8
I am not going to leave the country, and I am not going to reform, neither am I going to be taken alive again.
—BILLY THE KID
Let those doubt who will.
—PAT F. GARRETT
SANTA FE, APRIL 30 1881. Governor Lew Wallace sat at his desk in his office in the Palace of the Governors. Before him was the death warrant for one William Bonney, alias Kid, alias William Antrim. This handwritten document directed Sheriff Garrett to carry out Billy’s death sentence on Friday, May 13, as ordered by the district court in Mesilla, but before any of this could happen, the governor had to sign the warrant.
The fifty-four-year-old Wallace, a native of Indiana, was an extremely intelligent man who could speak knowledgeably on any topic. Known for his dry wit, he was also slightly pompous, opinionated, and rather defensive. His father, a West Point graduate, had served as both lieutenant governor and governor of Indiana. Wallace, who as a child dreamed that he would become victorious and famous on the battlefield, interrupted his law school studies to join an Indiana regiment in the U.S.–Mexican War of 1846–1848. Thirteen years later, when the Civil War broke out, he again gave up his law practice to become a soldier. As his state’s adjutant general, he raised and organized six regiments of Indiana men and then accepted the command of one of those regiments as its colonel. By March 1862, Wallace had achieved the rank of major general of volunteers—he was only thirty-four years old. General Wallace was not tall, but he was a dashing figure with his long beard and bushy mustache, jet black hair, and piercing dark eyes. His men affectionately nicknamed him “Louisa.”
Lewis “Lew” Wallace, territorial governor of New Mexico and author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Robert G. McCubbin Collection
But unfortunately, Wallace’s glory days were short-lived. At the bloody Battle of Shiloh, on April 6–7, 1862, he became the scapegoat for the Union’s near defeat and its shocking loss of men when more than thirteen thousand were killed, wounded, or captured. When General Ulysses S. Grant ordered him to rush reinforcements to the front, Wallace had sent his division over the wrong route, and by the time the mistake was caught, hours had been lost. Wallace’s men did not unite with the rest of Grant’s force until after the first day’s fighting was over. His division fought during the next day’s battle, but even though that day ended in a victory for Grant, Wallace’s Civil War career was subsequently sidetracked and forever tainted with charges of tardiness at Shiloh. The accusations caused Wallace to spend the rest of his life defending his actions.
One episode demonstrates just how sensitive Wallace became to the subject of Shiloh. In June 1881, while sitting in a State Department reception room, Wallace noticed on a table a copy of the first volume of Adam Badeau’s three-volume Military History of Ulysses S. Grant. Wallace picked the book up, immediately flipped to the pages covering Shiloh, and then became incensed at Badeau’s criticism of his performance. Wallace grabbed a pen and wrote a stinging rebuke in a margin of the offending page: “There are more willful falsehoods in the foregoing paragraph than in any other of the same length in English literature. Lew Wallace.”
President Rutherford B. Hayes had appointed Wallace territorial governor of New Mexico (at an annual salary of $2,600) in September 1878, with the primary task of ending the Lincoln County troubles. So far, Wallace had failed, despite good intentions and considerable effort. His amnesty proclamation had allowed some of the worst offenders in the war to go scot-free while effectually leaving others the choice of either fleeing the Territory or living outside the law. He had failed to get anyone convicted for the murder of Huston Chapman, and although he got Gold Lace Dudley removed from command at Fort Stanton, that officer was later exonerated of any wrongdoing for his actions during the Big Killing in Lincoln.
And then there was William H. Bonney and the exasperating talk of a pardon. For one thing, Wallace never understood the boy—of course, not many did—nor did he understand the sympathy and friendship the outlaw enjoyed with native New Mexicans. Wallace’s haughty estimation of Bonney was revealed early on in a letter written at Lincoln on March 31, 1879: “A precious specimen nick-named ‘The Kid,’ whom the Sheriff is holding here in the Plaza, as it is called, is an object of tender regard. I heard singing and music the other night; going to the door, I found the minstrels of the village actually serenading the fellow in his prison.” Not surprisingly, Wallace’s opinion of the Kid failed to improve over time.
Now, that precious specimen was a problem and an embarrassment. Every mention of the outlaw in the newspapers was a reminder of the governor’s failings in Lincoln County. Surely with some satisfaction, then, Wallace signed the death warrant for the Kid, after which the great seal of the Territory of New Mexico was affixed. Wallace knew his term as governor was quickly coming to an end, but with Billy waiting in jail, he would likely still be in Santa Fe when the Kid dropped through a trapdoor and was hanged. So be it.
