Billy the Kid

by Robert M. Utley

  9. Philip J. Rasch, “Amende Honorable—The Life and Death of Billy Wilson,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 34 (1958): 97–111.

  10. The usual version, drawn from Garrett, Authentic Life, 86–89, has all the marks of another Upson yarn. In this instance, however, the Upson version is confirmed in all essentials by William Chisum, interview with Allen A. Erwin, Los Angeles, 1952, AHS. Although Will’s memory may have been heavily influenced by the Authentic Life, he surely heard the story many times from his father, James Chisum, who was a witness. Adding to Will’s credibility, his account contains details absent from the Upson rendering. See also Harwood P. Hinton, “John Simpson Chisum, 1877–84,” New Mexico Historical Review 31 (October 1956): 332–33. In addition to the Erwin interview, Hinton drew on correspondence with Will Chisum. Despite the improbabilities, therefore, I am inclined to credit the accepted version, from which the following account is drawn.

  11. A cryptic notice appeared in the Weekly New Mexican (Sante Fe), January 17, 1880: “Billy Bonney, more extensively known as ‘the Kid,’ shot and killed Joe Grant. The origin of the difficulty was not learned.” In his letter of February 3, 1880, to John Middleton, Sam Corbet referred to the shooting: “Bill Boney shot and killed a man at Ft. Sumner not long since, by the name of Grant, do not know the cause.” Fulton Collection, BOX 11, Folder 8, UAL.

  12. Las Vegas Daily Optic, February 22, 1881.

  13. William Chisum, 1952, AHS. See also Hinton, “John Simpson Chisum,” 333.

  14. San Miguel County, District Court Records, Criminal Case 1185, Territory v. William Bonney: Stealing Cattle, NMSRCA.

  15. Pat Garrett and his deputy, John William Poe, described the transaction for reporters when Coghlan’s bout with the law ground to a close in the spring of 1882: Daily New Mexican (Santa Fe), April 22, 1882; New Mexico News and Press (Raton), May 6, 1882.

  The pattern, and Billy’s role in it, were exposed in the winter of 1880–81 by Charley Siringo and other agents of the Panhandle stockmen. Siringo tells the story in A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony (Chicago: M. Umbdenstock & Co., 1885), chapter 23.

  According to my construction, Billy was busy during May 1880 at Los Portales and on the Staked Plains. Some writers, however, say that he participated in an escapade in Albuquerque in May 1880 in which he and one John Wilson stole a horse and a mule, only to be captured by a posse and lodged in the county jail. Promptly indicted, tried, and convicted, he was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. He dug his way through the cell wall, however, and made good his escape. For example, see Donald Cline, Alias Billy the Kid: The Man Behind the Legend (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 1986), 88–91.

  This adventure is recorded in the Bernalillo County Court Docket Book for the May 1880 term, NMSRCA; and in press items in the Albuquerque Advance, May 8 and 22, and the Albuquerque Review, May 20, 1880. In neither the court records nor the newspapers is the culprit identified by any name other than “Kid” or “Kidd.” Moreover, a newspaper item observes that this Kid had previously been confined in jails at Trinidad, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe. Since Billy Bonney had been in none of these jails at this time, since no other source places him anywhere near Albuquerque throughout 1880, and since he was well enough known by May 1880 to have been recognized as Antrim or Bonney, I am convinced that the Albuquerque Kid is not our Kid.

  16. McCarty, Maverick Town, 82–85.

  17. Wild submitted daily reports to the Chief of the U.S. Secret Service from his arrival in Santa Fe in September 1880 until his return to his New Orleans headquarters early in January 1881. See U.S. Treasury Department, Secret Service Division, New Orleans District, Reports of Special Operative Azariah F. Wild (T915, Roll 308), RG 87, Records of U.S. Secret Service Agents, 1875–1936, NARA (hereafter Secret Service Records).

  18. Albert E. Hyde, Billy the Kid and the Old Regime in the Southwest (Ruidoso, N. Mex.: Frontier Book Co., n.d.), 19.

  19. A biography is Leon Metz, Pat Garrett: The Story of a Western Lawman (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973). See also William A. Keleher, The Fabulous Frontier: Twelve New Mexico Items (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1962), 67–101. With the advent of Pat Garrett in this story, his Authentic Life of Billy the Kid becomes an authentic historical source. Beginning with chapter 16, the tone changes dramatically, the narrative shifts to first person, and much of the content is corroborated in other sources. Upson occasionally prettified the prose, but the writing is now essentially Garrett’s, and for succeeding events he knew whereof he wrote. Henceforth the Authentic Life will be cited in these pages without apology.

