Looking at Billy the Kid—Part IV—The End and After

Pat Garrett shows off Billy the Kid to a large admiring crowd in Las Vegas, New Mexico after his capture.

When Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett arrived with his wagon load of prisoners at Las Vegas, New Mexico the day after Christmas 1880 he found a circus-like atmosphere.  Word of their expected arrival had come by telegraph big crowds of gawkers had assembled in the streets.  Garrett obliged crowd by displaying his prisoners from the porch of a local hotel.  Billy the Kid seemed relaxed and nonchalant enjoying the attention.  He waved his shackled hands at well as he was able and exhibited his lop-sided smile. 

Later, after being fed a good meal and provided with good new clothes, Bonney was even allowed to chat with reporters.  He expressed no animosity to Sheriff Garrett, an old friend and likely rustling accomplice.  He cheerily told a reporter from the Las Vegas Gazette, “What’s the use of looking on the gloomy side of everything? The laugh’s on me this time.”  He also denied running a large gang or committing most of the crimes ascribed to him.  He tried to cover for his compadres by claiming that they were just ranch hands who happened to be with him. 

It was a striking performance of bravado from a man who had just been arrested, was facing the hangman’s noose, and had just seen his two best friends shot down before his eyes. 

Billy and the rest we stuck in what was described as a hole in the wall jail overnight.  Given his experience, he probably figured that he could break out without much effort once all of the excitement outside died down and the posse dispersed.

Unfortunately for Bonney, they would not be held long in Las Vegas.  The next morning they were taken to the railway station for transportation to the Territorial Capital in Santa Fe.  They found an angry lynch mob already there.  The mob led by local Deputy Sheriff Romero was not howling for Billy, who seems to have elicited a lot of sympathy, but for Dave Rudabaugh who had killed a jailer a few months earlier in an escape of his own.  Garrett would not turn the terrified man over to the mob but agreed to allow Romero and another man to accompany them so they could appeal to a judge to let them bring him back to Las Vegas for trial.

Bonney was held in relatively comfortable custody for three months in Santa Fe.  During that time he wrote four letters to Governor Lew Wallace pleading with him to keep his promise to extend amnesty. The Kid maintained that he had faithfully upheld his part of the bargain by testifying against the killers of lawyer Huston Campbell at great risk of retaliation to himself for having broken the truce agree on that night between the former Regulators and the Dolan/Murphy faction.  He also pointed out that he had not since been indicted for any new crimes including the saloon shooting of Joe Grant, or the death of Deputy Jim Carlyle.  Wallace did not reply Bonney had to give up hope for relief from that quarter.

Billy also tried to secure a lawyer his first choice seemed to lose interest and stopped visiting or responding to note.  Likely John Chisum or others encouraged him to lose interest.  A second lawyer demanded to be paid up front.  Bonney had no cash, no assets, and no friends able or willing to pay.  He offered to sign over ownership of his favorite horse, a fast mare that he claimed was worth $500—a pretty large sum for any horse.  But that horse had been given by Garrett to one of the members of his posse.  The lawyer would have to sue to recover it.  He, too, lost interest.

In April 1881 Billy went on trial in Mesila in Doña Ana County near the Mexican border, which was considered safer than Lincoln.  After two days of testimony, Bonney was found guilty of the murder of Sheriff William Brady—the only conviction of any the combatants in the Lincoln County War. On April 13, Judge Warren Bristol sentenced Bonney to hang until he was “dead, dead, dead” to which Billy was reported to have replied “you can go to hell, hell, hell.” The execution was scheduled for May 13.

Bob Olinger, left, was such a top gun for the Dolan/Murphy faction in the Lincoln County war that he was photographed with his boss James Dolan in 1879.

The day after the trial Bonney was shackled and loaded into a coach for a slow and dusty six day trip back to Lincoln for his execution.  He was escorted by six armed guards riding in and on top of the coach and on horseback alongside.  Their instructions were that in case the met either a lynch mob or an attempt to spring Billy that they should kill him first.  Three guards were top guns in the Dolan/Murphy faction during the war including Bob Olinger who had been made a Deputy U.S. Marshal.  During the trip Olinger roughly handled the Kid and constantly taunted him.

Animosity between the two men ran deep and not just because of the abuse on the road.   During the Lincoln County War Olinger had shot and killed John Jones another Dolan crew member in a dispute.  Although they had by happenstance ended up on opposite sides in the war, Jones and his wife had rescued and given refuge to Billy after Mescalero Apaches had stolen his horse and boots and left him to die in desolate territory.  Bonney held Jones in the same kind of loyal affection as he did for his former boss John Tunstall.

