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Willis Bonheur, though we know next to nothing of his childhood, appears never to have been called by that name. Certainly, from the time that he appeared in Kansas in 1877 until his early death in 1881ws always referred to as "Willy-boy." Willy-Boy was a gunslinger and holdup man who, despite his nasty personality and behaviour, became something of a folk hero. Which only goes to prove (if proof were needed) that rebellious youths will idolize almost anybody. He was a very strange-looking person. about 5 ' 9" tall, he had sloping shoulders and very wide hips and a fat ass. Though he could move quickly, he tended to waddle when he walked. His voice cracked as if it had never finished changing. However, Willy-Boy was a very successful gunslinger because he was an incredible shot, both with his favorite weapon, the Colt .44 and with the Henry rifle .Willy-Boy was never known to have killed anyone, though many men who had called him out wished afterward that he had killed them.Willy-Boy carried two Colt .44's and was ambidextrous. He shot from the hip without appearing to aim, but never missed. His greatest delight was to shoot a man in the balls, one bullet through each testicle. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to determine just where a man's balls were inside his pants even if they were loose. He was a quick-draw champion. None of his opponents ever succeeded in removing their pistols from their holsters before Billy-Boy had plugged both of their balls.He grinned while doing it and laughed uproariously while they bent over screaming. Willy-Boy often boasted that he was so quick in cocking and shooting the .44 that he could put two shots through a man's balls with the same pistol before the man could draw. However, no one actually ever saw him do that. He was once seen, however, to shoot both balls off an Injun with one shot from his Henry rifle at 200 yards. The Injun was nekkid and facing at right angles to Billy-Boy's line of sight. People had started calling the Sheriff yellow for not calling Billy-Boy out when he was in town. Sheriff Walker valued his balls very highly and was in no hurry to have then shot off. Finally, though, he thought of a plan. He tied a cast-iron stove lid to his groin with several leather thongs crossing each other. The outline of the circular stove lid showed through his pants and, as he started the long walk down the middle of Main St., Willy-Boy had already noticed it. He wasn't grinning as Sheriff Walker shouted from a safe distance "Ah'm a-callin' you out, Willy-Boy." In fact, he was scowling as he drew and shot the Sheriff through the exact centers of both knee-caps. Sheriff Walker pitched forward on his face in the dust and, for a moment, struggled to draw his .44's before realizing that it was hopeless, inasmuch asWilly-Boy already had both of his out and cocked. "Take yore hands away from yore shootin' ar'ns, Sheriff." said Willy-Boy. "Somebody put 'em in his office afore he hurts somebody." Willy-Boy wasn't grinning or laughing because Sheriff Walker still had his balls. So, Sheriff Walker was still a man, but he'd never walk or ride again. Both of his knee-joints were shattered. Willy-Boy realized that he had made enough enemies in town so that , sooner or later, some low-down polecat might shoot him from ambush instead standing up to him like the man that he wouldn't be for long. As a holdup man, Willy boy never belonged to a gang. He worked alone and lived alone. There was nothing to tie him to any one place and he didn't have to defer to anyone else's ideas as to when it was time to move on. He had no friends and nobody had ever seen him with a gal. At this time, he was living in an abandoned trapper's cabin in the mountains and came into town only to buy supplies. When he held up stage coaches, it was well away from town. Despite his reputation as a bank robber, he had never held up the bank in town. Actually, he didn't need to. He always waylaid the shipments of gold and silver well before they ever reached the bank. He did, though, often visit the Silver Dollar Saloon. He never gambled and was never known to visit the fancy women upstairs, but he could drink larger and older men under the table.Young though he was, he was feared and hated. Nobody ever called him out in the saloon and nobody intentionally said or did anything to irk him. So, when he left the Silver Dollar one evening about a month after he shot the Sheriff, he did not imagine that he had anything to fear. Drinking dulls the sense of hearing, and, perhaps that was why he was unaware of it when a dirty little coward who would never have dared to call him out, stole up behind Willy-Boy and put a bullet through his brain. He died instantly. The entrance and exit wounds were both clearly visible, and there was really no reason for a coroner's inquest, but enough of the men whose balls he had shot off were curious about his strange appearance, that, the undertaker who also acted as coroner at need, did an autopsy. Thus Willy-Boy's secret was revealed. The men had gathered in front of the funeral parlor and the undertaker came out.. "Gentlemen", he began, I believe that it is now clear why Willy-Boy Bonheur was so fond of shooting men in the privates. Willy-Boy had no testicles, not even an empty bag. Evidently, he was castrated sometime in his 'teens, though where, why, exactly when, and by whom no one will ever know." Thus ended the brief life and career of Willis Bonheur, better known as Willy-Boy. |