Billy the Kid: An Autobiography

by Edwards, Daniel A.

  "I spent some bad times in this old town, and some good ones too. Used to have big affairs here—dances….

  "Here is where the governor double-crossed me, too. He wouldn't come down to the jail here and talk to me. He was glad to come down to Patron's when I was locked up in Lincoln that time, because he needed my help then. But he forgot how I helped him and wouldn't come down here to talk to me. He thought I was helpless and they were going to hang me.

  "That governor didn't treat me right, he didn’t. This governor here now ought to help me, since the other one promised to pardon me, don't you think so?"

  Morrison thought so.

  They went on to Las Vegas—where nobody was left who knew Billy—and on to Fort Sumner, where Brushy Bill boarded the train for Texas.

  So it went, with success and failure intermingled. Bill had said Tex Moore, the cowboy artist at Wichita Falls, knew who he was and would testify. Morrison wrote just after Mr. Moore fell into his last illness, and was never able to arrange an interview. But DeWitt Travis, a Longview, Texas, oil man, wrote that he had known Bill from his own boyhood and had always been certain that he was Billy the Kid. He signed an affidavit and wrote to Morrison:

  "My father, Elbert Travis, and Brushy Bill's father served together under Quantrill during the Civil War. My mother, Martha Ann Patterson, and Brushy Bill's mother were girlhood friends—in fact, friends through life. With this background I have known Brushy Bill intimately all my life."

  DeWitt Travis could give circumstantial answers to Morrison's questions, for instance, one about Billy the Kid's teeth—those famous teeth. On January 23, 1951, he wrote:

  "About Bill's teeth—the two eye teeth were so very big until they looked like tusks—when he lost several of his under or lower teeth, they bothered him an awful lot so he had a Dr. Cruz in Gladewater take them out—Dr. Cruz died about six years ago.

  Taking Bill's teeth out made him a lot harder to identify. Bill was a better looking man after his teeth were taken out than he was before—for they really ruined his looks."

  Scraps of information accumulated to bolster Morrison's conviction that he was on the right track. He interviewed one pioneer woman, whose name he promised not to mention, at San Patricio, New Mexico. Among the questions he put to her, writing them down since she was too deaf to hear, was one asking if Billy had ever owned a house in San Patricio. Brushy Bill had said he did. The books make him out a homeless drifter. The old lady swung her hand out toward the hills across the way and said, "Yes he did. Right over there where that road is now. He used to live over there when he was in town."

  Even Brushy Bill's wife, though she was supposed to have been kept in ignorance, contributed a touching little interview which Morrison captured on a tape recorder.

  "Of course you didn't know that he was actually Billy the Kid," Morrison said to her, and in her small, timid voice, she answered:

  "No, I didn't. He never did tell me. But I suspicioned it, though."

  "But he told you when he came back from Santa Fe?"

  "Yes, he told me then. And one day we was there a-talkin' and I wrote you a letter and he said, “my half-brother,” and I said, “Now Bill,” I says, “now you know good and well it ain't,” and I says, “now don't, don't story to me,” I says. “I know you're Billy the Kid.” And he looked at me and laughed and he said, 'No, that's my half-brother.” I says, 'Well, now I can read between lines, I know you're Billy the Kid.” I says, 'That's all right if you are. It don't make me any difference. . .”

  "And I says, No, I ain't quittin' you. I'll live with you until you die or until I die.” I said, “I'll never quit you as long as I live. I love you with all my heart. And he cried and grabbed me around the neck, and he says, “love you too, honey.” And so he got all right—got over it."

  CHAPTER 10: IN BLACK AND WHITE

  IN 1881, Billy the Kid was condemned to hang by the neck until he was dead. In 1949 —supposing he were still alive—he was still under sentence.

  As Billy Roberts' representative, Morrison had some strenuous investigating to do before he could risk announcing his client as Billy the Kid. First he had to show that Billy the Kid was legally dead in order to have the death certificate set aside. Then he needed to assemble certified copies of all the indictments and other documents bearing on Billy's conviction so that proper steps might be taken to remove him from jeopardy.

