Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  "I got around and talked to some of the boys until I got too old to run around. I was accused of being Billy the Kid from Montana to Missouri, but I denied it, saying I never knew Billy the Kid, that I was too young. I looked younger than I really was all through my lifetime. Then again I had to tell some of them, 'If you know who I am, you will keep your mouth shut.' These little feet, little hands with large wrists, standing so straight, talking and laughing all the time, would give me away when I was around anyone who had known Billy the Kid.”

  "There have been lots of them said they knew Billy the Kid, but they didn't, they didn't. They just thought they had known him. There were lots of them looking for Billy the Kid until he showed up. Then they changed their minds. Captain Hughes and Captain McDonald were my friends. They didn't know I was the Kid. That was before their time. They thought Garrett had killed the Kid. It made me mad, it did. I told Captain Hughes Garrett didn't kill him—that I had seen him in South America in '93.”

  "I saw Brown in '82, but he didn't want anyone to know about it. Brown and Jesse Evans knew that Garrett didn't kill the Kid. I helped Jesse with money after I was on the marshal force. Tom Pickett too. I run into Tom in Arizona. I don't remember where, but Jim and I were on the trail of a man. We went through New Mexico about '92 after a man. That is when I talked to George Coe over there. He was scared to death when I walked up to talk to him. He told me to get out of the country, that a lot of my enemies were still around. He had left the country at the time I was supposed to be killed, but he was told I was killed by Garrett. I saw him again sometime in the early 1900's. He knew I was ranching in Old Mexico too.”

  "I was in Albuquerque and Santa Fe in the late 90s and 1900s early. I came to El Paso all through the years. I never saw Rudabaugh after that war in Mexico. I saw Pickett, though, after that. Yes, quite a while after that."

  CHAPTER 9: BE HE ALIVE, OR BE HE DEAD

  THE MOST ticklish part of Brushy Bill's case was the process of locating and interviewing old-timers who could and would say yes or no to his claim. The whole thing was complicated by the fact that Billy the Kid had become a legend, even in the minds of those who had known him. Stories about the Kid's death or survival had been current for so long and had been argued over so often that practically all interested persons had their minds already made up. Some were ready to maintain with firmness, and even with fury, that Billy was absolutely dead and positively buried. A much smaller group was unalterably convinced that this was not so, and they knew it.

  Strangely enough, the ones who had the most deeply rooted doubts about Billy's demise were not necessarily outsiders who had steeped themselves in The Saga of Billy the Kid. They were likely to be real old-timers, or people who had known the Lincoln country for a long time.

  The rumor that Billy had survived was current at the time of his supposed demise. Mrs. J. H. Wood, whose husband was a rancher and blacksmith at Seven Rivers, maintained to the day of her death that Billy ate dinner at her house three days after he was supposed to have been killed.' And there were others.

  Among the letters which Morrison received when he announced in the newspapers that he wished to make contact with people who had known Billy the Kid, was one from Mrs. W. W. Carson, of San Angelo, Texas, dated November 29, 1950. “I lived in the Penasco country for 2 years, she wrote, "from October, 1887, to October, 1889. It was rumored then that 'Billie' was in hiding in the mountains there.

  "In the spring of '88 or '89, I was returning to my school on Lower Peliasco, riding horseback. Couldn't get my pony to get into the water to cross the river. After quite a while of useless attempt, a young man suddenly appeared from nowhere and asked if he could assist me. He led the horse or pony across the wide expanse of that river. When I described, him to many of the old timers they all said 'it was Billie the Kid.—He was supposed to have been dead a few years previous but those in the Peliasco region did not believe him to be dead. . . . I recall that he was very kind to a young scared girl school teacher and was a perfect gentleman."

  Similar testimony came from Arthur Hyde, of the Veterans' Hospital at Whipple, Arizona. He told of a visit he paid, in 1914, to Mr. Goforth, a relative who had lived since 1900 at the head of the Mimbres River. Goforth sent him to an old-timer named Thompson, late of the Sacramento country, when the subject of Billy the Kid came up. Thompson was convinced that Garrett and Billy had cooked up a scheme to make it look as if Garrett had lived up to his campaign promises—which included getting rid of the Kid. A Mexican boy turned up who looked something like Billy and could be used as a substitute.