Later that same day, a wire arrived at the Palace of the Governors. Wallace may have been enjoying a pleasant smoke at the time—something he was fond to do—or he may have been replying to correspondence from some early fans of his new novel, Ben-Hur. The book had been released by Harper & Brothers on November 12, 1880, and had sold out of its first printing of five thousand copies by December 22. It continued to sell steadily. At any rate, a telegraph message usually indicated a matter of some importance, and Wallace read the telegraph immediately. Sent from Deputy Sheriff Ethan W. Eaton at Socorro, 138 miles to the south, the message contained but one sentence: “Billy the Kid escaped from Lincoln yesterday evening, killing Deputy Sheriffs J. W. Bell and Bob Olinger.”
Like a deadly contagion, the news that Billy had escaped again raced from person to person throughout the Territory, even if few people knew the particulars of what had happened. Not until two days later did the Daily New Mexican have enough details of the escape to publish an extra edition. And on May 3, the New Mexican devoted even more space to the escape and somehow managed to find new respect for Billy in his ruthless act:
[It was] as bold a deed as those versed in the annals of crime can recall. It surpasses anything which the Kid has ever been guilty of so far that his past offenses lose much of their heinousness in comparison with it, and it effectually settles the question as to whether the Kid is a cowardly cut throat or a thoroughly reckless and fearless man. Never before has he faced death boldly or run any great risk in the perpetration of his bloody deeds.
News of Billy’s sensational escape spread across the front pages of the nation’s newspapers as fast as it could be transmitted over the telegraph, and he became even more notorious, and more feared than ever before. The words Billy the Kid danced off the tongues of shopkeepers and housewives, butchers and bakers, schoolchildren and ministers, and he immediately rose to a status alongside the most famous outlaw of that era: Jesse James. Jesse, unlike the Kid, was a hardened professional bank and train robber of many years’ experience, but like the Kid, he was daring, a media favorite, and quite adept at evading the law (even more so than Billy). Whatever was to come for the Kid, the Lincoln courthouse escape had earned him a place in the American consciousness.
And what was to come began to haunt many in the Territory. “This is terrible,” wrote a Lincoln correspondent to the New Mexican, “and the Kid is free with his threats of murder thick in the air. He said, I understand, that he wanted to live long enough to kill Governor Wallace, or as he put it, ‘that damned old son of a bitch Wallace.’ He [Wallace] cannot be too vigilantly on his guard.”
Wallace did have to worry that Billy might just show up in the plaza one dark night like some rabid animal, seeking vengeance. Wallace immediately posted another $500 reward for the Kid’s capture, and then put together a plan for his own personal safety. Every morning, he stepped outside the rear of the Palace with a revolver in his hand. He walked quietly to a thick adobe wall where he had had a chalk outline drawn of a human form. He squared himself, took aim and fired several practice shots at the faceless figure. He then returned to his office, laying the pistol on a table at his side within easy reach. “Forewarned, forearmed,” the former Union general told a friend. If Billy ever did ride into Santa Fe, it would be a different Lew Wallace confronting him. This Wallace had turned himself into an expert pistoleer.
THE NEWS OF THE Kid’s escape and the murder of his two guards quickly reached Pat Garrett in White Oaks. Garrett departed the mining camp for Lincoln the evening of April 29 with a former Colfax County deputy by the name of Goodlett. The sheriff faced not only the gory mess Billy left behind, but also pangs of guilt. True, Bell and Olinger died because of their own carelessness, but Garrett was not completely without blame, as he freely admitted later: “I knew the desperate character of the man whom the authorities would look for at my hands on the 13th day of May—that he was daring and unscrupulous, and that he would sacrifice the lives of a hundred men who stood between him and liberty…. And now I realize how inadequate my precautions were.”
In his own defense, Garrett maintained that his explicit instructions to the guards were not followed. But as sheriff, it was his responsibility to correct the unacceptable behavior he observed in Bell and Olinger before leaving for White Oaks, or, one might argue, either relieve the deputies from duty or postpone his trip. He did neither. All Garrett could do at this point, however, was to see to the final affairs of his former deputies and once again take up Billy’s trail. This time, though, there would be no taking the Kid alive.
Governor Wallace’s reward notice for Billy the Kid, published in the Santa Fe New Mexican beginning May 3, 1881.
Robert G. McCubbin Collection
“I knew now that I would have to kill the Kid,” Garrett later told writer Emerson Hough. “We both knew that it must be one or the other of us if we ever met.”
Garrett arrived back in Lincoln the next day and immediately organized a party of volunteer scouts and followed the Kid’s route out of town, hoping to pick up his trail. But the Kid left little to follow, and folks along the way were not talking, at least not to Garrett. Garrett then sent out his deputy, Barney Mason, to see what he could find. Garrett figured that a single man would likely have an advantage over a sheriff’s posse, considering how Kid-friendly the countryside was. Mason, undoubtedly a bit nervous about doing this alone, actually did have better luck tracing Billy’s movements and was able to trail the Kid all the way to Fort Sumner and arrived there on May 7. The next morning, a Sunday, a mulatto stock raiser named Montgomery Bell told Mason that his horse had been stolen. Bell thought the animal had been taken by a “Mexican,” by which he meant a native New Mexican. He asked Mason to catch the thief.
