin bout what happened at the Diamond the night before. I’m still feelin a bit skiddlish from all the deviltry, but I come to wonder in particular on the part bout that there Fred Nishee feller. So I pull out my readin glass from under the seed pot in the bottom a the cuddy and begin huntin for the pitcher a the guy. Turns out, I left it at the Diamond. Good thing I take my readin glass with me when I go get it, cause yessir, there it is, spelt right out underwise a the pitcher a the guy—F-r-e-d-e-r-i-c-h N-i-e-t-z-s-c-h-e. “Yessir,” I says to Cyril. “And that’s the absolute truth of it.”
“So how you figure this fella in the picture fits into things?” he says.
“Dunno, but I aim to find out,” I says.
And it weren’t no simple galavant, goin back out to the farm. I nodded off twicet in the heat and fell off Sally both times, slipperier than a frog tween your fingers after you finish greasin on a wheel hub. And the old man weren’t in the barn or at the house when I get there. The mule, the one he calls Aunt Maggie, well her and her rope harness ain’t no where bout, so I figure he musta went to say his dutifuls over Momma and young Tooly out under the red maple on the hill.
Seein as it were nigh on noon, I fetch me a can a water from the well and head on in the house, where it ain’t nuthin but hot. Everthing just as it were last time I come—book on the table, Billy rackit on the wall, stuffchair by the farplace. So I pick up the book, take my readin glass outa my coveralls and set me down in the stuffchair to have a chummy little looksee. And when I open her up, whadya think I see? Don’t even need no readin glass. Right there in letters big as silver conchos is some strange palaver I can’t make no sense outa. This what it said—Jensits von Gunt unt Böse: Vorsperil einer Philstophie der Zunf—or some such.And sure nuff there’s that Frederick Who-some-ever’s name there too. And when I turn the page, it says right there on the back how old the book is, and its from 1886, which I calculate to be thirty-nine years ago. So I look thru it someways futher and whadya know, the whole damn thing’s a mishmosh a them letters what don’t make no kinda sense. Well, it takes me a minit, but then of a sudden, I knowed what it was. “Why, hell,” I says, “this here ain’t even writ in English.”
Well, I sit there and flutter the pages for a bit, and I guess I musta fall asleep. Next thing I knowed, the old man’s standin there in front a me askin, “Whacha think your doin in my stuffchair?” Then he swaggers out his cane and pokes me a hard one in the leg.
Tired as I were and maybe still a little groggedy from that swigger of the night before, I jump up and back myself over to the farplace to get outa his way. “Sorry, Daddy,” I says, “musta wallered myself inta a snooze. Stuffchair jus felt too good I reckon.”
He don’t care none bout that, says, “And what are you doin with my Billy book, then?” Says this while he’s settin hissef down in the stuffchair.
I ain’t even remembered I got holda the dam book in my hand. So I reach it out to him, he takes it and I says, “Sorry, I was jus . . .” But then it strick me of a sudden, right there in the middle a what I was sayin—what in hell? And I says to him, “Whadya mean, your Billy book? Ain’t no Billy book bout it.”
“Whadya mean ain’t no Billy book bout it?” he says. “What kinda book you think it is?”
“It’s a book by some feller name a Nishee, ain’t even in English.”
“How you think you know that?” he asks.
“Cause I been readin on it while you was up on the hill with Momma.”
“You been readin on a book when you cain’t even read?” he says.
“I read nuff to know that book there ain’t what you tolt me it is.”
“Think so?” he says. “Well you lissen here, you danged uneducatet son of a crosseyed peckerwood, you don’t know nuff ta get your carcass out the way of a rollin freight train. That there book’s in German, yessir, but I knows how to read in German. And Freddy Neechee was a friend what me and the kid both knowed. And the fellers what printed that book said they’s gonna transfer it into English three or four years ago now, but they never did. Even said they was gonna put my pitcher in the English one. But they never done that neither.”
Well this was somethin I hadn reckon on. “I never knew you could speak no German,” I says. “How come you don’t never speak no German round here?”
“Didn say I could speak it,” he says, “only said I could read on it.”