  "Garrett told the young Mexican to go to the Maxwell house where he would meet a rancher who might give him a job. The rest of the episode went off just as it had been written over time and again. They had a quiet burial on the grounds lest some of his followers might cause trouble and the casket was not opened at the burial. Mr. Thompson told us he had heard that Billy went to the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and went into ranching. . . .

  "As it happened, I got “T.B.” in the service and was sent to the old army hospital at Fort Bayard, near Silver City, New Mexico, for treatment. After I got discharged early in 1920 I spent the next four years rambling around in the Mogollons and the Black Range. I met up with several old-timers who told me just about the same story. Among them was a Mr. J.E. George (now dead) at Mule Creek and a Bill Jones, also dead, at Reserve, New Mexico. They all told me it was just a case of dirty-rotten politics, and Billy just happened to serve their purpose. They didn't seem to consider the killing of the innocent Mexican of any importance. Judging from what they told me it was common knowledge among those who were on the inside at the time."

  The undercurrents of gossip which carried rumors such as these sometimes allowed a piece of conversational driftwood to come to the surface. Over and over again, as the years went by, the newspapers would discover that Billy was rumored to be alive, would print a story about it, and then run for cover as attackers and defenders closed in from all sides.

  One such tidbit appeared in the El Paso Herald for June 23, 1926. Someone had heard something at Alamogordo, New Mexico:

  "The story that Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett in 1881, but that he was seen as late as 1910, did not come as a complete surprise in this section for old men in the Lincoln vicinity have never conceded the Kid's death. George Coe, of Glencoe, a side partner of Billy the Kid and one of the two survivors of the Kid's faction has declared many times that he did not believe that the Kid was killed.

  "C. C. McNatt, of Alamogordo, was in the vicinity of Lincoln when the Kid was supposed to have been killed, and he recalls that the settlers there at the time doubted the story of the Kid's death. Many believed it was a frame-up between those who wanted the reward, and Billy, who had served his purpose in breaking up the cattle ring and was willing to leave."

  So it went. Billy's ghost walked again—in 1937 when Pawnee Bill and some of his friends advertised an intention to search for Billy the Kid somewhere in the Southwest—again in 1948 when an old prospector named Manuel Taylor told a strange tale to Mr. L. S. Cardwell, of Las Cruces. Mrs. Cardwell was a special writer for the El Paso Times, and sent the story in.

  "I knew Billy the Kid well when he was at Silver City," Taylor declared. "We used to run horse races together. In fact another young fellow and myself once pried the bars off the chimney top at the old adobe jail so that Billy could climb out.

  "The man killed at Maxwell's was a young cattle detective who had come in from the East and expected to make some easy money capturing cattle rustlers and “got his” by mistake….

  "I was in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1914 where I met the Kid. The recognition was mutual and we had a few drinks together for old time’s sake. He has married there and has a family.

  Cardwell stopped off at Hillsboro, New Mexico, and "took the trouble to inquire regarding Manuel Taylor and was told that he was well known there and was known to be truthful and trustworthy."

  A goo
d running summary of the ebb and flow of the underground currents is provided by John J. Clancy, now of Neihart, Montana, but for many years a resident of eastern New Mexico: "In passing, I might say that in the 1930's there arose a big controversy over whether the Kid had really been killed by Garrett or not. Some fellow up and said he had seen the Kid somewhere in California running some kind of restaurant. Another said he had seen him in Old Mexico. Somebody over in Mora County, a close Anglo-American friend of the Kid's, claimed he had seen the Kid a couple of weeks after he was alleged to have been killed, over in his country. Then the late Jim Abercrombie, daring adventurer in his own right, late pioneer merchant of Anton Chico, N. M., claimed he had seen the Kid, had been with him after his alleged 'taking hence' at Fort Sumner, N. M., by Pat Garrett. The story went round with the usual heated pros and cons back and forth, but finally petered out. Even Burns, author of the Saga of the Kid, came to the rescue with a rather high-falutin' comeback. The latest revival of this claim was a couple of months ago when someone claimed that the real Kid was up to then living at Duncan, Arizona; that he was an old man, of course, quite pleasant of character and talked of things quite intelligently. This summer, when I was at Santa Rosa, NM, a telegraph operator named Thomas told me casually that he knew this “Kid man and confirmed quite well what I had already heard about him."

