Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  “I’ll help you,” Morrison answered, “if you can prove to me that you are Billy the Kid. I don’t believe you are old enough.”

  “I have taken good care of myself all my life. I do not drink or use tobacco. I was never drunk in my life. Of course I did drink a little when I was young, but I figured that a drunken man could not take care of himself. Some of my boys were heavy drinkers. I never had any trouble with them, though. They minded me when we were in tight places.”

  “Well,” Morrison said, “there’s one way to tell, Peel off that sweat shirt and those pants and let me look you over.”

  Without a word of protest the old man did as he was told and stood there in his boots and nothing else. Morrison noted his fine firm muscles. “All right, what do you want,” he said.

  “Tell me about that mark on your right hip.”

  “That scare was from the time I run into the street at Lincoln to take the guns off the body of Sheriff Bill Brady. Billy Matthews ran behind an adobe wall and fired. His shot went through the flesh of this hip and then hit Wayte. I was not hurt, but Wayte was laid up a few days.

  CLIPPED THROUGH THE LEG

  Fred Wayte, who sided Billy the Kid when Sheriff Brady was killed

  “Here’s one I never took out. You can feel it right here. The slug entered just inside my left knee, doing downward and lodging in my calf muscle. I got it in a fight in a mountain pass northwest of Tularosa, where we sold them stolen cattle to that man.”

  Morrison figured out that he meant Pat Coughlan, of the Three Rivers ranch.

  “The toughest battle in my life was at the Maxwell house that night. Garrett and his posse could see me out there in the moonlit yard, but I could not see them in the shadow of the house. One of their bullets struck here in my lower jaw, taking out a tooth as it passed through my mouth.”

  He displayed a depression in his jaw- he had no teeth and had never worn a denture.

  “When I turned to jump over the yard fence, a bullet hit here in the back of my left shoulder, making this scar. Put your finger in there. After I got over the fence I stopped to fire back at them, and another of their bullets hit me across the top of my head, about an inch and a half back of the forehead, and made this scar. That was the shot that knocked me out.”

  Morrison added up twenty-six scars from bullets and knives. One crossed the back of his right hand just behind the knuckles, and there was another across the first joint of the trigger finger on the same hand.

  “I emptied this one in a fight once,” he explained, patting his left hip, “and had to draw the right one. I wasn’t as fast with my right hand as I was with the left. I could fire the pistol with both hands. I fired the Winchester and both pistols from the hip. My left hand was never hit because the man never lived who could beat me to the draw with that left. I wore my pistols in the scabbard with the butts toward the back. I fanned the hammer at times. I have been ambidextrous all my life, but I am left handed naturally.”

  “What about the story that you could pull your hands through a pair of handcuffs?” Morrison asked.

  Bill laid his thumbs inside his palms and held out his hands. The big wrists merged into the small hands without a bulge. “Did you ever see anybody else could do that?” he demanded.

  Morrison said he hadn’t.

  He made note, among other things, that Bill wore a size seven boot; that he was thirty-eight inches in the waist, with small hips; that his chest measured forty inches; and that he wore a size seven hat.

  They talked for six continuous hours, going over all the events of those far-off times and finally arriving at the trial in Mesilla, New Mexico, where Billy the Kid was convicted, on circumstantial evidence, of the murder of Sheriff Brady on the main street of Lincoln, and sentenced to hang. Brushy Bill complained bitterly, and with more tears, that the trial was unfair, that subpoenas were never served on his witnesses, that Governor Wallace had let him down by failing to come forward with a pardon, as he had promised.

  “But they didn’t hang me, they didn’t!” He concluded. “I wasn’t born to hang.”

  PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

  Above is a comparison of the face of a 27 year old William Henry Roberts with both halves of the face of a 21 year old Billy the Kid from the famous tintype. Note the left and right eyebrows are both an uncanny exact match, despite the fact that the right and left eyebrows each have a slightly different unique shape. The eyelids are also an exact match in size and shape. Likewise, the nose, mustache pattern and hairline, jawline and length of the face are all exactly the same on both men. In the tintype the Kid is slightly squinting but even so the unique nature of his pupils match exactly with those of Brushy Bill.