Well, now I’m just plain plum flum oxed—the old man tellin me he knowed this here Nishee feller and then that they’s gonna put his pitcher in the book. I dunno what to make a nuthin. “Sorry, Daddy,” I says. “I shoulda knowed.”
“Dang rite you shoulda knowed. Seem like you was bout as doutsome as your brother.”
“Naw, naw, its just—well, what I thought I seen in that book there is all. Thought I knew somethin, didn know nuthin. Sorry. I wont disbelieve on you no more.”
And that was that. We both settled down some, and since it was gettin late, the old man tolt me I could pull out the cot and stay the night. And I slept like I were dead in the world, as the sayin goes. And when I get up next mornin, I’m fresh as mint tea. The old man, he’s still in the sack, so I don’t take no time to eat nuthin, just scurry on back to town for biscuits and gravey at the La Luz. Cyril, he’s already there chowin on some huevos when I pull up and set me down across from him. “That was some festivatin eevent the other night,” I says. “Weren’t a sing-song that there swellbuck didn know.”
“Yeah, that was somethin,” he says.
“Innerestin, all that bout the pitcher.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know the old man reads on German? Reads it in the Billy book. Said they was gonna put his pitcher in the English book of it, but they didn.”
Cyril, he don’t say nuthin to that, just keeps eatin his huevos. And I begin cogitatin on all them times the old man had us all up to the Tooth-a-Time, up there in the Cimarron. Had us all up top there, oncet a year in July—of the 14th of it. Cause that was when the kid got kilt. We’d all set up round a campfar there and the old man he’d say his pieties bout his friend, the kid. I remember cause a the date. It was most same as the fourth a July, only ten days later. And I thought why ain’t he doin that no more? He was doin it ever year for many a year till it become a petchual habit. Why ain’t he doin it no more in 1921, I’m wonderin. And I kept wonderin for a long while. Then I set myself to rememberin to ask him bout it next time I see him, and put the whole dang sortment outa my head.
Well, me and Cyril, we set there for some time not sayin nuthin. He swep up his gravy with his last half a flour tortilla, then sets hisself back in his chair and reaches up to pull a folded crimp a paper from outa the pocket a his aberdeen tweeds. And while I’m watchin him and spoonin a mouthful a biscuit, he unfolds the paper, spreads it out on the table and slides it over to me. “Ain’t got my readin glass,” I says. Well, I had it. It were right there in my coveralls. But I were sure tired a lookin thru it, so I sneaky-like says to him no I ain’t got it.
“That there,” he says, “is a handbill invitin people to a Billy the kid swahree at the opera house in Santa Fe next month. It’s . . .” and here he picks up the paper and reads from it, “it’s a celebration of the life and good deeds of the honorable young man shot down in cold blood in the middle of the night by the un . . . unscrew-pulus Sheriff, Pat Garrett, under order of the political thugs of Lincoln County.” He stops readin there and sets the paper back down in front a me and says, “The fourteenth of next month’ll be the fortieth anniversary of the kids death.”
“Honorable young man,” I says. “The old man says he weren’t no hero. Said he stolt horses and rustled cattle.”
“Might have,” Cyril says.
“What, you don’t believe him now?”
And here’s where Cyril gets all deep consideratin-like, shiftin in his chair and clearin his throat. “Well, Junior,” he says to me, “your Daddy’s a complicated man.” And then he just sets there squirmin and hesitatin, like he mighta ate somethin didn agree with him and he’s tryin hard to figure whether its comin back up or not.
“What?” I says. “What exactly is it you’re tryin to tell me, Cyril. Spit it out.”
“Well,” he says, “I’d hate to see you at odds with your Daddy, same as your brother, Ansel. All I’m sayin is, you gotta be careful. Maybe the next time you go out to see him . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Well, maybe decide in yourself weather you wanna know, or you wanna believe. That’s all I’m saying.”
“What in the lillies a the field, Cyril? You some kinda philosopher now too?”
But I can see he ain’t bout to explain hisself no futher. He just sets there lookin like the dog what don’t know the trick you’re tryin to teach it but wants the treat all the same. Well, I ain’t got no idea how to pro-ceed so I just says, “Cyril, you dang well beat all,” and I gets up and goes.