  OLD FORT SUMNER

  Company Quarters from the Old Sutler’s Store

  Such stories, of course, establish nothing more than the fact that many people chose to believe the old folk story that keeps every outlaw hero alive—a story which would naturally retain its vitality in a region where even the school children are said to cherish the old partisanships.

  But it is harder to get around the fact that some of Billy's very closest friends are reported, on good authority, to have doubted the fact of his death. Higinio Salazar was mentioned in 1933 as one who had his doubts. Newspaper stories involving George Coe have already been mentioned, though in fairness it should be admitted that George accepted the usual version of the Kid's death in his autobiography Frontier Fighter, and many of his friends and relatives insist that the book expresses his real opinion. His cousin, Frank Coe, seems to have had a strong feeling that the Kid might still be above ground. Frank's daughter, Mrs. Helena LeMay, told Morrison that he always investigated reports that Billy was alive. Once he heard that his old friend was living in California. He took the family with him and went out to see about it. He left them in the car while he paid a visit to the claimant, who was living in a shack on the outskirts of a California town. He came back disappointed, and with tears in his eyes, saying that the man was an impostor.

  With this background of contention and counter-contention, Morrison had his difficulties when it came time to gather testimony which would establish the identity of his man. After so many false alarms, people were mighty touchy—afraid of making themselves ridiculous—afraid of causing trouble and argument in their communities. Nevertheless the job had to be done, and during the month of April, 1950, Morrison and Brushy Bill went on pilgrimage to interview as many old settlers as possible.

  One of their best prospects was Severo Gallegos, of Ruidoso, New Mexico. He was the boy who was playing marbles under the tree in Lincoln while Billy the Kid shot Bell and Olinger, and who got the outlaw a rope just before he rode away. This is Morrison's account of the conversations with Mr. Gallegos:

  "Upon arriving in Ruidoso, I visited with Mr. Gallegos. While talking to him, I told him that I had an old friend in my room that I would like him to meet. At my room I introduced my friend as William H. Bonney. Mr. Gallegos seemed spellbound as he looked at and talked to Billy. They talked about happenings there during the days of Billy the Kid. After several hours of visiting, he was still somewhat skeptical, but thought it might be Billy the Kid. He would not commit himself without some more positive identification.

  "I took him home late that night. He wanted to talk to him the next morning before we left Ruidoso.

  "The next morning I arrived at the Gallegos home late. He was waiting to talk to me. His first remark was: 'Your man talks like Billy; he looks like Billy; he has small hands and large wrists, small feet, large ears, stands and walks like Billy; but he is not old enough to be Billy the Kid.'

  "I told him that I would not take him back just out of curiosity, but if he thought he might be able to identify my friend, I would let them visit again. I knew Billy was peculiar, and that he wanted no publicity.

  "Mr. Gallegos said, 'If I could look into his eyes, I could tell for sure if he was really Billy. Billy had small brown spots in the blue of his eyes. If your man has these same kind of spots, I will say that he is Billy the Kid.'

  "I was very familiar with my man, but I had never noticed the spots in his eyes. I thought it only fair that Mr. Gallegos have another chance to view Billy and find out for himself whether or not he was really Billy the Kid.

  “When we arrived at my room, I stepped inside and asked Billy to open the Venetian blind and stand in the light of the window so that Mr. Gallegos would have an opportunity to see for himself in daylight. Billy stepped up as directed. Mr. Gallegos looked very carefully, then remarked: 'That is Billy the Kid, all right. Only Billy has eyes like that. I am ready to swear that this man is Billy the Kid.'

  "An affidavit of identification was executed before a notary public."

  Morrison and Brushy Bill went back to El Paso, where there were more old-timers to see. Luis Martinez, of Parral, Mexico, and Hernando Chavez, of Torreon, stated that to their knowledge Billy the Kid had lived in Mexico after his supposed death. "We were told," said Chavez, "that Billy the Kid fought with Carranza and Pancho Villa during the Revolution."

