To Hell on a Fast Horse

by Mark Lee Gardner

  Ranger Gillett’s brief comments on Olinger are in the James Gillett folder, Box 16, Leon C. Metz Papers. The Gus Gildea quote is from A. M. Gildea to Maurice G. Fulton, Del Rio, Texas, June 5, 1929, Box 2, Folder 2, Maurice G. Fulton Collection, University of Arizona Library Special Collections. Pat Garrett’s remarks on his deceased deputy are from Emerson Hough, “The Imitation Bad Man,” Washington Post, Jan. 21, 1906. Garrett made a similar comment about Olinger to Dr. M. G. Paden. See Paden, “Billy the Kid Story” (typescript), as told to Edith L. Crawford, Nov. 22, 1937, Box 49, Folder 6, Marta Weigle Collection (AC 361), Chávez History Library.

  Billy’s promise to get Olinger is from Charles Nebo “Nib” Jones to Eve Ball, May 9, 1948, Globe, Arizona, interview typescript, Box 14, Folder 2, Eve Ball Papers. Olinger’s “cur” remark is in the Daily New Mexican, May 3, 1881. Pat Garrett’s description of the hatred that existed between the Kid and Olinger is in his Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 119.

  The quote praising Deputy Bell is from the Las Vegas Daily Optic, Jan. 21, 1881. For information on Bell’s background, which is frustratingly limited, see O. W. Williams, Pioneer Surveyor-Frontier Lawyer: The Personal Narrative of O. W. Williams, 1877-1902, ed. S. D. Myers (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1968), 89; and the 1880 U.S. Census for White Oaks, Lincoln County, New Mexico.

  The fact that Billy’s cuffs were both on one hand comes from two letters written from Lincoln immediately after the Kid’s courthouse escape. The letters were published in Supplement to the New Southwest and Herald, Silver City, New Mexico, May 14, 1881; and the Daily New Mexican, May 3, 1881. My account of Billy’s escape is drawn from these important letters; a news report published in the White Oaks Golden Era of May 5, 1881; Garrett’s account in his The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 120–123, derived in part from interviews with Gottfried Gauss; an account by Gauss that appeared in the Lincoln County Leader, Mar. 1, 1890; and John P. Meadows, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as I Knew Them: Reminiscences of John P. Meadows, ed. John P. Wilson (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 47–50. Meadows, a friend of Billy’s, claimed he received his account of the escape directly from the Kid.

  Billy’s exchange with Garrett regarding the killing of Carlyle is in Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 119.

  Billy’s complaint about Olinger’s bullying is from Meadows, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 47.

  The prophetic warning to Olinger is quoted from the Daily New Mexican, May 3, 1881.

  The incident where Olinger left his pistol on the table in front of the Kid is noted in Supplement to the New Southwest and Herald, May 14, 1881.

  Olinger’s boast that he could herd his prisoner like a goat is from a previously unknown newspaper interview with Garrett titled “Plucky Patrick Garrett,” newspaper clipping, Nov. 26, 1900, Pat Garrett Clippings File, Denver Public Library (“The Times” is penciled on this clipping, which may indicate the weekly Denver Times-Sun).

  Manufactured between 1870 and 1874, not more than twenty-five hundred of the Whitney double-barrel shotguns were ever made. Olinger’s shotgun is now in a private collection, the only firearm in existence that we can know with absolute certainty that Billy once used.

  Billy’s suggestion that Olinger might shoot himself accidentally is quoted from Meadows, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 47.

  No one really knows how the Kid overpowered and shot Bell that day. Some claim that a gun had been secreted in the outhouse by a Kid confederate (e.g., see the account of Francisco Salazar in Leslie Traylor, “Facts Regarding the Escape of Billy the Kid,” Frontier Times 13 [July 1936]: 509; and of Harry Aguayo in the Albuquerque Tribune, Aug. 1, 1957). It is a theory to which I do not subscribe. Forensic testing at the courthouse using luminol was conducted in 2004, which revealed substantial blood residue at the top of the courthouse stairs, blood that I believe came from the severe blow Billy delivered to Bell’s head. For a news report on the forensic investigation, see the Santa Fe New Mexican, Aug. 2, 2004.

  The last words Billy spoke to Olinger before he killed him have several variations. My source is Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 121. However, I do not believe that Olinger had time to say to Gauss, “Yes, and he’s killed me, too,” as Garrett (and Sam Peckinpah) would have us believe.

