Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  “My mother’s maiden name as Mary Adeline Dunn. Her native state was Kentucky. Sometime in the late fifties my father moved to Buffalo Gap, Taylor County, Texas. I was born at the Buffalo Gap on December 31, 1859, the last hour of the last day of the year.”

  Thus begins Brushy Bill Roberts’ account of his own life, as set down in a series of paper-covered notebooks and corrected not long before his death.

  Historians have accepted without much question the statement that Billy the Kid was born in New York City on November 23, 1859, the William H. and Kathleen Bonney, and that the birth announcement appeared in the New York Times on November 25. Morrison asked the Times for a photo static copy of the announcement and was told that no information about births appeared in that issue.

  Morrison quizzed the old man about this story and was told that nobody would ever find a record of his being born in New York- that he never saw New York until he was a man. Morrison’s notes then record the following conversation:

  “Do you know why they think Billy the Kid was born in New York?”

  “Yes, because I first told them that in that country up there when I went up there in New Mexico. That’s the reason they think it, yes.”

  “You told them that you were born in New York?”

  “Yes, and that I came with Mrs. Antrim.”

  FRONTIER MOTHER

  Mary Adeline Dunn, wife of J.H. Roberts and mother of William H. Roberts a.k.a. Billy the Kid

  “You told the Coe boys that you were born in New York?”

  “Yes, and I told them Mrs. Antrim was my mother, and that I wanted to go back home to see my mother.”

  “Well, what did they say?”

  “I guess they believed it, but they should have known that Mrs. Antrim died in ’74 before I went to that country. My mother died when I was about three years old, but I did not tell them.”

  “Do you know if other people in the country told stories [lies] about their family and whereabouts?”

  “Why yes. I wasn’t the only one who ran away from home and landed in that country. I wasn’t the only bad man, either. Lots of fugitives went there to live under different names. Just like the James boys and Belle Starr. They came to Lincoln at times, but they did not tell who they were and why they were there. You know as well as I do that they have no proof on record that Billy the Kid was born in New York. Neither do they have any proof that Billy the Kid is dead. They will never find any record that he was born in New York. In those days people did not care where you come from. Not many of them bothered to ask. Sometimes when they talked too much they didn’t live very long. No, they didn’t live very long. Garrett didn’t bother to tell them everything he done before he came to that country either. He was just like the rest of us. He wasn’t no angel either.”

  His real name, the old man said, was William Henry Roberts. At the age of three he changed it for what seemed adequate reason.

  J.H. Roberts, his father, was not a suitable person to control the destiny of any child, least of all his own. “Wild Henry” was a rough and violent follow, and his war experiences, particularly his service with Quantrill, were not of the sort to civilize and refine him. This fact was plainly, and probably painfully, apparent to his relatives. Consequently, when Mrs. Roberts died, in 1862, while her husband was gone to the wars, her kinfolks came to the baby’s rescue. Mrs. Roberts’ half-sister, Mrs. Kathrine Ann (Kathleen) Bonney, came down from the Indian Territory and took him away with her, being careful to avoid leaving her address lest the father should follow and claim his child.

  They went first to Trinidad, Colorado, then to Santa Fe, and finally to Silver City, New Mexico. Young Billy Roberts lived with Mrs. Bonney (later Mrs. Antrim) and her mother until he was twelve years old, and passed as her son.

  Apparently Mrs. Bonney covered her tracks well, for when the war was over and Wild Henry Roberts came back to Buffalo Gap, he was unable to learn where his son had been taken. Soon he was married again- this time to Elizabeth Ferguson, of Tennessee. She became the mother of James Roberts, who was some six years younger than his half-brother Billy. In later years Billy consistently called his father’s second wife “Mother,” carefully omitting all reference to the things that happened to him before he was twelve years old.

  Morrison was unable to find any verification for the story that Billy left Silver City at the age of twelve after committing his first murder. He left, according to Roberts’ story, in 1872, at that age, but it was to go back to Texas to see his people. He first stopped at Buffalo Gap, only to find that his father and step mother had moved. He located them at Carlton, Texas, and lived with them for about two years, which was as long as he could stand it. During this period he was known as “Kid Roberts,” since he was small for his age.

