Billy was “a lady’s Man,” recalled his friend Frank Coe, “the Mex girls were crazy about him…. He was a fine dancer, could go all their gates [gaits] and was one of them.” The Kid had a favorite dance tune, and without fail, at some point during the evening, he would tell the fiddlers, “Don’t forget the gallina.” By gallina, the musicos knew he wanted to hear “Turkey in the Straw.” They knew this because even though gallina means “hen” or “chicken,” native New Mexicans used gallina for the wild turkey. Like Garrett, Billy had mastered New Mexican Spanish.
Hanging close to Billy that evening were his pals, and former Regulators, Tom Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. Born in Uvalde County, Texas, in about 1861, Folliard lost both of his parents to smallpox when he was very young, and as a teenager, he stood over six feet and weighed close to two hundred pounds. He had worked for a short time for a Seven Rivers cattleman before stumbling upon the Frank Coe place on the Ruidoso. When Coe decided to try the lad out as a farmhand, Folliard hitched Coe’s draft team to a right-handed plow and proceeded to plow around the field left-handed. The Kid took an immediate liking to Folliard and decided he could make a passable gun hand out of him. With practice, Folliard got as fancy with a six-shooter as the Kid. He was very close to Billy in personality, good-natured and fun-loving, always singing or humming a song to himself.
Tom Folliard.
Robert G. McCubbin Collection
University of Texas at El Paso Library, Special Collections Department
“He was the Kid’s inseparable companion,” recalled Frank Coe, “and always went along and held his horses. He held his horses when the Kid would pay his attentions to some Mexican girl. It mattered not whether he was gone thirty minutes or half the night, Tom was there when he came out.”
Charlie Bowdre had a ranch on the Ruidoso not far from the Coes and Doc Scurlock, another prominent Regulator. He was born in Georgia, but he had been raised in DeSoto County, Mississippi, the son of a wealthy plantation owner. Bowdre had been in trouble with the law well before the Lincoln County War. One of his worst episodes occurred in August 1877, when he and two companions terrorized the town of Lincoln in a drunken rampage. One resident referred to Bowdre as a “would be desperado.” On the other hand, George Coe thought that Bowdre and Bonney were the Regulators’ best fighters.
Charlie and Manuela Bowdre, 1880.
“They were both cool and cautious,” Coe recalled, “and did not know what fear was.”
Bowdre was eleven years older than Billy and had another distinction: he was the best dressed of the lot, having a fondness for fancy vests.
The fourteen months since the Big Killing in Lincoln had been mostly hell for the Kid and his compadres. On August 5, 1878, Billy, Folliard, and Bowdre, along with seventeen other Regulators, swooped down on the Mescalero Apache Indian Agency. Their sole purpose was to steal a few of the Indians’ horses. When someone saw what they were doing and the shooting broke out, agency clerk Morris Bernstein was killed. Even though Billy did not have anything to do with ending the clerk’s life, he was one of four men indicted for Bernstein’s murder. George Coe had also been indicted for the killing, and later that same month, he and cousin Frank decided it was time to get away from Lincoln County. Billy pleaded with the Coes to stay, but the cousins were tired of living like outlaws, and they wanted out.
“Well, boys, you may all do exactly as you please,” the Kid told them. “As for me, I propose to stay right here in this country, steal myself a living, and plant every one of the mob who murdered Tunstall if they don’t get the drop on me first.”
In September 1878, after numerous complaints from the Territory’s citizens, and a highly critical report from a Department of Justice special investigator, Governor Samuel B. Axtell was finally removed from office. He was replaced by Major General Lew Wallace, an aspiring novelist who had been a member of the military commission that tried the conspirators in President Lincoln’s assassination. In November, Governor Wallace granted amnesty for those who participated in the Lincoln County War. Unfortunately, this amnesty did not include any who had already been indicted on criminal charges, and that included Billy and some other Regulators. But Wallace was no friend of the Dolan crowd, either, and he quickly decided that Gold Lace Dudley was one of Lincoln County’s biggest problems.