Weren’t but about two months or so after that, I go out to see the old man again. Weren’t too lengthy a time after that there forty year shindig up to Santa Fe, what I didn get to. And the old man, he’s lookin a little peekidy. Says he cain’t eat nuthin, cain’t make nuthin stay put. I ask if he wants I should make him some mint tea, but he don’t want none. Gets me serious worrisome, but I keep a smiley face so maybe he don’t think too much bout it. “Been up the hill to declare yourself of late?” I ask him.
“Naw. Lookin like next time I get up thataway, it’ll be cause I got carriet up in a buryin box.”
“Feelin that poorly, are ya?”
He don’t say nuthin to that. So I says, “Well, I’m here and I can stay with you till your feelin better. I’ll see to Aunt Maggie and do the same with the chickens.”
Then, while we was settin there, he looks up at the wall over the farplace. And I can tell he ain’t lookin at the shotgun, cause his eyes gets a little dewy-like. I can tell he’s lookin at that dang tennis rackit. Well he stares at it for a bit and then he looks over at me, where I’m settin by the table. And I can see a real damp come up in both eyes now. “What is it Daddy?” I says.
“Ain’t nobody believe it no more,” he says, his voice a little chirpy and crinkly, like the way it sounds when I pull that rusty hasp open on the barn door.
“You mean bout the kid, don’t you?” I says.
“I can prove it,” he says.
“Prove what, Daddy?”
“Fetch me down that rackit,” he says, “and I’ll prove it’s the kid’s.”
So I do it. I go over and take it down from the wall. And I tell ya, it gets me a little squishy, cause touchin it weren’t never nuthin we was aloud of. Well, I hand it over to him there in his stuffchair and he grips it firm-like, holdin it in the air, and says, “See there?”
“See what, Daddy?”
“That there,” he says.
“Yeah, I sees it. That there’s the rackit.”
“Danged right its the rackit. And what hand am I holdin it with?”
“You mean like which side like?” And I says this tryin to see backwards like I’m him. “Your holdin it in your left hand,” I says.
“Dang right I’m holdin it in my left hand! Cause it’s a damn left-handet rackit!” he hollers, all excited-like. Then he waits, starin up at me for a bit, like I’m the one supposed to explain the whole danged thing to him, and he says, “Well?”
“Well what, Daddy?”
“The kid!” he shouts. “The kid! He was left-handet! Everbody knows that! Here holt it! Tell me it ain’t a left-handet rackit!”
Still all excited-like, he holds it out to me. I start to take it and he yells, “No, no, take it with your other hand, your left one.”
So I do as he says and take it in my left hand. But the damn thing is so bent and practical worthless, I got no idea how he can tell its a left-hander or a right. “You mind if I try it in my other hand too, Daddy?” I says.
“Sure, sure, go on, sparement with it. You’ll see.”
Well, I stand there in the middle a Momma’s roundy rag-rug, swingin that twisty-handle thing back and forth, switchin hands back and forth for a coupla minutes. And I tell ya, it didn feel no different in one hand than it did in the other. There just weren’t no way to know was it a damn left-hander rackit or a right. And I was bout to hand it back to my Daddy and tell him so. But, of a sudden-like, I think two things at oncet—I think bout what Cyril tolt me, did I wanna know or did I wanna believe, and I think bout how I tolt my Daddy right out, I weren’t gonna disbelieve no more. And I grip that rackit in my left hand, swing it oncet nice and easy-like and say, “Yessir, that there’s the kid’s rackit.”
Well, the old man, he just slaps the armrest on his stuffchair and says, “There you go.” And I could see he was some better. His eyes all sparkly-lit now. Yessir, I could see he was some better. And when I went to hand him back the rackit, he just waved his hand and said, “Best put it back on the wall, son.” So that’s what I done. I put Billy the kid’s tennis rackit back on the wall.
The author is a 79 year old, who began writing in 1991. He graduated high school in Miami, FL in 1964, and traveled around the good old US of A for some years after that. His preferences in literature tend toward the classics. This is his first sojourn into the western genre.