  It was a big job. For two years Morrison traveled, took notes, collected affidavits, gathered certified copies of legal instruments, and conducted an ever-widening correspondence. He did it at his own expense, for Brushy Bill had no money, because he was convinced of the soundness of his contentions. Paying little attention to rumor, hearsay, and legend, he concentrated on what had been set down in black and white regarding the windup of the Kid's career.

  As the process went on, he found more and more indication that Billy the Kid's story had not been well and truly told. There were confusions, ambiguities, and out-and-out lies to be cleared up. He came to the conclusion that Billy was not always as bad as he had been represented to be, that, in some cases, he was more sinned against than sinning, and that he had grounds for asking that the noose be taken from around his neck.

  He found that the very beginning of the Kid's career as a killer had, in all probability, been misrepresented. Old residents of Silver City have declared again and again that the story of his first murder—in defense of his "mother's" honor—is fictitious. They agree that he left home because he was put in jail for petty theft.”

  Likewise a number of the black marks chalked up against Billy in Lincoln County were not deserved. The killing of Buckshot Roberts at Blazer's Mill, on April 4, 1878, was one such case. Pat Garrett credits Billy with giving Buckshot a "mortal wound," and he was actually under federal indictment for this crime when he went on trial at Mesilla in 1881. He was not acquitted, however, as Garrett says. The indictment was thrown out of court.

  The death of Joe Bernstein, clerk at the Mescalero Indian Agency, also was wrongfully laid at Billy's door. Pat Garrett and others say that Billy fired the shot which killed him, but later historians, including Garrett's editor, place the blame elsewhere.

  Jim Carlyle's demise presents another case in which Billy's guilt is more than doubtful. The Authentic Life merely states that the volley which killed Carlyle when he crashed through Greathouse's window came from "within the house." Walter Noble Burns goes all the way and says that Billy "sent a bullet through him." Billy's letter to the governor protesting that the posse surrounding the house was responsible for Carlyle's death has already been noted. It should be added that Morrison found no record in the courts of New Mexico charging Billy the Kid with this crime.

  What happened to Billy after the law finally caught up with him needs also to be re-examined—and the records are there to show that he got something less than justice.

  He went on trial for his life on April 8, 1881, in the old adobe building on the southeast corner of the plaza at Mesilla, considering himself the victim of a frame-up. He was firmly convinced, in the first place, that he had been deserted, without adequate cause, by Governor Wallace. He had made a bargains and had lived up to it, as he thought, to the letter—had submitted to nominal arrest, had testified at two trials, and had declared himself ready, in April, 1879, to answer at Lincoln for the murder of Sheriff Brady.

  But then the deal began to come queer. District Attorney W. L. Rynerson had introduced a motion for change of venue to Dorm Ana County. Billy, thinking he was being railroaded (as he probably was), had walked out of the jail and gone about his business. The business happened to be stealing livestock, and the law eventually caught up with him. He was taken first to Santa Fe and then to Mesilla to stand trial under the original indictment for the killing of Brady. This was the charge which Governor Wallace had urged him to face—and for which he had promised Billy a pardon in case things went wrong. Governor Wallace might have argued that since Billy had walked away from the Lincoln J
ail, the agreement had been nullified. Billy’s answer would have been that the original agreement did not include trail anywhere outside Lincoln County, and he had not left the game until he found that the rules were being changed.

  At any rate, his first grievance was against the court and its officials, all of whom were more or less under the thumb of the Santa Fe Ring-the unsavory rulers of New Mexico. Judge Warren Bristol and District Attorney Rynerson had been friendly with the Murphy faction in the Lincoln troubles, and were, therefore, on good terms with the Ring. Both had been political opponents of Governor Wallace and friends of Governor Axtell, deposed by President Hayes.

