Walter Dean Myers The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner Contents One I, ARTEMIS BONNER, IN ORDER TO get my side of… Two “WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?” A young woman asked of me… Three LINCOLN, NEW MEXICO, was the last place Uncle Ugly had… Four LINCOLN, NEW MEXICO, WAS not what anybody from New York… Five WHEN I AWOKE, IT WAS TO THE splashing of water… Six IN LINCOLN I BOUGHT ANOTHER pistol from Murphy’s, resolved to… Seven WHEN ME AND FROLIC REACHED Juarez, we knew at once… Eight THE TREK TOWARD THE mountains did not look like much… Nine AS WE RODE AWAY, I HUMMED a ditty I had… Ten WHEN WE GOT BACK TO THECantina, I got some whiskey… Eleven WE REACHED SACRAMENTO in the late afternoon, and it was… Twelve AFTER FILLING OUR bellies, we rented a mule and started… Thirteen WHEN THEY HAD gone, I threw myself about as much… Fourteen THERE WERE TWO boats docked side by side, and I… Fifteen IF A TOWN COULD BE A bird or an animal… Sixteen WE WENT DOWN TO A Low Dive near the wharf… Seventeen THE SUN WAS hot and I had just about dozed… Eighteen NOW, I AM NOT the kind of man that likes… Nineteen ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, was as cold as a Gravedigger’s heart. There… Twenty I WAS NOW AT THE Low Point of my life. Twenty-One WE WENT back to our room and saw that the… Twenty-Two WE DECIDED that Uncle Ugly’s fortune was not in Anchorage… Twenty-Three THE San Francisco dock was as busy a place as… Twenty-Four TOMBSTONE was a rough town with a lot of shooting… Twenty-Five ALL THE back and forthing with Catfish and Lucy had… Twenty-Six WE HAD NO sooner got into the room than a… Twenty-Seven ME AND Frolic had done in Catfish and were pleased… About the Author Other Books by Walter Dean Myers Credits Copyright About the Publisher July 19, 1882 ONE I, ARTEMIS BONNER, IN ORDER TO get my side of the story on record, and to explain why I am going to kill a low-lifed and sniveling scoundrel called by the name of Catfish Grimes, am writing down my side of the story so the real truth is known. I do not want anyone to think, when the time comes, that Catfish died by accident or by the hand of a stranger. It was me, Artemis Bonner, who has done the deed. By the time this is read, I do believe that the wretched soul of Catfish Grimes will be roasting in Eternal Hell. So be it, and here is the whole story, and the truth as well. It all started a little over two years ago in the month of May. I was doing what the dear ladies of the Salvation Army call poorly, as I was without regular work in my chosen profession, that of sign painter. At the time I was living in the city of New York, in the state of New York, and had been living there for some fifteen years, or since the day of my birth. I lived with my mother, a beautiful woman as only mothers can be, at number 125 West Fortieth Street. Father had died two years before and had left but eighteen dollars and forty- two cents behind. Life had not been easy for Mother and me, although I had done well enough in the sign-painting business, being of sure hand and a good speller. On the day it all started, my mother received a letter from my aunt Mary in Tombstone, Arizona. Most of the letter passed the time of day in polite fashion, as is the custom, inquiring as to our health and well-being and wishing us God’s Holy Grace in all our endeavors. But the next part declared the most awful news that I had heard in a long time. Mother called me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table. “Oh, Son, I have just received the worst news that I can imagine,” she said. I saw the letter in her lap and could not help but notice that her lower lip trembled as she spoke. I put my hand on the small brown hand of the one person I loved more than any other in the world, and patted it gently. “Your father’s brother, Ugly Ned, has been shot down in the streets of Tombstone,” Mother said. “Has he given up the ghost?” I asked. “Has he given up the ghost?” I asked. “I am afraid so,” Mother said, her voice floating into the room on a sigh. “Your aunt Mary writes he was shot five times in the head and several times in various other parts in his body and looks poorly even for a dead man.” The letter went on to say that the man what done it was a no-good card cheat, rat, and Evildoer named Catfish Grimes. My uncle had just returned from a trip to California and had made his fortune. But he had not carried his fortune about with him, knowing that Tombstone was not a place to be with a big piece of money. Instead, he had hid his treasure in a safe place and had wrote down the spot on a map. He had planned to settle his affairs in Tombstone, and then he and Aunt Mary, his wife of some twenty-three years, were going to use the treasure to live the Good Life. But now an Evildoer had forced the hand of cruel fate. “Your aunt Mary was at church, giving due praise to the Lord,” Mother said, “when Uncle Ugly was waylaid in front of a place called the Bird Cage Saloon.” When poor Uncle Ugly was brought