Mason started out from Fort Sumner with cattleman Jim Cureton. After riding fifteen miles, the two arrived at a sheep camp at the head of Buffalo Arroyo, where they suddenly came upon the stolen horse, as well as its rider—Billy the Kid. The Kid was with four Hispanic men who rapidly positioned themselves as if to shoot it out with the intruders. Mason was the only one carrying weapons, but as soon as he recognized Billy, he whipped his horse around and dug his spurs in deep, leaving a stunned Cureton wondering what had happened.
As the Las Vegas Gazette reported, and everyone knew, Billy “never had any great love for Barney…especially since he assisted in the capture of Billy and party at Stinking Springs.” Mason, of course, knew this better than anyone else. Cureton supposedly spoke to Billy, who asked him to tell Montgomery Bell that he had taken the horse because he had no other way of getting around, and that he would either arrange to return the horse or pay him for it.
Back at Fort Sumner, Mason and Cureton tried to raise a posse to go out after the Kid, but they could not find anyone who wanted anything to do with it. Everyone said it was a foolhardy mission. A fellow could get shot—or worse (probably worse). And besides, many people there liked the Kid. Mason eventually sized up the situation for what it was and realized it was unsafe for him to remain in the area. He promptly loaded up his family in a wagon and headed out of town to Roswell.
Billy had no intention of leaving the Fort Sumner vicinity. He was staying, or being given refuge, in the outlying sheep and cow camps, the small Hispanic settlements, and, of course, within Fort Sumner itself. His friends, mostly native New Mexicans, were always watching out for strangers or suspicious activity, and they brought him the latest newspapers, in which Billy must have read some of the crazy stories being written about him, the wildest being that he had murdered three Chisum cowboys in cold blood because of his grudge against the Pecos cattle king. It was a complete fabrication, but the story was taken for the truth by a public who only knew the Kid as a vicious killer.
In early June, in a story first published in the Denver Tribune but picked up by several other newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, it was reported that Billy was staying close to Fort Sumner because of a sweetheart. This information had come from Colonel George P. Buell, post commander at Fort Stanton. Sheriff Garrett knew all about Billy’s favorite girl at Fort Sumner, and that girl, of course, was Paulita Maxwell, Pete’s teenaged sister. Billy had had his fair share of female companionship, but Paulita appears to have been the only girl who wrote to him when he was in jail in far-off Mesilla (the Kid had proudly shown Paulita’s letter to Sheriff James W. Southwick). As an elderly woman, Paulita admitted she might have married Billy—if he had asked. Perhaps the Kid intended to, but if so, he waited too long.
Despite reports that Billy was on the Pecos, Garrett did not seem to be doing much in the weeks following Billy’s bloody escape. He remained at home a good part of the time, enjoying his small family and tending to his modest ranch. This brought Garrett criticism from those who wanted Billy swiftly brought to justice, or, better yet, dead. Although Billy still had his sympathizers, they were in the minority, and the brutal courthouse murders, as well as Billy’s threats to kill his enemies, from Garrett on up to Governor Wallace, sent chills through most of the Territory’s citizens. They did not want this heinous murderer in their midst any longer. But the Lincoln County sheriff kept his own counsel. He was not one to be pushed into anything, and if he was going to go after the Kid—and no one doubted that he would at some point, hazardous though it would be—he was going to do it his way.
Paulita Maxwell, Billy’s girl.
Robert G. McCubbin Collection
While Garrett was willing to believe that Billy had returned to his old haunts in the Fort Sumner vicinity, he also had serious doubts. He thought it absolutely incredible that the Kid, the most wanted man in the Southwest, would linger in the Territory when there was nothing to stop him from slipping across the border into Mexico, girl or no girl. Garrett knew the Kid was not stupid, and so he was often skeptical about each report of Billy’s whereabouts. Garrett did not dismiss the rumors, but he also knew he could wait. “If my seeming unconcern deceived the people and gave the Kid confidence in his security,” he wrote later, “my end was accomplished.”
Billy did feel comfortable and secure in and around Fort Sumner. His friends there included Garrett’s own sister-in-law, Celsa Gutiérrez, a twenty-five-year-old married woman with whom Billy may have had an affair (some people said she bore Billito children), and her husband, Saval. And most of those who were not the Kid’s friends were too scared to cross the fugitive. Billy must have enjoyed the notoriety and deference he received at Sumner. In Mexico, he would be just another gringo on the run. The Kid also possessed enough hubris to explain why he chose to remain within Garrett’s reach. In his fast twenty-one years, Billy had rarely encountered a man he had not bested or outsmarted, and he had survived numerous tight spots and had escaped many captors. Billy, like other young men his age, probably thought he would live forever.
