To Hell on a Fast Horse

by Mark Lee Gardner

  The best description of Deluvina Maxwell is found in a letter by Jack Potter written on Feb. 15, 1949, and published in Rose P. White, “Full Many a Flower…,” The New Mexico Folklore Record 4 (1949–50): 15–16. Potter knew Deluvina in the 1880s. The Paulita Maxwell quote about Deluvina is in Burns, Saga of Billy the Kid, 195. Deluvina was interviewed by J. Evetts Haley at Fort Sumner, June 24, 1927. Interestingly, in that interview she claimed that she did not see Billy’s body until the following morning. The interview is in the collections of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

  John Poe’s recollection regarding Paulita’s lack of emotion is from Walter Noble Burns’s rejected draft chapter for Saga of Billy the Kid, Box 16, Leon C. Metz Papers.

  Although Garrett and others have referred to the jury that investigated the Kid’s death as a “coroner’s jury,” there was no coroner present. A copy of the handwritten verdict of the jury, written entirely in Spanish, is in the Frank W. Parker Papers, NMSRCA. Evidence that Saval Gutiérrez and fellow jury members José Silva and Lorenzo Jaramillo were illiterate is obtained from the fact that they did not sign their names to the verdict but instead made their marks next to their names.

  Hispanic old-timers of Fort Sumner who were interviewed in the 1920s and 1930s about Billy’s death and its aftermath include Jesus Silva, Frank Lobato, Vicente Otero, and Anastacio Trujillo. See Otero, The Real Billy the Kid, 155–158, and Jack Hull, “Only One Man Living Who Saw ‘Billy the Kid’ in Both Life and Death,” Clovis News-Journal, Clovis, New Mexico, July 13, 1938.

  The account of the Kid’s funeral comes from an article by Jack Potter, who was not an eyewitness but claimed to have obtained his information from Fort Sumner residents in 1884. Potter’s account is reprinted in Nolan, The Billy the Kid Reader, 339–342. In another article, Potter claimed that Billy’s grave marker bore the following words: “Billy the Kid (Bonney)/July 14, 1881.” He added that in the left-hand corner there appeared a small inscription in a woman’s handwriting (he does not explain how he identified the gender of the inscription’s author): “Dormir Bien Querido,” which Potter translated as “sleep well, dear one.” Potter, a popular New Mexico storyteller, seldom felt constrained by the truth. On a visit to the cemetery in January 1882, a special correspondent for the Las Vegas Daily Optic reported that the Kid’s marker contained only the stenciled words “Billy the Kid” the Optic article even provided a facsimile of the inscription. See Colonel Jack Potter, “Post-Mortem on Billy the Kid,” Ranch Romances 73 (First May Number, 1937): 131–133; and Marc Simmons, Stalking Billy the Kid: Brief Sketches of a Short Life (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2006), 175.

  9. BOTH HERO AND VILLAIN

  For contemporary news reports on the Kid’s death culled from various newspapers, see Harold L. Edwards, Goodbye Billy the Kid (College Station, Tex.: Creative Publishing Company, 1995).

  Garrett’s defense of Pete Maxwell is in the Daily New Mexican of July 21, 1881. Some historians have suggested that Pete Maxwell was the primary informant who tipped off Garrett to Billy’s presence at Fort Sumner, supposedly because Maxwell objected to his sister’s relationship with the outlaw. If that was the case, it is very odd that Garrett did not mention that Maxwell was his informant to the New Mexican reporter. What better way to exonerate Maxwell? And Garrett could have done it without bringing up Paulita.

  For Garrett’s attempt to collect the reward money on the Kid, see the Daily New Mexican of July 21, 1881, and Ritch’s report on Garrett’s application in Territorial Archives of New Mexico, roll 21, frames 595–596.

  For the subscription efforts on behalf of Garrett, see the Daily New Mexican, July 21, 29, and 39; the Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 19, 1881; the Chicago Tribune, Aug. 7, 1881; and the Rio Grande Republican, Sept. 2, 1882.

  The Globe of Atchison, Kansas, which slandered Garrett in its issue of Aug. 1, 1881, had praised the lawman just two days previous. The Globe, which was a faithful reader of the Las Vegas Daily Optic due to both cities’ being on the same rail line, commented on the story of Billy’s finger being requested by his “sweetheart” in its issue of Sept. 23, 1881. There is no Kate Tenney in the 1880 U.S. Census for Oakland, Alameda County. However, there is a Kate Terney, a thirty-two-year-old native of Ireland whose occupation is given as servant.

