Specimens from the Boneyard

Words and music from Chuck Pinnell

I noticed the other day that Stephen King had Substacked a draft chapter from his latest novel, a work-in-progress—Gabriel’s War. My first thought was, I didn’t know writers did that but it’s what I want to do with my work-in-progress, The Irish Singer, Vol 2. Hey, if it’s a good enough move for Stephen, it’s a fine move for me as well. I generally pay a lot of attention to what he says and does, smart fellow and a hell of a writer. And I owe a lot to him—I was a journalism major once upon a time—but Stephen’s brilliant and hilarious tutorial, On Writing, is the real reason I was suddenly able to write a satisfactory novel fifty years later.

I’m keeping the present tense, journalistic, Capote-esque, it’s hapening right now approach that I employed in Vol 1; but the first three chapters are set years before the timeline of Vol 2 begins in earnest(immediately after the 5 day battle in Lincoln)—and I chose to present those first chapters in past tense.

So here goes, another unusual glimpse into the untold real story of Henry McCarty, aka William Bonney, aka Billy Kidd, aka Billy the Kid…

Chapter 2

Silver City, New Mexico

Summer 1875

Joseph Dyer’s magnificent sporting hall, The Orleans, rested solid in its gilded place along the prospering establishments of Main street. The discovery of rich silver deposits had brought capital, voracious industry, and even a brickworks to the flourishing boomtown. Proud buildings of red brick were now a common sight in Silver City—but The Orleans lifts high above them all. From top down an Italianate marvel of cornice, corbels, crescent-topped windows, and tight masonry basking a flaming orange in the afternoon sun. Its ornate double doors thrown wide open beckon for all to enter and have a go.

The threshold christens with a sharp embracing waft of pine boards, stale alcohol, and rank sweat—a breath of urine-soaked feculence drifting under as well—from the row of privies out the back door. An immediate gasp for fresh air follows, yet the view inside is stunning. Pious shafts of light reach across the chandeliered nave to the engraved bar, and behind it, to La Belle, the naked beauty in all her glory.

Under the generous roof of the Orleans, on any given day or night—a boisterous congregation of miners, assayers, muleskinners, carpenters, bricklayers, sharpers, danglers, demons and poets—dig for the heart’s satisfaction and wide latitude granted. And day or night, La Belle reclines to one side serenely regarding her crowded parish: a full triumph of beguiling face and elegant neck, lifting breasts and fertile pubis, long graceful legs and the consummate sublimity of delicate feet. But the itinerant painter who’d created her, arriving one day like a mystic out of the wilds, saved his greatest magic for La Belle’s alabaster skin. He’d given the naked Queen a brilliant roseate luster with here a blush and there a shinning dew of moisture.

One devotee in a blue silk shirt stood gazing up at La Belle as if she were a deity—intent on the golden moment and oblivious to the uproar around him. An artfully canted felt hat slouched on his head and a glass of aged bourbon waited in his left hand. He brought it to lip and sampled the smokey contents without taking eyes from the demigoddess.

“Ho, watch yourself friend,” a rough looking fellow barked, turning from the gaming tables and nearly stumbling over La Belle’s disciple.

“Excuse me sir, just admiring the birth of Venus.”

“Suit yourself then, I need a drink,” the man said, looking askance at the odd little fish below.

“Allow me to stand you a round of bourbon, Tilton Sadler’s the name—scrivener by day and dreamer by night,” he replied, flashing an honest smile that overcame the big man’s first reaction.

“Will Jorkins, bricklayer by day and gambling fool by night!” his own reluctant grin appearing now like a wounded soldier. “Say, whiskey is too rich for my blood, just some tanglefoot’ll do.”

“Please, I spend my money on the color, and it’s worth it,” Tilton clarified, pointing towards a space just opening at the bar, close below La Belle. The oddly combined men exchanged a wary grip; one palm coarse, the other smooth and all but swallowed up. Yet, with libations poured and in hand, their disparities began to vanish.

“Who’s this Venus, says right there her name’s La Belle?” Will asked, with a curious look, first at the painting, then at the dark amber, and finally at Tilton in his blue silk.

“Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty, fertility, desire … and victory!” The dreamer answered at length. “That’s who La belle is to me.” A sweeping gesture towards the painting completed his argument, as if the life-sized nymph could explain it all. “To your health sir.”

Will paused with the smokey caramel in his mouth. Warm and smooth and flush but no real fire. It was almost sweet, certainly nothing like the panther piss he usually drank, which wasn’t whiskey at all. The miner swallowed distrustfully and gazed at the painting. He took another drink, downed it quicker this time, and forced his indelicate mind over the scrivener’s rapturing description of Venus. Both bourbon and jezebel were somehow unsettling.

“That’s a hell of a big job for one gal.”

“Indeed, it is.”