SOMETIME IN LATE JUNE or early July, Garrett got a letter from a merchant at Fort Sumner (probably his old partner Beaver Smith), telling him the Kid was hanging around Pete Maxwell’s place. A very few brave individuals at Fort Sumner, it seems, were willing to secretly correspond with the Lincoln County sheriff. Garrett, now at his office in Lincoln, also got a reply to a letter he had written to Manuel Brazil, asking if he knew anything about Billy’s current whereabouts. Garrett knew he could trust Brazil, who had been a useful ally in the Stinking Spring capture. In his letter, Brazil said he knew he was on the Kid’s hate list, so he was being very careful in his movements. He had not personally encountered the outlaw. Even so, he had good reason to believe that the Kid was in the area. Brazil closed his letter by offering Garrett any help he could give in capturing the Kid.
Around this time, John W. Poe arrived in Lincoln from White Oaks with an intriguing story for Garrett that also placed Billy at Fort Sumner. Poe, a twenty-nine-year-old from Kentucky, was working for the Canadian River Cattle Association to recover stolen Texas cattle and also to help put the clamps on the rustling of Texas herds (Frank Stewart’s old job). Like Garrett, Poe had spent time as a buffalo hunter on the Texas plains during the big killing years of the 1870s. He even later claimed that he single-handedly harvested twenty thousand bison. By helping to finish off the buffalo herds, though, he had also killed his livelihood, so Poe became a lawman, first accepting a one-year appointment as Fort Griffin’s town marshal. In 1879, he moved to Mobeetie, Wheeler County, Texas, where he served as a deputy sheriff and deputy U.S. marshal. After losing the election for county sheriff by one vote, he became a livestock detective for the Panhandle cattlemen.
Poe was six feet tall with a solid build. He had a thick, drooping mustache much like Garrett’s, and the two men shared a similar determination and nerve. After assuming his duties as a stock detective, Poe had traveled to White Oaks in March 1881, where he first met the new Lincoln County sheriff, and he and Garrett formed an alliance. Garrett commissioned Poe as a deputy sheriff. This gave Poe the legal authority in New Mexico to make arrests, and he began doing so, becoming quite good at locating stolen Texas cattle and even finding the hides of stolen cattle that had been processed. Poe later wrote that the Lincoln County sheriff impressed him as a “very brave and efficient officer.”
White Oaks remained Poe’s headquarters, and in early July 1881, he was approached by George Guinn, a forty-year-old miner, who said he had information about Billy the Kid. Back in Texas, Poe had known Guinn as a decent man, but the miner had fallen on the bottle and hard times in White Oaks. Having no other place to stay, Guinn slept in a vacant room in the livery stable of Sam Dedrick and William West, both of whom were known to be associates of the Kid and his gang. Guinn emphasized that what he was about to tell Poe must be kept in the strictest confidence, because he feared his life would be in danger if word got out about what he knew. And what he knew was this: a night or two ago, he had overheard a conversation between Dedrick and West in which they said the Kid was at Fort Sumner. Guinn also picked up from this same conversation that Billy had been in the White Oaks vicinity twice since his escape, and both times, he had met with these two men. Poe had trouble believing Guinn’s story, but the man was so insistent and sincere that he decided to report it to Garrett.
Garrett, James Brent (standing), and John W. Poe.
Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico
Garrett decided that the time was right to make a little jaunt to Fort Sumner. He wrote a quick note to Manuel Brazil to meet him at the mouth of Taiban Arroyo, five miles south of Sumner, one hour after dark on July 13. Garrett knew better than to travel with a big posse on such a touchy job—the more men who knew what the sheriff was doing, the greater the risk that someone would tip off the Kid. Instead, he would ride with only two deputies, Poe and Thomas C. “Kip” McKinney.
Garrett liked the twenty-five-year-old McKinney, who had ridden with the Roswell posse when Garrett made his first raid on Fort Sumner back in November. Raised a cowpuncher in Uvalde County, Texas, McKinney was a gangly man with a dark, bronzed face, pale green eyes, and the requisite lawman mustache sprouting out beneath his distinctive Roman nose. Garrett told Poe what the plan was, but he did not inform McKinney at first, telling him only that he was about to make a business trip to Arizona and he wanted McKinney to accompany him. They would first travel to Garrett’s home in Roswell, where Garrett had some small matters to attend to, and from there they would leave for Arizona. Garrett believed it a good idea to plant a false story in Lincoln, knowing that at least one or two townspeople would not be able to stop themselves from asking McKinney what he was up to. Once they were well on their way, Garrett told McKinney the truth: they were going after the Kid.
After a brief stop at his ranch to see Polinaria, Garrett led his men north, up the Pecos, on the night of July 11. The manhunters stayed off the main road and traveled mostly after sundown. They purposely made no stops at ranch houses along the way. They reached the meeting place at the appointed time, but Brazil was not there to greet them. He probably had not gotten Garrett’s letter. After waiting for about two hours, they rode off the road some distance, picketed their horses, and made camp for the night. Shortly after the dawn, they mounted up and rode to some low hills where they could use their binoculars to scan the countryside. They did not see anything out of the ordinary and figured it was time to come up with a plan.
