Race with a bullet

Billy the Kid and the Bullet
by Sean Nelson

"Is there anything you'd like to confess before you're hanged?," the
black robed priest asked Billy the Kid, a tough, blonde, young outlaw
with a tawny gold beard.

"Yes, padre, I do have a secret I could never carry to the grave,"
said Billy.

Billy was quite the lady's man, though his face was ugly. It wasn't
hard to understand why. His robin's egg blue eyes were always glassily
dilated and revealed a mystical wisdom. His leathery, acne scarred
skin, was a golden trophy earned in a hundred shoot-outs under the
hellish New Mexico sun. His richly deep voice should have been painted
and put on display at the Louvre and he spoke with an articulation and
fire that belied his urchin appearance.

"Well, what is it? Cleanse your soul of it before you die," said the
priest.

"That's just the thing, father. Neither bullets nor noose nor the
might of Hercules could ever drag me into the grave. I'm immortal,"
said Billy.

"Trust me, you're soon to drink the cup of death. I've seen so many of
these executions and not one prisoner has escaped. Accept that you're a
sinful wretch Beg the forgiveness of Jesus. Spend eternity in heaven
and not eternally impaled on a demon's pitchfork," said the
priest.

"Well, I know you think I'm about to drink ol' Socrates hemlock wine
but there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. As for my sins,
I've killed twenty-one men in the twenty-one years of my life. It was
all in the way of business and I don't think God or a single un' of em
will hold it against me," said Billy defiantly.

"God save your soul. I can see that I can't," the priest said in
resignation. He walked out of the jail into the beating sun.

"I'm done," the priest said to a group of twenty armed men waiting
outside.

"Thank you, father," said Pat Garrett, the town sheriff. "Let's hang
him high." Garrett was an experienced army scout and the only man in
New Mexico whose gunmanship rivaled that of Billy's.

Two rough looking men went into the jail and brought Billy the Kid out
with them. Billy's hands were handcuffed behind his back as the two men
rushed him toward the gallows. Another man was testing the gallows to
make sure they were ready for their grisly work.

Billy had very large wrists and very small hands. This allowed him to
slide his hands in and out of handcuffs at will and had saved his life
a few times before.

While he was being dragged up the steps to the waiting noose, Billy was
positioning his hands so he could slide out of the handcuffs in one
vigorous movement.

The executioner stood on the gallows with Billy. He had a holster that
held two six shooters. He slid the noose onto Billy the Kid's
neck.

The executioner said, "One(pause), Two(pause), Three(pause)." Everybody
but Garrett averted his eyes, not wanting to see what was about to
happen.

As he pulled the lever that would make the drop fall and Billy the Kid
hang, the executioner said, "Dr...".

Billy the Kid had pulled one hand out of his handcuffs and, in one deft
movement, had pulled one of the executioner's six-guns out of his
holster. As the executioner pulled the lever, Billy cocked the gun and
raised it to the rope.

As the drop fell and Billy the Kid found himself standing on thin air,
he shot through the rope. Billy fell to the ground unharmed, the noose
still around his neck. He was up in a second, unloading his six shooter
into the crowd of armed men, who were just now realizing what had
happened. And five of them never realized it because each one of Billy
the Kid's bullets killed his target instantly.

Billy ran like hell but Garrett drew his six shooter and shot from the
waist.

The bullet sped toward the sprinting Billy. The bullet moved a million
times as fast as Billy. But by the time the bullet reached where Billy
had been when Garrett shot, Billy the Kid was ahead of it by a
millionth of the distance the bullet had just covered because Billy
moved at a millionth of the bullets speed. And again, by the time the
bullet reached the spot where Billy'd been when the bullet reached the
spot where he'd been when Pat Garret shot, Billy was a millionth of the
bullet's most recent travel distance ahead of the bullet. And each time
the bullet reached where Billy had just been, Billy, who moved at a
millionth of the speed of the bullet, was ahead of the bullet by
exactly a millionth of the distance the bullet had just traveled.

This has gone on to the present day with the bullet never catching
Billy.