Since there was no suitable jail in Lincoln except for the old hole in the ground from which Billy had already once escaped, he was held in a room in Pat Garrett’s office on the second floor of the Courthouse which used to be Lawrence Murphy’s store.  There was no cell. He was shackled at all times and bolted to the floor.  A chalk line was drawn across the floor of the room and the two armed guard assigned to be with him at all times were instructed to shoot him if he crossed the line.  On the day shift the guards included Olinger and James Bell.  Although Olinger continued to ride him, Bonney struck up a friendly, bantering relationship with Bell and passed the time playing checkers with him.

Around noon of April 28 Billy took advantage of the relaxed relationship he had established with Bell.  Sheriff Garrett was out of town on other business.  When Olinger left Bell alone with the Kid while he took some other prisoners across the street to a hotel for dinner he asked to be taken to use the outhouse.  Rather than waiting Olinger to return, Bell agreed. 

There are two conflicting stories about what happened next.  In one version, popularized in stories and film, someone hid a gun in the privy which Billy secreted in his pants.  On their way up the stairs the Kid drew the gun, got the drop on Bell, and then shot him when he turned and fled downstairs.

But according to Bonney’s own account and seemingly confirmed by wounds on Bell’s head, Billy was able to squeeze his slender hand out of one of the shackles and swung it by its chain hitting Bell twice in the head and grabbed the gun from the stunned deputy’s holster then shot him in the back as her ran.

Bonney had no time to lose.  He kicked in the door to Garrett’s office where Olinger had left his loaded shot gun and ran to the open window.  Hearing the shot, Olinger rushed to the Court House.  As he approached Billy reportedly called out “Look up, old boy, and see what you get.”  He wanted to make sure Olinger saw what was coming—blasts from both barrels of the shot gun.  John Jones was avenged.

Billy the Kid gets his revenge on Bob Olninger.

Despite the ruckus in broad daylight and a dead man sprawled in the street, the citizens of Lincoln were not about to do anything as foolish as to rush a building holding and armed Billy the Kid and with Garrett gone and the deputies dead there was no one to organize a posse.  Bonney had a leisurely hour to hack himself out of his remaining fetters, slip out a window, steal a horse, and by some accounts ride out of town singing and unmolested. 

By the time Garrett returned to Lincoln and organized a posse, Bonney was long gone and the trail was cold.  Although many expected him to leave the Territory for Texas or Mexico, he remained in New Mexico, as Garrett thought he might.  He quietly visited some friends and several times described his own account of the escape.   He did get out of Lincoln County for a spell spending some time in near-by San Miguel County.  But the lure of Fort Sumner was too strong to long resist.

For his part Garrett changed his strategy.  Instead of charging around at the head of a large posse, he sent out scouts to collect information quietly from those who knew Billy he encouraged snitching and could dangle a new $500 dead or alive reward for the fugitive.  He would follow up on the most promising leads riding with just one or two trusted men.  In July he got word that Bonney was in and out of Fort Sumner.

That word may have come from Pete Maxwell, the son of legendary mountain man and associate of Kit Carson Lucien Maxwell who had purchased the post from the Army when it was closed and set up the headquarters for a ranching empire in the old commanding officer’s quarters.  Pete was now running his late father’s empire and had been friendly to Billy—and was likely a good customer for his stolen cattle.  He also had a younger sister Paulita Maxwell who was said to be Bonney’s latest and perhaps most serious sweetheart.  Garrett himself had let her kiss the Kid goodbye when he last took him from Fort Sumner.  Pete Maxwell was not happy with the relationship, especially because his sister was now engaged to another powerful rancher.

Paulita Maxwell, one of the Kid's sweethearts.  Did her brother's disaproval help lead to Billy's death?

Garrett rode to Lincoln with two of his best men, John Poe and Kip McKinney and quietly entered the town on July 14, 1881 reportedly spending most of the day with Pete Maxwell while his men laid low and kept out of sight.

What happened next is controversial.  According to the account of Pat Garrett in his ghost written memoirs he and Pete Maxwell were sitting and chatting in Pete’s second floor, unlit bedroom late that night.  Why they would do such a thing in the dark is never explained.  The Kid suddenly appeared in the doorway and hearing a rustling in the room called out “Quien es?”—who is it?  Garrett fired twice hitting the target both times once in the chest then he and Maxwell rushed out of the room leaving the wounded man lying on his back gasping for breath.  When they heard what sounded like a death rattle, they returned and Garrett claimed that by lamp light he could see that the Kid had a gun in one hand a knife in the other.  They dragged the corpse outside where a crowd gathered, many swearing at and threatening Garrett.  

