Pat Garrett

by The Kid The Authentic Life of Billy

  Little as we then suspected it, this man was the Kid. We learned, subsequently, that, when he left his companions that night, he went to the house of a Mexican friend, pulled off his hat and boots, threw himself on a bed, and commenced reading a newspaper. He soon, however, hailed his friend, who was sleeping in the room, told him to get up and make some coffee, adding: —"Give me a butcher knife and I will go over to Pete's and get some beef; I'm hungry." The Mexican arose, handed him the knife, and the Kid, hatless and in his stocking-feet, started to Maxwell's, which was but a few steps distant.

  When the Kid, by me unrecognized, left the orchard, I motioned to my companions, and we cautiously retreated a short distance, and, to avoid the persons whom we had heard at the houses, took another route, approaching Maxwell's house from the opposite direction. When we reached the porch in front of the building, I left Poe and McKinney at the end of the porch, about twenty feet from the door of Pete's room, and went in. It was near midnight and Pete was in bed. I walked to the head of the bed and sat down on it, beside him, near the pillow. I asked him as to the whereabouts of the Kid. He said that the Kid had certainly been about, but he did not know whether he had left or not. At that moment a man sprang quickly into the door, looking back, and called twice in Spanish, "Who conies there?" No one replied and he came on in. He was bareheaded. From his step I could perceive he was either barefooted or in his stocking-feet, and held a revolver in his right hand and a butcher knife in his left.

  He came directly towards me. Before he reached the bed, I whispered: "Who is it, Pete?" but received no reply for a moment. It struck me that it might be Pete's brother-in-law, Manuel Abreu, who had seen Poe and McKinney, and wanted to know their business. The intruder came close to me, leaned both hands on the bed, his right hand almost touching my knee, and asked, in a low tone: —"Who are they Pete?" —at the same instant Maxwell whispered to me. "That's him!" Simultaneously the Kid must have seen, or felt, the presence of a third person at the head of the bed. He raised quickly his pistol, a self cocker, within a foot of my breast. Retreating rapidly across the room he cried: "Quien es? Quien es?" ("Who's that? Who's that?") All this occurred in a moment. Quickly as possible I drew my revolver and fired, threw my body aside, and fired again. The second shot was useless; the Kid fell dead. He never spoke. A struggle or two, a little strangling sound as he gasped for breath, and the Kid was with his many victims.

  Maxwell had plunged over the foot of the bed on the floor, dragging the bed-clothes with him. I went to the door and met Poe and McKinney there. Maxwell rushed past me, out on the porch; they threw their guns down on him, when he cried: "Don't shoot, don't shoot." I told my companions I had got the Kid. They asked me if I had not shot the wrong man. I told them I had made no blunder, that I knew the Kid's voice too well to be mistaken. The Kid was entirely unknown to either of them. They had seen him pass in, and, as he stepped on the porch, McKinney, who was sitting, rose to his feet; one of his spurs caught under the boards, and nearly threw him. The Kid laughed, but probably, saw their guns, as he drew his revolver and sprang into the doorway, as he hailed: "Who comes there?" Seeing a bareheaded, barefooted man, in his shirt-sleeves, with a butcher knife in his hand, and hearing his hail in excellent Spanish, they naturally supposed him to be a Mexican and an attache of the establishment, hence their suspicion that I had shot the wrong man.

  We now entered the room and examined the body The ball struck him just above the heart, and must have cut through the ventricles. Poe asked me how many shots I fired; I told him two, but that I had no idea where the second one went. Both Poe and McKinney said the Kid must have fired then, as there were surely three shots fired. I told them that he had fired one shot, between my two. Maxwell said that the Kid fired; yet, when we came to look for bullet marks, none from his pistol could be found. We searched long and faithfully—found both my bullet marks and none other; so, against the impression and senses of four men, we had to conclude that the Kid did not fire at all. We examined his pistol—a self-cocker, calibre 41. It had five cartridges and one shell in the chambers, the hammer resting on the shell, but this proves nothing, as many carry their revolvers in this way for safety; besides, this shell looked as though it had been shot some time before.