“She’s pretty … but it’s just another shameless saloon paintin,” said Will, as he traced the curves round about and began to grin in earnest.

“No, I believe this one’s different. She’s alive.”

“Well, thanks for the education and the drink, but I got to get back to the Faro tiger,” Will answered back, looking sideways at his new friend once again. He set his empty glass down and the gaming hurly-burly of the main floor continued—loud and heedless—it called out to the miner like the hot burn and quick redemption of busthead.

“May lady luck be with you friend. You must join me later for a Whiskey Punch, or perhaps a Stone Door!” Tilton offered with a broad smile.

“To Victory,” Will called back, looking at La Belle then nodding to the scrivener. The big man turned and headed back into the throng, into the breach where fevered clusters of men wagered and swore like their very lives hung in the balance.

A more rarefied atmosphere prevailed in the great upstairs Opera Hall. At the crown of the room foot lamps cast an ethereal glow back onto the naked odeum. To one side of the little stage a rumpled clutch of musicians were encamped like weary soldiers awaiting the next battle. Down the long room patrons huddled with drinks and comrades—shadows overhanging all.

The Arkansas Traveler suddenly burst from the fiddle, then a scrap of Oh Susanna from the banjo, the music stopping mid-phrase for a twist of the pegs. And a few chords from the elaborately carved mail-order piano proved conclusive—it would once again ring throughout the hall like the incomparable ambassador of popular taste that it most certainly was.

Entertainers of bracing assortment wait in a narrow hallway for the walkdown. A juggler of improbable items, a female Hercules with an “iron jaw”, an eccentric dancer, a local Irish singer of surprising youth, a minstrel artist, and a rustic bard who peppered famous quatrains with vulgar rhymes—making his turn on the boards an infamous success. The most experienced, a true veteran, applied blackface to his black skin. Cards and whispered banter and a steadying touch of the ardent being the order of the night—he took a long drink, nodded to the others for luck, turned a card on an empty chair and recited a bit of Shakespeare under his breath.

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

Some of these players were sadly shopworn and some possessed great talent. Regardless, they all took their turn at the end of the passage—then out to the boards and the lights, and the audience. Bent over in a stretching ritual, an eccentric dancer readies himself as the manager and emcee brushed past. Looking like a satyr of old, Quinn McGregor indulged a pat to the dancer’s hindquarters before he crept out onto the proscenium: “Ladies, and Gentlemen!—(If there are any of either category!)—Let me introduce to you—(If you've not already made his acquaintance, perhaps in the fevered fulminations of some fantastical dream!)—all the way from Philadelphia, that extraordinary prophet of the peculiar, that tippling titan of Terpsichore … Ellllllbert Latimer!”

The rustic orchestra struck up Little Brown Jug and a spindly hoofer leapt onto the stage. First, he seemed to trip and nearly fall before catching himself with an artful splay-legged kick. Then one inebriated capering step stumbled skillfully into another and the rowdy guffawing of the Orleans Hall grew continuous.

‘The Drunken Sailor’ and ‘Whiskey-O’ followed, and there seemed no end to Mr. Latimer’s curious maneuvers and escapades. Finally, the dancer took his florid bow, with a belch, and one last pratfall before wobbling out of the lights.

McGregor was quick out onto the proscenium to introduce the second act: “And now … a talented and completely astonishing young melodist of Irish descent will grace our stage. A magical son of Erin and a wondrous American, a true artiste, I give you Silver City’s own...Henry McCarty.”

Amidst jeers and howls, an unusual-looking boy strode out confidently onto the boards.

“Another fuckin paddy, little bog-trotter better trill like a bird.”

With an elegant bow and a nod—he began to sing, and a shimmering tenor voice rang out in the great hall.

Darling, I am growing old,

Silver threads among the gold,

Shine upon my brow today,

Life is fading fast away.

Appealing from first glance, the singer had pale blue eyes, an aquiline nose, a strong jawline and a crooked grin. Just an obscure little fellow skylarking in a green suit, yet there was something commanding in his presence, a kind of sorcery in his voice.

Quinn observed the charged atmosphere with eyes set on the performer and the thundering crowd—only his third night and already slaying the hall. Young McCarty bowed low, doffing his hat in a graceful arc. ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold,’ a wildly popular song, quite new and delivered with a flair, had won the room.

“To the fuckin manor born!”

“The little mick is alright.”

“He's a rip-staver that’n!”

“Give us another, lad!” Tilton Sadler yelled out in a rapture. La Belle’s eccentric enthusiast had climbed the wide staircase to the Opera hall, had discovered there a new wonder and pressed himself forward to the very edge of the stage.

The blue silk shirt caught the singer’s eye and he nodded down to the dreamer before bending low into another hat waving bow. There was another song, ‘The Wild Rover’, a well-timed one liner, and then a third and fourth and a fifth song before the crowd would let go of their young hero.

