Outlaws and Peace Officers Page 15

  On the tenth of September, The Kid, with three of his party, again left Sumner for Lincoln County—this time bent on plunder. Chas. Fritz, Esq., living on his ranch eight miles east of Lincoln, on the Rio Bonito, was a steady friend of Murphy & Dolan’s during all the troubles, and his hospitable dwelling was always open to their friends. Hence, The Kid and his ilk bore him no good will. They made a descent on his ranch and got away with eighteen or twenty horses, most of them valuable ones. With their booty they returned to Sumner and secreted the stock near by.

  There was at Fort Sumner at this time, a buffalo-hunter who had just returned from the plains named John Long, or John Mont, or John Longmont. He was a six-footer, a splendid shot, and coveted the reputation of a “bad man.” He was a boisterous bully.

  A day or two after The Kid returned from his raid on Fritz, Long, in a drunken frenzy, was shooting his revolver promiscuously up and down the street of Sumner, and the terrified citizens had mostly retired from sight. The Kid issued from a store and, to avoid the bullets, sprang behind a tree-box. Here was an opportunity for Long, to whom The Kid was unknown, to exhibit his magnanimity.

  “Come out, buddy,” said he. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.”

  “The h—l you won’t!” replied The Kid. “There’s no danger of your hurting anybody, unless you do it accidentally. They say you always kill your men by accident.”

  This retort hit Long hard, as he had killed a man at Fort Griffin, Texas, a short time previously, and saved himself from a furious mob by pleading that it was an accident. He eyed The Kid viciously and queried:

  “Where are you from, buddy?”

  “I’m from every place on earth but this,” responded The Kid, and Long walked sullenly away.

  On the following day Long, with several companions, was indulging in a big drunk in a little tendejon kept by a Jew. Long was, as usual, the biggest, the loudest, and the drunkest of the crowd. The Kid entered, in company with young Charley Paine, and the two passed to the back of the store. Long hailed them:

  “Where are you going? You d—d little son-of-a-b—h,” said he.

  The Kid wheeled quickly and walked up to him, with something glistening in his eye which wise men are wont to “let their wisdom fear,” and said:

  “Who did you address that remark to, sir?”

  “O!” answered Long, with a sickly smile, “I was just joking with that other fellow.”

  “Be very careful,” replied The Kid, “how you joke fellows in whose company I happen to be. You will notice that I am the ‘littlest’ of the two. I am too stupid to understand or appreciate your style of jokes, and if you ever drop another one that hits the ground as close to me as that last, I’ll crack your crust; do you understand?”

  Long made no reply. He was completely cowed. The Kid gazed sternly at him a moment, and walked carelessly away. The big fighter annoyed him no more. He was killed shortly afterwards at a ranch on the plains by a Mexican named Trujillo.

  The Kid remained at Sumner but a few days, when he, Foliard, Bowdre, Wayt, Brown, and Middleton, took the horses stolen from Fritz and started up the Rio Pecos with the intention of adding to their herd before they drove them away. They raided Grzelachowski’s ranch, at Alamo Gordo, and other ranches at Juan de Dios and the vicinity of Puerta de Luna, forty miles north of Fort Sumner, and increased their stock of animals to thirty-five or forty head.

  Pretty well “heeled,” they took a course nearly due east, and in the direction of the Pan Handle of Texas. At Theackey’s ranch Bowdre sold out his interest in the stolen stock to his companions, and rejoined Skurlock, at Sumner, where he was employed by Peter Maxwell, to herd cattle. The Kid with the remaining four went on to Atascosa, on the Canadian, leaving Fort Bascom on their left and passing through the plaza of Trujillo.

  After the outlaws were gone, the citizens about Puerta de Luna aroused themselves, and one Fred Rothe, then a resident of Las Colonias, now of Anton Chico, raised a party of eight or ten Mexicans, rode to Fort Sumner to enlist more men, failed to increase his force, followed the trail of the stolen stock to Hubbell Springs, about twenty-five miles, got a good look at both thieves and plunder, but, not being on speaking terms with The Kid, and too modest to accost him, and without firing a shot, returned to the river.

  The Kid and his band quickly disposed of their ill-gotten plunder, and almost as quickly exhausted the proceeds at monte table and saloons.