Poe had never been to Fort Sumner before, and no one there knew who he was, so they decided that he would visit Sumner alone and try to determine if the Kid was anywhere close. Poe would then ride to the nearby settlement of Sunnyside and look up the postmaster, Milnor Rudolph, a friend whom Garrett trusted. The three of them would meet back up that night at moonrise a few miles north of Sumner at a place known as La Punta de la Glorieta (the point of the intersection).
Poe rode into Fort Sumner before noon that day and was immediately aware that he was being noticed and watched. Just as soon as he tied his horse to a hitching post outside a saloon and store, a small crowd of men gathered around and pleasantly asked where he was from and what his business was. The deputy said he had tried his hand at mining in White Oaks and was now on his way back to his home in the Texas Panhandle. The story seemed logical enough to the locals, who invited Poe to have a drink in the saloon. It was never really just one drink, but Poe was very careful to have only a small amount of liquor and still not offend his new friends. Not surprisingly this led to a meal in the store, the first square meal he had eaten in days.
For the next hour or two, Poe lounged about the plaza, striking up a conversation now and then with the people he ran into. But he could tell that the folks of Fort Sumner were noticeably on edge, and no matter how gingerly he tried to get them to talk about the Kid, his inquiries were met with suspicion. Disappointed, he left for Sunnyside without having learned a thing.
Poe reached Sunnyside late in the day and handed Rudolph a letter of introduction from Garrett, saying that he needed a place to stay for the night. The postmaster warmly invited Poe to his home, where the deputy received his second meal of the day. Poe had been careful not to mention the purpose of his visit, but after supper and some small talk he began talking about Billy’s escape from Lincoln. He then told Rudolph he had heard the Kid was hanging around Fort Sumner. Rudolph’s demeanor changed abruptly. He nervously said that he had heard about these rumors but he did not believe them; the Kid was too smart to risk his life by remaining in the Territory.
“We talked on about other things,” Poe wrote later, “but every time I mentioned the Kid the same agitation showed in the old man’s actions and talk.”
Finally, Poe decided to tell Rudolph that he was working with Garrett to track down the Kid, and Garrett had specifically sent him to Sunnyside because he believed that Rudolph could provide information on Billy’s whereabouts. At this, the old man became even more agitated, and it was Poe’s turn to become suspicious. In Rudolph’s defense, he did not know this man who was asking such pointed questions about the Kid, and like many others in the area, he was terrified of Billy and what he might do. Rudolph was very aware of the Kid’s bloody record—which included the murder of a sheriff and three deputies—and that no one had been able to hold him in jail for very long. So Rudolph denied that the Kid was anywhere close to Fort Sumner, and that convinced Poe that he was onto something. Poe ended the conversation by saying he had changed his mind about spending the night. His horse was now well rested and fed, and it would be more comfortable to ride during the cool hours of the night. A look of relief came over Rudolph’s face.
AFTER POE SEPARATED FROM Garrett and McKinney that morning, the sheriff and his deputy had ridden over to the Pecos and spent the day out of sight in the brush and willows near the river. Once darkness flooded the valley, they mounted up and Garrett led McKinney in a circle around Sumner. As they approached the meeting place, they recognized Poe riding up from the opposite direction. Poe told Garrett that although he had failed to gather any positive information in Sumner, the townsfolk’s reticence to discuss the outlaw and, more especially, Rudolph’s strange behavior, led him to believe that their man must be close.
Garrett now wanted to see Pete Maxwell. After all, he had made the long trip from Lincoln based on information, credible or otherwise, that the Kid was hanging out around Fort Sumner and a woman, a “sweetheart,” had been keeping him there. Maxwell would know if his sister had seen the Kid, and, as the town’s patriarch of sorts, he would likely have heard if the Kid had recently been in Sumner. But Garrett knew he needed to approach the Maxwell residence with extreme caution. The moon was shining brightly now, and Garrett’s six-foot-four frame would be easy to spot out in the open. If the Kid was in Sumner, there were several places he could be staying—and looking out of. Garrett was not about to offer himself up to the young killer like that fool Olinger.
Garrett led his two deputies back south to a small peach orchard at the edge of the village; just beyond the orchard was Fort Sumner’s open plaza, formerly the fort’s parade ground. Near the orchard, they came upon a small campfire tended by a single man. Poe recognized the man from back in Texas and said his name was Jacobs. Jacobs invited his guests to some coffee, and the three got down and unsaddled their mounts. After some quiet conversation, the lawmen staked their horses and prepared to enter the orchard. Garrett pulled his Model 1873 Winchester carbine from its saddle scabbard. He had taken the carbine, as well as the hefty Colt six-shooter on his hip, from Billy Wilson at Stinking Spring. At the time, Garrett had noticed that the weapons were practically brand-new, so he confiscated both guns for himself—and had not regretted it.
