Billy the Kid

<<Previous  1 2  Next >>

Part of the agreement was for McCarty to submit to a show arrest and a short stay in jail until the conclusion of his courtroom testimony. Even though his testimony helped to indict one of the powerful House faction leaders, John Dolan, the district attorney defied Wallace's order to set Billy free after testifying. However, Billy was a skilled escape artist and slipped out of his handcuffs and fled.

For the next year he hung around Fort Sumner on the Pecos River and developed a fateful friendship with a local bartender named Pat Garrett who was later elected sheriff of Lincoln County. As sheriff, Garrett was charged with arresting his friend Henry McCarty, who by now was almost exclusively known as "Billy the Kid".

Historic Fort Sumner, New Mexico

Trailed by the resolute Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Billy Wilson, Rudabaugh, Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and Tom Pickett rode wearily into Fort Sumner, New Mexico on December 19, 1880 and were confronted by Garrett's's posse which had been hiding in an old post hospital building. Pat Garrett, Lon chambers, and several others leaped from cover as Garrett ordered the outlaws to halt.

However, several of the posse members didn’t wait for the outlaws to respond to Garrett's demand, instead, opening fire on Pickett and O'Folliard, who were riding in front. Though Pickett survived to escape, O'Folliard lie dead in the dusty street. Rudabaugh's horse caught a bullet and collapsed. Rudabaugh managed to jump onto Wilson’s horse and he and the other outlaws escaped, holing up in an abandoned cabin near Stinking Springs, New Mexico.

Soon, the determined Garrett's and his posse tracked the outlaws down to Stinking Springs and surrounded the hideout. Inside of the house were Billy, Charlie Bowdre, Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett and Billy Wilson. When Bowdre passed before an open window, he was shot in the chest. The siege continued until the next day, when Rudabaugh finally waved a white flag and the bandits surrendered. Billy the Kid and his gang of "Rustlers" were captured on December 23, 1880 and taken to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Billy was jailed in the town of Mesilla, south of Santa Fe, while waiting for his April 1881 trial. Deliberation took exactly one day and Billy was convicted of murdering Sheriff William Brady and sentenced to hang by Judge Warren Bristol. His execution was scheduled for May 13th and he was sent to Lincoln to await this date. He was under guard by James Bell and Robert Ollinger on the top floor of the building formerly known as the House before and during the Lincoln County War. On April 28 Billy somehow escaped and killed both of his guards while Garrett was out of town. It is not known how Billy was able to do this, but it is widely believed that a friend or Regulator sympathizer left a pistol in the privy that one of the guards escorted Billy to daily. After shooting Deputy Bell with the pistol, Billy stole Ollinger's 10-gauge double barrel shotgun and waited for Ollinger by the window in the room he was being held in.

Ollinger obliged by running immediately from the hotel upon hearing the shots. When he was directly under the window of the courthouse, he heard his prisoner say, "Hello, Bob." Ollinger then looked up and saw the Kid gun in hand. It was the last thing he ever saw as Billy blasted him with his own shotgun killing him instantly.

This would be, however, Billy's last escape. When Pat Garrett was questioning Billy's friend, Peter Maxwell on July 14, 1881 in Maxwell's darkened bedroom in Old Fort Sumner, Billy unexpectedly entered the room. The Kid didn't recognize Garrett in the poor lighting conditions and asked "¿Quien es? ¿Quien es?" (Spanish for "Who is it? Who is it?), to which Garrett responded with two shots from his revolver, the first striking Billy's heart.

Henry McCarty, the infamous "Billy the Kid", was buried in a plot in-between his dead friends Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre the next day at Fort Sumner's cemetery.

In his short life, Billy the Kid was reputed to have killed 21 men, one for each year of his life. However, many historians calculate the figure closer to nine (four on his own and five with the help of others).

© Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated September, 2007

<<Previous  1 2  Next >>

From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Old West Wanted Posters and Wild West Prints - From outlaws wanted by the authorities, such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and the Wild Bunch, to other Old West advertising, such as Pony Express, Stagecoach Rules, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and more. Prints measure 11"x17" are are produced on glossy, 12 point paper. See the entire collection HERE! Just $6.99.