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The Kid was in leg irons, so she hung on to him with an entwined forearm and slowed her pace in adjustment to the clumsy noise of his shuffle.
A spruce tree flaring with lighted candles filled a corner of the lilac parlor, and Paulita’s mother was sitting on the love seat with her forearms crossed in a quarrelsome way as she scowled at the Kid’s police guards. Luz said in highly accented English, “You have caused what you are now arresting.”
“We’re just doing our duty, ma’am.”
She hmmphed.
Lee Hall took off the Kid’s sombrero for him, and his girlfriend groomed his tawny hair.
The Kid told Paulita, “Reach your hand into my overcoat pocket.”
She did and removed the green velvet pouch with “For My Angel” on the tag. She was wide-eyed.
“Open it.”
She poured out the fine gold necklace and kissed the crucifix in the Mexican way.
Smiling, Señora Maxwell said, “Please to let me see, Paulita.” And when she held it up, her mother said to the Kid, “So beautiful. So thoughtful, Chivato.”
“I saw it in Puerto de Luna and had to buy it. Seemed already hers.”
Paulita fastened it around her neck. “You’re always giving me such lovely jewelry.” She admired it in the reflection of a Victorian pier glass and with a formal pledge of her fidelity to him said, “I’ll always be wearing this, from now on.”
Smiling, Luz said, “And you have a Christmas gift for Billy, no?”
With a sunburst of happiness, Paulita hurried to kneel under the spruce tree and found a small, ribboned box that she opened for her handcuffed boyfriend. It was a tortoiseshell pocketknife and made by J. S. Holler & Co. cutlery store in New York City. She made a porcupine of it as she pinched out its twelve tools.
“Look at that!” the Kid exclaimed. “Six different blades, an awl, a corkscrew, tiny scissors . . . This will be so useful!”
And Jim East took it from the girl, saying, “Maybe too useful.”
With hopefulness she said, “Well, maybe later.”
“For sure later,” the Kid said.
Lee Hall intoned, “And now we’ll have to say our goodbyes.”
“Oh, but no!” Señora Maxwell said. “Won’t you have some eggnog at least? Some sugarplums?”
Hall said, “The Kid’s a prisoner, madam.” She seemed to need the reminder.
Paulita stamped a foot in frustration and pouted as she said, “Billito! You’re always just arriving or just about to leave!”
And then, Jim East later remembered, “The lovers embraced and she gave Billy one of those soulful kisses the novelists tell us about. We finally had to pull them apart, much against our wishes, for all the world loves a lover.”
Because of the observers, she kissed him with piety at first, but as she seemed to feel the foreignness of his hard-used form, there seemed to become a greater need of belonging, and she kissed him with a passionate yes that was as soft as something fluid, that spoke an Enter me until she finally pulled a little away and told his ear in a hushed voice, “We are so much in love, Billy. We have to be together. I have money. We can marry and I’ll ride with you to the ends of the earth in spite of anything you have ever done. I don’t care
what the world thinks of me.”
The Kid looked at his watchmen watching him, and excitement and embarrassment warred with each other. And then he kissed her softly and deeply one last time. “Vamos a ver,” he said. We’ll see.
* * *
Hiring only Jim East, Deputy Jim Bell, and his friend Barney Mason to accompany him on horseback, the sheriff-elect sent the other men home for Christmas, and Emanuel Brazil harnessed fresh mules to his farm wagon to haul the three prisoners to Las Vegas.
They got to Puerto de Luna around two o’clock in the afternoon of December 25 and walked into Grzelachowski’s store and restaurant to find a fabulous feast being served to some locals. A jolly Padre Polaco welcomed the Kid with an embrace as the Kid said, “Real sorry about your stolen horses.”
The ex-priest looked fiercely at Rudabaugh and Wilson as he said, “Oh, but it wasn’t you, Boleslaw. It was these fleas. But even them I forgive on this glorious holy day.”
