The death of an outlaw

RIP Billy the Kid

142 years ago today Henry McCarty – aka Billy the Kid - was one of the most wanted men in New Mexico.

Billy the Kid

Two and a half months prior Billy made a daring escape from Lincoln, killing two deputies in the process. What was left of the Regulators had mostly skinned out of the Territory. Tom Folliard and Charlie Bowdre lay dead in fresh graves and the Kid’s latest pards Rudabaugh, Pickett, and Wilson were locked up.

The Kid was being hunted by federal authorities, range detectives from Texas, and even his old pal Pat Garrett.

The proverbial noose was tightening, to say the least.

And unbeknownst to Billy this would be his last day alive.

On the night of July 14th, 1881 (sometime before midnight) Sheriff Pat Garrett and his two deputies, Thomas “Kip” McKinney, and John W. Poe, would quietly make their way into Fort Sumner under the cover of darkness.

They’d creep through a peach orchard only to be startled by someone nearby speaking in Spanish. Freezing, the lawmen would watch as an unknown figure stood up and walked out of the orchard, hoping a fence, and disappearing into Fort Sumner’s plaza.

This shadowy figure, they would later learn, was the infamous Billy the Kid.

How Billy spent his last day above ground is anyone’s guess. Likewise, his final moments are shrouded in mystery but according to at least one account, he stopped at the home of Celsa and Saval Gutierrez after leaving the orchard. Ironically the Gutierrez family were Pat Garrett’s in-laws.

Their loyalty, however, was with the Kid.  

Billy began to relax, kicking off his boots and removing his gun belt as Celsa prepared a meal. His lounging was premature as Celsa soon sent him to cut off a piece of meat from a freshly slaughtered cow hanging at Pete Maxwell’s place.

Thus the Kid departed, sans hat and boots, a butcher knife in one hand and his revolver in the other.

By this point, Garrett and his deputies had already made their way to the Maxwell residence. Pat left Kip and John on the porch as he went inside to question Pete as to Billy’s whereabouts. It was these two strangers who the Kid came face to face with, causing him to raise his revolver and repeatedly ask “Quien es, quien es?”

Pat Garrett (sitting left) and Deputy John W. Poe (sitting right). Standing is James Brent, another lawman

Deputy Poe tried to diffuse the situation (neither he nor McKinney personally knew the Kid) but Billy wasn’t having it. He kept Poe covered and continued to ask “quien es” as he backed into Pete Maxwell’s house.

Garrett had heard the commotion and looked up, just in time to see Billy enter the darkened room. “Pete, who are those fellers outside?” he asked, not noticing the 6’4” Sheriff Garrett looming in the shadows.

At this moment Maxwell hollers out “That’s him” as Billy raises his pistol and once more urgently asks “Qiuen Es, quien es?”

And for the first time in his short life, Billy was just a tad too slow.

Pat drew his sidearm and fired twice in quick succession, the flash blinding him as he lunged out the door, quickly followed by Pete Maxwell.

A candle was produced as Pat and the deputies cautiously peeked through a window. They saw the Kid splayed out on the floor, unmoving. It was over.

Contrary to popular belief, Pat and his men did not immediately bury young Henry. His body remained in Pete Maxwell’s room overnight as the lawmen forted up in anticipation of an attack that never came.

The next day Garrett allowed the women of Fort Sumner to take Billy and prepare him for burial. He was placed on a workbench in the Fort’s old carpenter shop and cleaned and dressed. Later in the day, Garrett ordered an inquest and the coroner’s jury viewed the body, still laid out in that carpenter’s shop.

The alleged bench where Billy’s body was laid

Meanwhile, Fort Sumner resident Jesus Silva had busied himself in making a coffin as Vicente Otero began digging the grave.

Sometime that afternoon Billy’s body was placed in said coffin and carried to the cemetery in a wood wagon, followed by a large procession of mourners.

Henry McCarty aka Billy Antrim aka William H. Bonney alias Billy the Kid was then placed in the ground as a passage from the book of Job read aloud:

“Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.
 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.”

They buried a boy that day, not yet 21 years of age. An outlaw and a killer who enjoyed a good dance, a good laugh, and lively senoritas. What nobody realized is that a legend grew in his place, one we’re still talking about to this very day.