  The only good thing that could be said for old man Roberts was that he made his son proficient in roping, riding, and shooting.

  KATHRINE ANN BONNEY

  Brushy Bill said this woman with Billy the Kid’s aunt

  “From the time I was big enough to ride, I’ve been in the saddle,” he wrote in his old age, “beginning by riding behind my father on the old Chidam [Chisholm] trail on cattle drives, seeing thousands of head in a single drive….I was a pretty good rider for a kid, riding most of the yearlings that they would run up. From that I began riding the two-year-old colts that the older boys would run up from the range. That was great sport to my boy friends. An old man stepped up to my dad one day and said, “That boy of yours is going to get some of these boys killed.” He was a Baptist preacher from Arkansas. My father told him if he didn’t want his boys around where his boys were learning to ride, that he could keep them at home. “My boy is learning to be a bronc buster, and I believe he will learn if he don’t get his neck broken.”

  “My father raised a goodly bunch of horses. I would step out in the herd and get one and break it by him helping me. By the time I was fourteen I would bar no common horse. I picked a four-year-old black out of the bunch and broke him. He could pace or singlefoot as fast as a common horse could run. Coming in one Sunday evening, he said, “You will have to let the doctor have that horse.” I told him that I had already broken fourteen horses and would have to go back to the heard to get another. “If that is the way you feel about it, I can break horses for the other man as well as for you, and get paid for it.” He drew a whip from his cow horse and like to have beaten me to death. It taken me about a month to get well. My mother doctored me up, but I didn’t go back to the herd to get another horse.

  “I left home as soon as I was well enough to travel, which was in May of 1874. From there I went to the Indian Territory by the way of the old Chisholm Trail with a herd of cattle.”

  “As my father had warned me that he would have the rangers to bring me back home, I took precautions to climb from my horse and get into the chuck wagon and cover up lest he find me as we passed through the towns, which was very few and far between.

  “I quit this herd at Briartown. As I was prodding along the trail, a big dark-featured man on a bay horse came dashing up.”

  “Where you going, Son?”

  “I could see no use in lying to him so I told him very bluntly, ‘I’m running away from home.’ And I told him why.” He said, “Climb up, Son; you may have a place to stay with me.” So I figured that would be jail.

  “We rode up to a place where I was sure he lived. He told me to go into the corral and throw a saddle on one of the horses there and bring it out. He called his cow dog and rode down across the prairie and drove up four good milk cows. Then he told me, ‘Put the horses away and I’ll tell you what will be done with you in the morning.’”

  “So you may be sure I didn’t rest good that night, as I figured I was jail bound next day.”

  “But early next morning, very much to my surprise, I found I had fell into the hands of Belle Reed, later known as Belle Starr, the great outlaw. She told me very plainly was I was to do. I was to go up on a mountain which overlooked
the surrounding country, with a pair of field glasses, and be a sentry or guard for her. My instructions were if I seen one man or rider approaching, blow one blast upon a bugle. Or if two men were approaching, blow two blasts, and so forth. And she, Belle, would do the rest.”

  “My job was a general chore boy around the place. They would go away lots of times leaving no one there but Aunt Ann, the negro cook, and me. I would take a pack horse and go to town for provisions and ammunition for them. She would go with me to the Canadian River and see me across and meet me there coming back. During the time I was there I met all the outlaws in the territory. It seemed to be a holdout for outlaws there. I got acquainted with the James boys and the Younger boys, Joe Shaw’s bunch, Rube Burrow and Jim Burrow and their bunch. I have seen them bring in sacks of money and throw it on the bed and Belle would count it out and say, “This is your part and this is my part.” Two men would be sitting there holding six shooters.”

  “At one time an outlaw ordered me to saddle his horse, talking pretty rough to me, and Belle overheard him. She told him that I was her kid and she would protect me. She told him to saddle his own horse and the quickest way to get away was too slow, for she was marking him off her list. She said, ‘Blackie, you keep away from that boy or I’ll blow your brains out.’