With Garrett in the lead, the manhunters stepped into the peach orchard and crept toward the plaza. From there, Garrett knew they would have a view of the old officers’ quarters (one of which was the Maxwell place) on the west side of the plaza, as well as the quartermaster depot across the plaza to the south. The depot was where his in-laws, Celsa and Saval Gutiérrez, lived. As he, McKinney, and Poe neared the plaza, Garrett began to hear voices; they were speaking Spanish. He silently motioned to his men to hide themselves. They listened for some time but it was impossible to determine what was being said or even to recognize who might be speaking.
Suddenly, Garrett saw a man stand up from the ground. The man was in the orchard, but not near enough for Garrett to tell who it was, especially because the man’s broad-brimmed hat was shading his face. He was in his shirtsleeves—that, Garrett could see—and he was wearing a dark vest and pants. The man said something more to an unseen companion, then turned and hopped over a fence and into the plaza. Garrett watched as the silhouetted figure walked away toward the Maxwell residence. Garrett would learn later that this man was the very desperado they were after—Billy the Kid.
Garrett decided it was unwise to continue to Pete Maxwell’s place from their position, so he and his deputies quietly backed out of the orchard and took a long circuitous route behind the row of officers’ quarters and eventually approached the Maxwell place from the opposite side of the plaza. Garrett stopped at the open front gate and whispered to his deputies: “This is Maxwell’s room in this corner. You fellows wait here while I go in and talk to him.” The deputies watched as Garrett walked through the gate and stepped onto the porch. The door to Maxwell’s room was open, as were the windows. During the warm New Mexico summers, residents opened the doors and windows of their adobes in the evening to let in the cool night breeze and during the day they shut them to keep out the hot air.
Poe took a seat on the edge of the porch, just inside the open gate, while McKinney squatted on the ground outside the fence. Garrett had been inside Maxwell’s room only a few minutes when Poe saw someone rapidly come toward them along the fence. As the man got closer, Poe noticed that he was not wearing a hat and he was walking in his stocking feet. And the man seemed to be fiddling with his trousers, as if he was fastening them. Poe assumed it was either Maxwell or one of his friends. But he was wrong.
WHO BILLY LEFT BEHIND in the peach orchard that night is a mystery. It could very well have been a woman—and it probably was. There is no doubt that a beautiful moonlit evening in July and the nearby peach orchard offered idyllic conditions for a romantic tryst. But whoever he was with kept that memory to herself for the rest of her life.
From the orchard, Billy walked to the home of Celsa and Saval Gutiérrez. They were letting Billy sleep in their quarters, even though their brother-in-law was the man who had been elected to hunt him down. But Celsa and Saval had made their choice long ago, like Barney Mason had made his. Billy stepped into the Gutiérrez place carrying a small piece of raw meat. Saval, Celsa, and Celsa’s seven-year-old son, Candido, watched as Billy walked past them and set the meat down in the kitchen.
“Celsa, I brought some meat for you to make my supper,” Billy said.
Although the hour was late, nearly midnight, Celsa walked into the kitchen to begin the Kid’s meal. Billy then made himself comfortable, taking off his hat, vest, and gun belt, and pulling off his boots. But Celsa soon interrupted him.
“Billy, this meat that you brought is no more than a bone. It doesn’t have any meat,” she said.
“Give me a knife to go get some good meat,” Billy replied, “and tell Don Pedro [Pete Maxwell] that I took the meat so that he doesn’t think that another stole the meat.”
The Kid picked up the butcher knife Celsa motioned to, stuck his pistol in his pant pocket, and walked out the door for Maxwell’s house, where a freshly slaughtered beef was hanging.
Billy did not see the men outside of Maxwell’s home, at least not initially. The gatepost partially hid Poe, but Billy must not have been really paying attention. When he walked through the gate, though, he came face-to-face with Poe on the edge of the porch. Startled, the Kid pulled his six-shooter and pointed it at him.
“¿Quién es?” (Who is it?), Bonney asked urgently as he jumped onto the porch. “¿Quién es?”
Poe had never seen the Kid before, and neither had McKinney, so they were not sure who this was. But Poe tried to calm the agitated stranger.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said as he straightened up and stepped onto the porch with Billy. “There is no one here to hurt you.”
“¿Quién es?” Billy repeated as he backed down the porch, his six-shooter in one hand and the butcher knife gripped in the other.
Poe took a step toward Billy, still trying to reassure him, an extremely foolish act considering that a pistol was pointed at his chest. Instead of firing, Billy slipped into the doorway of Maxwell’s bedroom, the thick wall concealing him from Poe’s view, but just as he was gone, he leaned his head back out: “¿Quién es?”
