Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  So, like many others Billy the Kid was himself on both sides of the law at various points in his life but that does not always mean that he was on the wrong side of right and wrong. Unfortunately for him he just happened to be on the losing side so he is almost universally condemned today as an outlaw and a “cop killer” for killing Bob Olinger, James Bell, and Sheriff Jim Brady. This accusation is an oversimplification of the facts. Although Brushy admitted to and regretted killing James Bell who was his friend and universally considered a good man, he maintained that he did not kill Sheriff Brady.

  The killing of Bob Olinger, on the other hand, he readily admitted and was clearly thrilled about but it was not necessarily because Billy was bloodthirsty. It is well known and documented that Bob Olinger was a cold blooded murderer and a bully that happened to have a badge. He was known to shoot men in the back for no justifiable reason which was the case when he murdered an unarmed and cooperative Bob Jones in front of his wife and small children in 1878 while serving a small civil fine. The lead deputy on the matter, Deputy Pierce Jones, filed charges against Olinger for murder, charges that were later dismissed before the matter went to court. This is just one man of many that Olinger killed without provocation. Another may have been the unarmed John Tunstall. Olinger was in the posse that confronted and murdered Tunstall although it is unknown if he fired a shot.

  In any event Bob’s own mother described him thusly: "Bob was a murderer from the cradle, and if there is a hell hereafter then he is there." These would be strong words coming from anyone but when they come from the man’s own mother perhaps that is the best indication of his character.

  In this context perhaps the actions of Billy the Kid take on a different light. As Brushy says he was railroaded and not treated fairly. The fact that he was not lynched or killed by one of the men seeking him, whether deputies or posse members, is attributed only to the fact that Billy had friends on both sides. Jim East, for example, says that after Garrett promised the Kid safety if he surrendered at Stinking Springs, Billy and his gang came out unarmed. Regardless of the Sheriff’s promise, he says Barney Mason took aim and was about to shoot Billy in cold blood when Jim and another posse member stopped him. If it were not for Jim East and men like him, the Kid would no doubt have been killed by his captors long before he went to trial.

  Surely these thoughts were fresh in Billy’s mind as he sat in the Lincoln County jail. After all, he knew he was being guarded by one of the men that killed his boss and who would not hesitate to kill him also given the chance. Had he had he not escaped his best case outcome would be that he himself would have been hung leaving no one left to oppose the Santa Fe Ring or to avenge his friends. Unfortunately, in the corrupt world of the old west, perhaps Billy’s only chance for justice was to escape by any means necessary.

  Brushy continued, "Judge Fountain was appointed to represent me on the territorial charge. He done all he could for me. I had no money. Couldn't get any. They didn't sell my mare up at Scott Moore's in Las Vegas. He was a friend of mine, but now he said I owed him money for board."

  "The trial was crooked. I asked for witnesses which they could not find. They didn't want to find them. Sheriff Garrett knew where they were. Hank Brown was in Tascosa when I was on trial. Garrett knew it, too, but he didn’t do anything about it. I think they turned Billy Wilson loose at Mesilla. I don’t think he was tried in court, but I don’t remember.”

  “The trial lasted about a week. They jury found me guilty of the murder of Sheriff Brady, and Judge Bristol sentenced me, on April 13, to hang on May 13 in Lincoln County. My other indictment was throwed out of court the next day.”

  “On April 16 they loaded me on an old Army ambulance, handcuffed, shackled, and the leg shackles chained to the back seat, and we started for Staunton. John Kinney, who fought against me in the war, sat on the back seat beside me. Billy Matthews, who had shot me and Wayte when Brady was killed, sat across and facing Kinney. Deputy U.S. Marshal Bob Olinger, my bitterest enemy, sat beside Matthews and facing me, threatening to kill me all the time on that trip to Stanton. Dave Woods and a couple other guards rode horseback, one on each side, and the other rode behind the ambulance. They told me if anyone attacked that they would kill me first and then catch the other fellows. We left Mesilla a little before midnight so no one would know where we were. As we were sleeping one night, I almost got away from Matthews, who was guarding me at the time. It took about five days to make the trip to Fort Stanton, where Garrett picked me up and took me to the jail in Lincoln.”