  20. George Curry, An Autobiography (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1958), 18–19. Curry, later a Rough Rider and territorial governor, related a much-quoted anecdote of Billy’s political activities. See also Keleher, Fabulous Frontier, 72–73.

  21. Metz, Pat Garrett, 57.

  22. Azariah F. Wild, report for January 2, 1881, Secret Service Records, NARA.

  23. Henry Hoyt, A Frontier Doctor, Lakeside Classics ed., ed. Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1979), 185; Daily New Mexican (Santa Fe), December 17, 1880.

  24. Azariah F. Wild, daily reports for October 20, 22, and 28, November 1 and 6, 1880, Secret Service Records, NARA.

  13. THE CELEBRITY

  1. Azariah F. Wild, daily reports for October 6 and 9, 1880, Secret Service Records, NARA.

  2. Ibid., daily report for January 14, 1881.

  3. For Grzelachowski, a fascinating character in New Mexico’s history, see Francis C. Kajencki, “Alexander Grzelachowski: Pioneer Merchant of Puerto de Luna, New Mexico,” Arizona and the West 26 (Autumn 1984): 243–60.

  4. William Chisum, interview with Allen A. Erwin, Los Angeles, 1952, AHS; Mason’s affidavit, March 18, 1881, and related documents, including indictment of the grand jury, in San Miguel County, District Court Records, Criminal Case 1200, Territory v. William Wilson, Samuel Cook, Thomas Pickett, and William Bonney: Larceny of Horses, NMSCRA. Mason’s affidavit gives November 18 as the date, but that does not fit well with later known dates. November 15 is the date given in Garrett, Authentic Life, 91.

  5. San Miguel County, District Court Records, Criminal Cases 1276 and 1278, Territory v. Barney Mason: Altering Brands, NMSRCA.

  6. For a sketch of Mason, see Philip J. Rasch, “Garrett’s Favorite Deputy,” Potomac Westerners Corral Dust 9 (Fall 1964): 3–5.

  7. The quotation is from the Socorro Sun, December 20, 1881, quoted in F. Stanley, Notes on Joel Fowler (Pep, Texas: n.p., 1963), 10. See also New Mexico Biographical Notes, Mullin Collection, HHC; Philip J. Rasch, “Alias ‘Whiskey Jim,’” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 36 (1963): 103–14; and W. H. Hutchinson and Robert N. Mullin, Whiskey Jim and a Kid Named Billie (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1967). The Greathouse ranch was located a mile or more southwest of the present town of Corona.

  8. Garrett, Authentic Life, 92, says the provisions were purchased. According to Wild’s daily report for Monday November 22, 1880, Secret Service Records, NARA, “Information has just reached me through a reliable source that Billy Kid had been driven out of the Canadian River country and was now at Greathouse ranch with twenty five armed men, and a bunch of stolen horses. On Saturday night [November 20] seven of Kids men went to White Oaks and attempted to rob one or two places and stole a lot of blankets, over coats, rifles and provisions.”

  9. Garrett, Authentic Life, 91–92. Garrett dates this event November 20. Operative Wild, however, in his report for November 21, 1880, records Mason’s journey from Lincoln to White Oaks as occurring on November 21; Secret Service Records, NARA.

  10. The best account is in Garrett, Authentic Life, 91–92. This account, however, has Billy riding back to White Oaks—where the horse came from is unspecified—and circulating unrecognized in a saloon containing members of the posse. Then the next night he is said to have taken a shot at a townsman in front of the Hudgens saloon. That Billy
would have gone back to White Oaks at all seems improbable to me. He was afoot, without provisions, and a marked man in town. I think he told the truth when he later said, “After mine and Billie Wilsons horses were killed we both made our way to a Station forty miles from the Oaks kept by Mr. Greathouse.” Bonney to Wallace, Fort Sumner, December 12, 1880, Wallace Papers, IHS. This also coincides with the statement of Joe Steck, a hand at the Greathouse ranch, cited in n. 11 below: “One day the cowboys [Billy and friends] went away, returning after three days.”