  The newspapers were against Billy too. The power of the Ring extended throughout the territory, and made itself felt in the editorial comments of many of the country weeklies.

  S. H. Newman, editor of the Las Cruces Semi-Weekly, commented before the trial began:

  “We expect every day to hear of the Kid's escape. He is a notoriously dangerous character, has on several occasions escaped justice where escape appeared even more improbable than now, and has made his brag that he only wants to get free in order to kill three men—one of them being Governor Wallace. Should he break jail now, there is no doubt that he would immediately proceed to execute his threat.”

  Billy was quoted as saying, in regard to this statement:

  "Newman gave me a rough deal; has created prejudice against me, and is trying to incite a mob to lynch me. He sent me a paper which shows it. I think it a dirty, mean advantage to take of me, considering my situation and knowing I could not defend myself by word or act. But I suppose he thought he would give me a kick downhill."

  The trial itself gave Billy his most profound grievance. He thought it was rigged from start to finish. After he had entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of killing Brady, the first witnesses were called. They included his bitterest enemies—such men as J. B. Matthews, J. J. Dolan, Bonny (for Bonifacio) Baca, George W. Peppin, and Bob Olinger. His friends, whose testimony might have cleared him, could not be located. Among these were Henry Brown, Robert McCormick, Ike Stockton, and Robert Widenmann. Widenmann in particular should have been there, for he was behind the adobe wall with Billy when Brady was shot, though he took no part in the action. Billy thought the authorities had made no real effort to pick up witnesses for the defense.

  Only circumstantial evidence was introduced. None of the witnesses testified that the Kid had shot at Brady, or had hit Brady. All that was definitely established was the fact that four men had walked down the street in Lincoln on the morning of April 1, 1878—that two of them, both officers of the law, had been killed by shots fired by several men (exact number unknown) concealed behind an adobe wall near Tunstall's store—that the shooting had been done through holes in the aforementioned wall so that no one on the other side could identify positively the person or persons who fired the fatal shots—and that several men had appeared from behind the wall after the shooting was over.

  It appeared furthermore that, although three men had been indicted for the murder, only one had been apprehended and that little if any effort had been made to catch the others.

  The evidence, such as it was, being all in, the judge gave his charge to the jury. He instructed them to bring in a verdict of murder in the first degree or to declare the prisoner not guilty.

  He then continued, In this case in order to justify you in finding this defendant guilty of murder in the first degree under the peculiar circumstances as presented by the indictment and the evidence you should be satisfied and believe from the evidence to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt of the truth of several propositions:

  1st That the defendant either inflicted one or more of the fatal wounds causing Brady's death or that he was present at the time and place of the killing and encouraged—incited—aided in—abetted-advised or commanded such killing.

  2nd That such killing was without justification or excuse.

  3rd That such killing of Brady was caused by inflicting upon his body a fatal gunshot wound.

  And 4th That such fatal wound was either inflicted by the defendant from a premeditated design to effect Brady's death or that he was present at the time and place of the killing of Brady and from a premeditated design to effect his death he then and there encouraged —incited—aided in—abetted—advised or commanded such killing.

  If he was so present—encouraging—inciting—aiding in—abetting-advising or commanding the killing of Brady he is as guilty as though he fired the fatal shot.

  Billy thought this was carrying things pretty far, considering the fact that none of the witnesses had seen him do the thing he was charged with, whatever it was, exactly, and whatever the "peculiar circumstances" mentioned by the judge might have been (the indictment is missing from the file).

  He expressed his views to a reporter for the Mesilla News who interviewed him after sentence was passed and asked if he expected the governor to pardon him:

  Considering the active part Wallace took on our side and the friendly relations that existed between him and me, I think he ought to pardon me. Don't know that he will do it. When I was arrested for that murder, he let me out and gave me the freedom of the town and let me go about with my arms. When I got ready to go, I left. Think it hard that I should be the only one to suffer the extreme penalties of the law.