  Belle Starr

  “In my practice Belle discovered I was a good shot with a rifle or six gun and offered me a job as her right-hand man. The offer I at once refused, as I told her I did not like the outlaw trail. She saw that she could not make an outlaw of me and told me when I got ready to go I could go. At the end of three months she gave me nice clothes and fifty dollars in money, saying “Texas Kid, any time you want to come back, you have a home with me.” She carried me within about a mile of town and set me down.”

  “After leaving her, I went to my aunt’s home in Silver City for a few months. When my aunt died, I went back to the Indian Territory and fell in with a bunch of cattle rustlers and I was just a lackey boy for them. I had to black their boots, clean up their saddles, and anything they said to do. They beat me, they banged me, they swore they would hang me if I didn’t do it. One of the rustlers took a shine to me and gave me a small gun to protect myself from the other rustlers.”

  “They were fixing to beat up on me one day when I took a shot at a big rowdy, grazing his temple. My friend who had given me the gun stepped up and said, “Here, here, you have beat that boy enough. Try me for a change.” At which he fell in and whipped four of them.”

  “The boss also liked me. He told me, ‘Son if you can ride that buckskin hoss in there in the corral, I’ll give him to you. Also the pick of them saddles in the shed. But mind you, Son, that hoss is a killer.’ I rode him after a nasty fight. He sunned his sides and his belly too. I tell you that hoss could buck.”

  “I left the ranch next morning for Dodge City, and at the end of five days, I reached that place. The wagon yard is the place I stopped to leave my horse and hunt something to eat. There was four men sitting by a camp fire eating supper, and they invited me to eat with them. I was thankful for the meal. One of the men said, ‘Son, you have a nice hoss and saddle there.’ I told them, ‘Yes, and a high bucker, too.”

  “Next morning when I brought him out for a rub down, he began to buck at the end of my lariat. At which one of the men said, ‘Son you cannot ride that hoss. There’s not one in twenty that can.’ I told them, “I rode him here. I’ll ride him away.”

  “Well, Son, if you ride that hoss you need not look further for a job. You already have one with me.” At which he gave me ten dollars saying, “Son, make yourself to home. We’ll leave here in about four days. We’re starting on a long trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota.”

  “Someone who was acquainted with my father notified him that I was seen in Dodge City, Kansas. He at once wired to the officials to catch and hold me two months at which time he would come after me. But the city marshal only had a brief description of me. So he jailed the wrong lad. It was a lucky break for me as it gave me two months start on my dad. But never again could he get a trace of me, for I was on my way north- four of us and two pack horses.”

  The rest of Roberts’ account of these early days is hard to follow. He fell into the company of a man he calls Mountain Bill, who decided to make a career of betting on Billy’s skill as a rider. According to one of Billy’s notebooks, they covered practically the entire West, Billy riding the worst horses the ranchers and show people could dig up for him, while Mountain Bill placed bets which netted him plenty. They were in Arizona and Montana and Oregon and Wyoming and Nebraska. No horse was too much for the Texas Kid, and he attributed his success to the fact that Mountain Bill had placed him with a band of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians for training. “I trained with the Indians four months and came out an expert rider. They taught me to ride with a one-hold surcingle or a two-hold surcingle. Also, they taught me to ride with a mane hold.” He was not at his best riding in a corral, but preferred to stage his contests “on the bald prairie. I learned to ride a lick saddle with one girt, without a choke rope. Neither did I use hobbled stirrups. I used loose-rowel O.K. spurs. I was supposed to ride anything that wore hair and contest it according to Cheyenne rules after the Indians turned me loose.”

  Apparently the boy started his career as a bronco buster at a place called the Daugherty ranch, in the Oklahoma Indian Territory. He concluded this chapter of his life by taking a trip to Arizona with Mountain Bill.

  “Bill and I went to Arizona to visit with Bill’s sister and brother-in-law. This was about the first of April, 1877. We worked a few months on the Gila ranch. I think that was the name. I left Mountain Bill here and went down to Mesilla, New Mexico, where I ran into Jesse Evans and the boys I had known before. I met Jesse in Silver City about 1870 or 1871 and went with him down into Old Mexico when I left Silver City. I knew Mel Segura right after I knew Evans. Jesse and me stayed at the ranch of Segura’s uncle in Chihuahua State, Mexico.