  It will never be known whether the Kid recognized me or not. If he did, it was the first time, during all his life of peril, that he ever lost his presence of mind, or failed to shoot first and hesitate afterwards. He knew that a meeting with me meant surrender or fight. He told several persons about Sumner that he bore no animosity against me, and had no desire to do me injury. He also said that he knew, should we meet, he would have to surrender, kill me, or get killed himself. So, he declared his intention, should we meet, to commence shooting on sight.

  On the following morning, the alcalde, Alejandro Segura, held an inquest on the body. Hon. M. Rudolph, of Sunnyside, was foreman of the coroner's jury. They found a verdict that William H. Bonney came to his death from a gun-shot wound, the weapon in the hands of Pat F. Garrett, that the fatal wound was inflicted by the said Garrett in the discharge of his official duty as sheriff, and that the homicide was justifiable.

  The body was neatly and properly dressed and buried in the military cemetery at Fort Sumner, July 15, 1881. His exact age, on the day of his death, was 21 years, 7 months, and 21 days.

  I said that the body was buried in the cemetery at Fort Sumner; I wish to add that it is there to-day intact. Skull, fingers, toes, bones, and every hair of the head that was buried with the body on that 15th day of July, doctors, newspaper editors, and paragraphers to the contrary notwithstanding. Some presuming swindlers have claimed to have the Kid's skull on exhibition, or one of his fingers, or some other portion of his body, and one medical gentleman has persuaded credulous idiots that he has all the bones strung upon wires. It is possible that there is a skeleton on exhibition somewhere in the States, or even in this Territory, which was procured somewhere down the Rio Pecos. We have them, lots of them in this section. The banks of the Pecos are dotted from Fort Sumner to the Rio Grande with unmarked graves, and the skeletons are of all sizes, ages, and complexions. Any showman of ghastly curiosities can resurrect one or all of them, and place them on exhibition as the remains of Dick Turpin, Jack Shepherd, Cartouche, or the Kid, with no one to say him nay; so they don't ask the people of the Rio Pecos to believe it.

  Again I say that the Kid's body lies undisturbed in the grave—and I speak of what I know.

  Addenda

  *

  THE LIFE OF THE kid is ended, and my history thereof is finished. Perhaps, however, some of my readers will consent to follow me through three or four additional pages, which may be unnecessary and superfluous, but which I insert for my own personal gratification, and which I invite my friends to read.

  During the time occupied in preparing the foregoing work for press, some circumstances have occurred, some newspaper articles have appeared, and many remarks have been passed, referring to the disposal of the Kid, his character, disposition, and history, and my contemplated publication of his life, which I have resolved to notice, against the advice of friends, who believe the proper and more dignified plan would be to ignore them altogether. But I have something to say, and propose to say it.

  A San Francisco daily, in an article which I have never seen, but only comments thereon in other journals, among other strictures on my actions, questions my immunity from legal penalty for the slaying of the Kid. I did think I was fully advised in regard to this matter before I undertook the dangerous task of his re-arrest, as I contemplated the possible necessity of having to kill him. But I must acknowledge that I did not consult with the San Francisco editor, and can, at this late hour, only apologize, humbly, for the culpable omission. The law decided as to my amenability to its requirements—should the opinion of the scribbler be adverse, I can but abjectly crave his mercy.

  I have been portrayed in print and in illustrations as shooting the Kid from behind a bed, from under a bed
, and from other places of concealment. After mature deliberation I have resolved that honest confession will serve my purpose better than prevarication. Hear!