  The Kid and Foliard returned to Fort Sumner and joined Bowdre and Skurlock. Bowdre continued in the employ of Maxwell, but was interested in all the illegal traffic of his friend. The Kid must have some object upon which to concentrate his energies. Tunstall during his life had been not only his friend but also his banker. He was dead, and amply revenged. Then McSween had supplied the place of Tunstall in his friendship and interest. McSween, also, was dead. There was left but John S. Chisum, of the trio, in whose service he had worked, fought, and killed. But Chisum failed to respond to his petitions for assistance—or remuneration, as The Kid chose to term it—and he conceived for Chisum a mortal hatred, which he tried to flatter himself was justified by his refusal to countenance him in his lawless career, but which was, doubtless, merely feigned as an excuse to plunder Chisum’s vast herds of cattle and horses. So upon his return from the Canadian, his energies were all enlisted in cattle “speculations,” Chisum, per force, furnishing the capital.

  In December, 1878, The Kid and Foliard again visited Lincoln. George Kimbreel had been elected sheriff in November, and held warrants for both of them. They were arrested and placed in the old jail, from whence they easily made their escape and returned to Fort Sumner, where they continued their cattle raids, living in clover; and The Kid by his pleasing manners and open-handed generosity made himself almost universally popular.

  Lincoln, with a properly exercised authority, would have been a dangerous locality for The Kid, but he flickered like a moth around the flame. To his daring spirit it was fun to ride through the plaza and salute citizens and officers with a cheerful buenos dias.

  In the month of February, 1879, The Kid again met Jesse Evans, and in the plaza, at Lincoln. James J. Dolan was about delivering a herd of cattle to the agents of Thomas B. Catron. Dolan had reached a point near Lincoln with his herd, and visited the plaza with two of his employees—Jesse Evans and Wm. Campbell. That night the three, in company with Edgar A. Waltz, agent and brother-in-law of Catron, and J. B. Matthews, met The Kid and Foliard in the street. The meeting was by appointment, and after a few sharp words, ended in a reconciliation—all pledging themselves to bury the hatchet, and cease their, now, causeless strife. At the commencement of the interviews, Jesse said to The Kid: “Billy, I ought to kill you for murdering Bob Beckwith.” The Kid replied: “You can’t start your lead pump any too quick to suit me, Jess. I have a hundred causes to kill you.” Dolan and Matthews interfered as peacemakers, and the threatened row was quelled.

  The parties, so reconciled, adjourned to a saloon and drowned old animosities in whisky. Late in the night a lawyer named Chapman arrived in the plaza from Las Vegas. He had been employed by Mrs. McSween to settle up the estate of her deceased husband. It was charged that Chapman was busily engaged in blowing the embers of a dead struggle, and he had made enemies. As he was passing The Kid and party, who had just issued from the saloon, Campbell, who was chock full of bad whiskey and fight, accosted him and told him he wanted to see him dance. Chapman replied indignantly. But few words passed when Campbell shot him dead. The Kid and Jesse were thus witnesses to one killing in which they did not take a hand. The misfortune of this affair was that two innocent parties were arrested, with the guilty one, for this crime. Dolan and Matthews were indicted, tried, and triumphantly acquitted. Campbell was arrested, placed in the guardhouse at Fort Stanton, made his escape and fled the country. The Kid and Jess parted that night never to meet again.

  * * *

  Leaving Lincoln after his interview with Evans, The Kid returned to Fort Sumner,
and, securing some new recruits to his service, he inaugurated a system of plunder which baffled all resistance; and a stock-owner’s only course to secure immunity from loss, was to conciliate The Kid and court his friendship. The property of those he claimed as friends he held sacred.

  There was an attraction in the very danger which attended The Kid’s presence in Lincoln. Again in March, 1879, he, with Foliard, took a trip to that plaza. Upon this occasion they made a showing to comply with the law, and on their arrival, laid away their guns and revolvers. They were again arrested on the old warrants, and placed under guard in the house of Don Juan Patron, and handcuffed; but otherwise their confinement was not irksome. They were guarded by Deputy Sheriff T. B. Longworth, and The Kid had pledged his word to him that he would make no attempt to escape. Longworth knew him well and trusted him. They did not betray this trust until they were again placed in jail. They led a gay life at the house of Patron. Plenty to eat and drink, the best of cigars, and a game of poker with any one, friend or stranger, who chanced to visit them.