In mid-February 1879, Billy tried to make peace with Jesse Evans and the rest of the Dolan faction, and the two sides met in Lincoln on the eighteenth. Billy brought along Folliard, Doc Scurlock, George Bowers, and José Salazar. Facing them were Jesse Evans, Jimmy Dolan, Billy Mathews, Edgar Waltz, and Billy Campbell. After a tense and shaky start, the two sides came up with several conditions for a truce—one of them being that neither side would testify against the other in court. The penalty for breaking any of the conditions was death. Once everything was settled and agreed upon, the drinking commenced. About 10:00 P.M., the men spilled out onto Lincoln’s main street, singing and shooting their guns into the air. It was then that lawyer Huston I. Chapman, who had just arrived from Las Vegas, made the mistake of thinking he could walk through the rowdy bunch. The one-armed Chapman had been hired by Susan McSween to bring Dudley to justice for his role in the killing of her husband, which made Chapman an enemy of the Dolan crowd.
A drunken Billy Campbell accosted Chapman and asked where he was going. Chapman, his face bandaged due to an attack of neuralgia, told the boys to mind their own affairs. It was the wrong answer; Campbell ordered the lawyer to talk differently—or else.
“You cannot scare me, boys,” the feisty Chapman said while lifting a bandage from his face to get a better look at the ruffians. “I know you and it’s no use. You have tried that before.”
“Then,” Campbell replied, “I’ll settle you.”
And with that, Campbell fired his pistol into Chapman’s breast. As the attorney fell, Jimmy Dolan decided that he would double the deed, aimed his Winchester and fired a round into the poor man’s body. As Chapman’s clothing smoldered from a small fire ignited by the pistol’s powder flash, a joyous Campbell let slip that he had promised Dudley he would kill the troublesome attorney. The Kid and the others did not know what to do. John Henry Tunstall had been shot down exactly one year earlier, and ever since that horrible day, many people in Lincoln County had been killed, and now another man was dead.
Chapman’s murder outraged Wallace, who realized that he had to take serious action. In early March 1879, the governor traveled to Lincoln and got Dudley removed from command at Fort Stanton. He then set about going after Chapman’s murderers, and he believed the guilty parties included the Kid and Folliard, as well as Dolan and his cronies. During these efforts, the governor received a curious letter from W. H. Bonney:
Dear Sir: I have heard that You will give one thousand $ dollars for my body which as I can understand it means alive as a Witness. I know it is as a witness against those that Murdered Mr. Chapman. if it was so that I could appear at Court I could give the desired information, but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because my Enemies would Kill me…. I was present When Mr. Chapman was Murdered and know who did it and if it were not for those indictments I would have made it clear before now…. I have no Wish to fight any more indeed I have not raised an arm since Your proclamation. as to my Character I refer to any of the Citizens, for the majority of them are my Friends and have been helping me all they could. I am called Kid Antrim but Antrim is my stepfathers name.
Bonney’s letter led to a secret meeting between him and the governor, and the Kid agreed to testify before the grand jury about Chapman’s murder in exchange for a full pardon. The Kid’s cooperation was no easy thing because he knew that Dolan and Jesse Evans, both indicted for Chapman’s murder, would be anxious to put a bullet in his back. Wallace had no such risk. On the contrary, there was the good possibility that the Territory’s newspapers would laud the governor for prosecuting Chapman’s killers. Unfortunately
for both the Kid and the governor, it did not work out that way. As Governor Wallace famously wrote some time later, “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.”
Billy held up his part of the bargain. He testified openly at both the grand jury proceedings and the subsequent military court of inquiry for Gold Lace Dudley (Dudley was exonerated of any wrongdoing). But he never got the pardon the governor promised, and District Attorney William Rynerson made it clear that he was not going along with any deal the governor made.
“He is bent on going after the Kid,” Wallace’s confidant, Ira Leonard, wrote the governor on April 20. “He proposes to destroy his evidence and influence and is bent on pushing him to the wall.” Fed up with waiting on Wallace to make good on his pledge, the Kid and Folliard, who had also submitted to arrest, quietly slipped out of town on June 17 and headed for Fort Sumner. Billy’s chance to go straight—if such a thing was truly possible—was gone.