  11. The detailed account by Steck, an employee at the ranch, appeared in the Lincoln County Leader (White Oaks), December 7, 1889, and was reprinted in William A. Keleher, The Fabulous Frontier: Twelve New Mexico Items (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1962), 70–72. The standard and apparently authoritative version is Garrett, Authentic Life, 94–97. A press report obtained from posse members, datelined Las Vegas December 20, appeared in the New York Sun, December 27, 1880. A fourth account, although twice removed from the action, also merits citation; it was obtained by Frank Stewart, the Panhandle Stock Association’s detective, from members of the posse and was passed on to Pink Simms, who in turn sent it to Maurice G. Fulton in a letter of May 16, 1932, Fulton Collection, Box 4, Folder 5, UAL.

  12. Bonney to Wallace, December 12, 1880, Wallace Papers, IHS. The Steck and Garrett accounts do not mention an ultimatum or a shot. Both the New York Sun and Stewart accounts support Billy’s version.

  13. Las Vegas Daily Optic, January 21, 1881.

  14. New York Sun, December 27, 1880.

  15. Garrett, Authentic Life, 96.

  16. Las Vegas Gazette, December 3, 1880, in William A. Keleher, Violence in Lincoln County, 1869–1881 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957), 286–88. Key runs of the Gazette, including this issue, exist only in the Keleher Collection, which is not presently open to the public.

  17. Bonney to Wallace, Fort Sumner, December 12, 1880, Wallace Papers, IHS.

  18. Executive Record Book No. 2, 1867–82, p. 473, December 13, 1880, TANM, Roll 21, Frame 565, NMSRCA. W. S. Koogler to Wallace, November 30, 1880; Wallace to Koogler, December 4, 1880; Wallace to Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, December 7 and 14, 1880; all in Wallace Papers, IHS.

  14. THE CAPTURE

  1. San Miguel County, District Court Records, Civil Case 1100, John Deolevara v. Fredrike Deolevara: Divorce, NMSRCA. The file contains letters written by the estranged wife, together with her husband’s commentary, indicating that outlaws, including “Billy Kid,” often visited the house where she lived and threatened the plaintiff when he tried to get custody of the children.

  2. The plan unfolds in Wild’s daily reports from November 4 through the balance of the month, Secret Service Records, NARA.

  3. Wild had also remained in Roswell. His daily reports contain some details of the “raid,” but the best source is Garrett, Authentic Life, 101–4. For the raid on the Diedrick ranch, see Weekly New Mexican (Santa Fe), December 13, 1880.

  4. Garrett, Authentic Life, 105–6.

  5. Ibid., 114–15, says they moved into town. Brazil, in a newspaper interview, says they also spent time at the two ranches: Las Vegas Gazette, December 27, 1880.

  6. Bowdre to Lea, Fort Sumner, December 15, 1880, Ritch Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (hereafter HL), microfilm copy in NMSRCA; Garrett, Authentic Life, 115.

  7. The most authoritative account of these and subsequent events is Garrett, Authentic Life, 11 off. Accounts of three participants are James H. East, interview with J. Evetts Haley, Douglas, Ariz., September 27, 1927, HHC; Louis P. Bousman, interview with J. Evetts Haley, October 23, 1934, HHC; and Charles Frederick Rudulph, “Los Bilitos”: The Story of “Billy the Kid” and His Gang (New York: Carlton Press, 1980), 206–54. See also James H. East to Charlie Siringo, Douglas, Ariz., May 1, 1920, in Charles A. Siringo, History of “Billy the Kid” (Santa Fe: n.p., 1920), 97–105. Siringo, who headed one of the two parties, told his story first in A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony (Chicago: M. Umbdenstock & Co., 1885); again in A Lone Star Cowboy (Santa Fe: n.p., 1919); and still again in Riata and Spurs (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1927). As a result of these books, Siringo became something of an icon in the historiography of the Southwest. His penchant for romanticizing, however, gravely weakens his reliability; and anyway he did not join his comrades in volunteering for Garrett’s expedition to Fort Sumner, a decision for which he must have bitterly reproached himself throughout a lifetime of self-glorification. Although somewhat garbled, another firsthand account was given a reporter by M. S. Brazil, a peripheral actor in the events: Las Vegas Gazette, December 27, 1880. For East, see also J. Evetts Haley, “Jim East, Trail Hand and Cowboy,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 4 (1931): 48–61. The story is also told in Leon Metz, Pat Garrett: The Story of a Western Lawman (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973), 71ff.; and John L. McCarty, Maverick Town: The Story of Old Tascosa (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1946), 84ff. A number of the original sources are reprinted in James H. Earle, ed., The Capture of Billy the Kid (College Station, Texas: Creative Publishing Co., 1988).

