***Out In The Wild West Night- With Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Rio, Rio Adams by name, if only partly by blood, by blood a yankee, a Norte Americana, was there to watch it all, to see that first tentative taming of the West the yankee garbacho west, the white man’s west. And to pick up the pieces of whomever was left standing at the end of the day, whatever man was left standing to be precise because Rio, Rio Adams by name, was that kind of woman, not a whore like some women who came to the west after the Civil War looking to cash in on the woman-scarce west and then settle down, or maybe turn that trick work into some business. legit or not, there was room for that too. So Rio was not a whore, not by a long shot although when she had been up against it a couple times she did what she had to do, no regrets, as a woman of the west. What she was thought and also no regrets was the kind who left with whoever was left standing, and by her simple mixed –blood logic of survival rightfully so. But maybe we had better start at the beginning, no, not the conquistador Spanish rapine beginning and not even the white man’s rapine beginning back about forty or fifty years before in the New Mexico night but the beginning of Rio watching, watching the west tentatively tamed in about 1880.

See Rio started out as Doc’s girl, Doc’s ever-lovin’ girl, since he had been nice to her, had helped her out of a jam with a couple of quack desperados trying to paw at her over in Tombstone in Arizona Territory and she, despite his being about twice her age and might not have been too good for a beauty like her to look at then (although she had seen a picture of him in his younger days and she would have followed him anywhere on that basis but the west took a lot out of a man, fast), and decided to cast her fate with his, for a while anyway. And Doc wasn’t complaining about her company, or about helping her out of that jam because if he hadn’t some other lonesome cowboy would have jumped at the chance (although strictly speaking Doc wasn’t a cowpoke but rather a gambler, a fixer man, a little of this and a little of that man). Needless to say he had many a pleasant night in her company, many a sweet dream after some sweaty exertions under those clean hotel sheets when she showed her appreciated for that help out of that jam too.

Maybe we had better speak a little more about Rio, and her charms, since she is the only pretty thing in this desolate brush country saga. Like I said she was only part yankee by blood but Mex in spirit, in beauty and in her charms. A buxom brunette, and not afraid to show it, show it to effect when someone caught her eye, always wearing revealing blouses, you know those low cut Mex kind that every peasant senorita wore to turn a man, to tease a man sometimes. Long hair, long shining hair, flowing around those shoulders and eyes, yes, laughing brown eyes, dark complexion, and big ruby red lip, painted by some Mex –grown plant that make those lips cry out to the heavens to be kissed. Topped off by some scent, some cactus concoction, that followed her around and made a man pray, even non-praying men, that the scent would never leave the room. And of course she had that Mex high spirit, that Mex tough in the clinches if that was her mood or in your clinches if that was her mood. Wild and unpredictable like a lot of mixed-bloods but a woman who every man somewhere in the recesses of his mind wanted to have pass by him, if only for a whiff of that alluring scent.

So when Billy showed up in Lincoln, Lincoln, New Mexico just when Doc and Rio (and Rio’s aunt as wink, wink chaperone for Rio’s reputation, reputation around the Mex population, the Yankees just wanted at her) were getting ready to set up housekeeping in the town at the invitation of Doc’s old pal, his amigo, Pat there was bound to be trouble, woman trouble, hell, Rio trouble. See this Billy had something of a reputation around those parts as a hell-raising, as a sharp-shooter and as a guy you had better not cross, not if you didn’t want to be buried un-mourned on some lonesome boot hill or find yourself as just another notch on Billy’s 45s. And he was a good-looking kid, maybe as good-looking as that picture of Doc back when he had first started out in the west, all raw-boned, wiry and full of sex. So naturally Rio was looking, looking and maybe figuring already that house-keeping for some old codger, some viejo, was not her best career path. And just as naturally Doc, no fool, no fool when young or old, especially if you wanted to grow old in the west sensed danger, Billy-sized danger. That danger, that natural protective reaction of what was his was his, set off a chain of actions that led to some changes in that old dusty town.

Of course you know Doc called Billy out, called him out over some foolish horse trade (as if he needed any pretext except Rio’s look to draw his guns) that went awry and Billy was wounded in the melee. Pat, newly installed as sheriff in Lincoln, warned his old friend Doc out of town, out of town for keeps, at the cost of having to arrest him otherwise. So Doc blew town, blew town with a couple of other desperados who were heading west and needed an extra gun. But here is where things went wrong, very wrong. See Billy was shot up pretty bad and it was a close thing whether he would live or die so Rio was brought into nurse him, nurse him or hold some death watch over him. In the case it was the former. Along the way though she got hotter than hell for Billy especially when one night as he was recovering he grabbed her, well not grabbed her but grabbed for her, and she responded, well, you know how she responded once you knew she was hotter than hell for him. And so they set up housekeeping or mainly stayed in bed, stayed under the sheets. But as things in the west usually worked word of the new Rio arrangement got back to Doc and he was hell-bent on doing something about it. No man could, would let another man, young or old, take his woman, without a fight, not in women-scarce, not in Rio woman with that scent and those red lips scarce New Mexico times.

So like some lemming to the sea Doc headed back to Lincoln, headed back alone at night, two guns in his holsters and a shotgun tied to the saddle of his roan. And here is where the details get confused, either deliberately confused to protect Pat, or to protect Rio, or hell, maybe to protect Billy. Somehow Pat found out Doc was back, was back for Billy vengeance and confronted him when he went to the room where Billy and Rio were keeping house. There was a confrontation, guns blazing, and in the aftermath one good old boy of the west, a hardened veteran of the western saga, a man with many notches on his guns, Billy, was face down, face down to meet his maker. But here is the funny part Pat got the credit for the kill, got a salary raise to boot and Doc was never seen in those parts again. Rio, well, like we said Rio left with the last man standing, her last man, as they rode off with her behind her man who strangely enough looked an awful lot like Billy. And things around Lincoln were never that wild again.