Sumner became the Kid’s safe haven and base of operations. Charlie Bowdre found part-time employment as foreman of the Thomas Yerby ranch in an isolated area known as Las Cañaditas (Little Canyons), ten or so miles northeast of Sumner. Tom Folliard signed on with Yerby as well. Doc Scurlock followed the lead of the Coes and abandoned New Mexico for Texas, and never saw the Kid again. No matter, Billy never lacked for friends, and Fort Sumner offered plenty of girls, lots of dancing, some gambling and horse racing, and a whole lot of other people’s cattle and horses out on the open range that could be sold to more than a few unquestioning buyers. Even better, there was not a lawman in the Territory who was brave enough to go after the Kid and his confederates—not just yet.
PAT GARRETT KNEW THAT some of the men at his wedding baile were wanted by the law—everyone did. Most men in New Mexico Territory had a past—and some of them were hardened killers. That, too, was not unusual for the time and place, nor was it any cause for alarm. It was a time for celebration, and the attention was on Garrett and his bride. But as the guests watched the newlyweds dance, Juanita suddenly collapsed in what was described as some kind of fit or attack. She was quickly carried to a bed in a nearby room, where she died the next day. No one knew what happened to her. Her final resting place remains undiscovered, and she left no photographs, and no children. All that survived was a scar on Pat Garrett’s psyche and a faint memory in the minds of a few Fort Sumner old-timers.
More than most, it seems, Garrett and the Kid had experienced the tragic loss of loved ones. There was a good deal that the two had in common, actually: certain leadership qualities, for one, and their well-known fondness for the baile, horse racing, and gambling. Both were men you would want on your side in a fight. Garrett and the Kid were not good friends at Fort Sumner—but they were not enemies either. They saw each other frequently enough, and they had a healthy respect for each other, certainly each other’s ability to take care of himself. Garrett was usually serious and the Kid was usually boisterous, and they each had a reputation as a better-than-average shot with a six-gun; they were considered the two best shooters at Fort Sumner. On a slow day, and there were more than a few of those there on the Pecos, the Kid and Garrett might take part in an impromptu shooting match. Billy was ambidextrous, and people said he could shoot a pistol with one hand just as well as the other, although he favored the right hand whenever he got into a “jackpot.” According to Paulita Maxwell, Billy was better than Garrett with the revolver. She remembered a time when a terror-stricken jackrabbit on a Fort Sumner lane somehow managed to dodge every bullet Garrett fired at him. The Kid whipped out his revolver and pancaked the rabbit with his first shot. Maybe this happened, maybe not.
Others considered Garrett the better shot, possibly even the best man with a revolver in the entire Southwest. And Garrett did not rate Billy’s shooting nearly as high as many who were acquainted with the Kid. When asked if Billy was a good shot, Garrett admitted that he was, but he added that the Kid was “no better than the majority of men who are constantly handling and using six-shooters. He shot well, though, and he shot well under all circumstances, whether in danger or not.” That last was the key, of course. As Garrett remarked years later, “A man with nerve behind a gun is worth twenty-five who are after him.” There is no question that Billy Bonney had nerve; Joe Grant discovered that in January 1880.
Grant had shown up at Fort Sumner, presumably from Texas, with no job and apparently no interest in finding one—never a good sign. But somehow he had enough means to keep himself in liquor for several days. He had immediately buddied up with the Kid and his associates, who were also hanging around and not working. At some point, Grant got it into his head that he would be quite the hombre if he took out the Kid. Some claim he came to Fort Sumner with that purpose, but Grant’s scheme, which he let slip one day, could also have been the whiskey talking. In any event, Grant’s blustering got back to Billy, who remained friendly with the Texan but kept his eyes on the man.
On January 10, a Saturday, Billy and two friends rode up on a small herd of cattle that James Chisum (brother of John) and three of his cowhands were moving southward. The cattle had been stolen from the Chisum range—almost certainly by the Kid—and Chisum was taking them back. With a straight face, Billy asked to inspect the herd, as if he might actually find an animal that had not been given Chisum’s Jinglebob brand. After Billy had his look, he invited Chisum and his men to have a drink at Bob Hargrove’s saloon in Fort Sumner, less than a mile away.
