“BILLY THE KID” GOES BACK TO HIS SWEETHEART IN FORT SUMNER. SHOT THROUGH THE HEART BY SHERIFF PAT GARRET, AND BURIED BY THE SIDE OF HIS CHUM, TOM O’PHALLIARD.

A few days after the “Kid’s” escape, Billy Burt’s black pony returned to Lincoln dragging a rope. He had either escaped or been turned loose by the “Kid.”

The next we hear of the “Kid” he visited friends in Las Tablas, and stole a horse from Andy Richardson. From there he headed for Fort Sumner to see his sweetheart, Miss Dulcinea del Toboso. It was said he tried to persuade her to run away with him, and go to old Mexico to live in happiness ever afterward. But that sweet little Dulce refused to leave mamma.

The “Kid” found shelter and concealment in the home of Mrs. Charlie Bowdre and her mother. One night a few weeks after his escape, the writer was within whispering distance of “Billy the Kid.”

Myself and a crowd of cowboys had attended a Mexican dance. Mrs. Charlie Bowdre was there, dressed like a young princess. She captured the heart of the author, so that he danced with her often, and escorted her to the midnight supper.

About three o’clock in the morning the dance broke up and the writer escorted the pretty young widow, Mrs. Charlie Bowdre, to her adobe home. At the front door, I almost got down on my knees pleading for her to let me go into the house and talk awhile, but no use, she insisted that her mother would object.

Now a wine-soaked young cowboy with jingling spurs on his high-heel boots, staggered into camp and “piled” into bed, spread on the ground under a cottonwood tree, to dream of Mexican “Fandangos,” where the girls have no choice of partners. Without an introduction the man walks up to the girl of his choice and leads her out on the floor to dance to his heart’s content.

About six months later, in the fall of 1881, after the “Kid” had been killed, the writer was in Fort Sumner again, and attended a dance with Mrs. Charlie Bowdre. Now she explained the reason for not letting me enter the house. She said at that time, “Billy the Kid,” who was in hiding at her home, was on the inside of the door listening to our conversation. That he recognized my voice.

Here Mrs. Bowdre told me the facts in the case, of how “Billy the Kid” met his death, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a butcher knife in his hand.

While in hiding in Fort Sumner the “Kid” stole a saddle horse from Mr. Montgomery Bell, who had ridden into town from his ranch fifty miles above, on the Rio Pecos.

Bell supposed the horse had been ridden off by a common Mexican thief. He hired Barney Mason and a Mr. Curington to go with him to hunt the animal. They started down the stream, Bell keeping on one side of the river, while Mason and Curington headed for a sheep camp in the foot hills.

Riding up to the tent in the sheep camp, the “Kid” stepped out with his Winchester rifle, and hailed them.

Barney Mason was armed to the teeth, and was on a swift horse. He had on a new pair of spurs and nearly wore them out making his get-away.

Mr. Curington rode up to his friend, “Billy the Kid,” and had a friendly chat.

The “Kid” told Mr. Curington to tell Montgomery Bell that he would return his horse, or pay for him.

When Curington reported the matter to Mr. Bell, he was satisfied and searched no more for the animal.

After the “Kid’s” escape from Lincoln, Sheriff Pat Garrett “laid low,” and tried to find out the “Kid’s” whereabouts through his friends and associates.

In March, 1881, a Deputy United States Marshal by the name of John W. Poe arrived in the booming mining camp of White Oaks. He had been sent to New Mexico by the Cattlemen’s Association of the Texas Panhandle. Cattle King Charlie Goodnight, being the president of the association, had selected Mr. Poe as the proper man to put a stop to the stealing of Panhandle cattle by “Billy the Kid” and gang.

After the “Kid’s” escape, Pat Garrett went to White Oaks and deputized John W. Poe to assist him in rounding up the “Kid.”

From now on Mr. Poe made trips out in the mountains trying to locate the young outlaw. The “Kid’s” best friends argued that he was “nobody’s fool,” and would not remain in the United States, when the Old Mexico border was so near. They didn’t realize that little Cupid was shooting his tender young heart full of love-darts, straight from the heart of pretty little Miss Dulcinea del Toboso, of Fort Sumner.

