Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  It is interesting to note that on the day of the enumerator’s visit this John S. Murphy was indeed listed as “sick” or temporarily disabled. The cause of this affliction was also listed. John S. Murphy was, according to the census, incapacitated by a “gunshot wound”. Was this an excuse used by his neighbors to account for him not being present or was The Kid really recovering from a gunshot wound in San Patricio before heading to Fort Sumner with the Bowdres?

  If this man is not Billy the Kid then who is this twenty year old John S. Murphy from Texas that is living in an all Hispanic town? He is the same age as Brushy claimed he would have been (Brushy would have turned 21 on December 31st so he would have been 20 on June 16, 1880) and the same age as Billy the Kid would have been. He is from Texas just as Brushy claimed to be, he lives totally alone, and apparently his job as a laborer exposes him to the dangers of gunshot wounds. Brushy Roberts stated several times in his narrative that he “had a house” in San Patricio so it would not have been so easy to avoid being recorded on the census. After all, this was a small town of only 230 people at the time.

  No, John S. Murphy sounds remarkably like an alias that would have been used by Billy, especially when one considers that “John S. Murphy” could be an amalgamation of “John S. Chisum” and “Lawrence Murphy”. Further, there are no records whatsoever of any John S. Murphy as having been born in Texas in any other US Census in any other town in the country for any date. The single entry in San Patricio is the only record of this person’s existence anywhere in history.

  Brushy continued, “I gathered up some of the boys and hung around Fort Sumner picking up cattle which belonged to anyone who could round them up. We were accused of stealing cattle. So was Murphy and Chisum. The only difference between us and them is that they stole them wholesale and we just took them as we needed them. We thought we had a right to live, and we saw to it that we got along. Wouldn’t you?”

  “With Tunstall and McSween dead, Old John thought he could get out of paying us off, but he didn’t, he didn’t. We told him if he didn’t pay us that we were going to run off enough of his cattle to pay what we thought he owed us. We cut cattle out of his herd and he didn’t do anything about it. We got our share, and more too, maybe. But who knows?”

  “I tried to get him to pay us. I told him the quickest way he could do it was too slow. I had my six-shooter in his ribs, and I don’t know why I didn’t put him in a six-foot grave. From then on Old John was our bitterest enemy.”

  “The country was full of bad men in those days. We were not by ourselves. The only difference was they had the law and the politicians on their side. The law was just as crooked as the rest of us.”

  “I didn’t kill that Indian agent. I had nothing to do with it. I got blamed for it, of course. I got blamed for everything that no one else wanted. We were up there, but we did not go to steal horses like they say we did, No sir!”

  CHAPTER 4: TO BE HANGED BY THE NECK

  BRUSHY BILL ROBERTS could not talk about the events which followed the burning of the McSween’s house without betraying great excitement, and sometimes shedding tears. Well, why not? Every minute was bringing him closer to the noose.

  “About this time,” his story went on, “the President removed the governor from office in Santa Fe. He sent General Wallace to take over as governor of the territory. Mrs. McSween and John Chisum talked with the governor about conditions in the country. It looks like things would straighten out. The governor issued a Proclamation of Amnesty to most of the people who had fought in that war. It did not apply to me. I already had indictments against me for the murder of Brady and Hindman. But I didn’t kill them, I didn’t. I wasn’t even shooting at them. How could I kill them?”

  “Most of that fall and winter we stayed around Fort Sumner and Portales. In the winter of ’79 we got together with Dolan and Evans and agreed to quit fighting each other.”

  “When we came out of the saloon that night in Lincoln we run into Chapman, the lawyer for Mrs. McSween. Campbell and Dolan killed him in cold blood. I was standing there with them and saw who killed him.”

  “I heard that Governor Wallace had offered a thousand dollars for me if I would come in and testify. I wrote and told him that I would come in if he would annul those indictments against me. He wrote back that he would meet me at Squire Wilson’s house in Lincoln- that house out there by the tower.”