  I was not behind the bed, because, in the first place, I could not get there. I'm not "as wide as a church door," but the bed was so close to the wall that a lath could scarce have been introduced between. I was not under the bed, and this fact will require a little more complicated explanation. I could have gotten under the bed; but, you see, I did not know the Kid was coming. He took me by surprise—gave me no chance on earth to hide myself. Had I but suspected his proximity, or that he would come upon me in that abrupt manner, I would have utilized any safe place of concealment which might have presented itself— under the bed, or under any article which I might have found under the bed, large enough to cover me.

  Scared? Suppose a man of the Kid's noted gentle and amiable disposition and temper had warned you that when you two met you had better "come a shooting"; suppose he bounced in on you unexpectedly with a, revolver in his hand, whilst yours was in your scabbard. Scared? Wouldn't you have been scared? I didn't dare to answer his hail: —"Quien es?" as the first sound of my voice (which he knew perfectly well), would have been his signal to make a target of my physical personality, with his self-cocker, from which he was wont to pump a continuous stream of fire and lead, and in any direction, unerringly, which answered to his will. Scared, Cap? Well, I should say so. I started out on that expedition with the expectation of getting scared. I went out contemplating the probability of being shot at, and the possibility of being hurt, perhaps killed; but not if any precaution on my part would prevent such a catastrophe. The Kid got a very much better show than I had intended to give him.

  Then, "the lucky shot," as they put it. It was not the shot, but the opportunity that was lucky, and everybody may rest assured I did not hesitate long to improve it. If there is any one simple enough to imagine that I did, or will ever, put my life squarely in the balance against that of the Kid, or any of his ilk, let him divest his mind of that absurd fallacy. It is said that Garrett did not give the Kid a fair show—did not fight him "on the square," etc. Whenever I take a contract to fight a man "on the square," as they put it (par parenthesis—I am not on the fight), that man must bear the reputation, before the world and in my estimation, of an honorable man and respectable citizen; or, at least, he must be my equal in social standing, and I claim the right to place my own estimate upon my own character, and my own evaluation upon my own life. If the public shall judge that these shall be measured by the same standard as those of outlaws and murderers, whose lives are forfeit to the law, I beg the privilege of appeal from its decision.

  I had a hope—a very faint hope—of catching the Kid napping, as it were, so that I might disarm and capture him. Failing in that, my design was to try and get "the drop" on him, with the, almost, certainty, as I believed, that he would make good his threat to "die fighting with a revolver at each ear"; so with the drop, I would have been forced to kill him anyhow. I, at no time, contemplated taking any chances which I could avoid by caution or cunning. The only circumstances under which we could have met on equal terms, would have been accidental, and to which I would have been an unwilling party. Had we met unexpectedly, face to face, I have no idea that either one of us would have run away, and there is where the "square fight" would, doubtless, have come off. With one question I will dismiss the subject of taking unfair advantage, etc. What sort of "square fight," or "even show," would I have got, had one of the Kid's friends in Fort Sumner chanced to see me and informed him of my presence there and at Pete Maxwell's room on that fatal night?

  A few words in regard to criticisms from two isolated rural journals published, I think, somewhere in the hilltops of the extreme northern counties of this Territory— at Guadalupitas, or Las Golondrinas, or La Cueva, or Vermejo. I have never seen a copy of either of them, and should have been ignorant of their existence had not a respectable newspaper copied their "puffs." These fellows objected to my writing and publishing a life of the Kid. Their expostulations come too late; it is written and I will quarrel before I abandon the design of publishing it.

  One of these weekly emanations is called "The Optician," or some similar name, which would indicate that it is devoted to the interests of an industry which is, or should be, the exclusive prerogative of the disciples of Paul Pry. Perhaps it is a medical journal, edited by an M. D. who did not get the skull, nor the finger, nor any of the bones of the Kid's body, and is proportionately incensed thereat.

  The other, judging from the two or three extracts I have seen from its columns, must, also, be a medical journal, published in the interests of an asylum for the imbeciles. I would advise the manager to exercise more vigilance in the absence of the editor and try to keep patients out of his chair. The unfortunate moonling who scribbled that "stickfull' which reflected upon me and my book, judging from his peculiar phraseology, must be a demented fishmonger.