Early in July, Pat Garrett received a letter from an acquaintance by the name of Brazil, in Fort Sumner, advising him that the “Kid” was hanging around there. Garrett at once wrote Brazil to meet him about dark on the night of July 13th at the mouth of the Taiban arroyo, below Fort Sumner.

Now the sheriff took his trusted deputy, John W. Poe, and rode to Roswell, on the Rio Pecos. There they were joined by one of Mr. Garret’s fearless cowboy deputies, “Kip” McKinnie, who had been raised near Uvalde, Texas.

Together the three law officers rode up the river towards Fort Sumner, a distance of eighty miles. They arrived at the mouth of Taiban arroyo an hour after dark on July 13th, but Brazil was not there to meet them. The night was spent sleeping on their saddle blankets.

The next morning Garrett sent Mr. Poe, who was a stranger in the country, and for that reason would not be suspicioned, into Fort Sumner, five miles north, to find out what he could on the sly, about the “Kid’s” presence. From Fort Sumner he was to go to Sunny Side, six miles north, to interview a merchant by the name of Mr. Rudolph. Then when the moon was rising, to meet Garrett and McKinnie at La Punta de la Glorietta, about four miles north of Fort Sumner.

Failing to find out anything of importance about the “Kid,” John W. Poe met his two companions at the appointed place, and they rode into Fort Sumner.

It was about eleven o’clock, and the moon was shining brightly, when the officers rode into an old orchard and concealed their horses. Now the three continued afoot to the home of Pete Maxwell, a wealthy stockman, who was a friend to both Garrett and the “Kid.” He lived in a long, one-story adobe building, which had been the U. S. officers’ quarters when the soldiers were stationed there. The house fronted south, and had a wide covered porch in front. The grassy front yard was surrounded by a picket fence.

As Pat Garrett had courted his wife and married her in this town, he knew every foot of the ground, even to Pete Maxwell’s private bed room.

On reaching the picket gate, near the corner room, which Pete Maxwell always occupied, Garrett told his two deputies to wait there until after he had a talk with half-breed Pete Maxwell.

The night being hot, Pete Maxwell’s door stood wide open, and Garrett walked in.

A short time previous, “Billy the Kid” had arrived from a sheep camp out in the hills. Back of the Maxwell home lived a Mexican servant, who was a warm friend to the “Kid.” Here “Billy the Kid” always found late newspapers, placed there by loving hands, for his special benefit.

This old servant had gone to bed. The “Kid” lit a lamp, then pulled off his coat and boots. Now he glanced over the papers to see if his name was mentioned. Finding nothing of interest in the newspapers, he asked the old servant to get up and cook him some supper, as he was very hungry.

Getting up, the servant told him there was no meat in the house. The “Kid” remarked that he would go and get some from Pete Maxwell.Now he picked up a butcher knife from the table to cut the meat with, and started, bare-footed and bare-headed.

The “Kid” passed within a few feet of the end of the porch where sat John W. Poe and Kip McKinnie. The latter had raised up, when his spur rattled, which attracted the “Kid’s” attention. At the same moment Mr. Poe stood up in the small open gateway leading from the street to the end of the porch. They supposed the man coming towards them, only partly dressed, was a servant, or possibly Pete Maxwell.

The “Kid” had pulled his pistol, and so had John Poe, who by that time was almost within arm’s reach of the “Kid.”

With pistol pointing at Poe, at the same time asking in Spanish: “Quien es?” (Who is that?), he backed into Pete Maxwell’s room. He had repeated the above question several times.On entering the room, “Billy the Kid” walked up to within a few feet of Pat Garrett, who was sitting on Maxwell’s bed, and asked: “Who are they, Pete?”

Now discovering that a man sat on Pete’s bed, the “Kid” with raised pistol pointing towards the bed, began backing across the room.

Pete Maxwell whispered to the sheriff: “That’s him, Pat.” By this time the “Kid” had backed to a streak of moonlight coming through the south window, asking: “Quien Es?” (Who’s that?)