  “I tied my horse up while Tom watched and went up to the back door. The governor and Wilson were alone in the house. I went in and talked for several hours. I explained that Tom and I had seen them shoot Chapman in cold-blooded murder. He wanted us to testify before the grand jury and tell them what we knowed. Also he wanted me to testify against Colonel Dudley in his court martial trial at Stanton. I told him about things in general in this country and what started the trouble. I was not afraid to talk like the rest of them. I had the guts to help the governor out. No one else would say enough to help him.”

  “This happened to me one night in March. We didn’t meet like they say we did in the daytime at Patron’s. I had only this one meeting with Wallace until I submitted to arrest. The governor did come there after Tom and I were arrested. We were kept at Patron’s that time, I think.”

  Governor Lew Wallace

  “He promised to pardon me if I would stand trial on my indictments in the district court in Lincoln, testify before the grand jury in the Chapman case, and testify against Dudley. I promised to do it and Tom and I left for San Patricio, where he lived with me.”

  “General Wallace sent Sheriff Kimbrel to San Patricio to pick us up. He let me pick the men to arrest me. Tom and I went to Lincoln with them and went to jail.”

  “When my case was called, Judge Leonard was not there. The court appointed Colonel Fountain to represent me. I plead not guilty to the indictments. Then we went before the grand jury that brought in the indictment against Dolan and his men for the murder of Chapman. I testified at the Dudley trail in Stanton. Then they wanted to take me to Mesilla for trail on my indictment.”

  “I had promised the governor that I would stand trial in Lincoln and not any place else, to which he agreed. It begun to look now like the governor could not do like he wanted. The judge was a Murphy sympathizer and a friend of Tom Catron at the head of the Santa Fe Ring. I saw that they did not intend to treat me right. I went to Kimbrel and told him to give me my scabbards and six-shooters. He said he could not blame me as it looked like I was being taken for a ride. I did ride, but not to Mesilla. Tom and I walked out of the jail. We rode back to Fort Sumner and told them if they wanted us, to come and get us. But come a-shootin’.”

  “They never arrested anyone else for the Brady murder. They never tried to arrest anyone else. They didn’t do like they promised me. They pinned the whole affair on me, because they wanted to get rid of Billy the Kid. But they didn’t hang me, they didn’t.”

  There was a good deal of skirmishing after Billy the Kid walked out of the jail at Lincoln. As he increased the tempo of his activities as a cattle and horse thief, the law speeded up its efforts to catch him. Brushy Bill did not have much to say about these minor run-ins, but he did have vivid recollections of the fight at the Greathouse ranch or road house in November, 1880- possibly because he thought Billy the Kid got an especially raw deal there.”

  “I don’t know where Greathouse’s ranch was. That has been a long time to recollect, that has. But while we were there, we were surrounded by a posse. Surrounded by a posse, we was. They sent in Carlyle to get us to surrender. He had no warrant. I just told him that it amounted to mob violence, and we didn’t intend to be mobbed. Not just yet, anyhow. The posse had Greathouse with them. When they commenced shooting out there, Carlyle got scared and jumped through the window. As he went out through the window, they shot him down without warning. They thought it was me making and escape, but they got fooled that time. We were going to make Carlyle ride out with us after dark. They left, and we got out that night.”

>   “The next day they came back and burned down the house, thinking that we were on the inside. They were like rats. They burned us out of McSween’s house and they were trying the same thing again. But we beat them to it again, we did.”

  “We went to Las Vegas, where I read that Billy the Kid had killed Carlyle. I wrote to Governor Wallace and told him that I did not kill Carlyle. That his own men killed him. But I got blamed for that killing too. Garrett told me about it later on.”

  “Garrett had been a deputy under Sheriff Kimbrel. Kimbrel run for re-election. Old John Chisum, Lea, and several others put Garrett up against Kimbrel. They knew that Kimbrel was a friend of Governor Wallace and a friend of Billy the Kid. Garrett won the election.”