  CHAPTER 5: JAILBREAK

  WHAT HAPPENED in the Lincoln County jail in 1881 was still giving Brushy Bill Roberts the horrors sixty-nine years later. In August, 1950 he came back to Lincoln for the first time in many decades. He was riding with Morrison, who was on his way to Carrizozo to go through the records in the county courthouse. They stopped in front of the place where Billy the Kid passed the long days and nights waiting for his death sentence to be carried out. Roberts was very uneasy and cried intermittently. He refused to get out of the car and go inside. Morrison went in alone and had a chat with Mr. Wright, who was pinch hitting for Colonel Fulton, the custodian.

  That night, after Morrison had gone through the records at Carrizozo, they talked far into the small hours about what had happened in the old days, but it was not till the next morning, when they were back-trailing toward Roswell, that things began to come alive for the old man. The country had changed so much in seventy years that he had trouble locating himself, but suddenly he pointed to the mountainside on the right. "Over there," he said, "was a rock ledge that we used to ride out on and fire down into the valley. A little farther down on the other side of the road, we ought to see a cave we used to use."

  Sure enough, the cave came into view. "A man could get a horse in there," he remarked.

  Back in Lincoln he still refused to visit the old courthouse. But just as they reached the outskirts of town, headed for Roswell, he changed his mind. "Let's go back to that place," he said. "I might go inside if there's nobody there."

  He sat in the car while Morrison reconnoitered. Mr. Wright was still the only official present, so Bill got out and came in. Mr. Wright was very courteous and showed them some of his relics. They came to a pair of leg irons of the type Billy was wearing when he escaped. Bill thought Mr. Wright was passing them off as the genuine originals, took offense, and nearly let his tongue run away with him.

  "Them are not the leg irons that Billy the Kid rode out of here with. I ought to know that Billy's leg irons were cut apart in the middle of the chain."

  Then he bethought himself, turned red, counted the links in the chain to the number of fourteen, and agreed that the shackles were of the type that Billy wore.

  When Mr. Wright’s back was turned, he whispered to Morrison, “If you think it’s safe, I would like to go up there and show you where I was locked to the floor in that room on the corner.” Morrison reassured him and they mounted the stairs to the second floor.

  Upstairs, Bill seemed nervous and somehow lost, as if he were trying to find a familiar landmark in a wilderness. The stairs inside were about the way they had been, but he remarked that there was no outside stairway to the balcony in the old days. The upper floor was completely changed. He explained to Morrison how it had looked in 1881.

  “The stairway began on the first floor on the west side, running east into the large hall which run north and south in the building. At the east end of this hall a door opened into Garrett's office. On the east side of Garrett's office a door opened into the room where I was confined in the northeast corner room. Across the hall from Garrett's office door was another door opening into the armory room.”

  He walked over to one of the eastern windows. "I was sitting right here on a soap box that morning," he said, "when Olinger loaded his shotgun with buckshot, twelve in each barrel. He snarled at me as usual and said, “Kid, do you see these buckshot I am loading into these two barrels, twelve in each barrel? We
ll, if you try to make a break, I'll put all twenty-four between your shoulder blades.”

  "I said, “Bob, you might get them before I do,” and I smiled at him. Then he brought out a lariat rope and said, 'This is good enough to hang you with.' I told him a lariat rope was not fit to hang a man with.”

  "At noon time, as usual, Olinger went across the street with the other prisoners for lunch and left Bell there guarding me. Olinger and Bell were always on guard duty. Olinger always brought me lunch when he came back. Then Bell would go for lunch. During the week I was kept here, I was guarded constantly. They were afraid I would break jail or be rescued by my friends.”

  “It seemed that Bell lived in the neighborhood of White Oaks. He was a nice man. He treated me like an ordinary prisoner. But Olinger treated me like a dog.”