Garrett raised his pistol and fired. Then cocked the pistol again and it went off accidentally, putting a hole in the ceiling, or wall.

Now the sheriff sprang out of the door onto the porch, where stood his two deputies with drawn pistols.Soon after, Pete Maxwell ran out, and came very near getting a ball from Poe’s pistol. Garrett struck the pistol upward, saying: “Don’t shoot Maxwell!”

A lighted candle was secured from the mother of Pete Maxwell, who occupied a nearby room, and the dead body of “Billy the Kid” was found stretched out on his back with a bullet wound in his breast, just above the heart. At the right hand lay a Colt’s 41 calibre pistol, and at his left a butcher knife.

Now the native people began to collect,—many of them being warm friends of the “Kid’s.” Garrett allowed them to take the body across the street to a carpenter shop, where it was laid out on a bench. Then lighted candles were placed around the remains of what was once the bravest, and coolest young outlaw who ever trod the face of the earth.

The next day, this, once mother’s darling, was buried by the side of his chum, Tom O’Phalliard, in the old military cemetery.

He was killed at midnight, July 14th, 1881, being just twenty-one years, seven months and twenty-one days of age, and had killed twenty-one men, not including Indians, which he said didn’t count as human beings.

A few months after the killing of the “Kid,” a man was coining money, showing “Billy the Kid’s” trigger finger, preserved in alcohol. Seeing sensational accounts of it in the newspapers, Sheriff Garrett had the body dug up, but found his trigger-finger was still attached to the right hand.

During the following spring in the town of Lincoln, the sheriff auctioned off the “Kid’s” saddle, and the blue-barrel, rubber-handled, double action Colt’s 41 calibre pistol, which the “Kid” held in his hand when killed.

There were only two bidders for the pistol, the writer and the deputy county clerk, Billy Burt, who got it for $13.50. Its actual value was about $12.00.

Since then many pistols have been prized as keepsakes from the supposed idea that the “Kid” had held each one of them in his hand when he fell. Many were presented to friends with a sincere thought that they were genuine.

As an illustration we will quote a few lines from a friendly letter, dated May 10th, 1920, written by the present game warden, Mr. J. L. DeHart of the state of Montana: “Later in March, 1895, I was ushered into office as sheriff of Sweet Grass County, Montana, and a former resident of New Mexico, and an acquaintance of ‘Billy the Kid,’ later a resident of Livingston, Montana, by the name of William Dawson, upon this momentous occasion, presented me with a splendid Colt’s six-shooter, forty-five calibre, seven inch barrel, and ivory handle, said to have been the property of the notorious “Billy the Kid,” when killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett, at the Maxwell ranch house. I have always considered this piece of artillery a valuable relic, and with much trouble have retained it. Most of my diligent watch, however, upon this gun, was brought about as a result of being named as state game warden in 1913, by His Excellency, Governor S. V. Stewart.”

“Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise,” is a true saying.

No doubt Mr. DeHart has felt proud over the ownership of the pistol “Billy the Kid” was supposed to have in his hand at the time of his death.

This is not the only “Billy the Kid” pistol in existence. It would be a safe gamble to bet that there are a wagon load of them scattered over the United States.

The Winchester rifle taken from the “Kid” at the time of his capture at Stinking Spring, was raffled off in the spring of 1881, and the writer won it. He put it up again in a game of “freeze out” poker. As one of my cowboys, Tom Emory, was an expert poker player, I induced him to play my hand. I then went to bed. On going down to the Pioneer Saloon, in White Oaks, early next morning, the night barkeeper told me a secret, under promise that I keep it to myself. He said he was stretched out on the bar trying to take a nap. The poker game was going on near him. When he lay down all had been “freezed out” but Tom Emory and Johnny Hudgens. Just before daylight, Emory won all the chips, in a big show down, and I was the owner of “Billy the Kid’s” rifle for the second time, but only for a moment, as Johnny Hudgens gave Tom Emory $20.00 for the gun, under the pretense that Hudgens had won it. Emory almost shed tears when he told me of losing the rifle in what he thought was a winning hand. Of course I didn’t dispute it, as I had given a promise to keep silent.