  Severo Gallegos told his story to Eve Ball in 1949. Severo’s role that day has been overlooked by most historians of the Kid. Young Severo is enumerated in the 1880 U.S. Census, living in the town of Lincoln, and I am inclined to accept his story. See Severo Gallegos to Eve Ball, Apr. 5, 1949, interview typescript, Box 8, Folder 21, Eve Ball Papers. Severo gave a slightly different version of his actions in an interview with William V. Morrison on Oct. 11, 1949. See C. L. Sonnichsen and William V. Morrison, Alias Billy the Kid (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1955), 45 n. 44.

  My reference to Lilly and La Rue and their feeble efforts to stop the Kid is from the Las Vegas Daily Optic, May 3, 1881.

  Billy’s cursing at the dead bodies of Olinger and Bell is quoted from Supplement to the New Southwest and Herald, May 14, 1881.

  Billy’s promise to return Billy Burt’s horse is from Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 122.

  The quote referring to the Kid having acted with the “coolest deliberation” comes from the Supplement to the New Southwest and Herald, May 14, 1881.

  Garrett’s admission to some fault in the Kid’s escape is from his The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, 123.

  Several individuals claimed to have encountered Billy after he fled Lincoln. For Francisco Gomez’s account, see Leslie Traylor, “Facts Regarding the Escape of Billy the Kid,” Frontier Times 13 (July 1936): 510. Yginio Salazar related his meeting with the Kid in an interview with J. Evetts Haley on Aug. 17, 1927 (J. Evetts Haley Collection, Midland, Texas). Salazar is buried in the cemetery at Lincoln, New Mexico.

  The Lincoln County settlement of Las Tablas was renamed Arabella in 1901. It appears on maps today as Arabela.

  The quotes for Billy’s meeting with John Meadows come from both Meadows’s interview with Haley on June 13, 1936, and his Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as I Knew Them: Reminiscences of John P. Meadows, ed. John P. Wilson (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 50–52.

  Billy’s friend Martin Chavez claimed that he had talked to Billy at Las Tablas after the Lincoln courthouse escape and that Billy had told him that he was going to Fort Sumner to “see the girl who is to be my wife. If I die, all right; then I will die for her.” Chavez’s statement is in a draft chapter intended for Burns’s The Saga of Billy the Kid. This draft chapter clearly identifies Paulita Maxwell as Billy’s sweetheart; however, on orders from his publisher, Burns revised the chapter to include Paulita’s denial (the publisher, Doubleday, Page & Co., feared a lawsuit). A copy of this draft chapter is found in Box 16, Leon C. Metz Papers.

  8. THE DARKENED ROOM

  Billy the Kid’s death warrant may be found in the microfilm series Territorial Archives of New Mexico, roll 21, frames 581–582, NMSRCA.

  Convincing evidence that Wallace was undeserving of the criticism he received for his performance at the Battle of Shiloh is found in Timothy B. Smith, “Why Lew Was Late,” Civil War Times 46 ( Jan. 2008): 30–37.

  The story of Wallace adding handwritten comments to the offending passages of Badeau’s Military History of Ulysses S. Grant is from The Bucks County Gazette, Bristol, Pennsylvania, June 23, 1881.

  Wallace’s description of the Kid being serenaded while in the Lincoln jail is contained in his Mar. 31, 1879, letter to Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz and is as quoted in Jason Strykowski, “An Unholy Bargain in a Cursed Place: Lew Wallace, William Bonney, and New Mexico Territory,” New Mexico Historical Review 82 (Spring 2007): 246–247.

  The sales figures for Ben-Hur are as reported in the Daily New Mexican, Dec. 22, 1880.

  The telegraph message to Wallace is as quoted in the Daily New Mexican, May 1, 1881.

  The Daily New Mexican
for May 1 through May 3 contains the coverage of Billy’s escape from Lincoln. For examples of the varied newspapers that carried the Kid’s escape on their front pages, see the Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1881; The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana, May 18, 1881; and The Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, Wisconsin, May 5, 1881.

  The quote from the anonymous Lincoln correspondent cautioning Governor Wallace appears in the Daily New Mexican of May 3, 1881, as does Wallace’s reward notice for the Kid.

  The story of Governor Wallace practicing his pistol shooting at the Palace, previously unknown, comes from the Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 13, 1892. It was related by someone who claimed to have been with Wallace in Santa Fe, although the storyteller’s name is not revealed in the article.

  For Garrett’s feelings of guilt in the deaths of Olinger and Bell, see his Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid, 123.

