Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/49

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THE LORD OF THE MOUNTAINS
35

Florencio Chavez. They have lived there since they were boys and know every spot in town that has a history. Their quaint talk will make the forgotten past live again for you.

Right out there in the road where that hen is dusting herself in a rut, they will tell you, Sheriff Brady was killed. Yonder in front of the little Church of San Juan, George Hindman fell dead with a bullet through his heart. Almost directly across the road is the spot where Lawyer Chapman was murdered. In the backyard of the little vine-swung home of Julio Sales is where five men met death on the night the McSween residence went up in flames. From that upper window near the corner of the courthouse Billy the Kid shot Ollinger; at the foot of a stairway inside the dingy old building you will find the hole in the wall made by the Kid’s bullet after it had passed through Deputy Bell's heart. Down the street on the lintel of the door in the Montaña House, half-hidden beneath white paint now, are the letters "K-I-D" which the Kid carved there in an idle moment with his pocketknife. The only physical evidences of the Kid’s life work left in Lincoln are the bullet hole and the three letters cut in the doorpost. The Kid was not a constructive genius.

“You see where that roan horse is standing under that cottonwood down by the river," says Miguel Luna. "Well, right there is where they found Bill Horrel lying dead the morning after the fight. Some fellow had cut his finger off to steal his ring."