In search of Billy the Kid

On the vast plains of New Mexico, with their huge skies, and more cattle than people, it is not difficult to imagine a cowboy galloping over the nearest ridge. And wherever you go in this state, the ghosts of outlaws past will follow you, most notably Billy the Kid.

Silver City

In his teenage years Billy lived in Silver City, in the south of the state. Some accounts say he was born here, but most that he came with his family from New York, aged 13. He had his first job here, committed his first crime here, and reportedly killed his first man here. He was arrested and briefly imprisoned, before moving on to wreak his havoc elsewhere, most notoriously in Lincoln County.

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Lincoln

Lincoln is a very small place to have started a war, but that is just what it did. In the late 19^th century the Lincoln County War led to the deaths of at least 19 people and terrorised settlers throughout the county, which at that time included all of south-eastern New Mexico. Not for nothing did President Rutherford B. Hayes once call Lincoln’s main street ‘the most dangerous street in America.’

The war started in November 1876, when Henry Tunstall and Alexander McSween opened a store in Lincoln, setting themselves up in competition with existing store owners Lawrence Murphy and J. J. Dolan. The latter had had a monopoly on selling goods not just in the town but also supplying beef to nearby Ft. Stanton and the Mescalero Indian Reservation. When Murphy and Dolan challenged the newcomers Tunstall was killed, creating the catalyst for all-out battle between the two sides. Tunstall’s cowhands (who included Billy the Kid) and some other local citizens formed a group known as the Regulators. Their aim was to avenge his murder, knowing that they could not rely on the official criminal justice system which was controlled by allies of Murphy and Dolan.

A whole series of killings on either side ensued, culminating in a three-day battle here in Lincoln in July 1878. Tunstall’s Regulators were surrounded in two different positions, the McSween house and the Ellis store. Many of the key figures in the war died in this battle, including McSween himself. It was eventually halted by the intervention of the US Army. Those not already killed, including Billy the Kid and other Regulators, scattered; most then turned to a life of cattle rustling and other crimes.

It would be December 1880 before Billy was tracked down by Sherriff Pat Garrett, arrested, and tried in Mesilla. In April 1881 the Kid was convicted of killing Sheriff Brady; this was the only conviction ever secured against any of the combatants in the Lincoln County War. He was sentenced to be executed, and brought back to Lincoln.

Pat Garrett knew that the Kid would find it easy to escape from the regular town jail. He kept him shackled hand and foot and guarded around the clock in the room behind his own office at the county courthouse. Ironically the courthouse was once that same Murphy-Dolan store challenged by the arrival of Tunstall and McSween. Billy was imprisoned on the upper floor while awaiting execution for the murder of Sheriff Brady. He was guarded by two deputies, and yet he managed to escape. You might wonder how, and the answer is that he pulled one of the oldest tricks in the book – the ‘I need to go to the lavatory’ one! It helped that only one of his guards was present at the time; the other had taken the remaining, less dangerous prisoners, out to dinner.

Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently they were in the habit of taking their meals in the Wortley Hotel almost opposite the Courthouse and were there at the time of Billy’s break for freedom.

On the day in question Billy asked the one deputy left on duty, James Bell, if he could use the bathroom. This of course in those days was outside behind the main building. The guard agreed, allowing him to do so though still in his leg-irons and chains and with handcuffs still on.

When they returned to the Courthouse Billy made his move, shooting the deputy as he followed him up the stairs. It is not clear how he managed to get his hands on the gun, which probably came from the Courthouse’s own stock. Bell staggered outside but died from his wounds as soon as he got there. The other deputy, Bob Olinger, heard the shots from the saloon across the road and came running, to see the Kid at an upstairs window. That deputy too was killed, and Billy was free to make his escape, aided by some of the townsfolk sympathetic to his cause. Today you can still see the damage made by one of the bullets on the wall at the foot of the stairs, while plaques outside mark the spots where Bell and Olinger fell.

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Fort Sumner

It was near Fort Sumner in 1881 that Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett finally tracked down Billy the Kid and shot him, as dramatised in the 1973 film. When we were here in 2011 Billy had two museums devoted at least in part to his life; he even had two graves! The real grave lies some miles south of town. So the enterprising owner of a museum in town had constructed a replica for those who can’t be bothered to drive any further! Luckily I had done my research and knew to ignore the sign in town. I directed Chris to keep driving, east on Highway 84 and then south on Billy the Kid Road.

We parked in front of the Old Fort Sumner Museum and walked around the left side of it to the small cemetery behind. Here the grave lies, surrounded by an iron fence, after the tombstone was stolen three times since being erected here in the 1940s. William H. Bonney, to give him his real name, is buried here with two of his ‘pals’, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre.

Elsewhere in the cemetery is the grave of one of Billy’s victims, and also that of Lucien B. Maxwell, who bought this property (along with much of northern New Mexico) after Fort Sumner was decommissioned. It was in his son’s house, a mile away, that the shootout between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid took place. Although there is a theory that Garrett conspired with the Kid to fake the shooting, allowing him to escape to Mexico. Several other men later claimed to be Billy, though their claim was never proven. Some years ago, investigators into the claims wanted to exhume the body buried here, along with that of Billy’s mother which is buried in Silver City, and to carry out DNA testing. But the move was blocked by the mayors of Silver and Fort Sumner, so the truth may never be known.

The Old Fort Sumner Museum

The nearby museum (since closed) proved fascinating – not so much because the collection was great, but almost because it wasn’t! There were, as we expected, some items relating to Billy the Kid but also many that weren’t. Among the weirdest of the latter were a stuffed two-headed calf and a display showing a multitude of different styles of barbed wire – yes, really!

^{In the Old Fort Sumner Museum}

There was however an informative timeline describing the events leading up to Billy’s shooting by Pat Garrett. There were also facsimiles of his surprisingly articulate letters to Governor Lew Wallace, arguing his case for clemency. These I found the most fascinating objects on display – the two-headed calf notwithstanding!

Given our shared taste for the bizarre, we spent quite a while poking around in this small museum. It’s rather a shame it has since closed. But I guess Fort Sumner could only sustain one Billy the Kid Museum.

Cimarron

Billy of course was not the only outlaw. I’ll finish with what was perhaps our most memorable encounter with the ghosts of the Wild West, in the bar of the St James Hotel in Cimarron.

The hotel was opened by a French chef, Henri Lambert, in 1872, and soon became the place to stay in Cimarron. Given the nature of the town, it is unsurprising that many of its guests were famous or even notorious. The Earp brothers and their wives stopped here on their way to Tombstone. Buffalo Bill Cody was a friend of the Lamberts and stayed here often, as did Annie Oakley. Author Zane Grey began writing his novel Fighting Caravans while visiting the hotel, and various outlaws, including Jesse James, Billy himself and Black Jack Ketchum, also stayed here.

In those days Cimarron was a wild place, and fights at ‘Lambert’s place’, as the saloon became known, were commonplace. Everyone carried a gun and wasn’t slow to use it. The ceiling of the bar is pockmarked with bullet holes, bearing testament to the 26 people killed here during those fights; and the hotel’s halls are said to be still haunted by some of the victims.

The bar itself is gorgeous – all dark wood, highly polished and well-mirrored, with a wonderful old cash register as a centre-piece. We got chatting to the barman over our Jack Daniels and learned that this bar is not the original but was imported by the hotel’s owner a few years ago from a nearby town. However the old photos on the wall show that it is very similar to the one that would have witnessed those fights and at which such famous characters as Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill would have drunk – and that was good enough for us!