  “Olinger – wasn’t nothing to him. A big bluff and a big coward. Killed all his men by shooting in the back or before they knew what was happening. He was a big fellow, too. Garrett didn't like him, either. I think the Beckwith family was related to Olinger’s, but I'm not sure. Beckwiths were all right when they came to that country. Until Murphy turned them against Chisum, who helped them when they came to that country. Old John helped lots of them in that day.”

  "Olinger had worked for Chisum and was not liked by any of his boys. He had shot John Jones in the back in a camp on the Pecos. He murdered the Jones boy in cold blood. I promised the father that I would even the score with Olinger for this murder of his son. During my trial in Mesilla he kept taunting and teasing me. I was eager to kill him, but I did not want to kill Bell.”

  "The day before I got away, Sam Corbett and his wife came in to see me. Sam had hid a six-shooter in the latrine. So the next morning I planned to wait until Olinger took the rest of the prisoners to lunch and Bell would be alone with me, when I would ask him to take me to the latrine. I expected him to take me in there and I would come out a-shooting. But I didn't need Sam’s six-shooter.”

  "Olinger is gone to lunch. Bell and I are alone in the building. I am sitting about here on a box, handcuffed, shackled, and chained to this floor with a lock. Bell is sitting over by that window and reading a paper. I asked Bell to unlock this chain and take me to the latrine downstairs. At first he objected; said he didn't know. Then he went into that room [Garrett's office] and got the key to unlock this chain. At this moment I slipped my right hand from the cuff and holding them in my left, I hit him in the back of the head. He tumbled over on the floor. When he come up, he was looking down the barrel of his own six-shooter.”

  “I told him that I would not hurt him if he would do as I said. I told him to walk through that office and unlock the armory door as I wanted to lock him in there until I could escape. Without saying a word, he walked through the office. When he stepped into the hall, he ran for the stairway. With the fourteen-inch chain between my leg irons, I could not run, so I jumped and slid across the floor to the left toward the stairs. When he reached the third or fourth step, my left hand was nearing the stairs. I pulled the trigger and the bullet struck the wall on that side. It must have ricocheted and struck him under the arm, coming out on the other side. Bell fell down the steps, dying as he fell.”

  There are many versions of how Billy the Kid supposedly killed deputy Bell. One version has him getting a six-shooter from the privy outside and hiding it in his clothing until he got inside and was at the top of the courthouse steps (there were no outside steps at that time). At that point it is said that he wheeled around and confronted Bell who ran and was shot by Billy.

  Other versions say that while walking up the steps Bell lagged behind which gave Billy enough time to run ahead and get a pistol from the armory which he used to shoot Bell. Still other versions say that Billy slipped his handcuffs and whacked Bell in the head and either took his six-shooter or ran to the armory. There are many combinations of these events with the source of Billy’s six-shooter being variously the privy, the armory, or Bell’s own holster. In the end, there were only two people there inside the building that knew what happened and unfortunately deputy Bell did not survive the encounter to give his version of events.

  On close inspection, Brushy Bill’s version is the most credible and the one most supported by the evidence and contemporary testimony. Brushy claimed that Sam Corbett had, in fact, left a six-shooter in the privy but he did not need it. He claimed he struck Bell on the head when he bent over to unlock him from the floor (which matches the fact that deputy Bell’s skull was crushed) and then took his revolver. Perhaps the fact that Bell was in pain and knocked senseless contributed to his decision to run away rather than trust Billy to let him go.

  Apparently Bell almost made it. He quickly ran around the corner and down the steps before Billy, who was hindered by the chains on his feet, could shoot him. Brushy claims that since he couldn’t run he dove to the left and fired as soon as the revolver was in position to shoot down the steps. In other words, Billy couldn’t see Bell at that point but fired blindly in the direction Bell had gone. He actually missed which is evidenced by the bullet hole in the wall along the steps. The fact that he hit Bell and killed him with a ricochet under his left shoulder is an amazing, unfortunate, coincidence.