  For a good description of the nickel novels about Billy the Kid that appeared in 1881, see J. C. Dykes, Billy the Kid: The Bibliography of a Legend (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952). There is a common misconception that there were scores of dime novels published that featured the exploits of Billy the Kid. Actually, Billy was not a popular dime novel subject, with less than twelve or so known to have featured the outlaw, all of which appeared after his death. Much more popular was Jesse James, who appeared in dozens of dime novels. My thanks to J. Randolph Cox, editor of Dime Novel Round-Up, for setting me straight on the Kid’s role in these famed yellow-back potboilers.

  Don Jenardo’s The True Life of Billy the Kid was number 451 in the Five Cent Wide Awake Library, published by Frank Tousey, New York.

  In a letter to a niece written about two months after publication of The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, Upson claimed that he had written “every word” of Garrett’s book, which was likely true, as Garrett may have dictated his account to his friend. Upson’s contributions to the book were acknowledged in the New Mexico press in 1885. “He wrote the ‘Life of Billy the Kid,’ for Pat Garrett,” stated the Albuquerque Journal (as quoted in the Rio Grande Republican, Dec. 26, 1885). Interestingly, the Rio Grande Republican referred to Upson as the “compiler” of Garrett’s book in its issue of Feb. 7, 1885. Upson’s letter to his niece is reproduced in James D. Shinkle, Reminiscences of Roswell Pioneers, 22.

  The Rio Grande Republican of Dec. 3, 1881, announced that Garrett had closed on the contract with the New Mexican Printing and Publishing Co. to produce his book. The first announcement that the book was completed and ready for sale appeared in the Daily New Mexican of Mar. 12, 1882.

  In his History of “Billy the Kid,” 133, Charlie Siringo stated that Garrett had Billy’s body dug up. Phil LeNoir, who seems to have been inspired by Siringo’s account, wrote a superb poem about the episode titled “The Finger of Billy the Kid.” See LeNoir’s Rhymes of the Wild & Wooly (Santa Fe: privately printed, 1920).

  For information on the different printings of Garrett’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, I am grateful to Robert McCubbin of Santa Fe, New Mexico. McCubbin owns three variants of Garrett’s book, including an extremely rare copy bound in red flexible leather. Apparently, a very few copies of the book were bound in leather as special presentation copies for Garrett’s use. McCubbin’s leather-bound copy is indeed inscribed “from the author.” Bob McCubbin to Mark L. Gardner, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dec. 21, 2007.

  For the meeting between Pat Garrett and Joseph Antrim, see the Albuquerque Review, Aug. 2, 1882 (typescript in Leon C. Metz Papers); and Galveston Daily News, Dec. 15, 1881. My information on the Armijo Hotel comes from The Albuquerque Tribune, Feb. 10, 1958; and Marc Simmons, Albuquerque: A Narrative History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982), 226.

  Garrett’s displeasure with the office of Lincoln County sheriff was reported in the Daily New Mexican, July 19, 1881; and the Rio Grande Republican, July 23, 1881.

  Records pertaining to the payment of Garrett’s reward are found in Territorial Archives of New Mexico, roll 5, frames 127, 765–766; Pat F. Garrett: Settlements for Services Rendered, Territorial Auditor Collection #1960-030, Box 11, Folder 2, NMSRCA; and Territorial Auditor’s Daybook, p. 178, NMSRCA.

  Garrett’s Elgin pocket watch (object #85.3.1) is currently part of the collections of the Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, California. Garrett’s gold Lincoln County sheriff’s badge sold at auction in San Francisco on June 16, 2008, for $100,000. The badge is currently on display in the private Ruidoso River Museum, Ruidoso, New Mexico. See “Pat Garrett’s Sheriff’s Badge Nets $100,000
,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 17, 2008. Notice of the walking cane appeared in the Daily New Mexican, Mar. 31, 1883.

  The Rio Grande Republican, July 22, 1882, reported on Garrett’s decision not to run for a second term as sheriff.

  For Garrett’s Territorial Council run, the controversial letters from “X” and “Texan,” and Garrett’s pistol whipping of Roberts, see the Rio Grande Republican, Sept. 2, 16, 19, and 23, Nov. 4, 11, and 18; and El Paso Lone Star, May 14, 1884.

  James E. Sligh, Garrett’s friend and the former editor and publisher of the White Oaks Golden Era, recorded Garrett’s comments about his marriage to Polinaria and the racism the couple faced: “Some people seem to think that a man who marries a Mexican woman, and stays with her, lets himself down in the estimation of white people; but I can’t help that; I married my wife because I loved her and I love her still, and I intend to stay with her to the end. If people don’t like me because of my wife, they can simply let me alone.” When Sligh asked Garrett what his family in Louisiana thought of the marriage, Garrett said that they looked at it “as if I had married a nigger, and you know how our Southern folks take a thing like that.” See Sligh, “The Lincoln County War: A Sequel to the Story of ‘Billy the Kid,’” 170–171.