  On the 21st day of March, 1879, Longworth received orders to place the two prisoners in jail—a horribly dismal hole, unfit for a dog-kennel. The Kid said,—“Tom, I’ve sworn I would never go inside that hole again alive.”

  “I don’t see,” said Tom, “how either you or I can help it. I don’t want to put you there, I don’t want to put any one there; but that’s orders, and I have nothing to do but to obey. You don’t want to make trouble for me?”

  The Kid walked gloomily up to the jail door and, stopping, said to Longworth,—“Tom, I’m going in here because I won’t have any trouble with you, but I’d give all I’ve got if the son-of-a-b—h that gave the order was in your boots.”

  He passed into the hall, his cell was pointed out to him, the door of unpainted pine was standing open, he took a pencil from his pocket and wrote on it:

  William Bonney was incarcerated first time, December, 22, 1878; Second time, March, 21, 1879, and hope I never will be again.

  W. H. Bonney.

  This inscription still stands, and was copied by the author in August, 1881.

  It is suspected that the sheriff knew the prisoners’ stay in jail would be short, and he was tired of feeding them. At all events they left when they got ready, and The Kid prowled about the plaza for two or three weeks, frequently passing up and down in broad day, with a Winchester in his hand, cursing the sheriff to his heart’s content.

  In April they returned to Fort Sumner, and resumed depredations on loose stock, and followed the business industriously throughout the summer and fall. In October of 1879, The Kid, with Foliard, Bowdre, Skurlock, and two Mexicans, rounded up and drove away from Bosque Grande, twenty-eight miles north of Roswell, one hundred and eighteen head of cattle, the property of Chisum. They drove them to Yerby’s ranch—in his absence—branded them, and turned them loose on the range. This ranch is north of Sumner. They said that Chisum owed them $600 each for services rendered during the war. They afterwards drove these cattle to Grzelachowski’s ranch, at Alamo Gordo, and sold them to Colorado beef-buyers, telling them that they were employed in settling up Chisum’s business. Chisum followed the cattle up, recovered them, and drove them back to his range—but The Kid had the money.

  In January, 1880, a fellow named Joe Grant arrived at Fort Sumner, and was straightaway cheek by jowl with The Kid and his companions. It afterwards transpired that Grant had heard a good deal of The Kid and aspired to win a reputation as a “Holy Terror,” as he termed it, by killing the New Mexico desperado. That he had killed his man, and was a “bad one,” there is no doubt. He disclosed a good deal of his disposition, if not his intention, one day in Sumner, by remarking: “I like to pick these fighters and lay them out on their own dung hill. They say The Kid is a bad citizen, but I am his loadin’ any jump in the road.” The Kid heard this, but kept his own counsel, drinking and carousing with Grant every day. Whilst Grant was swaggering and boasting, The Kid was in his usual jovial humor, but no movement of his companion escaped his wary eye.

  James Chisum, brother of John S., with three men, had been to Canyon Cueva, near Juan de Dios, north of Fort Sumner, and there recovered a bunch of cattle which had been stolen from their range, it was said, by The Kid. He returned as far as Sumner, arriving there one day about the middle of January, and camped within a mile of the plaza. His party were young Herbert, Jack Finan, and William Hutchison, known on the range as “Buffalo Bill.” The Kid, Barney Mason, and Charley Thomas rode out to Chisum’s camp and demanded to look through his herd for the XIX brand. They did so, but found none.

  The Kid then good-naturedly insisted that Chisum and his men should go to Bob. Hargrove’s saloon and take a drink. There they found Joe Grant, viciously drunk. As the party entered, he snatched a fine ivory-handled pistol from Finan’s scabbard, and put his own in place of it. The Kid had his eye on him, and remarking “That’s a beauty, Joe,” took the pistol from his hand and revolved the chambers. It was his design to extract some of the cartridges, but he found only three in it, and deftly whirling the chambers until the next action would be a failure, he returned it to Grant, who flourished it about and at last said to The Kid:

  “Pard, I’ll kill a man quicker’n you will for the whisky.”