  Pat Garrett served as the executor of Bob Olinger’s estate. The estate inventory, prepared by Garrett, was brief: one wallet with papers, no value; one shotgun, Whitney patent (serial #903), broken, no value; one Elgin watch (serial #979197), value one dollar; one set clothes, no value. Interestingly, there is no mention of Olinger’s revolver in the inventory. According to Eve Ball, his revolver, field glasses, and gauntlets were presented to Lily Casey, with whom he is said to have been engaged. See Lily Klasner, My Girlhood Among Outlaws, ed. Eve Ball (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1972), 185 and 188. The wallet and papers Olinger had on him the day he was killed, complete with bloodstains, are on display in the Lincoln County Clerk’s Office, Carrizozo, New Mexico.

  Garrett’s words to Hough that he knew he would have to kill the Kid are quoted from Emerson Hough, The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado (New York: The Outing Publishing Company, 1907), 305.

  Barney Mason’s efforts in tracking the Kid and his uncomfortable encounter with the outlaw are chronicled in Garrett, Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid, 124; the Las Vegas Gazette, May 12 and 15, 1881; the Las Vegas Morning Gazette, June 16, 1881; and the Las Vegas Daily Optic, May 14, 1881. Although the majority of accounts agree that Billy stole Montgomery Bell’s horse at Fort Sumner, Frank T. Encinias wrote that Saval Gutiérrez stole the horse for Billy’s use. Encinias obtained his information on the Kid from interviews with Saval Gutiérrez, Jesus Silva, Jose Lobato, and several other Fort Sumner Hispanos. The interesting Encinias account is only available in a rare untitled and undated pamphlet.

  The news report claiming that Billy was hanging around Fort Sumner because of a girlfriend was published in the Chicago Tribune, June 13, 1881.

  For the Billy/Paulita relationship, see Frederick Nolan, “The Private Life of Billy the Kid,” True West 47 (July 2000): 38–39. After receiving the news of Billy’s Lincoln escape, Sheriff James W. Southwick wrote Garrett to inform the lawman that while Billy was incarcerated in Mesilla, he had shown Southwick a letter from “his Girl a Miss Maxwell.” Because she was “very much struck on Billy,” Southwick suggested that Garrett keep a close watch on her. See James W. Southwick to E. A. Brininstool, Springfield, Illinois, Sept. 18, 1920, Box 3G468, Folder 2, E. A. Brininstool Collection, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

  In an interview with author Walter Noble Burns, Paulita supposedly denied that she was Billy’s sweetheart. However, she told a different story to Miguel Antonio Otero in a 1926 interview, or so Otero claimed to a newspaper reporter in an article published on July 14, 1926, presumably in the Santa Fe New Mexican. My source is a clipping in the Charles Siringo Papers (AC 212), Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, Santa Fe.

  Another Fort Sumner woman linked with Billy the Kid was Abrana García, whose son, José Patrocinio “Pat” García, was rumored to have been fathered by Billy. See Elbert A. García, Billy the Kid’s Kid: The Hispanic Connection (Santa Rosa, N.Mex.: Los Products Press, 1999).

  Garrett’s comments regarding his purposeful respite in pursuing the Kid, as well as his doubts about the Kid’s presence at Fort Sumner, are in his Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, 125.

  For my description of the Kid’s death and the events immediately preceding, I have relied primarily on the firsthand accounts of Garrett, his deputy, John W. Poe, and contemporary newspaper reports from the Daily New Mexican and the Las Vegas Daily Optic. Garrett’s version is found in his July 15, 1881, report to the governor as published in the Daily New Mexican, July 19, 1881; his interview with the Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 18, 1881; his interview with the Daily New Mexican, July 21, 1881; his 1882 account as published in his The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid; his interview that appeared in “Plucky Patrick Garrett,” a newspaper clipping dated Nov. 26, 1900, Pat Garrett Clippings File, Denver Public Library (possibly published in the Denver Times-Sun); his 1902 interview originally published in the New York World and copied in various forms in several other newspapers, including the Kansas City Journal, July 20, 1902, Galveston Daily News, Aug. 3, 1902, and the Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 7, 1902; and his account as quoted in Hough, The Story of the Outlaw, 307–311. John Poe’s version appears in An Illustrated History of New Mexico (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1895); his 1917 letter to Charles Goodnight, published in Nolan, ed., The Billy the Kid Reader, 331–338; and his own The Death of Billy the Kid (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1933). I am skeptical of a great deal of Poe’s version of events. He claims much of the responsibility for the Kid’s demise, from getting Garrett to travel to Fort Sumner in the first place to then persuading Garrett to visit Maxwell on the night of July 14 (Poe does not address why he failed to seek out Maxwell himself while he was in Fort Sumner for several hours earlier in the day). I suspect that Poe, perhaps envious of the massive attention received by Garrett, purposely enhanced his role in the affair.

