I didn’t think Mutes of the Mesa would be quite the thing, so I read him Sister of the Sangre, and most of Black Beans. Generally after five or ten pages Billy’s head would slump on the table—he’d be sound asleep. Even when awake, he had little energy, little desire. His eyes were lifeless, and he met all Katie’s entreaties about the south with a listless shake of his head.

“This is as much of Mexico as I ever intend to see,” he said one day when she had pressed him.

“Okay, if you don’t want to live,” Katie said. “It just looks like you’d want to live.”

Billy had no color in his face at all, not even when he sat in the sun several hours a day, and he had no force in his voice either.

“I should have listened to the Tulip in the first place,” he said. “But I didn’t, and now it don’t matter. I can’t uncross that dern deadly river.”

“That’s just an old drunk woman talking,” Katie said. “What does she know?”

“She said a horse would fall on me, and one did,” Billy replied.

“That horse was girthed too tight, that’s the only reason it reared,” Katie said. “Are you going to quit trying to live because a horse was saddled in too much of a hurry?”

“Talk all you want, I ain’t going south,” Billy said. “If your pa comes I’ll kill him.”

“What if the Indian comes?” Katie asked.

Billy smiled a weak smile. “Why, if the Indian comes, I expect he’ll kill me,” he said.

18.

The Indian didn’t come, and neither did Isinglass. The mood in San Isidro slowly relaxed a little. Katie Garza devoted herself to trying to build Billy up, both in body and spirit. She fed him the tastiest food she could concoct and kept him out in the warm sun most of the day. An old wood-carver in the village made him a little crutch. He would hobble down to the river with Katie each day and they’d drink beer and shoot. I judge Billy’s marksmanship never improved.

“I can’t understand how a man who can’t hit the side of a hill from fifty feet could get himself in so much trouble,” Katie told him one day when we were enjoying a light lunch of tortillas and beans.

“I guess I need specs,” Billy said. “My eyes start to water when I squint at a target too long.”

The days were beautiful and clear. I resumed my morning walks by the placid river and scratched away in the afternoon on a little half-dimer called Lynched in Lincoln; or, the One-Legged Judge.