  Close up of the right eye of both men. Again, the Kid is slightly squinting in the tintype but the eyes and eyebrows are an exact match.

  Close up of the left eye of both men.

  Billy the Kid tintype on the left with a later photo of Billy the Kid (Brushy Bill) imposed on the right.

  Billy the Kid tintype on the right with a later photo of Billy the Kid (Brushy Bill) imposed on the left.

  The two images merge perfectly into one face, the face of Billy the Kid

  Before leaving for Beaumont to report at his headquarters, Morrison made an agreement with Roberts that he would arrange an interview with the head of his firm, Mr. R.F. Roberts; that Morrison himself would work up the records for the case; that nothing would be disclosed until a pardon was obtained-no pardon, no disclosure of the old man’s identity. Mrs. Roberts was not to know what was going on.

  On August 16, Morrison came to Hico, Texas, where Roberts and his wife had moved, and the two of them set off on a jaunt through Texas and New Mexico, intending to go over the ground where Billy the Kid had ranged and to get copies of papers necessary for carrying out their purpose. Roberts reminisced as they traveled, dredging up many a hitherto-unrecorded fact from his memories. He made mistakes and contradicted himself sometimes. He was “still running,” as Morrison puts it, and dodged questions which were too pointed. He was never easy in his mind about what he was getting ready to do, but he went ahead anyway, talked to people who might have helpful information, and even submitted to having his picture taken alongside his own grave.

  “They think they’ve got me there, buried like an outlaw with my feet to the west,” he growled on this occasion, “but that won’t get it. They didn’t get me yet, they didn’t.”

  He looked at the graves of O’Folliard and Bowdre and went on: “They shot down O’Folliard like a dog in the night. They shot Bowdre down like a dog at sunup a few days later. Neither one of them had a chance. Bowdre was wearing a large hat like mine when he stepped out the door that morning. Without saying a word they shot him down, thinking he was Billy the Kid. It was not my time to go, I guess. I never was afraid to die like a man fighting, but I did not want to be shot down like a dog without a chance to fight back. They knew that I was not afraid to die, and they knew that some of them would do down with me. I always hoped I would not die by the gun, nor be hanged with a rope. I wasn’t born to be hanged, I wasn’t. I want a pardon so I can die a free man. I wasn’t no outlaw. I never robbed banks or stagecoaches.”

  Morrison took the old man home and moved to El Paso to be near the records he would have to use. By the summer of 1950, he thought he had enough evidence. Since he was not a member of the bar, he went to the firm of Andress, Lipscomb, and Peticolas, of El Paso, and convinced them that he had something to go on. With their help, he got together a brief to present to the governor of New Mexico.

  The contentions they sought to establish were as follows:

  That Billy the Kid had voluntarily surrendered to Sheriff Kimbrel in 1879 and had received a promise that, in return for his testimony in the case of the murder of lawyer Houston Chapman, at Lincoln, he would be pardoned in the event that his own trial resulted in a conviction.

  That Billy had carried out his part of the agreement to the letter.

  That
General Wallace had only partially fulfilled his part, failing to come to the rescue when Billy was convicted and sentenced at Old Mesilla for the murder of Sheriff William Brady.

  That Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett and had now reappeared.

  And that it had now become the duty of the present governor to carry out the terms of the original agreement, entered into by Lew Wallace, to pardon this man and restore him to good standing in the state.

  And that was how Brushy Bill Roberts came to be lying on a bed in the governor’s study in Santa Fe that November morning in 1950. As things turned out, he might just as well have stayed at home.

  When the private interview was over, Governor Mabry brought him out and took him into the dining room. They both sat at the big round table, Bill nearest the door. The two state policemen took up stations on either side of the entrance. The rest of the visitors stood around the walls about twenty men in all, every one skeptical of the old man’s claim, though they treated him courteously.