“Billy the Kid” came very near having a stone monument placed on his grave for the benefit of posterity—so that the curious among the unborn generations would know the exact spot where this “Claude Duval” of the southwest was planted.

One day, on the Plaza in the city of Santa Fe, in about the year 1916, the writer met Mrs. Gertrude Dills, wife of Lucius Dills, the Surveyor General of New Mexico, a daughter of Judge Frank Lea of White Oaks, and a niece to that whole-souled prince among men, the father of the city of Roswell, Captain J. C. Lea. She suggested that the writer get up a subscription to place a lasting monument on the grave of “Billy the Kid,” so that future generations would know where he was buried. As a little girl, Mrs. Dills was once tempted to crawl under the bed, when “Billy the Kid” and gang shot up the town of White Oaks.

I at once went to the monument establishment of Mr. Louis Napoleon, and selected a fine marble monument, with the understanding that the inscription not be cut on it until after I had located the grave.

Many years ago, Will E. Griffin, who is still a resident of Santa Fe, moved all the bodies of the soldiers buried in the old military cemetery, at Fort Sumner, to the National Cemetery at Santa Fe. He says, when the work was finished, the only graves left in the grave-yard, were those of “Billy the Kid” and his chum, Tom O’Phalliard. On these two graves, close together, still remained the badly rotted wooden head boards.

Since then the old cemetery has been turned into an alfalfa field, and the chances are, all signs of this noted young outlaw’s resting place have been obliterated.

Soon after selecting the monument, I happened to be in the town of Tularosa, and brought up the subject to my old cowboy friend, John P. Meadows. He at once subscribed five dollars towards the erection of the monument. He said “Billy the Kid” had befriended him in 1879, when he needed a friend, and for that reason he would like to perpetuate his memory. He thought it would be no trouble to raise the desired amount in Tularosa, but the first man he struck for a subscription, Mr. Charlie Miller, former state engineer, discouraged him. Mr. Miller went straight up in the air with indignation at the idea of placing a monument at the grave of a blood-thirsty outlaw. Soon after this, Mr. Miller was murdered, when Pancho Villa made his bloody raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

This is as far as the grave of “Billy the Kid” came to being marked, as the writer has been too busy on other matters, to visit Fort Sumner and try to locate his last resting place.

In closing, I wish to state that with all his faults, “Billy the Kid” had many noble traits. In White Oaks, during the winter of 1881, the writer talked with a man who actually shed tears in telling of how he lay almost at the point of death, with smallpox, in an old abandoned shack in Fort Sumner, when the “Kid” found him. A good supply of money was given by the “Kid,” and a wagon and team hired to haul him to Las Vegas, where medical attention could be secured.

Since the killing of the “Kid,” Kip McKinney has died with his boots off, while Pat Garrett died with them on, being shot and killed on the road between Tularosa and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Hence the only man now living who saw the curtain go down on the last act of “Billy the Kid’s” eventful life, is John W. Poe, at the present writing a wealthy banker in the beautiful little city of Roswell, New Mexico. He has served one term as sheriff of Lincoln County, and has helped to change that blood-spattered county from an outlaw’s paradise, to a land of happy, peaceful homes.

Peace to William H. Bonney’s ashes, is the author’s prayer.

THE END.

A Lone Star Cowboy

Being the recollections of fifty years spent in the saddle, as cowboy and New Mexico Ranger, on nearly every cow-trail in the wooly old west, when the cowboys, buffalo hunters, and Indians had room to come and go, before the “hoe-man” and wire fences cut off the trails.

Fine cloth binding, 300 pages, with fourteen illustrations. Price postpaid, $1.25.

A Cowboy Detective

Being the twenty-two years experience with Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, in all parts of the United States, British Columbia, Alaska and Old Mexico.

Fine cloth binding 525 pages and 22 illustrations. Price $1.50, post-paid.

The Song Companion of A Lone Star Cowboy

A booklet of old favorite cow-camp songs. Price postpaid, 35 cents.

Address the author:
CHAS. A. SIRINGO,
P. O. Box 322,
Santa Fe, N. M.