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Steals His First Horse—Finds a Partner—Kills Three Indians for Plunder—A Star Gambler in Arizona-High Times in Tucson—Horse Race with Indian-No Show to Lose—A Tight Place—Killing at Fort Bowie, and Flight from Arizona—Old Mexico
AND NOW we trace our fugitive to Arizona. His deeds of desperate crime in that Territory are familiar to old residents there but it is impossible to follow them in detail, or to give exact dates. It is probable that many of his lawless achievements have escaped both written history and tradition. Records of the courts, at the Indian agency and military posts, and reports from officers and citizens give all the information which can be obtained and cover his most prominent exploits. These reports tally correctly with Billy's disconnected recitals, as given to his companions, in after years, to pass away an idle hour.
After the fateful night when Billy first imbrued his hands in blood and fled his home, he wandered for three days and nights without meeting a human being except one Mexican sheepherder. He talked Spanish as fluently as any Mexican of them all, and secured from this boy a small stock of provisions, consisting of tortillas and mutton. He was on foot, and trying to make his way to the Arizona line. Becoming bewildered, he made a circuit and returned to the vicinity of McKnight's ranch, where he took his initiatory in horse-stealing.
The next we hear of Billy, some three weeks after his departure from Silver City, he arrived at Fort (then Camp) Bowie, Arizona, with a companion, both mounted on one sore-backed pony, equipped with a pack-saddle and rope bridle, without a quarter of a dollar between them, nor a mouthful of provision in the commissary.
Billy's partner doubtless had a name which was his legal property, but he was so given to changing it that it was impossible to fix on the right one. Billy always called him "Alias."
With a fellow of Billy's energy and peculiar ideas as to the rights of property, this condition of impoverishment could not continue. After recuperating his enervated physique at the Fort, he and his companion, on foot (having disposed of their pony), with one condemned rifle and one pistol, borrowed from soldiers, started out on Billy's first unlawful raid.
As is generally known, Fort Bowie is in Pima County, Arizona, and on the Chiracahua Apache Indian Reservation. These Indians were peaceable and quiet at this time, and there was no danger in trusting one's self amongst them. Billy and his companion fell in with a party of three of these Indians, some eight or ten miles southwest of Fort Bowie in the passes of the mountains. A majority of the different tribes of Apaches speak Spanish, and Billy was immediately at home with these. His object was to procure a mount for himself and his companion. He tried arguments, wheedling, promises to pay, and every other plan his prolific brain could suggest—all in vain. These Indians' confidence in white man's reliability had been severely shaken in the person of Indian Agent Clum.
Billy gave a vague account of the result of this enterprise, yet uncompromising as it sounds, it leaves little to surmise. Said he:
"It was a ground hog case. Here were twelve good ponies, four or five saddles, a good supply of blankets, and five pony loads of pelts. Here were three blood-thirsty savages, revelling in all this luxury and refusing succor to two free-born, white American citizens, foot sore and hungry. The plunder had to change hands—there was no alternative—and as one live Indian could place a hundred United States troops on our trail in two hours, and as a dead Indian would be likely to take some other route, our resolves were taken. In three minutes there were three "good Injuns" lying around there, careless like, and, with ponies and plunder, we skipped. There was no fight. It was about the softest thing I ever struck."
The movements of these two youthful brigands for a few days subsequent to the killing of these Indians are lost sight of. It is known that they disposed of superfluous ponies, equipage, and furs to immigrants from Texas, more than a hundred miles distant from Fort Bowie, and that they returned to the reservation splendidly mounted and armed, with money in their pockets. They were on the best of terms with government officials and citizens at Fort Bowie, Apache Pass, San Simon, San Carlos, and all the settlements in that vicinity, and spent a good deal of their time at Tucson, where Billy's skill as a monte dealer and card player generally kept the two boys in luxuriant style and gave them enviable prestige among the sporting fraternity, which was then a powerful and influential element in Arizona.
If anything was known by the authorities, of the Indian killing episode, nothing was done about it. No one regretted the loss of these Indians, and no money could be made by prosecuting the offenders.
The quiet life Billy led in the plazas palled upon his senses, and, with his partner, he again took the road, or rather the mountain trails. There was always a dash of humor in Billy's most tragical adventures. Meeting a band of eight or ten Indians in the vicinity of San Simon, the two young fellows proposed and instituted a horse-race. Billy was riding a very superior animal, but made the race and bets on the inferior one ridden by his partner, against the best horse the Indians had. He also insisted that his partner should hold the stakes, consisting of money and revolvers.
Billy was to ride. Mounting his partner's horse, the word was given, and three, instead of two, horses shot out from the starting point. The interloper was Billy's partner, on Billy's horse. He could not restrain the fiery animal, which flew the track, took the bit in his teeth, and never slackened his headlong speed until he reached a deserted cattle ranch, many miles away from the improvised race track.
Billy lost the race, but who was the winner? His partner with all the stakes, was macadamizing the rocky trails, far beyond their ken, and far beyond successful pursuit. It required all Billy's Spanish eloquence, all his persuasive powers of speech and gesture, all his sweetest, most appealing expressions of infantile innocence, to convince the untutored and unreasoning savages that he, himself, was not only the greatest looser of them all, but that he was the victim of the perfidy of a traitor—to them a heinous crime. Had not he, Billy, taken all the bets, and lost them all? Whilst their loss was divided between a half-dozen, he had lost his horse, his arms, his money, his friends and his confidence in humanity, with nothing to show for it but an old plug of a pony that evidently could not win a race against a lame burro.
When did youth and good looks, with well simulated injured innocence, backed by eloquence of tongue and hand-spiced with grief and righteous anger, fail to affect, even an Apache. With words of condolence and encouragement from his sympathizing victims, Billy rode sadly away. Two days thereafter, a hundred miles from thence, Billy might have been seen solemnly dividing spoils with his fugitive friend.
The last and darkest deed of which Billy was guilty in Arizona was the killing of a soldier blacksmith at Fort Bowie. The date and particulars of this killing are not upon record, and Billy was always reticent in regard to it. There are many conflicting rumors in regard thereto. Billy's defenders justify him on the ground that the victim was a bully, refused to yield up money fairly won from him, by Billy, in a game of cards, and precipitated his fate by attempting to inflict physical chastisement on a beardless boy. One thing is sure, this deed exiled Billy from Arizona, and he is next heard of in the State of Sonora, Republic of Mexico.