  “What do you want to kill anybody for?” answered The Kid. “Put up your pistol and let’s drink.”

  During this conversation, Grant had passed behind the counter, and was knocking decanters and glasses about with the pistol. Thus, with the counter between him and the crowd, and revolver in hand, it seemed he had “the drop” on any one in the room whom he might want. The Kid remarked:

  “Let me help you break up housekeeping, Pard,” and drawing his pistol, also went to knocking the glassware about. Grant continued:

  “I want to kill John Chisum, any how, the d—d old——,” and he eyed James Chisum with a wicked glare.

  “You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear, Joe,” said The Kid. “That’s not John Chisum.”

  “That’s a lie,” shouted Grant. “I know better,” and, turning his pistol full on The Kid, who was smiling sarcastically, he pulled the trigger, but the empty chamber refused to respond; with an oath he again raised the hammer, when a ball from The Kid’s revolver crashed through his brains, and he fell behind the counter. The Kid threw the shell from his pistol and said:

  “Unfortunate fool; I’ve been there too often to let a fellow of your calibre overhaul my baggage. Wonder if he’s a specimen of Texas desperadoes.”

  Shortly after the killing of Grant, The Kid made a trip below, remaining for some weeks in the vicinity of Roswell. Verando, three miles from that place, was his headquarters. He was “flush” and spent money freely. The Chisum ranch was but about seven miles from Verando, and those who knew him best suspected that The Kid harbored the intention of waylaying Chisum and urging a fight with him. He kept himself pretty full of whisky, and upon one occasion, at Verando, he was sitting in front of the saloon where a covey of snow-birds were hopping about. He drew his revolver and remarked: “Suppose, boys, old John Chisum was a pretty little bird, which he is not, and suppose that pretty little bird sitting in that straw was him; now if I was to shoot that little bird, and hit him anywhere except in the head, it would be murder;” and with the words, he fired. A bystander picked up the dead bird, and its head was shot off. “No murder!” cried The Kid. “Let’s give old John another chance,” and another bird’s head disappeared. He killed several in this manner, until at last he hit one in the breast. “I’ve murdered old John at last,” said he, “let’s go and take a drink.”

  CHAPTER VII.

  PAT GARRETT, SHERIFF

  Adapted from The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid

  By Pat Garrett

  In the month of October, 1880, just previous to the events narrated in the last chapter, the author of this history first became personally and actively engaged in the task of pursuing and assisting to bring to justice The Kid, and others
of his ilk, in an official capacity. The reader will perceive how awkward it would appear to speak of myself in the third person, so at the risk of being deemed egotistical, I shall use the first person in the future pages of this work.

  In October, Azariah F. Wild, a detective in the employ of the Treasury Department, hailing from New Orleans, La., visited New Mexico to glean some information in regard to the circulation of counterfeit money, some of which had certainly been passed in Lincoln County. Mr. Wild sent for me to go to Lincoln and confer with and assist him in working up these cases. I met him there, and in the course of our interview, I suggested that it would be policy to employ a reliable man to join the gang and ferret out the facts. Wild at once adopted the plan, giving me authority to act in the matter according to my judgment.

  I returned to my home, near Roswell, and immediately sent to Fort Sumner for Barney Mason, whom I had tried and knew I could trust. Mason came to me at once, and before I could name the matter to him, he told me that he had stopped at Bosque Grande, twenty-eight miles above, at the ranch of Dan Dedrick, and that Dan had read to him a letter from W. H. West, partner of his brother Sam. Dedrick, in the stable business at White Oaks. The gist of the letter was that West had $30,000 in counterfeit greenbacks, that his plan was to take this money to Mexico, there buy cattle with it, and drive them back across the line. He wanted to secure the services of a reliable assistant whose business would be to accompany him, West, to Mexico, make sham purchases of the cattle as fast as they were bought, receiving bills of sale therefore, so that, in case of detection, the stock would be found in legal possession of an apparently innocent party—and the latter suggested Barney Mason as just the man to assume the role of scapegoat in these nefarious traffickings.