Pat Garrett heard the commotion on the porch. Just moments earlier, he had walked straight up to Maxwell’s bed, which sat in a corner of the unlit room, and had taken a seat on the edge of the mattress, near the headboard. He had prodded Maxwell awake and then asked him if the Kid was anywhere nearby. Maxwell had seemed agitated and evasive—he was frightened of Billy. Finally, Maxwell had whispered to Garrett that the Kid was not at his place, but he was nearby. At that instant, they both heard the voices outside, and shortly after that, a man appeared in the doorway.
Billy stepped into the darkened room and approached the bed. At first, Garrett thought this might be Maxwell’s son-in-law, Manuel Abreú, coming to ask Maxwell who the strange men were. Not realizing how deadly this situation was, Garrett did not try to grab his pistol at first.
“Pete, who are those fellows on the outside?” Billy said, still coming closer. He reached out and placed his hand on the end of the bed.
“That’s him,” Maxwell breathed to Garrett, who had just figured this out. Garrett instantly reached around for his Colt.
Billy, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, saw the sheriff’s movement and sprang back, simultaneously bringing up his six-shooter and beginning to point it. “¿Quién es?” “¿Quién es?”
The Kid sensed danger, but he hesitated to fire his weapon. He did not recognize the person sitting on Maxwell’s bed; he (or she) might be a friend. That hesitation of not more than a heartbeat or two, that split-second confusion born of the Kid’s conscience, was all Garrett needed.
A Colt Single Action Army revolver makes four distinct clicks when its hammer is pulled back to full cock. When the hammer is pulled back rapidly, however, the clicks are nearly indistinguishable, resulting in a quick, ratchetlike sound. Billy heard this sound, and then he was blinded by a bright flash of light, followed by a deafening roar. He felt a powerful, paralyzing blow to his chest, and he fell limp to the floor.
Garrett had jerked his pistol from its holster and fired it in one swift motion. Although he, too, was blinded by the handgun’s muzzle flash, he quickly lunged to his side and fired a second shot in the same direction, filling the room with acrid blackpowder smoke. Garrett then ran for the door. Maxwell bolted upright and jumped over the foot of his bed, getting tangled in the sheets and blankets and falling to the floor. After Garrett dashed out onto the porch, he put his back against the adobe wall next to the door. A wide-eyed Poe rushed up to him, his gun drawn. When Maxwell finally came out of the bedroom, Poe instinctively pointed his pistol at him.
“Don’t shoot Maxwell,” Garrett warned, at the same time pushing his deputy’s six-shooter down with his hand.
“That was the Kid that came in there onto me, and I think I have got him,” Garrett told his deputies.
“Pat, the Kid would not come to this place,” Poe said. “You have shot the wrong man.”
Poe’s remark shook Garrett but only for a moment. He quickly reviewed in his mind what had just happened. “I am sure that was him,” Garrett finally said, “for I know his voice too well to be mistaken.”
Following the gunshots, Poe had heard a groan and some gasps or gurgling sounds, but the room was now silent. Still, no one wanted to go in without making damn sure Billy the Kid was dead, or at least incapacitated. Maxwell retrieved a tallow candle and put it in one of the open windows. The candle’s flickering flame revealed the body of a young man, spread-eagle on the floor. Garrett and Maxwell confirmed that the body was indeed that of William H. Bonney. A butcher knife could be seen on the floor near his left hand and a pistol near his right. Garrett could also see his Winchester carbine leaning up against the door facing, where he had placed it just minutes before.
The lawmen and Maxwell filed into the room and carefully examined the Kid’s body. Garrett’s first shot from his .44 had pierced Billy’s chest just above his heart; his second had gone wild. There was some confusion, though, as to whether or not Billy had gotten a shot off at Garrett. Poe and McKinney swore they heard three shots come from the room. Garrett believed the Kid had fired one shot between his two, and Maxwell was certain that the Kid had fired. After carefully examining the room for bullet marks, however, they found only the two created by Garrett’s pistol. They then inspected Billy’s pistol. It was a Colt double-action identical to his Lightning (which had been confiscated at Stinking Spring), except this pistol was in .41 caliber. Five of the cylinder’s six chambers contained cartridges while one contained an empty shell casing. The hammer rested upon this empty shell, a common safety practice (if the hammer rested on a live cartridge, a harsh jar might set the gun off accidentally). The men were forced to conclude that the Kid had not fired his weapon, but they could not explain why they had heard three shots.
