Sister Blandina Meets Billy
One day Sister Blandina where she read an exciting description of a gunman’s antics that scared the people of Cimarron, a city in northern New Mexico. He rode through town on a spirited stallion with his six-shooters held high yelling commands at the scattering citizenry.
Not long afterward he appeared in Trinidad. She saw him in the main street, a figure of six feet three, on a beautiful animal. Some weeks later, she was informed that the gunman she had seen got into an argument with his partner, Happy Jack, who drew his gun first and now the man, Schneider was his name, was lying wounded in an abandoned adobe shed suffering from his wound.
Always one to give aid where it was needed, Sister Blandina carried nourishing food, water, soap and bed linens to the sick and neglected man. It was the beginning of a relationship, he the sick person, she the caregiver.
One day when she went to visit the sick man, he was unusually ebullient. He lost no time in telling her that Billy and the gang were coming to visit him on the next Saturday. He was anxious to tell her why: because none of the four physicians in Trinidad had bothered to extract the bullet from his thigh, the gang was going to scalp the four of them!
On the day Billy was to appear, Sister Blandina was on hand. When she got to the patient’s room, Billy and his buddies surrounded the bed. “We are all glad to see you, Sister, and I want to say it would give me pleasure to be able to do you any favor,” he said. She assured him there was a favor she wanted to ask.
Before she could ask, he said, “The favor is granted.” Then she asked him to cancel their plans to kill the local doctors. “I granted the favor before I knew what it was,” he said, “and it stands. Not only that, Sister, but any time my pals and I can serve you, you will find us ready.” That was her first meeting with Billy the Kid; she would see him two more times. Her concern about the young renegade earned her my accolade as Billy’s truest friend.
About the author
As one of the most requested tour guides by hotels in Santa Fe, Allen likes to share the city’s rich history in the form of stories. He is known for his ability to combine all the stories he knows into a rich mosaic of one of the country’s most historic cities. His love of history has resulted in Santa Fe’s two most recent books about the history of “The City Different.” He calls Santa Fe the Southwest’s Capital for history, culture, art and cuisine and he shares colorful summaries of all these subjects on his tours.