  8. The six, besides Stewart, were “Tenderfeet Bob” Williams, Louis “The Animal” Bousman, “Poker Tom” Emory, James East, Lee Hall, and Lon Chambers.

  One of those who continued to White Oaks with Siringo was Cal Polk. As Jim East observed, “Cal Polk was just a kid and I did not blame him for not going.” But Cal Polk himself said that he went with Garrett, describing his adventures in elaborate detail in a manuscript “Life of Cal Polk, commenced January 25, 1896,” now preserved in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon, Texas (hereafter PHPHM). It is a curious document, not only for its amusing phonetic spelling but also for its combination of wild fancy with demonstrable fact. Polk clearly knew much that occurred on the Garrett expedition. By 1896 Garrett and Siringo were the only participants who had published their accounts. Polk may have obtained some of his material from their books, and very likely he absorbed a lot by talking with the other Texans such as East. Since no other authority places Polk with Garrett, I do not believe he went, which leaves this part of his autobiography, at least, a phony.

  9. Rudulph, “Los Bilitos,” 207.

  10. Roybal’s mission is recounted by Garrett, Authentic Life, 114–15, and by his fellow townsman Rudulph, “Los Bilitos,” 208.

  11. So Rudabaugh’s friend John J. Webb told Garrett when arrested at Bosque Grande on November 30: Weekly New Mexican (Santa Fe), December 13, 1880.

  12. My account of the ambush substantially follows Garrett, Authentic Life, 118–19. Surprisingly, for events so thoroughly worked over, the chronology of the Garrett expedition is hopelessly muddled or entirely nonexistent both in the sources and the secondary works. A close reading of the Authentic Life discloses a reasonably satisfactory sequence, beginning with the posse’s arrival in Fort Sumner on the morning of December 18. Garrett, however, telescopes into one day, the eighteenth, events that I have spread over two days; as a result, Garrett has O’Folliard’s death on December 18 and the capture at Stinking Springs on December 22. This not only leaves him with a day unaccounted for in his own calendar but also contradicts most other sources, which give the two dates as December 19 and 23. Both Rudulph and East support me in placing the posse in Sumner one night before the night of O’Folliard’s death.

  13. James H. East, September 27, 1927, HHC. I find East’s account of the deathbed scene more believable than the melodramatic conversation among Garrett, Mason, and O’Folliard given in Authentic Life, 120, which I suspect owed more to Upson than Garrett.

  14. Garrett, Authentic Life, 121.

  15. Rudulph, “Los Bilitos,” 210.

  16. Garrett, Authentic Life, 122.

  17. So Brazil related to Garrett: ibid., 126.

  18. The sources disagree on who went with whom. East names only himself, Emory, Chambers, and Hall as accompanying Garrett, while r
elegating Stewart, whom he obviously did not like, to the position of horse tender. Both Rudulph and Bousman include themselves with Garrett, and Mason was there. Garrett says only that he divided his force between Stewart and himself.

  19. Garrett says he gave no warning; Rudulph and Bousman agree; East says Garrett shouted “Throw up your hands!” Garrett and Rudulph say everyone fired; East says only Garrett and Lee Hall fired; Bousman says he, Garrett, and Chambers fired.

  20. This according to Garrett, Authentic Life, 125. Others gave slightly different versions. For example, Rudulph, East, and Bousman name Bonney as the one who shouted that Bowdre wanted to come out. East quotes the Kid as saying, “Charley, you are going to die anyway, so go out and see if you can’t get some of them.” East also says that Bowdre had his six-shooter in hand but was too weak to cock it. Bousman says that the pistol remained in its holster and that he, Bousman, took hold of Bowdre and laid him on a blanket.

  21. Rudulph, Brazil, and East support Garrett’s version. Bousman says he killed the horse in the doorway and Garrett severed the other ropes, although Bousman, erroneously assuming that Rudabaugh had not been remounted, counts only one other horse.