  On Feb. 3, 1883, Garrett and Poe entered into an agreement with John N. Copeland to purchase a little over one hundred head of cattle at $22.50 each. A copy of the agreement is in the Herman B. Weisner Papers, Ms 249, Box 4, Folder G/5, Rio Grande Historical Collections, New Mexico State University Archives, Las Cruces.

  The story of the Panhandle cowboy strike and the formation and activities of Garrett’s rangers is best chronicled in Frederick Nolan, Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2007).

  The El Paso Lone Star comment on Garrett’s rangers is quoted from its issue of July 2, 1884. Garrett’s unit was not part of the famed Texas Rangers. His company is often referred to as the LS rangers, because the largest financial backer was the LS outfit.

  Garrett’s purchase of the Ki Harrison ranch in Lincoln County for $5,000 was reported in the Lone Star of Apr. 12, 1884.

  John Meadows’s quote about Garrett preventing another Lincoln County War is from Nolan, Tascosa, 168. Garrett’s suspicion that he was hired as an assassin is from Hough, The Story of the Outlaw, 299.

  For evidence of Garrett’s relocation with his family to Las Vegas, see the Lincoln Golden Era, Jan. 1 and 8, 1885. A copy of Garrett’s oath of office for the position of cattle inspector, San Miguel County, New Mexico, Mar. 18, 1885, is in the Leon C. Metz Papers, Box 16.

  Brandon C. Kirby’s background and his relationship with Garrett are documented in the Rio Grande Republican, Aug. 8, 1885; and the Las Vegas Daily Optic, Dec. 6, 12, and 15, 1890.

  The downturn in the New Mexico cattle business in 1886 was mentioned by Sophie Poe, wife of John W. Poe, in a letter to W. T. Moyers, Aug. 18, 1951, Box 10B, Folder 4C, Fred M. Mazzulla Collection, #1881, Stephen H. Hart Library, Colorado Historical Society, Denver.

  For Garrett’s irrigation business, see Metz, Pat Garrett, 149–154; James D. Shinkle, Fifty Years of Roswell History, 1867–1917 (Roswell, N.Mex.: Hall-Poorbaugh Press, 1964), 93–98; and Stephen Bogener, Ditches Across the Desert: Irrigation in the Lower Pecos Valley (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2003).

  The description of Garrett’s farm is from the Las Vegas Daily Optic of Mar. 27, 1889. Garrett’s business endeavors and political aspirations are well documented in the Pecos Valley Register, published in Roswell, in various issues for 1889 and 1890.

  In his run for Chaves County sheriff, Garrett had been endorsed by both the Las Vegas Daily Optic and Roswell’s Pecos Valley Register. He lost to the man Poe endorsed: Campbell C. Fountain.

  Garrett’s letter to Polinaria discussing trade for the Uvalde ditch was written from El Paso, Texas, Sept. 2, 1889. The letter is in a private collection.

  The story of how Elizabeth Garrett lost her eyesight is from an interview with Mae Marley, Roswell, New Mexico, Apr. 26, 1966, Buckner Collection of Elizabeth Garrett Materials, 1893–1992, Coll. #1992-025, NMSRCA.

  Ida Garrett’s letter to M. A. Upson, July 24, 1891, is in the private collection of Robert G. McCubbin.

  The Uvalde Herald article on the increase in blooded horses in west Texas is as quoted in the Galveston Daily News, Oct. 29, 1891.

  Garrett’s purchase of the St. Louis steam engine for “experiments on irrigation by machinery” was reported in the Roswell Record, June 23, 1893.

  Garrett’s letter to Polinaria, Mar. 21, 1894, is reproduced in The Kid (Mar. 1990): 5–6.

  On Oct. 6, 1894, Ash Upson, Garrett’s odd, liquor-guzzling friend of many years, died at the Garrett home. He would have turned sixty-six years old in a month.

  10. ANOTHER MANHUNT

  For Albert Jennings Fountain, see A. M. Gibson, The Life and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965); and Gordon R. Owen, The Two Alberts: Fountain and Fall (Las Cruces: Yucca Tree Press, 1996).

  For a newspaper report on Governor Thornton’s El Paso meeting with Garrett, see the San Antonio Light, Feb. 22, 1896.