  “He had not been in the country long. He come here from Texas, where he killed a man, a partner, in a quarrel over dividing buffalo hides. We knew about it. We traveled through Texas too. Garrett had nothing when he landed in Fort Sumner. Me and my boys bought him the first pair of boots he ever owned in this country. We paid for the celebration at his first wedding in Fort Sumner. He rode with us, gambled and danced, but now he turned coat.”

  “He went to work for Maxwell when he landed in Fort Sumner, but he didn't last long. He bought in with Beaver Smith, who had a saloon and lunch room in Fort Sumner. The people around there had no use for him. They were all our friends.”

  "With this killing of Carlyle tacked on me, Garrett had another excuse to go after me, which he did. We were riding to Fort Sumner one night in a snow storm that December about eight o'clock. Garrett and his posse took over Bowdre’s home and were there waiting for us to come in. O'Folliard had been living with Bowdre and his wife there. As we rode in, I took another road, thinking they might be watching for us. Tom and the boys rode up to Bowdre's and they started shooting at my boys, hitting Tom. I heard the shooting and rode in, to find the boys leaving town.”

  “They carried Tom inside and let him die, begging for water to drink. His cousin, Kip McKinney, one of Garrett's posse, wouldn't give Tom a drink when he was dying. Tom was a better man than McKinney. Tom's uncle on the Texas Rangers did not let him down, but the brave McKinney did it, he did. I met Cook, Tom's uncle, in Roswell in the fall of '80. He wanted to talk to Tom, but I wouldn't let him. I told him Tom was my best pal and I needed him. I wouldn't let him go yet. Later on I wished I had.”

  "After a couple of days riding in the snow, we landed at the old rock house at Stinking Springs. We brought a couple of our horses inside and tied the others outside from the gable of the roof. The next morning at sunup Charlie Bowdre went out to feed the horses. When he stepped through the door opening (there wasn't any door), Garrett and his posse fired from ambush without warning, wounding Charlie seriously. He wore a large hat like mine. They thought he was me. They didn't intend to give the Kid a chance. They knew when he went down, he would take some of them with him.”

  HE NEVER GOT BACK TO TEXAS

  Tom O’Folliard, Billy’s right-hand man, killed by Garrett’s posse before he could carry out his plan to leave New Mexico

  "Charlie walked back in, but when he went back after them, he fell dead. We stayed in there all day, planning to ride out after dark. As we were trying to lead the other horses inside, they shot a horse and he fell over in the doorway. I had intended to ride my mare out on her side, like the Cheyenne Indians taught me in my boyhood days, but my mare wouldn't jump over the dead horse in the doorway, so we gave up the idea. I would have ridden out a-shooting if that dead horse had not fell over in the opening.”

  "They promised to protect us if we would surrender. We threw out our six-shooters and filed out the door. They loaded us in a wagon with Bowdre's body and took us to Fort Sumner. The next day they buried Bowdre near O'Folliard, who they killed a few days before.”

  In regards to this event Brushy’s story matches the traditional version for the most part but offers subtle detail and nuance that one would expect from someone who was there. Details, for example, such as the fact that there was no door in the opening of the little rock house or that they tied some of their horses to the gable of the roof seem minor but challenge the notion that Brushy would have memorized the historical accounts.

  As with the accounts of other contemporary witnesses, Brushy’s version of events is in many ways corroborated by the historical record but also at times deviates from it or provides additional unique insights. For example, Brushy maintained that Garrett shot at Bowdre without warning, contrary to Garrett’s claim that a warning was given. It stands to reason that if Brushy was a fraud then he would have made a better effort to stick close to the accepted version rather than make up his own. The fact that Brushy spoke of events firsthand and spoke from his own point of view lends tremendous credibility to his claims.

  KILLED BY MISTAKE

  Charles Bowdre, who fell before Garrett and his posse at the old rock house in December, 1880- shown here with his weapons and his wife

  "The next day Mrs. Maxwell sent her Indian servant over to ask Pat Garrett if he would let me visit with them before taking me to Santa Fe to jail. Dave Rudabaugh was chained to me when Jim East, a friend of mine from Tascosa, Texas, and another member of the posse took us over to Maxwell’s house. The Indian was wearing a scarf that she had just made from angora goat hair. I traded her my tintype picture in my shirt pocket for this scarf. I wore the scarf around my head on the trip to Las Vegas, after we left Maxwell’s house.”