  “When I broke Segura from jail at San Elizario, we rode to his uncle’s ranch in Chihuahua, where we hid for a few days. I don’t remember how long. We stayed there lots of times. Segura went down into Mexico and I rode back to Messila, that summer of ’77. Met Jimmy McDaniel, Billy Morton, Frank Baker, and Tom O’Keefe there.”

  CHAPTER 2: THE FEUD BEGINS

  “IN THE summer of ’77 Tom O’Keefe and I left Mesilla for the Loving’s Bend near Phoenix, New Mexico. We had a run-in with some Indians in the Guadalupe mountains and I got lost. Lost my horse in the mountains during the fight. I struggled through the mountains and wound up at the Jones place at Seven Rivers. My feet were all cut up. I had walked several days through mountain brush.

  “Jim and John Jones were working for Chisum, so I went to work with them- I think up at Bosque Grande. Frank McNab was foreman. Later Chisum moved to South Spring, I think. Tom Storey, Miles Fisher, Walker, Goss, Black, and Ketchum worked there too, I think. Sally Chisum was already there when I went to work for Chisum. Sally was not Old John’s daughter. She was his niece. Her daddy was all right then, though.”

  “I made a cattle drive to Dodge City that fall with Chisum’s outfit. We went up the Loving Trail, I think. Or the Goodnight Trail; I don’t remember now. Maybe both of them run cattle on that trail. That was before my time. It was a good wide trail that connected with the other trails further up.”

  “This was the time we had the tintype picture made at the end of the cattle trail in Dodge City.”

  AT THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

  Copy of the tintype Brushy referenced that was made in Dodge City in the fall of 1877. Left to right: Jim Jones, Bob Speaks (trail boss), John Jones, and Billy the Kid- the latter identified by Bill and Sam Jones, brothers of Jim and John Jones

  “I bought my first horse in that country from Chisum when I went to work with the Jones boys. He had that little roan that was wild and could run, so I bought him and paid for him out of my pay from Chisum.”

  “I left
Chisum and worked for Maxwell a short time at Bosque Redondo. Then I went over to Frank Coe’s place on the Ruidoso. While there I run into Jesse Evans and Baker again. They took me to Murphy’s cow camp in the Seven Rivers country. Evans and his gang stole cattle from Chisum, and some horses too. They still had some of the horses when I went to work with them at Murphy’s Seven Rivers camp that winter. They had stolen this roan, too, but he got back to the ranch.”

  “Later on we got into an argument about my share of the bunch of cattle we cut out, and one of the horses I was supposed to get, and they welshed on the deal. Baker accused me of stealing the little roan that I rode up there on when I went to work with them. I told him I bought the horse from Chisum with my own money, and I aimed to keep him too, I did. I had both six-shooters on him when I said it, but Jesse knocked the right one down. I swung the other over with my left hand and held it right in his ribs while I told him. He told the boys to keep still or suffer the consequences, and begged me to leave peacefully.

  “You know Jesse and I were nearly like brothers. We had roamed New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Old Mexico together. Jesse and I argued, and I nearly killed him one day in Lincoln, but I always felt close to him. I tried to spring him from jail in Stockton one time after they killed Chapman.”

  “I almost killed Baker and Morton that time. Guess I should have done it, but I didn’t.”

  “Well, after Jesse told them to keep still, I jumped on my little roan pony and rode back toward Tunstall’s ranch on the Feliz. I was on my way to Coe’s place. I stopped at Tunstall’s to get something to eat. We always rode up to ranch houses when we got hungry. I knew some of the boys there. Dick Brewer was foreman. Bowdre had left Chisum and went to Tunstall’s. John Middleton, Doc Skurlock, Bob Widenmann, and lots of others were there too. Dick Brewer, the foreman, was a friend of Coe, and I told him I was headed back there, as I had had trouble with Murphy’s men. After eating that day, Tunstall said that I might as well stay there with the boys, so he hired me to ride for him. That’s the way I met Tunstall.”