BY NOW, MANY OF Fort Sumner’s residents had heard about the shooting and were gathering outside the room to see if it was true that Billito was dead. Most of these were friends or sympathizers of the Kid. Deluvina, the Maxwell family servant, had been especially fond of the outlaw. Short, dark-skinned, and decidedly unattractive, Deluvina was also strong, a hard worker, and loyal. A well-known healer, she was often seen far out on the prairie gathering various flowers, leaves, and roots for her elixirs. In her spare time, she enjoyed a good drink and good smoking tobacco. She was about twelve years older than the Kid, and she was one of those who wanted to mother Bonney. “Billy the Kid was Deluvina’s idol,” remembered Paulita, “she worshipped him; to her mind, there never was such a wonderful boy in all the world.”
Deluvina went into Maxwell’s bedroom with Jesus Silva, a Maxwell cowhand and a friend of Billy’s. She burst into tears when she saw Billy’s face, and between her sobs, she was loudly cursing Pat Garrett. As she left the room, she cried out, “My little boy is dead!”
Paulita Maxwell also had a long look at the body. Her room was in the same building, and the gunshots had startled her awake. John Poe studied the girl carefully. Garrett had told him about her love for the Kid, and the deputy was surprised by how little emotion she showed as she stared down at the corpse. Poe had not seen the girl before that night, of course, and only Paulita knew the thoughts that raced through her mind when she saw that poor Billito would never again whisper in her ear, bring her a treat, or crack that funny grin.
Several Hispanic women begged Garrett to let them remove the body, and he agreed. Maxwell suggested they take it to the old carpenter shop near the quartermaster’s corral. The shop contained a sturdy workbench where they could place the body. Jesus Silva, who helped transport the corpse to the workshop, found it odd that the chest wound did not bleed until approximately two hours after Billy had been shot. Only a small spot of red on the front of the Kid’s light-colored shirt gave away the fatal bullet’s entry point. The women carefully prepared the body for a wake, placing lighted candles all around it, and for the rest of the night, a number of Fort Sumner’s residents, both men and women, kept quiet watch over their friend Billito.
Garrett and his men also kept watch that night, but not over Billy the Kid. The sheriff was concerned that some of Billy’s distraught friends might attempt to exact revenge. Local sheepherder Francisco Lobato said later that if they had had a leader, they would have done just that. But Sumner’s natural-born leader, the one who specialized in revenge, was dead. The rest of the night passed without incident.
Garrett had ordered Alcalde Alejandro Seguro to hold an inquest on the killing, and the following morning, the alcalde named six men to what was essentially a coroner’s jury. Among the members of the jury were Garrett’s brother-in-law, Saval Gutiérrez, and Garrett’s friend from Sunnyside, Milnor Rudolph, who served as foreman. No inquest had been held at Fort Sumner for Billy’s pals Charlie Bowdre and Tom Folliard, but then again, there had been no reward for either of those men. With $500 cash at stake, Garrett was very particular that there be a legal paper trail to document his success. He had gone through hell collecting the last reward from the Territory, so he was determined to give Santa Fe’s bureaucrats as little to doubt as possible.
The jury viewed the body in the carpenter’s shop to confirm the cause and manner of death, after which they visited Maxwell’s bedroom and took testimony from Don Pedro, the only eyewitness to the shooting other than Sheriff Garrett. The men promptly came up with a verdict: “We of the jury unanimously find that William Bonney came to his death from a bullet wound in the left breast near the region of the heart fired by a pistol in the hand of Pat F. Garrett and our judgment is that the action of said Garrett was justifiable homicide and we are united in opinion that the gratitude of all the community is due to said Garrett for his action and whom is worthy of being compensated.”
The reference here to compensation suggests that Garrett must have been involved in the verdict’s wording, and the jury may not have been united in this expression of gratitude. Gutiérrez and two other jury members, for example, never read the verdict in its finished form—they were illiterate. In any case, Garrett now had the documentation he needed to present his claim to the Territory.
The Kid’s funeral took place that afternoon. Garrett had arranged with Maxwell to make sure the body was “neatly and properly dressed.” Jesus Silva constructed a crude coffin, after which he and Fort Sumner resident Vicente Otero dug a grave in the old post cemetery. The coffin was transported to the burying ground in Otero’s wood wagon and was followed by a procession of nearly every resident of Fort Sumner. The words spoken over the grave came from Job, chapter 14: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” The next day, a marker made out of a stave from the fort’s picket fence was placed at the head of the grave. Stenciled on the board’s eroded surface were the words “Billy the Kid.” No last name. No date. No quaint Victorian sentiment.
Garrett got himself ready to leave for Las Vegas and Santa Fe, and Pete Maxwell would ride with him for part of the trip. The sheriff dismissed his two deputies, who set off down the Pecos, McKinney for his home near Roswell and Poe for White Oaks. John W. Poe was never able to come to understand why Billy had hesitated and had not killed him that night when he came upon Poe and McKinney outside of Maxwell’s residence. If anything, Billy had an uncanny knack for staying alive. Poe puzzled over the strange events of that night on his long ride back to White Oaks—and for years to come. Toward the end of his life, he came to a single conclusion: Billy Bonney’s demise had been foreordained.