  Pat Garrett’s sons Oscar and Jarvis were there, indignant about the whole proceeding. Near them stood Cliff McKinney, son of the Kip McKinney who came to Fort Sumner with Garrett and Poe the night Billy supposedly was shot. There, too, was Arcadio Brady, grandson of Sheriff Brady, for whose murder Billy was condemned to hang. Others included Will Robinson, the Albuquerque historian, and General Patrick Hurley. One at a time they turned their batteries on Ollie L. Roberts, of Hico, Texas, alias Brushy Bill Roberts, alias Rattlesnake Bill, alias the Texas Kid, alias the Hugo Kid, alias William Antrim, alias William Bonney, alias Billy the Kid.

  Roberts made a poor showing and we now know that he had a stroke on the spot. Perhaps it was the stress of the armed State Troopers or perhaps it was the stress of the media circus that the Governor orchestrated, but the end result was the same. The strain on Brushy Bill was too much for his 90 year old body to handle and it resulted in his death a few days later.

  In this context the scene that unfolded is extremely unfortunate and sad. Roberts couldn’t remember Pat Garrett’s name. He couldn’t remember the places they asked him about. When Will Robinson asked him if he killed Bell and Olinger when he escaped from the Lincoln jail, he said he didn’t do any shooting- just got on his horse and rode off. He watched the policemen at the door and was upset when the governor pointed out one of the guests as the Sheriff from Carlsbad.

  The only point he scored was making Will Robinson admit that he was pretty hazy himself about things that happened sixty years ago.

  When Oscar Garrett was asked to take his turn, he answered: “I do not wish to dignify this claim with any questions.”

  Probably everyone at the conference was convinced that Roberts was an impostor. That may explain why no one commented on the size of his hands and wrists or asked him to show any of his scars- why there was no question about any of his physical peculiarities except the present whereabouts of his famous buck teeth.

  The carefully prepared brief which had been sent to the governor was not brought out for examination and apparently had never been given thoughtful consideration by anyone in the room.

  When it was over, the governor said he would defer his decision for the moment, and Roberts asked to lie down again. “I don’t feel good,” he said, and looked as if he was going to faint. In a few minutes he felt better, but in those few minutes the governor had changed his mind.

  “I am taking no action, now or ever, on this application for a pardon for Billy the Kid because I do not believe this man is Billy the Kid.”

  The newspaper men went off to tell the world about it. “The bubble burst today for the buckskin-clad vain little man who claims he is 91 years old and is the one and only, the true Billy the Kid.” That was the sort of comment made by all the reporters present. Morrison took his client back to El Paso, expecting to renew his application when the next governor took office.

  Brushy Bill was bitterly disappointed. He did not think he had been given a square deal. He felt worse because he had left for Santa Fe without telling his wife who he claimed to be, and he was afraid she would leave him now that the cat was out of the bag. There was only one bright spot in the whole gloomy business- the fact that he would not have to go back to jail and was not going to be hanged. Otherwise it had been a bad show for him.

  He returned to his little house in Hico, Texas, and went to bed for a while. In a few days he was up and around again, but the strain had been too much for him. About one o’clock on December 27 he went out to mail a package for his wife. Just as he was passing the office of the Hico News-Review, his heart stopped ticking and he died in the street with one arm across the bumper of a car parked at the curb.

  That might have closed the chapter. For most people it did. But Brushy Bill was not giving up, even on the wrong side of the grave. He had made some attempts at writing his autobiography and had spent some time with Morrison correcting this narrative just before his death. Morrison had got some more of his recollections on a tape recorded and had taken notes on their innumerable conversations, especially the ones they had while traveling through New Mexico together. In his files were certified copies of legal papers, affidavits from old men and women, letters, and records of interviews with people who knew something about Brushy Bill. He was convinced that Roberts was really what he claimed to be and made up his mind that his man should have a hearing even if it had to be posthumous.