  In this regard Brushy’s account best matches the physical evidence including the hole in the wall and the location of the wound on deputy Bell, both the gunshot wound in his left side as well as his crushed skull. In fact, Brushy’s account is the only single account that matches all of the evidence.

  In addition, there is at least one contemporary witness that claims he heard from Billy firsthand the details of what occurred. This man was John P. Meadows and he was a contemporary and friend of both Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Meadows was interviewed in the 1930s by the Las Cruces Sun and shared many accounts that he claimed were shared with him directly from the Kid. In regards to this particular incident, he claimed that Bell was shot while Billy the Kid was “lying on the floor on his stomach, and shot Bell as he ran down the stairs.”

  Meadows also stated that Billy had struck Bell with his manacles and that the two of them wrestled on the floor at the top of the stairs before Billy came up with the revolver. These minor variations between the two accounts may be accounted for by failing memories or the passing of time. In any event, Brushy’s version is once again the most logical and the one that fits the evidence.

  Brushy continued, "I turned and scuttled back to the office, where I picked up Olinger's shotgun where he stood it against the wall that morning. I went over to my window. When I looked out, I saw Olinger and another man coming over across the street toward the jail. Just as Olinger came across the street, he put his six-shooter into the scabbard. He probably thought that Bell had killed me in the jail. As he came near the corner of the building beneath my window, I levelled down on him, saying, “Look up, Bob. I want to shoot you in the face with your own buckshot. I don't want to shoot you in the back like you did other men, and the Jones boy.” The buckshot struck him in the breast, killing him instantly. Then I fired the other twelve into him. I wanted him to get all of them like he had promised to give them to me. I wanted him to know that I was the man who was killing him.”

  "This was the happiest moment of my life. I promised to give him his own buckshot while he was loading the gun that morning. He shot the Jones boy in the back of the neck, killing him. He threatened to put the shot from both barrels in my back, and he would have done it if he would have had the chance. That was his way of killing other men, but he did not die that way.”

  "I went downstairs and out the side door at the bottom of the stairs, where Old Man Goss and someone else were standing near Bell’s Body. I told Goss to cut this chain between my legs. He tried to cut it with a saw. I told him to get the axe and cut it. “And be damn careful where you hit that chain.” I held a .44 on him. He cut the chain as I stood over the rock. I took and tied each end of the chain to my belt so I could straddle a horse. Goss caught the horse behind the jail in the pastur
e. He and the Gallegos boy saddled the horse and took him to the front of the jail. I went back upstairs to this armory room and picked up a .44 Winchester belt loaded with cartridges and crossed it over my other shoulder, picking up a Winchester and two .44 single-action Colts with scabbards.”

  The “Gallegos Boy” Brushy mentions is Severo Gallegos and his presence and role in the escape of Billy the Kid from the Lincoln County Jail is an undisputed fact of history. Virtually every historical record of this event includes his name and actions. Also well-established is that this was not the first meeting between the two. Billy the Kid was a close friend of the Gallegos family and knew Severo well. Severo himself acknowledged this fact many years later when he swore an oath and testified the following:

  “that Billy the Kid many times visited in the Gallegos Home; that he stayed there some times over night and that he ate many meals there; that the Kid and Florencio Chavez did much target practice at their home in San Patricio; that Billy was quick on the draw; that he fired a rifle left handed and six shooters with both hands; that he would shoot from the hip and that he was known to be a good shot. This affiant further states that Billy the Kid was a small man when he was young; that he had small feet and hands with large wrists; that he had two large teeth in the front of his mouth; that he had blue-grey eyes with small brown spots in them; that his nose was straight, high cheek bones and large ears; that he had dark hair; that he stood as straight as a whip, and rode a horse straight in the saddle. This affiant further states that he made many visits to see Billy the Kid in the Lincoln Jail; that he took berries to the jail for Billy to eat; that he saw Billy escape from the Jail in April, 1881…”