McGregor's pocket-sized office reeked of stale sweat and lavender pomade. Fried onions and eggs and opium and flatulence were also known offenders there. Everyone gave it wide berth, except when absolutely necessary. This night Henry McCarty found it necessary, for everyone had been paid off except the novitiate.

After three cycles the second-floor variety had concluded for the night, but the amusements jangled on with reels from the jaded band and an awkward snarl of dancers pounding the floor. McCarty made his way through the crowd and down the hallway to McGregor’s lair. Intent on collecting and promptly exiting, the boy knocked, and entered.

“Shut the door,” McGregor commands in a tight voice, then laying his pipe down he exhaled a pungent cloud of narcotic and leered at the boy. “A fine choice of material, and a superlative act. May I offer you a drink, or a pipe?”

“No, thank you, I do not partake,” Henry stated, his attention turning to the broadsides on the wall. One was of the legendary actor Edwin Booth and another of Irish dancing legend Johnny Diamond. The boy couldn’t help but imagine a companion poster of Henry McCarty—The Irish Singer.

“You shine like a diamond yourself, Henry, like blue fire. You've jumped from schoolhouse theatricals to the stage in one mighty leap,” McGregor declared with a broad dramaturgic gesture. “You're a fine singer, Henry, soon an absolute master of the ballyhoo as well. And ha! you could make a stuffed bird laugh. With the right manager you’d go all the way to the top!”

“Thank you for the kind words, Mr. McGregor,” said the boy, grinning wide.

“Call me Quinn.”

“You might be right … Mr. Quinn, I am starting to dream of such things, it's true. But tonight, I'll just collect my pay and be on me way,” Henry answered, his head canting to one side and thumb jerking theatrically towards the door.

“Ah yes, of course. It's just that I'd like to help,” said Quinn, lowering his eyes to the boy's crotch. The manager stood up, moved closer. “In fact, I'll pay you double for an encore right now.”

“I don't partake of that either,” the boy said backing away. Henry turned to leave but suddenly grabbed from behind and yanked into a stifling embrace—he raised his hands, as if to say—you’ve got me. McGregor had been rehearsing this very scene for some time and breathing heavily, his prey caught and pliant, he began to knurl his chubby hips.

“Let me have what I'm after, easy now, that's a good lad,” he groaned out the words and reached around to unbutton the boy’s pants. “You’re a talented little rabbit and you’ve got everything I want.” McGregor’s nuzzles into the boy’s neck. “We'd go far, you and I.”

Suddenly jerking backwards, Henry head-butts McGregor with the hard parietal crown of his sixteen-year-old head. He wheeled around sharp with a knee to the testicles, dropping his boss to floor.

“Well shite, I’m sorry, Mr. McGregor. Much as I love working your stage, I'm not up to cuttin didoes with you,” said the boy and McGregor writhing below, blood flowing, eyes wild.

The money lying on the desk was fair game now and Henry sorted out only the amount owed, at first. But then a moment passed considering the other bills, and a hand strayed back to gather more. “For the encore,” Henry said, with a degree of heat before spinning out of the foul room. McGregor's lumbering pit boss had just entering the narrow hallway as the boy squeezed past.

“How do ya, Ben? Does mother know you're here?”

“Save it for the stage, little prince,” Ben grumbled, a mock punch flying out and Henry ducking under, grinning back as he slipped away into the big room. Skirting around the drunken horde and along the back wall then down the stairs two at a time. Nothing would stop him now and it occurred to him he might have just changed his entire life.

A lamp hung above the back door of the Orleans obscurely illuminating the alley and the way to other mysteries—a warren of crib tents down to the left and Johnnies to the right. Both in full swing while Henry’s friend’s, Chauncey and Gideon, waited in the ruddy light and threw bones to pass the time. Gideon had just tossed when the back door slammed open and Henry bolted across the threshold. In a flash he leapt from the stoop and past his confederates at a dead run.

“Come on, lads!” He shouted back at them.

The two boys looked at each other, eyes perked. Gideon snatched up the dice, and both were on their feet and gone, past the row of fetid privies and around a corner. A moment later, Ben emerged from the red brick alcazar with his lieutenant close behind.

“Looks like the kid is clean away and gone,” said Jacob.

“He's a tough little mick and about time McGregor got what’s coming to’em," Ben allowed, after a silence.

“The taste of his own blood,” Jacob added with a nod.

The Orleans Club gendarmes were evidently in complete agreement on the matter.

“Let's stall a moment and have a smoke. Then I’ll go find the doc,” Jacob suggested.

“Hell, I can set his nose as good as any drunken sawbones.”

“While you're at it, then, you can yank the plums out his taint.”

Laughter ripped loose in the nether world of back alleyway shadows. Ben roaring out a jagged baritone and Jacob a cackling tenor harmony.

“Sounds like some’pin needs greasin,” a lady of the night let out as she passed.