A popular, but questionable version of the shooting of Billy the Kid based on Pat Garrett's account.

His friends were allowed to take the body and prepare it for a wake and burial.  The next day Justice of the Peace Milnor Rudulph, viewed the body, agreed it was Bonney’s who he knew well, and made out the death certificate.  He was hastily buried afternoon next to his close friends Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre.

Conspiracy theorists offer other several versions of what happened, most being variations on this:  Garrett, Pete, and Paulina Maxwell conspired to find some passable look-alike patsy to enter the room where Garrett laid in ambush and shot him.  A corrupt official signed the death certificate and the body was hastily disposed of to hide the evidence.  Billy was allowed to ride away in safety and survive to live out a long life in secuity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

There are obvious problems with both accounts.  But pretty clearly the dead man was William H. Bonney, the latest identity of a kid who began life as Henry McCarty in New York City about 20 years earlier.  Too many people who knew him, friend and foe alike, saw and recognized the body and no one who did every reliably denied it was the Kid’s.   As for the rapid burial, there was nothing unusual about that in a warm climate where embalming was unavailable.

Several men well into the 20th Century claimed to be Billy the Kid and some had impressive bullet wound scars to back them up.  Two of the best known were Ollie P. Roberts a/k/a Bush Bill who died in Texas in 1948 and Arizonan John Miller who passed a decade earlier but no evidence supported either claim.

On the other hand Garrett’s story does not entirely hold water.  It was largely written to defend himself against the wide spread, and probably justified, public opinion that he had ambushed and murdered Bonney in cold blood.  The story of him just happening to be in the dark room with Pete Maxwell simply does not make sense.  More likely Garrett lay in wait there in the expectation that the Kid would come to that specific room around that time.  Some say that one of Billy’s known girlfriends was bound and gagged before the shooting.  Whether or not that is the case, Billy likely was expecting to meet a woman—not Paulita Maxwell but one of the Maxwells’ Mexican servants for an assignation.  That would explain why he would ask “Quien Se?” in Spanish and not in English.

But we will never know for sure.

For his part five days after Bonney’s killing, Garrett went to Santa to collect the $500 reward offered by the Governor but Wallace was out of the Territory and Acting Governor William G. Ritch, refused to pay it.  But Garrett was not unrewarded—citizens of Las Vegas, Mesilla, Santa Fe, White Oaks, and other New Mexico cities including John Chisum and other large ranchers subscribed over $7000 for a private reward and the next year the Territorial Legislature made good on Wallace’s reward.

Pat Garrett's ghost written, unreliable account laid the groundwork for the Billy the Kid legend.

Garrett hired journalist Marshall Upton to ghostwrite his memoir, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid which was published in 1882.  Although initial sales were modest, interest in the book grew over the years, especially after Garrett’s somewhat mysterious murder in 1908 revived interest in Billy the Kid.

The book is the foundation of most of lore and legend and helped inspire what would become a cultural flood of fiction, plays, songs, a famous ballet, and, of course many movies.

Next—The final chapter, the cultural legacy of Billy the Kid.

Looking at Billy the Kid—Part III—On the Lam

Billy the kid as imagined in his white sombrero.

Note—The second of the biographical part of this series.

The wanted man—still a boy of 19 actually —Henry McCarty/Kid Antrim/William H. Bonney/ Billy the Kid made his way back to the relative safety of his old haunts at Fort Sumner, New Mexico in late 1879 where he reunited with one of his most reliable buddies, Charlie Bowdre and another former Regulator, Doc Scurlock.  Together they went back into the rustling business, this time hitting the herds of one-time Regulator ally John Chisum, a cattle baron famed in Western lore. The way Bonney figured it, Chisum owed him money for services rendered in the Lincoln County War.  The Chisum disagreed.  This was probably not the wisest choice that the Kid could have made.

Cattle baron John Chism, a bad man to cross, went from being an ally to an enemy.

Whatever his new difficulties with Big John might be, Bonney remained on good terms with his brother Jim Chisum and his daughter Sally, one of several comely young women he may have courted or who wished he had.  On January 10, 1880 The Kid was passing a friendly evening in a Fort Sumner saloon with Jim and some of his cowboys.  Over the course of the evening a stranger—a large, loud man—kept boasting that he was “going to kill someone” that night and was menacing to Billy and his friends who were playing cards.  At some point the stranger, identified as Joe Grant, got a hold of one of the cowboy’s fancy ivory handled revolver, and plopped it in his own holster.  Since the boys had done some target shooting earlier in the day, Bonney knew that the gun had only three rounds in the cylinder.  He deftly plucked the gun from Grant’s holster and pretended to examine in, spinning the cylinder as he did so that the next time the hammer was cocked it would advance to an empty chamber.  He then politely handed the gun back to Grant who in a rage squeezed the useless trigger at point blank range.  Bonney drew and plugged him fatally before retrieving the pistol for his friend and returning to the game.