  Garrett’s letter to Polinaria, Feb. 25, 1896, is as quoted in Jarvis Garrett’s foreword to a reprint of his father’s The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid (Albuquerque: Horn & Wallace, 1964), 25.

  For Charles C. Perry, see Larry D. Ball, “Lawman in Disgrace: Sheriff Charles C. Perry of Chaves County, New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review 61 (Apr. 1986): 125–136.

  Garrett’s words about never quitting are in his letter to Polinaria, Mar. 8, 1896, Las Cruces, New Mexico. A copy of this letter is in the Donald Cline Collection, Series 10419, Folder 68, NMSRCA.

  For my narrative regarding the Fountain killings and the subsequent investigation and trial of Lee and Gililland, I have relied primarily on the reports of Pinkerton operatives John C. Fraser and William B. Sayers and El Paso Daily Herald reports on the Lee and Gililland trial, May 27–June 16, 1899. Copies of the Pinkerton reports were provided me by historian John P. Wilson. Copies are also available in the Charles Siringo Papers, Chávez History Library, Santa Fe, and the C. L. Sonnichsen Papers, MS 141, C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department, University of Texas at El Paso Library. A detailed examination of the Fountain investigation and the Lee and Gililland murder trial is Corey Recko’s Murder on the White Sands: The Disappearance of Albert and Henry Fountain (Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press, 2007).

  During the summer of 1896, while he was in the midst of the Fountain investigation, Garrett helped secure a presidential pardon for Billy Wilson, Billy the Kid’s old partner in crime, who had been living in Texas under an assumed name. See Rasch, Trailing Billy the Kid, 65–67.

  Fall’s assistance in securing Garrett’s appointment as Doña Ana County sheriff was not a magnanimous gesture. Fall was able to negotiate with the governor the appointment of a new board of county commissioners—all Democrats. The unusual steps taken to secure the sheriff’s office for Garrett are explained in the Rio Grande Republican, Aug. 14, 1896.

  My account of Garrett and Maggie Fountain at the Republican rally is from the Rio Grande Republican, Nov. 6, 1896.

  The legendary Tularosa poker game is related by Curry, a participant, in George Curry, 1861–1947: An Autobiography, 106–107.

  The two Apr. 3, 1898, affidavits outlining Garrett’s evidence in the Fountain case are reproduced in Keleher, The Fabulous Frontier, 216–218.

  There are several accounts of the Wildy Well gunfight, making for a bit of a mess when trying to figure out exactly what happened that day. Garrett’s version of events is in his sworn testimony during the trial of Lee and Gililland, as reported in the El Paso Daily Herald, June 7, 1899; and his account as published in the Rio Grande Republican, July 15, 1898. Oliver Lee gave his version thirty-nine years later to William A. Keleher, who published it in his The Fabulous Frontier, 200–222. By far the most interesting account is the
Aug. 18, 1898, sworn statement left by Mary Madison, which, not surprisingly, is highly critical of Garrett. Her statement is in Box 11, Folder 22, Albert B. Fall Family Papers, Ms 8, Rio Grande Historical Collections.

  The report that Lee withdrew a large amount of money at El Paso appeared in the Galveston Daily News, July 16, 1898.

  The story of Lee getting startled during a poker game at the Cox ranch is from Emmett Isaacs to Herman B. Weisner, 1962, interview typescript, Box 27, Folder 1, Eve Ball Papers.

  Numerous historians and authors have enjoyed repeating the tale that Albert B. Fall came up with the idea to create Otero County in order to help Lee and Gililland out of their fix, as the boundaries of the new Otero County just encompassed the Fountain murder site, technically giving Otero legal jurisdiction over the case. Fall, however, was still on active military duty when Otero County came into existence, and the issue of Otero’s legal jurisdiction never became a factor in the subsequent trial of Lee and Gililland. The truth of the matter is that Lee and Gililland saw an influential ally in Sheriff George Curry, who obviously had the ear of Governor Otero, and, too, they were weary of running from a determined Pat Garrett.

  George Curry’s account of his negotiations with Lee, Otero, and Judge Parker are in George Curry, 1861–1947: An Autobiography, 111–113.

  For Eugene Manlove Rhodes, see W. H. Hutchinson, A Bar Cross Man: The Life and Personal Writings of Eugene Manlove Rhodes (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956). Although Rhodes was an unabashed Lee partisan, he would go on to write a noted essay defending Pat Garrett and his conduct in hunting down and killing Billy the Kid. See Rhodes, “In Defense of Pat Garrett,” Sunset 59 (Sept. 1927): 26–27, 85–91.