  He showed his material to C.L. Sonnichsen, of the staff of Texas Western College, at El Paso, a transplanted Northerner who had made a hobby of Southwestern history and folklore. Sonnichsen had met Roberts for a few minutes once, before the fiasco in Santa Fe, and was not too much impressed by Brushy Bill’s buckskin, boots, and badges until he reflected that a little exhibitionism was probably a normal part of the character of any frontier outlaw, including Billy the Kid.

  He, naturally, was bothered by the fact that this sort of thing had happened so many times before. Old desperadoes never die; they do not even fade away. They arise from their ashes, full of strength and stories. Every year some graybeard comes forward claiming to be this or that notorious character of the past- and the great killers have provoked impersonation even before they were dead. John Wilkes Booth died in Texas long after he should have been moldering in his grave. Jesse James passed on at one hundred seven, not long after the demise of his friend Brushy Bill Roberts, and other men have appeared who called themselves by the name of the fabulous Jesse. Even such an innocuous but notorious figure as Oscar Wilde was said to have survived his funeral. Billy the Kid, himself, has been reported ever since 1881 as living in Mexico, in California, in Arizona, in New Mexico, in Texas, and in South America. Old men seem to fall naturally into these delusions. It is said that in recent years the caretaker at Roy Bean’s old saloon in Langtry, Texas, grew a beard and began passing himself off as the original Law West of the Pecos.

  This story could hardly be anything but a hoax, like all the rest of them- not worth paying any attention to. And yet, Sonnichsen thought, in this age of scientific attitudes, could one afford to be positive? Inductive reasoning establishes only a strong probability. Nine hundred and ninety-nine hoaxes do not prove that the thousandth case will be a hoax too. There are always exceptions to confound the skeptic and make him skeptical of his skepticism.

  And there were things in Brushy Bill’s story that made one wonder. How did he know that negro soldiers from Fort Stanton took positions on the hillside and joined in the firing that day when the Murphy men burned McSween’s house? Not many people know about that. How could he be sure of the layout of the second story of the Lincoln courthouse and jail when the experts argue about it? Billy was not the type to read up on these matters and remember every little detail.

  And what about the killing of Jim Carlyle, the day the posse cornered Billy the Kid at the Greathouse ranch? The stories say that Billy shot him when he dived through a window. Brushy Bill maintained that Carlyle was shot by the possemen, who thought it was the K
id crashing headfirst into the open. The Kid wrote a letter to Governor Wallace afterward- a letter that historians know about but ordinary readers do not- telling it exactly that way.

  If Brushy Bill was not Billy the Kid, he must have been at the Kid’s elbow when some of these things happened. His account would, at least, shed valuable light on what actually took place.

  And suppose the old man turned out to be an impostor- he would be interesting for that very reason, if for no other. Of the thousand and one fakes who have tried to edge into the limelight, here was the only one who could be investigated; the only one, as Morrison puts it, “who had the guts to go before the governor of his state and ask for a pardon.” Here was a Western Lazarus, risen from the dead with a six-shooter in each hand, who was willing to tell of his experiences behind the veil. Such a phenomenon had never been heard of before.

  And there was one final thought. How strange it would be if the most famous American of all time should really survive into the Atomic Age; how ironic if, after almost seventy years of lying and running and hiding, he decided, with tears and tremors, to come out of the shadows- and nobody would believe him.

  There would be a real story. If it were not true, it ought to be, and somebody should look into it.

  Oscar Garrett, son of the immortal Pat, argued that to believe Brushy Bill is to question the veracity not merely of his father, but of “a whole generation”; for if Billy was not killed, practically everybody in southern New Mexico must have heard something about it and must have been accessory to a lie by keeping silent.

  It may be so. But before we talk about that let’s let Brushy Bill tell his own story.

  CHAPTER 1: BRUSHY BILL’S STORY

  MY GRANDFATHER, Ben Roberts, settled in Nacogdoches, Texas, in 1835. In 1836 he helped Sam Houston free Texas from Mexico. My father was born eight miles from Lexington, Kentucky, March 8, 1932. He fought in the Civil War in the Southern Army, under Ross, until 1863. Then he joined Quantrill. After the war he went west as a cowboy.