It was a trick that became legendary and stoked the Kid’s reputation as a cool and fast hand.  Everyone seemed to regard the incident as self defense in a routine saloon fracas.  No charges were ever brought against Bill for this killing.  But then lawmen seldom ventured into hostile Fort Sumner.  Billy allowed himself to be interviewed by the Las Vegas Optic about the event.  He simply explained that it was “…a game of two and I got there first.”

Billy the Kid used a legendary trick in his up close and personal face off with Joe Grant.

In some versions of the Billy the Kid saga Grant is painted as a hired assassin from the Dolan/Murphy faction, but no evidence has ever been found connecting them.  And it makes no sense.  A hired killer could have found a way to ambush The Kid, not risk a face-to-face confrontation with the reputedly most dangerous man in the Territory.  More likely it was the cliché of scores of oaters—an upstart thug trying to make a reputation taking down a famous gunslinger.

That reputation was a problem for Bonney, and not always one of his own making.  He seemed to be blamed for every shooting, murder, or cattle theft in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.  A big part of the problem was the emergence of a new gang who cleverly dubbed themselves The Rustlers who had no connection to the Lincoln County War—although a few of their riders may have been involved in one side or another.  This was a particularly brutal outfit who prayed mostly on smaller ranchers and on Mexicans.  They murdered several ranchers and cowhands and executed at least two of their children as well as committing very public gang rapes.  Billy was publicly connected to them, although his own rustling activities were completely independent and usually aimed at major outfits like Chisum’s.  Governor Lew Wallace was one who suspected his involvement with them and had personally questioned him about it.  That would explain why he seemed comfortable about breaking his word to Billy about a pardon.

Meanwhile John Chisum got together with his old enemy James Dolan and other powerful ranchers to find a candidate to put up for Lincoln County Sheriff against George Kimball who had been totally ineffectual in the search from Bonney and other fugitives for more than a year in no small part because he was afraid to pursue them to their safe havens like Fort Sumner.  They settled on a rangy small town rancher and former bartender and card dealer in Fort Sumner who had been friendly with the kid and likely rode with him at least occasionally on his cattle raids. 

Checkered pasts were not disqualifying for Western lawmen.  In fact most of the famous men with stars had played both sides of the law.  It was considered proof that the man was skilled with a gun, brave, and knowledgeable about their prey.  

The new Sheriff in town, Pat Garrett knew Billy, his ways, and his refuges.

Pat Garrett accepted the offer, although he claimed in his memoirs that he told his sponsors that he would hunt down Billy and try to bring him in alive for trial.  With his powerful backers Garrett easily won the election.  The hunt for Billy and his pals was about to get very serious—and deadly.

Bonney had formed a relationship with a rancher named Jim Greathouse who abetted his rustling operation and introduced him to new cohorts Dave Rudabaugh and Billy Wilson. In late November 1880 the trio knocked off a store in White Oaks, a Lincoln county gold boomtown.  They were pursued by a large posse led by Deputy Sheriff Jim Carlyle which caught up with them when they made camp for the night.  In the confusion of the resulting gun fight the Kid and his men managed to slip away on foot. After steeling new horses, they made their way to the Greathouse ranch for refuge with the posse in pursuit. Four days later on November 29 the posse caught up to them again surrounding the house.

As the posse rode up, The Kid and his pals retreated into the Greathouse home.  Deputy Carlyle walked up to the door, knocked, and was admitted alone.  After shaking hands with Bonney, he demanded that he surrender peacefully to the posse.  Billy asked him if he Carlyle had warrants for their arrests. He did not. In that case, Bonney refused saying surrendering to the posse would be giving himself up to an armed mob with no assurance of safety.  When Carlyle attempted to leave he was stopped and told that he would be held until morning when he would lead them all out of the house to assure their safety and order his posse to allow them to saddle up and ride away. 

Greathouse inquired if he was also wanted, Carlyle said no, he was considered a respectable citizen.    The rancher then offered to turn himself over to the posse as a kind of counter hostage to assure everyone’s mutual safety.