  You may spatter, you may soak him

  With ink if you will, But the scent of stale cat-fish

  Will cling 'round him still.

  Both of these delectable hermits charge me with intent to publish a life of the Kid, with the nefarious object of making money thereby. O! asinine propellers of Faber's No. 2; O! ludificatory lavishers of Arnold's night-tinted fluid; what the Hades else do you suppose my object could be? Their philosophy is that I must not attempt to make any more money out of the result of my "lucky shot," because, forsooth, "some men would have been satisfied," etc. Anybody, everybody else, authors who never were in New Mexico and never saw the Kid, can compile from newspaper rumors, as many lives of him as they please, make all the money out of their bogus, unreliable heroics that can be extorted from a gullible public, and these fellows will congratulate them; but my truthful history should be suppressed, because I got paid for ridding the country of a criminal. How do these impertinent inter-meddlers know how much money I have made by this accident, or incident, or by whatever name they choose to designate it? How do they know how many thousands of dollars worth of stock and other property I have saved to those who "rewarded" me, by the achievement? Whose business is it if I choose to publish a hundred books, and make money out of them all, though I were as rich as the Harper Brothers? Wonder if either of these discontented fellows would have refused to publish my book on shares. Wonder what would have been the color of their notices, and when they would have "been satisfied." It's bile, Cully! nothing but bile. Take Indian Root Pills. And yet I thank you for your unsolicited, gratuitous notices, valueless as they are. They may help to sell a few copies of my work in your secluded locality. But, as I am no subject for charity (though your articles would seem to say so), send in reasonable bills and I will pay them. I know the difficulties under which projectors of newspapers in isolated regions labor, and would have sent you each a liberal advertisement without a hint, had I known of your existence.

  It is amusing to notice how brave some of the Kid's "ancient enemies," and, even, some who professed to be his friends, have become since there is no danger of their courage being put to test by an interview with him. Some of them say that the Kid was a coward (which is a cowardly lie), and anybody, with any nerve, could have arrested him without trouble, thus obviating the necessity of killing him. One has seen him slapped in the face when he had a revolver in his hand, and he did not resent it. One has seen a Mexican, over on the Rio Grande, choke him against the wall, the Kid crying and begging with a cocked pistol in his hand. These blowers are unworthy of notice. Most of them were vagabonds who had "slopped" over from one faction to the other during the war, regulating their maneuvers according to the prospect of danger or safety, always keeping in view their chances to steal a sore-back pony or a speckled calf, and aspiring to the appellation of stock-owners. There is not one of these brave mouth-fighters that would have dared to give voice to such lying bravado whilst the Kid lived, though he were chained in a cell; not one of them that, were he on their track, wo
uld not have set the prairie on fire to get out of his reach, and, in their fright, extinguished it again as they ran, leaving a wet trail behind. These silly vaporings are but repeated illustrations of that old fable, "The Dead Lion and the Live Ass."

  I will now take leave of all those of my readers who have not already taken "French leave" of me. Whatever may be the cause of the effect, Lincoln County now enjoys a season of peace and prosperity to which she has ever, heretofore, been a stranger. No Indians, no desperadoes, to scare our citizens from their labors, or disturb their slumbers. Stock wanders over the ranges in security, and vast fields of waving grain greet the eye, where, three years ago, not a stock of artificially-produced vegetation could be seen.

  "Where late was barrenness and waste,

  The perfumed blossom, bud and blade,

  Sweet, bashful pledges of approaching harvest,

  Giving cheerful promise to the hope of industry,"

  Gladden the eye, stamp contentment on happy faces, and illustrate the pleasures of industry. The farmer to his plow, the stockman to his saddle, the merchant to his ledger, the blacksmith to his forge, the carpenter to his plane, the school-boy to his lass, and the shoemaker to his waxed-end, or vice versa,