  After the trial came the death sentence, the long ride back to Lincoln, the killing of Bell and Olinger, and the famous escape. Pat Garrett surrendered the now useless death warrant to the Secretary of State, at Santa Fe, on June 3, 1881, and no subsequent warrant was issued, so that Pat had no papers for the apprehension of the Kid on the night of July 14, 1881, when scene was played at Fort Sumner, though, of course, as an officer he had the right to pick up a condemned criminal anywhere he found him.

  And this brings us to what can be found in black and white about the events which followed the shooting in Pete Maxwell's house. At once we encounter a most peculiar fact: THERE IS NO ACTUAL LEGAL PROOF OF THE DEATH OF BILLY THE KID.

  A coroner's jury assembled and made a report—in fact two coroner's juries assembled and reported. But neither of these bodies made the proceedings a matter of official record. It will be said that the keeping of legal records in those days was notoriously lax—and anyone who knows even a little about such matters will agree. But records were being kept in San Miguel County at this time. A legally constituted justice of the peace presided over the inquest and should have made an entry in his books. He made no such entry.

  And that was not all. Garrett was sheriff of Lincoln County and had stepped out of his own bailiwick when he entered San Miguel County. It was his duty to turn over an apprehended criminal to the sheriff of that county, whose name was Hilario Romero. Apparently he did not take the matter up with Romero, either before or after the killing, but went ahead and ran his own show.

  Undoubtedly he had good reason for proceeding as he did.

  There was a smoldering feud between Garrett and his men on the one hand and Romero and his men on the other. Romero had ignored Pat on one occasion when he wished to turn over some prisoners, and then, belatedly, had sent a posse which tried to take Deputy Barney Mason along to jail. Pat had won a pistol fight with a member of the gang and had refused to let one of the Romeros arrest him. Under these circumstances, there was not much point in asking for co-operation from the officers of the law in San Miguel County.

  But irregular as Sheriff Garrett's proceedings may have been up to this point, they were impeccable compared to what followed. Mr. A. P. Anaya, former member of the legislature, now dead, described the inquest, or inquests, to George Fitzpatrick, editor of the New Mexico Magazine. "Mr. Anaya told me that he and a friend were called as members of the coroner's jury the night the Kid was killed," writes Mr. Fitzpatrick, "and that this jury wrote out a verdict stating simply that the Kid had come to his death as result of a wound from a gun in the hands of Pat Garrett, officer. Anaya claimed that this verdi
ct was lost and that Garrett had Manuel Abreu write a more flowery one for filing. New signatures other than Anaya's and his friends' appear on the semi-official verdict. Anaya claimed Milnor Rudolph, who signed as “president” of the jury, was not a member of the original jury which viewed the body.

  Anaya wrote Fitzpatrick on April 2, 1936:

  “yo he dicho tocante al Ditamen del Jurado Coronario que el ditamen que el Mismo Patt. escrivio y nosotros lo Firmamos no esta en Registro. el Patt Perdio ese papel y Luego Don Manuel Abreu le escribio uno en espanol. en Donde Puso al Mine Rudolfo Presidente, eso yo he dicho que no es verdad y pruevo eso.”

  Again on February 5, 1936, he wrote in English:

  “. . . there has been many things said in the other stories that are nothing but falsehoods, there are many things said that are just like the report that Pat Garret gave the court, he lost the report that we the coroner jury gave him and he got Mr. Manuel Abreu to write him another one. . . .”

  What happened to the second purported death certificate? Garrett stated in his report to the governor that he filed it with the district attorney of the first judicial district. This should have meant that it was deposited in Las Vegas, the county seat of San Miguel County; but no such document could be found there. Records of this kind turn up in odd places, however, and one could not say the certificate had disappeared without checking every likely or unlikely place.

  In handling Brushy Bill Roberts' case, Morrison had to find that death certificate if it was still in existence. Without some record that would stand up in a court of law, his man was not legally dead. If he could not be proved to be legally dead, there was no point in going to court to have the death record set aside, and proceedings would have to be taken up at some other point.