home, Aunt Mary saw that he was not truly stone dead, and she sent for the doctor. The doctor came and did the best he could. Uncle Ugly lingered for three days before passing on to his reward. Before he died, he put the bloody finger on Catfish Grimes and said that Grimes had done shot him and took his treasure map. The sheriff went over to where Grimes used to stay, but it was no use. The sneaky dog had flown the coop. Aunt Mary said that there was a woman who stayed at the same boarding house where Catfish stayed. Her name was Lucy Featherdip, and talk had it that she was a loose woman, a stranger to decent ways, and also sweet on Catfish. When Catfish Grimes disappeared, Lucy Featherdip disappeared too. Aunt Mary wrote that Louella Perkins, who runs the boarding house, said that Catfish Grimes was not paid up but that the Featherdip woman was. Aunt Mary explained how grievous hurt she was, and how not a day passed since the death of her Beloved when she did not beat her breast and weep. Surely it made my heart break to read such sadness and it reduced my poor mother to a state of the shaking sobs. Mother made a pot of fresh sassafras tea and cut me a slice of pan bread— making me know that what she had to say was Serious. “Your aunt Mary wants you to come to Tombstone and assume the role of the Man in the family and see to it that Uncle Ugly’s foul murder does not go unpunished,” Mother said. Then, with eyes glistening with tears, she read straight from the letter itself. I have saved four hundred dollars in cash money, and half of it will be yours, Artemis Bonner, if you will Avenge your uncle’s Cruel death. “You are too young to go to the Wild West,” Mother said. “There are men out there who do not care for human life.” “I know this to be true, Mother Dear,” I said. “But if I can bring Catfish Grimes to justice, it will be a good thing. Also, if Aunt Mary will truly give me two hundred dollars, then I will send half of it to you.” “You are such a good son,” Mother said. “But I am worried about your health.” I knew my sainted mother would fear for my safety in such an adventure, but could I deny what destiny had wrought? I kissed the slender hands of Her who brought me into this world and announced that I must go. For just as there are men like Catfish Grimes in the world with no character and not enough decency to fill a thimble, so are there men like myself, of nobler stance and grander hopes, who must fight for Justice. “Artemis,” Mother said, “I see in your eyes the glint of a true Man and know you must be about man’s business. I give you my blessing and wish you the best of luck. And please do not forget to send the hundred dollars.” So, with Mother’s blessing and a stout lunch of cheese and fresh rolls, I boarded the train for the Untamed West. TWO “WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?” A young woman asked of me as the train pulled out of the station in New York. “I am headed all the way to Baltimore to visit my aunt.” “Baltimore?” said I. “That is a mere trifling! I am headed to Arizona Territory to avenge the death of my uncle. Perhaps I shall live through it, and perhaps not. Who knows what will happen when I am out there among the gun- slingers and the wild Indians?” “Well,” she said, pulling the veil across her face, “seeing that you are as brown as an Indian, I don’t think you will have trouble with them.” “I believe that to be the case,” I said, concealing a smile. I had no idea of what to expect from Indians, should I indeed meet them, but I have never been one to dwell on fear. Soon I closed my eyes and fell to the blissful sleep of the innocent. It was a long and arduous journey, and many times I longed for the comforts of my own cot or a fresh cut of tallow to ease the congestion in my chest. Nonetheless, I continued. It took me nine and one half days to reach Tombstone, and by that time poor Uncle Ugly was in the cold ground. When Aunt Mary met me at the post office building, she was dressed all in black even down to the little pipe she smoked. She was small but stood straight as an arrow, and I could tell she was a no- nonsense woman. We said the Lord’s Prayer and then went over to where my uncle was buried so I could pay my Last Respects. Uncle Ugly had been laid to rest thirty feet behind the Carlton stables with only a scratch mark in the ground to show the place. “The tombstone will be ready tomorrow,” Aunt Mary said. She spit into the corner and wiped her mouth with a delicate move of her wrist that told me she was a true lady. The tears that fell from her eyes splashed upon my heart. “Do not worry,” I said to Aunt Mary. “I will go and find Catfish Grimes and give him his just due.” “I will be obliged if you do that,” she said. “And I will give you a copy of the treasure map. If you can find it, you are welcome to keep it. For with him gone I have nothing to live for.” I was surprised that there was a copy of the map. I told this to my aunt Mary, and she said that Uncle Ugly had made a copy of the map as best he could from