Joe Grant was in the saloon when Billy, Chisum, and the others got there, and Grant was well inebriated already. As Jack Finan, one of Chisum’s men, walked past the drunken Texan, Grant yanked Finan’s pearl-handled revolver from its holster and replaced it with his own. Billy immediately stepped over to Grant and said, “That’s a beauty, Joe,” and then reached out and took the pistol from Grant. Billy examined the six-shooter’s cylinder and noticed that three of the six chambers were empty. He carefully rotated the cylinder so that when the gun was cocked and the trigger pulled, the gun’s hammer would fall on an empty chamber. The Kid then casually handed the pistol back to Grant.
“Pard, I’ll kill a man quicker’n you will for the whisky,” Grant said to Billy.
“What do you want to kill anybody for?” Billy said. “Put up your pistol and let’s drink.”
Pistol still in hand, Grant stepped behind the bar and used the gun’s barrel to smash the glasses and decanters on the counter. Everyone watched nervously as Grant pointed the pistol wildly around the saloon. Billy pulled his six-shooter. “Let me help you break up housekeeping, pard,” he said, and gleefully joined Grant in finishing off the saloon’s glassware.
Then Grant saw James Chisum across the room and mistook him for John Chisum. And, for some unknown reason, Grant had a strong grudge against the Pecos cattle baron.
“I want to kill John Chisum, anyhow, the damned old son of a bitch,” Grant said.
“You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear, Joe,” Billy said, “that’s not John Chisum.”
“That’s a lie,” Grant screamed. “I know better!”
Quick as a flash, Grant pointed his pistol at Billy and pulled the trigger. There was a click, then the sound of Grant cursing as he again cocked the gun’s hammer. But that was immediately followed by the loud blast of Billy’s six-shooter as he sent a lead ball into Joe Grant’s head. Grant collapsed behind the blood-splattered bar. A moment later, someone asked the Kid if he was sure Grant was dead. Billy nodded his head confidently.
“No fear,” he said. “The corpse is there, sure, ready for the undertaker.”
The following day, Billy, Tom Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and a Charlie Thomas went to pick up their mail at the post office in Sunnyside, approximately five miles above Fort Sumner. Bowdre casually told the postmaster, Milnor Rudolph, that another man had “turned up his toes” at Sumner. That got Rudolph’s attention, and he asked the name of the deceased. Bowdre said it was Joe Grant, and he had been shot by the Kid. Rudolph then looked at
Billy and asked him why he killed Grant.
“His gun wouldn’t fire,” Billy coolly explained, “and mine would.”
Four days after Billy sent the local undertaker a gift of Joe Grant, Pat Garrett stood before the parish priest at Anton Chico, a village ninety miles northwest of Fort Sumner, and married Polinaria Gutiérrez, the daughter of José Dolores and Feliciana Gutiérrez. Garrett’s period of mourning had been brief, but this was not unusual in a land where time was the last thing one could count on. Polinaria’s first name was actually Apolinaria, although her friends and family called her “La Negra” or simply “Negra,” presumably because of her dark complexion. Garrett towered over the petite girl, who may have been as young as sixteen. And although Garrett was basically a nonbeliever, Polinaria was a devout Catholic, and that meant the rites had to be performed by a priest. This may have seemed even more important because Garrett’s first marriage had been performed without a priest, and that had not worked out so well.
Pat and Apolinaria Garrett, circa 1880.
University of Texas at El Paso Library, Special Collections Department
NEARLY THIRTY YEARS OLD and married, Pat Garrett was tired of struggling to make a living at Fort Sumner—and tired of the criminals who seemed to have the place under their control. He wanted something better. So, too, did Pecos Valley cattleman and entrepreneur Captain Joseph C. Lea. Lea was a former Missouri guerrilla who had fought alongside the likes of Cole Younger and Frank James under Quantrill and Jo Shelby during the Civil War. Pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1865, Lea had tried his hand at farming and livestock trading before coming to New Mexico Territory in 1875. Early in 1878, Lea had moved his family to Roswell, where he soon purchased the town’s two adobe buildings, a store and a hotel. Later that same year, he was elected a Lincoln County commissioner, a good indication of the favorable first impression he had made on the region’s ranchers and settlers. What Lea wanted was to see an end to the thieving and violence in the Pecos Valley so that farming and livestock raising, not to mention little Roswell itself, could prosper. That meant getting rid of Billy the Kid and his cohorts. That meant, ultimately, the end of an era.
To Hell on a Fast Horse Page 9