  “After we went in the house, Mrs. Maxwell asked them to cut me loose from Rudabaugh so I could go into another room with her daughter. They refused to do it. They suspected it was a trap to let me escape. I knew if they did let me in the other room, that they would go back to Garrett without me. I knew that I would find shooting irons in that room. And I knew that I would be able to use them. They knew that the handcuffs would not bother me. That's why they would not take off the leg irons. Anyway they would not cut me loose from Dave.”

  Dave Rudabaugh

  "We went back and started for Las Vegas, where we arrived a couple of days later. I almost got away from them at the jail in Las Vegas. The next day they put three of us on the train for Santa Fe, and it looked like trouble before we started out of there. I told Pat if he would give me a six-shooter that I would shoot it out with the mob and stay with him the rest of the trip."

  This incident is particularly interesting as it was actually picked up by the New York Times and reported on December 28, 1880. That article shares some interesting details, such as the number in the pursuing posse, which Roberts describes as a “mob”, and the exact dialogue between Garrett and the pursuers. What stands out, however, is the detail regarding the arming of the prisoners. Brushy claims he told Garrett “if he would give me a six-shooter that I would shoot it out with the mob and stay with him the rest of the trip”. Apparently, Garrett was prepared to take him up on that offer in the event that shooting actually started.

  The New York Times article reads “Somebody suggested to take the prisoners now. Stewart, of Garrett’s party, said the instant the first shot was fired he would free every man and arm him.”

  How could Roberts have possibly known there was discussion about arming the prisoners during the train standoff between a rival posse and Garrett’s crew unless he was, in fact, present that day? This small obscure detail is yet another piece of firsthand information that supports the credibility of his claim.

  The New York Times December 28, 1880

  “At Santa Fe we were put in jail. I wrote to Governor Wallace to come and talk to me, but he failed to do so. Sherman would not let my friends visit me in the jail, but he would let curiosity seekers in to look at me as if I was a dog. The governor had forgotten his promise to help me. They took me to Mesilla the last of March to stand trial on my indictments. We left Santa Fe on the train and wound up in Mesilla on the stage.”

  "In April I pleaded to the federal indictment and it was thrown out of court. Judge Leonard represented me on this indictment. He
got it thrown out by the judge. Then I was put on trial for the murder of Sheriff Brady, a territorial charge.”

  "Again I was treated like a dog. They took me in court every morning chained and handcuffed. Olinger was there as a U.S. deputy marshal. He taunted and threatened me constantly. I tried for a six-shooter on one of the guards one day, but I couldn't quite reach it. I'd have killed Olinger first if I could have gotten it. They sat me up front near old Judge Bristol, who I had threatened to kill before. He was scared all the time I was in court in Lincoln and in Mesilla. He knew that he was looking for a six-foot grave if I got loose.”

  The feud between Bob Olinger and Billy the Kid is well known and likewise Brushy Bill’s contempt for the man was evident. One of the biggest mistakes one can make is to project on the past the worldview of the present and possibly this is a major reason for the confusion regarding Billy the Kid. Although human nature does not change, the worldview and morality of any given period does.

  Case in point is the view on the law and lawmen today versus in the Old West. In the Old West many notable lawmen were involved in criminal activity both before and after being lawmen, even including such legendary men as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. This is not to say that these men do not deserve worthy praise for their contributions to society or that they were not good people. The fact simply remains that at various times they were on either side of the law.

  Unfortunately, at certain times in those days there are also examples where the law itself was on the wrong side of right and wrong and unfortunately at times legitimate bad men, corrupt men, or downright evil men hid behind the badge of justice. It is not true, therefore, that in every case the lawman is right and the citizen is wrong. After all, Dick Brewer was sworn in as a constable and Billy was in his posse to catch the murderers of John Tunstall. Not everyone could be on the right side of the law when there were badges on both sides of the Lincoln County War.