  After that they went calling on one of Billy the Kid's old acquaintances—Mrs. Martile Able, widow of John Able. Both she and her husband had been Billy's friends.

  Mrs. Able was eighty-nine years old at the time of the interview, and bedfast, but she was sure. To an El Paso reporter she delivered herself as follows:

  "I knew him the moment I saw him. He is alive. Others have tried to impersonate him, but the man I talked to in July was the real Billy. A long time ago a man was brought before me as Billy the Kid, but he wasn't. He was a faker.”

  "But I recognized this Billy because I know him well.

  "I had not seen Billy since before Pat Garrett claimed he shot him.”

  "When Billy's lawyer, William V. Morrison, of St. Louis, brought Billy to the home of my grandson in the Lower Valley, he asked Billy, 'Do you know this lady?'”

  "And Billy said, 'Sure, that's John Able's wife.”

  "Would a faker know my husband, John, or remember me?”

  "Many times Billy would come to our house when he was on the dodge. My husband would give him horses and would be on the lookout while Billy was eating.”

  “When he came to see me he still had his gun and pocket-knife that he always carried. I would never forget them because I saw them many times."'

  Mrs. Able did not hesitate to sign an affidavit that Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy the Kid.

  On July 2, Morrison and Bill started on a final jaunt through the Lincoln country. Their first stop was Carlsbad, where they had arranged to meet Sam Jones and his older brother, William Jones. Sam was living in Carlsbad, but Bill was still operating on the old ranch in Rocky Arroyo—the same ranch Billy the Kid had stumbled into when he lost his horse in the Guadalupe Mountains in 1877. They were brothers of John and Jim Jones, who worked with the Kid at Chisum's ranch and fought in the cattle war.

  The three old men had a long talk together and Morrison was certain that they would help his cause along with the affidavits he wanted, but he was disappointed. William Shafer, Bill Jones' grandson, wrote on July 9, 1950: "I am sorry, but Mr. Jones does not feel that he can sign your affidavits that your man is Billy the Kid. He gave no conclusive proof of this at the time we met him. It seems to me that if he were Billy the Kid, he would not need affidavits to prove his contentio
n. He would just be Billy the Kid."

  Sam Jones wrote, "Received your letter, and am sorry but feel that I can't sign the affidavit. I'm old and I just don't feel like being obligated so."

  They had better luck at Carrizozo, where they stopped the day after visiting the Jones brothers. They went to see Jose B. Montoya, who had previously told Morrison that he had seen Billy the Kid at a bullfight in Juarez in 1902. He knew it was Billy, he said, because he had been a schoolboy in Lincoln during the time that Billy was there. His people lived on a ranch in the Capitan Mountains, and Billy sometimes stayed there. After the escape from the Lincoln jail, Montoya did not see the Kid again until 1902, when he ran into him in Juarez. "He was wearing a large hat and a buckskin jacket. Alfred Green and I were there. Both of tis knew Billy. Alfred was older and he really knew Billy well. He was talking to a couple of Mexican officers. We looked for him after the bullfight but couldn't locate him."

  Morrison introduced Brushy Bill to Montoya, and they talked for a while. Finally Montoya said, "By golly, that's Billy and I am ready to swear that it is him." They looked up a notary and he signed an affidavit.

  The next stop was Hot Springs, now Truth or Consequences, where Morrison took up the trail of Manuel Taylor—the same Manuel Taylor who had told his tale to L. A. Cardwell, in 1948. Senator Burton Roach had once employed him and was able to pass on the disappointing intelligence that Manuel was dead."

  They went on to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. In neither town where they able to find anyone who had actually known Billy the Kid, but they had some interesting conversations. As they passed the Governor's Palace in Santa Fe, Bill remarked, "Now right here is where I crossed the street on the way back to the jail down there (pointing westward). I was handcuffed and leg ironed always. Sometimes they would bring me up here at noon time and keep me here all afternoon so people could come and make fun of me. I had to hobble over stones down there to the adobe jail. Those leg irons and chains would get heavy before I got there. They walked me every place.