A tense standoff lasted for hours with the now leaderless posse becoming more and more agitated, probably because they were freely pulling from whiskey bottles from their saddlebags.  Finally they sent a note to the house saying that if Carlyle was not released and the boys didn’t surrender, Greathouse would be shot.

Shortly thereafter one of the posse members fired a shot at the house.  Inside Carlyle assumed that Greathouse had been shot and that he would be killed in retaliation.  In a desperate attempt to escape, he crashed through a window.  Posse member seeing the man run opened fire on him and the house.  Inside, by some accounts Rudabaugh, Wilson, and the Kid also fired at the fleeing man.  Some say that Billy fired a coup de grace.  Others dispute that.  If he did, it was probably unnecessary.  Carlyle was perforated by multiple rounds, most or all of them fired by his own posse.

When the posse realized who they had shot, they panicked and scattered leaving the body behind.  Bonney and his friends we able to get away.

Although some blamed Billy for Carlyle’s death, and some historians have listed him among as The Kid’s murder victims, contemporary accounts mostly agreed he was killed by his own posse.  No pile-on charges were ever filed against Bonney or the others in the case.

Whether or not Billy had killed Carlyle personally, however, one of Pat Garrett’s deputies had been killed during an attempt to capture him.  Garrett grew more intent on capturing the Kid.  The remarkable luck of Bill and his friends was about to run out.

Pat Garrett's ambush in Fort Sumner killed Billy the Kid' best friend Charlie Bowdre

Instead of chasing fruitlessly across the rugged country, Garrett headed to the refuge to which he was sure Bonney would return—Fort Sumner, a town he knew well and which previous lawmen had shunned as too hostile.  Sympathetic locals got word to Billy that Garrett was in town so he and the survivors of the Greathouse siege, now joined by the Kid’s best friend Tom O’Folliard and another former Regulator Tom Picket at a near-by ranch.  Garrett had his own sources and soon learned of their whereabouts but instead to pursing them there sent a forged note with a mutual acquaintance telling the gang that the posse had left town and was head to Roswell. 

The boys packed up and rode through a snow storm to Fort Sumner hoping to gather supplies for a dash from New Mexico Territory.  They entered the town in a thick fog on December 18.  Garrett and his men were in and around the old adobe hospital of the abandoned Army post.  When they emerged from the fog Garrett exclaimed, “That’s them!” and the posse erupted with fire, most aiming at the lead rider who was assumed to be Bonney.  It was not.  It was Tom O’Folliard who crumpled from the saddle.  The rest turned around and skedaddled into the darkness. 

It was too late and conditions were too bad for an immediate chase.  Garrett was unconcerned.  He knew the gang would now be in a panic and short on food and supplies.  And he had a fair idea of Bonney’s haunts and likely hiding places.  It took just three days to track them to a stone house at Stinking Springs which the posse surrounded quietly in the dark.  His instructions to the posse were to shoot to kill Bonney when he emerged from the house the next morning.

Charlie Bowdre and his wife Manuela posed for this photo shortly before he was killed.  The 1880 cencus records the ccouple as living in the old Fort Sumner hospital right next door to William H. Bonney.  That was the same building where Pat Garrett and his posse hid when they fired on Billy's gang killing Tom O'Folliard.

Shortly after dawn a man emerged from the house wearing a large white Mexican sombrero like the Kid had been sporting for over a year since ditching that bashed in black chapeau in which he had been famously photographed.  The posse opened fire killing the man.  But it was not Billy.  It was another old Regulator buddy Charlie Bowdre who had just joined the group, probably having left his home in Fort Sumner just after the posse left.

Once again the situation settled into a standoff and a siege.  The stone house was a natural fortress from which the several gunmen inside could level deadly fire at anyone who approached.  They could have lasted days in there except that they were totally out of food and short on water.  As the day wore on Billy or one of the others threw a lasso around one of the horses they had tied to the hitching posts outside through the door and was trying to real him closer to the building hoping to jump on and make a desperate run for it.  Garret realized what was up and shot the horse right door, trapping the men inside.

The stone house at Stinking Springs where Charlie Bowdre was killed and Billy and the gang captured.  Note the dead horse blocking the doorway.

Late in the afternoon Bonney and the others finally surrendered and were taken peacefully. The posse returned to the ranch where the gang had hidden out and then brought the whole crew back to Fort Stanton where Garret delivered Bowdre’s body to his wife who responded with a hysterical assault on the Sheriff.  It was Christmas Day.

The next morning the prisoners were loaded into a wagon and driven under heavy guard to Las Vegas.

Tomorrow—The Final Days and after.