WEBVTT

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The Man In Black I rode
across the snow fields

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in the moonlight holding
myself in steady relation

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to the stars.

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The black timber on
either side lay flat

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against the slopes
running down before me

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into the bottom of the night.

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In the dusk I had
seen rabbits and once

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a fox like the point of a flame
flickering among the trees.

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But now for miles I had
seen nothing but the night.

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There were wolves about,
I believed in them

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for the near edge of
their presence cut

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into the nerves of my
horse, and our going on

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was hectic and cautious.

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And it was cold.

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The cold was absolute,
at length nothing

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mattered not even the
wolves because of the cold.

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At 9 o'clock perhaps, I saw
the lights at Arroyo Seco.

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The man sitting across the table
from me was slight of build

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and rather unseemly
in appearance.

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He affected the
wearing of black which

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in another more imposing
figure might have been dramatic

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even ominous.

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But in this man it was
an unremarkable aspect.

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Save that it accentuated
something that laid deeper

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than his appearance--

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a certain somberness
a touch of grief.

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It was as if the angel
of death had long ago

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found out his name.

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His skin was nearly
colorless and his front teeth

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protruding to such an extent
that his thin lips seemed never

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to come together.

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His eyes were blue
just the blue of water

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in milk and devoid
of expression so

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that it was impossible to
say what he was thinking

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or indeed that he was thinking.

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Thought seemed somehow
irrelevant to his real being

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apart from his true nature.

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I have heard that certain
organisms, sharks for example,

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are virtually
mindless, that they

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are creatures of pure instinct.

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So it was with
this man I believe.

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If a rational thought
or a whole emotion

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had ever grown up
inside of him, he

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should have suffered a great
dislocation of his mind

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and soul.

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Such was my impression.

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He should have been
like a plate of glass

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that is shattered upon a stone.

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But at the same
time, I had the sense

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that his instincts
were nearly infallible.

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Nothing should ever take
him by surprise and no one

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except perhaps himself.

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Only one principle motivated
him, that of survival

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his own mean and
exclusive survival.

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For him there was no morality
in the universe but that

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neither choice nor question.

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And for that reason, he was
among the deadliest creatures

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on the face of the Earth.

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His hands were remarkably
small and delicately formed.

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I've heard it said that they
were like a woman's hands

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and with respect to size
and shape that is true.

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But they were rough too
and marked by hard use

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with something like propriety
in all their attitudes

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and great utility.

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You looked at them and you
thought at once of fine tools

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precision instruments.

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They were steady and
extraordinarily expressive.

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You could read this
man in his hands

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as you could never
read him in his eyes.

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His hands articulated
him in the way

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that a leaf articulates the wind
or the currents of a stream.

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And yet, they were nearly
evasive too in their propriety.

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There was no
resonance in his voice

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but it was thin and hard and
flat wood clacking lightly

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upon wood.

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He was ill at ease within
the element of language.

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I believe that silence
was his natural habitat.

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Notwithstanding, his
speech was plain and direct

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and disarmingly polite.

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Thank you for coming, he said.

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I will go with you, I replied.

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And this is how
it began and this

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is the strange and true story
of my life with Billy the Kid.

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