  The importance of the U.S. mail in Garrett’s efforts to locate the Kid has generally been overlooked. In his July 15 report to the governor, Garrett wrote that he “had received several communications from persons in and about Fort Sumner, that William Bonny, alias the Kid, had been there, or in that vicinity for some time.” James B. Gillett, a former Texas Ranger and a friend of Garrett’s, wrote in 1923 that “Pat Garrett told me out of his own mouth that a certain merchant in Fort Sumner had written him that the Kid was there hanging around Pete Maxwells, as Kid was stuck on one of Pet[e]s half breed daughters.” Garrett told the Las Vegas Daily Optic, in the interview cited above, that “the first definite information he received that the ‘Kid’ was at Fort Sumner was contained in a letter written to him by Manuel Brazil.” See James B. Gillett to E. A. Brininstool, Marfa, Texas, Feb. 21, 1923, Box 3G469, E. A. Brininstool Collection.

  For information on Thomas “Kip” McKinney, see Nolan, The West of Billy the Kid, 280; 1870 U.S. Census for Uvalde County, Texas; F. W. Grey, Seeking Fortune in America (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1912), 110; and Frank M. King, Wranglin’ the Past: The Reminiscences of Frank M. King (Pasadena, Calif.: Trail’s End Publishing Co., 1946), 173. Interestingly, McKinney was a cousin of Tom Folliard, and on his deathbed, Folliard had asked Barney Mason to tell McKinney to write his grandmother back in Texas and inform her of his death. Of Garrett, Poe, and McKinney, only McKinney failed to leave a written account of the shooting of the Kid. However, James B. Gillett employed McKinney as a cowhand for “many months” at the Estado Land and Cattle Company, and Gillett wrote that McKinney “told about the same storey as Powe and Garrett” (Gillett to Brininstool, Feb. 21, 1923). A much less reliable source is one Howell Johnson, county attorney for Pecos County, Texas, who in 1933 claimed that Kip McKinney told him that McKinney and not Garrett had shot Billy (El Paso Herald-Post, Nov. 25, 1933). In recent years, historians and outlaw buffs have pounced upon a fanciful tale in Grey’s Seeking Fortune in America that has Garrett and McKinney tying and gagging Billy’s girlfriend (presumably Paulita) so that Garrett could then ambush the unsuspecting lover from behind a sofa. The historians and buffs infer that Grey got this account directly from McKinney, but Grey makes no su
ch claim. Grey’s other whoppers include the assertion that the Kid was a “half-breed Indian” and that Billy supposedly “originated, or at least brought to perfection, the art of whirling a gun and shooting” (p. 118). Grey apparently did know Kip McKinney, but, needless to say, his book should be used with caution.

  For information on the Colt and Winchester Garrett confiscated from Billy Wilson at Stinking Spring, see Mary’n Rosson, “The Gun That Killed Billy the Kid,” Old West 14 (Winter 1977): 6–9, 32, 36–37.

  There are conflicting accounts regarding Billy’s destination after leaving the peach orchard. Jesus Silva claimed Billy came to his dwelling. Paco Anaya preserved testimony from Celsa and Saval Gutiérrez wherein they said Billy came to their residence. The conversation I quote between Celsa and Billy is from Anaya, I Buried Billy, 125–126. The Anaya/Gutiérrez account is supported by a 1951 signed affidavit from Celsa’s son, Candido, in which he said the Kid stopped in their home the night he was killed. Candido stated that he saw Billy pick up the butcher knife the outlaw was later killed with; the knife belonged to his mother. The Candido Gutiérrez affidavit is reproduced in Frederick Nolan, “The Saga of the Kid Butcher Knife,” The Outlaw Gazette (Billy the Kid Outlaw Gang, Inc.) 10 (Nov. 1997): 7.

  There has been some debate over the years as to whether or not the Kid was armed with his pistol when he was shot by Garrett. Miguel Antonio Otero claimed that Jesus Silva and Deluvina Maxwell both stated to him “most positively” that Billy had only his butcher knife when they first observed the body. However, Jesus Silva contradicted himself when he told newspaperman Jack Hull in 1938 that he saw Billy’s body with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Remember, after he was confident that the Kid was dead, Garrett entered the room and at some point examined the Kid’s pistol to see if it had been fired. He would not then have placed the pistol back on the floor, which might explain why those who entered the room afterward saw only a butcher knife—that is, if we are to accept the claims of Deluvina and Silva on this matter, which I do not. It is ludicrous to think that the Kid would have gone anywhere without a firearm. And it is highly unlikely that the Kid would have confronted Deputy Poe if armed only with a butcher knife.